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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-09-11 Human Relations Commission Agenda PacketHUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION Regular Meeting Thursday, September 11, 2025 Council Chambers & Hybrid 6:00 PM   Human Relations Commission meetings will be held as “hybrid” meetings with the option to attend by teleconference/video conference or in person. To maximize public safety while still maintaining transparency and public access, members of the public can choose to participate from home or attend in person. Information on how the public may observe and participate in the meeting is located at the end of the agenda. Masks are strongly encouraged if attending in person. The meeting will be broadcast on Cable TV Channel 26, live on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/cityofpaloalto, and streamed to Midpen Media Center https://midpenmedia.org. Commissioner names, biographies, and archived agendas and reports are available at https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/City-Hall/Boards-Commissions/Human- Relations-Commission. VIRTUAL PARTICIPATION CLICK HERE TO JOIN (https://cityofpaloalto.zoom.us/j/91994548701) Meeting ID: 919 9454 8701 Phone: 1(669)900-6833   PUBLIC COMMENTS Public comments will be accepted both in person and via Zoom for up to three minutes or an amount of time determined by the Chair. All requests to speak will be taken until 5 minutes after the staff’s presentation. Written public comments can be submitted in advance to HRC@paltoalto.gov and will be provided to the Council and available for inspection on the City’s website. Please clearly indicate which agenda item you are referencing in your subject line. PowerPoints, videos, or other media to be presented during public comment are accepted only by email to HRC@paloalto.gov at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. Once received, the Clerk will have them shared at public comment for the specified item. To uphold strong cybersecurity management practices, USB’s or other physical electronic storage devices are not accepted. Signs and symbolic materials less than 2 feet by 3 feet are permitted provided that: (1) sticks, posts, poles or similar/other type of handle objects are strictly prohibited; (2) the items do not create a facility, fire, or safety hazard; and (3) persons with such items remain seated when displaying them and must not raise the items above shoulder level, obstruct the view or passage of other attendees, or otherwise disturb the business of the meeting. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL   PUBLIC COMMENT Members of the public may speak to any item NOT on the agenda.   AGENDA CHANGES, ADDITIONS AND DELETIONS The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management.   APPROVAL OF MINUTES   1.Approval of the July 10, 2025 Human Relations Commission Draft Action Minutes. BUSINESS ITEMS   2.PUBLIC HEARING: Summary of Fiscal Year 2024-2025 (HUD CDBG Program Year 2024) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program Accomplishments and Review of the Draft Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER). – Staff – Discussion – 30 minutes 3.Presentation on Library Services for the Community. – Staff – Discussion – 30 minutes 4.Learning Session on Alternative Pathways to Home Ownership. – Causey & Stimmler – Discussion – 60 minutes CITY OFFICIAL REPORTS Members of the public may not speak to the item(s) •Commissioner Reports •Council Liaison Report •Staff Liaison Report COMMISSIONER QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, ANNOUNCEMENTS OR FUTURE MEETINGS AND AGENDAS Members of the public may not speak to the item(s)   ADJOURNMENT   INFORMATIONAL REPORT   PUBLIC DOCUMENTS   Public Letters PUBLIC COMMENT INSTRUCTIONS Members of the Public may provide public comments to teleconference meetings via email, teleconference, or by phone. 1.Written public comments may be submitted by email to hrc@paloalto.gov. 2.Spoken public comments using a computer will be accepted through the teleconference meeting. To address the Council, click on the link below to access a Zoom-based meeting. Please read the following instructions carefully. ◦You may download the Zoom client or connect to the meeting in- browser. If using your browser, make sure you are using a current, up-to-date browser: Chrome 30 , Firefox 27 , Microsoft Edge 12 , Safari 7 . Certain functionality may be disabled in older browsers including Internet Explorer. ◦You may be asked to enter an email address and name. We request that you identify yourself by name as this will be visible online and will be used to notify you that it is your turn to speak. ◦When you wish to speak on an Agenda Item, click on “raise hand.” The Clerk will activate and unmute speakers in turn. Speakers will be notified shortly before they are called to speak. ◦When called, please limit your remarks to the time limit allotted. A timer will be shown on the computer to help keep track of your comments. 3.Spoken public comments using a smart phone will be accepted through the teleconference meeting. To address the Council, download the Zoom application onto your phone from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and enter the Meeting ID below. Please follow the instructions B-E above. 4.Spoken public comments using a phone use the telephone number listed below. When you wish to speak on an agenda item hit *9 on your phone so we know that you wish to speak. You will be asked to provide your first and last name before addressing the Council. You will be advised how long you have to speak. When called please limit your remarks to the agenda item and time limit allotted. CLICK HERE TO JOIN Meeting ID: 919 9454 8701 Phone:1-669-900-6833 Americans with Disability Act (ADA) It is the policy of the City of Palo Alto to offer its public programs, services and meetings in a manner that is readily accessible to all. Persons with disabilities who require materials in an appropriate alternative format or who require auxiliary aids to access City meetings, programs, or services may contact the City’s ADA Coordinator at (650) 329-2550 (voice) or by emailing ada@paloalto.gov. Requests for assistance or accommodations must be submitted at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting, program, or service. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. DRAFT HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING ACTION MINUTES Thursday, July 10, 2025 6:00 PM Commissioners Present: Barr, Causey, Eberle, Karnam, Kraus, Stimmler Commissioners Absent: Hsieh Council Liaison: Council Member Stone not in attendance Staff: Minka Van Der Zwaag, Mahealani Ah Yun I) ROLL CALL II) PUBLIC COMMENT III) AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS IV) APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1. June 12, 2025 MOTION: V i c e C h a i r K r a u s moved, seconded by Commissioner Barr, to approve the minutes of June 12, 2025. MOTION PASSED: 6-0-1 (Hsieh) V) BUSINESS ITEMS 2. Review of Training Overview for the Religious Tolerance Training to be Offered to City Staff, Boards/Commissions, and the City Council. – Staff – Discussion NO ACTION TAKEN VI) REPORTS FROM OFFICIALS VII) ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m. 1     Packet Pg. 5     Human Relations Commission Staff Report From: Coleman Frick, Manager of Long Range Planning Meeting Date: September 11, 2025 Report #: 2508-5152 TITLE PUBLIC HEARING: Summary of Fiscal Year 2024-2025 (HUD CDBG Program Year 2024) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program Accomplishments — Review of the Draft Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the Human Relations Commission open a public hearing to review, discuss, and take public comments on the FY 2024-2025 (Program Year 2024) draft CAPER. No HRC motions or action is required. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The City must annually report the accomplishments of its Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This report, called the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER), summarizes these accomplishments and expenditures for the FY 2024-2025 (Program Year 2024) CDBG funding cycle. In FY 2024-2025, HUD requires submittal of the CAPER (Attachment A) by September 30, 2025. BACKGROUND The City of Palo Alto receives funding annually from HUD as an entitlement city under the CDBG program. As a recipient of CDBG funds, the City is required to prepare a CAPER at the end of each fiscal year1. The CAPER describes the City’s progress toward implementing the activities identified in the 2024-2025 Annual Action Plan2 and the goals and objectives of the 2020-2025 Consolidated Plan3. The next CAPER will focus on progress towards the 2025- 2030 Consolidated Plan. 1 The Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) uses the questions, report organization, and information format required and provided by HUD. 2 Annual Action Plan: An annual report listing the activities the City intends to undertake with CDBG funds to address the needs and implement the strategies identified in the Consolidated Plan. 3 Consolidated Plan (Con Plan): A five-year strategic plan that addresses the housing and non-housing community development needs of lower income persons and establishes annual goals and objectives to meet the identified needs. 2     Packet Pg. 6     ANALYSIS During FY 2024-2025 (PY 2024), the City’s CDBG subrecipients continued to provide vital services to extremely low-, very low-, low-, and moderate-income households while addressing the priorities and needs of the community and the City’s funding priorities. A total of $1,037,807 was available for CDBG projects, programs, and activities during FY 2024-2025. As reported in the 2024-2025 Draft CAPER (Attachment A), major FY 2024-2025 accomplishments from the City’s CDBG program are as follows: Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County – Long Term Care Ombudsman Program [Goal: Assist 37 individuals; Actual: 37 individuals]. The program provided advocacy and complaint investigation for elderly residents of long-term care facilities in Palo Alto, which included regular contact with Palo Alto Residential Care Facilities to observe and monitor conditions of care; Alta Housing – SRO Resident Supportive Services [Goal: Assist 131; Actual: 516 individuals]. Alta Housing engaged a service coordinator to provide 40 hours of weekly services to provide case management and support counseling services to residents at Alma Place and Barker Hotel to help them maintain housing stability. Activities included financial counseling, health maintenance, information, and referral problem-solving, employment assistance, crisis intervention, and case management. Both Alma Place and Barker Hotel are single-room occupancy facilities; LifeMoves – Case Management [Goal: Assist 32 individuals; Actual: 47 individuals]. LifeMoves provided case management services to Opportunity Services Center and Hotel De Zink clients for locating housing and/or employment and be connecting clients to benefits; Project Sentinel – Fair Housing Services [Goal: Assist 10 individuals; Actual: 7 individuals]. Project Sentinel provided fair housing services to City residents including community education and outreach regarding fair housing law and practices, investigation, counseling, and legal referral for victims of housing discrimination; Silicon Valley Independent Living Center (SVILC) – Case Management Services [Goal: Assist 21 individuals; Actual: 24 individuals]. SVLIC provided assistance for individuals with disabilities and their families. This assistance helped these persons to transition from homelessness, health care facilities, unstable or temporary housing to permanent affordable, accessible, integrated housing involving emergency assistance, security deposits, rent, information, and referrals; Rebuilding Together Peninsula – Safe at Home Program [Goal: Assist 5 households; Actual: 2 households]. Program preserved affordable housing by transforming homes 2     Packet Pg. 7     through critical repairs and accessibility modifications, at no cost to the service recipient. The majority of the low-income homeowners served were elderly seniors and/or people with disabilities, who are physically and financially unable to maintain safe living conditions for themselves and their families; Public Works Department (PW) – 2023 ADA Curb Ramp Improvements [Goal: 2,090 individuals; Actual: 6,681 individuals]. The City intends to fund a major curb ramp improvement project that will bring an estimated 70 curb ramps up to current ADA accessibility standards; Abode/Community Work Group – Alma Garden Rehabilitation [Goal: 10 individuals; Actual: 0 individuals]. Project activities include rehabilitating rental housing units in Alma Garden, an affordable multi-family housing complex for very low and low-income households, to address existing health and safety concerns. Funding would be spent on a project manager, bathroom upgrades, exterior repairs, and electrical and water utility upgrades. Construction continues with interior work as exterior work has concluded; LifeMoves – HomeKey Recreation Project [Goal: 100 individuals; Actual: 0 individuals]. Provider will manage the design and construction of recreation area and recreation equipment within the Homekey Palo Alto shelter property. The anticipated project completion timeframe is 12 months. Environmental review reaching conclusion with construction to begin shortly thereafter. WeeCare/Upwards – BOOST Program [Goal: 15 microenterprises; Actual: 15 microenterprises]. WeeCare worked with Family Child Care Home (FCCH) providers in Palo Alto who are already on the wait list for the BOOST program. These providers received staff training-learning best practices on how to grow and sustain their organization and how to better support the families they serve. Funds requested to pay WeeCare staff salaries for training providers on how to use Child Management System (CCMS) software. CCMS was developed for providers to create work plans, goals, capacity, and revenue, empowering them to reach service and operations goals; and Move Mountain View (MMV) [Goal: 37 individuals; Actual: 6 individuals]. The program provides reserved off-street parking for participants, as well as permanent housing solutions through intensive case management. MMV operates four 24/7 RV Safe Parking lots and three Congregational Safe Parking locations. The total capacity of these lots in Palo Alto and Mountain View is 109 vehicles. A total of 159 vehicle dwellers are currently enrolled in the program. One of locations is located in Palo Alto at the Geng Road Safe Parking lot. The Geng Road Safe Parking Lot is where MMV utilizes Palo Alto’s CDBG-CV funds. Funding pays for the salary of one full-time Client Counseling Case Manager and one full-time Client Case Manager Housing Specialist. MMV continues to look to fill these positions. 2     Packet Pg. 8     TIMELINE As required by HUD, the FY 2024-2025 draft CAPER will be submitted by the September 30, 2025 deadline. FISCAL/RESOURCE IMPACT This informational report has no fiscal impact. STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT An advertisement was published in The Daily Post on August 30, 2025 announcing the upcoming availability of the draft CAPER for public review and comment. The draft CAPER was posted on the City’s CDBG webpage (www.cityofpaloalto.org/cdbg) and available from September 9 through September 24, 2025 meeting the 15-day public comment period requirement. Hardcopies of the draft CAPER were also available for review at the City’s Development Center, Planning & Development Services Department at City Hall, and the City’s Downtown Public Library. The HRC will hold a public hearing on September 11, 2025 to discuss the draft CAPER and provide the public the opportunity to comment; the meeting fulfills the public hearing requirement for the CAPER. ATTACHMENTS Attachment A: 2024-2025 Draft Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) version date September 2, 2025 2     Packet Pg. 9     DRAFT SEPTEMBER 2025 DRAFT 2024-2025 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT (CDBG) ADMINISTERED BY: PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT SERVICES 2     Packet Pg. 10     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 1 2     Packet Pg. 11     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 2 CR-05 - Goals and Outcomes Progress the jurisdiction has made in carrying out its strategic plan and its action plan. 91.520(a) This could be an overview that includes major initiatives and highlights that were proposed and executed throughout the program year. The Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) is a report that demonstrates the overall progress realized through the City’s priorities and specific objectives as identified in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024-2025 Annual Action Plan and the 2020-2025 Consolidated Plan. The CAPER highlights accomplishments that occurred between June 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025. This is the final year-end report of the 2020-2025 Consolidated Plan. As shown in Table 1, the City of Palo Alto has accomplished immense success in FY2024-2025 (PY2024-2025, Program Year 2024-2025, PY2024) while meeting identified goals. The City has used Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to support their community’s residents. The City does not receive HOME Investment Partnership (HOME), Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG), or Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) and thus these funds are not reflected in this report. A total of $1,107,757 in CDBG funds was available for projects and programs during the 2024- 2025 Program Year (PY). The City received $513,653 from the federal CDBG program and $129,950 in program income and had $464,154.61 available in unspent funds from previous years. In FY2024-2025, the City reallocated CDBG-CV funds in the sum of $34,200.50 unspent funds from the canceled LifeMoves’ COVID-19 Testing Project and $85,278.24 unspent funds from Planning and Administration. In PY2024, 7,320 persons and 15 microenterprise businesses were assisted through CDBG allocations. Major accomplishments for FY2024-2025 include the following: Planning and Administration. • Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County – Long Term Care Ombudsman Program [Goal: Assist 37 individuals; Actual: 37 individuals]. The program provided advocacy and complaint investigation for elderly residents of long-term care facilities in Palo Alto, which included regular contact with Palo Alto Residential Care Facilities to observe and monitor conditions of care; • Alta Housing – SRO Resident Supportive Services [Goal: Assist 131; Actual: 516 individuals]. Alta Housing engaged a service coordinator to provide 40 hours of weekly 2     Packet Pg. 12     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 3 services to provide case management and support counseling services to residents at Alma Place and Barker Hotel to help them maintain housing stability. Activities included financial counseling, health maintenance, information, and referral problem-solving, employment assistance, crisis intervention, and case management. Both Alma Place and Barker Hotel are single-room occupancy facilities; • LifeMoves – Case Management [Goal: Assist 32 individuals; Actual: 47 individuals]. LifeMoves provided case management services to Opportunity Services Center and Hotel De Zink clients for locating housing and/or employment and be connecting clients to benefits; • Project Sentinel – Fair Housing Services [Goal: Assist 10 individuals; Actual: 7 individuals]. Project Sentinel provided fair housing services to City residents including community education and outreach regarding fair housing law and practices, investigation, counseling, and legal referral for victims of housing discrimination; • Silicon Valley Independent Living Center (SVILC) – Case Management Services [Goal: Assist 21 individuals; Actual: 24 individuals]. SVLIC provided assistance for individuals with disabilities and their families. This assistance helped these persons to transition from homelessness, health care facilities, unstable or temporary housing to permanent affordable, accessible, integrated housing involving emergency assistance, security deposits, rent, information, and referrals; • Rebuilding Together Peninsula – Safe at Home Program [Goal: Assist 5 households; Actual: 2 households]. Program preserved affordable housing by transforming homes through critical repairs and accessibility modifications, at no cost to the service recipient. The majority of the low-income homeowners served were elderly seniors and/or people with disabilities, who are physically and financially unable to maintain safe living conditions for themselves and their families; • Public Works Department (PW) – 2023 ADA Curb Ramp Improvements [Goal: 2,090 individuals; Actual: 6,681 individuals]. The City intends to fund a major curb ramp improvement project that will bring an estimated 70 curb ramps up to current ADA accessibility standards; • Abode/Community Work Group – Alma Garden Rehabilitation [Goal: 10 individuals; Actual: 0 individuals]. Project activities include rehabilitating rental housing units in Alma Garden, an affordable multi-family housing complex for very low and low-income households, to address existing health and safety concerns. Funding would be spent on a project manager, bathroom upgrades, exterior repairs, and electrical and water utility 2     Packet Pg. 13     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 4 upgrades. Construction continues with interior work as exterior work has concluded; • LifeMoves – HomeKey Recreation Project [Goal: 100 individuals; Actual: 0 individuals]. Provider will manage the design and construction of recreation area and recreation equipment within the Homekey Palo Alto shelter property. The anticipated project completion timeframe is 12 months. Environmental review reaching conclusion with construction to begin shortly thereafter. • WeeCare/Upwards – BOOST Program [Goal: 15 microenterprises; Actual: 15 microenterprises]. WeeCare worked with Family Child Care Home (FCCH) providers in Palo Alto who are already on the wait list for the BOOST program. These providers received staff training-learning best practices on how to grow and sustain their organization and how to better support the families they serve. Funds requested to pay WeeCare staff salaries for training providers on how to use Child Management System (CCMS) software. CCMS was developed for providers to create work plans, goals, capacity, and revenue, empowering them to reach service and operations goals; and • Move Mountain View (MMV) [Goal: 37 individuals; Actual: 6 individuals]. The program provides reserved off-street parking for participants, as well as permanent housing solutions through intensive case management. MMV operates four 24/7 RV Safe Parking lots and three Congregational Safe Parking locations. The total capacity of these lots in Palo Alto and Mountain View is 109 vehicles. A total of 159 vehicle dwellers are currently enrolled in the program. One of locations is located in Palo Alto at the Geng Road Safe Parking lot. The Geng Road Safe Parking Lot is where MMV utilizes Palo Alto’s CDBG-CV funds. Funding pays for the salary of one full-time Client Counseling Case Manager and one full-time Client Case Manager Housing Specialist. MMV continues to look to fill these positions. Comparison of the proposed versus actual outcomes for each outcome measure submitted with the consolidated plan and explain, if applicable, why progress was not made toward meeting goals and objectives. 91.520(g) Categories, priority levels, funding sources and amounts, outcomes/objectives, goal outcome indicators, units of measure, targets, actual outcomes/outputs, and percentage completed for each of the grantee’s program year goals 2     Packet Pg. 14     DRAFT SEPTEMBER 2025 Goal Category Source / Amount Indicator Unit of Measure Expected – Strategic Plan Actual – Strategic Plan *Percent Complete Expected – Program Year Actual – Program Year Percent Complete Affordable Housing Affordable Housing CDBG: $ Rental units rehabilitated Household Housing Unit 107 0 0.00% 0 0 - Affordable Housing Affordable Housing CDBG: $ Homeowner Housing Rehabilitated Household Housing Unit 40 19 47.50% 15 2 13.33% Economic Development Non-Housing Community Development CDBG: $ Jobs created/retained Jobs 150 28 18.67% 0 0 - Economic Development Non-Housing Community Development CDBG: $ Businesses assisted Businesses Assisted 0 34 - 15 15 100.00% Fair Housing Non-Housing Community Development CDBG: $ Public service activities other than Low/Moderate Income Housing Benefit Persons Assisted 75 89 118.67% 10 7 70.00% Homelessness Homeless CDBG: $ / CDBG- CV: $ Public service activities other than Low/Moderate Income Housing Benefit Persons Assisted 800 1,546 193.25% 304 569 187.17% 2     Packet Pg. 15     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 1 Goal Category Source / Amount Indicator Unit of Measure Expected – Strategic Plan Actual – Strategic Plan *Percent Complete Expected – Program Year Actual – Program Year Percent Complete Homelessness Homeless CDBG: $ / CDBG- CV: $ Tenant-based rental assistance / Rapid Rehousing Households Assisted 60 92 153.33% 0 0 - Homelessness Homeless CDBG: $ / CDBG- CV: $ Homeless Person Overnight Shelter Persons Assisted 100 0 0.00% 0 0 - Homelessness Homeless CDBG: $ / CDBG- CV: $ Overnight / Emergency Shelter / Transitional Housing Beds Beds 0 0 0 0 0 - Strengthen Neighborhoods Non- Homeless Special Needs Non-Housing Community Development CDBG: $ Public Facility or Infrastructure Activities other than Low/Moderate Income Housing Benefit Persons Assisted 2,190 6,681 305.07% 2,090 6,681 319.67% 2     Packet Pg. 16     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 2 Goal Category Source / Amount Indicator Unit of Measure Expected – Strategic Plan Actual – Strategic Plan *Percent Complete Expected – Program Year Actual – Program Year Percent Complete Strengthen Neighborhoods Non- Homeless Special Needs Non-Housing Community Development CDBG: $ Public service activities other than Low/Moderate Income Housing Benefit Persons Assisted 3,600 1,886 52.39% 59 62 105.08% Table 1 - Accomplishments – Program Year & Strategic Plan to Date *IDIS (Integrated Disbursement and Information System) automatically rounds percentages to the nearest whole number: rounding up if the decimal portion is greater than 0.50 and rounding down if the decimal portion is less than 0.50. Table 1 reports on precise percentages. Assess how the jurisdiction’s use of funds, particularly CDBG, addresses the priorities and specific objectives identified in the plan, giving special attention to the highest priority activities identified. Throughout FY2024-25 (Program Year 2024), the subrecipients of the City’s CDBG program persistently delivered essential services to households belonging to the extremely low-, very low-, low-, and moderate-income brackets. Simultaneously, they tackled the priorities and needs of the community, as outlined in the City’s officially adopted 2020-2025 Consolidated Plan. The City achieved numerous goals as outlined in the FY2024-2025 Annual Action Plan (AAP) through CDBG funding. A total of $1,107,757 was available for funding projects and programs during the 2024 Program Year. The City received $513,653 from the federal CDBG program and $129,950 in program income and had $464,154.61 in previous year unspent CDBG funds. At the time of this CAPER, the City has spent approximately $793,516.08. In FY2024-2025, the City reallocated CDBG-CV funds in the sum of $34,200.50 unspent funds from the canceled LifeMoves’ COVID-19 Testing Project and $85,278.24 unspent funds from Planning and 2     Packet Pg. 17     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 3 Administration. Goals established through the 2020-2025 Consolidated Plan include: • Affordable Housing: Assist in the creation and preservation of affordable housing for low-income and special needs households. • Homelessness: Support activities to prevent and end homelessness. • Community Services and Public Improvements: Support provision of essential human services, particularly for special needs populations, and maintain/expand community facilities and infrastructure. • Fair Housing: Promote fair housing choice. • Economic Development: Support economic development activities that promote employment growth and help lower income people secure and maintain jobs. Through the CDBG annual formula grant, activities such as the following were undertaken and accomplished to contribute toward meeting the 2020-2025 Consolidated Plan’s goals: • Catholic Charities, Ombudsman Program: Assisted 37 senior residents through visitation, resolved complaints, completed phone outreach at local long-term facilities. • LifeMoves, Opportunity Services Center: Assisted 47 homeless and very low-income individuals through case management services, including housing and job searches. • Project Sentinel: Assisted 7 low-income individuals with tenant and landlord mediation services. • Alta Housing: Assisted 516 individuals in the Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) Residents Support Program through onsite counseling services. • Rebuilding Together Peninsula: Assisted 2 households with home rehabilitation. • Move Mountain View: Assisted 6 individuals with intensive case management services through the reserved off-street parking program. • WeeCareUpwards: Assisted 15 family childcare home businesses with business improvement services. • SVILC: assisted 24 persons through case management services. • Alma Garden: construction underway with completion scheduled for PY2025. 2     Packet Pg. 18     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 4 • Homekey Recreation Project: environmental review to completed with construction to commence shortly there after. • 43 ADA Curb Ramps were installed, benefiting the City of Palo Alto’s 6,681 residents with disabilities. 2     Packet Pg. 19     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 5 CR-10 - Racial and Ethnic composition of families assisted Describe the families assisted (including the racial and ethnic status of families assisted). 91.520(a) CDBG White 5,527 Black or African American 318 Asian 996 American Indian or American Native 65 Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 12 Total 6,918 Hispanic 572 Not Hispanic 6,346 Table 2 – Table of assistance to racial and ethnic populations by source of funds Narrative During FY2024-2025, the City was successful in collecting demographic data for 7,335 persons who were served with CDBG funds. Table 2 above outlines the racial and ethnic populations served by CDBG funds in FY2024-2025 (PY 2024) for a variety of races, although this HUD IDIS formatted reporting table does not track persons identifying as multi-racial. Not reflected in Table 2 above is an additional 417 identified as multi-racial individuals. Further, 584 of the total individuals assisted identified as Hispanic. A portion of services provided included: • Alta Housing SRO Resident Support Services Program: Case management and support counseling services provided to 516 residents of Barker Hotel and Alma Place. • Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County Long Term Care Ombudsman Program: Advocacy and compliant investigation provided to 37 elderly residents of long-term care facilities in the City. • LifeMoves at Opportunity Services Center and Hotel De Zink: Case management services provided to 47 homeless and/or very low-income individuals, including assistance with housing/job searches, referrals, and mentoring. • Silicon Valley Independent Living Center: Case management services provided to 24 very low-income residents with disabilities and their families, including group workshops, one- on-one service training, and access to independent living services, including emergency food assistance, security deposits/rent (as funding allows), information and referral to ensure the long-term sustainability of affordable and accessible housing. 2     Packet Pg. 20     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 6 • Project Sentinel Fair Housing Services: Fair housing services, including complaint counseling, investigation, and (where appropriate) enforcement referral was provided to 7 LMI individuals. • WeeCare/Upwards Family Childcare Home Microenterprises: 15 microenterprise daycare businesses in the City of Palo Alto received assistance. WeeCare/Upwards’ BOOST Program supports low-income family-child care home providers in Palo Alto. • Rebuilding Together Peninsula, Safe at Home: 2 LMI households including seniors and/or persons with disabilities received home improvement assistance for critical home repairs. 2     Packet Pg. 21     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 7 CR-15 - Resources and Investments 91.520(a) Identify the resources made available Source of Funds Source Resources Made Available Amount Expended During Program Year CDBG public - federal 1,107,757 793,516.08 Table 3 - Resources Made Available Narrative Identify the geographic distribution and location of investments Target Area Planned Percentage of Allocation Actual Percentage of Allocation Narrative Description Citywide 100% 100% Community Services and Public Improvements, Economic Development, Housing Rehabilitation, Sidewalk Improvements Table 4 – Identify the geographic distribution and location of investments Narrative The City’s approach to housing assistance encompasses all forms of housing support, aligning with the principles outlined in the City’s Comprehensive Plan. CDBG-funded public service and housing activities are not confined to specific target areas. The City strives to offer affordable housing options and community services to individuals with lower incomes across the entire municipality. 2     Packet Pg. 22     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 8 Leveraging Explain how federal funds leveraged additional resources (private, state and local funds), including a description of how matching requirements were satisfied, as well as how any publicly owned land or property located within the jurisdiction that were used to address the needs identified in the plan. The City of Palo Alto does not receive HOME, ESG, or any other federal grants that require matching requirements. However, the City is consistently maximizing their use of available resources while simultaneously looking out for additional funding opportunities. In addition, the City actively encourages nonprofit organizations to pursue various avenues of funding, including state, local, and federal resources, to support housing and community development activities. The following funds were leveraged during FY2024-2025. Human Services Resources Allocation Process (HSRAP): In FY2024-2025, the City allocated General Funds to HSRAP to address primary human service needs in Palo Alto. These funds support human service initiatives, guided by the Human Relations Commission’s priority needs and administered by the Office of Human Services. Local Housing Trust Fund (LHTF): In FY2022-2023, the City of Palo Alto received $3.4 million from HCD to use alongside local matching funds toward the production of rental housing units at varying affordability levels. 70 percent of these funds target housing units for residents with incomes at or below 60 percent of the area median income (AMI), while 30 percent are for residents with incomes at or below 30 percent AMI. Permanent Local Housing Allocation (PLHA): As a PHLA entitlement jurisdiction, Palo Alto received an annual PHLA allocation from HCD. The City uses these funds to assist persons who are experiencing homelessness or who are at risk of experiencing homelessness. Funding is used toward street outreach and operating expenses for the Palo Alto Homekey shelter, and for affordable rental housing preservation, new construction, and operating subsidies. HOMEKEY: Palo Alto Homekey is a forthcoming modular interim housing shelter with the capacity to serve over 200 individuals annually with on-site supportive services. As a co- development partnership between the City and LifeMoves, the project is receiving a combination of funding from both state and local contributions, including the Palo Alto Community Fund, the Peery Foundation, Sobrato Philanthropies, Santa Clara County, and the City itself. These additional funding sources address expenses beyond what federal funds can cover, such as pre- development costs, feasibility studies, and site acquisition. 2     Packet Pg. 23     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 9 CR-20 - Affordable Housing 91.520(b) Evaluation of the jurisdiction's progress in providing affordable housing, including the number and types of families served, the number of extremely low-income, low-income, moderate-income, and middle-income persons served. One-Year Goal Actual Number of homeless households to be provided affordable housing units 0 0 Number of non-homeless households to be provided affordable housing units 0 0 Number of special-needs households to be provided with affordable housing units 0 0 Total 0 0 Table 5 – Number of Households One-Year Goal Actual Number of households supported through rental assistance 0 0 Number of households supported through the production of new units 0 0 Number of households supported through the rehab of existing units 0 0 Number of households supported through the acquisition of existing units 0 0 Total 0 0 Table 6 – Number of Households Supported Discuss the difference between goals and outcomes and problems encountered in meeting these goals. While not a recipient of HOME funds, the City continued its partnership with Rebuilding Together Peninsula through its Safe at Home Program. The Program represents preservation of affordable housing, as the program provides for critical home repairs and accessibility modifications at no cost to the recipient. Those served include LMI homeowners that are elderly and/or are people with disabilities, who are physically and financially unable to maintain safe living conditions for themselves and their families. With Rebuilding Together Peninsula, the City assisted a total of 2 LMI households with rehabilitation through CDBG funds during PY2024. The number of households assisted through the Safe at Home Program is dependent on available funds and the 2     Packet Pg. 24     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 10 extent of rehabilitation work needed per household. The City also partnered with Community Work Group/Abode to rehabilitate rental housing units in Alma Garden, an affordable multi-family housing complex for very low- and low-income households. These rehabilitation efforts addressed health and safety concerns, with funding spent on a project manager, bathroom upgrades, exterior repairs, and electrical and water utility upgrades. During PY2024, Community Work Group/Abode completed exterior work to the Alma Garden multi-family housing complex. This work will act as a precursor to the continuation of the project in future funding years, with the goal of rehabilitating 10 LMI household units. Discuss how these outcomes will impact future annual action plans. Rebuilding Together Peninsula’s multi-year success demonstrates a continued need for home rehabilitation for LMI households in the City of Palo Alto. Future plans would build upon these consecutive successes to continue providing home rehabilitation. In addition, Community Work Group/Abode’s successful start to rehabilitate the interior of LMI rental units at Alma Gardens in future fiscal years demonstrates a continued need for rental unit rehabilitation. Include the number of extremely low-income, low-income, and moderate-income persons served by each activity where information on income by family size is required to determine the eligibility of the activity. Number of Households Served CDBG Actual HOME Actual Extremely Low-income 1 0 Low-income 1 0 Moderate-income 0 0 Total 0 0 Table 7 – Number of Households Served Rebuilding Together Peninsula assisted 2 LMI households through its Safe at Home rehabilitation program in PY2024. These households included 1 extremely low-income and 1 low-income household. Narrative Information The City of Palo Alto continues to prioritize the promotion of affordable housing for its residents. Currently, the City has the second highest inventory of affordable housing for incorporated jurisdictions within Santa Clara County (as a percentage of total housing stock). Since 2017, the City has contributed or pledged $52 million towards affordable housing, has approximately 2,300 units (nine percent of total housing stock) dedicated to affordable housing through deed restrictions, and has permitted over 1,000 housing units in the last eight years. Further, the Palo Alto City Council adopted “housing for social and economic balance” as a key priority in both 2023 and 2024. For 2025, the City Council has made “implementing housing strategies for social and economic balance” a key priority. To make the search for affordable housing easily accessible 2     Packet Pg. 25     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 11 to LMI residents, the City has an interactive Affordable Housing Resources Map embedded on their website featuring affordable housing properties and projects managed by affordable housing organizations. In addition, the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Clara (HACSC) administers the federal Section 8 program countywide, providing rental subsidies and developing affordable housing for low-income households, seniors, and persons with disabilities. 2     Packet Pg. 26     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 12 CR-25 - Homeless and Other Special Needs 91.220(d, e); 91.320(d, e); 91.520(c) Evaluate the jurisdiction’s progress in meeting its specific objectives for reducing and ending homelessness through: Reaching out to homeless persons (especially unsheltered persons) and assessing their individual needs The City of Palo Alto has an enduring local commitment to address homelessness and provide services for the unhoused. Jurisdictions in the County of Santa Clara participate in the county-wide Point-in-Time (PIT) Count every two years. At the time of this report, the 2025 PIT Count’s preliminary results show that there are 10,711 individuals experiencing homelessness in Santa Clara County. This represents an 8.2 percent increase from 2023. Simultaneously, the number of sheltered homeless individuals increased by approximately 30 percent as compared to 2023, marking an increase in shelter capacity. Unsheltered homeless individuals remained relatively the same as in 2023, with an increase of just one percent. The full 2025 PIT Count Report, which includes detailed data about the City of Palo Alto’s homeless trends, will be available in late summer or early fall of 2025. According to Santa Clara County’s 2023 PIT Count, there were 206 homeless persons in the City of Palo Alto, including 187 unsheltered individuals and 19 sheltered individuals. The City of Palo Alto provides funding for unhoused services and homelessness prevention through multiple funding channels, including CDBG, Human Services Resource Allocation Process (HSRAP), Permanent Local Housing Allocation (PLHA), and the Emerging Needs Fund. This broad financial support is directed toward service provision and homeless prevention. Services for the City’s homeless population include workforce development, basic needs stipends for work experience, food, seasonal homeless shelter, school supplies for children, case management, tele-medicine equipment, and shower/laundry services. Additionally, the City contracted with a local nonprofit to provide a two-person full time Outreach Team to reach out and provide services to unhoused individuals in the community, including those living in cars and RVs. The City also opened an Overnight Warming Location (OWL) that operated during winter and provided 19 “nights indoors.” The City also has several initiatives aimed at preventing homelessness from occurring, including assistance through LifeMoves and the Silicon Valley Independent Living Center. LifeMoves’ Opportunity Services Center (OSC) is specifically designated by the County of Santa Clara as the Emergency Assistance Network Agency for financial assistance in the City of Palo Alto. The OSC in Palo Alto exclusively serves homeless individuals. Further, LifeMoves at the OSC provides intake services to all clients served to assess needs and to provide appropriate resources and referrals. LifeMoves also provides basic need services such as access to restrooms, showers, 2     Packet Pg. 27     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 13 laundry, used clothing, hygiene supplies, healthcare, mail and telephone services, food, transportation assistance, counseling, information and referral services, and other critical services as needed. The City of Palo Alto will continue to explore its funding strategy and collaborate with other Santa Clara County cities to ensure that limited federal and local resources are targeted to critical community needs such as homelessness. Addressing the emergency shelter and transitional housing needs of homeless persons During FY2024-2025, LifeMoves’ Opportunity Services Center (OSC) received funding from the City of Palo Alto to provide emergency shelter and/or transitional housing for homeless persons. This project received $28,247 in CDBG funding from the City and has significantly extended its operational hours, thereby providing enhanced support to Palo Alto’s homeless community. This extension has provided vulnerable clients with more time within a secure and nurturing environment, ensuring they receive the critical assistance they require. During FY2024-2025, LifeMoves offered case management services to 47 individuals in the City of Palo Alto through its CDBG funds. Helping low-income individuals and families avoid becoming homeless, especially extremely low-income individuals and families and those who are: likely to become homeless after being discharged from publicly funded institutions and systems of care (such as health care facilities, mental health facilities, foster care and other youth facilities, and corrections programs and institutions); and, receiving assistance from public or private agencies that address housing, health, social services, employment, education, or youth needs In FY2024-2025, the City of Palo Alto administered CDBG funds to Alta Housing and LifeMoves to help low-income individuals and families avoid becoming homeless, especially those who are extremely low-income and those who are discharged from publicly funded institutions and systems of care. Alta Housing received $11,575 in CDBG funding and offered on-site counseling services to residents at Alma Place and Barker Hotel who are part of the Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) Resident Support Program. This program encompasses 145 units with the majority of residents being low-income, persons with disabilities, seniors, veterans, and/or formerly homeless adults. Many residents experience difficulty managing daily living skills, such as managing finances, maintaining mental and physical health, maintaining living spaces, and having good relationships with others. Without onsite support, such issues can become so severe that tenants risk losing their housing. Case management was provided to 516 residents through CDBG in FY2024-2025. LifeMoves received $28,247 in CDBG funding and provided case management services to 47 2     Packet Pg. 28     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 14 homeless and/or very low-income City residents. Case management services included assistance with housing and job searches, referrals to other resources, and mentoring. The City follows the guidance of Santa Clara County’s Continuum of Care (CoC) as it relates to individuals who may be discharged from publicly funded institutions and systems of care. The Santa Clary County CoC has developed the Santa Clara County Countywide Quality Assurance Standards for Homeless Housing and Service Programs (2021). This was developed with the expectation of providing quality, standardized services to persons who have become homeless to facilitate their successful re-entry back into their communities. As a member of the CoC, the City of Palo Alto will be following the standards established in the documents. Helping homeless persons (especially chronically homeless individuals and families, families with children, veterans and their families, and unaccompanied youth) make the transition to permanent housing and independent living, including shortening the period of time that individuals and families experience homelessness, facilitating access for homeless individuals and families to affordable housing units, and preventing individuals and families who were recently homeless from becoming homeless again In FY2024-2025, the City undertook several activities to help homeless persons, especially chronically homeless individuals and families, families with children, veterans and their families, and unaccompanied youth make the transition to permanent housing and independent living. Through CDBG funding, Silicon Valley Independent Living Center (SVILC) conducted case management and offered their Housing Workshops. These Housing Workshops educate households on skills and topics that are conducive to independent living. Topics and skills include credit card readiness and credit repair, types of low-income housing and eligibility, application and interview preparation, tenant and landlord rights and responsibilities, housing and home modifications laws and resources, security deposit and rental assistance programs, and long-term supportive services. During FY2024-2025, SVILC used CDBG funds to assist 24 unduplicated Palo Alto residents with disabilities with one-on-one assistance and the development of an independent living plan for housing. These individualized independent living plans resulted in improved access to decent affordable housing. In addition, Project Sentinel provided community education and outreach regarding housing laws and practices, investigation, counseling, and legal referrals for victims of housing discrimination. During FY2024-2025, 7 LMI residents were provided individual case management and consultation through CDBG funds. 