Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills): 12/31/23

Thursday, January 04, 2024

Rosanne Cash

Tell me you're trying to cure a seven year ache . . .

That was Rosanne Cash's first big hit. She had three hits before that but it wasn't until "Seven Year Ache" (number one on the country chart, number 22 on the pop chart), that I heard her. My immediate thought was, "Johnny Cash's daughter can sing!" And she can and still can. That's not always the case with singers who are children of singers. Rosann's continued to sing her heart out, putting a little bit of herself into every vocal. She doesn't front or pretend, she's a genuine singer. Jon Bream (STAR TRIBUNE) reports:

Rosanne Cash got derailed just as she was getting ready to go on tour this fall to promote the 30th anniversary reissue of her superb album "The Wheel." The esteemed singer/songwriter had knee replacement surgery and recovery didn't go as expected.

"My surgeon said I'm a problem child because I'm recovering so slowly. But progress is going in the direction it should go," Cash said in early December when she was still using a cane. "By the time I get to [Minneapolis], I'll be fine to perform. I couldn't have done it this month or last because I couldn't stand long enough, nor could I sit long enough."

Cash will kick off a limited tour Jan. 9-10 at the Dakota, shows that were originally set for mid-November.

NPR did an audio segment on THE WHEEL recently and this is from their summary of the audio broadcast (use the link to listen to the audio, by the way):

"Transform" pops up multiple times during today's session. It's telling because while many artists talk about how a new album differs from their previous work, Rosanne Cash was speaking the gospel back in 1993.

She was referring to her seminal, game-changing album, The Wheel. Written in the aftermath of Cash's divorce from Rodney Crowell, the record is a tour de force, lyrically and sonically, featuring appearances from Benmont Tench, Bruce Cockburn, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Catherine Russell, Marc Cohn and Steuart Smith. It also kicked off a longtime partnership with her soon to be personal partner, John Leventhal.

On the eve of it's re-release — one that features a remastered original, a live EP and additional goodies — we're rebroadcasting Cash's session with former World Cafe host Michaela Majoun, recorded 30 years ago. It's a fascinating look into an artist who knew she had something special on her hands. Plus, listen to live performances featuring her now-husband, John Leventhal.

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, January 4, 2024. Donald Trump's violation of the Constitution (not just the 14th Amendment but also Article II Section 1 and the 12th Amendment) calls for consequences, attacking the Iraqi 'militias' is the same thing as attacking the Iraqi military, Israel's plan to deport Palestinians is called out worldwide and the assault on Gaza continues.

We've got a lot to cover but we have to start with one topic. First off, Donald Trump. January 6, 2021. A number of e-mails insist that I'm supposed to defend him and that various people are wrong to argue that he's be removed from the ballot.

Our position on insurrection was: This is a serious charge and based on what was known in the immediate aftermath, I was comfortable -- as someone who studied poli sci as an undergraduate and a graduate and who, as a graduate, emphasized especially revolutions and rebellions -- was comfortable with a rebellion. At that time. Little provided by Congress' nonsense (so-called investigation) persuaded me to change my mind. One periodical that we highlight from time to time jumped the gun. They may have had a 'feeling' but the evidence was not there for the immediate call. We didn't highlight any articles from them in the first three months after January 6th that dealt with what happened for that reason.

We have since had many of Trump's cohorts flip on him. And much more has been uncovered.

I am comfortable with the term "insurrection" being applied now. This was a plot. It was an effort to avoid a duly elected official from being sworn in. The loser (Donald) plotted and lied and put the country at risk -- he put democracy at risk.

Anyone grabbing the vapors, so sorry. Here's Ken Block at USA TODAY yesterday:

In November 2020, former President Donald Trump asserted that voter fraud had altered the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. The day after the election, his campaign hired an expert in voter data to attempt to prove Trump’s allegations and put him back in the White House.

I am the expert who was hired by the Trump campaign.

The findings of my company’s in-depth analysis are detailed in the depositions taken by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol. The transcripts show that the campaign found no evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of any election. That message was communicated directly to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Our findings have also been subpoenaed by special counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation in Georgia. Those emails and documents show that the voter data available to the campaign contained no evidence of large-scale voter fraud based on data mining and fraud analytics.

More important, claims of voter fraud made by others were verified as false, including proof of why those claims were disproven.

Donald lied repeatedly. He attempted to steal the election. He wanted a riot because that could provide a delay. Go back to the archives, I stated repeatedly that once the electoral college voted, it was over. Whether it was stolen or not, a presidential election ended with the electoral college vote. There is no direct vote for president.

He allowed a riot to take place, he did nothing to stop it. He wanted it to take place and was to slide in his slate of fake electors.

Jacob Miller (TRENDY DIGEST) noted yesterday:

A majority of Americans believe the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was an “assault on democracy that must not be forgotten,” as per a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released this week. The poll was conducted Dec. 14-18 and included 1,024 respondents. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

The poll indicates that 55 percent believe the riot was a stark assault on democratic principles, while 43 percent said “too much is being made” of the riot and that it is “time to move on.”

The ramifications of the riot have permeated political discourse and action, as seen in the bold move by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D), who decided to remove former President Trump from the state’s ballot, citing the 14th Amendment. Bellows said she had concluded the former president “over several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power.”

What he did was outrageous and illegal. And it was a direct threat to democracy. Yes, he is legally liable for trying to steal the election. If he wasn't, then nothing stops the next president who doesn't want to leave office from doing the same.

I'm taking Shenna Bellows at her word. I believe her. If she's telling the truth, she did her duty.

"Oh! It's going to hurt us!"

What?

Since when are we too chicken to enforce the law.

