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Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Message from the Civil Rights Movement to Israel and the US
Every year, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr Day, the Center for Peace and Justice Education at Villanova University hosts a Freedom School, with numerous presentations. This presentation is on “Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Message from the Civil Rights Movement to Israel and the US” by Lowell Gustafson, Professor of Political Science. On November 10, 2024, Ta Nehisi-Coates spoke at the historic Riverside Church in New York at an event about “America and the War on Palestine,” noting that it was at that church where Martin Luther King, Jr. announced on his opposition to the Vietnam War. In his recent book, The Message, Coates recounts the echoes of American Jim Crow laws he experienced during his visit to the West Bank. This session will discuss how the civil rights movements in the United States, South Africa and elsewhere have influenced discussions about the current violations of basic civil rights in Gaza, and American policies of complicity in Palestinian suffering.

This was presented to a Villanova University audience; perhaps it might be of interest to others as well. The usual disclaimer applies here; these are not necessarily the views of Villanova University nor of its Center for Peace and Justice Education.

Heroic Protests, Villainous Policies
It was my pleasure and honor to give a talk at the Tunisian Association of American Cultural Studies (TAACS) for its conference on Heroes and Villains in American History, Culture, and Politics. This talk lasts for the amount of time we have in a 75 minute class period at Villanova University, where I have taught since 1986. This permitted me to put together some of the material that is available on the US / Israel / Palestinian issue, but there is much more that could be added. And it is always important to realize that there are other important ways to organize and interpret this material.

My main take-away from my visit to Tunisia is that there are a lot of people in MENA (Middle East North Africa) and Europe who study and know the US very well.

There are some errors here. One is that Mike Casey complained not that Gazans expressed skepticism about his numbers of casualties in Gaza, but that President Biden had. Another is that I fudge the numbers 200,000 and 700,000 when discussing “mowing the lawn.” To clarify here, it was 700,000 Palestinians who were forced out of Palestine in 1948; 200,000 of them forced into what is now the Gaza strip. The third problem I notice is the entire concluding section of the video. It becomes disjointed. I give the video a grade that slips below an A. It is not within YouTube’s procedures to splice or replace the video; I would have to delete this one, re-record it, and then post a new one. So I just make these corrections here and ask for your indulgence.

Maya Cosmos
I appreciated the chance to give this talk at the Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomy meeting. The full meeting is at https://www.youtube.com/live/K7_MDl7aeI4?si=7U2ATi1hVz-Nj-7n . There were a couple technical glitches, so I patched my talk up a bit, although it is still a little cut-and-pasty here. Anyway, the video covers how my interest in inter city-state relations led to my interest in cosmology. The talk covers these points: Observations and Stories Example of Ancient Greece,
Early Modern Europe Origins of Ancient Mesoamerica
My Original Intent: Ancient Maya Politics
Maya Priests and E-Groups Connecting Cosmic Layers Time
What are the stories we (should) tell in a scientific age?

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CNN reports that “Of the 13 UNRWA employees alleged to have been associated with the attack, the Israeli document alleges 10 were Hamas operatives, two were Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives and one is unidentified. . . . UNWRA has already fired several employees in the wake of the allegations, which first emerged last week, hours after the UN’s top court ordered Israel to act immediately to prevent genocide in Gaza. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini also ordered an investigation into the claims, to be conducted by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services. . . . To Palestinians, UNRWA is an essential source of assistance operating inside the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East. It provides education, health and social services, and, in times of war, life-saving aid and shelter. It is also one of Gaza’s largest employers, with 13,000 people, mostly Palestinians, on staff. . . .In a statement Sunday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said nine UNRWA staff members at the center of the allegations had been fired. One other was dead and the identities of two others were still “being clarified.” . . . The fallout of the allegations has seen several of the agency’s top donor countries, including the US, Germany and the UK, pull funding from UNRWA. Norway, Ireland, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are among the countries to have not halted funding.”

Haaretz reports the WSJ article about 10% of UNRWA being Hamas.

