Dear friends--
Another tumultuous week in world affairs-- and another week of misery for our friends in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. It feels unreal to wish a Ramadan Kareem to people struggling under such misery. But I do so anyway.
But whoa, it has been a huge week. Tuesday, Trump's envoys Witkoff and Kushner had separate, momentous talks in Geneva with reps of Russia, and of Iran. Thursday, his surrealistic "Board of Peace" had its inaugural meeting here in Washington. Yesterday (Friday), the Supreme Court finally showed some real readiness to defend the U.S. Constitution against the Prez, on the pretty significant issue of his power to impose tariffs. (Lots of other things happening worldwide, too...)
And meantime, the military that Trump commands has been accelerating its dispatch of warfighting men and machines to areas all around Iran. The second aircraft carrier that he ordered there is probably in the Western Mediterranean as you read this, and sailing east. And large amounts of men and materiel are already in place, in land bases in Gulf countries, Jordan, and Israel, and aboard the Carrier Strike Group that has already been lurking for two weeks in the waters off Oman.
Last week when I wrote, I was still fairly hopeful that this big buildup and all of Trump's threatening rhetoric might still be aimed mainly at posturing on the world stage before he signed off on a new agreement with Tehran. Now, I am far less hopeful. He could still step down. But the logic of the buildup is pushing him closer to taking some form of military action against Iran. As are, it should be noted, PM Netanyahu and all the other strong political voices in Israel. And the "setback" the Supreme Court delivered to him probably increases his desire to "demonstrate his cojones" on the field of war with Iran.
Here in the United States, there has been stunningly little popular opposition to this war buildup. The massive antiwar demonstrations we saw back in early 2003 in cities across America and worldwide are now just a fond memory. (What happened? To some degree, it has almost certainly been "social" media that has had this distinctly anti-social effect...) In the U.S. Congress and the mainstream commentatoriat there have been some voices questioning the "wisdom" of attacking Iran.
Intriguingly, this time around, these voices have included people on the political right as well as the political left. But just about all the war-critical voices I have heard in the mainstream discourse have based their criticism on purely pragmatic grounds, with arguments like "Military action won't bring about the political goals that Trump claims to seek in Iran," or that it "could lead U.S. troops into a damaging new forever war." Those pragmatic arguments are valid, and can be very useful. But they completely ignore the much deeper and-- I would argue-- more powerful arguments that:
- Launching any war is wrong, and directly violates Article 2 of the UN Charter, and
- Nobody ever assigned to the United States a unilateral "right" to police the behavior of other states.
I hope it is not too late, now, for that whole whole range of arguments to be brought into play, and to be used as the basis for a broad, multi-faceted movement-- on the streets, in public institutions, and in Congress-- that can brake Trump's current rush to war.
Trump on his own, and in coordination with his friends in Israel, is already inflicting unspeakable damage on countries from Venezuela to Cuba, to Lebanon, to Palestine, Yemen, and beyond. But a new war on Iran would pose a far graver threat than any of those other policies to the whole concept and integrity of the (much-battered) United Nations and to all it stands for, as well as to the global economy. We all need to do whatever we can to prevent this war from happening.
Earlier this morning, I penned this short op-ed that lays out the international-law implications of any U.S. war on Iran. Feel free to share!
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I realize I should probably have written more in this vein, quite a lot earlier in the current crisis. But I had become too lulled, I now think, by the analysis I shared back in late June to the effect that during the assault the U.S. and Israel had launched against Iran earlier that month, the Iranians managed not just to withstand the harsh initial blows the aggressors had delivered but also to come back and within 12 days fight them to a standstill. It was the U.S. and Israel, remember, that back then had demanded a ceasefire.
I now think I under-estimated the degree to which the Israelis and some influential people in Trump's entourage have continued to long for a chance to deliver a blow to Iran that would destroy its ability to function as a coherent state for many decades to come. Israel's Hebrew-language media have been filled with incitement for such a war for a long time now. (One example is the commentator Ben Caspit, writing in Maariv yesterday. Yes, the same Ben Caspit who writes completely different, much more moderate-looking pieces in the English-language outlet, Al-Monitor.)
