News Releases

“Twin Crises of Israel”

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Mondoweiss just published the piece “New Israeli law is shock to U.S. Zionists, who fear break with American Jews.”

ABBA SOLOMON, abbasolomon@gmail.comSolomon is author of two books on Zionism, The Miasma of Unity: Jews and Israel and The Speech, and Its Context: Jacob Blaustein’s Speech “The Meaning of Palestine Partition to American Jews.”

Solomon writes about the “Twin crises of Israel: The crisis of a right-wing authoritarian takeover of Israel’s government is parallel to the permanent crisis of Israel’s Jewish supremacist rule over Palestine.“So far, the mass Israeli Jewish movement to protect democracy does not overlap with the Palestinian movement for democracy in Israel/Palestine.“Outside observers feel the causes must converge to recognize what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from a Birmingham jail called ‘a single garment of destiny. … Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. … This is the inter-related structure of reality.’

“The Israeli ‘pro-democracy’ movement’s sea of Israeli flags, exclusion of Palestinian flags, and the threat of Israeli Defense Forces reservists — key to continuing IDF raids and attacks on Gaza and West Bank communities —  to refuse deployment until the judicial overhaul is scrapped, illustrates that the cause is to return to Zionist rule as usual.
“A common criticism of Israel has been that the ‘Jewish and democratic’ state is democratic for Jews and Jewish for Arabs. This pro-democracy movement in Israel may force the contradictions in Israel/Palestine to a point of clarity.”

“Oppenheimer” Omits Information About H-Bomb Testing Just Before Scientist’s Career Was Destroyed

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THOMAS REIFER, reifer@sandiego.edu
Reifer is a professor of sociology at the University of San Diego and an associate fellow at the Transnational Institute. He worked closely with Daniel Ellsberg, whose last book was The Doomsday Machine:  Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

Reifer said today: “The film ‘Oppenheimer’ raises many important issues, none more urgent than the vast increase in destructive power that came with the making of atomic and then thermonuclear weapons. These latter hydrogen bombs were 1,000 times more powerful than those dropped largely on civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet even earlier the powers that be went ahead with the bomb project, despite concerns that it might ignite the atmosphere and destroy the world. Some have tried to discount this risk in reviews of the film, yet as Daniel Ellsberg (2018) showed in The Doomsday Machine, the uncertainties at the time were quite real.

“Unfortunately, the film doesn’t take the time to go into the period of U.S. testing of the H-Bomb, which along with the earlier atomic explosions, spread radioactive waste, and led to the infamous Lucky Dragon incident, about a month and a half before Oppenheimer’s security hearing depicted in the film. On March 1, 1954, the U.S. exploded an H-bomb at Bikini in the South Pacific, and Japanese fishermen, though outside the no-sail zone, were all sickened by radioactive ash and hospitalized, with one dying in September. This was at a time when Lewis Strauss was President Eisenhower’s Atomic Energy Commission Chair, and advisor on nuclear weapons, from which he orchestrated the destruction of Oppenheimer’s reputation, with the help of the father of the H-bomb, Edward Teller, and the Strategic Air Command of the U.S. Air Force under Curtis LeMay. The Lucky Dragon incident, not to mention the fate of downwinders from the Pacific Islands, the U.S. and more, shows the urgency of movements to dismantle our current doomsday machines which can trigger a nuclear winter. They highlight too, the dangers of nuclear-armed military alliances, aggressive war and the escalation of current conventional wars and preparations for war with China, that risk a nuclear holocaust.”

For more on “Oppenheimer” see interview with historian Gar Alperovitz, author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, with journalist Andrew Cockburn: “A Few Things ‘Oppenheimer’ Leaves Out.” Also see by Sam Husseini: “‘Oppenheimer’ Omits Truman’s Lie About Hiroshima Being ‘A Military Base.’

Correction, added July 25: A prior version of this news release incorrectly stated that one of the fishermen died within days.

Peace Groups to Protest Cluster Munitions at Weapons Factory 

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A coalition of U.S. peace organizations will hold a rally on Saturday, July 22 at 11 a.m. ET at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant “to oppose sending cluster bombs, and all weapons, into the Ukraine War.”

