Middle East Crisis: Act Now!
“An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread [if] thirsty… water.” – Proverbs 25:21
“Then Jesus said, ‘Put your sword back into its place. For all who
take the sword will perish by the sword.'” – Matthew 26:52
Today: Phone & Email Congress; & Call President Biden
Demand an Immediate Ceasefire & Aid to All NOW!
LATEST TOP NEWS: Washington Post
Israel, Hamas Agree to 4-Day Halt in Fighting, Not a Ceasefire
Jewish & Palestinian activists promote ‘Radical Empathy’ as key
Global Pressure builds/leads to imminent 5-day pause deal
(Death toll so far: 12,000 in Gaza + 1200 in Israel, a 10:1 ratio)
- The world calls for a ceasefire now! Video of global marches
- Across Mideast, a surge of support; Pressure grows (NY Times)
- Students Walkout Day & Hundreds of thousands march Nov. 1-5
Subscribe & share these best info & action sources
BBC TIMELINE of Israel-Palestine Conflict, 1917-Present
& Concise History by COUNTERFIRE, British activist group
BEST MIDEAST NEWS, ANALYSIS & ACTIONS
- Jewish Voice for Peace
- WagingNonviolence.org & Undercurrent
- NonviolenceInternational.net
- TheIntercept.com
- The Progressive.org
- TheRealNews.com
- AlJazeera.com & “Live tracker” Charts & Maps
- MPowerAction.org: Muslim Grassroots Movement
- CommonDreams.org
- Friends Committee on National Legislation
& FCNL Gaza Ceasefire: Advocacy Toolkit - Counterfire series, The Nakba75: Roots of Israeli Apartheid
- AFSC.org: 5 ways you can support Palestinians in Gaza
- Institute for Policy Studies Middle East expert Phyllis Bennis
on Al Jazeera Oct. 17: We Need an Immediate Ceasefire:
We can maintain our “grief and outrage” over the killing of Israeli civilians while still fighting to prevent a “potential genocide” in Gaza.
Steve Chase’s articles on Human Rights & Palestine
Prof. Stephen Zunes‘s (USFCA*) latest Mideast analysis
- Biden’s Backing of Israel War Crimes Carries on a Sordid U.S. Tradition
- How U.S. Policy Failures Have Helped Hamas
- Biden’s Failure on Gaza Could Cost Democrats the 2024 Election
- Hamas, Israel and U.S. Have Learned Nothing
… Plus Zunes’s Interviews, Domestic & International
- “Rising Up with Sonali”, nationally-syndicated radio show (35-min)
- Pacifica Radio Network stations on Israel/Gaza (5-min beginning ~12:30 mark)
- South African radio on U.S. support for Israel’s Gaza war (20-min)
- Voice of America video about U.S. reactions (Arabic-language; starts ~2:25 min.)
- Scholars Weigh in on Gaza-Israel Conflict Counterpunch interview with
Zunes and international legal scholar Professor Richard Falk [Princeton] - One-hour podcast interview with Zunes:
- And here’s a 10-minute interview for public radio
- * University of San Francisco: Video primer on Israel/Palestine (30-min; Passcode: r?Ps9*Xp )
- 2 Background articles explaining:
- 13 House Democrats Call for Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza
There have been five wars fought between Israel and its neighbors in the last fifteen years. Over that time, and before, there have been thousands of diplomats from around the world working on a variety of plans to bring peace and stability to the region, and hundreds of conferences. They have all failed.
As Israeli journalist Haggai Matar acknowledged on October 7,
“The dread that Israelis are feeling right now, myself included, is a sliver of what Palestinians have been feeling on a daily basis under the decades-long military regime in the West Bank, and under the siege and repeated assaults on Gaza.”
We recommend these 2 sources for a deeper dive into the parallels:
- What Preceded the Killings in Israel and Gaza Was Not ‘Peace’ — It Was Apartheid
- The Right of Return is Land back
Three key insights from Waging Nonviolence
1. Framing matters
2. Studying the beautiful history of Palestinian creative nonviolent resistance can inspire our solidarity actions
3. Understanding the Shock Doctrine* is the first step to resisting disaster capitalism.
The Nakba75: Roots of Israeli Apartheid Series
- Downward spiral: Settlers and state violence
- Palestine and the carve-up of the Middle East
- The origins of Zionism and the Balfour Declaration
- Palestinian resistance to Mandate rule
- What is settler colonialism?
- Al-Nakba: The ethnic cleansing of Palestine
- Israel: Watchdog for US imperialism
- Palestine: the key to freedom in the Middle East rests with the Arab working class
- Palestine and international solidarity
Please read and share, this analysis unpacking effective strategies and tactics for building a powerful and loving movement against oppression in Palestine-Israel, and take action in the streets. Co-author and BeautifulTrouble.org Training Director Nadine Bloch was among 350 people sitting in October 20th for Congress to advocate for a ceasefire.
* In the chaos following wars, natural disasters and economic panics, military and corporate neo-liberals aggressively try to push privatization, deregulation and cuts to social services as part of a “Shock Doctrine.” This is a critical time to resist these disaster capitalists and defend our human, environmental and economic rights and resources. Remember after 9/11 when President Bush seized the opportunity of national grief and fear to call for an all-out assault on Afghanistan? The bombardment of Iraq was soon to follow. [See also Naomi Klein’s 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.