Gwynne Dyer —
“If you (Americans) were OK with us killing 5,000 children, you are OK with killing 10,000 children,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli diplomat who helped negotiate the Oslo peace accords in the 1990s. That’s what Israeli diplomats really think of US policy, he says.
This implies that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) both dismiss US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s strenuous warnings about the need to avoid high Palestinian casualties in the renewed bombing as just so much hot air.
Continue reading Two by Dyer: A Just War In Gaza? And China: Is A Slow Future of Fizzle Underway?
America
#1 – The antiwar activists who were accused of plotting to kidnap Kissinger
James T. Keane — December 04, 2023
[NOTE: This blogger was a cub reporter when Phil and Dan Berrigan were both in jail after burning military draft files in Catonsville, Maryland in 1968. During the time Phil was in prison, rumors began to spread about him and Elizabeth McAlister. All their antiwar activism aside, these rumors were shocking to activist Catholics, as both had taken religious vows of celibacy, presumably sincerely at the time.
But sometimes love plays irresistible havoc with the firmest vows. When Phil was released from prison (after his Catonsville term) in December of 1972, I was at the press conference and was first to ask the question all were wondering about but no one else had asked aloud: “Phil, what about you and Elizabeth McAlister?”
He deftly dodged the question, but within six months, the couple was outed as “Legally married,” as described below. However irregular their courtship might have been (but who, to quote a church authority, am I to judge?) they were a model of connubial constancy, til death did them part, though there were repeated partings to serve jail terms for the persistent antinuclear protests which became their renewed calling.]
Many barrels of ink have been employed for the obituaries and assessments of Henry Kissinger’s life and legacy since his death last Wednesday at the age of 100. However, one story involving the former Secretary of State that might not attract as much coverage is nevertheless one of the most fascinating and revealing tales of its time: the accusation against the “Harrisburg Seven,” a group of antiwar activists, that they had formed a conspiracy to kidnap then-Secretary Kissinger in 1970.
In a 1972 trial, the federal government charged the defendants, most of whom were current or former Catholic priests or women religious, with a conspiracy that included the kidnap plot as well as plans to raid draft offices and bomb steam tunnels beneath Washington, D.C.
Continue reading Two-Plus Stories On Kissinger: One includes a touching, suppressed love story
(To read the full text of the report, click here.)
[Note: Some links in these reports from 1998-99 have expired.]
Court Updates, Part 1: Priscilla Deters on Trial in Wichita & After
Court Updates, Part 2: Phil Harmon, Insurance Fraud & “Operation Island Scam”:
More: Rogues and Heroes — Photos from the Quaker Fraud Scandals
Online back issues of the print edition (1981-93) of A Friendly Letter
CNN: Why Israel’s peace activists are reevaluating their position on the war
By Tara John and Lottie Beilin
Sun Dec 3 2023
Tel Aviv (CNN) — When human rights activist Ziv Stahl was awakened to the booms of rocket fire on October 7, while staying at her sister’s home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, she did not for a moment anticipate the scale of the terrorist attack unfolding around her. Nor did she imagine the horror she would feel when she later called the police, who “basically told me no one is coming.”
That day saw Hamas militants murder her sister-in-law and several prominent peace activists living in the kibbutz, one of the communities that bore the brunt of the attack on Israel. Continue reading CNN: “It’s Complicated”— Why Israel’s peace activists are reevaluating their position on the war