See “Scranton ammunition plant makes artillery shells for the war in Ukraine,” when the Secretary of the Army visited the weapons factory earlier this year.

The groups state: “the production of 11,000 artillery shells a month cannot keep up with the demand for killing. …

“That the U.S. would even consider sending cluster bombs into the Ukraine War, supposedly to make up for the lack of artillery shells, is horrifying and also clarifying.

“It reveals to the world just how little the U.S. cares for Ukrainian people and their futures and the futures of the Russian people. Corporations reaping bloody profits from cluster bombs are the only beneficiaries of this tragic policy and this war. … The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is operated by General Dynamics, the fourth largest U.S. weapons producer, with revenue of $38.5 billion in 2022. …“Cluster bombs prove how ready the U.S. is to turn Ukraine into a desperate, barely governable country like Afghanistan or Iraq, where it also used cluster bombs, as one more way to dominate those nations and control their resources.“Cluster bombs expose the lengths to which the U.S. government is willing to go, the suffering that it is willing to cause, and the proxies that it is willing to exploit in its ceaseless effort to dominate the planet. “We must note as well that precedents set by the United States on the use of cluster bombs and the deployment of nuclear weapons to other countries are being used as excuses by Russia to do the same, and that the last remaining taboo — that against the use of nuclear weapons, must be upheld for the sake of continuing life in Earth.”The rally takes place in Biden’s hometown and they have asked him to attend. The groups call on him to “announce that the U.S. wants an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and the start of negotiations to end the war, and an immediate halt to all U.S. weapons shipments into the Ukraine War and the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons and weaponized drones from Europe.” The speakers at the rally include David Swanson, executive director, World BEYOND War; Martha Hennessy, granddaughter of Dorothy Day and formerly imprisoned nuclear war protester and Dennis Hill, Black Alliance for Peace. Among the other endorsers are the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Veterans For Peace, CODEPINK, Pax Christi USA and Ban Killer Drones.

Congress Declares Support for Israel as It Recognizes Morocco’s Annexation of Western Sahara

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The House is slated to vote on Tuesday to declare “the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel” and that Israel is “not a racist or apartheid state.” Chip Gibbons states: “The Democratic ‘leadership’ can’t pass the Pro Act, codify Roe, or defend the right to vote, but have all the energy in the world to defend an apartheid state.”

Today is Nelson Mandela International Day.

Shortly after being released from prison, Nelson Mandela spoke for the first time at a special session of the United Nations, singling out solidarity with “Palestine and Western Sahara.” “We commend their struggles to you, convinced that we are all moved by the fact that freedom is indivisible, convinced that the denial of the rights of one diminishes the freedom of others.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is meeting Biden Tuesday and speaking to Congress Wednesday.

On Monday, Israel announced that it was recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, inhabited by the indigenous Sahrawi people, which Morocco invaded in 1975.

The U.S. government claims to be against the Russian annexation of parts of Ukraine as a matter of principle, but it has recognized Israel’s annexation of Palestinian and Syrian land.

In 2020, Trump recognized the Moroccan annexation of Western Sahara in return for Morocco recognizing Israel. The U.S. and Israel are the only countries that recognize Morocco’s annexation.

South Africa’s Minister of International Relations, Naledi Pandor, earlier this year called on the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for the “leaders of apartheid Israel.” Also, see: “Mandela’s grandson faces racist abuse over Western Sahara solidarity.”

MUBARAK AWAD, mubarak@nonviolenceinternational.net, @NVIntlAwad is founder of Nonviolence International. He is of Palestinian origin and was illegally deported by Israel. He has visited Western Sahara, working with activists from there in their struggle. See material on Western SaharaIsraeli apartheid and illegal annexations from the group.

He said today: “The Biden administration claims to support a rules based order when it comes to Ukraine. I call on President Biden to apply the same international rules to Israel and Morocco. The Palestinians and Saharawis are suffering invasion, occupation and annexation with U.S. support. This must stop.”

