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THE ABSURD TIMES
ILLUSTRATION: FASCISM RISING
The Merchants of Death
by
Absurd Times
Let us look back in time to when "Jews" (this was before Zionism, it was the time of Marlowe and Shakespeare) had a very unique role in all societies. Much of this may simply be received lore, but it is widely received and my own reading of Renaissance Literature and tracts (important stuff was still written in Latin) and I use that as a basis.
Charging interest for a loan (making money with money) was considered un-Christian, but Judaism had no such prohibition. At that time, the rate was considered negotiable, although today there seems to be no limit [if you don't believe this, look at the back of your credit card. It once became so bloodsucking that millions declared bankruptcy, but the banks swept into action to make them exempt from bankruptcy – more or less, of course.] So, most christians, when they thought they needed a loan dealt with a Jew. On the whole, this provided no problems.
At the same time, however, religion played a major political role in International Relations. After Martin Luther walked to Rome to ease his "crisis of faith", he walked up and saw the magnificent statues, paintings, personal opulance of the clergy, and decided to walk back. To get away from the theology, Martin translated the Bible in to the vernacular and Guttenberge printed the first book ever (Luther's translation). There are many enigmas in early English translations, especially the King James version that are much clearer in Luther's German, One example, repeated several times in the King James (upon which we constructed many laws) version that is the phrase "He who pisseth against the wall!" (Use a concordance or something likt it, I remember at least 11.) Hey, you, don't pisseth against the wall ro I'll cut you!"
You can have no real idea of how combative Catholic v. Protestant was, and I'll spare you the details now. Suffice to say, the Catholic countries hated and scemed against the Protestaant and vice versa. Guy Fawkes Day became a fixture because of Vengence Henry VIII needed a wid
fe who would bear male children because of rules of succession. The Pope would not give him a divorce, and he ran out of annulments, so Henry appointed himself Defender of the Faith and told the Pope to get fucked, more or less. After number of beheadings and such diplomatic practices during the Renaissance, Elizabeth wound up Queen of England. Now we get to the "Merchant" plays.
Marlow's The Jew of Malta quite clearly attacks, and his Tamberlane quite accurately reflects much in the Koran, But you must remember he had a Masters Degree and studied religions. He also had very active support from the queen which indicates he was somehow in the spy business. Shakespeare then wrote the Merchant of Venice and at least made Shylock somewhat of a sympathetic character to the point that many audiences in Englands's 19th Century left after the fourth act. [Just a quick note, if anyone could have any f Shakespeare's plays, it was Marlowe. Just compare his very early work, and forget about Ben Jonson and Francis Bacon, ok?)
So, where doe ZIONISM come into this? What about Richard Wagner? Well, Wagner had become very famous, especially after reading Shopenhauer (compare Das Reingold to the next three in his Ring Cycle) Shopenhauer contributed a great deal to Wagner. At any rate, a young German composer asked Wagner about his recent composition, it was published, critics attacked it, and Wagner retaliated. That is the whole deal, except that most critics in Germany at the time were Jewish.
Zionists swept in and fiercely attacked Wagner and it still goes on today. Some critics claim there is fascism in Wagner's music.
ONE THING WE MUST RETAIN IS THE DICTUM THAT THE MISUSE OF ANYTHING IS NOT THAT THING!
I have gone on too long, much to long, and so I am stopping here, abruptly. Much of what is below will be reproduced in your e-mail and then there is a link to read the rest of it. All of it is factual.
Shibley Telhami
professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland and senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy.
LINKS
"The One State Reality: What Is Israel/Palestine?"
As the Palestinian death toll in Gaza nears 10,000, calls for ceasefire are growing around the world. "This is a paradigm-changing moment," says Shibley Telhami, who discusses the shifting public opinion on conflict in Israel and Palestine and its potential impact on Joe Biden's reelection campaign. Telhami is a professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland and senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The heads of 18 United Nations agencies and NGOs have issued a rare joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, expressing shock and horror at Israel's monthlong bombardment. The statement read in part, quote, "We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It's been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now," unquote. But Israel is rejecting all calls for a ceasefire or even a humanitarian pause as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza and the West Bank nears 10,000 over this past month.
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is continuing a trip throughout the Middle East. Blinken is in Turkey today after stops in Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Jordan and Iraq. This comes as fears grow of a broader regional war. On Sunday, an Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon killed three children and their grandmother. The strike came two days after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a major address.
We begin today's show looking at diplomatic efforts to halt Israel's bombardment, which began October 7th after Hamas launched a surprise attack that Israel says killed over 1,400 people. Israel says about 240 hostages were taken during the attack.
We're joined by Shibley Telhami, professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland, also a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy. He's co-editor of the book The One State Reality: What Is Israel/Palestine?
Professor Telhami, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you start off by talking about this horrifying landmark moment? Nearly 10,000 Palestinians have been killed; mass protests around the world; Secretary of State Blinken going to Tel Aviv, then surprising people by going to Ramallah, went to Jordan, met with Arab leaders, then on to Iraq — the significance of that? Now in Turkey. What you feel needs to happen now?
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Well, first of all, in terms of this moment, which you asked about, obviously, anyone with a heart — that doesn't matter whether you are Jewish or Arab or Christian or whatever — the scale of horror is just unbearable. And we haven't seen that in, certainly, years, but perhaps decades, in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. But I think it's even bigger than that. It's beyond the humanitarian heartache that we all witness every day, and we have witnessed also in the attack on Israel. I think it is — you know, those people who think this is just another cycle of violence are really not capturing the moment.
This is a paradigm-changing moment. This is a moment that's likely to really shift the way we think about the conflict. It is likely to shift the way people in the region think about the United States, because of its role. And I think, therefore, even people who are thinking about "Let's think about the morning after," are not coming to grips with what a morning after might look like, if there is a morning after. So I think it's a moment that is bigger than most of us realize, because those moments in history usually are evaluated after the fact, not while you're going through it. We know it's horrendous, but we're not grasping the implications.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about President Biden right now. Polls show that before all of this took place, I mean, when he was elected, he had something like 59% of the Arab American vote. We're now talking about something like 17%. And we're talking about key states like Michigan — Dearborn, for example. Can you talk about the significance of this nationally, and then globally, where he stands in the Arab world?
