US government employees plan to fast for Gaza in protest against Biden policy

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Written by Jonathan Guyer Jonathan Guyer

Published: 30 January 2024 30 January 2024

Feds United for Peace, group of workers from more than two dozen agencies, to stage one-day hunger strike on Thursday

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/29/government-employees-hunger-strike-gaza-crisis-biden

US government employees are planning a “day of fasting for Gaza” this week to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the territory and to denounce Joe Biden’s policy toward Israel.

Representatives for Feds United for Peace, a group of several dozen government employees frustrated with the Gaza crisis who organized an office walkout earlier in the month, told the Guardian that on Thursday its members will stage a one-day hunger strike. Participating federal employees are expected to show up to their offices dressed in black or wearing keffiyeh scarves or other symbols of Palestinian solidarity.

A federal employee speaking on behalf of the group said the Day of Fasting is a response to Israel’s use of “starvation as a weapon of war by intentionally withholding food from entering Gaza”, citing UN reporting that up 2 million people in the territory are at risk of famine.

The group says its members represent more than two dozen agencies, among them the departments of defense, homeland security and state, and include career public servants and political appointees. They expect hundreds of government employees to participate.

Read more on The Guardian because you just might not read find it in U.S. mainstream news . . .

The US must act to end the Gaza disaster | Bernie Sanders

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Written by Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders

Published: 27 January 2024 27 January 2024

The United States must make it clear to Netanyahu that the we will not provide another dollar to support his inhumane, illegal war ....

Many of us are watching with horror the severe humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. Unfortunately, too many of my colleagues in the House of Representatives and US Senate are choosing to ignore this reality and evade their congressional responsibilities.

Let’s be clear: what’s happening in Gaza is not just some unfortunate tragedy taking place thousands of miles from our shores. The United States provides Israel with $3.8bn in military aid every year, and the bombs and military equipment that are destroying Gaza are made in America. In other words, we are complicit in what is happening.

And what’s happening is unspeakable.

My staff and I have spoken in recent days with the United Nations, the World Food Programme and other humanitarian organizations struggling to deal with the disaster in Gaza.

The bottom line is this: the coming weeks could mean the difference between life and death for tens of thousands of people. If we do not see a dramatic improvement in humanitarian access very soon, countless innocent people – including thousands of children – could die of dehydration, diarrhea, preventable diseases and starvation.

The World Health Organization predicts that the number of deaths from sickness and starvation could exceed the very high number killed in the war thus far.

And let’s be clear: this is not a natural disaster. It is a human-made crisis. This is the direct result of choices made by political leaders, none more than Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel’s extreme rightwing government.

Read more on The Guardian

US should ‘reset relationship of unconditional support’ for Israel, progressives say

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Written by Ramon Antonio Vargas Ramon Antonio Vargas

Published: 19 January 2024 19 January 2024

Leading progressive and Jewish members of Congress have criticized the US’s “unconditional support” for Israel after Benjamin Netanyahu declared bluntly that he was opposed to a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza and directly rejected American policy.

The Israeli prime minister declared on Thursday that Israel would forever maintain control over all land west of the River Jordan, making an independent Palestinian state there impossible. “This is a necessary condition, and it conflicts with the idea of [Palestinian] sovereignty,” Netanyahu said. “What to do? I tell this truth to our American friends, and I also stopped the attempt to impose a reality on us that would harm Israel’s security.”

Pramila Jayapal, the US representative who heads the influential Congressional Progressive caucus, on Friday issued one of the sharper responses to Netanyahu, saying in a video that the Israeli prime minister’s stance “should cause us to reset our relationship of unconditional support to [his] government”.

“These are policies that are diametrically opposed to the US’s stated goals,” Jayapal said about Netanyahu’s calls for the permanent expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

Read more on The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/19/unconditional-support-israel-netanyahu-jayal-democrats

Why Israel’s war on Gaza is textbook genocide.

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Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller

Published: 13 January 2024 13 January 2024

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2024/01/11/israels-war-textbook-genocide/

Why Israel’s war on Gaza is textbook genocide.

From the very beginning, Israeli officials have made their genocidal intentions in Gaza clear. And in the three months since October 7, they’ve followed through on their promises, inflicting incomprehensible suffering on the over two million Palestinians trapped in Gaza. 

Now, South Africa is charging Israel with genocide in Gaza, bringing its case to the International Court of Justice, the court of the United Nations. Hearings in the Hague began today, and will continue in the next week to determine immediate provisional measures. And in the U.S., the Center for Constitutional Rights is suing President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and Secretary Austin for abetting Israel’s “genocide of the Palestinian people.”

In this Wire, we’ll explain that Israel is committing genocide — and why Israel’s prosecution under international law matters for our movement as Jews for Palestinian freedom.

The Genocide Convention

Both South Africa and the Center for Constitutional Rights are basing their cases on the Genocide Convention — the treaty that defines the crime of genocide under international law.

This definition has two requirements for determining that a state is committing a genocide: 

1. The state must demonstrate the intent to destroy a group of people.
2. There must be physical acts committed which put this intent into action. 

Israel’s months-long assault on Gaza clearly meets both of these legal requirements of genocide.

Intent 

The Genocide Convention was drafted in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust, in the face of a particular kind of horror: not just mass killing, but mass killing with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

Intent is often understood by scholars as the most difficult component of the genocide definition to prove in court. However, Israeli government officials have repeatedly made their intent to commit genocide remarkably evident. Both their rhetoric and actions illustrate that they are targeting and bombing Palestinians in Gaza for the sole reason that they are Palestinians in Gaza.

• On October 12, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone.” 
• Israel has now carried out over three months of “indiscriminate” bombing in Gaza, targeting churches, mosques, hospitals, schools, U.N. facilities, refugee camps, homes, and the very roads on which Palestinians were fleeing Israeli bombing. Nowhere in Gaza is safe from the Israeli onslaught.

Physical acts 

Any of five different acts can constitute acts of genocide when they are committed with this intent. There is overwhelming evidence of the Israeli government committing at least four of these five acts, much of which is laid out in the South African case filing.

1. Killing members of the group

• On October 7, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Nissim Vaturi said: “Now we all have one common goal — erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”
• Israel has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, over 9,000 of whom have been children.

2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

• On October 17, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted: “The only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid.”
• More than 55,000 Palestinians in Gaza are now injured. Half are at risk of starvation. And the World Health Organization is warning that both famine and the mass spread of disease are likely to kill even more Palestinians in Gaza.

3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part

• On October 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly…Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” 
• On Friday, the UN warned that Gaza has “become uninhabitable” due to the Israeli bombardment and blockade. The Israeli military has since cut off Gaza’s access to food, water, fuel, and medical supplies, intermittently also cutting off internet and electricity. Half of all homes in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged, and 30 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals are out of operation. 

4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

• On November 19, 2023, Major General in the Israeli Army Giora Eiland said: “Who are the ‘poor’ women of Gaza? They are all the mothers, sisters or wives of Hamas murderers.”
• There are about 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, all of whom are facing “uninhabitable” conditions. Women giving birth are unable to access obstetric care, an “ever-increasing number” of babies are dying from preventable causes, the risks of miscarriage and maternal death are elevated, and the Israeli military’s bombing of hospitals led in November to the deaths and severe illness of premature babies in the NICU.

Read more: Why Israel’s war on Gaza is textbook genocide.