This is nothing minor. This is huge. A loser refuses to accept the outcome of an election, he plots to install a separate set of electors to vote in the electoral college, he stirs up his supporters with massive lies about his votes not being counted and the election being stolen, he encourages a crowd to come to DC to 'stop the steal,' he stirs them up with a speech and sends them off to Congress, a riot takes place.

In what damn world is that acceptable?

It's not an it was an insurrection and is it is violation of the Constitution -- and not just the 14th Amendment. He violated Article II Section 1 as well as The Constitution's 12th Amendment (the sections on the electors which does not have the president lobbying for an alternate slate.)

Again, some people rushed to conclusions based on the gut. They may have been right, they may have been wrong. We now know a lot more than we did in January of 2021. Donald Trump violated the Constitution in numerous ways.

You break the law, you need to suffer the consequences. That's especially true when you committed a fraud upon the nation in an attempt to hold on to an office that you lost.

He conspired to steal the presidency from the rightful winner, that's a serious crime.

So all the ones wringing their hands now about what effect pulling him from a state's ballot might have? I'm more concerned with the laws that were broken and how ignoring them normalizes Donald Trump's actions for future losers who don't want to leave the White House. That is actually the more serious issue and the one that the government needs to address.

I don't care about the hand wringers. I also don't care about the liars like Jonathan Turley who keep claiming some bad precedent is being set via accountability.

No. When you break the law you should be punished. That's the rule of law. He can lie and distort all he wants but that is how it works and, again, failure to do so would actually set a precedent -- a very bad one. Jonathan's sick in the head and sick in the heart, don't let him deceive you.

As for his and his supporters nonsense of 'double jeopardy' or the issue having been addressed in Congress. The House impeachment was seeking removal from office. That's it. He can face -- and should -- criminal charges and, no, this is not double jeopardy. And, please note, I thought both impeachments were nonsense. I stand by that. But that has nothing to do with facing charges in a criminal court.

Had Nixon not resigned and been impeached that would only have removed from office. Grasp that. Grasp that he resigned to avoid impeachment and he would have faced -- and should have faced -- criminal charges but Gerald Ford pardoned him.

Numerous GOP nominees currently say they will pardon him. That's another reason not to vote for them. That's another reason for me to vote for the Democratic Party nominee whomever it is. (I'm really hoping we'll have a March 31st LBJ repeat but I'm voting Democratic regardless. I've explained why. I'm not telling you how to vote, I'm telling you how I'm voting.)

Donald Trump is not an anomaly and, believe it or not, when it comes to that crazed MAGA crowd, he's actually one of the milder ones. Consequences have to be delivered to send a message to the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and other insane crazies who have their own presidential aspirations.

Now let's note Iraq. Mustafa Salim and Louisa Loveluck (WASHINGTON POST):

The sound of two explosions echoed through central Baghdad on Thursday morning, signaling what appeared to be the second attack in three days on Iran-linked militia officials.

The Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba group said that a deputy commander of operations in the Baghdad belt area, Mushtaq Talib Al-Saidi, was killed in a strike at a logistical support headquarters on Palestine Street. Major strikes on such a central location in Iraq’s capital have been exceedingly rare in recent years.

Washington’s support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has presented local militia groups with fresh incentive to try to dislodge U.S.-led coalition troops from Iraq and Syria, where they are stationed as part of a mission aimed at ensuring the lasting defeat of Islamic State forces.

I believe THE POST's pompous slogan is "Democracy Dies In Darkness." And apparently "Truth Dies In The Bullpen." Was that where their article died? The truth init?

They go on to whine about attacks on US troops. Whine. And some may say, "How can these attacks happen!" These attacks happen in part because the US military is not attacking "local militia groups" -- they are attacking the Iraqi military. I don't know why people want to lie and whore. I don't know why you want to deceive the American public. Day after day, we had to waste our time explaining what the deal Bully Boy Bush pushed through with Iraq on Thanksgiving Day of 2008. That's because there were a lot liars in the press and it was a legal contract which many people don't know how to read. We did that over and over starting that Thanksgiving Day in 2008. And who was right? Not the media outlets. Not the partisans for Barack either. We were right.

Now this issue right here should not be as complicated. December 19, 2016, the law making the militias part of the Iraqi army was approved by Fuad Masum. This is not in dispute and it wasn't done in private. You can add on "linked to Iran" all you want. It does not change the reality that the militias legally became part of the Iraqi military on that day and remain part of it to this day. Maybe if you'd bothered to pay attention you'd be aware of that.

Call are growing -- even from Iraq's prime minister -- for US troops to leave Iraq. Great. They should have left years ago (actually never should have been sent in). And tensions are high because the Iraqi government does know the history and rightly sees these attacks as attacks on their military, as violations of their national sovereignty.

I don't know why US outlets need to lie about reality. Every attack on the Iraqi 'militias' is an attack on the Iraqi military because they were folded into it over seven years ago. This is not hard to understand but the US press is working overtime to distort reality.

Moving on, Rebecca Falconer (AXIOS) reports:

A senior Education Department official resigned Wednesday, citing President Biden's response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Why it matters: Biden administration appointee Tariq Habash is at least the second official, and the first who's known to be of Palestinian origin, to resign in protest over the U.S. response to the war.

Driving the news: "As a Palestinian-American — in fact, the only Palestinian-American political appointee at the Department of Education — I bring a critical and underrepresented perspective to the ongoing work on equity and justice," said Habash, who worked as a volunteer on Biden's 2020 presidential campaign, in his resignation letter that he shared with media outlets.

"But now, the actions of the Biden-Harris Administration have put millions of innocent lives in danger, most immediately for the 2.3 million Palestinian civilians living in Gaza who remain under continuous assault and ethnic cleansing by the Israeli government," added Habash, whose work focused on student loan issues.
"I cannot stay silent as this administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives, in what leading human rights experts have called a genocidal campaign by the Israeli government."