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Yeah, I think nationally, obviously, we already see implications of this. We see it in various polling that has been taken. His popularity has dropped among Democrats, coincidentally around the same time that this war started and is going on, and we don't know that that's directly related to it, but perhaps it is. But I have conducted a poll through our University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll two weeks after the war, and there was a bump in the sympathy for Israel, but when it comes to the Biden administration's evaluation, more people said he was too pro-Israel than said he is too pro-Palestinian. And obviously, in terms of the implications for voting nationally, more likely to vote for President Biden because of his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, we have far more people saying they're less likely to vote for him than more likely to vote for him. So it has implications way beyond Arab and Muslim Americans, because our poll cannot possibly capture Arab and Muslim Americans in the sample. But we do know that in the sample, based on, you know, reporting and other polls that have been done, Arab and Muslim Americans are extremely frustrated. I know definitely that some of the Arab American leaders have conveyed to the secretary of state directly that the president is likely to lose Michigan because of his stance. So, I think the president — my own view is this war is going to hurt him.
But globally, it's also going to hurt him a lot, because I think people can't — people understood his support for Israel after the horrific Hamas attack; what they can't understand is his inability to condemn the actions that have resulted in such mass destruction and killing in Gaza, and his seeming complicity in that. And that's really something that goes against the — you know, after the Soviet — sorry, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we know that he tried to defend a liberal — the notion of a liberal international order, and certainly a rules-based international order, and opposed, in principle, targeting civilians or recklessly endangering them and war crimes. And what we see, he's not able to do that with regard to Gaza. I think this is going to undermine his standing globally, not just in the Middle East, not just in the Global South, but beyond.
AMY GOODMAN: You also said in a recent interview there's a level of shock you haven't seen even during the Iraq War, that you'd bet Biden today might even supersede Benjamin Netanyahu as the most disliked leader in the Arab world, Professor Telhami.
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Yes. And as you know, I took a position against the Iraq War in 2002, when people were talking about it, to the point that I helped organize an ad for international relations scholars in The New York Times September 2002, saying the Iraq War is not in America's national interest. It was hard for us to break through an antiwar message through the regular media. And at that time, I also conducted a poll in the Arab world that showed that George W. Bush had become even less popular in the Arab world than then-hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
And I bet the same is taking place at the moment. This is a moment — as I said, it's a paradigm-shifting moment. And I think that it's going to be very hard for Biden to recover from it. It's very hard for people to listen to him when he is speaking about a promise of peace or a promise of two states. They had not trusted him before this in the Arab world — the public opinion, I'm talking about. And I think after this stance, it's going to be impossible.
AMY GOODMAN: Shibley Telhami, we want to thank you so much for being with us, professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland, also senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy, co-editor of the book The One State Reality: What Is Israel/Palestine?
Coming up, a massive crowd rallies in Washington, D.C., for the largest pro-Palestinian march in U.S. history, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Stay with us.
Tens of thousands marched from Washington, D.C.'s Freedom Plaza to the White House Saturday in the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in U.S. history. Democracy Now!'s Messiah Rhodes, María Taracena and Hany Massoud spoke to protesters who condemned the U.S. government's support for Israel and called for a ceasefire in Gaza. We also play excerpts from speakers at the protest rally, including lawyer Noura Erakat, musician Macklemore and writer Mohammed El-Kurd.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.
As the Health Ministry in Gaza says the death toll from Israel's bombardment of Gaza for the last month, since October 7th, when Hamas attacked, has reached nearly 10,000 Palestinians. People took to the streets around the world this weekend to call for a ceasefire. They marched in Paris; in London; in Jakarta, Indonesia; in Milan, Italy; in Dakar, Senegal; in Athens, Greece; in San Francisco; in Turkey and more. On Saturday, in Washington, D.C., tens of thousands, perhaps 100,000 — organizers say as many as 300,000 — people marched from Freedom Plaza, which they dubbed "Gaza Plaza," to the White House in the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in U.S. history. Democracy Now! was there. Democracy Now! producers Messiah Rhodes and María Taracena spoke with some of the protesters.
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine!
AHMAD MALKAWI: I'm Ahmad Malkawi. I'm here to support stopping the war in Gaza now.
MESSIAH RHODES: How far did you travel to get here? And what would you say to Joe Biden if he was here right now?
AHMAD MALKAWI: I traveled nine hours from Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky. Joe Biden, stop. Please stop the war. No more war.
OMAR ALKHALDI: My name is Omar Alkhaldi. We traveled from Charlotte, North Carolina. It's absolutely unbelievable, what's going on in Palestine right now. How many more children need to die?
MESSIAH RHODES: How does it feel to see all this support here right now?
OMAR ALKHALDI: Hamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. It's very, very nice. We have a lot of people here today. There's over maybe 100,000 people here in support of Palestine. And that shows that the crimes of Israel are coming out. Right? They're losing the media war at the end of the day. A lot of people are being complacent with what's going on in Israel, and they're on the wrong side of history, unfortunately.
SARAH: My name is Sarah [phon.]. I'm an Egyptian American. And I am inspired to be here to stand for what is right. And what is right is to stop the genocide and to stop the ethnic cleansing.
MARÍA TARACENA: And who are you here with?
SARAH: I'm here with my family, my mother.
SARAH'S MOTHER: I feel terrible. I can't sleep during the night. I can't imagine what's gone on. They kill kids, infant, women. That's not fair, not fair for anybody, any human being.
MARÍA TARACENA: What is your message to mothers in Gaza?
SARAH'S MOTHER: I support her all the way. I wish was here right now. I feel sorry for her, but I can't do anything, just to come here to support her.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
NASSER ABU SITTA: Nasser Abu Sitta. I'm from Gaza, Palestine. And I am here to urge everybody who is making decisions in this government to stop killing children, stop destroying the city. That's not how wars are fought. This is not how we resolve the problems. We are just making it worse.
