In our continued coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ralph welcomes James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute and author of "Palestinians: The Invisible Victims.” Then, no-nukes activist Harvey Wasserman joins to warn us about the dangerous condition of nuclear reactors across the country, including the threat of “embrittlement” at the California reactor in Diablo Canyon.
I'm posting below a link to a web site where people can read a statement about the horrific situation and "sign to support immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine." This is sponsored by US Representative to Congress, Rashida Tliab, and I learned about this in an email from Justice Democrats.
Since 1947 uncritical support of Israel without reparations and compensation for lives lost during their warS, for lives lost, businesses stolen or destoyed, homes destroyed or land stolen by settlers or military in OCCUPIED foreign-mostly Jordan, Egypt-- territories; toward indigenous Palestinians has been a ethical, moral failure of the Cold War and onward. Yes, BOTH sides in these conflicts have engaged in terrorism and are at fault; and both should lay down all arms and attend UN sponsored peace talks that give BOTH sides defensible borders and access to trade and work and restoration to more normal lives. The main error was the 1920s oil oligarchs-USA and UK-- NOT adopting Lawrence of Arabia's plan for indigenous homelands for ALL populations in the post WWI Ottoman Empire's Levant lands. The whole world has been held captive to this greed mistake for over a century. The imposition of apartheid by the zionist Israelis proves they have NOT learned the real lessons of the WWII Holocaust. Only if two nations emerge from such peace talks OR a true Federation of Israel and Palestine as ONE nation state with full citizenship and property and voting rights for Arabs will this inhumanity stupidity ever have an end.
by “Hamas” Biden met simultaneously with both Zelensky & Netanyahu.
“It is possible” that this “Suicide Attack” was “Staged” so USA could use Isreal in Ukraine,
Iran, China & Africa .. especially to take over the BRIC Countries.
I say BLACKMAIL was involved so this clandestine confrontation would have an Arab~Face.
I say the Isreali’s need to demand equalization
for the homeland their Roots are in & they took care of for so many generations.
I believe the NATO FORCES wish to poision & bomb this living planet (that has no rites anymore) & use space stations to play shooting games at is from space (such as with their thermal devices & to eliminate all oxygen in closed areas as was done in Torah Bora.
Great show. Zogby is clear-headed, informative, and brave. One observation: I’m not satisfied with his answer to the question of why it took six hours for the Israeli military to respond.
Even if the military were completely “bogged down” in the West Bank, how long could it have taken for it to remove itself to the other side of this tiny country if it wanted to do so? It could not have been uninformed about the situation for that long, and there were also cryptic reports just after 10/7 that Egyptian intelligence told Israeli intelligence, and I believe Netanyahu himself, before 10/7 that something big was about to happen and that those warnings were ignored. The same pattern was present after 9/11: clear warnings ignored, inexplicably slow response time that, in my view, has never been adequately explained.
Zogby could at least have added that this must be investigated before coming to any confident conclusions about the reason(s) for this catastrophic fiasco.
I appreciate Zogby's condemning the attack on Oct 6th and not using the word "but" and I I will respond to James Zogby offer for his book.. Maybe after reading the book it will give me an answer to my question. How to you separate Hamas from the Palestinian people that live in the Gaza Strip?
The topic of this episode is very similar to Mr. Nader’s recent blog post. Most of what was said in the dialog between Mr. Nader and Mr. Zogby, along with what is in the blog post, is correct. That said, the same problem I pointed out last week with the previous RNRH episode is repeated in this week’s RNRH and in Mr. Nader’s blog post.
“Biden did come back with a bill for the American taxpayers – who for decades have been forced to pay for these Israeli wars.
…
That sum of money, to be authorized without any Congressional hearings or Congressional oversight, is greater than the combined annual budgets of the FDA, OSHA, NHTSA and the section of HHS, whose missions are to reduce the loss of hundreds of thousands of preventable American fatalities in the workplace, on the highways, and in the marketplace and the hospitals.”
The first sentence in the above quote is balderdash. There is not a taxpayer bill for funding the Israeli wars. Similarly, there will not be taxpayer bills if funding is expanded for FDA, OSHA, NHTSA, healthcare, or anything else. Tax returns, though completely necessary, are canceled money. They do not fund US federal government spending. This is not how government spending works when government is a currency issuer with a fiat currency and that is what we have with the US federal government.
