Dear friends--
My condolences, first of all, to families and communities in Russia that have suffered grievous harm from the latest outrage committed by ISIS.
Continuing condolences, too, to families in Gaza and the whole nation of Palestine for the almost unfathomable levels of suffering that Israel continues to inflict on them, with the continuing support of my government, here in Washington DC.
And here's my reminder-- should you need it-- that despite the deep and systematic efforts of Israeli spokespeople to equate Hamas with ISIS, these two organizations are as different from each other as, say, the insanely messianic church of mass killer "Reverend" Jim Jones was from the Lutheran Church.
(Also, a reminder that ISIS would never have arisen as the dark force it is today if a previous U.S. president had not decided to invade Iraq and then worked to completely dismantle the country's existing governance system...)
![]() I'll share a few more of my thoughts on Hamas, below... Also, links to the latest episode of our PalCast podcast, where our guest was rollicking Sinn Fein TD (member of the Dáil Éireann ) Chris Andrews, best known for revealing his "Palestine" soccer jersey in the Dáil when Pres. Biden spoke there, last April...
But first, this:
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Gaza and the shifts in geopolitics
As you are probably well aware, this week the Biden administration introduced a proposal to the UN Security Council for a resolution that "determined the imperative of" a ceasefire in Gaza, though it notably did not demand that one immediately be put into place. And by expressing "concern that a ground offensive into Rafah would result in further harm to civilians", the draft clearly implied that this or other offensive military actions by Israel would remain a live possibility.
Yesterday, the ambassadors of Russia and China vetoed that resolution. Also voting against was the ambassador from Algeria, the country that represents the "Arab Bloc" in the Security Council and that last month introduced its own Gaza ceasefire resolution at the Council, only to see it vetoed by Washington.
As I write this, there's news that Algeria has persisted in its effort to win a true, strong ceasefire resolution in the Council, and has now won support for its draft from all the other "elected"-- that is, non-permanent-- Council members, also known as the "E-10".
AP reports that this resolution is scheduled for a vote Monday. It demands an immediate humanitarian cease-fire for Ramadan "leading to a permanent sustainable cease-fire" and "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages." It also emphasizes the urgent need to protect civilians and deliver humanitarian aid throughout the Gaza Strip.
Russia and China have already indicated that they will support this resolution. Will the Biden administration dare to veto it? During Ramadan? And in light of the copious amounts of information available about the depth of the misery in Gaza?
Let's all do all we can to ensure the success of the E-10 resolution! And then, to support the many governments and movements worldwide that are working to ensure real self-governance for the peoples of Gaza and the rest of Palestine, and an end to the military occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonization of their land.
It's worth noting that the E-10 is the nearest the nations of the formerly colonized Global South come to having any effective representation in the Security Council. Many of those countries-- including Algeria itself-- along with China, still have vivid memories of the devastation that the rulers of the imperial "Western" nations visited on their societies over many long centuries past. And that devastation is very similar to what they see Israel as inflicting on the people of Palestine until today...
Great background from Prof. Ilan Pappé...
![]() For some very informative additional background on the history of Israeli/Zionist actions taken in and around Gaza over the decades, I highly recommend the 50-minute contribution that the anti-Zionist, formerly Israeli historian Ilan Pappé made to last Wednesday's session of the Electronic Intifada's Gaza Livestream. In the conversation. he had with EI's Ali Abunimah and Nora Barrows-Friedman, Pappé reviewed the record of how the Zionist (and later the Israeli) fighting units had ethnically cleansed large numbers of Palestinian villages from southern and central Israel, forcing the residents into the ever-shrinking "Gaza Strip"-- and how those operations continued long after the declaration of the State of Israel in May 1948.
He also gave a very thought-provoking analysis of the demographics of Jewish-Israeli society, noting that while most of Israel's Ashkenazi-heritage population had access to second passports, and thus an escape-option from the confines of Israel that large numbers of them have indeed taken advantage of, the vast majority of "Mizrahi" Israelis have no such escape hatch...
Definitely worth listening to all of that conversation, which you can do with video here, or in audio-only format here.
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Our latest PalCast, with Chris Andrews TD!
![]() And, talking of audio, here (Apple) was the episode of PalCast that we recorded last Tuesday, with sparkling guest Chris Andrews. Host Yousef Aljamal, co-host Tony Groves, and I had a lovely conversation with Chris about the importance of the boycott movement in the spheres of sports and culture. He recalled his memories of playing soccer in times past with amateur clubs in Gaza and sitting around TVs with Gaza friends as they avidly watched the latest matches between Barça and Real Madrid...
Israel has now smashed all those places to rubble, and the remaining remnants of the population of northern Gaza are now tipping over the brink of starvation. Yousef talked about the deviousness (and gross inefficiency) of U.S. projects to sponsor air-drops of food to the area, or to build an entirely new jetty-- and later, a larger pier-- at a location that would further facilitate Israel's efforts to push Northern Gaza's people ever further south... When Gaza City itself has a port that could much more easily be rehabbed and expanded.
Listen to the whole episode on Apple or Spotify. And be sure to tell your friends!
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The urgent need to de-demonize Hamas
I have been struck, in recent conversations, by the fact that many "Western citizens of goodwill" who are rightly very upset over the destruction and loss of life in Gaza, and want to end it, nevertheless continue to harbor deep concerns about the "Hamas atrocities" of October 7 and-- judging that Hamas is indeed, as Israeli leaders have argued, little different from ISIS-- conclude that therefore it must continue to be excluded from any diplomacy or post-war planning... Indeed, that the Israeli leaders' oft-stated goal of destroying Hamas completely must continue to be supported.