Now, it is true that Trump has in his orbit many, mainly MAGA, people who are deeply wary of long military entanglements abroad. But his administration also contains many war-loving adventurers, especially techies who think they can perfect the creation of some fiendish gizmo that can overcome all of Iran's well-demonstrated defenses. (Many of these techies seem to assume that Iran and its allies have little or no capacity of their own for technical innovation. That is a demonstrably false assumption.)
... So the Israelis and the tech bros have been countering the pressure the MAGA people have been exerting on what we might-- very speculatively?-- call the "Mind of Donald Trump." And now, the Supreme Court has delivered a further humiliation from which he very likely feels he needs to recover.
God help us all.
By the way, yesterday I finished writing a recap of the main events of the past 15 months relevant to Trump's policies toward Iran. It's fairly long and nerdy, and it doesn't reach any firm conclusion. But it ends with six "Takeaways" that you might find useful. You can read it here.
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Important news from our PalCast project!
![]() Ever since October 2023, Just World Educational has been proud to work with Tortoise Shack Media of Dublin, Ireland, and the Hashim Sani Center of Kuala Lumpur, to present the PalCast, a near-weekly podcast that brings the voices of (mainly) Palestinians from Gaza to the worldwide Anglophone public. Huge thanks to co-hosts Yousef Aljamal and Tony Groves who have kept this great initiative going for 28 months now!
So now... (drum roll)... we are proud to present a new series of videos on our YouTube channel, which our great Program Director Mustapha Muhammad has been making, based on video footage that Tony has quietly been saving from the back room of his audio-production studio.
![]() You can now watch our first PalCast video here! It's the video version of the convo Yousef and Tony had last month with Reem Hamadaqa, a Gaza Palestinian who spoke very movingly about her life in Gaza during many early months of the genocide, and then how hard it was for her to continue living outside, after she was able to leave to continue her studies in London.
I certainly loved that convo with Reem when I first heard it through my earphones. But there is something super-special about being able to see her face as she talks about the many painful memories she is still living with. Thank you so much Reem. Thank you Yousef, Tony, and Mustapha.
I warmly invite all of you to go look at, and share, Reem's video. And when you're there be sure to Subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't already, to Like this video, and if possible also post a Comment there. This will help boost its visibility. (Going forward, we hope that as the team produces new PalCast eps, they will have slightly better visual values... and that we can get the videos posted to YouTube much faster! Meantime, please do support this new effort of ours!)
And our new (audio-only) ep on Drones, Jets, and Harry Potter in Gaza!
![]() In this episode, Yousef and Tony's was Mohammed Isdodi, an English-language student whose studies had been interrupted by the genocide. Mohammed joined the conversation from Deir al-Balah, where drones and jets were heard throughout the recording. As producer, Tony kept the audio largely untouched so listeners could hear the reality around him.
The full episode is now available on Apple and Spotify. Listen to it to learn a lot about conditions in Gaza today-- including how influential Harry Potter is in some parts of the Strip!
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In memoriam: Amb. Leila Shahid
![]() I first encountered Leila Shahid when I was a young cub reporter in Beirut in 1974-75 and she was the contributor of a smart (and as I recall, fairly jaunty) column to a weekly magazine there called Monday Morning. Later she re-emerged as a swift-rising member of Yasser Arafat's diplomatic team; and after the PLO entered the Oslo Accords she became the first-ever female Palestinian Ambassador, serving in Ireland, the Netherlands, and later the EU, and France.
Leila had a fascinating family background. One great-great-grandfather was Baha'ullah, the founder of the Baha'i faith in Tehran (and Haifa.) A grandfather on the other side was the historic Palestinian liberation leader Jamal Husseini.
She had powerful talents as an ambassador. But in recent years she had become increasingly disillusioned with the Fateh/PLO leadership she had served so brilliantly for so many years. She died in France on Wednesday. RIP dear Ambassador Leila.
You may enjoy reading this evocative appreciation of her by Mouin Rabbani.
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That's it for today. I'm sure we'll all have a busy week ahead. Feel free to share this email and any or all of the resources I've mentioned above.
Just World Ed makes all of our resources freely available to the learning public. But please remember that producing them takes real resources. So anything you can do to help us pay our bills is very much appreciated. You can use the button below to do so.
Thanks for any contributions you can make, and stay well--
Helena
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And P.S. don't forget this great late-2024 book from Just World Ed, if you haven't read it yet:
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