Of course, there is a very high cost to the American public, and the global population as a whole, for the US’s support of genocide in the Middle East and other US foreign policy misadventures which have been mentioned in previous RNRH episodes. First is the culpability that our government is supporting genocide. Beyond that, there is a tremendous environmental cost to all of these military actions. We are contributing to the global refugee crisis which has only led to the rise of the likes of Trump across the west. Our foreign policy misadventures create significant domestic security risks for the US and for other countries including Israel. Our foreign policy misadventures leads to further cultural backwardness at home and certainly abroad. These are just some of the high humanitarian costs, rather than budgetary costs, of our actions. These are the costs Mr. Nader should have mentioned, not the piffle regarding ‘taxpayer money’.
On a related point, Mr. Wasserman made the connection between the nuclear arms industry and nuclear power. Given what I wrote above, the solution is simple: nationalize the military industry and right-size it to support only national defense. This would eliminate the nuclear arms industry and their need for corporate welfare-fueled expansion, via military misadventures, merely to please Wall Street. Naturally, full employment must also be funded to make this politically viable.
While I really do appreciate Mr. Nader’s efforts to accurately portray what is going on in the Middle East, Mr. Nader’s economic follies here, and elsewhere, severely tarnishes the credibility of Mr. Nader’s arguments. I hope Mr. Nader will put stubbornness aside and will do better in the future so that I can recommend these episodes to others without qualification.
Invisible Palestinians
“When a Man lies, he murders a part of the World.”
—(Paul Gerhardt, German Hymn Writer.)
“Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity.”
—Marshall McLuhan, 1911- 1980.
I'm posting below a link to a web site where people can read a statement about the horrific situation and "sign to support immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine." This is sponsored by US Representative to Congress, Rashida Tliab, and I learned about this in an email from Justice Democrats.
https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-to-support-immediate-de-escalation-and-ceasefire-in-israel-and-occupied-palestine/?source=group-justice-democrats&referrer=group-justice-democrats&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.actblue.com%2Fdonate%2Fjdem-20231022%3Frefcode%3Dem20231022
Since 1947 uncritical support of Israel without reparations and compensation for lives lost during their warS, for lives lost, businesses stolen or destoyed, homes destroyed or land stolen by settlers or military in OCCUPIED foreign-mostly Jordan, Egypt-- territories; toward indigenous Palestinians has been a ethical, moral failure of the Cold War and onward. Yes, BOTH sides in these conflicts have engaged in terrorism and are at fault; and both should lay down all arms and attend UN sponsored peace talks that give BOTH sides defensible borders and access to trade and work and restoration to more normal lives. The main error was the 1920s oil oligarchs-USA and UK-- NOT adopting Lawrence of Arabia's plan for indigenous homelands for ALL populations in the post WWI Ottoman Empire's Levant lands. The whole world has been held captive to this greed mistake for over a century. The imposition of apartheid by the zionist Israelis proves they have NOT learned the real lessons of the WWII Holocaust. Only if two nations emerge from such peace talks OR a true Federation of Israel and Palestine as ONE nation state with full citizenship and property and voting rights for Arabs will this inhumanity stupidity ever have an end.
The weekend prior to the “Invasive Attack”
by “Hamas” Biden met simultaneously with both Zelensky & Netanyahu.
“It is possible” that this “Suicide Attack” was “Staged” so USA could use Isreal in Ukraine,
Iran, China & Africa .. especially to take over the BRIC Countries.
I say BLACKMAIL was involved so this clandestine confrontation would have an Arab~Face.
I say the Isreali’s need to demand equalization
for the homeland their Roots are in & they took care of for so many generations.
I believe the NATO FORCES wish to poision & bomb this living planet (that has no rites anymore) & use space stations to play shooting games at is from space (such as with their thermal devices & to eliminate all oxygen in closed areas as was done in Torah Bora.
Great show. Zogby is clear-headed, informative, and brave. One observation: I’m not satisfied with his answer to the question of why it took six hours for the Israeli military to respond.
Even if the military were completely “bogged down” in the West Bank, how long could it have taken for it to remove itself to the other side of this tiny country if it wanted to do so? It could not have been uninformed about the situation for that long, and there were also cryptic reports just after 10/7 that Egyptian intelligence told Israeli intelligence, and I believe Netanyahu himself, before 10/7 that something big was about to happen and that those warnings were ignored. The same pattern was present after 9/11: clear warnings ignored, inexplicably slow response time that, in my view, has never been adequately explained.