Over the years, and based on my own once-extensive contacts with Hamas's leaders, I have done what I can to counter those efforts to completely demonize the organization. Most recently, last October 17, I published this essay with Boston Review, in which I presented a quick (and necessarily incomplete) review of the many ways in which, over the past 30 years, Hamas has further developed the reach of its many different branches-- political, educational, service-providing, as well as military-- along with its political sophistication.
In January 2006, let us not forget, the organization participated in a disciplined, well-organized manner in parliamentary elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaz.. And then it won them, whereupon the Israeli and U.S. governments colluded in planning a coup attempt against its elected prime minister, and when that failed, they slapped around Gaza the super-tight siege that continues to this day...
But if the aim of the siege was somehow to "turn Gaza's population"against Hamas, it did not succeed. And neither has the extreme and sadistic punishment that Israel's current government has inflicted on Gaza's people for 5.5 months now had that effect. (As I've noted elsewhere, the idea that it might turn Gazans against Hamas is quite counter-factual-- any more than the punishment that Hitler visited on Londoners with the Blitz succeeded in turning them against their government... ) Indeed, Israeli leaders' claim that their cruelty has a political goal just seems like very flimsy cover for the raw sadism that is their true motivating force.
But throughout much of Western culture the arguments that what Hamas and their allies aimed to do, and did, inside Southern Israel on October 7 was uniquely cruel, and that therefore the whole organization needs to be pursued to its death, and certainly to be excluded from any diplomacy, still persist.
![]() This week, the Al-Jazeera Investigations Unit produced an hour-long investigation into what happened on October 7. If you have not seen. it, I urge you to. The report puts under its forensic microscope the claims that Israel and its supporters (including Pres. Biden) have made about "beheaded babies", about "intentional use of rape and other forms of sexual violence", and intentional killing and burning of large numbers of Israeli civilians within their own homes. And it finds none of those claims substantiated. Indeed, for many of them, the documentation by Israeli sources themselves clearly refutes the claims.
![]() Much of this debunking of Israeli claims of atrocities has already been done by the fine reporters at The Grayzone, Electronic Intifada, or elsewhere. But what is distinctive about the Al-Jazeera report is the comprehensive nature of their investigation and the number of very respected experts it brought onto the show for in-person interviews. They included former Israeli Deputy National Security Adviser Chuck Freilich, King's College, London professor Andreas Krieg, and many others.
![]() The show also presented in-person interviews in which noted Hamas leader Dr. Bassem Naim and well-informed Palestinian author Dr. Azzam Tamimi (shown here) presented their views of the situation.
At the very end of the show, Freilich, Tamimi, and Ahmed Alnaouq, one of the leaders of the Gaza-based "We Are Not Numbers" project all (separately) present their own powerful summaries of the situation. Here's what they say:
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Chuck Freilich:
I regret to say that I think it was a phenomenal success from their point of view. They put the Palestinian issue back on the regional and global agenda. But the war will end sooner or later. Already people are coming out of their homes and they're gonna see what Gaza looks like today. And it's not a pretty picture. And part of this was necessary for operational reasons. And part of this was because I think Israel's been trying to make the point that this can never happen again. And beware, that this is the price you'll pay.
Azzam Tamimi:
The price paid by the Palestinians is terrible, that is true. It is hefty. But pinpoint to me one struggle for liberation in which there was no costly price. Vietnam: how many millions perished in Vietnam in order for Vietnam to become free? So you see, there's no easy way. There is no small price for freedom and for independence. And the Palestinians do understand that.
Ahmed Alnaouq:
They [the Israelis] are revenging. The only thing that they do is revenge, and revenge against who? Against the Palestinian people, the civilians, the women, the children. There's gonna be a trauma that the Palestinians will never heal from.
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... But do please watch that whole Al-Jazeera whole show, if you are able.
Now, I have to get this newsletter ready to send. Over the weeks ahead I am going to be focusing even more on the need to counter the campaign that Israel and its allies have long sustained to demonize, isolate, and ultimately destroy Hamas.
Colonialism was ever thus. (As I well knew, growing up in England in the 1950s and seeing the pretexts successive British governments created to demonize anti-colonial movements in Malaysia, Kenya, and many other parts of the world...)
I shall also be continuing my outreach work to broadly distribute, and update where necessary, the many fine books by Palestinian and other Zionism-questioning authors that my company Just World Books has published over the years. Do check out, recommend, buy, and read all the timely and important titles we have on Gaza and other Palestinian issues on the Just World Books website!
Meantime, please know that Just World Educational is a separate entity from Just World Books... It is a 501(c)3 non-profit and it is wholly reliant on donations from the public. It is Just World Ed that supports the PalCast, our blog, the other great materials on our website, and the Globalities platform... and that keeps all these projects-- and this newsletter-- going.
My fellow JWE board members and I are preparing for our Annual General Meeting, coming up very soon. We're looking for some new people to add to our board. If you-- or someone you know-- might be interested in joining us, please let me know as soon as you can!
If you haven't donated to Just World Ed recently and want to now-- or you'd like to increase the size of your regular monthly donation-- click on the link below to find out how to do that.
My thanks to you for reading this far. Stay sane as we work together for the ceasefire and national liberation that our friends in Palestine so desperately need--
Helena
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