Peter Nicholas (NBC NEWS) adds:

His resignation is the latest sign of unease within the ranks of the Biden administration over the president's handling of a war that broke out Oct. 7 when Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state. In November, more than 400 Biden administration officials wrote an open letter calling on Biden to insist on a cease-fire. The letter did not give their names.

The November letter? There's now a new letter. "17 Biden for President Staffers" is the signature to the letter that was posted yesterday on MEDIUM and which opens:

We write to you as the current staff of your re-election campaign. As we work to mobilize voters to cast their ballots for you in 2024, we must take a moment to acknowledge our tremendous grief, and the grief shared by countless other Americans, toward the violence occurring in Gaza.

We joined this campaign because the values that you — and we — share are ones worth fighting for. Justice, empathy, and our belief in the dignity of human life is the backbone of not only the Democratic Party, but of the country. However, your administration’s response to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing in Gaza has been fundamentally antithetical to those values — and we believe it could cost you the 2024 election. Therefore, we join your 2020 campaign alumni in imploring you to:

Publicly call for — and use financial and diplomatic leverage to bring about — an immediate, permanent ceasefire;
Advocate for de-escalation in the region, including demanding that Hamas release all hostages and that Israel release the over 2,000 Palestinians in administrative detention being held without charge;
End unconditional military aid to Israel;
Investigate whether Israel’s actions in Gaza violate the Leahy Law, prohibiting U.S. military aid from funding foreign military units implicated in the commission of gross violations of human rights;
Take concrete steps to end the conditions of apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing that are the root causes of this conflict.

His campaign and his support is cratering. It's LBJ all over again in January of 1968. If Joe doesn't want to make the March 31st speech about not seeking election, he better stop dithering. Ramzy Baroud (COUNTERPUNCH) notes that "the vast majority of Gaza’s victims are civilians and, according to UNICEF, over 70 percent of all of those killed and wounded are women and children. Moreover, due to the inhumane Israeli practices, Gaza survivors are now dealing with an actual famine, an unprecedented event in the modern history of Palestine."

Gaza remains under assault. 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 now well over 20,000. NBC NEWS notes, "The vast majority of its 2.2 million people are displaced, and an estimated half face starvation amid an unfolding humanitarian crisis." THE GUARDIAN notes, "A total of 22,313 Palestinians have been killed and 57,296 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement." In addition to the dead and the injured, there are the missing. AP notes, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." 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." Max Butterworth (NBC NEWS) adds, "Satellite images captured by Maxar Technologies on Sunday reveal three of the main hospitals in Gaza from above, surrounded by the rubble of destroyed buildings after weeks of intense bombing in the region by Israeli forces."

ALJAZEERA reports, "A growing chorus of international condemnation – including from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Netherlands – has been directed at Israeli ministers calling for Palestinians to leave Gaza to make room for Israeli settlers." Let's note this from yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!

AMY GOODMAN: Mouin Rabbani, I want to ask you about your new piece for Mondoweiss headlined “The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.” Israeli news outlets report that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told a group of Israeli lawmakers last week, quote, “Regarding voluntary immigration … this is the direction we are going in,” Netanyahu said. Israel’s minister of national security, the man who’s been convicted of terrorism, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made similar comments.

ITAMAR BEN-GVIR: [translated] The solution of encouraging the residents of Gaza to emigrate is one that we must advance. It’s the right, just, moral and humane solution. I call on the prime minister and the new foreign minister, who I congratulate on his appointment: Now is the time to coordinate an emigration project, a project to encourage the residents of Gaza to emigrate to the countries of the world. Let’s be clear: We have partners around the world whose help we can use. There are people around the world with whom we can advance this idea. Encouraging their emigration will allow us to bring home the residents of the communities near the Gaza border and the residents of the Gush Katif settlements.

AMY GOODMAN: Those were the words of Israel’s minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department issued a statement rejecting Ben-Gvir’s comment, as well as those made by Bezalel Smotrich. Meanwhile, The Times of London reports Israeli officials have held secret talks with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and several other countries to take in Palestinians from Gaza. If you can talk about the history of this, Mouin? And also talk about when they refer to “voluntary migration” in Gaza. And also talk about Egypt and the pressure that’s being brought to bear on Egypt to open its borders to the Palestinians of Gaza.

MOUIN RABBANI: Yes, and voluntary immigration is now, referencing that article you mentioned, being marketed as humanitarian emigration. In other words, we’re doing these people a favor by ethnically cleansing them.

I think the problem here is that many people associate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians with the Israeli extreme right, with people like Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, Netanyahu and so on. But the point I was seeking to make in that article, which is actually a lengthy Twitter thread that I then posted on Mondoweiss, is that ethnic cleansing, or what Zionists would call transfer, is intrinsic to Zionist and later Israeli policy towards the Palestinians from the very outset.

So, as early as 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of the contemporary political Zionist movement, wrote that we need to “spirit the penniless population across the borders” and find employment for it in other lands. If you go to the period between the British Mandate and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, you find that the Zionist movement set up a Transfer Committee, with very clear terms of reference, to ensure that refugees who were expelled would not be able to return to Palestine, to destroy their villages, and things of that sort. And the Gaza Strip, in fact, with a population that consists of more than three-quarters of Palestinian refugees who were ethnically cleansed in 1948, has, since the 1950s, been a key target for depopulation by Israel, because it doesn’t want all these refugees living within sight, so to speak, of their former homes on its borders. And it has produced a number of proposals and initiatives over the years to achieve that goal, including even one in the late 1960s to send over some 60,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Paraguay, in return for which the Mossad would discover that it no longer had the resources to hunt Nazi fugitives being sheltered by the Stroessner regime.

