REV. BILLY & THE STOP SHOPPING CHOIR PLUS GAZA UPDATE
By Bob Hennelly
Amnesty International is charging that Isreal continues to commit genocide against Gaza's civilian population under the cover of a purported cease fire that was brokered by the Trump administration back of Oct. 10th, the Guardian newspaper is reporting.
"The ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that like in Gaza is returning to normal," Amnesty International secretary Agnes Callamard told the Guardian. "But while Israeli authorities and forces have reduced their attacks and allowed limited amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the world must not be fooled. Israel's genocide is not over."
Last week, the Guardian reported that hospitals in Gaza were running out of essential supplies, even as new waves of Israeli airstrikes continued. Since the ceasefire, 300 people have been killed in Israeli strikes while huge numbers of civilians are suffering from the consequences of malnutrition, adverse weather, a lack of shelter and new outbreaks of disease as winter sets in.
In the two years since Hamas's Oct. 7th terrorist attack that killed 1,200 mostly civilians in Israel, close to 70,000 Palestinians have been killed including tens of thousands of women and children.
The U.N. Security Council has approved a U.S. plan to secure and govern the territory based on President Trump's 20 point plan for Gaza with what the Guardian describes as a committee of Palestinian technocrats who would run the authority under the ultimate authority of the US president backed up by the deployment of an international stabilization force in what the UN called "close consultation and cooperation" with Egypt and Israel.
Back in February, Trump proposed the U.S. taking over Gaza and transforming the brutalized region that's been the scene of a genocide into a Riverra type resort owned by the United States.
The simultaneous involvement of the Trump family with massive real estate deals in Saudi Arabia and the wider Persian Gulf have been widely reported.
Here in the United States, one of the two National Guard troops who were shot on Wednesday, steps away from the White House, has died from her wounds. 20 year-old Sarah Beckstrom, a National Guard member from West Virginia detailed to the U.S. Capitol, had volunteered to work over the Thanksgiving holiday, the BBC reported.
The second member of the West Virginia detachment remains in the critical condition.
The New York Times reported that the suspect in custody was a 29 year old Afghani national, who was shot four times. Trump administration officials said he had worked with the Central intelligence Agency in Afghanistan and was one of 77,000 Afghans who were given special immigration status for the role they played assisting US forces in the prolonged conflict.
President Trump ordered 500 more troops into the U.S. Capitol to supplement the 2,000 soldiers in the U.S. Capitol. The President used the occasion of the shooting to pledge to double down on his anti-immigrant mass deportation strategy which relies on masked federal agents violently abducting suspected undocumented individuals off the street.
Just last week, a federal judge ruled in a 61 page opinion that Trump's deployment of the National Guard in DC was illegal but gave the Trump administration three weeks to appeal her decision. Federal judges have ruled that the Trump regime's troop deployment to Chicago, Memphis and Portland Oregon also violated the law.
Meanwhile, in our split screen reality we are poised to experience Black Friday, when we are supposed to caught up in a multi-billion dollar consumer buying spree as a kick-off of the Christmas holiday, when the Christian tradition celebrates the birth of Jesus, who was a refugee and an immigrant whose family was hoping to survive a massacre by fleeing to a safer place.
This morning we are so fortunate to have Rev. Billy with the Church of Stop Shopping to help us navigate these troubled holiday waters. We will also check in with Larry Hamm, New Jersey social justice activist and founder of the People's Organization for Progress about a special march for Mumia Abu Jamal over the next several days over in Pennsylvania.
In our C Block we will check in with FDNY EMS LT Anthony Almojera, who is the vice president of DC. 37 Local 3621 about the serious deterioration of New York City's EMS system that's primarily staffed by women and people of color who make tens of thousands dollars less than other first responders.