MARÍA TARACENA: You're from Gaza. Do you have family there? Are you in touch with anyone there right now?
NASSER ABU SITTA: I do. We are in touch on and off as situations allow.
MARÍA TARACENA: How are they? What are they describing to you? And what does it feel like to be here as this is happening?
NASSER ABU SITTA: They have been through so many wars, and this is the most horrifying experience they ever had. They are, just day and night, bombardment, behind them, above them, around them. And they are lucky to be alive. That's how they look at it.
MARÍA TARACENA: Where in Gaza is your family?
NASSER ABU SITTA: Well, it depends what day you're asking. They moved four times so far, from one place to the other.
PROTESTER 1: [chanting in Arabic]
JEFF WALKER: My name is Jeff Walker. I think it's important for us to be here today because we see oppression happening all over the place, you know, and I think, like, if we allow oppression to continue to happen without saying nothing, then it's going to continue to exacerbate.
MESSIAH RHODES: And why is it important to bring your kids here today? Why be here today?
JEFF WALKER: I always tell them to be on the right side of history, you know? And absolutely, it's because the things that's happening to Palestine are the things that we've also been subjected to, you know, in our time in America here, as well. And so, I tell my kids to understand what's going on in this country, and let them know that — give them a quote that Malcolm X said, you know: The media will have you praising oppressor and shaming the oppressed. And so I just want my kids to mindful of, you know, how Palestinians stood up for us and spoke up around Black Lives Matter, then we also gotta speak up for them, as well.
MARÍA TARACENA: What's your name? Where are you from? And what inspired you to be here with your children, with your family?
RAJA DIAZ: I'm Raja. My name is Raja Diaz [phon.]. I'm Palestinian. This is Suhaila. She's just turned 1. And we just had a beautiful birthday party for her, right after everything happened. I was going to cancel because of what's happening in Gaza. But then I looked at the children there, and I said, "For the children's sake, I'm going to have something for her and other children to enjoy," because they — what crime do they have? They don't know what's happening. And I'm here with my Palestinian children to give a voice for the Palestinians that are there back home that have no voice and are being killed by this brutal occupation and genocide that the U.S. — we live here, and our tax dollars are supporting this. And this is a big problem, a big issue, and we want this to end as soon as possible. We don't want no money for Israel. They're committing war crime after war crime, and nothing is being done. It's ridiculous. No other place in the world gets this immunity. No other place.
MARÍA TARACENA: What's your message to mothers in Gaza that have lost their children and have lost sometimes multiple of their family members?
RAJA DIAZ: It's absolutely horrific. You know, me and my mom, we watch these videos, and we just cry and cry and cry. But we're going to tell them: Be strong and keep moving forward, because we're not going to stop fighting for you.
NAWAL KHALIL: They killed our kids! They don't have gun! They don't do any crime! Why? Why? I ask why then. This is the blood on your hand! You killed the kids! Why? This what they do for you, these kids. Oh my God!
MESSIAH RHODES: What are you holding? What's your name?
NAWAL KHALIL: My name is Nawal Khalil. I am here because — to support Gaza. They killed babies. Babies, they don't have gun. Why? Why? I want to ask why then. Why they kill the babies? Give me an answer, please! Please!
PROTESTER 2: They give them time to kill. This is our president. He give more time, long time, to kill more.
PROTESTERS: What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! If we don't get it? Shut it down!
HADDY ALREZ: My name is Haddy Alrez. I live in a suburb of Philadelphia. So, we drove down. These are my kids and my nieces and nephews. My parents lived through the 1948 wars and were displaced and were in the Occupied Territories since — until 1973, until they left with five kids, me being the youngest, to the U.S., just to provide us with a better life. So, seeing all of this unfold and listening to my parents' stories feels like a repetition of what happened in '48. And to somebody in our family, that is a personal experience for all of us. Even though I grew up in the United States, you know, we live it through our parents and our parents' stories. And it feels like it's 100-fold now. You know, it was very traumatic for them, what they went through. They lived in caves, they lived under trees, until they made their way to the West Bank. Their town, my father's village, was completely annihilated. Nothing is left. When I went to visit, the one time I went to visit in the mid-'90s, I went with my dad. And I'll never forget him standing on the side of his village, what used to be his village, that's overcome with all just bush and overgrown in a small canyon, and how my dad looked looking out into the land, which he never went back to for 22 years.
MAHMOUD: My name is Mahmoud. I'm a physician in Boston. Come here in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are going through a genocide right now. As a healthcare worker, we stand with our healthcare colleagues in Gaza right now who are under undescribable circumstances to do their jobs. And right now the situation is beyond belief right now. They're doing surgeries without anesthesia. They're doing surgeries without electricity or without water. It's just something no doctor should ever, you know, be quiet about. I'm carrying this poster in solidarity of the healthcare workers in Gaza. Some of the people who passed away over there are colleagues of us, physicians. Some of them were faculty at the medical school over there. The previous dean of the only medical school in Gaza was killed in an Israeli strike. So, the least we could do is, you know, to let the people their names and show their pictures, and let them know, you know, that they're not numbers. And they died trying to do what they took an oath to do, is to save human life.
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Long live Palestine! Long live Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!
AMY GOODMAN: Just some of the voices of the tens of thousands of people — some say 100,000; organizers, 300,000 — who came to Washington, D.C., from around the country Saturday to join the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in U.S. history. Before the march to the White House, speakers addressed a rally in a packed Freedom Plaza, which they dubbed "Gaza Plaza." We begin with Noura Erakat, Palestinian human rights attorney, associate professor at Rutgers University.
NOURA ERAKAT: We are all here to charge this administration with genocide. … Israel and the United States are jointly complicit in the ongoing Nakba in Palestine. Together, they are rending international law worthless and irrelevant. Every single tribunal, from Nuremberg to Rwanda, from Bosnia to Cambodia, every prosecution at the ICC, was meant to atone for our moral failures, to protect us from ourselves.
