Grassroots Groups for Gaza

Ralph welcomes leaders from two grassroots groups advocating against the war on Gaza. First, from Tel Aviv, we are joined by Ido Setter of “Standing Together” a movement aimed at mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice. Then, here in America, Stefanie Fox, executive director of Jewish Voice For Peace, reports on their work taking action in Congress, on the streets, and in the press to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Ido Setter works on Standing Together's digital mobilization team. Standing Together is a grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice.

For the last two decades, the Israeli government and Israel as a state didn't offer any kind of hope for the Palestinian. There wasn't another serious peace process, no serious talks, and basically the Israeli government said to Palestinians, “Listen, this is how things are going to be. Deal with it.” And when you don't offer any hope, people will go to extreme places. So what happened on October 7th was, of course, a strategic collapse. But it was also an accumulation of the past two decades, where Israel didn't think that moving forward with a peace treaty or some kind of a peace agreement with the Palestinian people was an imperative.

Ido Setter

Nothing stays on one side of the border. Everything that happens on the Palestinian side of the border eventually comes back to the Israeli side of the border… We need to stop right now what's happening at the current moment in Gaza, have compassion, and move in the opposite direction that Benjamin Netanyahu and his hawkish government is trying to lead us.

Ido Setter

Stefanie Fox is Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, which is one of the largest Jewish anti-Zionist organizations in the world.

There is a large and growing community of faith leaders, of rabbis, of synagogues, of many, many Jews who are working to build a Judaism liberated from Zionism. And so there's probably 10 synagogues across the country that are anti- or non-Zionist. There are dozens of independent spiritual communities we call Chavurot that are connected (or not) to Jewish Voice for Peace. There's a burgeoning and growing movement to fight for the soul of Judaism, to fight for the future of our communities. And we have millennia of Jewish tradition—that predate the founding of the state of Israel and the movement of political Zionism—to lean on and to extend into a future where we are not bound up and made complicit in support for a genocidal ethno-state.

Stefanie Fox

The term ‘semite’ comes out of 19th century scientific racism. It's not really something in any moment in history that anybody has actually used to describe themselves. It's only a racist term. And so, the term ‘antisemitism’ does refer to the bigotry and discrimination that emerged out of that racist classification system. And at its root it comes from the same white supremacy in which anti Palestinian racism and erasure and Zionism itself were born… And of course, antisemitism is real. There's real hatred and bigotry and discrimination against Jews. The point is that antisemitism and white supremacy and Zionism emerge from the same root of exclusionary ethno-nationalist racialized state building.

Stefanie Fox

In order for [President Biden and the US Congress] not to ask for a ceasefire, they are engaged in hostilities now—the U.S. that is—against the Houthis in Yemen. They are bombing in Iraq and Syria. It's quite a price the U.S. is paying…because if there were a ceasefire, there'd be no Houthi assailing of shipping in the Red Sea. There would be no missiles with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Ralph Nader

In Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis

News 1/24/24

1. Just Foreign Policy reports that there is dissent brewing among Obama foreign policy alumni regarding President Biden’s air war on the Yemeni Houthis. Former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, considered Obama’s foreign policy guru, called the campaign “a dangerous escalation,” and further stated "We have no legal basis to be doing that.” Rhodes, joined by former National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor, are thus aligned with the dozens of groups – including the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and World BEYOND War, among many others – which signed a letter calling for an end to the campaign. Representative Ro Khanna, writing in the Nation, argues that “President Biden has both the constitutional obligation and a political imperative to seek congressional authorization for proposed hostilities,” but is quick to note that “ it is…not too late to pursue a more effective approach…which happens to be wildly popular with voters—regional diplomacy and statesmanship.” Asked "Are the airstrikes in Yemen working?" President Biden himself replied “are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they gonna continue? Yes," per Just Foreign Policy.

2. Following Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement ruling out a two-state solution, more Senate Democrats are warming up to the idea of imposing conditions on military aid to Israel. Yahoo! News reports that 18 Senate Democrats now support “an amendment that would require that any country receiving funding in the supplemental [aid package] use the money in accordance with U.S. law, international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict,” with five Senators – Tina Smith, Tammy Baldwin, Laphonza Butler, Jon Ossoff, and Raphael Warnock – adding their names after Netanyahu’s comments, per Jewish Insider. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been non-committal, with the Times of Israel reporting that he said “the Democratic caucus is still discussing the best way forward, regarding conditioning aid to Israel.”

3. The Huffington Post reports controversial Biden Middle East advisor Brett McGurk may have earned a target on his back from Congressional Progressives. A draft letter from Congressional Democrats to Biden demanding McGurk’s resignation is already circulating, with sources saying frustration with McGurk “has reached a boiling point.” McGurk’s signature Middle East policy has been his attempted marriage of Israel and Saudi Arabia, even going so far as to push “U.S. officials to tie the future of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza to the prospective Saudi-Israel deal.” Other officials, speaking anonymously, called the plan “delusionally optimistic.” However, while Progressives may well claim McGurk’s political scalp, some worry that he could become a scapegoat for administration-wide policy on Palestine.

