Dear friends--
I hope you're well. I write in troubled days. As Israel intensifies its genocide in Gaza, it has also launched a large-scale attack against Iran with many indications that it may continue this campaign with the aim of toppling that country's government completely.
Here in Washington DC, Pres. Trump has expressed strong support for Israel's assault. (By contrast, many in his party, and some in the Democratic Party, have expressed consternation that Israel may drag the United States even deeper than it already is into active warfare against Iran. Let us see... )
Today, we also have Trump's grotesque military parade about to fill the streets of central Washington DC. In numerous U.S. cities, local police forces and shadowy, armed and masked, federal agents snatch immigrants off the streets and from homes and schools. In Los Angeles, the California National Guard and a detachment of U.S. Marines have joined the effort to suppress protests...
Our country feels on the brink of turmoil. But with Israel's actions against Gaza and Iran-- and the strong, veto-backed support that the U.S. government has given those actions-- the global system itself now also feels on the brink of turmoil.
Amidst these overlapping crises, over the past two days our board of Just World Educational has conducted urgent deliberations over "What Is To Be Done?" And today we are releasing "A Call to Humanity" that calls on peoples and governments around the world to use all the nonviolent means at their disposal to nullify Washington’s veto power at the Security Council regarding the crises in both Gaza and Iran.
You can read the full text of our "Call to Humanity" here. At its heart is this appeal:
We call on leading members of the international community to re-empower the United Nations by invoking the 1950 “Uniting for Peace” mechanism– as it was previously used by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower back in 1956, when he persuaded the Security Council to invoke it to nullify the vetoes with which Britain and France tried to protect from UN interference the aggressive actions that they and Israel undertook against Egypt that year.
We noted that during the 1956 crisis, Pres. Eisenhower also used the considerable economic power of the United States to compel Britain, France, and their ally Israel to comply with international law and the UN's resolutions, and to withdraw from the Egyptian-administered lands they had occupied during their attack. We continued thus:
[T]oday, China, the European Union, the BRICS nations, ASEAN, and many other nations command considerable power within the global economy. We call on these nations’ leaders to recognize the extreme threat that the illegal and escalatory violence of the Israeli-U.S. axis today poses to the international order and to use all nonviolent means at their disposal– including their economic power– to nullify Washington’s veto on Middle Eastern issues and thereby to regain for the United Nations the degree of diplomatic leadership with respect to war prevention and global security that was promised to the peoples of the world in the UN Charter.
We maintain that only in this way can the integrity of the UN-led system be preserved and revitalized.
Friends! Our voice is small. But we urge you to read our whole Call, and if you find it convincing please forward it to your friends, both inside the United States and outside.
And if you work with any peace or pro-rights organization(s), please know that we warmly invite such organizations from all around the world to add their names and their support to our Call. They can do so at the special email address we've set up: Uniting@justworldeducational.org
We're hoping to plan numerous, urgent actions around the key asks in our Call to Humanity. I'll keep you posted on these actions, and on how you can work with us on this project, over the days and weeks ahead.
To maximize the impact of this work we'll need two things: strong partner organizations, and some strong donations to help us cover expenses. Please, if you are able, can you help us in one or both of these directions? (You can find easy directions on how to donate to Just World Ed, here.)
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Just two short further notes regarding the Call to Humanity project. One is that the word "Humanity" in its title serves two purposes. It is both an indication that we're addressing this call to all of humankind, and a marker of the deep moral values-- anti-war, anti-colonial, and pro-rights-- on which we base it.
The other note is about how deeply satisfying I have found it over the past couple of days to be deliberating these issues with my wonderful colleagues on the JWE board... I want to send a special shout-out here to Richard Falk, whose wisdom and attention to textual detail gave the Call the power that I feel it now has. Big thanks, dear Richard!
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I imagine you have all been following, as I have, the horrible news coming out of Gaza in recent days-- and also the news of Israel's piratical assault against the international aid ship the Madleen, last weekend. Most recently, we have reports of the Egyptian government's suppression of the popular-aid convoy trying to reach Gaza overland across northern Egypt...
Two days ago, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, issued this report on the situation in Gaza. In it he noted,
Civilians in desperate need of the food we're able to bring in have not been spared; some have been shot by Israeli forces, and others crushed by trucks or stabbed while trying to retrieve food.
Other incidents have concentrated around militarized distribution centres, where starving people tell us that Israeli forces opened fire on them. Hospitals report that they have received 245 fatalities and over 2,150 injuries from these areas over the past two weeks. And yesterday the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation stated that Palestinians involved in their distribution were killed, injured, and captured by Hamas...
![]() Back on June 4, you will recall, 14 of the 15 members of the UN Security Council tried to adopt a resolution to mandate the speedy imposition of a ceasefire in Gaza. But their efforts were stymied by the U.S. delegate, who openly and defiantly cast her veto.
The words spoken after the vote by the representative of Algeria were powerful:
“There are moments when silence is more eloquent than language,” observed Algeria’s representative — “today is one of those”. However, he added: “But silence cannot defend the dead; it cannot hold the hand of the dying; it cannot confront the machinery of injustice.” Therefore “we must speak — loudly”, he proclaimed — not to state a position, “but for the sake of memory, of morality and of the human spirit”. Today’s resolution — even in its obstruction — is a mirror that “reflects the agony of multilateralism” and “reveals why the Israeli occupier continues its crimes”, he said.
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Two great pieces of activism-linked news to finish up with here:
PalCast co-hosts meet in Belfast!
![]() This past week saw a historic in-person meeting between the co-hosts on the JWE-sponsored PalCast project, Dr. Yousef Aljamal and Tony Groves! Gosh, I really wish I could have been there with them!
Yousef was in Belfast as part of a broader tour that also took him to Manchester and Liverpool, and Tony had driven up from Dublin to be with him there. The two took time out of their busy schedules to record a 24-minute episode of the PalCast, which you can listen to now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The two of them discussed the broad upsurge of support for Palestinian rights that they have witnessed in recent months in many parts of the UK and Europe. Yousef was in the UK to promote the book he published last year, Displaced In Gaza, which brings together many of the same kinds of testimonies that guests on the PalCast have shared throughout the genocide. Tony told Yousef that during a recent, key discussion in the Irish Seanad (Senate), Sen. Frances Black had even read out one of the stories from the book.
The two co-hosts made clear, however, that while some European countries have shifted their tone, rhetorical changes are not enough. Action by national governments is still urgently needed. Amen to that!
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And a quick snippet of news from my publishing company, Just World Books LLC, as well:
![]() This week, we received our first copies of the Japanese-language version of our groundbreaking work The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey by Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt.
For me as a publisher, it is always a wonderful feeling to see our works sprout wings and fly off to flourish on distant shores. But somehow, seeing some of our works, including this one, start to connect with readers as far away as Japan feels very special. (The interest that the Japanese cookbook publisher Orangepage showed in this work is another indication of how strong the support for Palestinian rights has now grown, all around the world.)
Scroll on down beneath my signature to see-- and click on-- the graphic showing the original, English-language versions of this and some of our other most-loved and most timely titles.
Sadly, this week Laila El-Haddad learned of the passing of her much-loved father, Dr. Mousa El-Haddad. Our sincere condolences to her and all the family.
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That's it from me. My main message here is an appeal to all of you to help us build support for our global "Call to Humanity" project.
Please let us know as soon as possible whether an organization you work with wants to co-sponsor our campaign for the "Uniting for Peace" effort that is now so deeply and so very urgently needed.
Stay safe and well. We have a lot of work to do!
~ Helena
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