2     Packet Pg. 29     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 15 CR-30 - Public Housing 91.220(h); 91.320(j) Actions taken to address the needs of public housing The Santa Clara County Housing Authority (SCCHA) administers Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs) and Project-Based Vouchers (PBVs) in the City of Palo Alto. As of January 2025, there were 272 total vouchers in use in the City, including 67 PBVs at the Buena Vista Mobile Park. SCCHA’s waiting list for the County is operated on a lottery basis, with preference given to households who have lived and worked in the County for the past five years and to veterans. For PBV units, accessibility features are tracked, and a lottery is used to match households based on specific accessibility needs. SCCHA currently has no public housing units in its portfolio that are located in the City of Palo Alto. Following SCCHA’s conversion of its public housing portfolio under the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, only four traditional public housing units remain in the County, all of which are located in the City of Santa Clara. Actions taken to encourage public housing residents to become more involved in management and participate in homeownership While the majority of the public housing units have been converted to affordable housing stock, the Santa Clara County Housing Authority (SCCHA) is proactive in incorporating resident input into the agency’s policy making process. An equitable and transparent policy making process that includes the opinions of residents is achieved through the involvement of two tenant commissioners, one being a senior citizen, on the Authority’s board. SCCHA also operates a Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) Program for households participating in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program. Through the FSS Program, as earned income and rent portions increase, SCCHA makes monthly deposits into a household savings account. Upon the completion of the Program, which involves meeting personal goals, the savings are provided to the household. The FSS Program encourages financial independence and stability, and is typically five years in length, with an average completion time of 3 years and 10 months. Actions taken to provide assistance to troubled PHAs Not applicable. 2     Packet Pg. 30     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 16 CR-35 - Other Actions 91.220(j)-(k); 91.320(i)-(j) Actions taken to remove or ameliorate the negative effects of public policies that serve as barriers to affordable housing such as land use controls, tax policies affecting land, zoning ordinances, building codes, fees and charges, growth limitations, and policies affecting the return on residential investment. 91.220 (j); 91.320 (i) The City of Palo Alto is committed to taking actions to remove or ameliorate the negative effects of public policies that serve as barriers to affordable housing. In July 2024, the City adopted the 2023-2031 Housing Element, which includes several programs meant to tackle impediments to affordable housing development. The 2023-2031 Housing Element was certified by HCD on August 20, 2024. Programs include modifications to existing zoning standards to allow for denser development, further streamlining the development review process, provisions of development standards that incentivize housing production, reevaluation of fees to support development, and more. The Housing Trust Silicon Valley (Housing Trust) was established to provide available financial resources targeted at bridging the affordable housing gap within Santa Clara County. Originally known as the Housing Trust Fund of Santa Clara County, the Housing Trust’s overarching mission is to contribute to rendering Silicon Valley a more financially accessible place to live. The Housing Trust achieves this by disbursing loans and grants to increase the affordable housing supply, supporting first-time homebuyers, forestalling homelessness, and enhancing community stability. Palo Alto was one of the founding contributors to this initiative and has continued to support and help fund the Housing Trust. Notably, the partnership has a provision to ensure that funds allocated by the City of Palo Alto are exclusively channeled toward qualifying affordable housing projects within the City’s municipal boundaries. To further remove or ameliorate the negative effects of public policies that result in barriers, the City has development impact fees encompassing four distinct categories. These include housing, traffic, community facilities, and parkland dedication. The introduction of development impact fees in the City are a result from comprehensive nexus studies undertaken for both commercial and residential development. Outcomes from the studies laid the groundwork for revised fees associated with residential and non-residential housing, which became effecting on June 19, 2017. The housing impact fees are subject to annual updates, with fees charged being periodically evaluated and modified to ensure that they support, rather than prohibit, housing development. Actions taken to address obstacles to meeting underserved needs. 91.220(k); 91.320(j) The City's CDBG program demonstrates a committed effort to collaborate with various funding entities, aiming to maximize the impact of each dollar invested. This is accomplished through strategic collaborations with other municipal resources, such as the Human Services Resource 2     Packet Pg. 31     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 17 Allocation Process (HSRAP), enabling the pooling of funds designated for site acquisition in low- income housing alongside diverse funding sources. However, Palo Alto faces challenges in fully addressing barriers that impede the fulfillment of underserved needs, given that needs outshine the annual availability of CDBG funds over the years. In response, the City supplements its CDBG funding with other resources and funds. For example: • During FY2024-2025 (PY 2024), the City allocated General Funds to the City’s Human Service Resource Allocation Process (HSRAP) to address primary human service needs in Palo Alto. HSRAP funds, coupled with CDBG public service funds, are allocated to local non-profit organizations. • Palo Alto’s Commercial Housing Fund is used primarily to increase the number of new affordable housing units for Palo Alto’s work force. It is funded with mitigation fees required from developers of commercial and industrial projects. • Palo Alto’s Residential Housing Fund is derived from mitigation fees collected through the City’s Below Market Rate (BMR) Housing Program from residential developers and various other miscellaneous sources, such as the proceeds generated from the sale or leasing of City property. • The City established the Below Market Rate (BMR) Emergency Fund to offer continuous funding for loans to BMR owners, encompassing special assessment loans. This supports the restoring and safeguarding of the City's collection of BMR ownership units. • While the City itself is not a recipient of HOME funds, HOME funds are made accessible through a competitive selection process administered by the State of California HOME program and the County’s HOME Consortium. Actions taken to reduce lead-based paint hazards. 91.220(k); 91.320(j) Lead-based paint (LBP) was popularized in the early twentieth century but was banned for use in public housing through the Lead-Based Paint Act of 1971 and later in 1978 for use in private residential housing. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), LBP can be found on window frames, walls, on the outside of a home, or on other surfaces. While LBP in good condition does not typically pose a threat, chipped paint or paint dust is harmful when ingested. This is particularly concerning for young children, as elevated blood lead levels are associated with cognitive impairments amongst other issues. According to the State of California Department of Health, children are most susceptible to LBP poisoning due to hand-to-mouth behaviors. City housing and CDBG staff disseminate information and make referrals to property owners, developers, and non-profit organizations engaged in the restoration of older housing, particularly concerning hazards linked to LBP. In line with this, any dwelling slated for rehabilitation aided by 2     Packet Pg. 32     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 18 City financial support is subjected to an assessment for the presence of LBP hazards. The City extends financial support for mitigating LBP hazards in rehabilitated units with City funding. Additionally, the City enforces contractor training and certification to mitigate the potential use of LBP in the construction of 40 new units. All development and rehabilitation projects must be evaluated according to HUD’s Lead Safe mitigating LBP hazards in rehabilitated units Housing Rule 24 CFR Part 35. Actions taken to reduce the number of poverty-level families. 91.220(k); 91.320(j) The City of Palo Alto is actively committed to ending and reducing poverty. During FY2024-2025 (PY 2024), the following activities were undertaken to reduce the number of poverty-level families: • LifeMoves provided case management services, including assistance with housing and job searches to 47 homeless/very low-income community residents. LifeMoves provides necessities for persons who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Additionally, LifeMoves operates the Opportunity Services Center (OSC), which is a comprehensive, one-stop, multi-service, day drop-in center providing critical services for homeless Palo Alto residents. Specifically, the center provides showers, laundry, clothing, snacks, case management, and shelter/housing referral services. • Alta Housing provided counseling and supportive case management services to 516 low- income residents of single room occupancy facilities to help them maintain housing stability. Activities included financial counseling, health maintenance, information and referral, problem solving, employment assistance, crisis intervention, and case management. • The Silicon Valley Independent Living Center (SVILC) assisted 24 very low-income Palo Alto residents with disabilities and their families in searching for affordable and accessible housing. CDBG funds were used to support the Housing and Emergency Services for Persons with Disabilities Program and case management services. The Program provides education and training on all aspects of how to conduct a housing search to transition from homelessness, healthcare facilities, or unstable/temporary housing into safe, long- term community-based housing. In addition, the Program includes group workshops, one- on-one service training, and access to independent living services (including emergency food assistance, security deposits, and information/referral to other services). Actions taken to develop institutional structure. 91.220(k); 91.320(j) The City is actively working towards enhancing collaboration between governmental bodies and private sector entities to harness collective endeavors, pool resources, and identify additional 2     Packet Pg. 33     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 19 revenue to address community service requirements and create affordable housing. This collaborative approach encompasses several key initiatives, including participation in: • Meetings among entitlement jurisdictions through the CDBG Coordinators; • Meetings of the Regional Housing Working Group; • Joint jurisdiction Request for Proposals and project review committees; • Community service and housing initiatives funded by multiple jurisdictions; and • HOME Consortium meetings among member jurisdictions to discuss affordable housing projects. Actions taken to enhance coordination between public and private housing and social service agencies. 91.220(k); 91.320(j) The City of Palo Alto benefits from a strong housing and community development partnership network both within its jurisdiction and the wider region. Collaborative relationships with organizations such as the County and the Continuum of Care (CoC) further strengthen this network. To foster increased collaboration between public and private sectors, the City actively partners with local jurisdictions and developers, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and resources. In addition to the strategies mentioned above, the City remains dedicated to harmonizing its goals with its Human Services Resource Allocation Process (HSRAP) funding initiatives, ensuring a comprehensive approach to meeting community needs Identify actions taken to overcome the effects of any impediments identified in the jurisdictions analysis of impediments to fair housing choice. 91.520(a) The City is committed to actively promoting fair housing in accordance with the adopted 2020- 2025 Analysis of Impediments. Measures undertaken to advance fair housing in Palo Alto include: • 2023-2031 Housing Element: Includes programs to address affirmatively further fair housing, such as outreach/education services, the continuation and enforcement of the Below Market Rate (BMR) program that provides more affordable units, the expansion of housing services, and the implementation of more renter protections. • City of Palo Alto Local Housing Funds: A sizable portion of the City's local housing funds were allocated towards augmenting and conserving the inventory of affordable housing. • Section 8 Housing Vouchers: The Office of Human Services held regular meetings with the County of Santa Clara Housing Authority to facilitate the placement of homeless individuals using Section 8 vouchers. • Information Access: The Office of Human Services provided affordable housing information and referral services. • Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH) Plan: In a joint effort with the County of Santa Clara 2     Packet Pg. 34     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 20 and its cities, Palo Alto adopted its updated AFH Plan in May 2023. • Project Sentinel: During FY2024-2025, the City provided CDBG funding to Project Sentinel, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting individuals with housing problems. Project Sentinel served 7 LMI individuals with case management services. 2     Packet Pg. 35     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 21 CR-40 - Monitoring 91.220 and 91.230 Describe the standards and procedures used to monitor activities carried out in furtherance of the plan and used to ensure long-term compliance with requirements of the programs involved, including minority business outreach and the comprehensive planning requirements The City remains actively engaged in overseeing all subrecipients and projects to ensure their adherence to the federal CDBG program and comprehensive planning requirements. This monitoring process encompasses the review of quarterly performance reports, reimbursement requests, supporting documentation, and agency audit reports. Biennial desk-site monitoring is conducted for all CDBG subrecipients, involving assessing client files, project objectives, compliance with agreements, administrative and financial management, and internal controls. The City completed its last subrecipient monitoring process in Spring 2024 for all subrecipients and will conduct subrecipient monitoring again in the next Fiscal Year. The City also completed risk assessments for all subrecipients. Citizen Participation Plan 91.105(d); 91.115(d) Describe the efforts to provide citizens with reasonable notice and an opportunity to comment on performance reports. Electronic copies of the FY2024-2025 draft CAPER were made available on the City’s website for the required 15-day public comment period from September 9, 2025, through September 24, 2025. Hardcopies of the draft CAPER were also available for review at the Development Center, Planning and Development Services at City Hall, and at the City’s Downtown Public Library. On August 30, 2025, an advertisement was placed in the Daily Post newspaper advertising the upcoming availability of the draft CAPER for public review and comment. The Human Relations Commission (HRC) held a public hearing on September 11, 2025, to discuss and hear public comments on the draft CAPER. Per the City’s adopted Citizen Participation Plan (CPP), Palo Alto offers translation services when a substantial number of non-English speaking residents can be reasonably expected to participate or when a reasonable accommodation request is made. Non-English speaking residents requiring translation assistance or any accommodations, along with persons with disabilities requiring assistance, are advised to submit their request as soon as possible but no later than 48 hours before a scheduled meeting, program, or service. For the September 11th HRC meeting agenda, staff report, and meeting information, please visit City’s website. Comments, if any, received by phone, email, and/or during the public meeting will be 2     Packet Pg. 36     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 22 summarized and provided in the draft CAPER attachments that will later be submitted to HUD. CR-45 - CDBG 91.520(c) Specify the nature of, and reasons for, any changes in the jurisdiction’s program objectives and indications of how the jurisdiction would change its programs as a result of its experiences. Not applicable. The City does not plan to change the CDBG program objectives. Does this Jurisdiction have any open Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI) grants? No. [BEDI grantees] Describe accomplishments and program outcomes during the last year. Not applicable. 2     Packet Pg. 37     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 23 CR-58 – Section 3 Identify the number of individuals assisted and the types of assistance provided Total Labor Hours CDBG HOME ESG HOPWA HTF Total Number of Activities 0 0 0 0 0 Total Labor Hours Total Section 3 Worker Hours Total Targeted Section 3 Worker Hours Table 8 – Total Labor Hours Qualitative Efforts - Number of Activities by Program CDBG HOME ESG HOPWA HTF Outreach efforts to generate job applicants who are Public Housing Targeted Workers Outreach efforts to generate job applicants who are Other Funding Targeted Workers. Direct, on-the job training (including apprenticeships). Indirect training such as arranging for, contracting for, or paying tuition for, off-site training. Technical assistance to help Section 3 workers compete for jobs (e.g., resume assistance, coaching). Outreach efforts to identify and secure bids from Section 3 business concerns. Technical assistance to help Section 3 business concerns understand and bid on contracts. Division of contracts into smaller jobs to facilitate participation by Section 3 business concerns. Provided or connected residents with assistance in seeking employment including drafting resumes, preparing for interviews, finding job opportunities, connecting residents to job placement services. Held one or more job fairs. Provided or connected residents with supportive services that can provide direct services or referrals. Provided or connected residents with supportive services that provide one or more of the following: work readiness health screenings, interview clothing, uniforms, test fees, transportation. Assisted residents with finding childcare. Assisted residents to apply for or attend community college or a four year educational institution. Assisted residents to apply for or attend vocational/technical training. Assisted residents to obtain financial literacy training and/or coaching. Bonding assistance, guaranties, or other efforts to support viable bids from Section 3 business concerns. Provided or connected residents with training on computer use or online technologies. Promoting the use of a business registry designed to create opportunities for disadvantaged and small businesses. Outreach, engagement, or referrals with the state one-stop system, as designed in Section 121(e)(2) of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Other. Table 9 – Qualitative Efforts - Number of Activities by Program 2     Packet Pg. 38     CAPER—Public Review Draft 2025 24 Narrative Not applicable. 2     Packet Pg. 39     From:CAHRO To:hrc.info@sfgov.org; hrc@sandiego.gov; contact.center@calcivilrights.ca.gov; hhr@co.humboldt.ca.us;info@hrc.lacounty.gov; Jay.Virata@palmspringsca.gov; city_clerk@riversideca.gov; hrc@mountainview.gov;ntolentino@fremont.gov; sbassi@ci.el-cerrito.ca.us; adhernandez@chulavistaca.gov; chr@sonoma-county.org;losborne@cityofpasadena.net; hrc@cityofvallejo.net; olivia.byron-cooper@edcgov.us;aandrews@co.shasta.ca.us; BoardClerk@saccounty.net; Human Relations Commission; 108-EqualOpportunity@co.monterey.ca.us; lbengochia@gmail.com; mklotthor@countyofsb.org;kortiz@modestogov.com; DSSPersonnel@fresnocountyca.gov; ovance-dozier@berkeleyca.gov;cccwomenscommission@gmail.com; HRC@sdcounty.ca.gov; Adam.Spickler@santacruzcountyca.gov;civilandhumanrights@lacity.org; Cristina@hrcla.net; chelsea@womensvoicesnow.org; info@uhri.ngo;info@opendoorsus.org; info@voices4freedom.org; info@justdetention.org; ImpactPersonalSafety@gmail.com;info@ncjwla.org; webmaster@lalgbtcenter.org; tony@eqca.org; info@maldef.org; info@lwvlosangeles.org;info@laul.org; info@relationalcenter.org; info@laclj.org; info@powercalifornia.org; info@tickettodream.org;la@hrw.org; info@wrrap.org; mariemendez@efs-corp.com; hola@translatinacoalition.org; info@cacej.org;info@caimmigrant.org; info@wearegroundswell.org; info@lgbtqcenteroc.org; info@itgetsbetter.org;info@nationaldiversitycoalition.org; lexi@transcanwork.org; info@blackpowernetwork.org; info@mowsf.org;info@ebac.org; info@homeboyindustries.org; hello@outandequal.org; info@eff.org; info@forwardtogether.org;info@dralegal.org; info@horizonsfoundation.org; center4justice@cja.org; info@tgijp.org;dpnorg@dignityandpowernow.org; info@accountabilitycounsel.org; info@mediajustice.org; info@a21.org;latinas@latinas.org; info@speakupnow.org; sabrina.parra-garcia@sanjoseca.gov; Veloz-Passalacqua, Nestor;info@futureswithoutviolence.org; cc: noel@noelworkplaceconsulting.com; justin.lock@gmail.com;rtoma@hrc.lacounty.gov; gbrown@sandiego.gov; Dr. Curtiss Takada Rooks; Brian Levin;equalibria@yahoo.comlowenberg; Grace; Jacqueline; marisela.venolia.483@my.csun.edu;freddie.sanchez@csun.edu; Mann , Perrine; Executive Director; carmen.chandler@csun.edu;danell@danellscarborough.com; norma@wearegroundswell.org; martel.okonji@csun.edu; Graves, Robert;Shira.brown@csun.edu; yan.searcy@csun.edu; Kendra.Tanacea@calcivilrights.ca.gov; Jessy Needham; SaraBrown; Rickie Brown; Lewis, Brandon; Tootie Thomas; Gregory.Mann@calcivilrights.ca.gov;Alec.Watts@calcivilrights.ca.gov; Xavier Webb; Joan MacDonald; marykatestimmler@gmail.com; Katie Causey;Marisela Venolia; rtoma@hrc.co.la.ca.us; Raksanoh, Jenita; Kevin.Baker916@yahoo.com; Arreola, Pierre; Rooks,Curtiss Takada; Liz Cruz R. Subject:CAHRO convening: Managing Trauma as We confront Human Rights Issues Date:Thursday, September 4, 2025 10:40:08 AM Attachments:CAHRO Managing Trauma as We Confront Human Rights Issues.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i CAHRO would like to invite you to a virtual convening on Wednesday, Oct. 1, to explore ways to deal with the trauma associated with the ever-shifting political landscape and theimpact it has on the communities we serve. The invitation is attached. Please share it with those you think might be interested in attending. To RSVP, pleaseemail cahro.official@gmail.com. Carmen Ramos Chandler CAHRO President This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first email to your company. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 40     From:Aram James To:Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com Cc:Council, City; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Betty Duong; District5@bos.sccgov.org; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Lauing, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; SeanAllen; Gennady Sheyner; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Diana Diamond; EPA Today; Braden Cartwright; Brandon Pho; Human Relations Commission Subject:AI Psychosis Date:Wednesday, September 3, 2025 6:10:21 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking onlinks. Julie, et al: Our job dealing with youth, and other populations, attempting to navigating mental health issues, is now getting even more complex. Seelink to article below on the so-called AI psychosis. Also: Imagine what is like when your council members abandon their constituents because they're too F-ing thin-skinned to acceptconstitutionally protected criticism, including unpleasantly sharpe attacks. Particularly troubling when the thin-skinned councilmembers include attorneys or former attorneys who should know better. My attitude toward such individuals start at contempt and goes downfrom there. Grow up folks! Aram James State bar # 80215 (since 1978) ai psychosis tv coverage - Google Search https://www.google.com/gasearch? q=ai%20psychosis%20tv%20coverage&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:c80cca51,vid:gP5icOhXDpk,st:0 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 41     From:Aram James To:Lythcott-Haims, Julie; h.etzko@gmail.com; Doug Minkler; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; EPA Today;city.council@gilroy.org; CityCouncil; Vara Ramakrishnan; Pat M; Rodriguez, Miguel; Damon Silver; Jose Valle;Gardener, Liz; Raymond Goins; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Sameena Usman; sharon jackson; Carla Torres; DonnaWallach; Yolanda Conaway; Yusra Hussain; Diana Diamond; DuJuan Green; dennis burns; Nicole Chiu-Wang;district1@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Betty Duong; District5@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Otto Lee; SupervisorSusan Ellenberg; Gennady Sheyner; Julian Garcia Cc:Human Relations Commission; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Gerry Gras; Roberta Ahlquist Subject:Stanford doctor says East Palo Alto housekeeper arrested by ICE was "catatonic" the day she was discharged Date:Wednesday, September 3, 2025 6:02:11 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Stanford doctor says East Palo Alto housekeeper arrested by ICE was ‘catatonic’ the day she was discharged https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/03/stanford-doctor-says-east-palo-alto-housekeeper- arrested-by-ice-was-catatonic-the-day-she-was-discharged/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 42     From:Aram James To:Gerry Gras; Doug Minkler; Dave Price; city.council@menlopark.gov; Council, City; city.council@gilroy.org; GRP-City Council; h.etzko@gmail.com; Ed Lauing; Liz Kniss; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; JulieLythcott-Haims; Braden Cartwright; Emily Mibach; Vicki Veenker; Veenker, Vicki; Stephen Le;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Stump, Molly; Jeff Conrad;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California DemocraticDelegate, Assembly District 23; Josh Becker; Reckdahl, Keith; Gennady Sheyner; Lu, George; Blackshire,Geoffrey; Ruth Silver Taube (rsilvertaube@scu.edu); Jasso, Tamara; Sean Allen; Pat M; Rick Callender;Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; District5@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Betty Duong; district1@bos.sccgov.org;Supervisor Otto Lee; Cait James; Tim James; Josie James-Le; Marina Lopez; Lewis james; Lee, Craig;cromero@cityofepa.org; Binder, Andrew; james pitkin; editor@almanacnews.com; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed;Roberta Ahlquist; Palo Alto Free Press; Dana St. George; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; RaymondGoins; Carla Torres; Yusra Hussain; Kaloma Smith; Burt, Patrick; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Seher Awan; Friends ofCubberley; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Rowena Chiu; Nicole Chiu-Wang; PD Kristina Bell; YolandaConaway; Don Austin; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Baker, Rob; RobertSalonga Subject:Re: Palo Alto pretends to be a gated community Date:Tuesday, September 2, 2025 10:10:27 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Tuesday, September 2, 2025, at 11:24 AM, Aram James wrote: --- FYI: Hi Riley, Thank you for your response; I appreciate it. I have an idea we could discuss. It involves the Safe Parking Program from Santa Barbara,which includes a comprehensive counseling center called New Beginnings. I visited their program in 2012, and Rolling Stone published an award-winning piece about it at the time,titled "The Fallen." Given the demographics in both Palo Alto (PA) and Santa Barbara (SB), I believe the similarities may still apply to PA’s situation. I also reached out to Vicki Veenker about theprogram and suggested she contact New Beginnings. No response! Palo Alto has a reputation as a pretent want to be gated community, at least among many homeowners. You may have seen the piece in the San Jose Mercury News on Sunday, August24, titled "Unhoused Population: Does this Small City Have the Bay Area’s Worst Homelessness Problem?” The Palo Alto City Council and the Policy and Services Committeedidn’t seem to care about the challenges faced by less-resourced cities in our county. With a population of 60,000, Gilroy has over 1,000 unhoused individuals, while Palo Alto, with asimilar population, has just over 200. I commented at the Policy and Services meeting on these issues, citing Justice Stanley Mosk’s dissent from *Tobe v. City of Santa Ana*, California Supreme Court (1995), which seemsrelevant to PA’s current situation: “The City cannot solve its homeless problem simply by exiling a large number of its homeless citizens to neighboring localities.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 43     Most members of the Palo Alto City Council are millionaire homeowners who, in my cynicalview, will prioritize their own interests over the needs of less fortunate neighbors like Gilroy. I will oppose any actions taken by the council that suggest Palo Alto is different from its neighbors and that we should be treated as a gated community, our unhoused population bedamned. Best regards, Aram James Reply Forward {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 44     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com; Jeff Rosen; CityCouncil; city.council@gilroy.org; Gerry Gras; GRP-City Council; HumanRelations Commission; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Vicki Veenker; Donna Wallach; Raymond Goins;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Cribbs, Anne; Jay Boyarsky;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California DemocraticDelegate, Assembly District 23; Jay Boyarsky; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Diana Diamond; Council, City; Nash,Betsy; Yusra Hussain; Jeff Hayden; Bill Newell; Jeff Conrad; Roberta Ahlquist; Palo Alto Free Press; BradenCartwright; Josh Becker; bos@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; MGR-Melissa StevensonDiaz; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Doug Minkler; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Gennady Sheyner Cc:Office of the Provost; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Shikada, Ed; Mariza Almeida; Mark Granovetter; Mary Rorty; Arthur Millman; Guilherme Ary Plonski; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; George for Palo Alto; Gardener, Liz; Marty Wasserman; Salem Ajluni; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Yolanda Conaway; Seher Awan; Cait James Subject:Trump spills the beans on Israel"s impending demise Date:Tuesday, September 2, 2025 9:23:20 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Trump spills the beans on Israel's impending Demise Fox News September 2, 2025 President Donald Trump said Friday that Israel’s support in Congress and around the world has declined in recent years. In an interview with The Daily Caller, Trump said that because of left-wing U.S. politicians rallying against Israel and the growing unpopularity of its war in Gaza, the country is losing influence. "Israel, you would understand this very much, Israel was the strongest lobby I’ve ever seen. They had total control over Congress, and now they don’t, you know, I’m a little surprised to see that," he said. Trump, who has been a strong ally of Israel during his presidency, defended Israel’swar against Hamas in Gaza but said he has observed how it has hurt the country’s global image. "So, they’re gonna have to get that war over with. But it is hurting Israel. There’s no question about it. They may be winning the war, but they’re not winning the world of public relations, you know, and it is hurting them." He recalled how criticizing Israel was never as common as it is today, as high-profileDemocratic members of Congress — including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. — who have criticized the war in Gaza and accused the country of killing innocent Palestinians. Great article, Henry {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 45     On Tue, Sep 2, 2025 at 12:27 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:Dear Marty For the record. Israel helped stand up Hamas (Israeli public sources)as part of its Palestinian divide and conquer strategy. Given its superior intelligencecapabilities eg Iran leadership bodyguard Cell phone numbers; it was surely privy to Hamasplans Even if not, the young unarmed female soldiers, detailed as Hamas watchers reported,persistently, attack’s imminence yet IDF forces were largely withdrawn: either implicit complicity or total incompetence. Why? An excuse to invade Gaza, as followed. Of course,execution got out of hand and other factions and freelancers entered the breach. Eliminate Hamas No way! it serves a useful purpose for the Netenyahu government inproviding an excuse to persist in ethnic cleansing+ moreover, there is an associated dynamic: as attacks on Gaza increase; more Gazans areincentivized to join the only credible, available resistance. Ironically, by persisting in this illconceived war, with no attainable goal, Israeli military and society weakens itself, makingAram’s elimination happen through self-immolation. One half million Israelis have alreadyavoluntarily relocated to the United States Sincerely3rd generation ZionistHillel aka Henry Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice www.triple helix.net Sent from my iPhone On Aug 22, 2025, at 12:38 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:  Subject: Ceasefire Resolution Discussion Hi Julie, I want to bring to your attention that Martin is simply repeating talking pointsfrom the pro-Israel lobby. In contrast, Henry’s reasoning for urging the citycouncil to support a ceasefire resolution stems from years of critical thinking. At the very least, please advocate for the council to prioritize a ceasefireresolution given the drastically deteriorating situation in Gaza and the WestBank. If there is a thorough public debate and the full council ultimately votesagainst the resolution, the public will at least have the opportunity to hear eachcouncil member's rationale for their decision. This would be a truedemonstration of democracy in action. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 46     Best, Aram On Fri, Aug 22, 2025 at 12:03 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:Dear Julie, As a concerned voter and an Oak Creek resident, I strongly urge you to reject Henry's ill-conceived demand to push for a Gaza ceasefireresolution in the City Council. Such a resolution would have noeffect on anything in Gaza, but would merely create dissension and strife here at home. A unilateral Israeli ceasefire would leave Hamas in power, leave thehostages in captivity, and effectively end Israel’s campaign to remove this menace on its southern border. Hamas is a committed enemy not only of Israel and of Jews, but also of the United States, ofWestern civilization itself, and indeed of anyone who doesn’tsubscribe to their religious ideology. Hamas, as one branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has as its ultimategoal the imposition of Islamic law on the entire globe, by force andviolence if necessary. If we try to restrain Israel from fighting this ideology in Gaza, we’ll soon be fighting it ourselves on the streets of America. The way to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is to first let Israel defeat Hamas, and after that focus on the civilian needs. As long as the oppressive and terrorist Hamas regime remains in power, life will never improve for ordinary Gazans. Best regards, Martin Wasserman Concerned Citizen On Aug 22, 2025, at 4:18 AM, Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: Dear Julie, Thank you for your service. Given your position on the dais, it is {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 47     expected of you to use it or lose it? As your then 82 year oldsupporter, I bent over like a strawberry picker and slipped hundreds of your campaign leaflets under Oak Creek doors. I amasking you now for return on investment, on the one hand, and on the other, to take the ethical course of action and place into aresolution before Council, the plea for cease fire that you aver you have made in writing and in public fora. We, the Palo Altovoters have elected you to carry out our wishes and to support you in acting according to your conscience. Fortunately, in thisinstance two classic, item opposing political motives, coincide. Julie, it is incumbent upon you to introduce a “ceasefire now inGaza”resolution, Invited to be seconded by George, who received the support ofthe Palo Alto Muslim community. He will be inspired as well by the Confucian ethic he learned in “Chinese school in Palo Alto.” Hopefully, all members of Council will join to make this position unanimous. Like the attorney who persuaded the Supreme Court to brieflyopen a window to make an exception to the statute of limitations, precluding a holocaust victim from seeking restitution, Councilmay similarly put aside its prohibition on intervening in international issues to take a position on one that has becomelocal and globally humane. Sincerely Henry Etzkowitz Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto City Council www.triplehelix.net On Aug 18, 2025, at 3:28 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: But not as. Oh zero On Mon, Aug 18, 2025 at 2:47 PM Lythcott-Haims,Julie <Julie.LythcottHaims@paloalto.gov> wrote: Since late 2023, I’ve called for a ceasefire, both inwriting, and in a public forum. Julie Hi Julie: But here were the questions I posed to you below: can you answer these questions: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 48     Julie came closest to breaking the silence, (1) but to myknowledge, she hasNEVER demanded of her colleagues that a ceasefireresolution be placedon the council agenda for a robust public discussionand a subsequentvote. (2) Similarly, unless I missed it, Julie has NEVER called out or spoken from the dais: "End the Genocide Now!" Once you are kind enough to get back to meon the two questions above I want to get back toyour calls for a cease fire. Thanks, your supporter for a long time, Aram Julie Lythcott-HaimsPalo Alto City Council MemberClick to make an Office Hours appointment On Aug 7, 2025, at 1:09 PM, HenryEtzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>wrote: CAUTION: This email originatedfrom outside of theorganization. Be cautious ofopening attachments andclicking on links. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 49     Takes both Sent from my iPhone On Aug 7, 2025, at 11:58 AM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Henry, You say things so poetically!! Me more likea bull dog or sledge hammer than a poet!! Avram “End The Genocide Now!!Finkelstein On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM HenryEtzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>wrote: Correct Julie charter memberCouncil “wall of silence” Incumbents persistingwill be too shamed and ashamed to seekreelection Sent from my iPhone On Aug 7,2025, at 10:02 AM,Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:{{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 50     FYI: Brian —here isan exchangeyou may havemissed. Was sent tomost of the usualsuspects. On Wed, Aug 6,2025 at 10:58 PMAram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:My dear bravefriend Henry, Juliecame closest tobreaking thesilence, but to myknowledge, she hasNEVER demandedof her colleaguesthat a ceasefireresolution be placedon the councilagenda for arobust publicdiscussion {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 51     and asubsequent vote.Similarly, unless Imissed it, Julie hasNEVER called outor spoken from thedais: "End theGenocide Now!" As MLKsaid: “Thetime is alwaysright to do whatis right.” Sleep well myfriend, Aram P.S. Julie, ifmy recollectionis wrong, I inviteyou to correctthe record. On Wed,Aug 6, 2025, at10:20 PM,Henry {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 52     Etzkowitzwrote: dearAram Upon reflection,agree withyour assessment.Despite minordifferences inprogressiveness onother issues;there is animplacable wall onGaza ceaseFire whenimplored insuccession, therewas not aflicker ofsympathy fromthe impassive diased. Sadly, Henry PsMarjorie TaylorGreen is nowcited as {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 53     moralpolitical rolemodel Sentfrom myiPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 54     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Veenker, Vicki; Reckdahl, Keith; Burt, Patrick; Human RelationsCommission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for CaliforniaDemocratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Jeff Rosen; JayBoyarsky; Angel, David; Sheree Roth; Emily Mibach; Seher Awan; Yusra Hussain; Dave Price;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Braden Cartwright; Gennady Sheyner; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org;Keith Reckdahl; Ed Lauing; Jeff Hayden; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Kaloma Smith; Dennis Upton; PDKristina Bell; Friends of Cubberley; Palo Alto Free Press; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Gerry Gras; DanaSt. George; Daniel Barton; Vara Ramakrishnan; pat.espino7@gmail.com; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov;frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; planning.commision@cityofpaloalto.org; ParkRecCommission; Zelkha, Mila; Lotus Fong; Donna Wallach Cc:Raymond Goins; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Doug Minkler Subject:Re: 27 senators voted to block a weapons sale to the Israeli gov’t. Will you join us to say thank you? Date:Monday, September 1, 2025 11:33:24 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Mon, Sep 1, 2025 at 10:26 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:FYI Henry Etzkowitz Sociology Department Stanford Universitywww.triplehelix.net Begin forwarded message: From: "Accountability Alert @ Win Without War" <info@winwithoutwar.org>Date: August 28, 2025 at 7:39:12 AM PDTTo: HENRY ETZKOWITZ <h.etzko@gmail.com>Subject: 27 senators voted to block a weapons sale to the Israeli gov’t. Willyou join us to say thank you?Reply-To: info@winwithoutwar.org  {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 55     Win Without War When Senator Bernie Sanders forced a vote on two joint resolutions of disapproval (JRDs) to halt key weapons transfers to the Israeli government last month, a record 26 senators joined him. Here’s why that’s such a big deal, Henry: In early 2024, just 11 senators voted to request a simple human rights report on the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. Only 15 senators voted to halt a similar weapons transfer to the Israeli government earlier this year. But now, for the first time, a majority of Senate Democrats have voted to block U.S.