Dear friends--
I hope you're doing okay? I confess I'm feeling fairly depressed-- by the news out of Doha (where the Gaza ceasefire talks adjourned yesterday without achieving an agreement), out of Gaza itself (where the Israeli military has continued to commit further genocidal depravities), and out of my hometown, Washington DC, where the Biden administration this week announced that a further $20 billion-worth of U.S. weapons will be sent to Israel next year.
Last week I was still a tiny bit hopeful that Pres. Biden, seeking to maximize VP Harris's chances of presiding over a unified, enthusiastic Democratic Convention next week-- as well as to maximize the chances for the safe release of the Israelis held hostage by Hamas and its allies in Gaza... and to tamp down the chances of a region-wide explosion enveloping most of West Asia... I hoped that in the ceasefire talks that re-opened in Doha Thursday Biden's envoys might finally put the arm on the Israeli government and tell them to commit to the ceasefire deal now.
He didn't do it. Two of the savviest Palestinian commentators out there-- Mouin Rabbani and Ramzy Baroud-- have given smart analyses as to why that happened.
Mouin Rabbani:
"I’ve been making the argument that the ongoing negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire are a diversionary US-Israeli charade and shouldn’t be taken particularly seriously. Initially, their primary purpose was to serve as a fig leaf for Israel to continue with its genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip. In other words, their purpose is process, and their objective has therefore been to avoid reaching a ceasefire agreement rather than concluding one. An Oslo process for genocide, if you will... "
As for Ramzy Baroud, he quoted his colleague Saeed Ziad as saying:
“Hamas was hoping that [the Doha talks] would be going to the execution of a ‘previous proposal’ rather than the negotiations ‘of a new one’... The American claims that the last two days have been the most fruitful for the negotiations are utter lies. We are facing the complete collapse of the negotiations.”
... And thus, this weekend, anti-genocide activists from across the United States will be traveling to Chicago to take their super-urgent message to the Democratic National Convention. Chicago, by the way, which was not only the scene of the most raucously anti-war DNC ever, back in 1968, but is also today home to the country's largest concentration of Palestinian Americans...
As noted in this Al-Jazeera report and elsewhere, the protesters will not be only outside the convention hall, but also inside it. Al-Jazeera quotes Minnesota-based protest leader Asma Mohammed as saying, "Inside the convention hall, we will be representing the Palestinians that were massacred, [and] representing the almost million voters nationwide who said that they want a ceasefire right now and that they want an arms embargo.”
At the end of July and the beginning of August, the Institute for Middle East Understanding commissioned YouGov to conduct an opinion survey on voters in the three swing states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia.
YouGov found this:
"In Pennsylvania, 34% of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if the nominee vowed to withhold weapons to Israel, compared to 7% who said they would be less likely. The rest said it would make no difference. In Arizona, 35% said they’d be more likely, while 5% would be less likely. And in Georgia, 39% said they’d be more likely, also compared to 5% who would be less likely... "
The whole of that report is definitely worth reading. But it is not just voting behavior that's important. It is also the willingness of committed Democratic Party grassroots activists to get involved in "Get Out the Vote" activities in the 12 weeks remaining befored Election Day. And in many of the key population-groups that Dems traditionally rely on, motivating grassroots activists to do that hard work will be much more complex so long as Harris and her boss give continued support to Israel's ghastly genocide in Gaza.
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Just how depraved have the actions of Israel's government and its military been in recent months? Consider these data-points:
- The well-documented and systematic use by prison guards from the Israeli military of rape and other extreme tortures against Palestinians detained from both Gaza and the West Bank.
- The apparently widespread and systematic use by Israeli military units operating in Gaza of captured Palestinian civilians as human shields when operating in "risky" environments, as well documented by Haaretz in this August 13 report.
- The intentionally provocative actions taken by PM Netanyahu and his military when they assassinated their chief Hamas interlocutor and Hizbullah's chief military planner, back on July 31.
