Peace and Justice Post

Ralph Nader, Counterpunch, April 1, 2024

Image by Jeff Kingma.

Joe Biden has long had a problem with PEACE – as in “ceasefires,” “serious peace negotiations,” and conditioning the transfer or sale of major weapons systems as required by five U.S. criminal statutes. From one side of his mouth, Biden urges futilely Israeli compliance with international law while on the other side he supports the daily shipment of weapons of mass destruction to the Israeli government. These weapons are being used in the genocidal killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

A majority in Congress is even more hawkish and lets Biden do whatever he wants in making war abroad. The cornerstone of our Constitution – the separation of powers – has been demolished in area after area. (See, our open letter of November 28, 2023, to the members of the U.S. Congress).

By contrast, American public opinion has turned against U.S. arms shipments to Israel and the annihilation of Palestinian civilians from infants to the elderly. Whole extended families are being wiped out by American-made bombs and missiles. The homeless survivors are injured, starving and suffering from untold illnesses.

The Israeli state terror is producing a Palestinian Holocaust. Netanyahu’s violent anti-semitism against the Arabs of Palestine is out of control. Many courageous Israeli human rights groups protest, to no avail, (See, the December 13, 2023, open letter to Biden that appeared in the New York Times) as Netanyahu and his extremist coalition reveal their long-time objective of driving millions of Palestinians out of what is left of their Palestine.

As for the Hamas raid on October 7th, and the total collapse of the highly touted Israeli border security, a World War II Holocaust survivor told the New York Times, “It should never have happened…” Yet, Netanyahu has blocked an official investigation of this unexplained multi-tiered technological and human intelligence debacle.

Meanwhile, public dissatisfaction with the dictatorial decision-making by the White House and the absence of Congressional action is growing rapidly. More and more labor unions are now opposing Biden’s bombings, Jewish Americans working with Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now are brilliantly organizing demonstrations. Veterans for Peace’s 27 chapters around the country are in the streets peacefully demanding a ceasefire, cessation of weapons shipments and major increases in humanitarian aid. They are mostly ignored by the corporate media, NPR and PBS.

Religious groups are beseechingly calling for peace. This week in the latest public letter, 140 Global Christian Leaders, organized by Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) called on President Biden “…to have the moral courage to end U.S. complicity in the ongoing violence and, instead, do everything in [his] power to…” stop the “death and destruction” in Palestine.

The CMEP receives little or no coverage by the mainstream media even though this organization represents millions of people.

But then look who is not taking a pro-peace stand, staying silent or actively backing the Israeli war machine. The American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars are on the sidelines. The AFL-CIO Labor Federation finally came out tepidly for a ceasefire but has exerted very little of its muscle on Capitol Hill.

AIPAC, the “pro-Israeli government can do no wrong lobby” has been cultivating relationships with these U.S. organizations and others like them for decades.

The worst abdications have come from the legal profession in the form of State Bar Associations and the American Bar Association (ABA) – the largest organization of lawyers in the world. These lawyers are all “officers of the court” instructed to stand for the rule of law. Except for a brief time in 2005-2006 (https://nader.org/2013/04/19/aba-white-papers/ ) the ABA has idled while Presidents regularly have violated our Constitution and all kinds of laws – domestic and international – with impunity, facilitated by a supine Congress.

Bruce Fein and I have asked 50 State Bar Associations to be first responders in challenging the ongoing breakdown of the rule of law due to their professional duties and knowledge. None have responded.

As for the healthcare professionals watching Israel raining death and destruction directly on Gaza’s hospitals and health clinics, inundated with desperate patients, their endangered physicians and assistants without the means to devote their care, the response is overwhelmingly silent. The American Public Health Association and the American Medical Student Association are among the few to have condemned Israel’s atrocities.

Yet, the desperate pleas by their wounded professional colleagues have failed to register with the likes of the American Medical Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma and many others. (See the letter of March 1, 2024, which has gone unanswered).

What can turn our country around? An organized citizenry of less than one percent of the voters in Congressional Districts, giving voice to the voiceless majority, can free Congress from its captivity imposed by the forces of greed, power and violent Empire, draining resources from our dire domestic needs.

As I wrote in the Capitol Hill Citizen (February/March 2024 issue), Congress has become a weapon of mass destruction with multiple warheads. Only the people can recover their sovereign power, under the Constitution, now delegated to a Congress that sells out to the highest corporatist bidders.

On the Israeli slaughter of Gaza’s people, a small but growing number of Democrats in Congress are standing tall. They need your active backing to expand their numbers. (See, Ceasefire Tracker: https://workingfamilies.org/ceasefire-tracker/).

As for the cruel, vicious, genocidal, maniacal Republicans, they remain disgraced in their full-throttled support for Netanyahu, who is fighting for his job, trying to escape Israeli prosecutors and is hugely unpopular in Israel.

The GOP position was expressed by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton – a lawyer no less – who said last October, for posterity’s eternal damnation: “As far as I’m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza.” This is exactly what the massacring Israeli juggernauts have done with the weapons, taxpayers’ money and diplomatic cover enabled by corrupt outlaws like Tom Cotton.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! 

A White House official reaffirmed that US aid to Israel is unconditional

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, March 31, 2024

The Biden administration has approved billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets for Israel to support the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza despite claims from US officials that they’re concerned about the massive civilian casualty rate.

US officials told The Washington Post that the administration approved the transfer of 500 MK82 500-pound bombs and more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs, which Israel has used to kill scores of civilians by dropping them on Gaza’s densely populated cities.

The administration also approved the transfer of 25 F-35 fighter jets to Israel, a deal worth $2.5 billion that’s likely being paid for by US military aid to Israel. US officials said both transfers had been approved by Congress years ago and not fulfilled, so lawmakers were not notified about the final approval.

A White House official confirmed to the Post that US military aid to Israel is still unconditional. “Conditioning aid has not been our policy,” the official said.

News of the weapons transfers came after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited Washington to ensure continued US support for Israel’s brutal campaign. While President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear to be at odds in public, behind the scenes, US support for Israel continues unabated.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that 32,782 Palestinians have been killed and 75,298 have been wounded since October 7. The total of dead includes over 13,000 children. The numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry are considered low estimates since they don’t take into account the thousands who are missing and presumed dead under the rubble.