And today we fail to stop. Today we fail to stop the skies from crashing down in white phosphorus flames onto Palestinian dreams, memories, potential, onto Palestinian babies not old enough to beseech you to have mercy upon them.
We are here now with them and for them to demand a ceasefire. We are here because Palestine reveals the naked hypocrisy of Western universalism. It reveals our enduring colonial reality, and it offers a glimpse into a future without colonialism.
Falastin, Falastin, where a valiant peple have always existed, where survivors and fighters continue to affirm that they belong to a land upon which there is a life worth living. [speaking in Arabic] We — we — are like olive trees like the ones that our ancestors planted. We are unshaken. We are unmoved. We are undeniable. Stand with us in this promise. We promise, Palestine still promises, that we will all be free! Free, free Palestine!
MASTER OF CEREMONIES 1: Macklemore on deck.
MACKLEMORE: Peace, everybody. You know, first and foremost, this is absolutely beautiful to observe today. I didn't expect to be on a microphone, but — there are thousands of people here that are more qualified to speak on the issue of a free Palestine than myself. But I will say this. They told me to be quiet. They told me to do my research, to go back, that it's too complex to say something, right? To be silent in this moment.
In the last three weeks, I've gone back, and I've done some research. And I am teachable; I don't know enough. But I know enough that this is a genocide. And we are scared. We are watching it unfold. We have been taught to just be complicit, to protect our careers, to protect our interests. And I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm not afraid to speak the truth!
You know, my daughter — my daughter said to me this morning, she said — she's 8 years old. She said, "Dad, when we protest today, when we march today, how are the people in Palestine going to know that we're showing up?" Look at this. Look at this. The world is watching what we do right now in this moment of injustice!
There is no side in humanity. We lead with our hearts. We speak the truth. We shut down the propaganda. And we march forward. Free, free Palestine!
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine!
MACKLEMORE: Free, free Palestine!
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine!
MACKLEMORE: Thank you.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES 2: The very courageous comrades of the Palestinian Feminist Collective.
SARAH IHMOUD: Over 10,000 Palestinians have been martyred, and 70% of those killed in this genocide thus far are women and children. Today in Gaza, there are half a million displaced Palestinian women and girls. Fifty thousand pregnant women are waiting to give birth, with 5,500 expected to deliver next month, without water, without food, without fuel, without life-saving medicine or medical equipment.
PROTESTERS: Shame!
SARAH IHMOUD: Shame! Women have resorted to taking birth control pills to stop their menstrual cycles because of a lack of sanitary pads. Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
SARAH IHMOUD: This targeting of Indigenous women's bodies and sexualities is woven into the genocidal fabric of Israeli settler colonialism.
PROTESTERS: Shame!
SARAH IHMOUD: But our love and care for each other, our insistence to live, our persistence to give birth to the next generation of Palestinians on our homeland, to hold ground amidst the most unlivable conditions, is a testament to the fact that we refuse to die quietly! We refuse the terms of our vanishment. We are a people who teach life and keep creating life, in spite of genocide, through our revolutionary love, our love for each other and our love for our homeland. And that love is something the colonizer can never take away from us! To know this, to feel this love deeply, is to know that we have already won.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES 1: Next up, we have brother Nihad Awad from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
NIHAD AWAD: From the beginning of the bombardment of Gaza, we spoke to President Biden the language of logic, the language of law, the language of humanity. We appealed to him to take a moral position, to recognize 2.3 million civilian residents trapped in Gaza under the attack of the Israeli forces from every imaginable type of modern weaponry, to call him to call for a ceasefire. All these calls and the calls from the world community fell on deaf ears.
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: As the images of the genocide increased, he dehumanized the Palestinians and dismissed their suffering. He denied — he denied the dead Palestinians the right to be acknowledged as dead.
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: He insisted that should be — there should be no ceasefire. The State Department asked their staff not to talk about deescalation.
We have discovered the language that President Biden understands, and let me share it with you. The language that President Biden and his party understand is the language of votes in 2024 elections. And our message is: No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No votes in Michigan. No votes in Arizona. No votes in Georgia. No votes in Nevada. No votes in Wisconsin. No votes in Pennsylvania. No votes in Ohio. No votes for you anywhere, if you do not call for a ceasefire now.
After hearing — after hearing this message in the past week and a half, and the fact that 60% — 66% of Americans support a ceasefire, the president, the secretary of state, Democratic senators and representatives started to change their tone.
We will make our voices heard more and more. In November, we remember. In November, we remember. In November, we remember. In November, we remember. In November, we remember. A White House official told a friend of mine that the community has a short memory. A few months, then they will forget. And let me tell them — let me tell them: In November, we remember. In November, we remember. In November, we remember.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES 1: Next up, we have Mohammed El-Kurd.
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: I want us to take a few minutes to consider the magnitude of loss of life currently happening in the Gaza Strip. I want us to consider what it means to lose 10,000 people, for 10,000 people to be killed by Israeli warplanes. Consider their families and their grief. Consider their lovers. Consider the people missing them. Consider our martyrs' lives, their grievances, their hobbies. And most of all, most of all I want you to consider the fear, the fear that they must have felt as warplanes dropped over their heads, the fear they must have felt minutes before they were killed.
And I want you to compare that fear, I want you to measure that fear against your own fear. It does not compare. I understand it. We're are all afraid of losing a job, of losing a friend, of being ostracized, of being shamed. I called my father earlier. I told him I was coming to this march. He said, "Stay away from the cameras." We're all afraid, but this fear does not compare.
They want us to think that we are paying personal prices, but we have our community. They want us to think that we are alone, but we have our people supporting us. If they come for you, if they come for you, if they take your job, if they fire you from school, if they expel you, do not think of yourself as a casualty. You are not a casualty. You are fuel for the movement. You are part of the struggle. They want us to be silent, but we know silence will not protect us. Fear and silence will do nothing but allow this carnage to go on unchecked. Silence is a sign of consent in the empire. Are we afraid?
PROTESTERS: No!