So, my point was really to demonstrate that this is not a recent policy proposal by the extreme fringes of the Israeli political spectrum, but has been intrinsic to mainstream Zionism and later Israeli policy from the very outset.

AMY GOODMAN: You say at the end of your piece, Mouin Rabbani, “As importantly, the 1948 Nakba did not defeat the Palestinians, who initiated their struggle from the camps of exile, those in the Gaza Strip most prominently among them. It would take a Blinken level of foolishness to assume the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip would produce a different outcome.” Talk about Netanyahu’s goal to de-Hamasify Gaza, and what exactly that means, and the effect of the killing, at this point, of over 22,000 Palestinians.

MOUIN RABBANI: Yes. Well, that takes me back to the second part of your previous question, which I had neglected to answer, which is that at the outset of the current war, Israel saw that it had unqualified, unconditional Western support from its U.S. and European sponsors, and resurrected this long-standing ambition to cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians.

And the proposal that was put front and center, literally on October 7th and onwards, was to move the population of the Gaza Strip to the Sinai Desert, to Egypt. And this was an idea that was very enthusiastically embraced by the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. And on his first trip to the region, he actually sought to market this to Washington’s Arab allies. And I think, you know, he is somewhat of a clueless airhead when it comes to the Middle East. And I think he was expecting to hear from U.S. allies, Arab allies, you know, “How can we help you help our Israeli friends?” And instead he was met with categorical refusal and rejection for this proposal, first and foremost by Egypt.

And the U.S. and European governments later came out with a position that they would oppose forced displacement from the Gaza Strip, leaving open the possibility of what we’re seeing now, an Israeli military campaign, a primary objective of which is to make the Gaza Strip unfit for human habitation, and then the encouragement of voluntary, or what is now even being called humanitarian, emigration in order to achieve the ethnic cleansing. And I think the genocide that we’re now seeing in the Gaza Strip — and this is something, of course, that’s going to be adjudicated by the International Court of Justice in The Hague after South Africa recently made an application under the Genocide Convention — you know, all these things put together making the Gaza Strip unfit for human habitation.

AMY GOODMAN: Mouin Rabbani, we’re going to have to leave it there. I thank you so much for being with us, Middle East analyst, co-editor of Jadaliyya. We’ll link to your piece, “The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.”

Happy belated birthday to Dennis McCormick! I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.

ALJAZEERA adds:

Volker Turk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, says he is “very disturbed” by statements made by Israeli ministers on transferring the population of Gaza to other countries.

“Eighty-five percent of people in Gaza are already internally displaced. They have the right to return to their homes,” Turk said in a post on X.

He also pointed out that international law bans “the forcible transfer of protected persons within or deportation from occupied territory”.

CNN's Tim Lister and Abeer Salman report this morning:

Fourteen people were killed Thursday morning in a strike on Al-Mawasi on the coast of Gaza, west of Khan Younis, the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza has said.

The ministry said that nine children were among those killed by an Israeli air strike on a house in the area.

CNN is unable to confirm details of what happened in the neighborhood and has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment.

Thousands of displaced people have moved to the area over the last few weeks as the conflict in Gaza has moved to central areas and Khan Younis.

Separately, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PCRS) said at least one person was killed and six wounded in an Israeli strike that hit the fifth floor of its headquarters in Khan Younis.

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, January 02, 2024

The blasphemous and presumptuous Lindsey Graham

First, C.I. put together this list of year in review pieces in the community:

2023 end of the year pieces: Rebecca's "sexiest men of 2023," "2023 in film (Ann and Stan)" and Stan's "2023 in film (Ann and Stan)," Mike's "Idiot of 2023," Ruth's "Ruth's Streaming Report." Martha & Shirley's "2023 in books (Martha & Shirley)." Kat's "2023 in music" and our "2023: The Year of Touch Grass."

This is how tired I am. As I pasted that list, I immediately thought, "Wait, did I need to do a decade in review?" Yes, I'm so tired, I couldn't remember the year or whether or not it closed off a decade.

You've been warned.

I think Senator Lindsey Graham may be taking too many loads. It appears some of them have seeped into his head. "This is God's chicken," lovely Lindsey declared of Chick-fil-A which is alarming for a number of reasons.

First of all, contrary to Lindsey's statement, THE BIBLE has no mention of Chick-fil-A.

In fact, THE BIBLE doesn't actually use the term "chicken" once.

Oh, I heard a rooster crow . . .

I love that song from Cher's 3614 JACKSON STREET.

So, from THE BIBLE, here are the references to roosters:

Matthew 26:34 Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”

Luke 22:34 Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”

John 18:27 Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed.

John 13:38 Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

Luke 22:61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.”

Luke 22:60 ESV / 6 helpful votes

But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.

Matthew 26:75 And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.

Matthew 26:74 Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed.

Proverbs 30:31 The strutting rooster, the he-goat, and a king whose army is with him.

There are a few more (I think three) that deal with hens (click here); however, there's no "chicken." And honestly, I consider it both blasphemous and presumptuous on Lindsey Graham's part to think he can declare anything "God's chicken." Chow down on that Lindsey, down to the hairy root.

Lindsey Graham after hearing Iowa is banning any book which describes a sexual act from public school libraries. He asked, "Do 'sexual acts', include re-watching Ryan Gosling's scenes in BARBIE, stirring a Mai Tai with my finger, inhaling fresh laundry and kissing Trump's ass?" pic.twitter.com/J948YaLxCm
— Paul Rudnick (@PaulRudnickNY) December 31, 2023

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, January 2, 2024. The assault on Gaza continues, Joe Biden continues to search for a spine, and much more.

