Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, genocide, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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Jewish Voice For Peace Leads US Ceasefire Protests
In 1948, 750 thousand Palestinians were terrorized, murdered and driven out of their homeland in Palestine where they had lived for thousands of years. Many fled to Gaza at the southern end of what is now Israel.
Gaza is tiny strip of land along the Mediterranean and is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. More than 500 of their villages were destroyed and the remaining Palestinians were left to live in 22% of historic Palestine. The process of murder, terror, and displacement is going on again. 1.5 million Palestinians, many of them descendants of the refugees from 1948, have been driven out of northern Gaza. Their homes have been bombed and destroyed, their hospitals, schools, mosques, and churches have been bombed. To date, 11 thousand have been killed, almost half are children.
Israel has cut off clean water, medicine, electricity, fuel and food and ordered Palestinians to get out or be killed. Israeli ground troops are going door to door mopping up those who have not fled.
This genocidal operation has the full support of the American establishment and the corporate media. Israel is a strategic military ally of the United States and gets support from the military industrial complex and right wing Republican oriented American Jews.
But this time there is a push back. Thousands of young American Jews have not been taken in by the propaganda and identify with the new organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
JVP has organized thousands of people in spectacular demonstrations that have shut down Grand Central Station in New York, blocked entrances to Congress, sat in on the Capital rotunda, and amassed at the Statue of Liberty. These have been some of the largest acts of civil disobedience since the Iraq war, and the largest demonstrations of Jewish people in solidarity with the struggle for Palestine freedom ever.
Guest – Elena Stein, Director of Strategy for Jewish Voice For Peace. She lives in New York.
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What Will It Take To End The War In Gaza?
Israel’s war in Gaza, which has already created a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions, now threatens to spread even more death and destruction as Israel’s military force, the IDF, has now occupied the last hospital in Gaza still barely functioning, as it attempts to operate without electricity or medical supplies. And this at a time when Israel’s IDF forces claim to control all of northern Gaza and Gaza City. Notably, the Israel forces occupying the hospital, despite its earlier claims to the contrary, has failed to produce any proof that the hospital was being used by the forces of Hamas for military purposes.
Of course, for some weeks now, many world leaders and United Nations officials have declared that what Israel is doing in Gaza amounts to genocide. And so far, even efforts at achieving any meaningful pause in the fighting, let alone a real ceasefire, remains beyond reach, still being opposed by Israel and the Biden Administration.
Meanwhile, no one is prepared to predict an end to the slaughter in Gaza, as the civilian death toll continues to grow, and as Gaza’s infrastructure continues to disappear. And so, the protests over the war, the accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity on the part of Israel continue to grow, as well. Indeed, in the last week there have been huge anti-Israel protests, including a massive one organized by the orthodox Jewish community in the United States. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is coming under more and more attacks from members of its own Administration. Already more than 400 high level and mid-level government officials in the Biden Administration have sent Biden letters protesting his refusal to ask Israel to declare a ceasefire, and many of them have resigned in protest.
Guest – Attorney Ameena Qazi the Co-Executive Director of the Peace and Justice Law Center in Los Angeles. She formerly served as the Deputy Executive Director and Staff Attorney for the Greater Los Angeles Area Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (or “C.A.I.R.”), the largest American Muslim civil rights and advocacy group; and Ms. Qazi is also a former Executive Director of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. US Campaign For Palestinian Rights
Hosted by Attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, genocide, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry
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US Obligation To The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
A United Nations body has issued a damning report blasting the United States for its rampant violations of a major human rights treaty that it ratified in 1992. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, or ICCPR, enshrines fair trial rights, the right to life, to vote, and to freedom of expression and assembly. It prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It also forbids discrimination in the enjoyment of civil and political rights based on race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status (which includes sexual orientation).
The Human Rights Committee is a group of 18 independent experts that monitor the implementation of the ICCPR by its States Parties, each of whom files periodic reports on their progress in implementing the obligations in the treaty.
In its November 3, 2023 report on U.S compliance with the ICCPR, the Human Rights Committee found 30 some violations of the treaty by the United States. Racial discrimination permeated two-thirds of the documented U.S. violations.