SALKA BARCA, sbarca@karamasahara.org, @KaramaSaharaUSA
Barca is a native Saharawi and coordinator of a feminist human rights group, Karama Sahara, based in Maryland. She said today: “The Israeli official recognition of Moroccan ‘annexation’ is not a surprise. The Israeli regime has long been collaborating with the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. The Israelis provide Morocco with ongoing intelligence training, drones, and technology to repress and kill the Saharawis as the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. The U.S. is deeply responsible for both occupations and it is shameful.”

Assessing RFK Jr. and Claim That Covid Is “Ethnically Targeted”

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In a new video obtained by the New York Post, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested that SARS-CoV-2 may be an “ethnically targeted” bioweapon engineered by China to “attack Caucasians and Black people” and to spare “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people. 

MICHAEL MINA; michael.j.mina@gmail.com 
    Mina is an epidemiologist, immunologist and pathologist. He is chief medical officer at eMed and has widely promoted the use of rapid antigen tests for Covid-19 since 2020. 

Mina told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “This video is somewhat remarkable. [RFK Jr.] has been spewing lies about vaccines for years, and he has an amazing ability to contort scientific information with enough credibility that people who don’t know much about the science––and even those who know some––believe him. He’s been doing it for vaccines for so many years,” alongside other anti-vaccine activists “like [Joseph] Mercola and [Andrew] Wakefield.”

Mina added: “This is an egregious example. [The 2021] study [that RFK Jr. cites] had nothing to do with SARS-CoV-2 pathogenicity and had nothing to do with suggesting that the virus has a predilection for targeting [people of] different races or ethnicities. The stuff coming out of his mouth is becoming more nonsensical and scary.”

“No Labels” a “Trojan Horse for Israel Support” 

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David Sirota reports: “In an interview with Denver’s NBC station, No Labels co-founder is asked why the organization won’t disclose its donors now trying to buy ballot access in the 2024 presidential election. She answers: ‘Because it opens people up to incredible scrutiny.'”

PHILIP WEISS, phil@mondoweiss.net, @Mondoweiss
Weiss is editor of MondoWeiss and wrote the piece “‘No Labels’ — another Trojan Horse for Israel support without media scrutiny.”

He writes: “Maybe you’ve seen the boomlet of stories about a possible Third Party bipartisan presidential ticket in 2024. The organization behind the effort, No Labels, is headed by a veteran Democratic Party fundraiser and is trying to raise $70 million, according to the New York Times. …

“It’s led by Nancy Jacobson, an ‘uber-fundraiser’ for Democrats, according to Politico: a former finance chair of the Democratic National Committee who is ‘regarded as one of the most gifted fundraisers in the nation’s capital.’ Last year, Jacobson said that she ‘raised probably over 55 million dollars in the last 12 years.’ …

“The news coverage emphasizes the group’s bipartisan efforts on budget, infrastructure spending, and immigration reform. While No Labels’ own website says it is ‘finding nonpartisan solutions” for “our toughest political challenges.’

“The New York Times says that No Labels’ detractors say it has been ‘fronting for Republicans and existing mainly to raise large amounts of money from wealthy corporate donors.’ While New York Magazine mentions ‘shadowy donors who are paying for the show.’

“None of this coverage brings in Israel. But Jacobson told the Washington Jewish Week in 2020 that support for Israel is a core commitment. She bragged of creating the Problem Solvers Caucus in Congress (led by pro-Israel hack Josh Gottheimer) that attacked BDS: ‘Jacobson also credited the Problem Solvers for forcing House leadership to vote on a resolution condemning the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel. The resolution was praised by many pro-Israel and Jewish groups, though critics said it infringed on free speech.’

“In that interview, Jacobson urged elected officials to be open-minded and seek compromise — except on Israel: “There is no middle ground on Israel.” …

“Her husband, the political strategist Mark Penn, cited in some of the coverage of No Labels, is also a dyed-in-the-wool Israel supporter. …

“Jacobson and Penn’s family is an AIPAC family, Washington Jewish Week reports: ‘Jacobson said her family’s involvement with the Jewish community centers on support for AIPAC.'”