The government of Israel is pulling a small number of troops from Gaza and some outlets are trying to distort this into some sort of end of war or move towards a cease-fire. It is nothing of the sort. They're being pulled so that the Israeli government can attack other areas. CNN's Amir Tal and Charbel Mallo note that the Israeli military is also now attacking Lebanon and Syria. NBC NEWS adds, "Israel says it will withdraw five military brigades, including many reservists, from the Gaza Strip this week in an effort to pace itself for an expected long-term conflict and to mitigate damage to its economy."

Gaza remains under assault. Yousef Aljamal (ZNET) notes:

The number of Palestinians killed by Israel since October 7 is more than 20,000 according to the Gaza Health Ministry, although no one can give an exact number under these circumstances. As I write, in early December, Israel has just bombed a residential bloc in the crowded Shuja’iyya district in Gaza City, destroying 50 more houses on top of their residents. The amount of destruction brought upon the people of Gaza, unseen since 1948, suggests one thing: Israel’s clear intention to depopulate Gaza, a plan that Tel Aviv tried to implement in the past but has never succeeded at.

While grieving the dead, Gazans are also mourning the loss of familiar landscapes as major landmarks in Gaza City turn to rubble. Israel seems intent on eradicating not just Gaza’s future, but its past. Churches, universities, cultural sites and the city’s main archive, which housed more than 100 years of historical records, have been destroyed in airstrikes. In early December 2023, Israel bombed the Great Omari Mosque, the largest mosque in the city and the site of thousands of years of history spanning multiple faiths. On that site is believed to have stood the temple of Dagon central to the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, which later became a Byzantine church to the patron god of Gaza, Marnas, which Rome then destroyed to build a Christian church, whose ruins were used to build the mosque.

But Gaza’s people, known for their love for spices and chiles (brought to the Arabian Peninsula through Gaza’s old seaport), have always been stubborn. The coastal enclave has been conquered and destroyed numerous times in the past 3,500 years; the city’s symbol is the phoenix, rising from the ashes. Alexander the Great lost three battles before conquering Gaza; the Allied Forces during World War I, more than two millennia later, lost two.

Gaza was the last Palestinian city to convert to Christianity, around the year 400. After the Islamic conquest of Palestine, in 636, a strong Christian minority remained (although it has dwindled to 1,000 people in recent years, as young Christians fled the occupation).

In 1948, the Greater Gaza district included 45 villages, mostly agricultural communities. All of these villages were ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias seizing the land. The Palestinians from these villages ended up as refugees in what became the Gaza Strip, a tiny territory that makes up 1.3% of historic Palestine. Between May and October 1948, the population of Gaza tripled, from 100,000 to 300,000.

Today, the population is 70% refugees. Since 2007, Gazans have been living under a tight Israeli land, air and sea blockade, suffocating their potential and their ability to lead a normal life. The unemployment among young people has risen to 70%. Hundreds of Palestinians have died waiting for Israel to issue permits for access to medical care. In 2007, my sister, 26 at the time, needed a minor surgery, but her application to leave Gaza was denied for a week; when she was finally able to have the surgery, she was unable to handle it, and she lost her life.

Gaza remains under assault. 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 now well over 20,000. NBC NEWS notes, "The vast majority of its 2.2 million people are displaced, and an estimated half face starvation amid an unfolding humanitarian crisis." ABC NEWS notes, "In the Gaza Strip, at least 20,915 people have been killed and more than 54,900 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry and the Government Media Office." Actually, that figure has already been updated. ALJAZEERA notes, "The Palestinian death toll in Gaza rose to 21,978." That's an increase of nearly one thousand since Friday. What is the magic number, by the way, the death toll that moves Joe Biden to action? Friday, THE GUARDIAN notes, "The ministry reported that 55,243 people had been wounded. It said 195 people were killed and 325 injured in the last 24 hours." In addition to the dead and the injured, there are the missing. AP notes, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." 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." Max Butterworth (NBC NEWS) adds, "Satellite images captured by Maxar Technologies on Sunday reveal three of the main hospitals in Gaza from above, surrounded by the rubble of destroyed buildings after weeks of intense bombing in the region by Israeli forces."

At the UK SOCIALIST WORKER, Sophie Squire notes:

In Palestine the turn of the year was marked by continuing horror. In the final days of 2023 Israel only accelerated its plan to massacre and displace as many Palestinians as possible.

The terror state continued to flatten whole neighbourhoods in Gaza with its bombs. And it targeted those left homeless with a bloody ground assault. The Red Cross wrote last week that Israel’s war has now forced 1.9 million people out of their homes.

Most are now internally displaced within Gaza and have been forced to shelter in makeshift tents that do little to keep out the rain or the cold. Ibitsam, who lives in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, told Socialist Worker, “People have nowhere but streets. Hundreds and maybe thousands are homeless in Gaza as people’s houses and shelters are full. Gazans don’t only die from rockets but also from cold, dirt, diseases and hunger.”

Zahrat, who lives near Nablus, in the West Bank, told Socialist Worker that watching from close by is “terrifying and heartbreaking.”

“The bombing is now intensifying to increase the death toll, and homes are being demolished over the heads of their owners without warning. And the Israelis are killing journalists to prevent the truth from reaching the world. This is a war of deliberate killing and extermination of civilians.

“The remaining population lives in fear, without food, without shelter, without electricity, and in the open in this cold weather. I don’t understand how the world could have celebrated Christmas and New Year. While the children of the world received gifts, the children of Palestine were under bombardment.

“Save what is left of Gaza by pressuring your governments across the world to stop this war.”