In addition to discrimination based on race, the Committee found several instances of discrimination against women, particularly in the area of reproductive rights. The Committee also found discrimination on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans for Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include “The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse” and “Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.” Marjorie is founding dean of the People’s Academy of International Law. Her article about the report of the Human Rights Committee was published last week by Truthout.
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Voices of Mass Incarceration: A Symposium
Opening with a keynote discussion featuring Angela Davis, Pam Africa, Julia Wright, and Johanna Fernández, the event featured two dozen experts and artists working and studying incarceration and its wide-ranging effects on society. The second day of the symposium also marked the opening of the Mumia Abu-Jamal papers for research at the John Hay Library with the launch of the exhibit, Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Portrait of Mass Incarceration. This exhibition centers on the writing, music and art of Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose papers anchor the John Hay Library’s Voices of Mass Incarceration in the United States collection. Mumia has been imprisoned for 43 years for allegedly killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
One of the panels focused on how systemic changes have strained the existing healthcare system. With 44% of prison detainees receiving a psychiatric diagnosis, prisons are now among the largest providers of healthcare, more so than major hospitals and other care facilities.
We are pleased to bring you the remarks of Hope Metcalf, Lecturer at Yale Law School, on medical care for incarcerated individuals including mental health and hepatitis C. We’ll also hear from Lauren Weinstock, Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn
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Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, War Resister
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American Jews Redefining Judaism
Israeli war planes are bombing the northern half of the Gaza Strip, reducing everything – hospitals, mosques, schools, homes – to rubble. Those who survive the march south may be driven into the Sinai desert. More than 1 million Palestinians had lived there. They have been ordered to vacate their homes and walk south on pain of death. Food, water, electricity, and medical supplies have been cut off to these people, half of whom are children. This is being facilitated by American military, financial, diplomatic, and media support.
Guest – Rabbi Brant Rosen is the leader of the congregation Tzedek Chicago whose members are not Zionists and who oppose the historic Zionist project of dispossessing the native Palestinians forcing them out of their homeland. The attention of the world today is focused on the tiny northern half of the Gaza Strip. Tsedek Chicago’s website states that “during the course of his rabbinate, Rabbi Brant Rosen became an increasingly vocal activist for justice and human rights, particularly in Israel/Palestine. After publicly wrestling with his relationship with Israel and openly questioning his lifelong Zionism, he eventually became a prominent Jewish presence in the Palestine solidarity movement cofounding the Jewish Voice for Peace rabbinical council .“
Rabbi Brant’s writings have appeared in many journals and publications, including Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, the Jewish Forward, Tikkun, and Truthout. Tikkun, magazine editor Rabbi Michael Lerner wrote that Rabbi Brant Rosen is “at once a courageous rabbi and the voice of a new generation of American Jews who are refusing to allow the right wing voice of the Jewish world to define Judaism.“
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Christian Fascism Poised To Reshape The United States
Our guest today claims that we are far down the road that leads to fascism in the United States, and he places the blame at the feet of the liberal class to halt the corporate assault on working people that has spawned an ascendant Christian fascism that is poised to seize power and radically reshape America. As he says in his article of October 8th, “the parting gift, I expect, of the bankrupt liberalism of the Democratic Party will be a Christianized fascist state.
The Liberal class, a creature of corporate power, captive to the war industry and the security state, unable or unwilling to ameliorate the prolonged economic security and misery of the working class, blinded by a self-righteous woke ideology that reeks of hypocrisy and disingenuousness and bereft of any political vision, is the bedrock on which the Christian fascists, who have coalesced in cult-like mobs around Donald Trump, have built their terrifying movement.”
Guest – Chris Hedges, award-winning journalist and political writer reported for The New York Times from 1990 to 2005 and served as the Times’ Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. In 2001 Hedges was one of the Times’ writers on an entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Prior to his work for the Times, he worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, and the Dallas Morning News. His books include Death of the Liberal Class, War on America, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, and his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty
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Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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International Community Call For Cease Fire As Civilians Targeted And Generations Under Siege In Israel, Gaza
On October 7, Hamas fired 2,000 missiles from the Gaza Strip into Israel, and sent hundreds of fighters into Israel, killing hundreds of Israeli civilians. Israel retaliated with overwhelming force – bombing Gazan civilians, homes, mosques, hospitals, schools and civilian buildings. As we record this interview on October 11, Israel is reportedly planning to mount a ground offensive in Gaza with 360,000 Israeli reserve troops poised to invade.