Zogby could at least have added that this must be investigated before coming to any confident conclusions about the reason(s) for this catastrophic fiasco.
I appreciate Zogby's condemning the attack on Oct 6th and not using the word "but" and I I will respond to James Zogby offer for his book.. Maybe after reading the book it will give me an answer to my question. How to you separate Hamas from the Palestinian people that live in the Gaza Strip?
The topic of this episode is very similar to Mr. Nader’s recent blog post. Most of what was said in the dialog between Mr. Nader and Mr. Zogby, along with what is in the blog post, is correct. That said, the same problem I pointed out last week with the previous RNRH episode is repeated in this week’s RNRH and in Mr. Nader’s blog post.
To make things easier, I’ll quote from Mr. Nader’s blog post (https://nader.org/2023/10/20/biden-returns-empty-handed-except-for-a-huge-bill-for-the-american-taxpayers/):
“Biden did come back with a bill for the American taxpayers – who for decades have been forced to pay for these Israeli wars.
…
That sum of money, to be authorized without any Congressional hearings or Congressional oversight, is greater than the combined annual budgets of the FDA, OSHA, NHTSA and the section of HHS, whose missions are to reduce the loss of hundreds of thousands of preventable American fatalities in the workplace, on the highways, and in the marketplace and the hospitals.”
The first sentence in the above quote is balderdash. There is not a taxpayer bill for funding the Israeli wars. Similarly, there will not be taxpayer bills if funding is expanded for FDA, OSHA, NHTSA, healthcare, or anything else. Tax returns, though completely necessary, are canceled money. They do not fund US federal government spending. This is not how government spending works when government is a currency issuer with a fiat currency and that is what we have with the US federal government.
Of course, there is a very high cost to the American public, and the global population as a whole, for the US’s support of genocide in the Middle East and other US foreign policy misadventures which have been mentioned in previous RNRH episodes. First is the culpability that our government is supporting genocide. Beyond that, there is a tremendous environmental cost to all of these military actions. We are contributing to the global refugee crisis which has only led to the rise of the likes of Trump across the west. Our foreign policy misadventures create significant domestic security risks for the US and for other countries including Israel. Our foreign policy misadventures leads to further cultural backwardness at home and certainly abroad. These are just some of the high humanitarian costs, rather than budgetary costs, of our actions. These are the costs Mr. Nader should have mentioned, not the piffle regarding ‘taxpayer money’.
On a related point, Mr. Wasserman made the connection between the nuclear arms industry and nuclear power. Given what I wrote above, the solution is simple: nationalize the military industry and right-size it to support only national defense. This would eliminate the nuclear arms industry and their need for corporate welfare-fueled expansion, via military misadventures, merely to please Wall Street. Naturally, full employment must also be funded to make this politically viable.
While I really do appreciate Mr. Nader’s efforts to accurately portray what is going on in the Middle East, Mr. Nader’s economic follies here, and elsewhere, severely tarnishes the credibility of Mr. Nader’s arguments. I hope Mr. Nader will put stubbornness aside and will do better in the future so that I can recommend these episodes to others without qualification.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnAe5fSPFto
Pete Seeger, Dar Williams, David Bernz & Rivertown Kids sing Solartopia
Writer & Poet Mona Damluji:
When I say Palestine, I bear witness to the atrocities of history.
When I say Palestine, I believe another world is possible.
When I say Palestine, I remember how all the keys worn around their necks,
once fit snugly in the palm of their hands as they arrived Home.
When I say Palestine, I see beautiful people healing tree roots torn from the Land.
When I say Palestine, I know right from wrong.
When I say Palestine, I stand proudly on the shoulders of giants and dig my heel into the eye of the monster.
When I say Palestine, I mean Falastin and not occupied territories.
When I say Palestine, I dream of wide open spaces where Life is thriving.
When I say Palestine, I hear the cries of the grassroots, the unstoppable, the victors of this moral battleground.
You can’t make me say conflict, when I mean occupation.
You can’t make me say clash, when I mean they dropped bombs that flattened a city block.
You can’t make me say both sides. You can’t make me say it’s complicated.
You can’t make me say endless cycle of Violence.
When I say, I see how this ends, I mean Peace.
When I say, I see how this ends, I mean Justice.
When I say, I see how this ends, I mean PALESTINE..