Realities of War 

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CHARLES GLASS, charlesglass@gmx.com, @charlesmglass

Glass in his new book Soldiers Don’t Go Mad reveals the lessons learned from  shell shock treatment during the First World War that the military failed to apply in World War II, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Psychiatrists treating shell shocked officers and men in history’s first mass industrialized war discovered therapies that worked for some victims and failed with others whose experiences were so horrible that cure was impossible. A few patients emerged from the trenches and the mental hospitals to depict their demons in some of the most compelling poetry of the 20th century. Shell shock became battle fatigue and then PTSD, an inevitable concomitant of combat everywhere. Glass recently wrote the piece “From ‘Shell Shock’ to PTSD, Veterans Have a Long Walk to Health.”

From the description of Soldiers Don’t Go Mad“From the moment war broke out across Europe in 1914, the world entered a new, unparalleled era of modern warfare. Soldiers faced relentless machine gun shelling, incredible artillery power, flame throwers, and gas attacks. Within the first four months of the war, the British Army recorded the nervous collapse of ten percent of its officers; the loss of such manpower to mental illness — not to mention death and physical wounds — left the army unable to fill its ranks. Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen was 24 years old when he was admitted to the newly established Craiglockhart War Hospital for treatment of shell shock. A burgeoning poet, trying to make sense of the terror he had witnessed, he read a collection of poems from a fellow officer, Siegfried Sassoon, and was impressed by his portrayal of the soldier’s plight. One month later, Sassoon himself arrived at Craiglockhart, having refused to return to the front after being wounded during battle.
“Though Owen and Sassoon differed in age, class, education, and interests, both were outsiders — as soldiers unfit to fight, as gay men in a homophobic country, and as Britons unwilling to support a war likely to wipe out an entire generation of young men. But more than anything else, they shared a love of the English language, and its highest expression of poetry. As their friendship evolved over their months as patients at Craiglockhart, each encouraged the other in their work, in their personal reckonings with the morality of war, as well as in their treatment. Therapy provided Owen, Sassoon, and fellow patients with insights that allowed them to express themselves better, and for the 28 months that Craiglockhart was in operation, it notably incubated the era’s most significant developments in both psychiatry and poetry.”

Glass’s prior books include Syria Burning and Deserter.

SAG-AFTRA Joins Writers Guild Strike

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MIKE ELK, melk@paydayreport.com, @MikeElk    Elk is the founder and Emmy-nominated senior labor reporter at Payday Report.    In his latest piece, Elk writes: “Today, over 160,000 SAG-AFTRA (The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) members in TV and film went on strike, joining the 11,000 Writers Guild members, who have already been on strike for nearly three months. The strike marks the first time the two unions have been on strike together in Hollywood in over 60 years.    “Early Thursday morning, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Dresher said the National Bargaining Committee unanimously recommended to strike. The national union executive board is widely expected to approve a strike Thursday morning, which will be announced at a noon press conference in LA tomorrow.    “SAG-AFTRA and the studio association AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) are far apart on critical issues, particularly on the studio’s refusal to regulate the use of artificial intelligence.    “With over 11,000 Writers Guild members out on strike, the studios had hoped to pressure SAG-AFTRA into accepting a contract that undercut striking writers.    “Many SAG-AFTRA members were incensed by comments made by studio executives to Deadline in which they described their strategy to isolate the Writers Guild from SAG-AFTRA while refusing to negotiate with the Writers Guild.    “By striking together, SAG-AFTRA has made it more possible for the Writers Guild to get a union contract. The studios have not negotiated with the Writers Guild since they first went out in May.    “Unions across Hollywood (such as The Union Solidarity Coalition, or TUSC) have also pledged to support SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild if they remain on strike. Hollywood unions hope to use their strikes’ momentum to cover other strikes.    “Many union members hope the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA can together shut down production across Hollywood.”

Flooding in Vermont and Rural-Urban Inequities

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Vermont is currently experiencing its worst flooding since Tropical Storm Irene hit the state in 2011. Some regions are recording up to nine inches of rain in a single day, threatening the stability of several of the state’s dams, and experts expect additional flooding. 

ANNE SOSIN; anne.n.sosin@dartmouth.edu 
    Sosin is a public health practitioner, researcher and educator focused on issues of health equity globally and in rural northern New England. 