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Are we afraid?
PROTESTERS: No!
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Are we afraid?
PROTESTERS: No!
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from Saturday's massive rally in Washington, D.C., calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the largest pro-Palestinian march in U.S. history. Special thanks to Democracy Now! producers Hany Massoud, Messiah Rhodes and María Taracena.
Tens of thousands marched from Washington, D.C.'s Freedom Plaza to the White House Saturday in the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in U.S. history. Democracy Now!'s Messiah Rhodes, María Taracena and Hany Massoud spoke to protesters who condemned the U.S. government's support for Israel and called for a ceasefire in Gaza. We also play excerpts from speakers at the protest rally, including lawyer Noura Erakat, musician Macklemore and writer Mohammed El-Kurd.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.
As the Health Ministry in Gaza says the death toll from Israel's bombardment of Gaza for the last month, since October 7th, when Hamas attacked, has reached nearly 10,000 Palestinians. People took to the streets around the world this weekend to call for a ceasefire. They marched in Paris; in London; in Jakarta, Indonesia; in Milan, Italy; in Dakar, Senegal; in Athens, Greece; in San Francisco; in Turkey and more. On Saturday, in Washington, D.C., tens of thousands, perhaps 100,000 — organizers say as many as 300,000 — people marched from Freedom Plaza, which they dubbed "Gaza Plaza," to the White House in the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in U.S. history. Democracy Now! was there. Democracy Now! producers Messiah Rhodes and María Taracena spoke with some of the protesters.
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine!
AHMAD MALKAWI: I'm Ahmad Malkawi. I'm here to support stopping the war in Gaza now.
MESSIAH RHODES: How far did you travel to get here? And what would you say to Joe Biden if he was here right now?
AHMAD MALKAWI: I traveled nine hours from Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky. Joe Biden, stop. Please stop the war. No more war.
OMAR ALKHALDI: My name is Omar Alkhaldi. We traveled from Charlotte, North Carolina. It's absolutely unbelievable, what's going on in Palestine right now. How many more children need to die?
MESSIAH RHODES: How does it feel to see all this support here right now?
OMAR ALKHALDI: Hamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. It's very, very nice. We have a lot of people here today. There's over maybe 100,000 people here in support of Palestine. And that shows that the crimes of Israel are coming out. Right? They're losing the media war at the end of the day. A lot of people are being complacent with what's going on in Israel, and they're on the wrong side of history, unfortunately.
SARAH: My name is Sarah [phon.]. I'm an Egyptian American. And I am inspired to be here to stand for what is right. And what is right is to stop the genocide and to stop the ethnic cleansing.
MARÍA TARACENA: And who are you here with?
SARAH: I'm here with my family, my mother.
SARAH'S MOTHER: I feel terrible. I can't sleep during the night. I can't imagine what's gone on. They kill kids, infant, women. That's not fair, not fair for anybody, any human being.
MARÍA TARACENA: What is your message to mothers in Gaza?
SARAH'S MOTHER: I support her all the way. I wish was here right now. I feel sorry for her, but I can't do anything, just to come here to support her.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
NASSER ABU SITTA: Nasser Abu Sitta. I'm from Gaza, Palestine. And I am here to urge everybody who is making decisions in this government to stop killing children, stop destroying the city. That's not how wars are fought. This is not how we resolve the problems. We are just making it worse.
MARÍA TARACENA: You're from Gaza. Do you have family there? Are you in touch with anyone there right now?
NASSER ABU SITTA: I do. We are in touch on and off as situations allow.
MARÍA TARACENA: How are they? What are they describing to you? And what does it feel like to be here as this is happening?
NASSER ABU SITTA: They have been through so many wars, and this is the most horrifying experience they ever had. They are, just day and night, bombardment, behind them, above them, around them. And they are lucky to be alive. That's how they look at it.
MARÍA TARACENA: Where in Gaza is your family?
NASSER ABU SITTA: Well, it depends what day you're asking. They moved four times so far, from one place to the other.
PROTESTER 1: [chanting in Arabic]
JEFF WALKER: My name is Jeff Walker. I think it's important for us to be here today because we see oppression happening all over the place, you know, and I think, like, if we allow oppression to continue to happen without saying nothing, then it's going to continue to exacerbate.
MESSIAH RHODES: And why is it important to bring your kids here today? Why be here today?
JEFF WALKER: I always tell them to be on the right side of history, you know? And absolutely, it's because the things that's happening to Palestine are the things that we've also been subjected to, you know, in our time in America here, as well. And so, I tell my kids to understand what's going on in this country, and let them know that — give them a quote that Malcolm X said, you know: The media will have you praising oppressor and shaming the oppressed. And so I just want my kids to mindful of, you know, how Palestinians stood up for us and spoke up around Black Lives Matter, then we also gotta speak up for them, as well.
MARÍA TARACENA: What's your name? Where are you from? And what inspired you to be here with your children, with your family?
RAJA DIAZ: I'm Raja. My name is Raja Diaz [phon.]. I'm Palestinian. This is Suhaila. She's just turned 1. And we just had a beautiful birthday party for her, right after everything happened. I was going to cancel because of what's happening in Gaza. But then I looked at the children there, and I said, "For the children's sake, I'm going to have something for her and other children to enjoy," because they — what crime do they have? They don't know what's happening. And I'm here with my Palestinian children to give a voice for the Palestinians that are there back home that have no voice and are being killed by this brutal occupation and genocide that the U.S. — we live here, and our tax dollars are supporting this. And this is a big problem, a big issue, and we want this to end as soon as possible. We don't want no money for Israel. They're committing war crime after war crime, and nothing is being done. It's ridiculous. No other place in the world gets this immunity. No other place.
MARÍA TARACENA: What's your message to mothers in Gaza that have lost their children and have lost sometimes multiple of their family members?
RAJA DIAZ: It's absolutely horrific. You know, me and my mom, we watch these videos, and we just cry and cry and cry. But we're going to tell them: Be strong and keep moving forward, because we're not going to stop fighting for you.
