Read The Room

 by C. A. Matthews

"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." ~George Orwell

"Wherever violence, fear and hatred thrive, working people cannot,” reads a statement by Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). SEIU, which boasts two million members, just joined a growing section of the US labor movement in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. SEIU is now the largest union in the country to issue such a statement. —One Of The Largest Unions In The US Called For A Ceasefire In Gaza

On December 14, the leadership of the United Auto Workers, the Postal Workers Union, and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), held a press conference in Washington, DC with several members of Congress to call upon the labor movement to take action for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“I thank our UAW members for speaking out and pushing us to come out in support of a ceasefire,” said UAW President Shawn Fain, whose union joined the movement for a ceasefire earlier in December. “It was the right thing to do. Now it’s time for the rest of our elected officials to step up and do what it takes to end the violence. And I call on the rest of the labor movement to join us in this mission for peace and social justice for all of humanity.” —US union leaders call on labor to join movement for a ceasefire

470+ UAW members have signed a new petition calling for the union leadership to only endorse candidates who publicly call for ceasefire in Gaza, and specifically criticizing Biden's support of Israel. Many expecting a Biden endorsement from UAW today (January 24). —Lauren Kaori Gurley, labor reporter for the Washington Post on X

UAW members protest for a ceasefire, as this is their union’s official position: https://twitter.com/codepink/status/1750636511530189015


Read the room, UAW President Shawn Fain. Your rank-and-file union members want a ceasefire in Gaza. They're even loudly protesting for a ceasefire at a big union shindig! Genocide Joe Biden wants to keep furnishing arms to Israel so the IDF can continue murdering Palestinians in Gaza--especially babies and children. He's also turned a blind eye to the Israeli settlers' terrorist activity in the West Bank. Biden is good with the settlers moving in and stealing the natural gas and oil reserves that rightfully belong to the Palestinians. 

One day you say you're with your union members supporting a ceasefire in Gaza, and the next you're endorsing the largest supporter of genocide in the world for president. What is your word worth when it comes to representing the wishes of your rank-and-file union members, Shawn? Nothing.

Read the room.

The brutal war that Israel is waging on Gaza is increasingly becoming a regional conflict. Since October, the United States and Israel have bombed not only Gaza, but also Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Now, the U.S. government is even threatening Iran with war. President Joe Biden sent the Iranian government a private message while the U.S. military was bombing Yemen on January 13. He said threateningly, “We’re confident, we’re well prepared”.  —Is a huge war coming? US bombs Yemen, Iraq & Syria. Israel bombs Gaza & Lebanon. Both threaten Iran. 

2024 is an election year, and Biden, who is running for reelection, has been hounded by Pro-Palestine demonstrators at several campaign events already. Mainstream media outlets openly worry about Biden’s chances in 2024, with the aging President losing key demographics of Democratic Party support such as young people and Arab-Americans.

“Instead of focusing on the American people, our tax money is being used to spread hatred, to spread warfare, to support criminal activity, frankly speaking, to support a genocide,” Mohamed Sabri, who traveled from Chicago to attend the march in DC, told Peoples Dispatch about why he will not be voting for Biden. —400,000 marched in Washington DC against Biden’s complicity in Israel’s genocide

 “Based on unproven allegations alone, the U.S. has cut off funding to UNRWA, one of few groups which provides crucial on the ground aid to Palestinians,” said the antiwar group CODEPINK. “Yet, as Israel commits war crime after war crime, the U.S. continues sending weapons.”

“The US is collectively punishing Palestinians, who rely on UNRWA to survive, based on Israeli allegations against 0.0004% of UNRWA’s staff. Outrageous,” said the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)…

“So, the US State Dept drops a rather significant statement on (unsubstantiated) allegations against UNRWA workers and pulling funding on the day of the ICJ ruling which finds sufficient evidence for plausible genocidal acts—- and decides there’s no need for a press briefing,” wrote AJ+’s Sana Saeed. “Honestly, this would be masterful manufacturing of the news if it wasn’t so transparent.” —Biden cuts off life-saving aid to Palestinians based on Israeli allegations against UNRWA

'The most difficult case': US judge deliberates suit accusing Biden of failing to stop genocide https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/most-difficult-case-us-judge-deliberates-after-testimony-accuses-biden-failing-stop-genocide

Arab and Muslim Leaders in Michigan Refuse to Meet With Biden Campaign https://truthout.org/articles/arab-and-muslim-leaders-in-michigan-refuse-to-meet-with-biden-campaign/

Read the room, President Biden. The vast majority of voters have stated that they want a ceasefire in Gaza, and most have wanted it from day one of Israel's assault on the Occupied Territory. Americans have repeatedly said that they don’t want the genocide of Palestinians to continue, and they don't want you to keep sending arms to Israel. Some have even taken you to federal court to stop the ethnic cleansing in order to save their loved ones in Gaza.

Poll after poll have shown Americans don’t want to widen the field of conflicts instigated by the US in its quest for world hegemony and to steal natural resources. Bombing more countries to steal their oil only ups everybody’s risk for nuclear war. Burning fossil fuels is causing catastrophic climate change to speed up. The US military is the number one polluter in the world.

In case you haven’t heard, most young Americans won’t cooperate with a military draft if and when you do decide to start war on multiple fronts. Nobody desires to die in a war with China, Russia and Iran simultaneously. There's no way so many conflicts at once could be sustained with our meager numbers of volunteer troops. People will resist conscription. You're going to get us all killed.