Palestinians are still trying to count the dead after Israel bombed the Maghazi refugee camp, in central Gaza, on Christmas Eve. After the attack, Israeli said it “regretted” how many civilians had been killed because its soldiers “accidentally” used the wrong kind of bombs.

An Israeli Defence Forces spokesperson said that “the type of munition did not match the nature of the attack, causing extensive collateral damage that could have been avoided.”

The Maghazi camp was one of the areas Israel had instructed Palestinians to evacuate to and which it had labelled “safe”. The official death toll following the attack currently stands just under 100, but residents of the camp say that figure is likely to rise.

Ahmed Maghari, a resident of Maghazi, said, “We pulled out so many body parts that we can’t even estimate the total number of deaths yet. In each home, there’s a minimum of 50 people.

“A lot of them are displaced Palestinians from other parts of Gaza who were forced to flee their homes. They’re all in pieces, and we’re pulling them out with our bare hands,” he added.

“We’ve now gathered at least two piles of body parts.”

If the scale of death at Maghazi was unintentional, as Israel suggests, that must mean the numbers of dead after every other massacre it commits are intentional.

Delegates at the United Nations (UN) last month finally passed a resolution on the war on Gaza. But rather than calling for an immediate ceasefire, as millions of people across the world are demanding, it instead is just a promise for more aid.

Western powers have repeatedly blocked calls for a break in Israel’s bombardment. They ensured only language acceptable to Israel was contained in the final motion.

The resolution now says the UN will “facilitate and enable the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale.” Farcically, the West prevented the UN from calling for an end to Israel’s targeting of its own agencies in Gaza.

The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees was hit by Israeli troops last week. “Israeli soldiers fired at an aid convoy as it returned from northern Gaza along a route designated by the Israeli army,” Thomas White, director of the agency in the Gaza Strip, said in a statement. “Our international convoy leader and his team were not injured but one vehicle sustained damage,” he added.

In total, 180 UN facilities have been targeted by Israel, including schools and medical facilities. Even if the UN were to take a tougher line, Israel would likely ignore it. Since 1968 it has broken over 30 UN resolutions.

Meanwhile, Chris Marsden (WSWS) critiques some efforts in the UK:

Millions of workers and young people have protested in the UK and internationally, outraged by the slaughter carried out by Israel in Gaza with the explicit aim of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. Their anger is directed not only against Netanyahu’s fascist government, but their backers in Britain’s parliament and paymasters in the United States.

But Britain’s Stop the War Coalition (STWC) and its political leader Jeremy Corbyn have sought to limit all protests to placing pressure on the Conservative government, and its de facto allies in the Labour Party, to shift from their naked support for Israel and instead demand a ceasefire.

Week after week, the Israeli war machine grinds on and the mountain of Palestinian corpses grows while governments have either made their appeals for “pauses” or ceasefires in the United Nations, or abstained like the UK—all knowing that the US-Israel axis will ensure the genocide continues unabated.

In the mouths of everyone from President Macron in France to the despotic rulers of various Arab regimes, calls for a ceasefire are a transparent cover for their active collusion with Israel in its efforts to ethnically cleanse Gaza, to be followed by the West Bank and Israel itself. Yet the more bankrupt this perspective has proved, the more Stop the War insists that success will come by just getting more people onto the streets.

December 9 saw the seventh national march demanding a ceasefire since October 7 and the last scheduled to take place until January 13 next year. The lead-up to that march saw the campaign for Britain to demand a ceasefire go down to a catastrophic defeat. On November 15, the first UK vote of any kind was held on Israel’s genocidal assault, on a Scottish National Party’s (SNP) ceasefire amendment to the King’s Speech.

In the weeks before this vote, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer became a hate figure for millions because of his justification of war crimes by citing Israel’s “right to self defence”. Facing a backlash, more than two dozen Labour councillors quit, while thousands wrote condemning the party’s position and demonstrations took place outside MP’s constituency offices.

On November 11, 800,000 marched in London demanding a ceasefire in the biggest protest in the UK since the 2003 march against the Iraq War. Despite this, and after five weeks of mass murder, Starmer did not budge an inch—just four days later whipping his MPs to oppose the ceasefire amendment. The SNP’s motion met with a resounding No, with 293 against and just 125 in favour. A large portion of the Tory Party’s 350 MPs were not even required to cast a vote to ensure its defeat.

Close to three quarters (142) of Labour MPs followed Starmer’s order to abstain. Only 56 voted for a ceasefire. As the WSWS wrote, “Not one of the Labour MPs who broke with Starmer’s orders in this vote has any intention of breaking with the Labour Party or waging any fight against its pro-genocide majority. Few were thinking about saving anything other than their chances of re-election.”

In the vote’s aftermath, eight members of Labour’s frontbench resigned or were sacked and the party machine rumbled on. Most who did resign professed their continued loyalty to Starmer, with Labour Friends of Israel member Jess Phillips’s “Dear Keir” resignation letter noting her “heavy heart”, pride in “your Labour Party” and pledge to “do everything I can to deliver a Labour government…” Most of these scoundrels will be back on board in due course.

More revolting still was the refusal of a single nominally “left” MP to break from the party, after weeks of near blanket refusal to even criticise Starmer by name for his criminal collusion with genocide.

In the US, Joe Biden remains committed to the slaughter as it continues to destroy his chances of re-election. He stands on the world stage exposed as a scared and elderly man not fit to lead a nation as evidenced by his refusal to show true leadership and demand an immediate cease-fire. Instead of demanding what is required, he continues to back the slaughter and supply weapons. Jordan Shilton (WSWS) notes, "The far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can only proceed with such aggression because it knows it enjoys the unconditional support of US imperialism and its European allies. In the latest example of this fact, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken declared an emergency situation to bypass the requirement to obtain congressional approval for the sale of M107 155mm shells worth close to $150 million to Israel. The shells are typically fired from howitzer guns and will enable the IDF to continue its indiscriminate bombardments of densely populated areas."