NAWAL KHALIL: They killed our kids! They don't have gun! They don't do any crime! Why? Why? I ask why then. This is the blood on your hand! You killed the kids! Why? This what they do for you, these kids. Oh my God!
MESSIAH RHODES: What are you holding? What's your name?
NAWAL KHALIL: My name is Nawal Khalil. I am here because — to support Gaza. They killed babies. Babies, they don't have gun. Why? Why? I want to ask why then. Why they kill the babies? Give me an answer, please! Please!
PROTESTER 2: They give them time to kill. This is our president. He give more time, long time, to kill more.
PROTESTERS: What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! If we don't get it? Shut it down!
HADDY ALREZ: My name is Haddy Alrez. I live in a suburb of Philadelphia. So, we drove down. These are my kids and my nieces and nephews. My parents lived through the 1948 wars and were displaced and were in the Occupied Territories since — until 1973, until they left with five kids, me being the youngest, to the U.S., just to provide us with a better life. So, seeing all of this unfold and listening to my parents' stories feels like a repetition of what happened in '48. And to somebody in our family, that is a personal experience for all of us. Even though I grew up in the United States, you know, we live it through our parents and our parents' stories. And it feels like it's 100-fold now. You know, it was very traumatic for them, what they went through. They lived in caves, they lived under trees, until they made their way to the West Bank. Their town, my father's village, was completely annihilated. Nothing is left. When I went to visit, the one time I went to visit in the mid-'90s, I went with my dad. And I'll never forget him standing on the side of his village, what used to be his village, that's overcome with all just bush and overgrown in a small canyon, and how my dad looked looking out into the land, which he never went back to for 22 years.
MAHMOUD: My name is Mahmoud. I'm a physician in Boston. Come here in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are going through a genocide right now. As a healthcare worker, we stand with our healthcare colleagues in Gaza right now who are under undescribable circumstances to do their jobs. And right now the situation is beyond belief right now. They're doing surgeries without anesthesia. They're doing surgeries without electricity or without water. It's just something no doctor should ever, you know, be quiet about. I'm carrying this poster in solidarity of the healthcare workers in Gaza. Some of the people who passed away over there are colleagues of us, physicians. Some of them were faculty at the medical school over there. The previous dean of the only medical school in Gaza was killed in an Israeli strike. So, the least we could do is, you know, to let the people their names and show their pictures, and let them know, you know, that they're not numbers. And they died trying to do what they took an oath to do, is to save human life.
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Long live Palestine! Long live Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!
AMY GOODMAN: Just some of the voices of the tens of thousands of people — some say 100,000; organizers, 300,000 — who came to Washington, D.C., from around the country Saturday to join the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in U.S. history. Before the march to the White House, speakers addressed a rally in a packed Freedom Plaza, which they dubbed "Gaza Plaza." We begin with Noura Erakat, Palestinian human rights attorney, associate professor at Rutgers University.
NOURA ERAKAT: We are all here to charge this administration with genocide. … Israel and the United States are jointly complicit in the ongoing Nakba in Palestine. Together, they are rending international law worthless and irrelevant. Every single tribunal, from Nuremberg to Rwanda, from Bosnia to Cambodia, every prosecution at the ICC, was meant to atone for our moral failures, to protect us from ourselves.
And today we fail to stop. Today we fail to stop the skies from crashing down in white phosphorus flames onto Palestinian dreams, memories, potential, onto Palestinian babies not old enough to beseech you to have mercy upon them.
We are here now with them and for them to demand a ceasefire. We are here because Palestine reveals the naked hypocrisy of Western universalism. It reveals our enduring colonial reality, and it offers a glimpse into a future without colonialism.
Falastin, Falastin, where a valiant peple have always existed, where survivors and fighters continue to affirm that they belong to a land upon which there is a life worth living. [speaking in Arabic] We — we — are like olive trees like the ones that our ancestors planted. We are unshaken. We are unmoved. We are undeniable. Stand with us in this promise. We promise, Palestine still promises, that we will all be free! Free, free Palestine!
MASTER OF CEREMONIES 1: Macklemore on deck.
MACKLEMORE: Peace, everybody. You know, first and foremost, this is absolutely beautiful to observe today. I didn't expect to be on a microphone, but — there are thousands of people here that are more qualified to speak on the issue of a free Palestine than myself. But I will say this. They told me to be quiet. They told me to do my research, to go back, that it's too complex to say something, right? To be silent in this moment.
In the last three weeks, I've gone back, and I've done some research. And I am teachable; I don't know enough. But I know enough that this is a genocide. And we are scared. We are watching it unfold. We have been taught to just be complicit, to protect our careers, to protect our interests. And I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm not afraid to speak the truth!
You know, my daughter — my daughter said to me this morning, she said — she's 8 years old. She said, "Dad, when we protest today, when we march today, how are the people in Palestine going to know that we're showing up?" Look at this. Look at this. The world is watching what we do right now in this moment of injustice!
There is no side in humanity. We lead with our hearts. We speak the truth. We shut down the propaganda. And we march forward. Free, free Palestine!
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine!
MACKLEMORE: Free, free Palestine!
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine!
MACKLEMORE: Thank you.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES 2: The very courageous comrades of the Palestinian Feminist Collective.
SARAH IHMOUD: Over 10,000 Palestinians have been martyred, and 70% of those killed in this genocide thus far are women and children. Today in Gaza, there are half a million displaced Palestinian women and girls. Fifty thousand pregnant women are waiting to give birth, with 5,500 expected to deliver next month, without water, without food, without fuel, without life-saving medicine or medical equipment.
PROTESTERS: Shame!
SARAH IHMOUD: Shame! Women have resorted to taking birth control pills to stop their menstrual cycles because of a lack of sanitary pads. Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
SARAH IHMOUD: This targeting of Indigenous women's bodies and sexualities is woven into the genocidal fabric of Israeli settler colonialism.
PROTESTERS: Shame!
