3. Of the 1,416 Palestinian noncombatant casualties of Israeli brutality (including live fire) on Mar 30, 179 were minors under the age of 18. There were no Israeli casualties. This was a sheer slaughter. Excerpt from @WHO report: >
4. Here's the @WHO's breakdown of the causes of the severe injuries from Israeli fire during Mar 3o #GreatMarchOfReturn: 758 of the 1,010 were from gunshot wounds. Click to see whole graph. >
5. Even while hospitals & med centers in #Gaza worked overtime thru the night after Mar 30 #GreatMarchOfReturn to deal w casualties (in addition to the 15/16 killed), at 8pm NYC time the UN Security Council met to discuss it, at Kuwait's urging. >
6. You can see @UNWebTV's whole video of the 70-min UNSC meeting here: webtv.un.org/search/the-sit… Main staff briefing was given by Tayé-Brook Zerihoun, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs. >
7. Zerihoun's briefing seemed to give too much credence to what his people had been told by the Israelis. He said that the #GreatMarchOfReturn "resulted in violence"-- as if the violence came from both sides? >
8. Zerihoun also said some casualties came "during armed clashes btwn Palestinians & Israeli security forces including the shelling of a Hamas observation point." This makes it seem both sides engaged in these "clashes", tho no-one has presented evidence of any Pal/Hamas firing.>
9. As we know, the "casualties came during clashes" theme was broadly picked up by many US MSM including @nytimes. Plus, Israeli propagandists tried to portray many of the Palestinians killed as "active-duty" #Hamas fighters tho international law clearly states that >
10. All noncombatants deserve equal protection, whether they're total civilians or individuals who may have previously engaged in combat but are currently not fighting (as with off-duty, civvie-clad IDF reservists, etc.) Previous military service *not* relevant. >
11. Anyway, the "armed clashes" theme was a weakness in Zerihoun's briefing, tho he was careful to hedge a little by attributing it to "some reports indicate that... " >
12. But the wording of the UNSC's "official" report of the meeting had a very misleading intro, describing what happened as "the killing of civilians in Gaza during a peaceful protest that had erupted in violence." un.org/press/en/2018/… >
13. As though the violence came from the demonstrators?? >
14. Also, during the UNSC meeting the US rep there (not Nikki Haley but a deputy) callously blamed the victims, saying: “Bad actors who use protests as a cover to incite violence endanger innocent lives.” >
15. Thus far, the UNSC has done nothing concrete (in the past 70 years!) to protect the Palestinians from #Israel's devastating recent violence. >
16. It was of the UNSC that in Nov 1947 imperiously "gave" 65% of #Palestine over to the country's tiny Jewish minority to build themselves a "Jewish state" there. UNSC's #PartitionPlan also decreed the birth of a smaller "Arab state of Palestine" alongside, but that >
17. was strangled at birth by a combo of Zionist/Israeli aggression & the oppressive arrival/control of the vestiges of Palestine by British-controlled armies of Egypt, Jordan. (UK still has a permanent seat on UNSC-- why??) >
18. Anyway, on #MLK50 anniversary, we note the courage, dedication, resilience, creativity, & discipline of all taking part in or organizing Palestine's 2018 #GreatMarchOfReturn. One great account of its Mar 30 launch was by @LaRawanPal: nytimes.com/2018/04/03/opi… >
19. Their courage & clarity seem to be striking a good chord worldwide, including inside US political system. @AliAbunimah has made the important observation that "Not one Democrat has defended Israel" over the atrocities it committed last Friday: electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abun…
20. @AliAbunimah notes that tho only 3 Dems have actually *criticized* Israel's murderous excess Friday, still the fact that no Dems have *defended* it is a real change. Including, during Israel's 2014 assault against #Gaza, many Dems expressed strong support for #Israel. >
21. Including in 2014 there was a Dem president who gave Israel "carte blanche" to do as it wanted. >
22. Looking forward to next 5 weeks of #GreatMarchOfReturn, what can we expect? The organizers of this action can be expected to continue to use creativity and civilian mass organizing to continue the action. >
23. We note the very deep history of Palestinians of *all* political stripes (including Hamas) engaging in civilian mass organizing. For their part, we can expect the Israelis to seek to disrupt such organizing through provocations or diversionary attacks, and to >
24. Continue to try to discredit the organizers of the #GreatMarchOfReturn by labeling them as "terrorists" or whatever. >
25. Everyone reporting on future #GMOR actions shd be careful in their use of language, & shd interrogate the claims of all parties (including the Israeli government and its many propaganda arms.) No more unsubstantiated accounts of "clashes", etc. We need better reporting! >
26. We also need clear grassroots actions in Western ctries to *end* the support our govts have given Israel & to hold it accountable. This is the best support we can give to all the Palestinian families traumatized by Israel's violence of last Friday & of the past 70 years.
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Here are the 8 policy recommendations laid out in our report on the #UkraineCrisis. #1 is the highest priority: Ukraine-wide Ceasefire now! >
Some people have queried #2 of our recs: "An embargo on arms shipments into Ukraine by all countries." They say Western countries should send "defensive" arms to help #Ukraine. But >
We've just launched "Ukraine: Stop the Carnage, Build the Peace," our new report building on our #UkraineCrisis webinar series & complete with our policy recommendations. Co-sponsored by @codepink@WorldBeyondWar & Environmentalists Against War-
Read here! bit.ly/JWE-UkraineRep…
Our report contains a list of eight Policy Recommendations that grew out of our #UkraineCrisis conversations - though we realize that not all the participants in the webinar series will agree with all of them.
We've made our report "Ukraine: Stop the Carnage, Build the Peace" available as a PDF on our site at no charge: bit.ly/JWE-UkraineRep…
Alternatively, you can buy copies of the printed report from Amazon for $5 each: amzn.to/37Uz7Ko
[Thread] We had a great couple of days on Capitol Hill with Yousef Aljamal, Wednesday and Thursday. We had > 20 very substantive meetings with various folks, including4 Members of Congress. Here was Rep. Ayanna Pressley:
Here was Rep. Betty McCollum (photo courtesy of her office):
What a leader she is! Another photo, courtesy of her office:
This is a truly outstanding study from @CIPonline's @BenFreemanDC & colleagues of how BAD military spending is at creating actual, you know, jobs: lobelog.com/more-money-few… (Thread)
@CIPonline @BenFreemanDC@WorldBeyondWar@WinWithoutWar@AFSCpeace Trump, like many pols before him, likes to trumpet the fact that military spending (by the US people, or via Saudi purchases of US weapons systems) is a big job-creation machine. But...
With the powerful mass movement for democracy & accountability in #Algeria/#Algerie reaching a turning point in next 2 days, 7 diverse Algerian personalities launched this video appeal for unity & real dialog: (Thread) tsa-algerie.com/lappel-de-pers…
Of note (& sad), that the good news site TSA that carried this has been banned in #Algeria. But it is on FB & other platforms so it should get wide distribution? It's issued in the name of "Agreement for the sake of protecting the homeland"
The seven people who signed the Agreement are standing together and take turns reading short sections of it. This one just says: "Appeal to the Algerian people"