Sosin told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “This is an acute-on-chronic crisis. It’s a combination of the storm’s path as well as structural vulnerabilities. The storm is meeting a landscape that’s seen significant rain-flow in the last several weeks. We’re seeing dramatic images in Montpelier [the state capital], but in surrounding areas that are more rural, many of the roads into town have been cut off. Ambulances may not be able to get to hospitals; it’s harder to get in and out of those communities. We’re seeing rural inequities play out in both how the storm has hit and how it’s been responded to.”

Some particularly vulnerable rural areas may struggle with a “timely recovery. Just as disasters settle into the margins of society, recovery resources flow to the center––the areas that benefit from repairs. [Rural regions] may take longer to get back on the grid.”

Sosin praised the local action unfolding in rural areas. “But mutual aid can’t overcome large infrastructural damage or the structural imbalances in how a response plays out. Communities are mobilizing effectively by harnessing infrastructure from Hurricane Irene and the Covid-19 pandemic, but they’re not all on the same footing to mount a response or have access to repair for roads and waterways.” 

Sosin is also concerned about public health and health equity down the line. “Flooding presents an enormous health concern on many fronts: rapid flowing water; contaminated water; the environmental health risks when buildings sit in several feet of water; disruptions in access to medical care.” 

“Excess Mortality” During the Covid-19 Pandemic

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A new study examines monthly excess deaths across counties in the U.S. from March 2020 to February 2022. “Excess mortality” is defined as the difference between expected and observed mortality. This is the first study to delve beyond federal- and state-level statistics to look into county-level deaths in more granularity. The authors found that excess mortality was concentrated in nonmetropolitan areas, “highlight[ing] the need for investments in rural health as the pandemic’s rural impact grows.”

ANDREW C. STOKES; actokes@bu.edu
    Stokes is a demographer and sociologist with expertise in population health and aging. 

Stokes, who co-authored the study, told the Institute for Public Accuracy that the rationale for it grew out of the lack of estimates for the “total effect of the pandemic on mortality at the community level.” Stokes said: “It’s essential to tell the stories of communities who [have been] disproportionately affected––including Black communities in the South, communities of agricultural workers in California, and communities in northern Arizona on reservation land.”

One of the most alarming findings from the data was the “tragic toll of the Delta wave on mortality in the rural South,” Stokes said. “Rural Southern communities, including Black communities, were heavily affected due to failures in state policies and a failure to support rural health infrastructure––especially the failure to get ‘shots in arms’ in these areas. It is unfortunately also the story of the toxic mix of partisanship and misinformation that led to lack of [vaccine] uptake, and high excess mortality, in white communities in the South. We saw this in the data from rural Florida to Mississippi to Alabama. In the second year of the pandemic, there was this tragic [excess death] toll, which was largely preventable due to the availability of vaccines. But the root causes differed across communities and counties.” In some counties, the death toll can be accounted for by the failure to enact state policies.

“Governor Ron DeSantis has touted Florida’s low mortality rate. On a state level, Florida performs equally relative to other states. But look at Central and Panhandle counties: on the county level, those counties had exceptionally high Covid excess mortality in the second year of the pandemic. In the end, Florida’s response was not as effective as they may advertise. Florida’s big population centers did fairly well, but that was counterbalanced by poor performance in rural areas. The same [was true in] Pennsylvania. State-level analysis loses some of the nuance of the increasing rural/urban divide.” 

Stokes added: “Some counties, like Navajo County in Arizona, are disproportionately reservation and Native American populations. We unfortunately see remarkably high excess mortality there even after a period of widespread vaccination, due to a combination of social and structural factors.” Those communities thus sustained high mortality “despite strong takeup of vaccines… You wouldn’t see that effect in Navajo County if you just look at Arizona.”

“There also is a misconception,” Stokes added, “that rural America [equals] white people. Black communities sustained excess Covid mortality in later stages of the pandemic, and that reflects lack of access.”

Accurate reporting of excess mortality is important given that community-level programs, such as the funeral assistance program run by FEMA, are sometimes distributed based on what ends up on a person’s death certificate. Stokes said: “Excess mortality statistics show the true pandemic toll, correcting for potential underreporting that’s happened across the country. In places like rural Oregon, Washington, or the South, a large proportion of deaths are occurring outside hospital settings. There, deaths might be getting assigned to Alzheimer’s or diabetes or heart disease.”

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