What makes you think most Americans are lacking compassion and empathy just because you do? The large Arab and Muslim communities in SE Michigan are openly stating they will not vote for you in November. Why would you throw away all those votes when you could keep them by simply stopping the sale of arms to Israel and shutting down the genocide in Gaza once and for all? All it would take is a phone call to your counterpart in Israel.

Your administration even stopped providing funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, on the same day Israel lost its genocide case before the International Court of Justice. How petty can you get!  UNRWA provides food and medical aid to refugees around the world, not only to Gazans. You’ve unilaterally decided that, because the Israelis don’t want life-saving aid to reach wounded and starving Palestinians in Gaza, UNRWA must be unfunded immediately. Are you mad or just plain cruel? 

You've committed such an inhumane act of denying humanitarian aid to reach people in Gaza because of unsubstantiated allegations made by a country that's been accused of genocide at the ICJ. You're doing so based on the flimsiest of stories, that 12 persons out of 13,000 United Nations workers might have worked for Hamas at one time. And you know that Israeli hasbara propagandists are known for telling whoppers—huge, fat lies like beheaded babies baked in ovens that were easily debunked by independent journalists.
 
You've already garnered the nicknames of “Genocide Joe” and “Butcher Biden," both of which are currently trending on social media. Do you really want this heartless bloodthirstiness to become your legacy? Do you even know what's going on in the world, or is Antony Blinken really calling all the shots?

Read the room.

January 26: The ruling issued by the ICJ [International Court of Justice] ordered six provisional measures including for Israel to refrain from acts under the Genocide convention, prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide, and take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. Crucially, the Court also ordered Israel to preserve evidence of genocide and to submit a report to the Court, within one month, of all measures taken in line with its order.

“Today’s decision is an authoritative reminder of the crucial role of international law in preventing genocide and protecting all victims of atrocity crimes. It sends a clear message that the world will not stand by in silence as Israel pursues a ruthless military campaign to decimate the population of the Gaza Strip and unleash death, horror and suffering against Palestinians on an unprecedented scale,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

“However, the ICJ decision alone cannot put an end to the atrocities and devastation Gazans are witnessing. Alarming signs of genocide in Gaza, and Israel’s flagrant disregard for international law highlight the urgent need for effective, unified pressure on Israel to stop its onslaught against Palestinians. An immediate ceasefire by all parties remains essential and – although not ordered by the Court – is the most effective condition to implement the provisional measures and end unprecedented civilian suffering. —Israel must comply with key ICJ ruling ordering it do all in its power to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza

It’s really up to the international system as we know it to make sure that genocide is not carried out. And so it’s imperative that this be followed up by countries around the world making sure that Israel doesn’t get to do whatever it wants to do with Palestinians in Gaza and continue this genocide. —Genocide Scholar: ICJ Ruling Is “Beginning of a Process of Isolating Israel”

Gaza was pounded with bombs, missiles and artillery shells as the ruling was read in The Hague — at least 183 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours. Since Oct. 7, more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed. Almost 65,000 have been wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Thousands more are missing. The carnage continues. This is the cold reality.
Translated into the vernacular, the court is saying Israel must feed and provide medical care for the victims, cease public statements advocating genocide, preserve evidence of genocide and stop killing Palestinian civilians. Come back and report in a month.

It is hard to see how these provisional measures can be achieved if the carnage in Gaza continues.

“Without a ceasefire, the order doesn’t actually work,” Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister of international relations, stated bluntly after the ruling. —It May be Genocide, But it Won’t Be Stopped   

The U.N. General Assembly now can suspend Israel from participation in its activities as it did for South Africa and Yugoslavia. It can admit Palestine as a full member. And — especially since the International Criminal Court has been a farce — it can establish a tribunal to prosecute the highest level officials of the Israeli government, both civilian and military.” —Israel Accuses The ICJ Of (You Guessed It) Antisemitism

Read the room, Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s “dream team” of lawyers didn’t exactly wow the ICJ judges. The South African lawyers just had to read out your government's officials' actual words—and your own indicting words—spoken at various press conferences and in media interviews to demonstrate to the court that the total annihilation of the Palestinian people is what you’ve been aiming for all along. You know full well that public opinion both within your borders and from without is against this ethnic cleansing operation of Palestinians, the indigenous people of the land.

And stop with the weak arguments that somehow Palestinians aren’t indigenous—just take a look at a map from 1947 or earlier. As a secular Ashkenazi Jew, you’re about as indigenous as your buddy Joe “Butcher” Biden is. You even lived in the US as a child and attended M.I.T. as an adult. I guess that's where where you learned how to be such a great racist/Zionist, right?

The ICJ is giving you an honorable way to stop the mass killing of civilians and slink back into your hole with your tail between your legs. If you don’t call for a permanent ceasefire and cooperate with getting humanitarian aid to the Gazans, the United Nations could excommunicate Israel from the family of nations like they did to apartheid South Africa a few decades ago. 

US Union Leaders Call On Labor To Join Movement for a Ceasefire https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/14/us-union-leaders-call-on-labor-to-join-movement-for-a-ceasefire/

United Auto Workers (UAW) becomes largest union in US to call for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza https://youtu.be/XUNZ3RTpw2E?si=0hv6OChbGgXxuROo

US union leaders call on labor to join movement for a ceasefire https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/14/us-union-leaders-call-on-labor-to-join-movement-for-a-ceasefire/

UAW members protest for a ceasefire, as this is their union’s official position: https://twitter.com/codepink/status/1750636511530189015

More than one-third of Americans believe Israel is committing genocide, poll shows https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/24/americans-believe-israel-committing-genocide-poll