Pulling funding from the entire 13,000 employees who are trying to provide what help they can to belaguered Gazans is another over generalization and over reaction by the US in support of Israel. The UN General Secretary has it right when he assures the firing of anyone involved in the Oct 7 attacks, but not to stop all of the humanitarian work of UNRWA. The US, UK, German response rejects the ICJ call to precent genocide. Their response adds to what the ICJ already found to be plausible reason to see the results of the war as genocide. With full US support, Israel has for months been attacking all of Gaza in response to what Hamas did. This latest effort seems again to be about preventing any provisions entering Gaza.

The US pulls funding for the allegations about between a dozen and 10% of UNRWA employees, but does not pull funding to Israel or set any conditions on it after an ICJ ruling. Even if it is 10% of UNRWA involved, 90% is doing legitimate humanitarian work. This looks like just the most recent effort to stop shipments of food, medicines, or fuel to Gazans.

Norway’s position makes much more sense.

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Having a defense budget as big as the next ten nations (including Russia, China, Iran, and others) allows us to say that the charges brought by South Africa were meritless and that the ICJ’s ruling was unfounded. Who has the guns and the world’s reserve currency, if no longer the gold, makes – or ignores – the rules.

It raises the questions as old as Plato’s Republic, with the debate between Thrasymachus and Socrates about power, goodness, and justice. Or the debate about power and justice between the Athenians and Melians in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War.

The preamble to our constitution says that we want domestic tranquility. This would seem to include avoiding civil war. To do that, it establishes, among much else, a judicial system and electoral procedures. Both assume that there will be differences and disputes between people. We want electoral campaigns rather than military ones to settle who governs. Denying electoral results and supporters of the losing candidates becoming well-armed rather than concentrating on how to run a better campaign next time is a big yellow flag.

Trump makes every effort to find our electoral and judicial processes to be unfounded. If he succeeds, our domestic tranquility is in trouble.

From Wilson’s support for a League of Nations to the founding of the UN, many looked to institutionalize a process of open, reasonable debate, the principle of one nation – one vote – and judicial mechanisms rather than the first use of force to resolve disputes. Joining the UN meant accepting the rules that we largely wrote.

A question long asked is if those who write the rules apply them primarily to those whom they rule, rather to themselves and their allies. Woodrow Wilson’s principle of national self-determination was applied to the German empire and its allies after WWI, not to the British and French ones.

Many of us and other of Israel’s supporters have been crowing that the ICJ did not find that Israel has committed genocide or that there should be a cease fire. These folks needed to finish their homework assignment. At this stage in the process, the ICJ would not make a final ruling on the merits of the question. They could only decide if there is a dispute and if there is enough reason to begin the process on the merits of the case.

Hamas is not a state nor a signatory to the Genocide convention. The ICJ has no authority over them. A ceasefire ruling would only apply to Israel. But in the ruling, the ICJ calls on Israel to carry out its use of force in virtually wholesale different ways than it has. It has found South Africa’s charge of genocide to be plausible enough to warrant the full procedure.

It is remarkable that the headline in the Jerusalem Post is, “ICJ badmouths Israel for 35 minutes, then Israel wins.” Being told that the way you have fought in Gaza is plausibly genocidal is an odd form of winning a court case.

Netanyahu says that “”the very claim that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians is not just false, it is outrageous, and the court’s willingness to discuss it at all is a mark of disgrace that will not be erased for generations.” He added that Israel will continue the war until “absolute victory,” until all hostages are returned and Gaza is no longer a threat to Israel.

Netanyahu is free to say that the ICJ’s finding of plausibility to be false since he has the backing of the country with the world’s largest military budget. His call for absolute victory and claim that Israel does follow international law does not bode well for changes in previous and on-going tactics.

Right now, Biden, Blinken, and Netanyahu seem to be in the Thrasymachus camp. Or the Athenian delegation in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War who said that the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must, followed immediately by the Athenian massacre of their Melian enemies. Have we adopted the view of the ancient home of democracy?

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-26/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-decries-icj-genocide-mull-u-s-labels-it-unfounded-saudis-note-violations/0000018d-46e2-d35c-a39f-eefaac3f0000