- The intentionally provocative act of Netanyahu's coalition partner Itamar Ben Gvir when he joined/led an illegal "prayer" session at the doors of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday.
- All the numerous oft-repeated assaults, deprivations, and humiliations that the Israeli military has visited on the Palestinians of Gaza for more than ten months now...
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For most of these past ten months, I've been trying to present a weekly snapshot of the extent and tightness of the draconian siege that the Israeli military has been maintaining around Gaza, by presenting the bar-graphs of the "Trucks per day" of aid goods that the Israelis have been allowing into the enclave, as recorded by UN-OCHA. This week, even UN-OCHA-- the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs-- seems to have given up the ghost.
No bar-graphs this week. Instead I can share two other valuable resources I found. Click on either image to expand it.
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This one is far less clear than the UN-OCHA bar-graphs I have usually used. But it is what's out there and graphically shows the reduction of aid traffic in recent months.
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This map shows the latest "population concentration" order from the Israeli military and its quite predictable health effects. The whole Gaza Strip has been a "concentration camp" for displaced Palestinians since 1948. These relocation orders continue the process...
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Gaza's crisis is political, not just "humanitarian"!
This is not a "natural" disaster but an entirely and cruelly man-made catastrophe. While humanitarian action is urgent, on its own it can never be enough without achievement of a ceasefire and a certain path to the end of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank that the International Court of Justice just last month determined is quite illegal.
In the present circumstances, it is clear to all the governments of the world including our own here in the United States, that if there is to be a ceasefire it needs to be negotiated with the political movement that represents a strong majority (though not all) of the Palestinian people-- both in Gaza and elsewhere. That is, Hamas. Yet the studied campaign of demonizing Hamas continues in many U.S.- and Israeli-influenced parts of the world. And many people in different "humanitarian"-focused movements have been reluctant to even talk about Hamas, so thoroughly vilified has it been in so many international arenas. That was why, back in Spring, the organization that I head, Just World Educational, decided to launch our project "Understanding Hamas And What That Matters".
![]() At the end of May, we completed the first phase of the project, which was creation of an Online Learning Hub that presented the multimedia records of ground-breaking conversations that my colleague Rami G. Khouri and I conducted with five very experienced experts on the history and development of the Hamas movement. We then movement swiftly to compiling the transcripts of those conversations into a book, Understanding Hamas And Why That Matters, which is being published by OR Books. The book has now (I think) been sent to the printer, and the first copies will start shipping out within the next two weeks. Have you ordered your copy yet?
Go to the Understanding Hamas page on the OR website and read some of the fine endorsements that the book has already won... And place your pre-order now! As I said, the books will be shipping soon.
We have also created this graphic that we're using to help to publicize this important book. Please do download it and/or circulate it to your friends and networks!
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And so we go on...
My friend the Sri Lankan thinker Indi Samarajiva recently wrote:
"Today my heart is just torn hearing of the latest school bombing, ‘Israel’ killing people praying in a refugee camp, while the American Empire lies and lies. This isn’t new, this isn’t ending, and I swear it’s ripping a hole in space-time. I can feel things far away and they’re getting worse and worse all the time./ As much as I go about my day and live and laugh and enjoy things, when I put my hand in my pocket it comes out dripping with blood, every time. I try to wash it away, I try to wish it away, I try to write it away, but there’s an endless supply... "
I empathize deeply with what he writes.
These coming weeks will almost certainly be very hard ones for all our friends in Gaza. Cases of polio have been confirmed. The World Health Organization and the (yes, Hamas-run) Ministry of Health are desperately calling for a ceasefire even if just to allow an emergency vaccination campaign... Yet Israel's depravity and Washington's deep complicity/support will almost certainly continue.
I urge you to do what you can. And I hope that one of the things you'll do is to bring yourself up to speed on the nature and history of Hamas, and that you'll find our book helpful in this.
Plus, of course, sending us some general support so we can keep all of Just World Ed's programs and projects is also always appreciated! Please click on the link before to do so.
And stay well... and in these difficult days stay sane--
Helena
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