March 31, 1968, then-President LBJ declared, "Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President." If Joe can't find his spine, it's time for him to start crafting his speech announcing he will not seek re-election because he's destroying the party currently. Young people are not motivated to vote for him, they are horrified by his actions. Muslim Americans who had to live through the witch hunts following 9/11 are not on board with a second term of Joe Biden. He should not be allowed to drag the entire political party down with him.

The only way he can be re-elected currently is for the media to fall in line and lie for him. That's what the silencing is about.

From FAIR's COUNSTERSPIN:

Janine Jackson: Depending on when you hear this, the Rutgers/New Brunswick chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine might be the most recent campus group to be suspended for what administrators called “disruptive and disorderly conduct,” and “failure to comply with university or civil authority.”

SJP is a student-activist network of campus groups in support of Palestinian lives and liberation, and naturally very active now in the midst of Israeli military attacks on Gaza that, as we record, have killed some 20,000 Palestinians minimally, injuring and displacing orders of magnitude more.

Calls for a ceasefire, at least, are growing in this country and around the world, but that’s in the face of ever-more aggressive, top-down efforts to shut those calls, and the people making them, down. If we are to resist what many are calling a new McCarthyism, we need to inform ourselves of what and where the concerns are, and to stay in conversation with one another.

Here to help us with both of those is Wadie Said, professor of law and dean’s faculty fellow at the University of Colorado Law School, and author of the book Crimes of Terror, out from Oxford University Press. He joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Wadie Said.

Wadie Said: Thank you for having me.

JJ: Listeners will have heard the unsettling reports—more, it seems, each day—of not only student groups being shut down on campus, but powerful people calling for publishing lists of the names of any students who even sign a petition, so that they can be denied future jobs.

We’ve seen editors and journalists and other workers fired, forced out or reprimanded for indicating in any way that they oppose, not even the state of Israel, but the killing and harming and displacing of thousands and thousands of people. Poetry and art events canceled, just for suggesting support for Palestinians, and many of it coming with this kind of fig leaf of: This targeting—which to be clear, we do hope ruins your life—it isn’t just because you don’t support Israel in all of its actions, but because, by our reckoning, you insufficiently oppose Hamas and what it does.

It is lost on few people who are paying attention that we are living in a very disturbing moment for an aspiring democracy, and it’s within this context that we see the piece that you recently co-authored with Anthony O’Rourke for Dissent, in which you warn that this is potentially moving beyond private institutions like universities or Wall Street companies using their power to sanction or to intimidate—not that that doesn’t mean real, material harm—but moving to federal law enforcement facing pressure to employ a particular federal statute that kicks a number of other things into play.

And you note that this tool wasn’t even at the hands of the FBI during the COINTEL Program, which some of us will remember from the 1960s. So there are levels of troubling things happening here, but let’s get started with: What is the statute that you’re talking about, and why are you concerned that it could come into play right now?

WS: The ban on providing material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations, with the law that was passed by Congress as part of a larger omnibus bill that purported to reform both—and, I use “reform” in the most euphemistic sense of the word, it was actually a kind of crackdown on immigration to this country, and also on habeas corpus rights for federal and state prisoners, where the avenues for relief were significantly narrowed.

And within the confines of this larger bill, there was an element that purported to take on the problem of terrorism. And this was in 1996 that the law was actually passed. So it predates the September 11 attacks by over five years. And the way the law works, is it gives the secretary of state the authority to designate organizations, provided that they’re one, foreign; two, engage in terrorist activity; and three, that terrorist activity hurts American national security, or other foreign interests or economic interests of the United States.

And this is a finding that’s completely within the province of the secretary of state. So this isn’t something that you or I or anyone else can challenge in a court. In fact, the only way to challenge a group being designated as a foreign terrorist organization is if someone were to argue, well, you got the wrong group, or you got the name wrong, or something like that. Just on purely administrative basis. There’s no substantive basis to challenge this.

And once the group is designated as an FTO, or foreign terrorist organization, individuals, wherever they are, are prohibited from providing what is called material support. And when the law was passed in 1996, the idea was that there was a problem in the United States that Congress was cracking down on, terrorist organizations raising money via humanitarian or charitable activity.

And the idea was that Congress made a finding in passing this law that money is fungible, and so money for legitimate charitable activity—the government never challenged that the activity in question was charitable activity. They just said that if a terrorist group is raising money for charity, that frees up money for buying weapons and conducting violent activity. And it can be banned as such. It can be criminalized as such.

The interesting thing here of—well, there are many interesting things, but some of the interesting things here are, for example, one, this bill created a list of foreign terrorist organizations, but it was passed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, which was a decidedly domestic act. And there’s no corresponding list of domestic terrorist organizations.

Two, this purported problem of terrorist organizations raising money in the United States under the cover of humanitarian activity, I personally have never seen, and I’ve been following this law since it was passed, and litigating it and studying it for over 20 years. And I do have to say I have never seen evidence that this was a really pressing problem, that the United States was somehow a way station for terrorist organizations to raise money under cover of charitable activity. So there’s that issue as well.

And then, the final issue is that the concept of material support, money and weapons and things like this, tangible items that contribute to an organization’s illegal ends or illegal goal, that has expanded to include things like free speech. So in 2010, the Supreme Court, in a case called Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, decided that “material support” in the form of speech could be criminalized.

So the group of the day is Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement; if I wanted to say, “Hey, you need to work according to international law and be less violent and use peaceful means to pursue your goals and get away from violence,” I could be prosecuted for providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, provided that that support is done in coordination with, or under the direction of, the foreign terrorist organization.

