23Feb2024
Another rally at the office of Senator Fetterman. The Fridays @ Fetteran’s group has a Teach-in scheduled for March 8th. It’s free, but they require registration. It begins at the Arch Street Friends Meeting House at 8:30
Letter from Fridays @ Fetteran’s (PDF) concerning how to write a letter to the Senator. to press him on the issue of Gaza and to try and get a meeting with him on it.
Looking towards the speaker.
Isabella speaks of the children of Gaza and the horrors they must endure and that have taken the lives of 13 thousand of them.
Mondoweiss has been reporting on “Operation Al Aqsa Flood” for 142 days at this point. “UN experts call for immediate arms embargo on Israel” It’s not just in Gaza that Palestinian casualties are occurring, 380+ Palestinian deaths have occurred in the West Bank. Israeli soldiers have taken numerous casualties as well, “579 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.” Over 29,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. World reaction:
So far, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Netherlands halted arms transfers to Israel, while Japan trade giant, Itochu Corporation, suspended agreement to supply Israel with military technology.
What does Biden, the US President, plan to do as regards Israel and Gaza? A major complicating factor is:
A number of militias in the region have demonstrated their solidarity with Hamas by attacking Israel across the Lebanese border (Hezbollah), U.S., British, and Israeli ships in the Red Sea (Houthis), and U.S. bases in the region (Iran-allied militias in Iraq and Syria).
Iran’s “axis of resistance” links up a number of groups that are carrying out attacks or are threatening to. The war in Gaza is a major motivation for attacks all over the region. But Iran is actually showing restraint, it’s Israel that’s the problem. There are serious problems with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plans fo Gaza.
Ironically it has become easier to get Iran and Saudi Arabia to agree than to expect Netanyahu and Hamas to come to some understanding.
Video, starting with crowd lined up and continuing with part of speech by Melissa Berkey-Girard of Community Peacemaker Teams.
“As US Congress stalls on aid, Ukrainian soldiers head to the frontlines knowing they don’t have enough ammunition” Of course, the Republican Party’s “Glorious Leader,” the former and wannabe President Trump, feels that Ukraine isn’t that high of a priority.
House Republicans, prompted by Trump, the GOP front-runner, have already rejected a bipartisan Senate deal tightening border security and asylum policies that would have been one of the most conservative such measures in years.
So no action on Ukraine until the border is secure, but the deal that was negotiated is no good so Ukraine seems to be out of luck as Democrats are negotiating seriously, which was the apparent intention of tying Ukraine aid to border negotiations, but as the negotiations didn’t produce a perfect solution from the view of House Republicans, Ukraine is outta luck.
Also, right-wingers are very deeply concerned about the death of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, but had the Democratic Senate’s deal been accepted, her death might not have occurred. Trump lawyer Alina Habba argues, very sensibly, that presidents are immune from being sued for official actions. Habba never mentions the reason for that, but the death of Riley is hardly just the fault of the president, but is the result of a border policy that could have been fixed during Trump’s first two years as president, when Republicans held the House, the Senate and the Presidency.Even during Trump’s next two years, the Democratic-run House would most likely have gone along with whatever the Senate and the President wanted to do.
I’ve got a buddy who sends me pieces “Ukraine is doomed, I tell you! Doomed!” *Sigh,* so what’s his latest? A retired German general talks about how Ukraine is part of a US-led conspiracy to defeat peace-loving Russia and to then go on to tackle China. He declares that Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, wants to achieve “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan. Erm, suppose Taiwan doesn’t want reunification, peaceful or otherwise? What if Taiwan wishes to remain independent, regardless of what mainland China wants?
The German general in the video wrote out his notion of why the peace negotiations of March 2022 between Ukraine and Russia failed. In a Reuters piece, the question of territory is absolutely front and center. It is THE most important question of all! The German general never mentions it, nor does he look at the issue of where Russian troops would be deployed during the negotiations.
During the actual negotiations, Russian troops didn’t withdraw by a single meter, nor did they ever discuss doing so under any circumstances! The negotiations of March ’22 didn’t collapse because anyone interfered, they collapsed because Russia’s proposals were completely unacceptable.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) talks about getting peace between Ukraine and Russia, completely ignoring that he’s suggesting that Ukraine would be overrun and placed under a murderous, merciless tyranny if we stop supporting them.
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