As of today, at least 1,200 Israelis and 950 Palestinians have been killed and tens of hundreds have been wounded on both sides.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas but Israel’s actions reveal that Israel is mounting war on the Palestinian people as a whole – especially in Gaza.
Targeting civilians constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Convention, regardless of who commits them. And if we’re serious about stopping all war crimes, it’s crucial that we under the context. Hamas’s offensive was launched in the context of decades of the Israeli apartheid regime and settler colonialism.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, who serves as the International Adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace, and is a member of the national board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is the 7th updated edition of “Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer,” published in 2018. Phyllis wrote a new article in The Hill titled As Israel and Gaza Erupt, The US Must Commit To Ending The Violence – All The Violence.
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Investigating The Assassination Of Palestinian American Journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh
The Zionist colonial settler state of Israel is not the moral legatee of the victims of the Holocaust much less the moral legatee of the ancient prophets of the Jewish people. Never has this been more evident than with the exposure of the Israeli army’s assassination of the beloved Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh. Assassination is a political murder.
Shireen had covered the Israeli military’s occupation of the West Bank for Al Jazeera for 25 years. The day she was killed she was reporting on the Israeli military invasion of Jenin, an Arab town on the West Bank occupied by the Israeli army for 55 years. She was wearing a helmet and a protective vest marked “PRESS.”
It is the practice of the Israeli army to shoot journalists and otherwise suppress the truth of their war crimes including the illegal theft of Palestinian lands. Israel’s brutal occupation has been going on since it illegally seized the West Bank as a prize of the 1967 war between Israel and three of its neighbors. Since then the Israeli military has ruled the native Arabs. Shireen is the 86th journalist to be killed while covering Israel’s illegal occupation since 1967.
The murder of Shireen was not adequately exposed by the U.S. press. The United States supports Israel politically, ideologically, economically, and morally. The U.S. gives the state of Israel more than $3.8 billion a year in weapons. Shireen was killed by a high-velocity armor-piercing 5.56 mm bullet fired from a Ruger Mini-14 semi automatic rifle – a weapon made in the U.S.
Israel has refused to conduct an investigation of Shireen’s assassination, because it “would provoke opposition and controversy within the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] and in Israeli society in general,” according to the Israeli government. Although complaints have been filed in the International Criminal Court against Israel, the court does not appear to have the political will to thoroughly investigate those charges.
There is an apocryphal story of three rabbis dispatched from a Zionist congress in Vienna many years ago to report back on the situation in Palestine. They reported back that the bride is beautiful but she’s married to another man.
The claim of the Zionist is that Israel was built on a land without a people for a people without a land. This is Israeli propaganda. This propaganda is less and less swallowed by the new generations in the United States and Europe as they witness Israel taking over more and more of historic Palestine and attempting to prevent the truth of what they are doing from coming out.
Guest – Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi is a Palestinian American historian of the Middle East, the Edward Said professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, and Director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. He was educated at Yale and Oxford universities and is the author of many books on the Middle East. He is also the author of Under Siege: PLO Decision Making During the 1982 War, Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East and recently The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael Smith and Marjorie Cohn
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, genocide, Human Rights
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Tens of Thousands Of Armenians Forced To Flee Their Homes
Two weeks ago, the small mountainous Republic of Artsakh was vanquished by Azeri military forces. It happened with such haste that thousands of its predominantly ethnic Armenian population had just minutes to abandon their homes.. This followed on the heels of an Azerbaijani blockade that left Armenians without food, fuel, and medicine. Artsakh has been the site of a decades-long protracted battle between Muslim and Turkish Azerbaijanis and Christian Armenians. The conflict began when Armenia and Azerbaijan were under Soviet rule. After both nations gained independence, the conflict escalated into full scale war. That war ended in 1994, with an independent Artsakh, the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh, and Armenia in control of a wide swath of Azerbaijan.
Unverified reports of mass killings and rape roused fears of a repeat of the 1915 Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire. The first genocide of the 20th century, it was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity during World War I. The genocide ended more than 2,000 years of Armenian civilization in eastern Anatolia. Along with the mass murder of Assyrian/Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christians, it enabled the creation of the Republic of Turkey. While the Turkish government denies the slaughter of Armenians was genocide, as of 2023, 34 countries have recognized the events as such.
Guest – Alex Galitsky is the Programs Director at the Armenian National Committee of America. Alex’s opinions and analysis have been published in major media outlets, including Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, and The Hill. He has worked at the local, state, and federal levels to advance policy and legislation to protect the rights of the Armenian people nationally and internationally. ANCA Action Center
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National Museum of the American Latino Controversy
In 2020, Congress appropriated funding to create a National Museum of the American Latino. Last year, the Smithsonian Institution opened a temporary preview exhibition inside the National Museum of American History. The show was slated to be the largest federally funded Smithsonian exhibit on Latino civil rights history. The nation’s top Latino historians and veterans of the movement gave input. It was to feature student walkouts, school integration initiatives, and environmental and immigration activism.
Instead, it has become the focus of controversy within the Latino community over how Latinos in the United States should be portrayed. The Smithsonian has nixed the show; in its place will be an exhibit on salsa and Latin music.
That’s because Republican lawmakers and others challenge what one conservative writer described last year in The Hill as an “unabashedly Marxist portrayal of history.” Right-wing Latino political activists and Cuban-American politicians like Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart voted to defund the museum.
The controversy comes as the Smithsonian is trying to raise funds to build the museum at estimated $800 million. Of this, $58 million has been raised to date.
Two historians were hired to develop the exhibit on the Latino civil rights movement of the 1960s for the museum. Felipe Hinojosa a history professor at Baylor University in Texas and Johanna Fernández, the associate professor of history at the City University of New York’s Baruch College.
Guest – Professor Felipe Hinojosa is the author of Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio. His research areas include Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies, American Religion, Race and Ethnicity, and Social Movements. Prof. Hinojosa serves on the Advisory Board for the interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and online moderated forum Latinx Talk.
Hosted by attorney Heidi Boghosian
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genocide, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Truth to Power, War Resister
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It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories
Around the world, April 24 marks the observance of the Armenian Genocide. On that day in 1915 the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire ordered the arrest and hangings of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. It was the beginning of a systematic and well-documented plan to eliminate the Armenians, who were Christian, and who had been under Ottoman rule and treated as second class citizens since the 15th century.
The unspeakable and gruesome nature of the killings—beheadings of groups of babies, dismemberments, mass burnings, mass drownings, use of toxic gas, lethal injections of morphine or injections with the blood of typhoid fever patients—render oral histories particularly difficult for survivors of the victims.
Why did this happen? Despite being deemed inferior to Turkish Muslims, the Armenian community had attained a prestigious position in the Ottoman Empire and the central authorities there grew apprehensive of their power and longing for a homeland. The concerted plan of deportation and extermination was effected, in large part, because World War I demanded the involvement and concern of potential allied countries. As the writer Grigoris Balakian wrote, the war provided the Turkish government “their sole opportunity, one unprecedented” to exploit the chaos of war in order to carry out their extermination plan.
As Armenians escaped to several countries, including the United States, a number came to New Britain, Connecticut in 1892 to work in the factories of what was then known as the hardware capital of the world. By 1940 nearly 3,000 Armenians lived there in a tight-knit community.
Pope Frances calls it a duty not to forget “the senseless slaughter” of an estimated one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923. “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it,” the Pope said just two weeks before the 100th anniversary of the systematic implementation of a plan to exterminate the Armenian race.
Special thanks to Jennie Garabedian, Arthur Sheverdian, Ruth Swisher, Harry Mazadoorian, and Roxie Maljanian. Produced and written by Heidi Boghosian and Geoff Brady.
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