The key stop that the Supreme Court put in place, because they realized that this was going after what was otherwise protected free speech, the key stop or safety valve provision that they put in, well, they said, provided the speech that is being criminalized with material support has to be “in conjunction with,” or “at the behest of,” a terrorist organization. Independent advocacy is not covered.

So that’s why when we see, for example, the Brandeis Center (which is not affiliated with Brandeis University, as my co-author Tony O’Rourke has pointed out several times), and the ADL, when they make the call for students, pro-Palestinian activist students, to be investigated under this law, it’s disingenuous for numerous reasons, but primarily because there is no evidence, as far as I know of, that these students are acting in coordination with or at the behest of Hamas, for example.

So this is a kind of an interesting gray area, where the call to investigate and the concept of material support, it’s broad enough that perhaps the FBI or other federal agencies could investigate. It may not lead to criminal charges, but the fact of an investigation is enough of an impediment and enough of a chill to be alarming to those of us who believe that free speech rights should be much better protected.

JJ: Absolutely. And I think the word “chill” is of course important here. There was, listeners may know, a Senate resolution that condemned anti-Israel, pro-Hamas student groups. And that language—you don’t have to be a historian or a regional expert to understand that “anti-Israel,” “pro-Hamas,” is very inexact language, and intentionally broad and leading. And you can hear the echoes of it. If you were someone who condemned the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, there were people online who called you pro–Al Qaeda or whatever, but it didn’t necessarily, although it did in some cases, come with this law enforcement, federal definition that that speech was in fact in support of a foreign terrorist operation.

So I think what we’re trying to say, or what I’m trying to say, is there’s a whole lot of discretion involved here by federal law enforcement: who they choose to identify as a threat, what they call material support, who they use it against, who gets to bring the cases. These are kind of the questions that you’re bringing up in that piece, that it’s not like, this is a law and it’s just being applied. This is a law with a whole lot of discretion being very particularly or potentially particularly applied.

WS: Of course. And I think one of the things that I identified, again, many years ago, when I was a federal public defender and working on a case involving material support charges, and I’ve talked about this quite a bit in terms of my writing, but I initially saw it in the context of a terrorism prosecution, where you see how the material support law has what I call a double selectivity problem.

The first is, “Who gets on the list?” So it’s not every group that engages in—not every non-state group, it has to be said; these are all non-state actors, with the one exception of the Iranian, it’s kind of confusing, the Iranian Republican Guard, but they call themselves the Islamic Republican Guard, that’s part of the Iranian government. So that’s the one exception to the whole apparatus that targets non-state groups, with the one exception of this Iranian group, but basically targets these non-state groups.

So there’s a question of who gets on the list, OK, which is 100% within the discretion of the secretary of state. It’s not something that you or I can say anything about or influence.

And then there’s a question of, even if a group gets on the list, it doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone’s going to be prosecuted for providing material support to any particular FTO, because, like you mentioned, this is all discretionary. Prosecutors have basically unreviewable discretion to bring these type of cases, provided they’re free of overt bias, which is almost impossible to prove.

Silencing also includes burying reality about Israelis reacting against the slaughter. Which is why 60 MINUTES avoids Tal Mitnick and it's left to Omri Wolfe (WSWS) to report:

Tal Mitnick, an 18-year-old conscript to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), refused to serve and was sentenced to a 30-day prison term. Mitnick is one of hundreds of Israeli teenagers who have refused military enlistment this year to protest the Palestinian occupation. His refusal became a lightning rod in Israeli politics because of his sentence and the sharply worded political statement he published on social media, tearing down the arguments of the defenders of genocide.

Fortress Israel always requires an endless stream of fresh recruits, guaranteed through Israel’s conscription laws, which mandate military service for both men and women, including reserve duty until age 40 or beyond.

Israel is a garrison state. Its navy strictly controls the shared coastline with the Gaza Strip; pilots crisscross the skies to carpet bomb the Palestinians or evade air defenses en route to Iran; drone pilots operate the densest reconnaissance network in the world; intelligence agents capture and process millions of signals a day; spies conduct assassinations abroad; and engineers maintain a massive nuclear arsenal, the Iron Dome missile shield, and sophisticated cyber operations. The West Bank is crowded with young foot soldiers guarding illegal settlements, patrolling endless checkpoints, and meting out military justice against an occupied population.

Military service functions as a pipeline to private industry, and placement in competitive military units is a prerequisite to specialized careers. The question, “In what unit did you serve?” is the Israeli equivalent of “How’s the weather?” and a non-answer may invite condemnation.

Mitnick’s decision to refuse would therefore be a courageous act of defiance at any time. Amid the xenophobic anti-Palestinian hysteria whipped up to justify genocide in Gaza, it assumes even greater significance. Despite widespread enlistment exemptions granted for religious, health, and increasingly mental health reasons, the Zionist state views Mitnick’s refusal under conscientious objector status as treasonous and, consequently, is making an example of him.

While first-time refusal often carries a sentence of 7-10 days, Mitnick has been sentenced to thirty days’ imprisonment, after which he will again be called up, again refuse, and face further punishments to act as a deterrent to others contemplating similar protests against the war crimes of the Israeli state.

Mitnick published a statement on Twitter/X, stating, “Violence cannot solve the situation, neither by Hamas, nor by Israel. There is no military solution to a political problem.” He lays out the political problem in clear and powerful language: “Before the war, the army guarded the settlements, maintained the murderous siege on the Gaza Strip, and upheld the status quo of apartheid and Jewish supremacy in the land between the Jordan [river] and the [Mediterranean] Sea.”