SARAH IHMOUD: But our love and care for each other, our insistence to live, our persistence to give birth to the next generation of Palestinians on our homeland, to hold ground amidst the most unlivable conditions, is a testament to the fact that we refuse to die quietly! We refuse the terms of our vanishment. We are a people who teach life and keep creating life, in spite of genocide, through our revolutionary love, our love for each other and our love for our homeland. And that love is something the colonizer can never take away from us! To know this, to feel this love deeply, is to know that we have already won.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES 1: Next up, we have brother Nihad Awad from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
NIHAD AWAD: From the beginning of the bombardment of Gaza, we spoke to President Biden the language of logic, the language of law, the language of humanity. We appealed to him to take a moral position, to recognize 2.3 million civilian residents trapped in Gaza under the attack of the Israeli forces from every imaginable type of modern weaponry, to call him to call for a ceasefire. All these calls and the calls from the world community fell on deaf ears.
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: As the images of the genocide increased, he dehumanized the Palestinians and dismissed their suffering. He denied — he denied the dead Palestinians the right to be acknowledged as dead.
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: Shame!
PROTESTERS: Shame!
NIHAD AWAD: He insisted that should be — there should be no ceasefire. The State Department asked their staff not to talk about deescalation.
We have discovered the language that President Biden understands, and let me share it with you. The language that President Biden and his party understand is the language of votes in 2024 elections. And our message is: No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No ceasefire, no votes. No votes in Michigan. No votes in Arizona. No votes in Georgia. No votes in Nevada. No votes in Wisconsin. No votes in Pennsylvania. No votes in Ohio. No votes for you anywhere, if you do not call for a ceasefire now.
After hearing — after hearing this message in the past week and a half, and the fact that 60% — 66% of Americans support a ceasefire, the president, the secretary of state, Democratic senators and representatives started to change their tone.
We will make our voices heard more and more. In November, we remember. In November, we remember. In November, we remember. In November, we remember. In November, we remember. A White House official told a friend of mine that the community has a short memory. A few months, then they will forget. And let me tell them — let me tell them: In November, we remember. In November, we remember. In November, we remember.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES 1: Next up, we have Mohammed El-Kurd.
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: I want us to take a few minutes to consider the magnitude of loss of life currently happening in the Gaza Strip. I want us to consider what it means to lose 10,000 people, for 10,000 people to be killed by Israeli warplanes. Consider their families and their grief. Consider their lovers. Consider the people missing them. Consider our martyrs' lives, their grievances, their hobbies. And most of all, most of all I want you to consider the fear, the fear that they must have felt as warplanes dropped over their heads, the fear they must have felt minutes before they were killed.
And I want you to compare that fear, I want you to measure that fear against your own fear. It does not compare. I understand it. We're are all afraid of losing a job, of losing a friend, of being ostracized, of being shamed. I called my father earlier. I told him I was coming to this march. He said, "Stay away from the cameras." We're all afraid, but this fear does not compare.
They want us to think that we are paying personal prices, but we have our community. They want us to think that we are alone, but we have our people supporting us. If they come for you, if they come for you, if they take your job, if they fire you from school, if they expel you, do not think of yourself as a casualty. You are not a casualty. You are fuel for the movement. You are part of the struggle. They want us to be silent, but we know silence will not protect us. Fear and silence will do nothing but allow this carnage to go on unchecked. Silence is a sign of consent in the empire. Are we afraid?
PROTESTERS: No!
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Are we afraid?
PROTESTERS: No!
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Are we afraid?
PROTESTERS: No!
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from Saturday's massive rally in Washington, D.C., calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the largest pro-Palestinian march in U.S. history. Special thanks to Democracy Now! producers Hany Massoud, Messiah Rhodes and María Taracena.
When we come back, we go to Gaza to hear from the poet Ahmed Abu Artema, who inspired the Great March of Return. Last month he lost five members of his family. He speaks from his hospital bed. Back in 20 seconds.
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Gazan poet, journalist and peace activist Ahmed Abu Artema describes how he lost five members of his family, including his 12-year-old son, in an Israeli airstrike on his house on October 24. Abu Artema was seriously injured and sent Democracy Now! an audio message from his hospital bed. "Israel didn't bombard my house, didn't kill my child by mistake. It's the Israeli strategy," he says. "Israel's problem is Palestinian existence itself."
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman.
Shortly before today's show, Democracy Now! reached the Palestinian poet, journalist and peace activist Ahmed Abu Artema, who lost five members of his family last month when they were killed by an Israeli airstrike. He survived the blast but was seriously injured. The dead include his 12-year-old son. Artema helped inspire the Great March of Return, a series of weekly nonviolent protests in Gaza that began in 2018. Israel responded to the protests by killing over 200 protesters, including 46 children. Artema recently wrote an article for The Electronic Intifada headlined "Why did Israel kill my son?" He sent us this audio message from his hospital bed.
AHMED ABU ARTEMA: In the morning of October 24th, I was sitting with my children in the living room of the house of my family. It's a house of three floors. There were about 40 members in the house at that moment. Suddenly I became unconscious. Maybe after a few minutes, I wake up again. I saw dust and rubble surrounding me everywhere. I knew at that moment that the house where I was with my children was bombing. My hearing at that time was gone. I didn't hear anything, but I looked around me. I looked around me. I saw my two children, Hammoud and Batool, screaming and sticking to me and pointing to my other child, my oldest child, Abboud, their brother. And they are shouting. Abboud was lying on the floor. The people came and took us from the rubble, and we went to the hospital by ambulance.
I knew that my four — four ladies at that place, my two aunts and my father's wife and my cousin, were killed at the same time, at the first time of the bombing. My child Abboud and my niece — she's about 10 years old also — they were in critical condition. A day after, they were killed. The majority of the family, most of them were injured.
This is what happened with me, and this is an example of the daily Israeli bombing against Gaza. Israelis are claiming and saying that it's a war against Hamas. But where is Hamas? Take my house as example. Four women and two children were killed in this Israeli strike. And this is what's happening every day. Thousands, the vast majority, of the victims of this Israeli war until now are innocent women and men and children, complete families. Israel is targeting the families.