4. Harvard, caving to attacks from the likes of Larry Summers and billionaire Bill Ackman, has established an “Antisemitism taskforce.” However, this has not stopped the bad-faith attacks on the university, with that same coterie now alleging that the co-chair of the task force – Professor of Jewish History Derek J. Penslar – is insufficiently Zionist, per the Crimson. Penslar has previously signed a letter stating “‘Israel’s long-standing occupation’ of Gaza [has] resulted in a ‘regime of apartheid,’” and rejects the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which includes anti-Zionism. Summers wrote that Penslar is “unsuited” to lead the task force; meanwhile the American Academy for Jewish Research writes “Professor Penslar is a prolific scholar with a stellar international reputation, whose numerous books address the historical development of many of the topics raising rancor at our universities today: antisemitism, Zionism, Jews and the military, and the history of Israel.” Responding to Summers, Professor Steven Levitsky, who is Jewish, said “Larry Summers…is not representative of a majority of Jews at Harvard,” adding “That guy is batshit crazy — and you can quote me on that.”

5. U.S. District Judge William Young has blocked the planned merger of Spirit Airlines and Jetblue Airways, arguing the acquisition would “‘substantially lessen competition’ in violation of the Clayton Act, which ‘was designed to prevent anticompetitive harms for consumers,’” per the Hill. President Biden praised the decision in a statement, saying “Today’s ruling is a victory for consumers everywhere who want lower prices and more choices. My Administration will continue to fight to protect consumers and enforce our antitrust laws.” The Department of Justice has been fighting this merger since March 2023.

6. The New Republic reports “Earlier this month, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released an explosive report documenting that Donald Trump’s businesses pocketed at least $7.8 million in payments from foreign governments during his presidency.” Yet, House Democrats are powerless to subpoena witnesses to further investigate this report because Republicans hold the majority. Ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Jamie Raskin, has been pushing Senate Democrats – who hold the gavels in that chamber – to issue subpoenas. Yet these Senate Democrats have hesitated to do so. We urge these powerful Democratic committee chairs to use their subpoena power. The American people deserve to know if their president profited from foreign dealings at their expense.

7. Public Citizen reports “the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] plans to crack down on banks charging ridiculous overdraft fees. Their proposal would cap overdraft fees at $3 and close the loophole that allows banks to take advantage of Americans who are already struggling.” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra is quoted saying “Decades ago, overdraft loans got special treatment to make it easier for banks to cover paper checks that were often sent through the mail…Today, we are proposing rules to close a longstanding loophole that allowed many large banks to transform overdraft into a massive junk fee harvesting machine." According to the CFPB’s statement, “The proposed rule would apply to insured financial institutions with more than $10 billion in assets… The CFPB estimates that this rule may save consumers $3.5 billion or more in fees per year.”

8. California Senate candidate Barbara Lee has picked up the endorsement of the statewide McClatchy editorial board, including major Golden State papers like the Sacramento Bee. In their announcement of the endorsement, the Bee wrote “Barbara Lee stood out from the rest. Her independence, her perseverance in fighting for the underdog and her life experiences set her apart.” Confirming this assessment, just this week Congresswoman Lee was kicked out of a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Cuba for arguing in favor of normalizing diplomatic relations.

9. The National Labor Relations Board has filed a complaint against Trader Joe’s for the company’s attempted union busting. Based on a 2022 unfair labor practice charge, the complaint alleges the company shuttered their New York City wine store in order to avoid impending unionization, in addition to “subject[ing] employees to interrogation, threaten[ing] to cut their benefits and [telling] them deciding to join a union would be ‘futile,’” Grocery Dive reports. The United Food and Commercial Workers union praised the decision, writing “Trader Joe’s shamelessly and illegally engaged in union busting to scare Trader Joe’s workers across the region and stop these workers from having a voice on the job. We applaud the NLRB’s decision …and look forward to holding Trader Joe’s accountable for their egregious anti-worker behavior.” Possible remedies the board could utilize include compelling the company to reopen the store.

10. Finally, he Intercept reports Republicans Glen Grothman and Marco Rubio have put forward a bill to provide pensions to citizens who worked for Air America. But just what was Air America? The generically named airline was in fact a CIA cutout which “has been accused of running weapons and even…drugs in Southeast Asia.” The faux airline also played a key role in the CIA’s operations in Laos and Cambodia, among the darkest chapters in American covert ops history. Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes told the Intercept “The whole point of Air America was to kill Communists.” Ironically, as the piece points out, these are the same Republicans who decry the so-called “deep state.”

This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.

Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe