Gideon Levy “Reports on a Catastrophe"

Ralph and team spend the entire hour with Israeli reporter, Gideon Levy, a singular voice in an otherwise compliant domestic press to discuss his book “The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe” a series of columns written before and after the October 7th, 2023 attacks that put this ongoing tragedy in historical context.

Gideon Levy is a Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. He is the author of the weekly “Twilight Zone” feature, which covers the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza over the last 25 years, as well as the writer of political editorials for the newspaper. He is the author of The Punishment of Gaza, and his latest book is The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe.

If you talk with me about a very broad scheme—not ending this war now in Gaza, but really for a long range, a real vision—the vision is only the choice between an apartheid state between the river and the sea, or a democracy between the river and the sea. There is no third way anymore, unfortunately. And we have to choose, and the world has to choose: Is the world ready to accept a second apartheid state, or is the world ready to act for having an equal democracy for Palestinians and Israelis living between the river and the sea?

Gideon Levy

We have to stick to global, universal values: occupation is illegal, apartheid is immoral, and war is always cruel.

Gideon Levy

After the 7th of October, an iron curtain fell between Israel and any kind of human sentiments toward Gaza— the people of Gaza, the victims of Gaza, we don't want to hear, we don't want to know, we are not bothered, and we have the right to do whatever we want.

Gideon Levy

We hear about the hundred hostages held by Hamas underground a great deal in the US media, but we don't hear much about the torture and the other mistreatment of thousands of Palestinians—some of them women and children—who were arrested, just arbitrarily kidnapped, and sent to Israeli jails.

Ralph Nader

News 12/18/24

1. Our top story this week comes from Public Citizen Corporate Crime expert Rick Claypool, who reports that the Biden Department of Justice has opted to not prosecute McKinsey, the consulting firm that advised Purdue Pharma to “turbocharge” OxyContin sales even as the opioid crisis reached its peak. Instead, the DOJ announced they would enter into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the firm; in other words, the Biden administration is giving McKinsey a get out of jail free card for their role in perhaps the most expansive, destructive, and clear case of corporate crime this century. Claypool rightly calls this deal “Pathetic” and “A slap in the face to everyone who lost a loved one to the crisis.”

2. On December 10th, a federal judge blocked Kroger’s proposed $20 billion acquisition of Albertsons supermarkets, per the Wall Street Journal. According to the Journal, U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson sided with the Federal Trade Commission, which had sued to stop the merger, agreeing that this consolidation in the grocery store sector would “erode competition and raise prices for consumers.” This argument was particularly poignant given the soaring cost of groceries since the COVID-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of this decision, Albertsons has filed suit against Kroger alleging that the larger supermarket chain had resisted calls to “divest itself of a larger number of stores,” in order to stave off the inevitable antitrust actions federal regulators would bring against this merger. Albertsons filed this lawsuit, which seeks at least $6 billion in damages less than 24 hours after the ruling, per the Journal.

3. On December 14th, the BBC reported 26-year-old OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment. In October, Balaji exposed that OpenAI had flagrantly violated US copyright laws while developing its flagship AI program ChatGPT. Balaji’s revelations form the underpinnings of lawsuits against OpenAI by news publishers, including the New York Times, as well as best-selling authors who allege their work was unlawfully used to train the company’s AI models. The BBC reports that Balaji’s death was ruled a suicide by the San Francisco medical examiner’s office and that his body was discovered by police when they were called in to “check on his wellbeing.” This report does not include who called in the wellness check.

4. According to intrepid independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, the New York Times has issued internal guidance directing staff to “dial back” its use of photos of Luigi Mangione’s face. The reasons for withholding images of Mangione’s face – bizarre in its own right given the inherent newsworthiness of such photos – is however just the tip of the iceberg. The Times has also directed its reporters to refrain from publishing Mangione’s manifesto, despite having copies in their possession. As Mr. Klippenstein puts it “This is media paternalism at its worst, the idea that seeing the shooter’s face too much, or reading his 262-word statement, will necessarily inspire copy-cat assassinations and should therefore be withheld from the public.” To his immense credit, Mr. Klippenstein has published the manifesto in full, which is available on his Substack – as are photos of Mangione’s face.

5. Turning to the Middle East, the diplomatic tension between Israel and Ireland continues to deepen. On December 11th, the Middle East Monitor reported that Ireland will “formally join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel,” at the International Court of Justice, following formal approval by the Irish government. Ireland will reportedly ask the Court to “broaden its interpretation” of what constitutes genocide, according to the nation’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin. Martin went on to say that Ireland is “concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimised,” and that the government has also approved joining the Gambia’s genocide case against Myanmar. Just days later, Israel announced that the country would shutter its embassy in Dublin, accusing Ireland of “extreme anti-Israel policies,” including joining the genocide lawsuit and recognizing the state of Palestine, per CNN. Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris, facing harsh criticism from Israeli politicians, wrote “I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-International law.”

6. In more Palestine news, the Hill has published a heartrending op-ed by Hamid Ali, widower to Aysenur Eygi, the American citizen murdered in cold blood by the IDF during a protest in the West Bank in September of this year. This piece begins “What do you do with the clothes your wife was wearing when she was killed, now stained with her blood? How do you preserve them as evidence for an investigation that may never happen? What else can you do when your government has given no indication that it will hold her killer — a soldier in the army of a close ally — accountable[?]” Ali goes on to tell the story of how he met Aysenur, how they fell in love, and eventually got married – and recounts the eyewitness testimony that she was shot after “20 minutes of calm, sheltering behind an olive tree.” Ali also expresses his anger and frustration – both at the Israeli military’s flimsy attempt to cover up the murder by falsely claiming she was “shot accidentally during a violent protest,” an assertion that, he notes, was swiftly debunked by major news outlets – and at the United States government, which has refused to hold the Israeli military accountable. Ali ends this piece by laying out how he and his family will meet with the State Department and members of Congress next week to “plead with them to do something about Aysenur’s senseless killing…support our family’s call for an independent U.S. investigation into her death and accountability for the soldier that killed her…[and] urge President Biden to prioritize this case in the last days of his administration and uphold justice for our family.”

7. Last week, we reported on the so-called “mutiny” of younger Democrats against the old-guard poised to take the ranking member committee seats in the new Congress. Chief among these was AOC’s bid to seize the ranking member slot on the Oversight Committee from Congressman Gerry Connolly, who is 74 years old and suffering from cancer. At first, it seemed like the young Congresswoman from Queens had successfully outmaneuvered Connolly – even going so far as to pledge that she would no longer back primary challenges against incumbent Democrats, a cornerstone of her outsider brand and appeal, POLITICO reports. Yet, with help from the Democratic power brokers including Nancy Pelsoi, Connolly was able to beat back this challenge at the Democratic Steering Committee. The final vote was a lopsided 131-84, per Axios.

8. Our last three stories this week concern the legacy of the Biden Administration. First, progressives are calling on the president to pardon environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who has faced persecution as a “corporate political prisoner” per American University’s Center for Environment Community & Equity for his role in suing Chevron over that company’s environmental devastation in Ecuador. In a letter signed by 34 congressional Democrats, led by Congressman Jim McGovern and including Senators Bernie Sanders and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, and Jamie Raskin among others, the progressives write “Mr. Donziger is the only lawyer in U.S. history to be subject to any period of detention on a misdemeanor contempt of court charge…the legal case against Mr. Donziger, as well as the excessively harsh nature of the punishment against him, are directly tied to his prior work against Chevron.” This letter continues “Pardoning Mr. Donziger”…[would send] “a powerful message to the world that billion-dollar corporations cannot act with impunity against lawyers and their clients who defend the public interest.” We echo this call to pardon Donziger, particularly since President Biden’s recent, highly-publicized pardons have consisted of corrupt public officials and his own troubled son Hunter.

9. Next, Reuters reports that on December 11th, the Senate opted not to back President Biden’s renomination of Lauren McFerran to the National Labor Relations Board. The upper chamber voted 50-49 against holding a confirmation vote, with the usual suspects – Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema – defeating the move. Had the Senate reconfirmed McFerran, the balance of the labor board would have remained tilted in favor of Democrats and their allies in organized labor. Now, incoming President Trump will be able to stack the board with his own nominees, expected to be much friendlier to business. Trump is also expected to sack NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who has been instrumental in leveraging the power of the NLRB in favor of workers.

10. Finally, on a lighter note, Deadline reports the NLRB has ruled that contests on the Netflix dating show Love Is Blind are in fact employees under the law. This reclassification opens the door to widespread unionization throughout the unscripted television sector, which has long skirted the heavily-unionized Hollywood system. The fallout from this decision will have to be observed over time and the Trump NLRB could certainly seek to hold the line against unionization in that industry – of which Trump himself was a longtime fixture – but this decision could mean an almost unprecedented expansion of the Screen Actors Guild. We will be watching.

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

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