Israel declared it clearly that its problem is with the Palestinians themselves, not with a faction or with a group. The Israeli problem is the Palestinian existence itself. So it's not by mistake. Israel didn't bombard my house, didn't kill my child by mistake. It's the Israeli strategy. It's the Israeli mindset of genocide against the Palestinians. Israel look at us as nothing. We are nothing, we are human animals, in their perspective. So they don't care to remove all the Palestinian cities, to kill all the Palestinians.
The most horrible, that the world is still allowing for this Israeli genocide to happen. This is the horrible thing. Israel is supported completely by the United States administration. The missile that killed my son Abboud, and the missiles that killed thousands of the Palestinians are U.S.-made. So, we are subjected to genocide. This is the most important message.
AMY GOODMAN: Palestinian poet Ahmed Abu Artema, who inspired the Great March of Return protest years ago. Last month he lost five members of his family, just a week or two ago, including his son, in an Israeli airstrike. He was injured in the strike, recorded this message from his hospital bed.
Israel says it is responsible for an attack on a convoy of ambulances outside Gaza's largest hospital on Friday that killed at least 15 people. Meanwhile, doctors in Gaza lack the resources to provide adequate care to the sick and injured, thanks to Israel's blockade of water, food and fuel from entering the besieged region. For more on the rapidly deteriorating state of medical care in Gaza and Israel's illegal targeting of medical providers, we speak with Dr. Alice Rothchild, a retired OB-GYN who has long worked in Palestine and is a member of the steering committee of the Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I'm Amy Goodman.
The Gaza Health Ministry has announced the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has now exceeded 10,000 from Israel's monthlong bombardment. On Friday, at least 15 people died when an Israeli airstrike hit a convoy of ambulances outside Gaza's largest hospital.
We're ending the show with Dr. Alice Rothchild, retired OB-GYN who has long worked in Palestine, was last in Gaza in August. On Friday, Dr. Rothchild participated in a nonviolent protest to shut down the Federal Building in Seattle, where Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington has an office, urging the senator to call for an immediate ceasefire. Dr. Rothchild is on the steering committee of Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council and mentor liaison for We Are Not Numbers, on the board of Gaza Mental Health Foundation.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Dr. Rothchild. If you can talk about the attacks on hospitals right now? You have the attack on the ambulance convoy. Israel said it's because they were transporting Hamas fighters. You have the attack on the hospitals, like Al-Shifa, the largest. Israel says it's because command and control is underneath. Can you comment on all of this and the number, the death toll at this point?
DR. ALICE ROTHCHILD: Well, this is an appalling situation in terms of the death toll. And there are multiple international laws, starting with the Geneva Accords, that are being violated. You are not allowed, under any circumstances, to bomb hospitals, to bomb health centers, to bomb ambulances. This is against international law. Israel has —Israeli military has for years, with multiple different attacks, accused health facilities of sheltering, quote, "terrorists." They have never produced good documentation. And even if there were, for instance, tunnels under a hospital, you are still not allowed to bomb a hospital. So this is a grave violation of international law and also part of the situation where civilians are dying in massive numbers and being injured in massive numbers.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you comment on the level of protest that you're seeing right now and the amount of suffering that you're seeing right now in Gaza? You have these 18 groups, rarely, issuing a joint statement, NGOs, along with U.N. agencies, demanding a ceasefire. And what this would mean, and what Senator Murray has said to you as a representative of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Gaza Mental Health Foundation, as you shut down the Federal Building in Seattle?
DR. ALICE ROTHCHILD: Well, I think that I've been doing this for — solidarity work for 25 years, and this kind of response is unprecedented. And I think it's a reflection of the unprecedented nature of the Israeli attack. And Senator Murray has not been willing to call for a ceasefire. But people all over this country and all over the planet are calling for a ceasefire, because we must stop this bombing, and we must stop all of the civilian death.
It is clear that the Israeli military is not doing a war to destroy Hamas, whatever that means. It is a war to destroy Gaza and destroying the infrastructure and killing thousands of people. You know, over half the homes are destroyed. A third of the hospitals are destroyed. It's just a massive, massive catastrophe for this region. And there is thought that this is all part of an Israeli plan to run Gazans out of Gaza and displace them into Egypt. There are all sorts of horrific ideas going around. So, the response to this is all being seen internationally.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the health situation? We just came out of the third total blackout of Gaza, with health organizations, human rights groups begging the Israeli government to turn back on the electricity, the cellular service, because of what it means for people, organizations that are trying to coordinate their surviving workers on the ground to help the Palestinians.
DR. ALICE ROTHCHILD: Well, the health system is catastrophic. It has collapsed. And if you think about it, what it means not have electricity, you cannot call an ambulance. You're in labor. You cannot communicate with anyone. Hospitals can't communicate with each other. They can't pump water into the system. There is no — almost no water at all that's clean. That means you can't wash your sterile instruments. You can't wash wounds. There's a lack of antibiotics. People are dying of infection.
I mean, it goes on and on and on, if you think about not having water, not having electricity and also not having food. There is now a serious risk of starvation. The average Gazan is living on two pieces of bread a day and spending hours searching for water. And people are starting to drink agricultural water, so we're seeing an uptick in diarrheal diseases, respiratory infections, chickenpox. You know, this is a humanitarian and health catastrophe that is basically being live-streamed in front of our eyes.
AMY GOODMAN: And the position of the Biden administration? We just have 30 seconds at this point.
DR. ALICE ROTHCHILD: The position of the Biden administration is entirely inadequate and utterly outrageous. Biden needs to call for a ceasefire. The U.S. is sending — planning to send Israel more weapons, that will only create more havoc. So, Israel should not be getting weapons, and Biden must, must, must call for a total ceasefire. That is absolutely necessary from a humanitarian, healthcare, political, human and moral point of view.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Alice Rothchild, we thank you for you for being with us. We'll continue our conversation and post it online at democracynow.org. Retired OB-GYN who has long worked in Palestine, was in Gaza in August, on the steering committee of Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council.
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