Saturday, March 16, 2024

Gaza

The assault on Gaza continues.  PEN America is an organization that's supposed to support "the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide and claims they "champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible."  Nearly 100 years ago (1922) the organization was founded.  Richard Luscombe (GUARDIAN) reports:

More than a dozen prominent authors and literary figures have withdrawn from PEN America’s flagship World Voices Festival in protest of what they see as an inadequate response by the organization to the “genocide” being committed against Palestinians by Israel in Gaza.

The group of writers, which includes Naomi Klein, Michelle Alexander, Hisham Matar, Isabella Hammad and Zaina Arafat, sent a letter to PEN America asserting it had “betrayed the organization’s professed commitment to peace and equality for all, and to freedom and security for writers everywhere” by failing to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war.

The protest, first reported Thursday by Literary Hub, is the latest broadside directed at the literary freedom advocacy organization following a series of high-profile resignations and other denouncements in recent weeks.



Naomi Klein Tweeted:

 

LITERARY HUB notes:

In January, two prominent novelists cut ties with PEN America over its decision to platform controversial actor and outspoken ceasefire opponent Mayim Bialik at a PEN Out Loud event in Los Angeles. Palestinian-American writer Randa Jarrar was then forcibly removed from said event on January 31. One week later, a group of 600 writers and poets signed an open letter condemning PEN’s relative silence on Gaza. That letter has now been signed by more than 1300 writers, including Roxane Gay, Lauren Groff, Marie-Helene Bertino, Kiese Laymon, Saeed Jones, Carmen Maria Machado, Solmaz Sharif, Tommy Pico, Laura van den Berg, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

The authors of this latest open letter are inviting other writers to reconsider their scheduled participation in the 2024 PEN World Voices Festival in order to hold PEN America to account, and to encourage others in the literary world to speak out.



Mayim Bialik is anti-trans, anti-vaccine and anti-Palestinian.  This is who a group of educated people choose to applaud?  They should be ashamed of themselves.   Amanda Yen (DAILY BEAST) notes:

In a lengthy letter released Wednesday and signed by dozens, the writers explained that PEN’s unwillingness to call for a ceasefire in Gaza directly contradicts its stated commitment to protecting free expression.

They said that such silence amounts to a “betrayal” of PEN’s values.

“This failure is particularly striking in light of the extraordinary toll this catastrophe has taken in the cultural sphere. Israel has killed, and at times deliberately targeted and assassinated journalists, poets, novelists, and writers of all kinds,” the letter reads. It adds that the targeting of cultural institutions, like universities and libraries, amounts to a kind of cultural genocide.

Among the writers who have died in Gaza are the Palestinian poet and scholar Refaat Alareer, who was killed with several family members in a targeted Israeli airstrike in December; and the entire family of the Al-Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al Dahdouh.

PEN America has come under fire for its position of neutrality on the Gaza crisis before. In January, two novelists canceled their scheduled appearance at a PEN event when they learned it would also platform Mayim Bialik, who has been slammed for her posts on the Israel-Hamas war. The next month, hundreds of writers signed an open letter demanding PEN America speak out on “the 225 poets, playwrights, journalists, scholars and novelists killed in Gaza and name their murderer: Israel, a Zionist colonial state funded by the U.S. government.”


Just wondering, is anyone planning to call out the hacktress that tried to cover up for Selma Blair's Islamaphobia with her throwback posts?  Or are we supposed to assume that Selma's bad performance and kiss in CRULE INTENTIONS is something worth noting?  Sorry, Arah, just like with Charisma, no one in the industry believes you or respects you for you latest stunt.



Thousands of protesters filled the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Saturday night, with two separate groups calling for the government to resign and demanding the release of hostages held in Gaza. 

In Tel Aviv: Demonstrators on two main streets of Tel Aviv called on the Israeli government to resign, with some protesters also seen burning fires and scuffling with police in the city.

Protesters blocked Ayalon Highway — a major inter-city freeway in Gush Dan, Israel, in the metro Tel Aviv area — and chanted, "There is nothing more important. Every hostage must come back." Na'ama Lazimi, a member of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, was seen among the protesters on the highway.  

In Jerusalem and Caesarea: Thousands of family members of hostages still held in Gaza demanded the release of their loved ones on Saturday evening. A social media video captured arrests of protesters who were calling for elections near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's private residence in Caesarea. Israeli police said they arrested four in Caesarea and two in Jerusalem.  

What police say: Israel Police said it approved the request to hold the protests, but added that "a number of protesters gathered illegally on Menachem Begin Road and began to violate the order by lighting fires on the road and blocking the movement of vehicles."

"At the same time, a number of protesters went down to Ayalon and blocked a part off the road while confronting the police," the statement said, adding that police then "announced that the demonstration was illegal and that they should clear the traffic routes. At this stage, the rioters did not listen to the instructions and the police had to use measures to disperse the rioters in order to stop the offense."


Netanyahu also has problems in the US.  CNN reports, "US President Joe Biden described Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s floor speech criticizing Netanyahu as “good,” saying the New York Democrat “expressed serious concern” that is shared by many Americans. Biden said Schumer had contacted his senior staff beforehand to let the White House know he’d be making the speech."  And Lauren Gambino (GUARDIAN) reports:
 
Joe Biden should use his leverage and the law to pressure Israel to change how it is prosecuting the war in Gaza, the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza, where children are now dying of hunger and famine looms.

“We need the president and the Biden administration to push harder and to use all the levers of US policy to ensure people don’t die of starvation,” Van Hollen said in an interview on Friday.

This week, Van Hollen and seven of his colleagues sent a letter to the president arguing that Israel was in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act, a section of which prohibits the sale and transfer of military weapons to any nation that restricts the delivery of US aid.

 

In other news, Lauren Irwin (THE HILL) reports, "The first ship carrying 200 tons of food gathered by World Central Kitchen (WCK) arrived in Gaza Friday and, the organization announced, more will be coming soon.  WCK, the charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, released a statement that its team unloaded the aid in Gaza."  POLITICO adds, "Videos posted online show a crane transferring crates from the barge onto trucks on a custom-built jetty."  And the violence continued with ALJAZEERA noting:

We’ve been reporting on a deadly Israeli attack on a residential building in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

The Wafa news agency is reporting that most of the victims were women and children. It said the attack targeted the Thabet family house in the city’s Bishara neighbourhood.

Citing medical sources, Wafa said there have been seven Israeli attacks on families in the Gaza Strip, resulting the killing of 63 people and wounding of 112 others.

A number of victims are still under the rubble, it said.


Gaza remains under assault. Day 162 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  THE NATIONAL notes, "At least 31,553 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the war began in October, according to the latest update from Gaza's Health Ministry."  Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:








And the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."   

In a new development, ALJAZEERA reports:

Two UN human rights experts have called on BP, Chevron and Exxon to stop supplying oil to the Israeli military amid the ongoing war on Gaza.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, cited research from Oil Change International showing that the three companies were supplying oil to the Israeli military through the United States, Brazil, Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Fakhri said the companies “are likely complicit in genocide” and called for called for “economic sanctions”.

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, supported Fakhri’s call and said “corporations should cease and desist or face potential liability tomorrow”.


The following sites updated:


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