-made bombs and rifles to the Israeli government, pressuring it to end the devastating military campaign in Gaza. This leadership is crucially needed as momentum grows to end U.S. complicity in the incomprehensible suffering in Gaza. We’re not satisfied with 27 votes — not even close — but getting here wasn’t easy. Advocacy from activists like you and partners across the movement helped us build the political will and courage required to reject the blank-check approach to the Israeli government. To ensure these senators do all they can to secure lasting peace AND continue expanding the group of lawmakers willing to end U.S. complicity in this war, gratitude can go a long way, Henry. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 56     That starts with two words: Thank you. Can you take a moment to join activists from across the country in letting these 27 senators know they did the right thing, and urging them to keep going? ACT NOW For nearly two years now, Israeli PM Netanyahu has used U.S. weapons to hold on to power, drive incomprehensible levels of human suffering, and push an entire region toward all-out war — all while failing to bring the remaining hostages home safely. But on July 30, a group of senators sent a clear message: It’s time to use U.S. leverage to end the horrific war in Gaza, protect innocent people across the Middle East, and get the hostages back to their families. 27 senators took the historic step of voting against the sale of thousands of rifles that the Israeli government has used to harm and terrorize Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including Sens. Ossoff (D-GA), Reed (D-RI), and Whitehouse (D-RI). 24 of those senators — Sens. Alsobrooks (D-MD), Baldwin (D-WI), Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Duckworth (D-IL), Durbin (D-IL), Heinrich (D-NM), Hirono (D-HI), Kaine (D-VA), Kim (D-NJ), King (I-ME), Klobuchar (D-MN), Lujan (D- NM), Markey (D-MA), Merkley (D-OR), Murphy (D-CT), Murray (D- WA), Sanders (I-VT), Schatz (D-HI), Shaheen (D-NH), Smith (D-MN), Van Hollen (D-MD), Warnock (D-GA), Warren (D-MA), and Welch (D- VT) — went even further by voting to also block the heavy bombs that have utterly decimated the Gaza Strip in a military campaign that has precipitated a famine. We can’t let these senators' actions go unnoticed. Because you know what happens when a member of Congress takes a brave stand like this? Their colleagues on the opposing side will tell them that they’re wrong or not politically savvy. The weapons lobby will dash off checks to their political opponents. Powerful interest groups like AIPAC will attack them in the press and rally their supporters to fill their phone lines with criticism. But as senators return from August recess in the coming days, we can ensure they hear a different message — one that can steel their resolve to continue working for an end to the indefensible suffering we’ve witnessed. When members of Congress do the right thing, we need to remind {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 57     them that we’re with them. That’s how our movement maintains and increases our power on Capitol Hill. Add your name to help us send these 27 senators a message tens of thousands of activists strong, thanking them for their vote and urging them to keep it up as they return from the August recess. The progress we’re making isn’t happening as fast as we’d like or as people in Palestine, Israel, and beyond deserve, but make no mistake — we’re turning the tide. It’s time to keep going. Today, the choice between a continued devastating war and a deepening of the crisis OR taking a step toward saving lives and ending U.S. complicity is clear. Let’s keep pushing Congress toward the path to peace and justice. Thank you for working for peace, The Win Without War team P.S. This Labor Day, thousands of communities around the country are taking action to demand a world that works for all of us — fighting for public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, and shared prosperity over billionaire-bought politics. As the authoritarians ramp up their tactics, it’s never been more important that we stand in solidarity with all our communities under attack and fight for real wins for all our people. We hope you can find an event near you and take part in the Day of Action on September 1. Donate A U.S. foreign policy rooted in human rights and justice won’t happen overnight.If you’re with us for the long haul, consider a monthly donation. Win Without War is a 501(c)4 organization and donations are not tax deductible. If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution, please visit the Win Without War Education Fund here. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 58     © Win Without War 20251 Thomas Circle NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005info@winwithoutwar.org This email was sent to h.etzko@gmail.com. Email is the most important way for us to reach you about opportunities to act. If you need to remove yourself from our email list, click here to unsubscribe. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 59     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Kaloma Smith; editor@paweekly.com; editor@almanacnews.com; ShereeRoth; Burt, Patrick; Patrice Ventresca; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; YolandaConaway; Gardener, Liz; Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley; Friends of Cubberley; Binder, Andrew; Human RelationsCommission; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; EPA Today; Josh Becker; Emily Mibach; PD KristinaBell; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate,Assembly District 23; Council, City; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Angel, David; Anna Griffin;jsylva@scscourt.org; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org;BoardOperations; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Sameena Usman; Zahra Billoo; Zelkha, Mila;Doug Minkler; Dan Okonkwo; Baker, Rob; h.etzko@gmail.com; Yusra Hussain; Holman, Karen (external); DonnaWallach; Liz Kniss; Dennis Upton; Seher Awan; CityCouncil; city.council@gilroy.org; Stump, Molly;vramirez@redwoodcity.org; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Pacific GrovePD; GRP-City Council Subject:Re: Opinion | Will Democrats Finally Change Their Stance on Gaza? | Common Dreams Date:Monday, September 1, 2025 7:57:06 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. From the archives of Avram Finkelstein Dear Julie and Vicki, You are damaging your credibility as leaders in the Democratic Party, particularly amongyour constituents who overwhelmingly oppose Israel’s actions-genocide and support thePalestinian people. It’s essential that you stand against extreme pro-Israel advocates likeMarc Berman, Josh Becker, Ed Lauing, and Keith Reckdahl, among others. It’s time toreject pro-Israel lobbyists and clearly state: End the Genocide Now. Avram Despite the decline in support for Israel among Democrats, some members of the party stillstruggle to acknowledge this reality. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/gaza-israel-dnc {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 60     From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Reckdahl, Keith; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate,Assembly District 23; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov Subject:Call To Action Date:Monday, September 1, 2025 9:28:00 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. From: Dr. Hussain MD- to Martin Wasserman -September 1, 2025 On Mon, Sep 1, 2025 at 9:04 AM Yusra Hussain <yusrahussainmd@gmail.com> wrote:I wish the war on Hamas started in October 7. Gaza was called an open air prison in 2014, 2016, and 2018 by different well respected international bodies. More than 70% of childrenof Gaza were malnourished before October 7. Israel has violated more UN resolutions and has been a ruthless occupier for 76 years. If you think the people of Gaza were just going to sit there and not fight for their lives,you’re a fool. Someone’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. Gazan are fighting for their lives. What they have on their side is faith and belief in God that you lacksignificantly. To Gazans, either wining their freedom and dignity, or wining a long afterlife in bliss, something the Israeli army will never understand. On Aug 31, 2025, at 11:04 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:  Aram, It's true that the war started as a premeditated and deliberate attempt toexterminate an entire people. But it was Hamas that was trying to exterminatethe Jews, and after October 7, they promised to have many more October 7suntil Israel was totally destroyed. Also, Hamas was not as weak as you claim them to be. They were very wellarmed, had trained for this war for years, and were willing any maybe eveneager to die as martyrs. They had highly fortified defensive positions with theirmassive tunnel network paid for with stolen international aid funds that wereintended to benefit the Gazan people, and they had the element of surprise.What they underestimated was Israel's resilience and speed of recovery in theface of existential danger. They also expected Hezbollah, with its massivemissile arsenal, to join the fight from the north, which didn't happen, and theyexpected Iran to more actively engage, which didn't happen either. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 61     Ultimately, this is a war between two radically different views of life, between Israel and its supporters who self-define as revering life, and between Hamasand its supporters who self-define as revering death. These two cultures cannot coexist peacefully side-by-side, but will continue to fight until one succeeds indriving out the other. The way may be long and difficult, but I fully expect Israel to prevail in this struggle, and when they do, the world will be a much better place because of it. Martin Wasserman On Aug 31, 2025, at 10:02 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: This is not a war but a slaughter a genocide a holocaust, death by mass starvation. A premeditated and deliberate attempt toexterminate an entire people. War crime after war crime after war crime. War suggests some parity in military power. Israel is armed by the most powerful military on the planet, the USA. Israel has an army, a navy and air-force, and nuclear weapons, and an endless supply of 2000 pound bombs. The Palestinians have only their wits and an enduring spirit ofresistance to the Israeli occupiers, the settlor colonists who stole the Palestinians' land and are now determined to destroy their entire culture. More and more nations are recognizing Palestine as an independent sovereign nation while calling out Israel as war criminals. Israel has become a pariah state a dying and soon dead nation. All people of moral conscience must seek theelimination of the terroist state of Israel. Avram “One State Solution” Finkelstein On Sun, Aug 31, 2025 at 9:29 PM Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 62     <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:There seem to be two types of people pushing for an Israeli cease-fire in Gaza: those who actively want Israel to lose the warand would like to see it ultimately destroyed, and those who don't necessarily hate Israel, but are troubled by the sight of sufferingcivilians. I can empathize with the latter view. I don't like seeing pictures of suffering people either. However, Israel didn't seekthis war and it didn't want this war. But now that war has been forced upon it, it has no alternative but to win it. A unilateral Israeli cease-fire would give Hamas time to regroupand rearm, and continue planning future atrocities, which would result in more deaths, more Israeli retaliation and more suffering.Those who claim to care deeply about the people of Gaza should not be demanding that Israel stop fighting, but should bedemanding that Israel step up the fighting until Hamas is totally destroyed. The biggest obstacle to providing for the humanitarianneeds of the Gazans is Hamas itself. It’s only when they’re gone that those needs can be properly addressed. Martin Wasserman From: Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com>Date: August 31, 2025 at 12:22:24 PM PDTTo: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>Cc: Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com>, Julie Lythcott- Haims<Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>, George for Palo Alto<georgeforpaloalto@gmail.com>, Office of the Provost<provost@stanford.edu>, Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>, RoselineRasolovoahangy <emma- roseline@stanfordalumni.org>, CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>,WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>,Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>, Vicki Veenker<Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>, rabeh morrar<rabehmorrar@gmail.com>, Aline {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 63     Figlioli <alineF.consult@fia.com.br>,Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>,jessica@speiser.net, editor@paweekly.com, GennadySheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>,city.council@gilroy.org, CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>,city.council@menlopark.gov, City Clerk <city.clerk@cityofpaloalto.org>,Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>,Rowena Chiu <rowena.chiu@gmail.com>, NicoleChiu-Wang <nicole@dreamcatchersyouth.org>, PatM <p.marshall81@ymail.com>, vramirez@redwoodcity.org, VaraRamakrishnan <vara@acm.org>, Raymond Goins<goinsrayl@gmail.com>, Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>, Liz Gardner<Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>, Sheree Roth <ssroth29@gmail.com>, LoriMeyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>, Palo Alto Free Press<paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>, Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>,assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov, Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>,Jeff Conrad <jeff_conrad@msn.com>, Jeff Rosen <info@jeffrosen.org>, JayBoyarsky <jboyarsky@dao.sccgov.org>,board@pausd.org, board@valleywater.org,BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>,Betsy Nash <bnash@menlopark.gov>, dcombs@menlopark.gov, GRP-CityCouncil <council@redwoodcity.org>, PD Kristina Bell<kbell@redwoodcity.org>, Rob Baker <rbaker@dao.sccgov.org>, Rose Lynn<roselynn95035@yahoo.com>, Yusra Hussain<Yusrahussainmd@gmail.com>, Carla Torres <xicanamagic@hotmail.com>,Brandon Pho {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 64     <brandon@sanjosespotlight.com>,Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight <jennifer@sanjosespotlight.com>, BillNewell <billnewell2850@gmail.com>, Zahra Billoo <zbilloo@cair.com>, MilaZelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>Subject: Re: Call To Action Why are you Council so paralyzed fromethical actions??!!. Let no more peopledie. Act NOW! Roberta AhlquistSent from my iPhone On Aug 31, 2025, at12:00 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: 8/31/2025 Rabbi Etzkowitz, Do Say! Do Say! Will your thoughtful prayers be answered? A call out for courage from ourleaders. Will your pleas for a cease-fire resolution and no more genocide be heeded ? Will the leaderyou have called upon for action be ready in this moment of dire consequences? “ First Amendmentforever ” Avram Finkelstein On Sun, Aug 31, 2025 at9:33 AM Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com>wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 65     Be a profile in courage,not an exercise in pusillanimity Fromvaunted dais intro cease fre now resolution. Inyour inimitable style explain why you areacting at this juncture. Honour your mother. Iknew VSO’s like her in Nigeria. Show intergenerational continuity. Make her proud, notashamed, of your tenure on Council. Follow in thefootsteps of fellow Stanfordian, HerbertHoover. Channel the great Humanitarian. Takecare “Action, not blah,blah “cf Aline, São Paulo Henry Etzkowitz www.triplehelix.net On Aug 30,2025, at 6:31 PM,Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote:  8/30/2025 HI Henry, Julie's base is all ready in front of her. Per recent pollsonly 8% of Democrats now support {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 66     the genocide in Gaza. It's Time for Julie tobreak from the remainder of thecowards on the Palo Alto City Council andproclaim: “End The GenocideNow” Avram Finkelstein Julie is an eminently practical politicianwho will not get an inch in front of her basesuggest broaden strategy; On Sat, Aug30, 2025 at3:54 PMHenryEtzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:When her basemoves; {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 67     Julie willspeak out likeMarjorie, whoseevangelical baseovercame theirideological predelictionsand were able to seehuman madehunger and respond,giving implicitsupport to speak out. Julie is an eminentlypractical politicianwho will not get aninch in front of herbase suggestbroaden strategy;call for publicteach in CouncilChambers, inviteStanford and otherexperts to presentcomparative historicalview of starvationstrategies with a viewto where {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 68     Gaza doesor doesn’t fit. In theVietnam crisis,opening of 1969academic year, Washington universityfaculty senatemeeting called byProf Barry commoner,put this strstegy,formulated in aresolution by a juniorfaculty member,forming university-labor businesscoalition to implement.Event at St. Louisteamsters hq hadDaniel Ellsberg asone of its speakers. Who willbe our “BarryCommoner” Convener?nominate ProfCondaleeza {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 69     Rice,director HooverInstitute as mostappropriate person bydint of academicand public service. SincerelyHenry Etzkowitz Neighbors forEnvironmental and SocialJustice Www.triplehelix.net Sent from my iPhone OnAug 30,2025, at3:17 PM, AramJames <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: X, We have {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 70     to keep encouraging Julie tospeak- out. She dida great job withthe ICE issue. Ikeep pushing Julie andthe hapless vice mayorVicki — to callout the Genocide. MaybeJulie never Vicki whohas allowed AIPAC topull her strings since Oct 7. As {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 71     I have told Vicki multipletimes: your obituary willread clever politician andgreat lawyer who remainedsilent as the Israelis continueto commit genocide. Awoman with no soul.Its all about Vicki’sclimb up the politicalladder. Disgusting! AvramFinkelstein {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 72     From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Reckdahl, Keith; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Conrad Cc:Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Jeff Hayden; Lotus Fong; Roberta Ahlquist; Lythcott- Haims, Julie; h.etzko@gmail.com; city.council@menlopark.gov; CityCouncil; Binder, Andrew; city.council@gilroy.org; Gerry Gras; Pat M; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Emily Mibach Subject:Opinion | Israel"s Gaza Campaign Is Making It a Pariah State - The ... Date:Sunday, August 31, 2025 1:20:17 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Opinion | Israel's Gaza Campaign Is Making It a Pariah State - The ...https://share.google/images/zsrdimJJE3PV3zSMm {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 73     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com Cc:Mark Granovetter; Lotus Fong; Office of the Provost; Council, City; Hannah Lu; Jessica Riskin; Arthur Millman; Bette Kiernan; Veenker, Vicki; Raymond Goins; Human Relations Commission; Today EPA; Linda Jolley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; District1@bos.sccgov.org; jessica@speiser.net; Supervisor Betty Duong; District5@bos.sccgov.org; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District3@sanjoseca.gov; Councilmember Chappie Jones; city.council@gilroy.org; cotton.gaines@cityofpaloalto.org; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Stephen Le; Gerry Gras; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Dave Price; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Josh Becker; board@pausd.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Doug Minkler; Yusra Hussain; Roberta Ahlquist; Palo Alto Free Press; Dave Price; Yolanda Conaway; Sheree Roth; Roberta Ahlquist; Donna Wallach; Diana Diamond; Emily Mibach; city.council@menlopark.gov; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; Brandon Pho; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Jeff Hayden; Wagner, April; Braden Cartwright; planning.commision@cityofpaloalto.org Subject:Re: Ice in our town Date:Saturday, August 30, 2025 6:31:49 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. 8/30/2025 HI Henry, Julie's base is all ready in front of her. Per recent polls only 8% of Democrats now support the genocide in Gaza. It's Time for Julie to break from the remainder of the cowards on the Palo Alto City Council and proclaim: “End The Genocide Now” Avram Finkelstein Julie is an eminently practical politician who will not get an inch in front of her base suggest broaden strategy; On Sat, Aug 30, 2025 at 3:54 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:When her base moves; Julie will speak out like Marjorie, whose evangelical base overcametheir ideological predelictions and were able to see human made hunger and respond, givingimplicit support to speak out. Julie is an eminently practical politician who will not get an inch in front of her base suggestbroaden strategy; call for public teach in Council Chambers, invite Stanford and otherexperts to present comparative historical view of starvation strategies with a view to whereGaza does or doesn’t fit. In the Vietnam crisis, opening of 1969 academic year, Washington university faculty senate meeting called by Prof Barry commoner, put thisstrstegy, formulated in a resolution by a junior faculty member, forming university-laborbusiness coalition to implement. Event at St. Louis teamsters hq had Daniel Ellsberg as oneof its speakers. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 74     Who will be our “Barry Commoner” Convener? nominate Prof Condaleeza Rice, directorHoover Institute as most appropriate person by dint of academic and public service. SincerelyHenry Etzkowitz Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice Www.triplehelix.net Sent from my iPhone On Aug 30, 2025, at 3:17 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: X, We have to keep encouraging Julie to speak-out. She did a great job with the ICE issue. I keep pushing Julie and the hapless vice mayor Vicki—to call out the Genocide. Maybe Julie never Vicki who has allowed AIPAC to pull her strings since Oct 7. As I have told Vicki multiple times: your obituary will read clever politician and great lawyer who remained silent as the Israelis continue to commit genocide. A woman with no soul. Its all about Vicki’s climb up the political ladder. Disgusting! Avram Finkelstein {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 75     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki Cc:Raymond Goins; Human Relations Commission; h.etzko@gmail.com; EPA Today; Linda Jolley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Supervisor Betty Duong; District5@bos.sccgov.org; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District3@sanjoseca.gov; Councilmember Chappie Jones Subject:Ice in our town Date:Saturday, August 30, 2025 3:17:36 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. X, We have to keep encouraging Julie to speak-out. She did a great job with the ICE issue. I keep pushing Julie and the hapless vice mayor Vicki—to call out the Genocide. Maybe Julie never Vicki who has allowed AIPAC to pull her strings since Oct 7. As I have told Vicki multiple times: your obituary will read clever politician and great lawyer who remained silent as the Israelis continue to commit genocide. A woman with no soul. Its all about Vicki’s climb up the political ladder. Disgusting! Avram Finkelstein {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 76     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com Cc:Marty Wasserman; Office of the Provost; Prof Dr Helga Nowotny; P Wouters; Mariza Almeida; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Ellen Granovetter; Sean Allen; Salem Ajluni; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Veenker, Vicki; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; city.council@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; CityCouncil; city.council@gilroy.org; Council, City; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; District5@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Betty Duong; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Sheree Roth; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Doug Minkler; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Carla Torres; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Sameena Usman; Dana St. George; Gerry Gras; Daniel Barton; Yusra Hussain; Yolanda Conaway; Roberta Ahlquist; Donna Wallach; Binder, Andrew; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Robert Salonga Subject:Re: “I Just Want to Die”: Desperate Med Student in Gaza Sends Messages to Doctor Denied Entry | DemocracyNow! Date:Friday, August 29, 2025 3:08:45 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Hi Henry, My dear Jewish brother, I am so proud of you for standing with those who are victims during this time of the Palestinian catastrophe, the Nakba. It is heartbreaking to witness the currentsuffering inflicted upon the Palestinians with no mercy by the Zionist state of Israel.You are my hero. While so many remain silent, you refuse to be silenced. With deep respect, Avram Finkelstein On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 2:43 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: have you heart? IDF reservists (see Friday NYT) US evangelicals and orthodox Rabbisincreasingly agree: cease fire now!1 University Presidents, classical provided moral leadership. President Levin, time to lead and call your peers to join call for Gaza cease fire now! Dr RIce, Hoover Institute, Director, timely to take forward the heritage of Institutenamesake and call for immediate massive global delivery of nutritious food and medicaments. Organize coalition of the willing, starting with countries and regions thatPresident Hoover fed Provost Martinez’ Stanford food institute, shuttered, should be restarted with funding raised from new generation of billionaires that Stanford is creating This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 77     Sincerely Henry Etzkowitz Neighbors for Environmental and Social JusticePresident, Triple Helix Institute 644 Menlo Avenue Menlo Park CA 94025 Www.triple helix.net https://www.democracynow.org/2025/8/21/dr_mimi_syed_gaza_israel_medicine Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 78     From:Aram James To:Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Veenker, Vicki Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Lu, George; Reckdahl, Keith; gstone22@gmail.com; Burt, Patrick; Ed Lauing; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Betty Duong; District5@bos.sccgov.org; Liz Kniss; Supervisor Otto Lee; Sameena Usman; Jeff Rosen; Sean Allen; Jay Boyarsky; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Daniel Barton; Doug Minkler; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Vara Ramakrishnan; Raymond Goins; Gardener, Liz; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; city.council@gilroy.org; CityCouncil; city.council@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; Clerk, City; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Pacific GrovePD; Bryan Gobin; Roberta Ahlquist; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Yusra Hussain; Sheree Roth; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Friends of Cubberley; Human Relations Commission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Brandon Pho; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Zelkha, Mila Subject:Watch "FKM" on YouTube Date:Wednesday, August 27, 2025 11:30:32 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Julie, 4.5 minutes Youtube, link below, Please check it out. This is your current lame democratic party!!Res 18-goes down in AIPAC flames. And Julie you still won’t call for a cease-fire and call out the genocide at the next city council meeting. The democratic party has long ago lost its soul. What about you? What say you, Julie? Speak up, Julie, Vicki!! Avram https://youtu.be/czQjAlV9rEg?si=ZMxKlPgW7cr9Vayz {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 79     From:Aram James To:Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Sean Allen; Yusra Hussain Cc:Gardener, Liz; h.etzko@gmail.com; Human Relations Commission; Diana Diamond; Lotus Fong; Palo Alto Free Press; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; EPA Today; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth Subject:Woman arrested by ICE remains in Stanford Hospital as advocates rally in support - Palo Alto Online Date:Wednesday, August 27, 2025 11:28:10 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Julie, Great effort on your behalf for our most vulnerable immigrant community. I really appreciateyour work. I will write more later about why it is critical that you use your very influentialvoice NOW to demand that our city council revisit a cease-fire resolution. Please call for a cease-fire resolution NOW at an upcoming city council meeting and demand publicly that the issue be placed on the agenda. The worst that can happen is that your hapless colleagues and hapless city manager will publicly rebuff your efforts. You will be seen as a hero in your effort to call out for justice now. Also, please speak out publicly, either in your capacity as a council member or in your private capacity, for an immediate end to the genocide. This is the least you can do for your loyalsupporters. Finally, I will write you soon regarding who I predict will be our next vice mayor and related matters. Best regards, Avram “ Call For A Cease-Fire Now” Finkelstein Woman arrested by ICE remains in Stanford Hospital as advocates rally in support https://www.paloaltoonline.com/health/2025/08/26/woman-arrested-by-ice-remains-in-stanford-hospital-as-advocates-rally-in-support/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 80     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov;Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, AssemblyDistrict 23; Josh Becker; Dave Price; Lori Meyers; h.etzko@gmail.com; Reckdahl, Keith; james pitkin;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org;Human Relations Commission; Salem Ajluni; Robert Salonga; Ruth Silver Taube; Raymond Goins; ShankarRamamoorthy; Doug Minkler; Roberta Ahlquist; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council;Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Betty Duong; district1@bos.sccgov.org; District9@sanjoseca.gov; The Office ofMayor Matt Mahan; Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley; Palo Alto Renters" Association;planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway;board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; BoardOperations;District3@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; Sameena Usman; Yusra Hussain;Seher Awan; Stump, Molly; Palo Alto Free Press; Friends of Cubberley; friends-request@foolsmission.org; DanaSt. George; EPA Today; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; Lee, Craig Subject:Re: Beverly Hills public schools to consider displaying Israeli flag on all campuses Date:Tuesday, August 26, 2025 10:07:10 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 9:49 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Beverly Hills public schools to consider displaying Israeli flag on all campuseshttps://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-26/beverly-hills-public-schools-to- consider-displaying-israeli-flag-on-all-campuses {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 81     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov;Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, AssemblyDistrict 23; Josh Becker; Dave Price; Lori Meyers; h.etzko@gmail.com; Reckdahl, Keith; james pitkin;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org;Human Relations Commission; Salem Ajluni; Robert Salonga; Ruth Silver Taube; Raymond Goins; ShankarRamamoorthy; Doug Minkler; Roberta Ahlquist; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council;Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Betty Duong; district1@bos.sccgov.org; District9@sanjoseca.gov; The Office ofMayor Matt Mahan; Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley; Palo Alto Renters" Association;planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway;board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; BoardOperations;District3@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; Sameena Usman; Yusra Hussain;Seher Awan; Stump, Molly; Palo Alto Free Press; Friends of Cubberley; friends-request@foolsmission.org; DanaSt. George; EPA Today; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; Lee, Craig Subject:Beverly Hills public schools to consider displaying Israeli flag on all campuses Date:Tuesday, August 26, 2025 9:49:55 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Beverly Hills public schools to consider displaying Israeli flag on all campuses https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-26/beverly-hills-public-schools-to-consider-displaying-israeli-flag-on-all-campuses {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 82     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov;Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Rowena Chiu;Nicole Chiu-Wang; Gennady Sheyner; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; RobertaAhlquist; Sean Allen; Yusra Hussain; Shikada, Ed; Salem Ajluni; EPA Today; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Dana St.George; Council, City; GRP-City Council; CityCouncil; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Linda Jolley; DonnaWallach; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Jay Boyarsky; Human RelationsCommission; Vara Ramakrishnan Subject:Re: Ed Lauings Israel Flag ordinance -from the archives of Aram James Date:Tuesday, August 26, 2025 9:44:00 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 9:35 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: This message needs your attention The subject has non-English characters. This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 83     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Kaloma Smith; Dana St. George; ParkRec Commission;editor@paweekly.com; Ruth Silver Taube (rsilvertaube@scu.edu); editor@almanacnews.com; Salem Ajluni;Donna Wallach; Daniel Barton; Doug Minkler; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Sheree Roth; Sean Allen; Burt, Patrick;Patrice Ventresca; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Yolanda Conaway; Gardener, Liz;Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley; Friends of Cubberley; Binder, Andrew Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Reckdahl, Keith; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Gennady Sheyner; Templeton, Cari; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; Braden Cartwright; EPA Today; Gerry Gras; CityCouncil; Human Relations Commission Subject:Opinion | Will Democrats Finally Change Their Stance on Gaza? | Common Dreams Date:Tuesday, August 26, 2025 12:48:22 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Julie and Vicki, You are harming your credibility as leaders in the Democratic Party, especially with yourconstituents who overwhelmingly oppose Israel and support the Palestinian people. You need to stand against the extreme pro-Israel advocates like Marc Berman, Josh Becker, Ed Lauing,and Keith Reckdal. It’s time to reject pro-Israel lobbyists and clearly state: End the Genocide Now. Avram Despite the decline in support for Israel among Democrats, some members of the party stillstruggle to acknowledge this reality. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/gaza-israel-dnc {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 84     From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Reckdahl, Keith; Liz Kniss; Kaloma Smith; EPA Today; Cribbs, Anne; Templeton, Cari;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leaderfor California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lotus Fong; Friends of Cubberley; WILPF Peninsula PaloAlto; h.etzko@gmail.com; Raymond Goins; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Shikada,Ed; Stump, Molly; Nicole Chiu-Wang; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; board@pausd.org;boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Zahra Billoo; Bill Newell; Diana Diamond; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg;ParkRec Commission; Foley, Michael; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Jeff Conrad; Jay Boyarsky;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Emily Mibach; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Wagner,April; Josh Becker; josh@joshsalcman.com; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Lythcott-Haims, Julie Cc:Gardener, Liz; Veenker, Vicki; Lu, George; Stone, Greer; Human Relations Commission; cotton.gaines@cityofpaloalto.org; Braden Cartwright; Bains, Paul; Council, City; CityCouncil; Binder, Andrew; Sean Allen; Gennady Sheyner; Brian Good; Brandon Pho; Sheree Roth; Lori Meyers; Ed Lauing; Palo Alto Weekly; Palo Alto Free Press; Rowena Chiu; Enberg, Nicholas; Nicole Chiu-Wang Subject:Re: Does this small city have the worst homelessness problem in the Bay Area? Unhoused population is BayArea’s highest per capita, while resources to assist them are scant Date:Sunday, August 24, 2025 2:57:12 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Subject: Important Article on Homelessness Hey Keith, I want you to pay attention to this article. Please compare the unhoused issues in wealthy PaloAlto with those in our less affluent neighbor, Gilroy. Remember what Justice Stanley Mosk, a longtime progressive member of the California Supreme Court, said about this issue: “The City cannot solve its homeless problem simply by exiling a large number of its homelesscitizens to neighboring localities.” – Tobe v. City of Santa Ana (1995) Before you start demonizing the RV dwellers in Palo Alto and trying to push them out, consider the chaos you will create for our already strained neighboring communities. I’ll bekeeping an eye on this situation, Keith. Best, Avram Finkelstein On Sun, Aug 24, 2025, at 12:05 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:Does this small city have the worst homelessness problem in the Bay Area? Unhoused population is Bay Area’s highest per {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 85     capita, while resources to assist them are scant While the city lacks most of the large, visible encampments of cities to the north, there are spread-out clusters of tents tucked beneath trees and unhoused residents sleeping in RVs and cars parked throughout the city, often abutting private property. Does this small city have the worst homelessness problem in the Bay Area? https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=9aa9528d- fe82-45dd-91bd-ad2602840d7a&appcode=SAN252&eguid=7ee63086-248e-4be1-bb00-81224d0cf9c4&pnum=1# For more great content like this subscribe to the The Mercury News e-edition app here: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 86     From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Reckdahl, Keith Cc:Lu, George; Veenker, Vicki; gstone22@gmail.com; Council, City; CityCouncil; Sean Allen; Pat M; Shikada, Ed; city.council@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Vara Ramakrishnan; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; BoardOperations; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; board@valleywater.org; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Betty Duong; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; District5@bos.sccgov.org; Gardener, Liz; Lotus Fong; Roberta Ahlquist; Gerry Gras; Human Relations Commission; Gennady Sheyner; Kaloma Smith; Gennady Sheyner; Emily Mibach; Binder, Andrew; Rowena Chiu; Nicole Chiu-Wang; EPA Today; Braden Cartwright; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Dana St. George Subject:Does this small city have the worst homelessness problem in the Bay Area? Unhoused population is Bay Area’shighest per capita, while resources to assist them are scant Date:Sunday, August 24, 2025 12:06:09 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Does this small city have the worst homelessness problem in the Bay Area? Unhoused population is Bay Area’s highest per capita, while resources to assist them are scant Does this small city have the worst homelessness problem in the Bay Area? https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=9aa9528d-fe82-45dd-91bd-ad2602840d7a&appcode=SAN252&eguid=7ee63086-248e-4be1-bb00-81224d0cf9c4&pnum=1# For more great content like this subscribe to the The Mercury Newse-edition app here: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 87     From:Aram James To:Adam.Oberdorfer@shf.sccgov.org; Sterling Larnerd; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org;Melissa.Kiniyalocts@cco.sccgov.org; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; eddie.aubrey@sanjoseca.gov; Shikada, Ed; RuthSilver Taube; Sean Allen; Yusra Hussain; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; jsylva@scscourt.org; Jay Boyarsky;Baker, Rob; cotton.gaines@cityofpaloalto.org; Council, City; Bill Newell; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew;CityCouncil; Reckdahl, Keith; Gerry Gras; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Lu, George; Vicki Veenker;Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley,Michael; h.etzko@gmail.com; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Betty Duong;Supervisor Otto Lee; District5@bos.sccgov.org; Gennady Sheyner; Stump, Molly; Raymond Goins; Liz Kniss;Gardener, Liz; Figueroa, Eric; Jensen, Eric; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Tom DuBois; Bains, Paul; Lee, Craig;cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; PD Kristina Bell; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; GRP-City Council;Burt, Patrick; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Dana St. George; Josh Becker;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Human Relations Commission Subject:Tased in the Chest, Dead for 8 Minutes – The Intercept Date:Saturday, August 23, 2025 6:25:33 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. In the medical world, Tasers causing cardiac arrest was apparently a well- established phenomenon. It’s sickening to me to listen to Taser even speak,” Matt continues. “We’ve all been duped. We’ve been fooled by a company that has made millions and millions of dollars off of the police departments.” Runnels may have been a bad cop, but if he hadn’t been given a device that Taser International had assured him was extremely unlikely to kill, then he might not have been tempted to shock a teenager who simply wanted to know why he was being arrested. https://theintercept.com/2016/06/07/tased-in-the-chest-for-23-seconds-dead-for-8-minutes- now-facing-a-lifetime-of-recovery/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 88     From:Aram James To:Lythcott-Haims, Julie Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Council, City; CityCouncil; city.council@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Sean Allen; Yusra Hussain; Braden Cartwright; Bill Newell; Emily Mibach; EPA Today; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Reckdahl, Keith; editor@paweekly.com; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; ParkRec Commission; Human Relations Commission Date:Saturday, August 23, 2025 3:42:14 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Subject: Ceasefire Resolution Discussion Hi Julie, I want to bring to your attention that Martin is simply repeating talking points from the pro-Israel lobby. In contrast, Henry’s reasoning for urging the city council to support a ceasefire resolution stems from years of critical thinking. At the very least, please advocate for the council to prioritize a ceasefire resolution given the drastically deteriorating situation in Gaza and the West Bank. If there is a thorough public debate and the full council ultimately votes against the resolution,the public will at least have the opportunity to hear each council member's rationale for their decision. This would be a true demonstration of democracy in action. Best, Aram {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 89     From:Aram James To:Adam.Oberdorfer@shf.sccgov.org; Robert Salonga; Robert Handa; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; SterlingLarnerd; PD Kristina Bell; Reckdahl, Keith; Brandon Pho; Brian Good; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor BettyDuong; District5@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Sean Allen; Emily Mibach;Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Foley, Michael; Shikada, Ed; eddie.aubrey@sanjoseca.gov; KEVIN JENSEN;Human Relations Commission; Vara Ramakrishnan; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Council, City; Binder,Andrew; Reifschneider, James; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker Subject:Tab 12 Aram James (DJ-1-12-18) (00000003) Date:Saturday, August 23, 2025 3:09:34 PM Attachments:Tab 12 Aram James (DJ-1-12-18) (00000003).pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. No Excuse For Tasers In Our Jails {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 90     From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Reckdahl, Keith; Human Relations Commission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; EPAToday; Bains, Paul; dennis burns; Bill Newell; Burt, Patrick; Sean Allen; Rose Lynn; james pitkin; Reifschneider,James; Wagner, April; Braden Cartwright; Gennady Sheyner Cc:Veenker, Vicki; Linda Jolley; Jay Boyarsky; Shikada, Ed; Lu, George; gstone22@gmail.com; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jeff Conrad; Emily Mibach; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Rowena Chiu; Nicole Chiu-Wang; chuck jagoda; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Palo Alto Free Press; Friends of Cubberley Subject:1The Fallen rolling stone article update oct 2013 Date:Saturday, August 23, 2025 2:19:39 PM Attachments:1The Fallen rolling stone article update oct 2013.docx CAUTION: THIS EMAIL ORIGINATED FROM OUTSIDE OF THE ORGANIZATION. BE CAUTIOUSOF OPENING ATTACHMENTS AND CLICKING ON LINKS. THE SHARP, SUDDEN DECLINE OF AMERICA’S MIDDLE CLASS Keith read this article!!!! They had good, stable jobs - until the recession hit. Now they're living out of their cars inparking lots. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 91     From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith Cc:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Lu, George; gstone22@gmail.com; Burt, Patrick; chuck jagoda; Roberta Ahlquist; Linda Jolley; Council, City; Human Relations Commission; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; james pitkin; Gardener, Liz; Lotus Fong; city.council@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; PD Kristina Bell; CityCouncil; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Betty Duong; Supervisor Otto Lee; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District5@bos.sccgov.org; Sean Allen; Ed Lauing; Shikada, Ed; Kaloma Smith; Braden Cartwright; Gennady Sheyner; Emily Mibach; Liz Kniss; EPA Today; Bains, Paul; dennis burns; h.etzko@gmail.com Subject:The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America’s Middle Class They had good, stable jobs – until the recession hit. Nowthey’re living out of their cars in parking lots. (2012) Date:Saturday, August 23, 2025 9:58:34 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening at The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America’s Middle Class They had good, stable jobs – until the recession hit. Now they’re lots. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-sharp-sudden-decline-of-americas-middle-class- 234917/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 92     From:Aram James To:Council, City; Shikada, Ed; Perron, Zachary; Wagner, April; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas;<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; CityCouncil; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Lee, Craig; Afanasiev, Alex;Figueroa, Eric; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; Sean Allen; Pat M; city.council@menlopark.gov;citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Gerry Gras; Vicki Veenker; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Dana St. George; Burt, Patrick;Friends of Cubberley; editor@almanacnews.com; editor@paweekly.com; Gennady Sheyner; Emily Mibach;Braden Cartwright; Binder, Andrew; Palo Alto Free Press; pat@patburt.org; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; JeffRosen; Jay Boyarsky; Reifschneider, James; Roberta Ahlquist; Bill Newell Subject:Ex-San Jose cop pleads to indecent exposure, sexual battery, road rage Date:Friday, August 22, 2025 8:03:33 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Guess who is a graduate of the SJPD? Serve & Protect? Mhttps://www.mercurynews.com/2025/08/19/ex-san-jose-cop-pleads-on-duty-indecent- exposure-sexual-battery-road-rage/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 93     From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Reckdahl, Keith Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Seher Awan; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Yusra Hussain; Roberta Ahlquist; h.etzko@gmail.com; Liz Kniss; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; Figueroa, Eric; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; Gerry Gras; Holman, Karen (external); Gardener, Liz; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; ladoris cordell; Yolanda Conaway; Lotus Fong; dennis burns; Dennis Upton; DuJuan Green; Salem Ajluni; Rick Callender; Baker, Rob; Robert Salonga; Roberta Ahlquist; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Sean Allen; PD Kristina Bell; Dana St. George; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Friends of Cubberley; Yi Chen; Palo Alto Free Press; Barberini, Christopher; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; District5@bos.sccgov.org; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; Diana Diamond; Dan Okonkwo; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Stump, Molly; Foley, Michael; Afanasiev, Alex; Jeff Conrad; Donna Wallach; Vicki Veenker; Gennady Sheyner; Emily Mibach; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Zelkha, Mila; Sheree Roth; Lori Meyers; Marina Lopez; Pat M; Marty Wasserman; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Ruth Silver Taube; Lu, George Subject:Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel Date:Thursday, August 21, 2025 9:35:32 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Guest Commentary | Sending MAGA to Sacramento Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel Guest Commentary | Sending MAGA to Sacramentohttps://share.google/0a017EjhZDX0FyAku {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 94     From:Aram James To:Sean Allen; Pat M; Binder, Andrew; Council, City; dennis burns; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Raj Jayadev; RaymondGoins; DuJuan Green; eddie.aubrey@sanjoseca.gov; Shikada, Ed; Human Relations Commission; Reifschneider,James; Wagner, April; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com> Subject:SJ Police Union Says Discipline Was "Criminal, Unethical" As City Defends Actions | San Jose Inside Date:Thursday, August 21, 2025 1:41:43 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/san-jose-police-union-calls-city-disciplinary-actions- criminal-unethical-incompetent/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 95     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com; Council, City; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate,Assembly District 23; Ed Lauing; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jessica Speiser; Sean Allen; YusraHussain; Seher Awan; Burt, Patrick; Kaloma Smith; Human Relations Commission; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg;Supervisor Betty Duong; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Supervisor Otto Lee; Diana Diamond; CouncilmemberChappie Jones; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District5@bos.sccgov.org;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRecCommission; CityCouncil; GRP-City Council; city.council@menlopark.gov; Binder, Andrew; Emily Mibach; Stump,Molly; Lotus Fong; Roberta Ahlquist; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto Subject:Israel launches diplomatic attacks on its Western allies ahead of Palestinian statehood recognition Date:Thursday, August 21, 2025 12:46:12 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Israel launches diplomatic attacks on its Western allies ahead of Palestinian statehood recognition Israel launches diplomatic attacks on its Western allies ahead of Palestinian statehood recognition Source: KXLYcom 4 News Now https://share.newsbreak.com/emzv2mfj?s=i0 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 96     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com Cc:Council, City; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Marty Wasserman; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Angel, David; Dave Price; james pitkin; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Rosen, Jeff; Gennady Sheyner; Gerry Gras; Roberta Ahlquist; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Bill Newell; Zahra Billoo; Binder, Andrew; city.council@menlopark.gov; CityCouncil; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Cribbs, Anne; Human Relations Commission; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Yusra Hussain; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; Diana Diamond; EPA Today; Lee, Craig; Donna Wallach; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Liz Kniss; Gardener, Liz; chuck jagoda; Burt, Patrick; Patrice Ventresca; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Sheree Roth; Lori Meyers; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Salem Ajluni; Raj Jayadev; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; Supervisor Betty Duong; District9@sanjoseca.gov; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; District5@bos.sccgov.org; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Doug Minkler; Shankar Ramamoorthy Subject:Re: Cease fire now in Gaza is a Palo Alto issue Date:Wednesday, August 20, 2025 11:19:11 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Henry, Well done! Your phrase “principled indifference” perfectly captures the state of mind of this council made up of Zionist zealots and Zionist sympathizers. Avram “ End The Genocide Now” Finkelstein  From: Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>Date: August 15, 2025 at 6:15:47 AM PDTTo: Ny Times <lilaccent@gmail.com>Cc: city.council@cityofpaloalto.com, Office of theProvost <provost@stanford.edu>, WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>Subject: Cease fire now in Gaza is a Palo Alto issue Creating divides within and between localcommunities. The tacit agreement among Council topresent a united front of “principled indifference” onthe grounds that it is beyond their “pay grade” must beturned on its head. Hunger is a universal issuewherever it takes place. Let’s honor the greatest PaloAltan, President Herbert Hoover by carrying out his principle of feeding everyone irrespective of politicaldifferences. Council and the University should take astand together with Palo Alto’s citizenry and supportthe flooding of Gaza with food, called for by the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 97     coalition of international aid agencies. Herbert Hooverdid in his day what we must do in ours. Sincerely Henry Etzkowitz Co-Organizer, neighbors for environmental and social justice 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto City Council 1766 Sand Hill Road 646 701 2695 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 98     From:Aram James To:Palo Alto Free Press; Council, City; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; Sean Allen; Lee, Craig; Foley, Michael;<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; BoardOperations; Kaloma Smith; Human Relations Commission; CityCouncil;h.etzko@gmail.com; city.council@menlopark.gov; Perron, Zachary; dennis burns; DuJuan Green;dcombs@menlopark.gov; PD Kristina Bell; Raymond Goins; Braden Cartwright; Emily Mibach; Figueroa, Eric;Baker, Rob; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; jsylva@scscourt.org; Jay Boyarsky; Wagner, April; Gerry Gras; Rodriguez,Miguel; Roberta Ahlquist; Afanasiev, Alex; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; RobertSalonga; dcombs@menlopark.org; Nash, Betsy; citycouncil@mountainview.gov;planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; rabrica@cityofepa.org; cromero@cityofepa.org;Henry Etzkowitz; Bill Newell; board@pausd.org; james pitkin; Jay Boyarsky; Tom DuBois; Holman, Karen(external); Supervisor Betty Duong; Shikada, Ed; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Stump, Molly; Daniel Barton;Jensen, Eric; EPA Today; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov;District5@sanjoseca.gov; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley Subject:Police chief makes a surprising admission | ABC7 San Francisco | abc7news.com Date:Tuesday, August 19, 2025 2:36:40 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. FYI: a bit more history on the Palo Alto Police Department’s long and dishonorable history of racially discriminatory policing Police chief makes a surprising admission | ABC7 San Francisco | abc7news.com - ABC7 SanFrancisco https://abc7news.com/archive/6480418/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 99     From:Aram James To:Human Relations Commission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; ladoris cordell;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; EPA Today; Diana Diamond; Gerry Gras; Liz Kniss;Gardener, Liz Subject:homelessness_letter_8-2-13 Date:Monday, August 18, 2025 8:09:15 PM Attachments:homelessness_letter_8-2-13.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 100     From:Aram James To:Human Relations Commission Subject:Re: homelessness_letter_8-2-13 Date:Monday, August 18, 2025 8:07:10 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Mon, Aug 18, 2025 at 8:01 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: RV dwellers Guest Opinion 2013 by Aram James {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 101     From:Aram James To:Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Lauing, Ed; Sean Allen; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; JessicaSpeiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Josh Becker; Jay Boyarsky;Jeff Rosen; h.etzko@gmail.com; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Gerry Gras; Daniel Barton; Emily Mibach; HumanRelations Commission; board@pausd.org; PD Kristina Bell; Nash, Betsy; Raymond Goins; Braden Cartwright;Gardener, Liz; cotton.gaines@cityofpaloalto.org; Lotus Fong; Yusra Hussain; Lythcott-Haims, Julie;citycouncil@mountainview.gov; CityCouncil; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Binder, Andrew; Barberini, Christopher;planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Reckdahl, Keith; Angel, David; Daniel Kottke;Dan Okonkwo; Roberta Ahlquist; Figueroa, Eric; Jensen, Eric; Council, City; Sheree Roth; Lori Meyers;frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Friends of Cubberley; Rowena Chiu; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Enberg, Nicholas;board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Jeff Hayden; Dennis Upton; Rose Lynn; Gennady Sheyner; sharonjackson; Doug Minkler; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Baker, Rob; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; james pitkin; Pat M;Palo Alto Free Press; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Supervisor Betty Duong; Supervisor Otto Lee; YolandaConaway; Seher Awan; EPA Today; Diana Diamond; DuJuan Green; Tom DuBois; Carla Torres; Bill Newell; JoseValle; Dana St. George; Kaloma Smith; Salem Ajluni; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Bryan Gobin; BrandonPho; Brian Good; Michelle Bigelow Cc:WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach Subject:Ex-Israeli intelligence chief said 50 Palestinians must die for every 7 October victim Date:Sunday, August 17, 2025 2:37:52 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Ex-Israeli intelligence chief said 50 Palestinians must die for every 7 October victim Source:The Guardian https://share.newsbreak.com/ekt0tpi6?s=i0 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 102     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Sean Allen; Jeff Conrad; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie;Shikada, Ed; Gerry Gras; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Palo Alto Renters" Association; JoshBecker; CityCouncil; Council, City; Emily Mibach; Gennady Sheyner; Clerk, City; GRP-City Council; Bill Newell;planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Human Relations Commission; EPA Today;DuJuan Green; Doug Minkler; Shankar Ramamoorthy; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Rowena Chiu; Seher Awan;Palo Alto Free Press; Burt, Patrick; Michael Pati; Pat M; Vara Ramakrishnan; Roberta Ahlquist; Raymond Goins Subject:Watch "The Fall of the Israel Lobby Has Begun — And This Is Just the Start | Denzel Washington speech" on YouTube Date:Sunday, August 17, 2025 1:08:20 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://youtu.be/TBtQMeLdCQc?si=Dr7OjYWeX8JPNLOL {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 103     From:Aram James To:Binder, Andrew; Council, City; Gennady Sheyner; Reifschneider, James; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; CityCouncil;Raymond Goins; Sean Allen; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Perron, Zachary; DuJuan Green; dennisburns; Jeff Conrad; Jay Boyarsky; Richard Konda; Rick Callender; Braden Cartwright;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Brandon Pho; Brian Good; Gerry Gras; Bill Newell; Shankar Ramamoorthy; DougMinkler; Kaloma Smith; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; BoardOperations; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg;Supervisor Betty Duong; Supervisor Otto Lee; Rowena Chiu; Emily Mibach; Baker, Rob; Robert Salonga; RobertaAhlquist; Rose Lynn; Salem Ajluni; Bryan Gobin; Brad Imamura; Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley; Burt, Patrick;gstone22@gmail.com; Palo Alto Free Press; EPA Today; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan;District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov;Councilmember Chappie Jones; Diana Diamond; Rodriguez, Miguel; editor@paweekly.com;eddie.aubrey@sanjoseca.gov; h.etzko@gmail.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto;Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Afanasiev, Alex; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission;Zelkha, Mila; Foley, Michael; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; josh@joshsalcman.com;ladoris cordell; Donna Wallach; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Nash, Betsy; james pitkin; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky;Melissa.Kiniyalocts@cco.sccgov.org; Robert Handa; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org;Adam.Oberdorfer@shf.sccgov.org; Sterling Larnerd; Steve Wagstaffe; Stump, Molly; Alex Etzkowitz; chuckjagoda; Dennis Upton; Dana St. George; cromero@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; Cribbs, Anne; Don Austin; YolandaConaway Subject:This cop trusted the Taser—until it nearly killed his son Date:Saturday, August 16, 2025 10:41:35 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. The Truth About Deadly Tasers Reveal: 8/16/2025 Must listen or read before you decide on Tasers What Police Weren’t Told About Tasers - Reveal https://revealnews.org/podcast/tasers-police- injuries-deaths-axon/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 104     From:Aram James To:Shikada, Ed; Binder, Andrew; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Council, City; Reckdahl, Keith; GennadySheyner; Lotus Fong; Roberta Ahlquist; Kaloma Smith; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Nash,Betsy; Raymond Goins; Salem Ajluni; board@pausd.org; Rick Callender; Palo Alto Free Press; Diana Diamond;EPA Today; Pat M; Barberini, Christopher; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Enberg, Nicholas;planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Human Relations Commission; Michael Pati;Yolanda Conaway Cc:Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Veenker, Vicki; Gerry Gras; Lu, George; Ed Lauing; Doug Minkler; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Linda Jolley; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Sean Allen Subject:Article: “Take Back Our Criminal Justice System, Use Jury Nullification” (May 8, 2012) Aram Byer James authoreda compelling piece titled “Take Back Our Criminal Justice System, Use Jury Nullification”, published under theAlbert Cobarrubias Justice Pr... Date:Saturday, August 16, 2025 8:35:46 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Take Back Our Criminal Justice System, Use Jury Nullification MAY 8, 2012 / ACJPDEBUG By Aram James — On April 19, 2012 New York federal Judge Kimba Wood dismissed an indictment against 80-year old Julian P. Heicklen for alleged jury tampering in the case against him for handing out materials to members of the public regarding the right of jurors to apply the historic doctrine of jury nullification. Nullification is the right of jurors to come back with a verdict of not-guilty even if the jurors believe that the defendant in fact technically violated the law, but the jurors conclude that the law in question is an immoral or bad law or a reasonable law applied in a discriminatory fashion. In dismissing the case Judge Wood commented that a person violates the jury tampering law only when they try to influence a juror in a specific case pending before those same jurors– but not for merely handing out informational materials (protected First Amendment activity) to members of the public who come to the courthouse for a variety of reasons–not necessarily related to jury duty. The right of jurors to veto or nullify an unjust law—or a law that may be fair on its face but is being applied in a discriminatory fashion–is critical to our democracy and to our ability to serve as citizen jurors while being fully informed of our rights and options as decision makers. These rights are essential when our government calls us to sit in judgment regarding the guilt or innocence of our fellow citizens and community members In an era where our government is increasingly cracking down on dissent (consider the response of the government to the occupy movement or to high profile whistle blowers such as Bradley Manning or Julian Assange) the decision by a federal judge to toss out an indictment against an 80-year-old citizen advocate for handing out materials to members of the public in front of a courthouse is a powerful rebuff to the U.S. government’s ongoing efforts to intimidate and steal from its citizens the right to think and speak freely and to exercise their independent judgment in the context of their jury service. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 105     The judge’s decision to toss the indictment goes a long way to prevent—or at least to mitigate– jury tampering activity by judges and or prosecutors who – on occasion — purposely attempt to leave jurors with the wrong and intimidating impression: that to do anything other than to convict the person on trial is itself a criminal act. Historically brave and courageous jurors refused to convict those charged with violating the Fugitive Slave Act and other immoral laws despite the best efforts of prosecutors and judges to steer jurors towards a conviction. In the contemporary setting, if more jurors were fully informed of their right to disregard immoral or discriminatorily enforced laws—such as California’s “Jim Crow Drug Laws” and the racially motivated three-strike law—they would undoubtedly refuse to convict many defendants charged under these morally repugnant and frequently discriminatory laws. The bottom line is that any grassroots organization attempting to reform or rebuild the criminal justice system from the ground up must understand and be willing to educate members of the public regarding their basic rights as jurors—including the right to veto or nullify bad laws. Failure to educate the public in this regard is to assist and aid the state in wrongfully convicting members of our own communities. Knowledge is power and it’s time we go out into our communities and spread the word—we can just say no to bad laws. Judge Kimba Wood’s action in dismissing the indictment in the Julian Heicklen case is cause for wide celebration-since we now know we are on solid legal ground when we decide to organize our communities around fundamental concepts of justice and our desire to take back our criminal justice system. We can take back our criminal justice system from the forces that would prefer that justice be administered and understood for the benefit of the few to the detriment of the majority of people. The majority of people who must interact daily with the intentionally maintained mysterious and often baffling criminal justice system. In California –pursuant to the holding in People v. Williams 25 Cal. 4th 441 (2001), jurors are explicitly precluded from exercising the doctrine of jury nullification—in fact if a judge discovers that a juror is refusing to apply the law to a case–he or she may be discharged from the jury. On the other hand, if the judge is unaware that the jury has engaged in nullifying what they perceive to be an unfair or bad law—the double jeopardy clause would prohibit retrial of an acquitted defendant. In Sparf v. U.S. 156 U.S. 51 (1894) the U.S. Supreme Court—in a 5 to 4 decision—held that federal judges are not required to instruct jurors on their right to nullify bad laws. Understanding the power of jury nullification is one way to even the odds of obtaining justice of all. To learn more about the power of jury nullification check out the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA). Aram James is a retired Santa Clara County deputy public defender—and a cofounder of the Albert Cobarrubias Justice Project (ACJP) –a grassroots legal advocacy organization—located in San Jose, CA. *In a future article the author intends to discuss the provocative and controversial use of race-based jury nullification. The doctrine of race-based jury nullification has been popularized by Law Professor Paul Butler. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 106     Take Back Our Criminal Justice System, Use Jury Nullification {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 107     From:Aram James To:Shikada, Ed; Braden Cartwright; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; Reckdahl, Keith; Sean Allen; Binder, Andrew; BillNewell; Gerry Gras; EPA Today; Stump, Molly; DuJuan Green; dennis burns; h.etzko@gmail.com; RobertaAhlquist; Lotus Fong; Palo Alto Free Press; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Gennady Sheyner; DianaDiamond; Kaloma Smith; james pitkin; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Vicki Veenker; Jeff Rosen;Baker, Rob; Doug Minkler; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden;Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; board@pausd.org; Roberta Ahlquist; Rowena Chiu; board@valleywater.org;bos@smcgov.org; BoardOperations; Holman, Karen (external); Lauing, Ed; gstone22@gmail.com; Lu, George;Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Damon Silver; Figueroa, Eric; Henry Etzkowitz; RaymondGoins; Pat M; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan;District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; Councilmember Chappie Jones;District9@sanjoseca.gov; cromero@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; Council, City; Bains, Paul; Rodriguez, Miguel;Friends of Cubberley; Michael Ybarra; Zelkha, Mila Cc:PD Kristina Bell Subject:Just Say No To Banning RVs on The streets of Palo Alto without a well-thought-out back up Plan Date:Saturday, August 16, 2025 6:34:52 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Here’s a comprehensive, well-sourced overview of Aram James’s role and the broadertimeline surrounding the vehicle‑dwelling (RV/living-in-car) ban in Palo Alto: 1. Aram James’s Letter (July 20, 2011) Aram James submitted a letter to the City Attorney of Palo Alto on July 20, 2011, raising legaland moral concerns about the proposed vehicle-dwelling ordinance: He warned that prosecutions under the ordinance would involve lengthy, costly trials,especially if defendants invoked the “defense of necessity,” often misapplied by judges,potentially triggering appeals and habeas corpus petitions. He argued that juries historically refuse to convict under unjust laws, and would likelyview bans criminalizing sleeping in vehicles as morally indefensible. James also noted that even if courts restrict necessity defenses, the unspoken backupremains jury nullification—when a jury acquits against the letter of the law because theyfind it unjust. 2. City Council’s Response & the Ban’s Passage (2013) The City Council voted 7–2 to enact the vehicle-dwelling ban on August 5, 2013,framing it as a necessary tool amid growing lodging in vehicles and neighborhood {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 108     safety concerns. Violations could result in citations, and in some cases, misdemeanorswith up to a $1,000 fine. The decision came after two years of debate, outreach, and failed attempts to launchalternative safe-parking programs with faith-based organizations. 3. Legal Pushback & Enforcement Delay (Late 2013–Early 2014) In November 2013, a group of attorneys threatened to sue, arguing that the bancriminalized homelessness and violated residents’ rights by depriving them of essentialshelter. In December 2013, the City Council agreed to delay enforcement for up to a year, citinga pending Ninth Circuit decision in Desertrain v. Los Angeles which could influence thelegality of such bans. 4. Ban Repealed (November 2014) Finally, on November 24, 2014, the Council repealed the ban in a 7–1 vote, largely influenced by the Desertrain case, which found similar restrictions unconstitutional anddiscriminatory under due process law. The vehicle-dwelling ban had not been enforced during the delay. The repeal occurred alongside continued funding (about $250,000 annually) for broader homelessness solutions, though the ban was dropped. Here’s a comprehensive, well-sourced overview of Aram James’s role and the broader timeline surrounding the vehicle‑dwelling (RV/living-in-car) ban in Palo Alto: 1. Aram James’s Letter (July 20, 2011) Aram James submitted a letter to the City Attorney of Palo Alto on July 20, 2011,raising legal and moral concerns about the proposed vehicle-dwelling ordinance: He warned that prosecutions under the ordinance would involve lengthy, costly {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 109     trials, especially if defendants invoked the “defense of necessity,” oftenmisapplied by judges, potentially triggering appeals and habeas corpus petitions. He argued that juries historically refuse to convict under unjust laws, and wouldlikely view bans criminalizing sleeping in vehicles as morally indefensible. James also noted that even if courts restrict necessity defenses, the unspokenbackup remains jury nullification—when a jury acquits against the letter of thelaw because they find it unjust. 2. City Council’s Response & the Ban’s Passage (2013) The City Council voted 7–2 to enact the vehicle-dwelling ban on August 5, 2013, framing it as a necessary tool amid growing lodging in vehicles and neighborhoodsafety concerns. Violations could result in citations, and in some cases, misdemeanors with up to a $1,000 fine. The decision came after two years of debate, outreach, and failed attempts to launch alternative safe-parking programs with faith-based organizations. 3. Legal Pushback & Enforcement Delay (Late 2013– Early 2014) In November 2013, a group of attorneys threatened to sue, arguing that the bancriminalized homelessness and violated residents’ rights by depriving them ofessential shelter. In December 2013, the City Council agreed to delay enforcement for up to a year,citing a pending Ninth Circuit decision in Desertrain v. Los Angeles which couldinfluence the legality of such bans. 4. Ban Repealed (November 2014) Finally, on November 24, 2014, the Council repealed the ban in a 7–1 vote,largely influenced by the Desertrain case, which found similar restrictions unconstitutional and discriminatory under due process law. The vehicle-dwellingban had not been enforced during the delay. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 110     The repeal occurred alongside continued funding (about $250,000 annually) forbroader homelessness solutions, though the ban was dropped. Final Thoughts Aram James’s 2011 letter catalyzed legal and ethical debate by spotlighting theordinance’s potential unintended consequences—financial burden, constitutionalchallenges, and juror resistance. His advocacy prefaced a broader unfolding of the issue,eventually culminating in legal scrutiny and policy reversal. Context & Significance Aram James’s letter was prompted by how the city was handling the debate— highlighting concerns around free speech. He urged the City Attorney to publiclyclarify the city’s stance to avoid discouraging future public testimony. He acknowledged that, based on legal precedent, officials do have the FirstAmendment right to not listen (or walk out) on speakers—even if the speech is distasteful to them. But he also emphasized that such conduct could nonethelessdiscourage civic participation. He also hinted at political accountability, saying he could choose not to vote foror even initiate a recall campaign against those council members whose actions he found objectionable. In his postscript, he specifically invited Chief Attorney Molly Stump to weigh in with her legal perspective on the issues he highlighted. Why It Matters This letter provides a window into Aram James’s broader concerns—beyond just thevehicle-dwelling issue—to how local government engages with dissent. He was drawingattention not only to the substance of the discussion (the proposed ban), but also to howthe process itself (public comment, legal discourse, civic feedback) was being shaped. Palo Alto indeed delayed the debate in the wake of such public pushback, which alignswith James’s broader message about the importance of open civic discourse. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 111     From:Aram James To:Sterling Larnerd; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Robert. Jonsen; Sean Allen; Adam.Oberdorfer@shf.sccgov.org;Pat M; Raymond Goins Subject:Re: Letter from Palo Alto Free Press Date:Saturday, August 16, 2025 7:56:23 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 10:52 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 6:23 PM Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com > wrote: Subject: Support for CPRA Request Regarding August 7, 2025 Incident Dear Ms Kiniyalocts, I am writing in strong support of the attached CPRA request concerningthe incident that occurred on or about August 7, 2025, at the Santa ClaraCounty Main Jail involving the deployment of pepper spray and a Taser. As the request carefully outlines, transparency in this matter is critical for ensuring public accountability, maintaining trust in our institutions, andsafeguarding the rights of those in custody. The records sought— including incident reports, medical documentation, costs associated withmedical and psychological services, and relevant video footage—are directly related to understanding not only what occurred on that date, butalso how County resources, protocols, and personnel responded to the incident. Importantly, this request acknowledges and respects privacy protectionsby explicitly allowing for redactions where required by law, and it citesclear precedent supporting disclosure, including CBS v. Block and NYTimes Co. v. Superior Court. As Gov’t Code section 7922.600(a)emphasizes, public agencies have an affirmative duty to assist in locatingresponsive records and to work constructively with the public to resolveany practical barriers to disclosure. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 112     For these reasons, I urge your office and the Sheriff’s Department to treat this request not as an adversarial challenge, but as an opportunity todemonstrate transparency and accountability. The requested records will help inform the community and our elected officials as they consider thelong-term implications of the Taser Pilot Project in our county jails. Finally, I echo the requesters’ call for a meeting—either via Zoom or inperson—to confer on this matter and ensure that all statutory obligationsunder the CPRA are fully met. Thank you for your attention to this important request and for yourcommitment to the principles of openness and accountability in public service. Respectfully, Mark Petersen-Perez Palo Alto Free Press {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 113     From:Aram James To:Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Council, City; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Gerry Gras; DuJuan Green; dennisburns; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; GRP-City Council; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell;cromero@cityofepa.org; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; jsylva@scscourt.org; Jay Boyarsky; Gardener, Liz; HumanRelations Commission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Figueroa, Eric;<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Daniel Barton; Yolanda Conaway; james pitkin;Reifschneider, James; Wagner, April; Veenker, Vicki; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Jensen, Eric; SalemAjluni; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Brandon Pho; Sean Allen; Pat M; Burt, Patrick; Reckdahl, Keith;Stone, Greer; Greg Tanaka; Tom DuBois; Hans-Peter Tiemann; Drekmeier, Peter; Dana St. George; Lotus Fong;Palo Alto Free Press; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Henry Etzkowitz; Roberta Ahlquist; Donna Wallach; Friends ofCubberley; Brian Good; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Kaloma Smith; Zahra Billoo; EPA Today; Liz Kniss; BradenCartwright; Afanasiev, Alex; Enberg, Nicholas; Rick Callender; Jeff Hayden; Holman, Karen (external); The Officeof Mayor Matt Mahan; District3@sanjoseca.gov; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District4@sanjoseca.gov;District5@sanjoseca.gov; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Robert Salonga; DennisUpton; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Robert Handa; Perron, Zachary; Lee,Craig; Doug Minkler; Shankar Ramamoorthy Subject:CJA ALA Public Records Request 8-15-25 Date:Friday, August 15, 2025 3:13:14 PM Attachments:CJA ALA Public Records Request 8-15-25.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Taser Deployment in our main jail {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 114     From:Aram James To:Donna Wallach Cc:Martin Wasserman; h.etzko@gmail.com; Justin Zalkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Pnina Abir-am; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Doug Minkler; Salem Ajluni; Yusra Hussain; Donna Wallach; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; Betsy Nash; dcombs@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; Kaloma Smith; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; editor@paweekly.com; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; Reckdahl, Keith; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; Braden Cartwright; Brandon Pho; Lotus Fong; Palo Alto Free Press; Bill Newell; Roberta Ahlquist; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Rob Baker; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Clerk, City; CityCouncil; Michael Ybarra; Seher Awan; Greg Tanaka; Carla Torres; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Human Relations Commission; ParkRec Commission; Diana Diamond; Today EPA; Pat M; Burt, Patrick; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Palo Alto Weekly; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; DuJuan Green; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Afanasiev, Alex; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Henry Etzkowitz; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Josh Becker; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg Subject:Re: Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What"s Happening In Gaza A"Genocide" Date:Thursday, August 14, 2025 7:32:47 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. A person to whom I showed Donna’s response to Martin last night offered these thoughts: Your claim that Zionism preaches hatred of non-Jews is utter nonsense. Perhaps true. It’s not that non-Zionists are worthless; they’re just worth less than Zionists. The truth is that Israel has always desired to live in peace with the Arabs, but it was the Arabs who refused to live in peace with Israel. Seems to me Jews and Arabs got along fine for centuries until the Euro types started showing up in the 1870s intent on taking Arab land. The historic restoration of the ancient Jewish nation in the land of its birth, an event Jews aspired to for nearly 2 millennia, has finally been achieved, and Israel will do whatever it takes to preserve that achievement. Anyone who tries to destroy the Jewish state will likely pay a heavy price, as many of Israel's enemies have found out the hard way. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 115     Ho Le Phuc … Manifest Destiny! Or at least Eretz Yisrael. Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace. You focus on the suffering of the Palestinians, but say nothing about the Palestinians own actions that brought that suffering upon themselves. By resisting the taking of their land? But if you believe that the ancient Jewish nation has no right to be restored in the land of its birth, that Jews have no right of self-determination in their historic homeland, and that Jewish history and historical aspirations mean nothing, please say so so everyone can know exactly where you stand. Does this apply to all people? If so, there should be no objection to Native Americans running Whitey out of Dodge—resorting to whatever mass extermination might prove necessary. I think the Kool Aid drank Martin. On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 10:42 PM Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com> wrote: Martin You do not know what you are talking about. You are the one who NEVER states facts, justbogus stuff you have heard from other like-minded racist Jewish supremacists. Your ears, mind and heart are totally closed, you have no compassion for any other people in the world,just Jews. However Judaism does not preach hatred of non-Jews, Zionism preaches that, and VERY sadly Jews like you have swallowed the racist kool-aid. You disgust me beyondwords. Even B'Tselem, an Israeli Human Rights organization, has acknowledged that Israel is committing genocide. Hundreds of Palestinians have died from famine. Israel is blockingall the aid from entering. I lived in Gaza for 4 months in 2008 and already then, because of the Blockade on Gaza there was already a problem of malnourished children! The Israeligovt then acknowledged that they were putting the Palestinians on a diet, letting just enough food in so the Palestinians wouldn't die of hunger. At the same time the Israeli soldiers {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 116     would come in through into Gaza through gates in the Apartheid Wall driving big bulldozersand destroy the crops, destroy irrigation pipes, and also sit in their towers and drive in jeeps and shoot at Palestian farmers trying to plant crops. Denying Palestinians their human Rightto feed themselves and have a livelihood. I was there and witnessed it. Donna "Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."Assata Shakur Books you must read: "Against Our Better Judgement: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to createIsrael" by Alison Weir http://www.againstourbetterjudgment.com/ "State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel" by Thomas Suarezhttp://thomassuarez.com/SoT.html "The Hundred Years War on Palestine"by Rashid Khalidi "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"by Illan Pappé Free Palestine!Right of Return to Palestine for all Palestinians! Free all political prisoners! Mumia Abu-Jamal @mumiafreedomtour The Holy Land Five: Shukri Abu Baker Ghassan Elashi Mufid Abdulqader Abdulrahman Odeh Mohammad Elmezain https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-trial-and-conviction-of-the-holy-land-foundation-five/237440/ and thousands more End Solitary Confinement https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com California Prison Focus http://newest.prisons.org/our_story End United $tates of Amerikkka invasions and occupationsU.S. Government and UN Occupation Force Soldiers - Hands off Haiti! http://www.haitisolidarity.net/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 117     Syria Solidarity Movement, Solidarity with the Syrian peoplehttps://syriasupportmovement.org On Wed, Aug 13, 2025, 22:21 Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, You're the one who refuses to deal with facts. The only party to the Gaza conflict that has explicitly called for a war of extermination is Hamas, the group that you ludicrously describe as "freedom fighters.” Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 9:47 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Martin, You don't hardly speak in facts -as I said a moment’s ago, you traffic exclusively in unadulterated worn-out pro-Israel lobby talking points. As myvery Jewish dad used to say: “some folks don't want to be disturbed by the facts.” Sadly, Martin, you suffer from an apparently incurable case of the don't bother me with the facts, syndrome. Avram “End The Mass Extermination In Palestine Now” Finkelstein On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 9:30 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, I notice that you never try to dispute my arguments with actualfacts, obviously because you have no facts to dispute them with! Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 9:02 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Another tired PRO-Israeli lobby talking point, AIPAC, talking point! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 8:57 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:How quickly the blood libel spreads!! If Israel waswaging a war of extermination, most of the Gazans {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 118     would be long gone by now. Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 6:48 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Henry, I hope Julie surprises us all and finally does theright thing. It is past time for her to break hersilence. Avram Agreed upon a united front: surprise if Julie goesMarjorie. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 13, 2025, at 5:49 PM,Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:  8/13/2025 Hi Henry, I'm hoping that when JulieLythcott-Haims returns to herduties on the Palo Alto CityCouncil that she will match theextremely white wing MarjorieTaylor Green and call out for allthe world to hear: End TheGenocide Now. Avram Finkelstein P.S. All seven of our city council {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 119     members claim to be Democrats.But not one of them has been willing to call out the ongoingHolocast in Palestine either in their private citizen’s role or intheir official capacities as members of the city council. Eachone who remains silent is complicit in the daily war crimesand genocide in Palestine. Will they each eventually be triedfor their complicity in Genocide? Only time will tell! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at4:54 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: NewsBreak Used by over 45 millionpeople Open APP Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" BuzzFeed Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" Source: BuzzFeed Click to read the full story {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 120     Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 121     From:Gerry Gras To:Martin Wasserman; Aram James Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Justin Zalkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Pnina Abir-am; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Doug Minkler; Salem Ajluni; Yusra Hussain; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; Betsy Nash; dcombs@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; Kaloma Smith; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; editor@paweekly.com; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; Reckdahl, Keith; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; Braden Cartwright; Brandon Pho; Lotus Fong; Palo Alto Free Press; Bill Newell; Roberta Ahlquist; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Rob Baker; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Gardener, Liz; Dana St. George; Clerk, City; CityCouncil; Michael Ybarra; Seher Awan; Greg Tanaka; Carla Torres; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Human Relations Commission; ParkRec Commission; Diana Diamond; Today EPA; Pat M; Burt, Patrick; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Palo Alto Weekly; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; DuJuan Green; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Afanasiev, Alex Subject:Re: Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What"s Happening In Gaza A"Genocide" Date:Thursday, August 14, 2025 12:59:19 PM here is a lot of information provided by another member of the humanist community: ================================= That the emaciated child in one recently-circulated photo has other health problems besidesmalnourishment does not disprove that the child is malnourished and starving due to denial of food, water, and medical supplies, and treatment of those health problems by the Israelis. https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-aid-groups-contradict-israeli-gaza-claims/a-73456462 https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-starvation-children-malnutrition-baby-baf865b861c9a2fd9c75068936062146 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-31/controversy-over-image-of-a-skeletal-one-year-old- gazan-boy/105596198 There is plenty of evidence of mass starvation and Israel’s restriction of the supplies reachingthe civilians in Gaza well below that needed to maintain their health. There might be more if Israel allowed journalists into the area, instead of killing the ones who try to report from Gaza. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165517 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/gaza-evidence-points-to-israels-continued-use-of-starvation-to-inflict-genocide-against-palestinians/ https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-182-situation-gaza-strip-and- west-bank-including-east-jerusalem The U.S. private force involved in food distribution is complicit in this as well. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/08/01/gaza-israeli-killings-of-palestinians-seeking-food-are-war-crimes Do you deny that Israel is systematically starving the people of Gaza while after killing and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 122     injuring a substantial proportion of the civilian population, as well as destroying their homes,businesses, medical facilities, and schools, and continuing to do so? Here, the U.S. is also complicit in supplying many of the military weapons used in this destruction. Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and Israel actions against the civilian population andmedical facilities include violations of international law and morality. Israel’s disproportionate escalation policy does not allow a mutually acceptable resolution of theconflict, but only exile or extermination of the Palestinians. Do you deny that Israeli officials have expressed the intent to remove or kill all of the people of Gaza? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/06/hamas-israel-hunger-war-in-gaza https://www.btselem.org/publications/202507_our_genocide https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/05/15/gaza-latest-israeli-plan-inches-closer-extermination The Arab League has announced their condemnation of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack onIsrael and demanded that HAMAS disarm as part of a UN initiative to discuss a two-state solution. https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-862893 What evidence is there that Israel will support a Palestinian state with characteristics sufficientto eliminate popular support for Hamas and violence against Israel? Regarding your second link and issue: The comparisons in that post seem cherry picked and the claims questionable. What evidence do we have that Hamas still controls territory in Gaza or that they are stillhaving any impact on the Israeli occupying force or Israeli civilians? I have seen news of continuing destruction and killing of Palestinian civilians by Israel (and by Americanmercenaries), but nothing about Hamas continuing to kill or destroy Israeli forces or civilians. I have seen claims that Hamas still has some soldiers hiding in tunnels with some Israelihostages, but that does not seem to justify Israel starving the civilian population. The article credits Israel providing aid to the occupied civilians, but I have seen reports that the aid hasbeen much below that needed to prevent malnutrition and death from starvation and that the aid is being used as bait to lure and execute civilians. Is Israel really willing to strive only for such a low bar as treating civilians in an occupationbetter than the Nazis did or would they prefer to be appreciated for treating them as well as the Americans treated the Germans and Japanese under occupation? Which approach had thebetter outcome? Will Israel have a Marshall Plan for the Palestinians, allowing them to re- establish self-rule, or will they divest the Palestinians of their remaining land and continuetheir extermination? What has Israel done to cause Palestinians to think that an unconditional surrender would not mean complete loss of what remains of their homeland? {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 123     What solutions will respect the human rights and aspirations of all the parties in this conflict and remove the motivation for further conflict? ================================= gerry On 8/13/25 22:21, Martin Wasserman wrote: Aram, You're the one who refuses to deal with facts. The only party to the Gazaconflict that has explicitly called for a war of extermination is Hamas, the group that you ludicrously describe as "freedom fighters.” Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 9:47 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Martin, You don't hardly speak in facts -as I said a moment’s ago, you traffic exclusively in unadulterated worn-out pro-Israel lobby talking points.As my very Jewish dad used to say: “some folks don't want to be disturbed by the facts.” Sadly, Martin, you suffer from an apparently incurable case of the don't bother me with the facts, syndrome. Avram “End The Mass Extermination In Palestine Now” Finkelstein On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 9:30 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, I notice that you never try to dispute my arguments withactual facts, obviously because you have no facts to dispute them with! Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 9:02 PM, Aram James {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 124     <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Another tired PRO-Israeli lobby talking point, AIPAC,talking point! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 8:57 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:How quickly the blood libel spreads!! If Israel was waging a war of extermination, most of the Gazans would be long gone by now. Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 6:48 PM, AramJames <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Henry, I hope Julie surprises us all and finallydoes the right thing. It is past time forher to break her silence. Avram Agreed upon a united front: surprise ifJulie goes Marjorie. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 13, 2025, at5:49 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote:  8/13/2025 Hi Henry, I'm hoping that whenJulie Lythcott-Haims {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 125     returns to her duties onthe Palo Alto City Council that she willmatch the extremely white wing MarjorieTaylor Green and call out for all the world to hear:End The Genocide Now. Avram Finkelstein P.S. All seven of our city council members claim tobe Democrats. But not one of them has beenwilling to call out the ongoing Holocast in Palestine either in their private citizen’s role or intheir official capacities as members of the citycouncil. Each one who remains silent is complicitin the daily war crimes and genocide in Palestine. Will they each eventuallybe tried for their complicity in Genocide?Only time will tell! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 4:54 PM Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: NewsBreak Used by over 45 millionpeople Open APP Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 126     Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" BuzzFeed Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" Source: BuzzFeed Click to read the full story Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 127     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:Donna Wallach; h.etzko@gmail.com; Justin Zalkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Pnina Abir-am; Doug Minkler; Salem Ajluni; Yusra Hussain; Donna Wallach; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; Betsy Nash; dcombs@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; Kaloma Smith; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; editor@paweekly.com; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Gennady Sheyner; Reckdahl, Keith; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; Brandon Pho; Lotus Fong; Palo Alto Free Press; Bill Newell; Roberta Ahlquist; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Rob Baker; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Michael Ybarra; Seher Awan; Greg Tanaka; Carla Torres; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Human Relations Commission; Diana Diamond; Today EPA; Pat M; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Palo Alto Weekly; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; DuJuan Green Subject:Re: Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What"s Happening In Gaza A"Genocide" Date:Thursday, August 14, 2025 10:42:26 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Martin, Your comments remind me of the old Vietnam War Bumper Sticker: KILL FOR PEACE AVRAM On Thu, Aug 14, 2025 at 10:32 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Donna, Your claim that Zionism preaches hatred of non-Jews is utter nonsense. The truth is thatIsrael has always desired to live in peace with the Arabs, but it was the Arabs who refused tolive in peace with Israel. Many Arab leaders, including current Palestinian leaders, devotedtheir entire lives to trying to destroy the Jewish state and/or the Jewish people. But Israel isdetermined to exist. The historic restoration of the ancient Jewish nation in the land of itsbirth, an event Jews aspired to for nearly 2 millennia, has finally been achieved, and Israelwill do whatever it takes to preserve that achievement. Anyone who tries to destroy theJewish state will likely pay a heavy price, as many of Israel's enemies have found out thehard way. You focus on the suffering of the Palestinians, but say nothing about the Palestinians ownactions that brought that suffering upon themselves. It's like studying World War II by onlylooking at the allied bombings of Germany, without regard to what the Germans did to causethose bombings. But if you believe that the ancient Jewish nation has no right to be restored in the land of itsbirth, that Jews have no right of self-determination in their historic homeland, and thatJewish history and historical aspirations mean nothing, please say so so everyone can knowexactly where you stand. Regards,Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 128     On Aug 13, 2025, at 10:42 PM, Donna Wallach<donnaisanactivist@gmail.com> wrote: Martin You do not know what you are talking about. You are the one who NEVER states facts, just bogus stuff you have heard from other like-minded racistJewish supremacists. Your ears, mind and heart are totally closed, you have no compassion for any other people in the world, just Jews. However Judaism doesnot preach hatred of non-Jews, Zionism preaches that, and VERY sadly Jews like you have swallowed the racist kool-aid. You disgust me beyond words.Even B'Tselem, an Israeli Human Rights organization, has acknowledged that Israel is committing genocide. Hundreds of Palestinians have died from famine.Israel is blocking all the aid from entering. I lived in Gaza for 4 months in 2008 and already then, because of the Blockade on Gaza there was already a problemof malnourished children! The Israeli govt then acknowledged that they were putting the Palestinians on a diet, letting just enough food in so the Palestinianswouldn't die of hunger. At the same time the Israeli soldiers would come in through into Gaza through gates in the Apartheid Wall driving big bulldozersand destroy the crops, destroy irrigation pipes, and also sit in their towers and drive in jeeps and shoot at Palestian farmers trying to plant crops. DenyingPalestinians their human Right to feed themselves and have a livelihood. I was there and witnessed it. Donna "Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom byappealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them." Assata Shakur Books you must read: "Against Our Better Judgement: The hidden history of how the U.S. wasused to create Israel" by Alison Weir http://www.againstourbetterjudgment.com/ "State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel" by Thomas Suarezhttp://thomassuarez.com/SoT.html "The Hundred Years War on Palestine"by Rashid Khalidi "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"by Illan Pappé Free Palestine!Right of Return to Palestine for all Palestinians! {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 129     Free all political prisoners! Mumia Abu-Jamal @mumiafreedomtour The Holy Land Five: Shukri Abu Baker Ghassan Elashi Mufid Abdulqader Abdulrahman Odeh Mohammad Elmezainhttps://www.mintpressnews.com/the-trial-and-conviction-of-the-holy-land-foundation-five/237440/and thousands more End Solitary Confinement https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com California Prison Focus http://newest.prisons.org/our_story End United $tates of Amerikkka invasions and occupationsU.S. Government and UN Occupation Force Soldiers - Hands off Haiti!http://www.haitisolidarity.net/ Syria Solidarity Movement, Solidarity with the Syrian peoplehttps://syriasupportmovement.org On Wed, Aug 13, 2025, 22:21 Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:Aram, You're the one who refuses to deal with facts. The only party to the Gaza conflict that has explicitly called for a war of extermination is Hamas, the group that you ludicrously describe as "freedom fighters.” Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 9:47 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Martin, You don't hardly speak in facts -as I said a moment’s ago, youtraffic exclusively in unadulterated worn-out pro-Israel lobby talking points. As my very Jewish dad used to say: “some folksdon't want to be disturbed by the facts.” Sadly, Martin, you suffer from an apparently incurable case of the don't bother me with the facts, syndrome. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 130     Avram “End The Mass Extermination In Palestine Now” Finkelstein On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 9:30 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, I notice that you never try to dispute my arguments with actual facts, obviously because you have no facts to dispute them with! Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 9:02 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Another tired PRO-Israeli lobby talking point,AIPAC, talking point! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 8:57 PM MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:How quickly the blood libel spreads!! If Israel was waging a war of extermination,most of the Gazans would be long gone bynow. Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 6:48 PM, AramJames <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Henry, I hope Julie surprises us all andfinally does the right thing. It is pasttime for her to break her silence. Avram Agreed upon a united front: surpriseif Julie goes Marjorie. Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 131     On Aug 13, 2025, at5:49 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote:  8/13/2025 Hi Henry, I'm hoping that whenJulie Lythcott-Haimsreturns to her dutieson the Palo Alto CityCouncil that she willmatch the extremelywhite wing MarjorieTaylor Green and callout for all the worldto hear: End TheGenocide Now. Avram Finkelstein P.S. All seven of ourcity council membersclaim to beDemocrats. But notone of them has beenwilling to call out theongoing Holocast in Palestine eitherin their privatecitizen’s role or intheir officialcapacities asmembers of the citycouncil. Each onewho remains silent iscomplicit in the dailywar crimes andgenocide in Palestine.Will they each {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 132     eventually be tried fortheir complicity in Genocide? Only timewill tell! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 4:54 PMHenry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>wrote: NewsBreak Used by over 45 millionpeople Open APP Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" BuzzFeed Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 133     "Genocide" Source: BuzzFeed Click to read the full storySent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 134     From:Aram James To:Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; Wagner, April; Barberini, Christopher; Lee, Craig; Perron, Zachary;<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Foley, Michael; Afanasiev, Alex;Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Shikada, Ed; Veenker, Vicki; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; gstone22@gmail.com;Burt, Patrick; Lauing, Ed; Lythcott-Haims, Julie Subject:aram_james_profile Date:Thursday, August 14, 2025 7:58:45 AM Attachments:aram_james_profile.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Just for laughs 35 years ago {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 135     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Justin Zalkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Pnina Abir-am; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Doug Minkler; Salem Ajluni; Yusra Hussain; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; Betsy Nash; dcombs@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; Kaloma Smith; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; editor@paweekly.com; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; Reckdahl, Keith; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Brandon Pho; Lotus Fong; Palo Alto Free Press; Bill Newell; Roberta Ahlquist; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Rob Baker; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Shikada, Ed; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Clerk, City; Perron, Zachary; CityCouncil; Michael Ybarra; Seher Awan; Greg Tanaka; Carla Torres; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Human Relations Commission; ParkRec Commission; Diana Diamond; Today EPA; Pat M; Burt, Patrick; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Palo Alto Weekly; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; DuJuan Green; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Afanasiev, Alex Subject:Re: Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What"s Happening In Gaza A"Genocide" Date:Wednesday, August 13, 2025 9:47:34 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Martin, You don't hardly speak in facts -as I said a moment’s ago, you traffic exclusively inunadulterated worn-out pro-Israel lobby talking points. As my very Jewish dad used to say: “some folks don't want to be disturbed by the facts.” Sadly, Martin, you suffer from an apparently incurable case of the don't bother me with the facts, syndrome. Avram “End The Mass Extermination In Palestine Now” Finkelstein On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 9:30 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, I notice that you never try to dispute my arguments with actual facts, obviously because you have no facts to dispute them with! Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 9:02 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Another tired PRO-Israeli lobby talking point, AIPAC, talking point! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 8:57 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:How quickly the blood libel spreads!! If Israel was waging a war of extermination, most of the Gazans would be long gone by now. Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 136     On Aug 13, 2025, at 6:48 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Henry, I hope Julie surprises us all and finally does the right thing. It is past time for her to break her silence. Avram Agreed upon a united front: surprise if Julie goes Marjorie. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 13, 2025, at 5:49 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:  8/13/2025 Hi Henry, I'm hoping that when Julie Lythcott-Haims returnsto her duties on the Palo Alto City Council that shewill match the extremely white wing MarjorieTaylor Green and call out for all the world to hear:End The Genocide Now. Avram Finkelstein P.S. All seven of our city council members claimto be Democrats. But not one of them has beenwilling to call out the ongoing Holocast in Palestine either in their private citizen’s role or intheir official capacities as members of the citycouncil. Each one who remains silent is complicitin the daily war crimes and genocide in Palestine.Will they each eventually be tried for theircomplicity in Genocide? Only time will tell! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 4:54 PM HenryEtzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 137     NewsBreak Used by over 45 million people Open APP Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" BuzzFeed Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" Source: BuzzFeed Click to read the full story Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 138     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Justin Zalkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Pnina Abir-am; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Doug Minkler; Salem Ajluni; Yusra Hussain; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; Betsy Nash; dcombs@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; Kaloma Smith; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; editor@paweekly.com; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; Reckdahl, Keith; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Brandon Pho; Lotus Fong; Palo Alto Free Press; Bill Newell; Roberta Ahlquist; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Rob Baker; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Shikada, Ed; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Clerk, City; Perron, Zachary; CityCouncil; Michael Ybarra; Seher Awan; Greg Tanaka; Carla Torres; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Human Relations Commission; ParkRec Commission; Diana Diamond; Today EPA; Pat M; Burt, Patrick; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Palo Alto Weekly; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; DuJuan Green; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Afanasiev, Alex Subject:Re: Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What"s Happening In Gaza A"Genocide" Date:Wednesday, August 13, 2025 9:02:49 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Another tired PRO-Israeli lobby talking point, AIPAC, talking point! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 8:57 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:How quickly the blood libel spreads!! If Israel was waging a war of extermination, most of the Gazans would be long gone by now. Martin Wasserman On Aug 13, 2025, at 6:48 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Henry, I hope Julie surprises us all and finally does the right thing. It is past time for her to break her silence. Avram Agreed upon a united front: surprise if Julie goes Marjorie. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 13, 2025, at 5:49 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:  {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 139     8/13/2025 Hi Henry, I'm hoping that when Julie Lythcott-Haims returns to her duties on the Palo Alto City Council that she will match the extremelywhite wing Marjorie Taylor Green and call out for all the world to hear: End The Genocide Now. Avram Finkelstein P.S. All seven of our city council members claim to beDemocrats. But not one of them has been willing to call out the ongoing Holocast in Palestine either in their private citizen’srole or in their official capacities as members of the city council. Each one who remains silent is complicit in the daily war crimesand genocide in Palestine. Will they each eventually be tried for their complicity inGenocide? Only time will tell! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 4:54 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: NewsBreak Used by over 45 million people Open APP Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" BuzzFeed Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" Source: BuzzFeed Click to read the full story Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 140     {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 141     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com Cc:Justin Zalkin; Marty Wasserman; Roberta Ahlquist; Pnina Abir-am; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Doug Minkler; Salem Ajluni; Yusra Hussain; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; Betsy Nash; dcombs@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; Kaloma Smith; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; editor@paweekly.com; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; Reckdahl, Keith; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Brandon Pho; Lotus Fong; Palo Alto Free Press; Bill Newell; Roberta Ahlquist; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Rob Baker; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Shikada, Ed; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Clerk, City; Perron, Zachary; CityCouncil; Michael Ybarra; Seher Awan; Greg Tanaka; Carla Torres; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Human Relations Commission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Diana Diamond; Today EPA; Pat M; Burt, Patrick; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Palo Alto Weekly; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; DuJuan Green; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Afanasiev, Alex Subject:Re: Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What"s Happening In Gaza A"Genocide" Date:Wednesday, August 13, 2025 6:48:52 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Henry, I hope Julie surprises us all and finally does the right thing. It is past time for her to break hersilence. Avram Agreed upon a united front: surprise if Julie goes Marjorie. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 13, 2025, at 5:49 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:  8/13/2025 Hi Henry, I'm hoping that when Julie Lythcott-Haims returns to her duties on the PaloAlto City Council that she will match the extremely white wing Marjorie TaylorGreen and call out for all the world to hear: End The Genocide Now. Avram Finkelstein P.S. All seven of our city council members claim to be Democrats. But not oneof them has been willing to call out the ongoing Holocast in Palestine eitherin their private citizen’s role or in their official capacities as members of the city {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 142     council. Each one who remains silent is complicit in the daily war crimes andgenocide in Palestine. Will they each eventually be tried for their complicity in Genocide? Only timewill tell! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 4:54 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: NewsBreak Used by over 45 million people Open APP Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" BuzzFeed Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" Source: BuzzFeed Click to read the full story Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 143     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com Cc:Justin Zalkin; Marty Wasserman; Roberta Ahlquist; Pnina Abir-am; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Doug Minkler; Salem Ajluni; Yusra Hussain; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; Kaloma Smith; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; editor@paweekly.com; Shankar Ramamoorthy; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; Reckdahl, Keith; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Brandon Pho; Lotus Fong; Palo Alto Free Press; Bill Newell; Roberta Ahlquist; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Baker, Rob; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Shikada, Ed; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Clerk, City; Perron, Zachary; CityCouncil; Michael Ybarra; Seher Awan; Greg Tanaka; Carla Torres; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Human Relations Commission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Diana Diamond; EPA Today; Pat M; Burt, Patrick; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Palo Alto Weekly; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; DuJuan Green; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Afanasiev, Alex Subject:Re: Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What"s Happening In Gaza A"Genocide" Date:Wednesday, August 13, 2025 5:49:47 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. 8/13/2025 Hi Henry, I'm hoping that when Julie Lythcott-Haims returns to her duties on the Palo Alto City Council that she will match the extremely white wing Marjorie Taylor Green and call out for all theworld to hear: End The Genocide Now. Avram Finkelstein P.S. All seven of our city council members claim to be Democrats. But not one of them has been willing to call out the ongoing Holocast in Palestine either in their private citizen’srole or in their official capacities as members of the city council. Each one who remains silent is complicit in the daily war crimes and genocide in Palestine.Will they each eventually be tried for their complicity in Genocide? Only time will tell! On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 4:54 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: NewsBreak Used by over 45 million people Open APP Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" BuzzFeed Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" Source: BuzzFeed {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 144     Click to read the full story Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 145     From:Aram James To:jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com Subject:Re: aram_james_profile Date:Tuesday, August 12, 2025 3:48:14 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Just for laughs 35 yrs ago {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 146     From:Aram James To:Lauing, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith Cc:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Lu, George; gstone22@gmail.com; pat@patburt.org; Shikada, Ed; h.etzko@gmail.com; Donna Wallach; Justin Zalkin; Gennady Sheyner; Emily Mibach; EPA Today; Diana Diamond; Brandon Pho; Braden Cartwright; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Jeff Conrad; Liz Kniss; Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley; Council, City; Human Relations Commission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Kaloma Smith; ParkRec Commission; Seher Awan; Pat M; Yusra Hussain; Bill Newell; BoardOperations; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; Tom DuBois; Drekmeier, Peter; Holman, Karen (external); Palo Alto Free Press; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; james pitkin; Dana St. George; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Michael Ybarra; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda Subject:Israel Has “Deliberate Strategy” of Killing Palestinian Journalists Like Anas al-Sharif: U.N. Expert Date:Tuesday, August 12, 2025 8:51:05 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://www.democracynow.org/2025/8/12/irene_khan_gaza_journalist_killings {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 147     From:Aram James To:Julie Lythcott-Haims Cc:Binder, Andrew; Council, City; Shikada, Ed; Human Relations Commission Subject:Re: Just fyi Date:Monday, August 11, 2025 5:01:44 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Mon, Aug 11, 2025 at 4:36 PM ladoris cordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com> wrote: What Happened When Mark Zuckerberg Moved In Next Door nytimes.com LaDoris Hazzard Cordell LaDoris@judgecordell.com twitter.com/judgecordell {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 148     From:Aram James To:Shikada, Ed; Council, City; Human Relations Commission; h.etzko@gmail.com; Gerry Gras; Greg Tanaka Subject:Re: Residents claim San Jose homeless housing site unsafe, unhealthy Date:Monday, August 11, 2025 10:05:15 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Item # 11 on tonight’s consent calendar On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 11:23 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Will the city of Palo Alto face similar problems with their Homekey project? Is our city staff and city council sufficiently overseeing the Palo Alto project to ensure that our project will not be the lastest in a series of building boondoggles ( like our so-called Public Safety Building) ? Source: San José Spotlight Palo Alto feuds with contractor over public safety building - San José Spotlight https://share.google/8NyzMtDc8tL2gkI9R Homekey Palo Alto is a new modular interim housing shelter with the capacity to serve over 200 individuals annually with on-site support services. The project is being codeveloped by the City of Palo Alto and LifeMoves. Located at 1237 San Antonio Road in Palo Alto near the Palo Alto Baylands, Residents claim San Jose homeless housing site unsafe, unhealthy - San José Spotlighthttps://sanjosespotlight.com/residents-claim-san-jose-homeless-housing-site-unsafe-unhealthy/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 149     From:Sukhmani Purewal To:Mark Turner; Palo Alto Daily Post; Yusra Hussain Cc:Aram James; Guilherme Ary Plonski; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Vicki Veenker; Julie Lythcott- Haims; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; board@pausd.org; Board@valleywater.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Kaloma Smith; jessica@speiser.net; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Roberta Ahlquist; ParkRec Commission; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; Donna Wallach; Doug Minkler; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Seher Awan; Liz Kniss; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Bryan Gobin; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Sameena Usman; sammy@envirotekrestoration.com; Raymond Goins; Council, City; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; h.etzko@gmail.com; Human Relations Commission; Bryan Gobin; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca; pat@patburt.org; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Today EPA; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica; Vara Ramakrishnan; james pitkin; Gennady Sheyner; Wagner, April; Justin Zalkin; ladoris cordell; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; Michael Ybarra; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; Miguel Rodriguez; Marty Wasserman; Pnina Abir-am; Gizem Sivri; Palo Alto Free Press; city.council@menlopark.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; CityCouncil; CityCouncil@menlopark.org; Michelle Bigelow; Bill Newell; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Figueroa, Eric; Cribbs, Anne; Lotus Fong; Betsy Nash; Binder, Andrew; Josh Becker; Pat M; Seher Awan; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Cait James Subject:RE: [EXTERNAL] Re: Starvation by Design Date:Monday, August 11, 2025 9:10:38 AM Attachments:image001.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Please also remove me and the following email boardfeedback@smcgov.org from this email chain. Best, Sukhmani S. Purewal (he/him) Assistant Clerk of the Board of SupervisorsSecretary to City Selection Committee County Executive’s Office/Clerk of the Board 500 County Center, 5th Floor | Redwood City, CA 94063Tel. (650) 363-1802 | spurewal@smcgov.org From: Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov> Sent: Monday, August 11, 2025 6:44 AM To: Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com>; Yusra Hussain <Yusrahussainmd@gmail.com> Cc: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>; Guilherme Ary Plonski <plonski2@usp.br>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Vicki Veenker <vicki.veenker@gmail.com>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>; Nicole Chiu-Wang <votenicolecw@gmail.com>; Rowena Chiu <rowena.chiu@gmail.com>; board@pausd.org; Board@valleywater.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto This message needs your attention This is their first email to your company. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 150     <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; jessica@speiser.net; Dennis Upton <kathy8420@qq.com>; dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; ParkRec Commission <ParkRec.commission@cityofpaloalto.org>; Lori Meyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>; Sheree Roth <ssroth29@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Yolanda Conaway <yconaway@pausd.org>; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg <supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>; Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>; Seher Awan <firebrand.dr@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond <dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Braden Cartwright <bcartwright@padailypost.com>; Bryan Gobin <bryan.gobin@valueveracity.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Sameena Usman <susman@cair.com>; sammy@envirotekrestoration.com; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>; Relations Commission Human <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati <michael.pati@gmail.com>; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca <patriceventresca@gmail.com>; Pat Burt <pat@patburt.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Tamara Jasso <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; April Wagner <april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com>; ladoris cordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Michael Ybarra <dr.michaelcybarra@gmail.com>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Marty Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>; Pnina Abir-am <pninaga@brandeis.edu>; Gizem Sivri <gizems@stanford.edu>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; city.council@menlopark.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil@menlopark.org; Michelle Bigelow <Michelle.Bigelow@morganhill.ca.gov>; CEO_BoardFeedback <BoardFeedback@smcgov.org>; Bill Newell <billnewell2850@gmail.com>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Betsy Nash <bnash@menlopark.gov>; Andrew Binder <andrew.binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Seher Awan <Seher.Awan@missioncollege.edu>; Jeff Conrad <jeff_conrad@msn.com>; Jeff Rosen <info@jeffrosen.org>; Jay Boyarsky <jboyarsky@dao.sccgov.org>; Cait James <caitlin.a.james@gmail.com> Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] Re: Starvation by Design CAUTION: This email originated from outside of San Mateo County. Unless you recognize the sender's email address and know the content is safe, do not click links, open attachments or reply. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 151     Please remove me from this group. Mark Turner Mayor City of Morgan Hill 17575 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037 D: 408.310.4647 C: 408.221.6203 mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov morganhill.ca.gov | facebook | twitter From: Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2025 4:56 AM To: Yusra Hussain <Yusrahussainmd@gmail.com> Cc: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>; Guilherme Ary Plonski <plonski2@usp.br>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Vicki Veenker <vicki.veenker@gmail.com>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>; Nicole Chiu-Wang <votenicolecw@gmail.com>; Rowena Chiu <rowena.chiu@gmail.com>; board@pausd.org; Board@valleywater.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; jessica@speiser.net; Dennis Upton <kathy8420@qq.com>; dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; ParkRec Commission <ParkRec.commission@cityofpaloalto.org>; Lori Meyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>; Sheree Roth <ssroth29@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Yolanda Conaway <yconaway@pausd.org>; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg <supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>; Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>; Seher Awan <firebrand.dr@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond <dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Braden Cartwright <bcartwright@padailypost.com>; Bryan Gobin <bryan.gobin@valueveracity.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Sameena Usman <susman@cair.com>; sammy@envirotekrestoration.com; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>; Relations Commission Human <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati <michael.pati@gmail.com>; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca <patriceventresca@gmail.com>; Pat Burt <pat@patburt.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Tamara Jasso <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; April Wagner <april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com>; ladoris cordell {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 152     <ladoris@judgecordell.com>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Michael Ybarra <dr.michaelcybarra@gmail.com>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Marty Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>; Pnina Abir-am <pninaga@brandeis.edu>; Gizem Sivri <gizems@stanford.edu>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; city.council@menlopark.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil@menlopark.org; Michelle Bigelow <Michelle.Bigelow@morganhill.ca.gov>; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Bill Newell <billnewell2850@gmail.com>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Betsy Nash <bnash@menlopark.gov>; Andrew Binder <andrew.binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Seher Awan <Seher.Awan@missioncollege.edu>; Jeff Conrad <jeff_conrad@msn.com>; Jeff Rosen <info@jeffrosen.org>; Jay Boyarsky <jboyarsky@dao.sccgov.org>; Cait James <caitlin.a.james@gmail.com> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Starvation by Design I received this email by accident. Please remove me from future emails. Dave Price On Aug 9, 2025, at 11:16 PM, Yusra Hussain <Yusrahussainmd@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Justin, Thank you for your email. I highly recommend a book called Christ In the Rubble in Munther Isaac. It’s an excellent perspective and one that’s shared by many people who truly care about peace in the region. The author is a longtime Palestinian Christian who lives in the West Bank. I’m Muslim, and I can tell you, his perspective is also shared by many Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians. I make the distinction as many people don’t know that there are many Arab Christians in Gaza and the West Bank. Best regards! Yusra {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 153     Yusra Hussain, MD Adj. Clinical Assistant Professor Stanford University School of Medicine 805 El Camino Real # A Palo Alto, CA 94301 Office: 650-328-1676 Fax: 650-445-0911 Checkout: Protectmedicare.net On Aug 4, 2025, at 1:24 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Justin, FYI: Here is a piece ( seebelow) I found online thatraises some provocativequestions that might assist inopening up the discussion youare looking for. I personallybelieve history will judgeHamas as quintessentialfreedom fighters -much likeNat Turner is viewed. Nat Turner - Wikipediahttps://share.google/30FlrupfbpkbzMLdG {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 154     I believe history will ultimatelyjudge Israel as a terrorist state,an apartheid state, a genocidalrogue state that must beeliminated. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein. P.S. A one-state solution is the only just remedy. Are Hezbollah and HamasTerrorists or FreedomFighters? Let’s Talk Nuance In many Western discussions, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are quicklylabeled as "terrorists," with little room for nuance or consideration ofcontext. But is it really that simple? These groups operate in asymmetrical conflicts against vastly more powerfulstates, often framing themselves as resistance movements fighting forliberation. Hezbollah, for example, emerged as a response to Israel’sinvasion of Lebanon, and many in the region see them as defenders of theirland. Hamas claims to resist Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, afight many Palestinians feel is necessary for their survival and dignity. Yes, their tactics—like targeting civilians—are condemned underinternational law, and those actions cannot be ignored. But at the sametime, we need to ask why these groups exist in the first place. Whatconditions of occupation, systemic oppression, and power imbalance giverise to them? Can we dismiss the context of ongoing displacement,blockades, and military aggression that fuels their support among oppressedpopulations? International law acknowledges the right to resist occupation, yet non-stateactors in asymmetrical wars are held to standards that even powerful states {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 155     routinely violate. When the global community calls one side terrorists butexcuses or justifies state violence that kills far more civilians, it raisesuncomfortable questions about double standards. So, are they terrorists, freedom fighters, or something in between? Whatdoes it mean to fight for liberation in an asymmetrical conflict, and howshould the world frame these struggles? On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 9:41 AM Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: Hear Rashad Khalidi today on Democracy Now. Amy Goodman Sent from my iPhone On Aug 4, 2025, at 9:14 AM, Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> wrote: Hello — I see some exceptionally bright people on this thread who have differing perspectives. For the folks who think Israel should immediately declare a ceasefire, what are your perspectives on Hamas? And what do you anticipate Hamas would most likely do with a ceasefire period? Hopefully everyone views famine among Gazans as horrible (regardless of who is to blame). My fear is that a cessation of hostilities that leaves Hamas governing would not lead to a good long term outcome for Gazans (or Israelis). I am curious what others who have studied the conflict in more detail think would most likely happen if Hamas were to continue governing. All the Best, Justin {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 156     On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:56 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: Your Stand on the Ceasefire Hi Henry, You were truly the only candidate for the Palo Alto City Council in 2024, out of nine total candidates, who had the courage to unequivocally call for a ceasefire. I attended the council meeting that night and remember your speech very well. Best regards, Avram “ One State Solution” Finkelstein On Fri, Aug 1, 2025 at 10:31 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: Marty Marty, Express away but the killing and starvation policy must stop, under UN armed supervision, of course. Who is to be the Ike who said, I will go to Korea during he 1952 election campaign, achieved a cease fire, that holds to this day, despite lack of a formal peace treaty. Best, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 157     Henry > On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:19 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: > > Henry, > > One of my objections to “ceasefire now” is that it places all of the onus on Israel and demands nothing of Hamas, and gives Hamas breathing space to regroup and rearm so they can continue their policy of killing Jews. > > Marty > > >> On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:01 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Dear Marty >> >> I have expressed my agreement in heron to Council on their general policy of excluding foreign policy issues However, like the attorney for the holocaust victim who successfully asked the US Supreme for a narrow exception to the statute of limitations, I argued to Council that there are certain issues that it behooves as as Palo Alto citizens to take a stand: Gaza cease fire now, is one! See council video of several months ago for my full statement. >> >> Best, >> Hillel {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 158     >>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 9:43 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: >>> >>> There's no legitimate reason for city government to weigh in on foreign policy issues, especially in highly volatile areas like the Middle East. Such controversial resolutions change nothing in the Middle East and only promote conflict at home. Unless of course the goal is precisely to create conflict at home. >>> >>> Martin Wasserman >>> >>> >>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 2:14 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> Ps >>>> Upon reflection, accept your critique: cease fire requires repetition , will include in writings this topic until achieved >>>> www.triplehelix.net >>>> >>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 11:45 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Ok! >>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>> >>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 10:20 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Agree with cease fire, and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 159     permanent treaty above and beyond. Aram, who was present, can assure you that I requested each council member individually and publicly to commit Palo Alto to call for cease fire. Video supposed to be available at city website. >>>>>> >>>>>> Best >>>>>> Henry >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 8:49 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes- and how about a ceasefire? Less abstract, more concrete...? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 1:08 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Somewhere in Israel’s Governmental bureaucracy under an innocuous title, a “collective Eichmann” is at work meticulously designing the “crime of the new century” the systematic destruction the civil institutional environment of universities, businesses, and housing, with the intent and objective of atomizing the citizens of GAZA Palestine into a controllable mass. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 160     Attendant nutrition deprivation is an overlay on institutional and organizational deprivation, conducted in Mediterranean sunlight and international, if not Israeli, full media gaze. Rather than the inside pages of the New York Times where v Germany’s 20th century holocaust was relegated, this rolling, escalating genocide is on the front pages of the newspaper of record where all news that fits is published, sometimes ironically overshadowed by food recipes in the Internet Edition. The international community, led by Europe where the Holocaust was originated, collaborated, condoned and only sometimes resisted in the last century, must mitigate its indelible moral stain by heading off the Netenyahu regime’s scheme. Only a Jewish state founded on the ashes of the holocaust could have been given such leeway, not to forget Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Who will be the future Hannah Arendt to chronicle the ubiquity of evil? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Sincerely >>>>>>>> Henry Etzkowitz >>>>>>>> Distinguished Fellow >>>>>>>> University of London, Birkbeck College, Centre for Innovation Management Research >>>>>>>> Co-founder, Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice, 644 Menlo Avenue, Menlo Park CA 94025 >>>>>>>> RE Henry Etzkowitz et al vs Elon Musk et al Case number 24CV450485 Superior Court of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 161     California County of California, Downtown Courthouse 191 Notth First Street, San Jose CA 95113 civil division >>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >> > WARNING: This message is from an external user. Confidential information such as social security numbers,credit card numbers, bank routing numbers, wire transfer information and other personally identifiableinformation should not be transmitted to this user. For question, please contact the Morgan Hill ITDepartment by opening a new helpdesk request online or call 408-909-0055. Disclaimer The information contained in this communication from the sender is confidential. It is intended solely for use by the recipient and others authorized to receive it. If you are not the recipient, you are hereby notified thatany disclosure, copying, distribution or taking action in relation of the contents of this information is strictlyprohibited and may be unlawful. This email has been scanned for viruses and malware, and may have been automatically archived byMimecast, a leader in email security and cyber resilience. Mimecast integrates email defenses with brandprotection, security awareness training, web security, compliance and other essential capabilities. Mimecasthelps protect large and small organizations from malicious activity, human error and technology failure; andto lead the movement toward building a more resilient world. To find out more, visit our website. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 162     From:Mark Turner To:Palo Alto Daily Post; Yusra Hussain Cc:Aram James; Guilherme Ary Plonski; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Vicki Veenker; Julie Lythcott- Haims; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; board@pausd.org; Board@valleywater.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Kaloma Smith; jessica@speiser.net; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Roberta Ahlquist; ParkRec Commission; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; Donna Wallach; Doug Minkler; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Seher Awan; Liz Kniss; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Bryan Gobin; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Sameena Usman; sammy@envirotekrestoration.com; Raymond Goins; Council, City; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; h.etzko@gmail.com; Human Relations Commission; Bryan Gobin; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca; pat@patburt.org; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Today EPA; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Vara Ramakrishnan; james pitkin; Gennady Sheyner; Wagner, April; Justin Zalkin; ladoris cordell; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; Michael Ybarra; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; Miguel Rodriguez; Marty Wasserman; Pnina Abir-am; Gizem Sivri; Palo Alto Free Press; city.council@menlopark.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; CityCouncil; CityCouncil@menlopark.org; Michelle Bigelow; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Bill Newell; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Figueroa, Eric; Cribbs, Anne; Lotus Fong; Betsy Nash; Binder, Andrew; Josh Becker; Pat M; Seher Awan; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Cait James Subject:RE: [EXTERNAL] Re: Starvation by Design Date:Monday, August 11, 2025 6:44:16 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Please remove me from this group. Mark Turner Mayor City of Morgan Hill 17575 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037 D: 408.310.4647 C: 408.221.6203 mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov morganhill.ca.gov | facebook | twitter From: Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2025 4:56 AM To: Yusra Hussain <Yusrahussainmd@gmail.com> Cc: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>; Guilherme Ary Plonski <plonski2@usp.br>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Vicki Veenker <vicki.veenker@gmail.com>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>; Nicole Chiu-Wang <votenicolecw@gmail.com>; Rowena Chiu <rowena.chiu@gmail.com>; board@pausd.org; Board@valleywater.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; jessica@speiser.net; Dennis Upton <kathy8420@qq.com>; dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; ParkRec Commission <ParkRec.commission@cityofpaloalto.org>; Lori Meyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>; Sheree Roth <ssroth29@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Yolanda Conaway <yconaway@pausd.org>; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg <supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>; {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 163     Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>; Seher Awan <firebrand.dr@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond <dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Braden Cartwright <bcartwright@padailypost.com>; Bryan Gobin <bryan.gobin@valueveracity.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Sameena Usman <susman@cair.com>; sammy@envirotekrestoration.com; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>; Relations Commission Human <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati <michael.pati@gmail.com>; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca <patriceventresca@gmail.com>; Pat Burt <pat@patburt.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Tamara Jasso <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; April Wagner <april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com>; ladoris cordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Michael Ybarra <dr.michaelcybarra@gmail.com>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Marty Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>; Pnina Abir-am <pninaga@brandeis.edu>; Gizem Sivri <gizems@stanford.edu>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; city.council@menlopark.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil@menlopark.org; Michelle Bigelow <Michelle.Bigelow@morganhill.ca.gov>; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Bill Newell <billnewell2850@gmail.com>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Betsy Nash <bnash@menlopark.gov>; Andrew Binder <andrew.binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Seher Awan <Seher.Awan@missioncollege.edu>; Jeff Conrad <jeff_conrad@msn.com>; Jeff Rosen <info@jeffrosen.org>; Jay Boyarsky <jboyarsky@dao.sccgov.org>; Cait James <caitlin.a.james@gmail.com> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Starvation by Design I received this email by accident. Please remove me from future emails. Dave Price On Aug 9, 2025, at 11:16 PM, Yusra Hussain <Yusrahussainmd@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Justin, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 164     Thank you for your email. I highly recommend a book called Christ In the Rubble in Munther Isaac. It’s an excellent perspective and one that’s shared by many people who truly care about peace in the region. The author is a longtime Palestinian Christian who lives in the West Bank. I’m Muslim, and I can tell you, his perspective is also shared by many Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians. I make the distinction as many people don’t know that there are many Arab Christians in Gaza and the West Bank. Best regards! Yusra Yusra Hussain, MD Adj. Clinical Assistant Professor Stanford University School of Medicine 805 El Camino Real # A Palo Alto, CA 94301 Office: 650-328-1676 Fax: 650-445-0911 Checkout: Protectmedicare.net On Aug 4, 2025, at 1:24 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Justin, FYI: Here is a piece ( seebelow) I found online thatraises some provocativequestions that might assist in {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 165     opening up the discussion youare looking for. I personallybelieve history will judgeHamas as quintessentialfreedom fighters -much likeNat Turner is viewed. Nat Turner - Wikipediahttps://share.google/30FlrupfbpkbzMLdG I believe history will ultimatelyjudge Israel as a terrorist state,an apartheid state, a genocidalrogue state that must beeliminated. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein. P.S. A one-state solution is the only just remedy. Are Hezbollah and HamasTerrorists or FreedomFighters? Let’s Talk Nuance In many Western discussions, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are quicklylabeled as "terrorists," with little room for nuance or consideration ofcontext. But is it really that simple? These groups operate in asymmetrical conflicts against vastly more powerfulstates, often framing themselves as resistance movements fighting for {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 166     liberation. Hezbollah, for example, emerged as a response to Israel’sinvasion of Lebanon, and many in the region see them as defenders of theirland. Hamas claims to resist Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, afight many Palestinians feel is necessary for their survival and dignity. Yes, their tactics—like targeting civilians—are condemned underinternational law, and those actions cannot be ignored. But at the sametime, we need to ask why these groups exist in the first place. Whatconditions of occupation, systemic oppression, and power imbalance giverise to them? Can we dismiss the context of ongoing displacement,blockades, and military aggression that fuels their support among oppressedpopulations? International law acknowledges the right to resist occupation, yet non-stateactors in asymmetrical wars are held to standards that even powerful statesroutinely violate. When the global community calls one side terrorists butexcuses or justifies state violence that kills far more civilians, it raisesuncomfortable questions about double standards. So, are they terrorists, freedom fighters, or something in between? Whatdoes it mean to fight for liberation in an asymmetrical conflict, and howshould the world frame these struggles? On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 9:41 AM Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: Hear Rashad Khalidi today on Democracy Now. Amy Goodman Sent from my iPhone On Aug 4, 2025, at 9:14 AM, Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> wrote: Hello — I see some exceptionally bright people on this thread who have differing perspectives. For the folks who think Israel should immediately declare a ceasefire, what are your perspectives on Hamas? And what do you anticipate Hamas would most likely do with a ceasefire period? Hopefully everyone views famine among Gazans as horrible (regardless of who is to blame). My fear is that a cessation of hostilities that leaves Hamas {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 167     governing would not lead to a good long term outcome for Gazans (or Israelis). I am curious what others who have studied the conflict in more detail think would most likely happen if Hamas were to continue governing. All the Best, Justin On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:56 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: Your Stand on the Ceasefire Hi Henry, You were truly the only candidate for the Palo Alto City Council in 2024, out of nine total candidates, who had the courage to unequivocally call for a ceasefire. I attended the council meeting that night and remember your speech very well. Best regards, Avram “ One State Solution” Finkelstein On Fri, Aug 1, 2025 at 10:31 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: Marty Marty, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 168     Express away but the killing and starvation policy must stop, under UN armed supervision, of course. Who is to be the Ike who said, I will go to Korea during he 1952 election campaign, achieved a cease fire, that holds to this day, despite lack of a formal peace treaty. Best, Henry > On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:19 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: > > Henry, > > One of my objections to “ceasefire now” is that it places all of the onus on Israel and demands nothing of Hamas, and gives Hamas breathing space to regroup and rearm so they can continue their policy of killing Jews. > > Marty > > >> On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:01 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Dear Marty >> >> I have expressed my agreement in heron to Council on their general policy of excluding foreign policy issues However, like the attorney for the holocaust victim who successfully asked the US Supreme for a narrow {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 169     exception to the statute of limitations, I argued to Council that there are certain issues that it behooves as as Palo Alto citizens to take a stand: Gaza cease fire now, is one! See council video of several months ago for my full statement. >> >> Best, >> Hillel >>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 9:43 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: >>> >>> There's no legitimate reason for city government to weigh in on foreign policy issues, especially in highly volatile areas like the Middle East. Such controversial resolutions change nothing in the Middle East and only promote conflict at home. Unless of course the goal is precisely to create conflict at home. >>> >>> Martin Wasserman >>> >>> >>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 2:14 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> Ps >>>> Upon reflection, accept your critique: cease fire requires repetition , will include in writings this topic until achieved >>>> www.triplehelix.net >>>> >>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 11:45 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 170     >>>>> >>>>> Ok! >>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>> >>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 10:20 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Agree with cease fire, and permanent treaty above and beyond. Aram, who was present, can assure you that I requested each council member individually and publicly to commit Palo Alto to call for cease fire. Video supposed to be available at city website. >>>>>> >>>>>> Best >>>>>> Henry >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 8:49 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes- and how about a ceasefire? Less abstract, more concrete...? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 1:08 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Somewhere in Israel’s {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 171     Governmental bureaucracy under an innocuous title, a “collective Eichmann” is at work meticulously designing the “crime of the new century” the systematic destruction the civil institutional environment of universities, businesses, and housing, with the intent and objective of atomizing the citizens of GAZA Palestine into a controllable mass. Attendant nutrition deprivation is an overlay on institutional and organizational deprivation, conducted in Mediterranean sunlight and international, if not Israeli, full media gaze. Rather than the inside pages of the New York Times where v Germany’s 20th century holocaust was relegated, this rolling, escalating genocide is on the front pages of the newspaper of record where all news that fits is published, sometimes ironically overshadowed by food recipes in the Internet Edition. The international community, led by Europe where the Holocaust was originated, collaborated, condoned and only sometimes resisted in the last century, must mitigate its indelible moral stain by heading off the Netenyahu regime’s scheme. Only a Jewish state founded on the ashes of the holocaust could have been given such leeway, not to forget Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Who will be the future Hannah Arendt to chronicle the ubiquity of evil? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Sincerely >>>>>>>> Henry Etzkowitz {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 172     >>>>>>>> Distinguished Fellow >>>>>>>> University of London, Birkbeck College, Centre for Innovation Management Research >>>>>>>> Co-founder, Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice, 644 Menlo Avenue, Menlo Park CA 94025 >>>>>>>> RE Henry Etzkowitz et al vs Elon Musk et al Case number 24CV450485 Superior Court of California County of California, Downtown Courthouse 191 Notth First Street, San Jose CA 95113 civil division >>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >> > WARNING: This message is from an external user. Confidential information such as social security numbers,credit card numbers, bank routing numbers, wire transfer information and other personally identifiableinformation should not be transmitted to this user. For question, please contact the Morgan Hill ITDepartment by opening a new helpdesk request online or call 408-909-0055. Disclaimer The information contained in this communication from the sender is confidential. It is intended solely for useby the recipient and others authorized to receive it. If you are not the recipient, you are hereby notified thatany disclosure, copying, distribution or taking action in relation of the contents of this information is strictlyprohibited and may be unlawful. This email has been scanned for viruses and malware, and may have been automatically archived byMimecast, a leader in email security and cyber resilience. Mimecast integrates email defenses with brandprotection, security awareness training, web security, compliance and other essential capabilities. Mimecasthelps protect large and small organizations from malicious activity, human error and technology failure; andto lead the movement toward building a more resilient world. To find out more, visit our website. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 173     From:Aram James To:Shikada, Ed; GRP-City Council; Gennady Sheyner; Emily Mibach; Council, City; Diana Diamond;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Justin Zalkin; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; RobertaAhlquist; Lotus Fong; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Free Press; Kaloma Smith; Human RelationsCommission; Palo Alto Renters" Association Subject:Re: Life moves on the consent calendar for August 11, 2025 Date:Sunday, August 10, 2025 11:03:54 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Sun, Aug 10, 2025 at 10:42 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: LifeMoves has faced criticism regarding its interim housing programs, particularly the Mountain View site, which has influenced public perception of its new project in Palo Alto.() Palo Alto’s Interim Housing Project In June 2023, the Palo Alto City Council approved a nine-year lease with LifeMoves for an88-unit interim housing complex at 1237 San Antonio Road, near the Baylands. The projectis modeled after LifeMoves’ Mountain View site and aims to provide shelter and supportservices to unhoused individuals. The council approved the agreement despite concernsabout LifeMoves’ track record with its transitional housing in Mountain View. Community Feedback on LifeMoves’ Programs Critics argue that LifeMoves’ interim housing model has not effectively met its goals. Aninvestigation found that the Mountain View program placed clients in permanent housing at a significantly lower rate than other interim shelter programs in the county. Residentsreported issues such as insufficient support in finding housing, unaddressed grievances, and mishandled conflicts by staff. Additionally, some residents of LifeMoves’ safe parking sites in San Jose expresseddissatisfaction with the program. They reported tight rules, lack of supportive services, and instances where residents were removed from the site for minor infractions. One residentclaimed that LifeMoves staff harassed her more than the police did when she was on the street. City Council’s Perspective {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 174     Despite these concerns, Palo Alto’s City Council decided to move forward with the project,emphasizing the need for interim housing solutions. Council members acknowledged thechallenges faced by LifeMoves but believed that the project could provide much-neededshelter and support to unhoused individuals in the community. Summary Palo Alto’s Decision: The city approved LifeMoves’ interim housing project despite concerns about the nonprofit’s track record.() Community Feedback: Residents have raised issues about LifeMoves’ programs, including low housing placement rates and concerns about staff conduct.() City’s Stance: The City Council believes the project is a necessary step in addressing homelessness, despite the challenges.() {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 175     From:Aram James To:Sean Allen; Binder, Andrew; Council, City; Shikada, Ed; Emily Mibach; Gennady Sheyner; Pat M; Wagner, April;Perron, Zachary; EPA Today; Reifschneider, James; Roberta Ahlquist; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; San JoséSpotlight; Diana Diamond; Braden Cartwright; Palo Alto Free Press; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith Subject:Andrew Binder’s salary comparison with other chiefs in Santa Clara County Date:Sunday, August 10, 2025 10:56:09 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Key Takeaways Chief Andrew Binder in Palo Alto ranks among the top-paid chiefs in the county—witha base salary significantly above that of San Jose’s chief, though still slightly underSanta Clara’s chief after the latter’s recent raise. The San Jose Police Chief earns substantially less in base pay compared to Palo Altoand Santa Clara. Here’s a detailed breakdown of Chief Andrew Binder’s compensation and how his paycompares with other command-level staff in Palo Alto—using multiple sources to ensureaccuracy: Chief Andrew Binder’s Pay 2022 Base Salary (Police Chief–Advance): $297,617 2022 Total Compensation (including overtime, cash-outs, housing/car allowances, butexcluding benefits): approximately $391,657 New 2025 Base Pay: $378,658 Palo Alto’s Highest-Paid Staff (2023) Chief Binder was among the city’s top earners: Police Chief Andrew Binder: $391,657 Behind only: City Manager Ed Shikada: $413,330 Fire Capt. Matthew Goglio: $380,193 Compensation Trends {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 176     In 2020, as Assistant Police Chief, Binder earned $270,772 in total pay As of his appointment in 2022, his base salary was structured at $295,484 with 200 hours of vacation—mirroring his predecessor’s terms {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 177     From:Aram James To:Shikada, Ed; GRP-City Council; Gennady Sheyner; Emily Mibach; Council, City; Diana Diamond;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Justin Zalkin; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; RobertaAhlquist; Lotus Fong; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Free Press; Kaloma Smith; Human RelationsCommission; Palo Alto Renters" Association Subject:Life moves on the consent calendar for August 11, 2025 Date:Sunday, August 10, 2025 10:42:51 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. LifeMoves has faced criticism regarding its interim housing programs, particularly the Mountain View site, which has influenced public perception of its new project in Palo Alto.() Palo Alto’s Interim Housing Project In June 2023, the Palo Alto City Council approved a nine-year lease with LifeMoves for an88-unit interim housing complex at 1237 San Antonio Road, near the Baylands. The project ismodeled after LifeMoves’ Mountain View site and aims to provide shelter and supportservices to unhoused individuals. The council approved the agreement despite concerns aboutLifeMoves’ track record with its transitional housing in Mountain View. Community Feedback on LifeMoves’ Programs Critics argue that LifeMoves’ interim housing model has not effectively met its goals. An investigation found that the Mountain View program placed clients in permanent housing at asignificantly lower rate than other interim shelter programs in the county. Residents reported issues such as insufficient support in finding housing, unaddressed grievances, and mishandledconflicts by staff. Additionally, some residents of LifeMoves’ safe parking sites in San Jose expressed dissatisfaction with the program. They reported tight rules, lack of supportive services, andinstances where residents were removed from the site for minor infractions. One resident claimed that LifeMoves staff harassed her more than the police did when she was on thestreet. City Council’s Perspective Despite these concerns, Palo Alto’s City Council decided to move forward with the project, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 178     emphasizing the need for interim housing solutions. Council members acknowledged thechallenges faced by LifeMoves but believed that the project could provide much-needed shelter and support to unhoused individuals in the community. Summary Palo Alto’s Decision: The city approved LifeMoves’ interim housing project despiteconcerns about the nonprofit’s track record.() Community Feedback: Residents have raised issues about LifeMoves’ programs,including low housing placement rates and concerns about staff conduct.() City’s Stance: The City Council believes the project is a necessary step in addressinghomelessness, despite the challenges.() {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 179     From:Aram James To:Gennady Sheyner; Emily Mibach; Diana Diamond; Braden Cartwright; Palo Alto Free Press;editor@paweekly.com; Shikada, Ed; Council, City; Human Relations Commission; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Veenker,Vicki; Ed Lauing; Reckdahl, Keith; Jeff Conrad; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Roberta Ahlquist;board@pausd.org; Yolanda Conaway Subject:Consulting fees in Palo Alto—we need our city council to vet these fees and remove consulting fees over say $50 thousand from the consent calendar Date:Sunday, August 10, 2025 10:25:30 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. City Council Must Push Back on Palo Alto’s Outrageous consulting fees. Check this week’s consent calendar for consulting fees for our planning department etc. You’re asking how much the City of Palo Alto spends annually on outside consultants. According to recent local reporting: A Palo Alto Online journalist noted that the city doesn’t appear to have easily accessible aggregate figures for consultant spending —and that even city officials, including the City Manager, didn’t have an immediate answer when asked . In 2024, the city spent approximately $27 million on consultant services. That includes a wide range of consultancies—from planning and design to engineering, IT, litigationsupport, and more . A separate report corroborated that figure, noting “consultants costing city $27 million ayear; councilwoman says they’re overused ‘a bit’” . While these sources don’t break down consultant spending by department or project, they confirm that consultant costs are substantial—hovering around the $27 million per year mark. Why It’s Hard to Find Detailed Consultant Spending The city’s annual budget documents, while publicly available (including the FY 2025operating and capital budgets, “Budget in Brief,” and Long‑Range Forecasts), do notinclude a centralized line item for consultant fees. Consultant expenses are insteadembedded in various project budgets, making it difficult to extract a total withoutcompiling data across numerous entries . A Palo Alto Online journalist noted that the city doesn’t appear to have easilyaccessible aggregate figures for consultant spending—and that even city officials,including the City Manager, didn’t have an immediate answer when asked . Summary {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 180     Estimated annual expenditure on outside consultants: Approximately $27 million (basedon 2024 data). Visibility in budgeting documents: Not explicitly broken out—consultant costs aredistributed across various project and departmental line items. Let me know if you’d like to dive into specific city projects or departments to estimate the consultant portion, or explore trends over previous fiscal years! {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 181     From:Palo Alto Daily Post To:Yusra Hussain Cc:Aram James; Guilherme Ary Plonski; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Vicki Veenker; Julie Lythcott- Haims; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; board@pausd.org; Board@valleywater.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Kaloma Smith; jessica@speiser.net; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Roberta Ahlquist; ParkRec Commission; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; Donna Wallach; Doug Minkler; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Seher Awan; Liz Kniss; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Bryan Gobin; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Sameena Usman; sammy@envirotekrestoration.com; Raymond Goins; Council, City; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; h.etzko@gmail.com; Human Relations Commission; Bryan Gobin; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca; pat@patburt.org; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Today EPA; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Vara Ramakrishnan; james pitkin; Gennady Sheyner; Wagner, April; Justin Zalkin; ladoris cordell; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; Michael Ybarra; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; Miguel Rodriguez; Marty Wasserman; Pnina Abir-am; Gizem Sivri; Palo Alto Free Press; city.council@menlopark.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; CityCouncil@menlopark.org; Michelle Bigelow; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Bill Newell; Lythcott- Haims, Julie; Figueroa, Eric; Cribbs, Anne; Lotus Fong; Betsy Nash; Binder, Andrew; Josh Becker; Pat M; Seher Awan; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Cait James Subject:Re: Starvation by Design Date:Sunday, August 10, 2025 4:57:06 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. I received this email by accident. Please remove me from future emails. Dave Price On Aug 9, 2025, at 11:16 PM, Yusra Hussain <Yusrahussainmd@gmail.com>wrote:Hi Justin, Thank you for your email. I highly recommend a book called Christ In theRubble in Munther Isaac. It’s an excellent perspective and one that’s shared bymany people who truly care about peace in the region.The author is a longtime Palestinian Christian who lives in the West Bank. I’mMuslim, and I can tell you, his perspective is also shared by many Muslims,Arabs and Palestinians. I make the distinction as many people don’t know thatthere are many Arab Christians in Gaza and the West Bank. Best regards! Yusra Yusra Hussain, MDAdj. Clinical Assistant ProfessorStanford University School of Medicine 805 El Camino Real # APalo Alto, CA 94301Office: 650-328-1676Fax: 650-445-0911Checkout: Protectmedicare.net {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 182     On Aug 4, 2025, at 1:24 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote:Hi Justin, FYI: Here is a piece ( see below) I foundonline that raises some provocativequestions that might assist in openingup the discussion you are looking for. Ipersonally believe history will judgeHamas as quintessential freedomfighters -much like Nat Turner isviewed. Nat Turner - Wikipediahttps://share.google/30FlrupfbpkbzMLdG I believe history will ultimately judgeIsrael as a terrorist state, an apartheidstate, a genocidal rogue state thatmust be eliminated. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein. P.S. A one-state solution is the only just remedy. Are Hezbollah and Hamas Terroristsor Freedom Fighters? Let’s Talk {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 183     Nuance In many Western discussions, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are quicklylabeled as "terrorists," with little room for nuance or consideration ofcontext. But is it really that simple? These groups operate in asymmetrical conflicts against vastly more powerfulstates, often framing themselves as resistance movements fighting forliberation. Hezbollah, for example, emerged as a response to Israel’sinvasion of Lebanon, and many in the region see them as defenders of theirland. Hamas claims to resist Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, afight many Palestinians feel is necessary for their survival and dignity. Yes, their tactics—like targeting civilians—are condemned underinternational law, and those actions cannot be ignored. But at the sametime, we need to ask why these groups exist in the first place. Whatconditions of occupation, systemic oppression, and power imbalance giverise to them? Can we dismiss the context of ongoing displacement,blockades, and military aggression that fuels their support among oppressedpopulations? International law acknowledges the right to resist occupation, yet non-stateactors in asymmetrical wars are held to standards that even powerful statesroutinely violate. When the global community calls one side terrorists butexcuses or justifies state violence that kills far more civilians, it raisesuncomfortable questions about double standards. So, are they terrorists, freedom fighters, or something in between? Whatdoes it mean to fight for liberation in an asymmetrical conflict, and howshould the world frame these struggles? On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 9:41 AM Roberta Ahlquist<finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote:Hear Rashad Khalidi today on Democracy Now. Amy Goodman Sent from my iPhone On Aug 4, 2025, at 9:14 AM, Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com>wrote: Hello — I see some exceptionally bright people on this threadwho have differing perspectives. For the folks whothink Israel should immediately declare a ceasefire,what are your perspectives on Hamas? And what doyou anticipate Hamas would most likely do with aceasefire period? Hopefully everyone views famine among Gazans ashorrible (regardless of who is to blame). My fear is {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 184     that a cessation of hostilities that leaves Hamasgoverning would not lead to a good long term outcome for Gazans (or Israelis). I am curious what others whohave studied the conflict in more detail think would most likely happen if Hamas were to continuegoverning. All the Best,Justin On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:56 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: Your Stand on the Ceasefire Hi Henry, You were truly the only candidate for thePalo Alto City Council in 2024, out of nine total candidates, who had the courageto unequivocally call for a ceasefire. I attended the council meeting that nightand remember your speech very well. Best regards, Avram “ One State Solution” Finkelstein On Fri, Aug 1, 2025 at 10:31 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:Marty Marty, Express away but the killing and starvation policy must stop, under UNarmed supervision, of course. Who is to be the Ike who said, I will go to Koreaduring he 1952 election campaign, achieved a cease fire, that holds to thisday, despite lack of a formal peace treaty. Best, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 185     Henry > On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:19 AM, MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:> > Henry,> > One of my objections to “ceasefirenow” is that it places all of the onus on Israel and demands nothing of Hamas,and gives Hamas breathing space to regroup and rearm so they can continuetheir policy of killing Jews. > > Marty > > >> On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:01 AM,Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>> >> Dear Marty>> >> I have expressed my agreement inheron to Council on their general policy of excluding foreign policy issuesHowever, like the attorney for the holocaust victim who successfully askedthe US Supreme for a narrow exception to the statute of limitations, I argued toCouncil that there are certain issues that it behooves as as Palo Alto citizens totake a stand: Gaza cease fire now, is one! See council video of severalmonths ago for my full statement. >> >> Best, >> Hillel>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 9:43 AM, Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: >>> >>> There's no legitimate reason for city government to weigh in on foreignpolicy issues, especially in highly volatile areas like the Middle East. Suchcontroversial resolutions change nothing in the Middle East and only promoteconflict at home. Unless of course the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 186     goal is precisely to create conflict athome. >>> >>> Martin Wasserman >>> >>> >>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 2:14 AM,Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>>>> >>>> Ps>>>> Upon reflection, accept your critique: cease fire requires repetition ,will include in writings this topic until achieved >>>> www.triplehelix.net >>>> >>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 11:45 PM, Roberta Ahlquist<finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Ok! >>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>> >>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 10:20 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Agree with cease fire, and permanent treaty above and beyond.Aram, who was present, can assure you that I requested each council memberindividually and publicly to commit Palo Alto to call for cease fire. Videosupposed to be available at city website. >>>>>> >>>>>> Best >>>>>> Henry>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 8:49 PM, Roberta Ahlquist<finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes- and how about a ceasefire? Less abstract, moreconcrete...? {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 187     >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 1:08 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Somewhere in Israel’s Governmental bureaucracy under aninnocuous title, a “collective Eichmann” is at work meticulously designing the“crime of the new century” the systematic destruction the civilinstitutional environment of universities, businesses, and housing,with the intent and objective of atomizing the citizens of GAZAPalestine into a controllable mass. Attendant nutrition deprivation is anoverlay on institutional and organizational deprivation, conducted inMediterranean sunlight and international, if not Israeli, full mediagaze. Rather than the inside pages of the New York Times where vGermany’s 20th century holocaust was relegated, this rolling, escalatinggenocide is on the front pages of the newspaper of record where all news thatfits is published, sometimes ironically overshadowed by food recipes in theInternet Edition. The international community, led by Europe where theHolocaust was originated, collaborated, condoned and only sometimes resistedin the last century, must mitigate its indelible moral stain by heading off theNetenyahu regime’s scheme. Only a Jewish state founded on the ashes of theholocaust could have been given such leeway, not to forget Pol Pot’sCambodia. Who will be the future Hannah Arendt to chronicle the ubiquityof evil? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Sincerely >>>>>>>> Henry Etzkowitz>>>>>>>> Distinguished Fellow >>>>>>>> University of London,Birkbeck College, Centre for Innovation {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 188     Management Research>>>>>>>> Co-founder, Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice, 644Menlo Avenue, Menlo Park CA 94025 >>>>>>>> RE Henry Etzkowitz et al vsElon Musk et al Case number 24CV450485 Superior Court ofCalifornia County of California, Downtown Courthouse 191 Notth FirstStreet, San Jose CA 95113 civil division >>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>> >> > {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 189     From:Aram James To:Stump, Molly; Clerk, City; Shikada, Ed; h.etzko@gmail.com; Palo Alto Free Press; Emily Mibach; GennadySheyner; Diana Diamond; EPA Today; Binder, Andrew; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Sean Allen; Pat M; Wagner, April; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas;Figueroa, Eric; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith;dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Lotus Fong; Roberta Ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; JenniferMorrow San José Spotlight; Jensen, Eric; Drekmeier, Peter; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Burt,Patrick; Reckdahl, Keith; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Dana St. George; Gerry Gras; Jasso, Tamara; Raymond Goins;rabrica@cityofepa.org; cromero@cityofepa.org; PD Kristina Bell; Council, City Subject:PRA request and supplement Date:Saturday, August 9, 2025 10:27:24 PM Attachments:California Public Records Act Request re Andrew Binder.docx CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. California Public Records Act Request 8/9/25 Hi Molly, (Palo Alto City Attorney, Molly Stump) Following some additional legal research, I would like to supplement my CPRA request of August 9, 2025, with further legal authority. 1. On the compensation issue for Andrew Binder, salary and other forms of compensation, right of community members, press, and others to obtain such data, see Sacramento County Employees Retirement System v Superior Court, 195 Cal App 4th 440 (2011). 2. In reference to obtaining information on the hours Chief Andrew Binder spends in Palo Alto carrying out his responsibilities as police chief, I am seeking to determine if the people of Palo Alto are paying approximately $400,000 a year for a chief who is only working part-time, in part due to the Chief Binder living in Morgan Hill, or if Binder's hours on the Job reflect he is working full time in Palo Alto despite his long daily commute to and from Morgan Hill to Palo Alto and back each day. As you know, in circa 2021, Government Code section 7922.600 (a) was added to the Public Record Act. This code section requires government agencies to proactively assist members of the public and others in locating the appropriate records and to provide suggestions for overcoming any practical basis for denying access to the records or information sought. 3. I am hereby requesting that I receive all of the assistance legally required by Government Code Section 7922.600 (a). Sincerely, Aram James 1. Why does our Police Chief," Mr. Community Policing," Andrew Binder, live in Morgan Hill? {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 190     2. In the case of an earthquake, a mass shooting, or any of numerous other emergencies requiringfirst responders, where will Andrew Binder be? In Morgan Hill? 3. Does Andrew Binder really deserve to be the second-highest-paid employee in our city, right behind City Manager Ed Shikada? At least City Manager Shikada lives in Palo Alto. We are talkinga salary for Binder, including benefits, of $400,000. How can Palo Alto possibly survive withgiveaway salaries like Binder is receiving? Where is Greg Tanaka now that we need him? Whyisn't our city council reining in these outrageous, unsustainable salaries? What percentage of our city budget goes to law enforcement? California Public Records Request 4. Pursuant to the California Records Act, I am requesting the following: (a) Any and all records inpossession of the city of Palo Alto reflecting how many hours per week, per month, per year, from September 1, 2022 to August 1, 2025, that Chief Binder is in Palo Alto performing his duties aspolice chief. Is Chief Binder in Palo Alto at least 40 hours per week? 4 (a) Chief Binder’s current annual salary, including benefits. 5. I am happy to work with the Palo Alto City Clerk, City Attorney, or other city employeesresponsible for carrying out (administering-implementing) the mandate of the California PublicRecords Act, Gov't Code && 7920.000-7931.000. I can help out in narrowing my requests if necessary. 6. The CPRA is designed to be user-friendly and to allow community members and governmentagencies to collaborate to guarantee that those requesting government records receive the broadest set of records allowed under the CPRA. (C) The CPRA is construed broadly in favor of disclosure,with exemptions narrowly construed. Note: agencies bear the burden to justify withholdingrecords under the CPRA, CBS V. Block 42 Cal. 3d 646 (1986) *** “ Law enforcement officers carry upon their shoulders the cloak of authority to enforcethe laws of the state. In order to maintain trust in its police department, the public must be kept fully informed of the activities of its peace officers. Bradbury v. Superior Court 4 Cal App 4th 1108, 1116 (1996)” **** “ From the vantage of the harried public servant, exposure to public scrutiny andcriticism may hamper and upset the day-to-day operation of a governmental agency. Thus,the bureaucrat is often sorely tempted to preclude public disclosure by invoking theprivilege of confidentiality…” New York Times Company v. Superior Court of Santa Barbara County 52 Cal. App 4th 97, (1997) Submitted by Aram James on Saturday, August 9, 2025. Abjpd1@gmail.com 415-370-5056 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 191     {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 192     From:Aram James To:Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Gardener, Liz; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Friends of Cubberley; HumanRelations Commission; Zelkha, Mila; Bill Newell; PD Kristina Bell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Kaloma Smith;Templeton, Cari; ParkRec Commission; board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations Subject:Re: California Public Records Act Request re Andrew Binder Date:Saturday, August 9, 2025 10:04:38 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Molly, (Palo Alto City Attorney, Molly Stump) Following some additional legal research, I would like to supplement my CPRA request of August 9, 2025, with further legal authority. 1. On the compensation issue for Andrew Binder, salary and other forms of compensation,right of community members, press, and others to obtain such data, see Sacramento County Employees Retirement System v Superior Court, 195 Cal App 4th 440 (2011). 2. In reference to obtaining information on the hours Chief Andrew Binder spends in Palo Alto carrying out his responsibilities as police chief, I am seeking to determine if the people ofPalo Alto are paying approximately $400,000 a year for a chief who is only working part-time, in part due to the Chief Binder living in MorganHill, or if Binder's hours on the Job reflect he is working full time in Palo Alto despite his long daily commute to and from Morgan Hill to Palo Alto and back each day. As you know, incirca 2021, Govt Code section 7922.600 (a) was added to the Public Record Act. This code section requires government agencies to proactively assist members of the public and others inlocating the appropriate records and to provide suggestions for overcoming any practical basis for denying access to the records or information sought. 3. I am hereby requesting that I receive all of the assistance legally required byGovernment Code Section 7922.600. (a). Sincerely, Aram James On Sat, Aug 9, 2025 at 2:20 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 193     From:Yusra Hussain To:Aram James Cc:Guilherme Ary Plonski; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Vicki Veenker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Kaloma Smith; jessica@speiser.net; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Roberta Ahlquist; ParkRec Commission; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; Donna Wallach; Doug Minkler; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Seher Awan; Liz Kniss; Dave Price; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Bryan Gobin; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Sameena Usman; sammy@envirotekrestoration.com; Raymond Goins; Council, City; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; h.etzko@gmail.com; Human Relations Commission; Bryan Gobin; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca; pat@patburt.org; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Today EPA; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Vara Ramakrishnan; james pitkin; Gennady Sheyner; Wagner, April; Justin Zalkin; ladoris cordell; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; Michael Ybarra; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; Miguel Rodriguez; Marty Wasserman; Pnina Abir-am; Gizem Sivri; Palo Alto Free Press; city.council@menlopark.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; citycouncil@menlopark.org; Michelle Bigelow; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Bill Newell; Lythcott- Haims, Julie; Figueroa, Eric; Cribbs, Anne; Lotus Fong; Betsy Nash; Binder, Andrew; Josh Becker; Pat M; Seher Awan; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Cait James Subject:Re: Starvation by Design Date:Saturday, August 9, 2025 8:17:05 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Hi Justin, Thank you for your email. I highly recommend a book called Christ In the Rubble in Munther Isaac. It’s an excellent perspective and one that’s shared by many people who truly care aboutpeace in the region. The author is a longtime Palestinian Christian who lives in the West Bank. I’m Muslim, and Ican tell you, his perspective is also shared by many Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians. I make the distinction as many people don’t know that there are many Arab Christians in Gaza and theWest Bank. Best regards! Yusra Yusra Hussain, MD Adj. Clinical Assistant ProfessorStanford University School of Medicine 805 El Camino Real # APalo Alto, CA 94301 Office: 650-328-1676Fax: 650-445-0911 Checkout: Protectmedicare.net This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 194     On Aug 4, 2025, at 1:24 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Justin, FYI: Here is a piece ( see below) I found onlinethat raises some provocative questions thatmight assist in opening up the discussion youare looking for. I personally believe history willjudge Hamas as quintessential freedomfighters -much like Nat Turner is viewed. Nat Turner - Wikipedia https://share.google/30FlrupfbpkbzMLdG I believe history will ultimately judge Israel asa terrorist state, an apartheid state, agenocidal rogue state that must beeliminated. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein. P.S. A one-state solution is the only just remedy. Are Hezbollah and Hamas Terrorists orFreedom Fighters? Let’s Talk Nuance In many Western discussions, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are quickly labeled as"terrorists," with little room for nuance or consideration of context. But is it really thatsimple? These groups operate in asymmetrical conflicts against vastly more powerful states, oftenframing themselves as resistance movements fighting for liberation. Hezbollah, forexample, emerged as a response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and many in the regionsee them as defenders of their land. Hamas claims to resist Israeli occupation in Gaza and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 195     the West Bank, a fight many Palestinians feel is necessary for their survival and dignity. Yes, their tactics—like targeting civilians—are condemned under international law, andthose actions cannot be ignored. But at the same time, we need to ask why these groupsexist in the first place. What conditions of occupation, systemic oppression, and powerimbalance give rise to them? Can we dismiss the context of ongoing displacement,blockades, and military aggression that fuels their support among oppressed populations? International law acknowledges the right to resist occupation, yet non-state actors inasymmetrical wars are held to standards that even powerful states routinely violate. Whenthe global community calls one side terrorists but excuses or justifies state violence thatkills far more civilians, it raises uncomfortable questions about double standards. So, are they terrorists, freedom fighters, or something in between? What does it mean tofight for liberation in an asymmetrical conflict, and how should the world frame thesestruggles? On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 9:41 AM Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com>wrote:Hear Rashad Khalidi today on Democracy Now. Amy Goodman Sent from my iPhone On Aug 4, 2025, at 9:14 AM, Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> wrote: Hello — I see some exceptionally bright people on this thread who havediffering perspectives. For the folks who think Israel shouldimmediately declare a ceasefire, what are your perspectives onHamas? And what do you anticipate Hamas would most likely dowith a ceasefire period? Hopefully everyone views famine among Gazans as horrible(regardless of who is to blame). My fear is that a cessation ofhostilities that leaves Hamas governing would not lead to a goodlong term outcome for Gazans (or Israelis). I am curious whatothers who have studied the conflict in more detail think wouldmost likely happen if Hamas were to continue governing. All the Best,Justin On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:56 AM, Aram James {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 196     <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: Your Stand on the Ceasefire Hi Henry, You were truly the only candidate for the Palo AltoCity Council in 2024, out of nine total candidates, who had the courage to unequivocally call for a ceasefire. Iattended the council meeting that night and remember your speech very well. Best regards, Avram “ One State Solution” Finkelstein On Fri, Aug 1, 2025 at 10:31 AM, Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: Marty Marty, Express away but the killing and starvation policymust stop, under UN armed supervision, of course. Who is to be the Ike who said, I will go to Koreaduring he 1952 election campaign, achieved a cease fire, that holds to this day, despite lack of a formalpeace treaty. Best, Henry > On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:19 AM, Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: > > Henry, > > One of my objections to “ceasefire now” is that it places all of the onus on Israel and demands nothingof Hamas, and gives Hamas breathing space to regroup and rearm so they can continue their policyof killing Jews. > > Marty > > >> On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:01 AM, Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Dear Marty {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 197     >> >> I have expressed my agreement in heron to Council on their general policy of excluding foreignpolicy issues However, like the attorney for the holocaust victim who successfully asked the USSupreme for a narrow exception to the statute of limitations, I argued to Council that there are certainissues that it behooves as as Palo Alto citizens to take a stand: Gaza cease fire now, is one! Seecouncil video of several months ago for my full statement.>> >> Best,>> Hillel >>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 9:43 AM, MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: >>> >>> There's no legitimate reason for city government to weigh in on foreign policy issues,especially in highly volatile areas like the Middle East. Such controversial resolutions change nothingin the Middle East and only promote conflict at home. Unless of course the goal is precisely to createconflict at home. >>> >>> Martin Wasserman >>> >>> >>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 2:14 AM, Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> Ps >>>> Upon reflection, accept your critique: ceasefire requires repetition , will include in writings this topic until achieved >>>> www.triplehelix.net >>>> >>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 11:45 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>> >>>>> Ok!>>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>>>> >>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 10:20 PM, HenryEtzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Agree with cease fire, and permanent treaty above and beyond. Aram, who was present, canassure you that I requested each council member {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 198     individually and publicly to commit Palo Alto tocall for cease fire. Video supposed to be available at city website. >>>>>> >>>>>> Best>>>>>> Henry >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 8:49 PM, RobertaAhlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes- and how about a ceasefire? Less abstract, more concrete...?>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 1:08 PM, HenryEtzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Somewhere in Israel’s Governmental bureaucracy under an innocuous title, a “collectiveEichmann” is at work meticulously designing the “crime of the new century” the systematicdestruction the civil institutional environment of universities, businesses, and housing, with the intentand objective of atomizing the citizens of GAZA Palestine into a controllable mass. Attendantnutrition deprivation is an overlay on institutional and organizational deprivation, conducted inMediterranean sunlight and international, if not Israeli, full media gaze. Rather than the inside pagesof the New York Times where v Germany’s 20th century holocaust was relegated, this rolling,escalating genocide is on the front pages of the newspaper of record where all news that fits ispublished, sometimes ironically overshadowed by food recipes in the Internet Edition. The internationalcommunity, led by Europe where the Holocaust was originated, collaborated, condoned and onlysometimes resisted in the last century, must mitigate its indelible moral stain by heading off theNetenyahu regime’s scheme. Only a Jewish state founded on the ashes of the holocaust could havebeen given such leeway, not to forget Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Who will be the future Hannah Arendtto chronicle the ubiquity of evil? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Sincerely {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 199     >>>>>>>> Henry Etzkowitz>>>>>>>> Distinguished Fellow >>>>>>>> University of London, Birkbeck College,Centre for Innovation Management Research >>>>>>>> Co-founder, Neighbors forEnvironmental and Social Justice, 644 Menlo Avenue, Menlo Park CA 94025>>>>>>>> RE Henry Etzkowitz et al vs Elon Musk et al Case number 24CV450485 Superior Court ofCalifornia County of California, Downtown Courthouse 191 Notth First Street, San Jose CA95113 civil division >>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>> >> > {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 200     From:Aram James To:Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; Binder, Andrew; Council, City; Palo Alto Free Press; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright;Gennady Sheyner; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jay Boyarsky; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Gennady Sheyner; HumanRelations Commission; Kaloma Smith; Sean Allen; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Rowena Chiu; Barberini,Christopher; Pat M; james pitkin; Burt, Patrick; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission;PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; Roberta Ahlquist; Raymond Goins; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Jeff Conrad;pat@patburt.org; Reckdahl, Keith; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; cromero@cityofepa.org;rabrica@cityofepa.org; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael;Figueroa, Eric; Lee, Craig; Wagner, April; Perron, Zachary; Enberg, Nicholas; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Nash,Betsy; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; GRP-City Council; Afanasiev, Alex; HenryEtzkowitz; Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley Subject:police_dogs needed ? August 29, 2022 Date:Saturday, August 9, 2025 3:39:16 PM Attachments:police_dogs needed August 29, 2022 on Andrew Binder.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hopefully, we can discuss the progress, if any, that Chief Binder and staff have made towards the items I listed in the attached article written three years ago shortly after Binder wasappointed police chief. 1. permanently removing police attack canines from the PAPD. 2. Shelving Tasers. 3. Vetted his police staff to rid the PAPD of any white nationalists. 4. Integrated his all Caucasian aka white command staff? 5. Set up a citizen police advisory committee subject to Brown Act so members of the public can attend in person or by Zoom. *****I anticipate giving the chief a grade for any progress he has made toward my very short list of concerns. Of course there are many other police practice reforms we need to discuss. Aram {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 201     From:Aram James To:Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Gardener, Liz; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Friends of Cubberley; HumanRelations Commission; Zelkha, Mila; Bill Newell; PD Kristina Bell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Kaloma Smith;Templeton, Cari; ParkRec Commission; board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations Subject:California Public Records Act Request re Andrew Binder Date:Saturday, August 9, 2025 2:21:12 PM Attachments:California Public Records Act Request re Andrew Binder.docx CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 202     From:Soraida Iwanaga To:Mark Turner; Marilyn Librers; Don Austin; Palo Alto Daily Post Cc:Salem Ajluni; Aram James; h.etzko@gmail.com; Firoozeh Dastmalchi; Trudy Willis; Charles Spanhook; Chunyan Zhou; Brian Good; Office of the Provost; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Avroh Shah; Mariza Almeida; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Ellen Fox; Council, City; Gerry Gras; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Emily Mibach; Today EPA; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner; Doug Minkler; Gennady Sheyner; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Burt, Patrick; Veenker, Vicki; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Binder, Andrew; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Linda Jolley; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Miguel Rodriguez; Damon Silver; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Daniel Barton; Pat M; Dana St. George; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin Subject:Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Date:Friday, August 8, 2025 5:59:26 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Please remove me as well. Soraida Iwanaga Morgan Hill City Councilwoman Get Outlook for iOS From: Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov> Sent: Friday, August 8, 2025 5:57:53 AM To: Marilyn Librers <marilyn.librers@morganhill.ca.gov>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> Cc: Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach This message needs your attention No employee in your company has ever replied to this person. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 203     <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org <board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net <jessica@speiser.net>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov <assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Remove my name as well. Mark Turner Mayor City of Morgan Hill 17575 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037 D: 408.310.4647 C: 408.221.6203 mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov morganhill.ca.gov | facebook | twitter {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 204     From: Marilyn Librers <marilyn.librers@morganhill.ca.gov> Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2025 11:17 PM To: Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> Cc: Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 205     Please remove my name from your mailing list immediately. Marilyn Librers From: Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org> Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2025 5:26 PM To: Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> Cc: Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org <board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net <jessica@speiser.net>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov <assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 206     <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure I can also be removed. On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 3:50 PM Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> wrote: Hello, This email was delivered to me in error. Please take me off that list. Dave Price > On Aug 6, 2025, at 7:03 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: > > An even better solution to the insularity and intentional distancing from constituents practiced by nearly all local government (not to mention state and federal government) is to make the key "permanent bureaucracy" positions—especially the City Manager—elected positions. > > While we're at it, let's make the Chief of Police an elected position as is the case in the City of Santa Clara--the only municipality in California (and perhaps the U.S.) where this is the case. > > Santa Clara also has an elected City Clerk, though not an elected City Manager--at least not yet. Palo Alto has no elected Police Chief and no elected City Clerk, these being appointed by the Council like the City Manager. > > Salem > From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> > Sent: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:49 PM > To: Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com> > Cc: Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 207     Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net<jessica@speiser.net>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.go v>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org<craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 208     city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov<citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure > Hi Henry, > You've made some brilliant observations once again. Implementing a more robust participatory democracy, as you suggested with the Town Hall Meeting process, would be an excellent first step. Our city council model in Palo Alto undermines any change at true democracy. The current council seems more focused on protecting the elite, leaving the rest of us with just crumbs. > Now, how can we prevent "Queen Vicki" from ascending to the throne in January 2026? > Aram > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Aram > > Jeanne Fleming, United Neighbors entrepreneur, has a longer term idea, that she shared during a recent visit to Triple Helix Institute: make the Mayor more responsive to the public and at the same time create a countervailing power to reign in the out of citizen control consultocracy, our de-facto Palo Alto governance modality. > > The consultocracy, firms hired by the city Manager, with nominal Council input, provides narrow, virtually indistinguishable options, (cf airport, Cubberly). Operating at the behest of permanent city management, long term direction and priorities as well as specific project design are accomplished through a vitiated representative democratic guise (city council). > > Jeanne suggests (presuming it to be in the public domain to reiterate and credit her perspicacity) a more powerful elected Mayor that could be balanced by a yearly town meeting decision making assembly of voters, aka the New England town meeting. Having Participated in and observed this non representative, all citizen, > Direct democracy format in Nantucket (with its quasi parties, virtually exclusive of summer residents, held in winter); it is nonetheless inspiring and potentially transferable. > > Both ideas would surely give pressing public issues like Gaza cease fire now > And move Palo Alto airport to Moffett field, higher priority. At least that is the hope and intention. Of course there may be other ideas to accomplish the objective of a leaner, more productive, government. > > Cheers {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 209     > Henry Etzkowitz > “Back to the Agora” > 2024 Palo Alto City Council Candidate > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice > Mark your calendar for One October when Elon Musk/Tesla have a date in San Jose Superior court (civil) judge Monahan has admonished a judgement in default if no show a second time. > Www.triple helix.net > > > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Aug 6, 2025, at 8:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: > > Another excellent piece, Henry! The coronation of the gutless “Queen Vicki” for mayor in 2026 seems inevitable. What can we do as a community to push her towards declaring in favor of a ceasefire and finally speaking out on the ongoing genocide happening in real time before the eyes of the world. Even the far-white-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has called the slaughter of Palestinian children a genocide. How can we allow our city leaders to remain silent on this issue without protests and push back. > > Avram “Just Say No To Queen Vicki for Mayor in 2026. “ Finkelstein > > Source: ajc Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks from party by calling Gaza conflict a genocide https://share.google/k741qbCv5jWfOMXlY > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > The stellar legitimation of Israel, uniquely democratic among undemocratic states longe has lost face validity. The Knesset and courts have failed to remove Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, hiding in plain sight from international justice. > > > > But failure to follow international rules of justice, although serious, is relatively minor in comparison to virtually uniform active and passive support for a leader who is carrying out a so called “Hannibal policy” against its own citizens, concomitant with steady escalation to a “Final Solution” in Gaza through food deprivation by withholding nutrition rather than air denial by forced {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 210     > > gas. > > > > Cease fire Now:flood in food! > > > > Who will be the contemporary Herbert Hoover to accomplish this objective? Given Stanford’s unique history, iconic tower and Institute in his honour, the University should speak out institutionally as Washington University, St Louis did in leading a university- industry coalition to oppose the Vietnam war > > > > In this era and region, Stanford should invite Palo Alto and its Silicon Valley spinoffs to call with one voice for Gaza cease fire. > > > > Sincerely > > > > Henry Etzkowitz > > 1766 sand Hill Road > > Palo Alto CA 94304 > > 646 701 2695 > > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice > > 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto city council > > > > www.triplehelix.net WARNING: This message is from an external user. Confidential information such as social security numbers,credit card numbers, bank routing numbers, wire transfer information and other personally identifiableinformation should not be transmitted to this user. For question, please contact the Morgan Hill ITDepartment by opening a new helpdesk request online or call 408-909-0055. Disclaimer The information contained in this communication from the sender is confidential. It is intended solely for useby the recipient and others authorized to receive it. If you are not the recipient, you are hereby notified thatany disclosure, copying, distribution or taking action in relation of the contents of this information is strictlyprohibited and may be unlawful. This email has been scanned for viruses and malware, and may have been automatically archived byMimecast, a leader in email security and cyber resilience. Mimecast integrates email defenses with brandprotection, security awareness training, web security, compliance and other essential capabilities. Mimecasthelps protect large and small organizations from malicious activity, human error and technology failure; andto lead the movement toward building a more resilient world. To find out more, visit our website. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 211     From:Henry Etzkowitz To:Aram James Cc:Sean Allen; Yusra Hussain; Doug Minkler; Emily Mibach; Gennady Sheyner; Palo Alto Free Press; Donna Wallach; jessica@speiser.net; board@pausd.org; Yolanda Conaway; Don Austin; Dana St. George; Gerry Gras; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Cribbs, Anne; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Human Relations Commission; Damon Silver; Miguel Rodriguez; Pat M; james pitkin; Mark Turner; city.council@menlopark.gov; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Binder, Andrew; Justin Zalkin; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; editor@almanacnews.com; editor@paweekly.com; Tom DuBois; Today EPA; bos@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Bill Newell; Raymond Goins; Gardener, Liz; Lotus Fong; Rose Lynn; Rowena Chiu; Council, City; Office of the Provost; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Carol Kiparsky; Roberta Ahlquist; Brian Good; Dave Price; Vicki Veenker; Josh Becker; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen Subject:Re: immoral or Amoral United front? Date:Friday, August 8, 2025 11:10:07 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Takes both Sent from my iPhone On Aug 7, 2025, at 11:58 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Henry, You say things so poetically!! Me more like a bull dog or sledge hammer than a poet!! Avram “End The Genocide Now!! Finkelstein On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: Correct Julie charter member Council “wall of silence” Incumbents persisting will be too shamed and ashamed to seek reelection Sent from my iPhone On Aug 7, 2025, at 10:02 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first mail to some recipients. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 212     wrote:  FYI: Brian—here is an exchange you may have missed. Was sentto most of the usual suspects. On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:58 PM Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: My dear brave friend Henry, Julie came closest to breaking the silence, but to my knowledge,she has NEVER demanded of her colleagues that a ceasefire resolution be placed on the council agenda for a robust publicdiscussion and a subsequent vote. Similarly, unless I missed it, Julie has NEVER called out or spoken from the dais: "End theGenocide Now!" As MLK said: “The time is always right to do what is right.” Sleep well my friend, Aram P.S. Julie, if my recollection is wrong, I invite you to correct the record. On Wed, Aug 6, 2025, at 10:20 PM, Henry Etzkowitz wrote: dear Aram Upon reflection, agree with your assessment. Despite minordifferences in progressiveness on other issues; there is an implacable wall on Gaza cease Fire when implored insuccession, there was not a flicker of sympathy from the impassive diased. Sadly,Henry Ps Marjorie Taylor Green is now cited as moral political role modelSent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 213     From:Mark Turner To:Marilyn Librers; Don Austin; Palo Alto Daily Post Cc:Salem Ajluni; Aram James; h.etzko@gmail.com; Firoozeh Dastmalchi; Trudy Willis; Charles Spanhook; Chunyan Zhou; Brian Good; Office of the Provost; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Avroh Shah; Mariza Almeida; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Ellen Fox; Council, City; Gerry Gras; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Emily Mibach; Today EPA; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner; Doug Minkler; Gennady Sheyner; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Burt, Patrick; Veenker, Vicki; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Binder, Andrew; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Linda Jolley; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Miguel Rodriguez; Damon Silver; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Daniel Barton; Pat M; Dana St. George; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin Subject:RE: [EXTERNAL] Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Date:Friday, August 8, 2025 5:58:21 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Remove my name as well. Mark Turner Mayor City of Morgan Hill 17575 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037 D: 408.310.4647 C: 408.221.6203 mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov morganhill.ca.gov | facebook | twitter From: Marilyn Librers <marilyn.librers@morganhill.ca.gov> Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2025 11:17 PM To: Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> Cc: Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg This message needs your attention No employee in your company has ever replied to this person. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 214     <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Please remove my name from your mailing list immediately. Marilyn Librers From: Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org> Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2025 5:26 PM To: Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> Cc: Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 215     <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org <board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net <jessica@speiser.net>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov <assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure I can also be removed. On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 3:50 PM Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> wrote: Hello, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 216     This email was delivered to me in error. Please take me off that list. Dave Price > On Aug 6, 2025, at 7:03 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: > > An even better solution to the insularity and intentional distancing from constituents practiced by nearly all local government (not to mention state and federal government) is to make the key "permanent bureaucracy" positions—especially the City Manager—elected positions. > > While we're at it, let's make the Chief of Police an elected position as is the case in the City of Santa Clara--the only municipality in California (and perhaps the U.S.) where this is the case. > > Santa Clara also has an elected City Clerk, though not an elected City Manager--at least not yet. Palo Alto has no elected Police Chief and no elected City Clerk, these being appointed by the Council like the City Manager. > > Salem > From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> > Sent: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:49 PM > To: Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com> > Cc: Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 217     Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net<jessica@speiser.net>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.go v>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org<craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov<citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure > Hi Henry, > You've made some brilliant observations once again. Implementing a more robust participatory democracy, as you suggested with the Town Hall Meeting process, would be an excellent first step. Our city council model in Palo Alto undermines any change at true democracy. The current council seems more focused on protecting the elite, leaving the rest of us with just crumbs. > Now, how can we prevent "Queen Vicki" from ascending to the throne in January 2026? {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 218     > Aram > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Aram > > Jeanne Fleming, United Neighbors entrepreneur, has a longer term idea, that she shared during a recent visit to Triple Helix Institute: make the Mayor more responsive to the public and at the same time create a countervailing power to reign in the out of citizen control consultocracy, our de-facto Palo Alto governance modality. > > The consultocracy, firms hired by the city Manager, with nominal Council input, provides narrow, virtually indistinguishable options, (cf airport, Cubberly). Operating at the behest of permanent city management, long term direction and priorities as well as specific project design are accomplished through a vitiated representative democratic guise (city council). > > Jeanne suggests (presuming it to be in the public domain to reiterate and credit her perspicacity) a more powerful elected Mayor that could be balanced by a yearly town meeting decision making assembly of voters, aka the New England town meeting. Having Participated in and observed this non representative, all citizen, > Direct democracy format in Nantucket (with its quasi parties, virtually exclusive of summer residents, held in winter); it is nonetheless inspiring and potentially transferable. > > Both ideas would surely give pressing public issues like Gaza cease fire now > And move Palo Alto airport to Moffett field, higher priority. At least that is the hope and intention. Of course there may be other ideas to accomplish the objective of a leaner, more productive, government. > > Cheers > Henry Etzkowitz > “Back to the Agora” > 2024 Palo Alto City Council Candidate > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice > Mark your calendar for One October when Elon Musk/Tesla have a date in San Jose Superior court (civil) judge Monahan has admonished a judgement in default if no show a second time. > Www.triple helix.net > > > {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 219     > Sent from my iPhone > > On Aug 6, 2025, at 8:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: > > Another excellent piece, Henry! The coronation of the gutless “Queen Vicki” for mayor in 2026 seems inevitable. What can we do as a community to push her towards declaring in favor of a ceasefire and finally speaking out on the ongoing genocide happening in real time before the eyes of the world. Even the far-white-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has called the slaughter of Palestinian children a genocide. How can we allow our city leaders to remain silent on this issue without protests and push back. > > Avram “Just Say No To Queen Vicki for Mayor in 2026. “ Finkelstein > > Source: ajc Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks from party by calling Gaza conflict a genocide https://share.google/k741qbCv5jWfOMXlY > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > The stellar legitimation of Israel, uniquely democratic among undemocratic states longe has lost face validity. The Knesset and courts have failed to remove Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, hiding in plain sight from international justice. > > > > But failure to follow international rules of justice, although serious, is relatively minor in comparison to virtually uniform active and passive support for a leader who is carrying out a so called “Hannibal policy” against its own citizens, concomitant with steady escalation to a “Final Solution” in Gaza through food deprivation by withholding nutrition rather than air denial by forced > > gas. > > > > Cease fire Now:flood in food! > > > > Who will be the contemporary Herbert Hoover to accomplish this objective? Given Stanford’s unique history, iconic tower and Institute in his honour, the University should speak out institutionally as Washington University, St Louis did in leading a university- industry coalition to oppose the Vietnam war > > > > In this era and region, Stanford should invite Palo Alto and its Silicon Valley spinoffs to call with one voice for Gaza cease fire. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 220     > > > > Sincerely > > > > Henry Etzkowitz > > 1766 sand Hill Road > > Palo Alto CA 94304 > > 646 701 2695 > > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice > > 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto city council > > > > www.triplehelix.net WARNING: This message is from an external user. Confidential information such as social security numbers,credit card numbers, bank routing numbers, wire transfer information and other personally identifiableinformation should not be transmitted to this user. For question, please contact the Morgan Hill ITDepartment by opening a new helpdesk request online or call 408-909-0055. Disclaimer The information contained in this communication from the sender is confidential. It is intended solely for use by the recipient and others authorized to receive it. If you are not the recipient, you are hereby notified thatany disclosure, copying, distribution or taking action in relation of the contents of this information is strictlyprohibited and may be unlawful. This email has been scanned for viruses and malware, and may have been automatically archived byMimecast, a leader in email security and cyber resilience. Mimecast integrates email defenses with brandprotection, security awareness training, web security, compliance and other essential capabilities. Mimecasthelps protect large and small organizations from malicious activity, human error and technology failure; andto lead the movement toward building a more resilient world. To find out more, visit our website. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 221     From:Marilyn Librers To:Don Austin; Palo Alto Daily Post Cc:Salem Ajluni; Aram James; h.etzko@gmail.com; Firoozeh Dastmalchi; Trudy Willis; Charles Spanhook; Chunyan Zhou; Brian Good; Office of the Provost; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Avroh Shah; Mariza Almeida; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Ellen Fox; Council, City; Gerry Gras; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Emily Mibach; Today EPA; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner; Doug Minkler; Gennady Sheyner; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Burt, Patrick; Veenker, Vicki; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Linda Jolley; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Miguel Rodriguez; Damon Silver; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Daniel Barton; Pat M; Dana St. George; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin Subject:Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Date:Thursday, August 7, 2025 11:17:31 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Please remove my name from your mailing list immediately. Marilyn Librers From: Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org> Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2025 5:26 PM To: Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> Cc: Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; This message needs your attention No employee in your company has ever replied to this person. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 222     George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org <board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net <jessica@speiser.net>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov <assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure I can also be removed. On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 3:50 PM Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> wrote: Hello, This email was delivered to me in error. Please take me off that list. Dave Price > On Aug 6, 2025, at 7:03 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote:> > An even better solution to the insularity and intentional distancing from constituentspracticed by nearly all local government (not to mention state and federal government) is to make the key "permanent bureaucracy" positions—especially the City Manager—electedpositions. > > While we're at it, let's make the Chief of Police an elected position as is the case in the City of Santa Clara--the only municipality in California (and perhaps the U.S.) where this isthe case. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 223     > > Santa Clara also has an elected City Clerk, though not an elected City Manager--at least not yet. Palo Alto has no elected Police Chief and no elected City Clerk, these beingappointed by the Council like the City Manager. > > Salem > From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>> Sent: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:49 PM > To: Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>> Cc: Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou<alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy<emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>;Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto FreePress <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss<lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com<jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; DougMinkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>;Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims<Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org<board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net<jessica@speiser.net>;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner<mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; JamesReifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Don Austin<daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez<miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>;rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org<craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto<wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso,Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M<p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 224     Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>;GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>;city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov<citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin<jzalkin@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure> Hi Henry, > You've made some brilliant observations once again. Implementing a more robustparticipatory democracy, as you suggested with the Town Hall Meeting process, would be an excellent first step. Our city council model in Palo Alto undermines any change at truedemocracy. The current council seems more focused on protecting the elite, leaving the rest of us with just crumbs. > Now, how can we prevent "Queen Vicki" from ascending to the throne in January 2026? > Aram > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:> Hi Aram > > Jeanne Fleming, United Neighbors entrepreneur, has a longer term idea, that she shared during a recent visit to Triple Helix Institute: make the Mayor more responsive to the publicand at the same time create a countervailing power to reign in the out of citizen control consultocracy, our de-facto Palo Alto governance modality. > > The consultocracy, firms hired by the city Manager, with nominal Council input, providesnarrow, virtually indistinguishable options, (cf airport, Cubberly). Operating at the behest of permanent city management, long term direction and priorities as well as specific projectdesign are accomplished through a vitiated representative democratic guise (city council). > > Jeanne suggests (presuming it to be in the public domain to reiterate and credit her perspicacity) a more powerful elected Mayor that could be balanced by a yearly townmeeting decision making assembly of voters, aka the New England town meeting. Having Participated in and observed this non representative, all citizen, > Direct democracy format in Nantucket (with its quasi parties, virtually exclusive of summer residents, held in winter); it is nonetheless inspiring and potentially transferable. > > Both ideas would surely give pressing public issues like Gaza cease fire now> And move Palo Alto airport to Moffett field, higher priority. At least that is the hope and intention. Of course there may be other ideas to accomplish the objective of a leaner, moreproductive, government. > > Cheers > Henry Etzkowitz > “Back to the Agora” > 2024 Palo Alto City Council Candidate > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice > Mark your calendar for One October when Elon Musk/Tesla have a date in San JoseSuperior court (civil) judge Monahan has admonished a judgement in default if no show a second time. > Www.triple helix.net {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 225     > > > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Aug 6, 2025, at 8:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: > > Another excellent piece, Henry! The coronation of the gutless “Queen Vicki” for mayor in 2026 seems inevitable. What can we do as a community to push her towards declaring infavor of a ceasefire and finally speaking out on the ongoing genocide happening in real time before the eyes of the world. Even the far-white-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greenehas called the slaughter of Palestinian children a genocide. How can we allow our city leaders to remain silent on this issue without protests and push back. > > Avram “Just Say No To Queen Vicki for Mayor in 2026. “ Finkelstein > > Source: ajc Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks from party by calling Gaza conflict a genocidehttps://share.google/k741qbCv5jWfOMXlY > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > The stellar legitimation of Israel, uniquely democratic among undemocratic states longehas lost face validity. The Knesset and courts have failed to remove Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, hiding in plain sight from international justice.> > > > But failure to follow international rules of justice, although serious, is relatively minorin comparison to virtually uniform active and passive support for a leader who is carrying out a so called “Hannibal policy” against its own citizens, concomitant with steadyescalation to a “Final Solution” in Gaza through food deprivation by withholding nutrition rather than air denial by forced> > gas. > >> > Cease fire Now:flood in food! > >> > Who will be the contemporary Herbert Hoover to accomplish this objective? Given Stanford’s unique history, iconic tower and Institute in his honour, the University shouldspeak out institutionally as Washington University, St Louis did in leading a university- industry coalition to oppose the Vietnam war> > > > In this era and region, Stanford should invite Palo Alto and its Silicon Valley spinoffs tocall with one voice for Gaza cease fire. > >> > Sincerely > >> > Henry Etzkowitz > > 1766 sand Hill Road> > Palo Alto CA 94304 > > 646 701 2695> > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 226     > > 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto city council> > > > www.triplehelix.net WARNING: This message is from an external user. Confidential information such as social security numbers,credit card numbers, bank routing numbers, wire transfer information and other personally identifiableinformation should not be transmitted to this user. For question, please contact the Morgan Hill ITDepartment by opening a new helpdesk request online or call 408-909-0055. Disclaimer The information contained in this communication from the sender is confidential. It is intended solely for useby the recipient and others authorized to receive it. If you are not the recipient, you are hereby notified thatany disclosure, copying, distribution or taking action in relation of the contents of this information is strictlyprohibited and may be unlawful. This email has been scanned for viruses and malware, and may have been automatically archived byMimecast, a leader in email security and cyber resilience. Mimecast integrates email defenses with brandprotection, security awareness training, web security, compliance and other essential capabilities. Mimecasthelps protect large and small organizations from malicious activity, human error and technology failure; andto lead the movement toward building a more resilient world. To find out more, visit our website. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 227     From:Don Austin To:Palo Alto Daily Post Cc:Salem Ajluni; Aram James; h.etzko@gmail.com; Firoozeh Dastmalchi; Trudy Willis; Charles Spanhook; Chunyan Zhou; Brian Good; Office of the Provost; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Avroh Shah; Mariza Almeida; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Ellen Fox; Council, City; Gerry Gras; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Emily Mibach; Today EPA; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner; Doug Minkler; Gennady Sheyner; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Burt, Patrick; Veenker, Vicki; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Linda Jolley; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Miguel Rodriguez; Damon Silver; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Daniel Barton; Pat M; Dana St. George; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin Subject:Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Date:Thursday, August 7, 2025 5:27:12 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i I can also be removed. On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 3:50 PM Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> wrote:Hello, This email was delivered to me in error. Please take me off that list. Dave Price > On Aug 6, 2025, at 7:03 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: > > An even better solution to the insularity and intentional distancing from constituents practiced by nearly all local government (not to mention state and federal government) is tomake the key "permanent bureaucracy" positions—especially the City Manager—elected positions.> > While we're at it, let's make the Chief of Police an elected position as is the case in theCity of Santa Clara--the only municipality in California (and perhaps the U.S.) where this is the case.> > Santa Clara also has an elected City Clerk, though not an elected City Manager--at leastnot yet. Palo Alto has no elected Police Chief and no elected City Clerk, these being appointed by the Council like the City Manager.> This message needs your attention This is their first mail to some recipients. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 228     > Salem > From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> > Sent: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:49 PM> To: Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com> > Cc: Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis<trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost<provost@stanford.edu>; Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; MarizaAlmeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council<city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>;Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA<epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org<cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; EdLauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org<George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>;Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations<BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net<jessica@speiser.net>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>;josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>;CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org<michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Salem Ajluni<ajluni@hotmail.com>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach<cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>;Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>;craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org<craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association<info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan<mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human RelationsCommission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>;Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>;citycouncil@mountainview.gov<citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 229     <jzalkin@gmail.com>> Subject: Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure > Hi Henry, > You've made some brilliant observations once again. Implementing a more robust participatory democracy, as you suggested with the Town Hall Meeting process, would bean excellent first step. Our city council model in Palo Alto undermines any change at true democracy. The current council seems more focused on protecting the elite, leaving the restof us with just crumbs. > Now, how can we prevent "Queen Vicki" from ascending to the throne in January 2026? > Aram > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Aram> > Jeanne Fleming, United Neighbors entrepreneur, has a longer term idea, that she sharedduring a recent visit to Triple Helix Institute: make the Mayor more responsive to the public and at the same time create a countervailing power to reign in the out of citizen controlconsultocracy, our de-facto Palo Alto governance modality. > > The consultocracy, firms hired by the city Manager, with nominal Council input, provides narrow, virtually indistinguishable options, (cf airport, Cubberly). Operating at the behest ofpermanent city management, long term direction and priorities as well as specific project design are accomplished through a vitiated representative democratic guise (city council).> > Jeanne suggests (presuming it to be in the public domain to reiterate and credit herperspicacity) a more powerful elected Mayor that could be balanced by a yearly town meeting decision making assembly of voters, aka the New England town meeting. HavingParticipated in and observed this non representative, all citizen, > Direct democracy format in Nantucket (with its quasi parties, virtually exclusive ofsummer residents, held in winter); it is nonetheless inspiring and potentially transferable. > > Both ideas would surely give pressing public issues like Gaza cease fire now > And move Palo Alto airport to Moffett field, higher priority. At least that is the hope andintention. Of course there may be other ideas to accomplish the objective of a leaner, more productive, government. > > Cheers > Henry Etzkowitz > “Back to the Agora”> 2024 Palo Alto City Council Candidate > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice > Mark your calendar for One October when Elon Musk/Tesla have a date in San Jose Superior court (civil) judge Monahan has admonished a judgement in default if no show asecond time. > Www.triple helix.net> > > > Sent from my iPhone> {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 230     > On Aug 6, 2025, at 8:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:> > Another excellent piece, Henry! The coronation of the gutless “Queen Vicki” for mayor in2026 seems inevitable. What can we do as a community to push her towards declaring in favor of a ceasefire and finally speaking out on the ongoing genocide happening in real timebefore the eyes of the world. Even the far-white-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has called the slaughter of Palestinian children a genocide. How can we allow our cityleaders to remain silent on this issue without protests and push back. > > Avram “Just Say No To Queen Vicki for Mayor in 2026. “ Finkelstein > > Source: ajc Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks from party by calling Gaza conflict a genocide https://share.google/k741qbCv5jWfOMXlY> > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:> > >> > The stellar legitimation of Israel, uniquely democratic among undemocratic states longe has lost face validity. The Knesset and courts have failed to remove Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, hiding in plain sight from international justice. > >> > But failure to follow international rules of justice, although serious, is relatively minor in comparison to virtually uniform active and passive support for a leader who is carryingout a so called “Hannibal policy” against its own citizens, concomitant with steady escalation to a “Final Solution” in Gaza through food deprivation by withholding nutritionrather than air denial by forced > > gas.> > > > Cease fire Now:flood in food!> > > > Who will be the contemporary Herbert Hoover to accomplish this objective? GivenStanford’s unique history, iconic tower and Institute in his honour, the University should speak out institutionally as Washington University, St Louis did in leading a university-industry coalition to oppose the Vietnam war > >> > In this era and region, Stanford should invite Palo Alto and its Silicon Valley spinoffs to call with one voice for Gaza cease fire. > > > > Sincerely> > > > Henry Etzkowitz> > 1766 sand Hill Road > > Palo Alto CA 94304> > 646 701 2695 > > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice> > 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto city council > >> > www.triplehelix.net {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 231     From:Henry Etzkowitz To:Palo Alto Daily Post Cc:Salem Ajluni; Aram James; Firoozeh Dastmalchi; Trudy Willis; Charles Spanhook; Chunyan Zhou; Brian Good; Office of the Provost; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Avroh Shah; Mariza Almeida; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Ellen Fox; Council, City; Gerry Gras; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Emily Mibach; Today EPA; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner; Doug Minkler; Gennady Sheyner; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Burt, Patrick; Veenker, Vicki; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Linda Jolley; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Miguel Rodriguez; Damon Silver; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Daniel Barton; Pat M; Dana St. George; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin Subject:Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Date:Thursday, August 7, 2025 4:21:23 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. Dear David Presume you are post publisher. Kindly consider “Israel’s…”for publication Best Henry Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 7, 2025, at 3:50 PM, Palo Alto Daily Post <price@padailypost.com> wrote: > > Hello, > > This email was delivered to me in error. Please take me off that list. > > Dave Price > >> On Aug 6, 2025, at 7:03 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: >> >> An even better solution to the insularity and intentional distancing from constituents practiced by nearly all local government (not to mention state and federal government) is tomake the key "permanent bureaucracy" positions—especially the City Manager—elected positions.>> >> While we're at it, let's make the Chief of Police an elected position as is the case in the Cityof Santa Clara--the only municipality in California (and perhaps the U.S.) where this is the case.>> >> Santa Clara also has an elected City Clerk, though not an elected City Manager--at leastnot yet. Palo Alto has no elected Police Chief and no elected City Clerk, these being appointed by the Council like the City Manager.>> >> Salem>> From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> >> Sent: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:49 PM {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 232     >> To: Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>>> Cc: Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou<alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy<emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>;Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto FreePress <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss<lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com<jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler<dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; KeithReckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims<Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>;board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net<jessica@speiser.net>;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner<mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; JamesReifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Don Austin<daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez<miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>;rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org<craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto<wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso,Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M<p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>;city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov<citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin<jzalkin@gmail.com> >> Subject: Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure>> Hi Henry, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 233     >> You've made some brilliant observations once again. Implementing a more robustparticipatory democracy, as you suggested with the Town Hall Meeting process, would be an excellent first step. Our city council model in Palo Alto undermines any change at truedemocracy. The current council seems more focused on protecting the elite, leaving the rest of us with just crumbs. >> Now, how can we prevent "Queen Vicki" from ascending to the throne in January 2026? >> Aram >> >> On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>> Hi Aram >> >> Jeanne Fleming, United Neighbors entrepreneur, has a longer term idea, that she shared during a recent visit to Triple Helix Institute: make the Mayor more responsive to the publicand at the same time create a countervailing power to reign in the out of citizen control consultocracy, our de-facto Palo Alto governance modality. >> >> The consultocracy, firms hired by the city Manager, with nominal Council input, providesnarrow, virtually indistinguishable options, (cf airport, Cubberly). Operating at the behest of permanent city management, long term direction and priorities as well as specific projectdesign are accomplished through a vitiated representative democratic guise (city council). >> >> Jeanne suggests (presuming it to be in the public domain to reiterate and credit her perspicacity) a more powerful elected Mayor that could be balanced by a yearly town meetingdecision making assembly of voters, aka the New England town meeting. Having Participated in and observed this non representative, all citizen,>> Direct democracy format in Nantucket (with its quasi parties, virtually exclusive of summer residents, held in winter); it is nonetheless inspiring and potentially transferable. >> >> Both ideas would surely give pressing public issues like Gaza cease fire now>> And move Palo Alto airport to Moffett field, higher priority. At least that is the hope and intention. Of course there may be other ideas to accomplish the objective of a leaner, moreproductive, government. >> >> Cheers >> Henry Etzkowitz>> “Back to the Agora” >> 2024 Palo Alto City Council Candidate>> Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice >> Mark your calendar for One October when Elon Musk/Tesla have a date in San JoseSuperior court (civil) judge Monahan has admonished a judgement in default if no show a second time.>> Www.triple helix.net >> >> >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On Aug 6, 2025, at 8:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Another excellent piece, Henry! The coronation of the gutless “Queen Vicki” for mayor in {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 234     2026 seems inevitable. What can we do as a community to push her towards declaring in favorof a ceasefire and finally speaking out on the ongoing genocide happening in real time before the eyes of the world. Even the far-white-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has calledthe slaughter of Palestinian children a genocide. How can we allow our city leaders to remain silent on this issue without protests and push back.>> >> Avram “Just Say No To Queen Vicki for Mayor in 2026. “ Finkelstein>> >> Source: ajc Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks from party by calling Gaza conflict a genocidehttps://share.google/k741qbCv5jWfOMXlY >> >>> On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> >>> The stellar legitimation of Israel, uniquely democratic among undemocratic states longehas lost face validity. The Knesset and courts have failed to remove Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, hiding in plain sight from international justice.>>> >>> But failure to follow international rules of justice, although serious, is relatively minor incomparison to virtually uniform active and passive support for a leader who is carrying out a so called “Hannibal policy” against its own citizens, concomitant with steady escalation to a“Final Solution” in Gaza through food deprivation by withholding nutrition rather than air denial by forced>>> gas. >>> >>> Cease fire Now:flood in food! >>> >>> Who will be the contemporary Herbert Hoover to accomplish this objective? Given Stanford’s unique history, iconic tower and Institute in his honour, the University shouldspeak out institutionally as Washington University, St Louis did in leading a university- industry coalition to oppose the Vietnam war>>> >>> In this era and region, Stanford should invite Palo Alto and its Silicon Valley spinoffs tocall with one voice for Gaza cease fire. >>> >>> Sincerely >>> >>> Henry Etzkowitz >>> 1766 sand Hill Road>>> Palo Alto CA 94304 >>> 646 701 2695>>> Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice >>> 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto city council>>> >>> www.triplehelix.net> > {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 235     From:Palo Alto Daily Post To:Salem Ajluni Cc:Aram James; h.etzko@gmail.com; Firoozeh Dastmalchi; Trudy Willis; Charles Spanhook; Chunyan Zhou; Brian Good; Office of the Provost; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Avroh Shah; Mariza Almeida; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Ellen Fox; Council, City; Gerry Gras; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Emily Mibach; Today EPA; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner; Doug Minkler; Gennady Sheyner; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Lythcott- Haims, Julie; Burt, Patrick; Veenker, Vicki; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Linda Jolley; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Miguel Rodriguez; Damon Silver; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Daniel Barton; Pat M; Dana St. George; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin Subject:Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Date:Thursday, August 7, 2025 3:50:22 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. Hello, This email was delivered to me in error. Please take me off that list. Dave Price > On Aug 6, 2025, at 7:03 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: > > An even better solution to the insularity and intentional distancing from constituents practiced by nearly all local government (not to mention state and federal government) is tomake the key "permanent bureaucracy" positions—especially the City Manager—elected positions.> > While we're at it, let's make the Chief of Police an elected position as is the case in the Cityof Santa Clara--the only municipality in California (and perhaps the U.S.) where this is the case.> > Santa Clara also has an elected City Clerk, though not an elected City Manager--at least notyet. Palo Alto has no elected Police Chief and no elected City Clerk, these being appointed by the Council like the City Manager.> > Salem > From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> > Sent: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:49 PM> To: Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com> > Cc: Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis<trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost<provost@stanford.edu>; Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; MarizaAlmeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council<city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 236     Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss<lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com<jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler<dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; KeithReckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims<Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>;board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net<jessica@speiser.net>;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner<mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; JamesReifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Don Austin<daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez<miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>;rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org<craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto<wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso,Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M<p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>;city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov<citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin<jzalkin@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure> Hi Henry, > You've made some brilliant observations once again. Implementing a more robustparticipatory democracy, as you suggested with the Town Hall Meeting process, would be an excellent first step. Our city council model in Palo Alto undermines any change at truedemocracy. The current council seems more focused on protecting the elite, leaving the rest of us with just crumbs. > Now, how can we prevent "Queen Vicki" from ascending to the throne in January 2026? > Aram > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:> Hi Aram {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 237     > > Jeanne Fleming, United Neighbors entrepreneur, has a longer term idea, that she shared during a recent visit to Triple Helix Institute: make the Mayor more responsive to the publicand at the same time create a countervailing power to reign in the out of citizen control consultocracy, our de-facto Palo Alto governance modality. > > The consultocracy, firms hired by the city Manager, with nominal Council input, providesnarrow, virtually indistinguishable options, (cf airport, Cubberly). Operating at the behest of permanent city management, long term direction and priorities as well as specific projectdesign are accomplished through a vitiated representative democratic guise (city council). > > Jeanne suggests (presuming it to be in the public domain to reiterate and credit her perspicacity) a more powerful elected Mayor that could be balanced by a yearly town meetingdecision making assembly of voters, aka the New England town meeting. Having Participated in and observed this non representative, all citizen, > Direct democracy format in Nantucket (with its quasi parties, virtually exclusive of summer residents, held in winter); it is nonetheless inspiring and potentially transferable. > > Both ideas would surely give pressing public issues like Gaza cease fire now> And move Palo Alto airport to Moffett field, higher priority. At least that is the hope and intention. Of course there may be other ideas to accomplish the objective of a leaner, moreproductive, government. > > Cheers > Henry Etzkowitz > “Back to the Agora” > 2024 Palo Alto City Council Candidate > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice > Mark your calendar for One October when Elon Musk/Tesla have a date in San JoseSuperior court (civil) judge Monahan has admonished a judgement in default if no show a second time. > Www.triple helix.net > > > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Aug 6, 2025, at 8:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: > > Another excellent piece, Henry! The coronation of the gutless “Queen Vicki” for mayor in 2026 seems inevitable. What can we do as a community to push her towards declaring in favorof a ceasefire and finally speaking out on the ongoing genocide happening in real time before the eyes of the world. Even the far-white-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has calledthe slaughter of Palestinian children a genocide. How can we allow our city leaders to remain silent on this issue without protests and push back. > > Avram “Just Say No To Queen Vicki for Mayor in 2026. “ Finkelstein > > Source: ajc Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks from party by calling Gaza conflict a genocidehttps://share.google/k741qbCv5jWfOMXlY {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 238     > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > The stellar legitimation of Israel, uniquely democratic among undemocratic states longehas lost face validity. The Knesset and courts have failed to remove Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, hiding in plain sight from international justice.> > > > But failure to follow international rules of justice, although serious, is relatively minor incomparison to virtually uniform active and passive support for a leader who is carrying out a so called “Hannibal policy” against its own citizens, concomitant with steady escalation to a“Final Solution” in Gaza through food deprivation by withholding nutrition rather than air denial by forced> > gas. > >> > Cease fire Now:flood in food! > >> > Who will be the contemporary Herbert Hoover to accomplish this objective? Given Stanford’s unique history, iconic tower and Institute in his honour, the University shouldspeak out institutionally as Washington University, St Louis did in leading a university- industry coalition to oppose the Vietnam war> > > > In this era and region, Stanford should invite Palo Alto and its Silicon Valley spinoffs tocall with one voice for Gaza cease fire. > >> > Sincerely > >> > Henry Etzkowitz > > 1766 sand Hill Road> > Palo Alto CA 94304 > > 646 701 2695> > Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice > > 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto city council> > > > www.triplehelix.net {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 239     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com; Sean Allen; Yusra Hussain; Doug Minkler; Emily Mibach; Gennady Sheyner; Palo Alto FreePress; Donna Wallach; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District23; board@pausd.org; Yolanda Conaway; Don Austin; Dana St. George; Gerry Gras;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Cribbs, Anne;planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Human Relations Commission; Damon Silver;Rodriguez, Miguel; Pat M; james pitkin; Mark Turner; city.council@menlopark.gov; CityCouncil;<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Binder, Andrew; Justin Zalkin; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing;editor@almanacnews.com; editor@paweekly.com; Tom DuBois; EPA Today; bos@smcgov.org;board@valleywater.org; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; BillNewell; Raymond Goins; Gardener, Liz; Lotus Fong; Rose Lynn; Rowena Chiu Cc:Council, City; Office of the Provost; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Carol Kiparsky; Roberta Ahlquist; Brian Good; Dave Price; Vicki Veenker; Josh Becker; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen Subject:Re: immoral or Amoral United front? Date:Thursday, August 7, 2025 11:58:29 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Henry, You say things so poetically!! Me more like a bull dog or sledge hammer than a poet!! Avram “End The Genocide Now!! Finkelstein On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: Correct Julie charter member Council “wall of silence” Incumbents persisting will be too shamed and ashamed to seek reelection Sent from my iPhone On Aug 7, 2025, at 10:02 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:  FYI: Brian—here is an exchange you may have missed. Was sent to most of theusual suspects. On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:58 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: My dear brave friend Henry, Julie came closest to breaking the silence, but to my knowledge, she hasNEVER demanded of her colleagues that a ceasefire resolution be placed on the council agenda for a robust public discussion and a subsequent vote.Similarly, unless I missed it, Julie has NEVER called out or spoken from the dais: "End the Genocide Now!" As MLK said: “The time is always right to do what is right.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 240     Sleep well my friend, Aram P.S. Julie, if my recollection is wrong, I invite you to correct the record. On Wed, Aug 6, 2025, at 10:20 PM, Henry Etzkowitz wrote:dear Aram Upon reflection, agree with your assessment. Despite minor differences inprogressiveness on other issues; there is an implacable wall on Gaza ceaseFire when implored in succession, there was not a flicker of sympathy fromthe impassive diased. Sadly,Henry Ps Marjorie Taylor Green is now cited as moral political role modelSent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 241     From:Raj Jayadev To:Aram James Cc:Sean Allen; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; Dave Price; David Piper; Rodriguez, Miguel; Damon Silver; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Supervisor Otto Lee; Bill Newell; Raymond Goins; Emily Mibach; Jay Boyarsky; BoardOperations; Human Relations Commission; Gerry Gras; Gardener, Liz; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Dana St. George; Gennady Sheyner; EPA Today; Pat M; Seher Awan; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Kaloma Smith; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Angel, David; Michael Ybarra; Baker, Rob; Robert Salonga; mike braxton; Braden Cartwright Subject:Re: Who Answers for a Death in Custody? Date:Thursday, August 7, 2025 9:51:21 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. ! Thanks for sending this out Aram. Yes SV De-Bug trained organizations in Houston - from the invitation of the public defender in Harris County - in participatory defense. ReverendGriffin, who is featured in the Marshall Project piece, now leads a participatory defense hub through here church there. She has been a remarkable leader in the memory of her son - andthey have been an inspiring movement for urgently needed accountability. On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 8:18 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 7:41 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Of the 72 people listed as having died in the Harris County jail during that four-year period, most entries contained little more than “pending autopsy results.” and advising Houston’s public defender office on how to better supportfamilies after in-custody deaths. Joining forces with other grieving families, she has garnered significant local media coverage. Who Answers for a Death in Custody? | The Marshall Project https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/06/harris-county-jail-death-evan-lee-jacilet-griffin -- Raj Jayadev Silicon Valley De-Bug // National Participatory Defense Networkwww.siliconvalleydebug.com // www.participatorydefense.org 408.971.4965 This message could be suspicious The sender's email address couldn't be verified. This is their first email to your company. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 242     From:Aram James To:Sean Allen; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; DavePrice; David Piper; Rodriguez, Miguel; Damon Silver; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Supervisor Otto Lee; Bill Newell;Raymond Goins; Emily Mibach; Jay Boyarsky; BoardOperations; Raj Jayadev; Human Relations Commission;Gerry Gras; Gardener, Liz; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Dana St. George; Gennady Sheyner; EPA Today;Pat M; Seher Awan; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Kaloma Smith; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Angel,David; Michael Ybarra; Baker, Rob; Robert Salonga; mike braxton; Braden Cartwright Subject:Re: Who Answers for a Death in Custody? Date:Thursday, August 7, 2025 8:19:04 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 7:41 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Of the 72 people listed as having died in the Harris County jail during that four-year period, most entries contained little more than “pending autopsy results.” and advising Houston’s public defender office on how to better supportfamilies after in-custody deaths. Joining forces with other grieving families, she has garnered significant local media coverage. Who Answers for a Death in Custody? | The Marshall Projecthttps://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/06/harris-county-jail-death-evan-lee-jacilet- griffin {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 243     From:Aram James To:Sean Allen; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; DavePrice; David Piper; Rodriguez, Miguel; Damon Silver; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Supervisor Otto Lee; Bill Newell;Raymond Goins; Carina Merrick; Emily Mibach; Jay Boyarsky; BoardOperations; Raj Jayadev; Human RelationsCommission; Gerry Gras; Gardener, Liz; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Dana St. George; Gennady Sheyner;EPA Today; Pat M; Seher Awan; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Kaloma Smith Subject:Who Answers for a Death in Custody? Date:Thursday, August 7, 2025 7:41:30 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Of the 72 people listed as having died in the Harris County jail during that four-year period, most entries contained little more than “pending autopsy results.” and advising Houston’s public defender office on how to better supportfamilies after in-custody deaths. Joining forces with other grieving families, she has garnered significant local media coverage. Who Answers for a Death in Custody? | The Marshall Project https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/06/harris-county-jail-death-evan-lee-jacilet-griffin {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 244     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com; Donna Wallach; Salem Ajluni; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; GennadySheyner; Diana Diamond; EPA Today; DuJuan Green; Tom DuBois; Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew;citycouncil@mountainview.gov; GRP-City Council; city.council@menlopark.gov; Patrice Ventresca;Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Palo Alto Free Press; Lotus Fong; LoriMeyers; Sheree Roth; Bill Newell; Zelkha, Mila; Zahra Billoo; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky Cc:Council, City; Office of the Provost; Justin Zalkin; Jim Hersh; Arthur Millman; Jeanne Fleming; Hannah Lu; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Roberta Ahlquist; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Sean Allen; Pat M; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Yolanda Conaway; Yusra Hussain; Doug Minkler; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Raymond Goins; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Kaloma Smith; Human Relations Commission Subject:Re: immoral or Amoral United front? Date:Wednesday, August 6, 2025 10:58:36 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. My dear brave friend Henry, Julie came closest to breaking the silence, but to my knowledge, she has NEVER demanded ofher colleagues that a ceasefire resolution be placed on the council agenda for a robust public discussion and a subsequent vote. Similarly, unless I missed it, Julie has NEVER called out orspoken from the dais: "End the Genocide Now!" As MLK said: “The time is always right to do what is right.” Sleep well my friend, Aram P.S. Julie, if my recollection is wrong, I invite you to correct the record. On Wed, Aug 6, 2025, at 10:20 PM, Henry Etzkowitz wrote:dear Aram Upon reflection, agree with your assessment. Despite minor differences in progressivenesson other issues; there is an implacable wall on Gaza cease Fire when implored insuccession, there was not a flicker of sympathy from the impassive diased. Sadly,Henry Ps Marjorie Taylor Green is now cited as moral political role modelSent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 245     From:Aram JamesTo:Salem Ajluni Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Firoozeh Dastmalchi; Trudy Willis; Charles Spanhook; Chunyan Zhou; Brian Good; Office of the Provost; Dave Price; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Avroh Shah; Mariza Almeida;Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Ellen Fox; Council, City; Gerry Gras; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Emily Mibach; Today EPA;jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner; Doug Minkler; Gennady Sheyner; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie;Burt, Patrick; Veenker, Vicki; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Mark Turner;Binder, Andrew; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Linda Jolley; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; MiguelRodriguez; Damon Silver; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Officeof Mayor Matt Mahan; Daniel Barton; Pat M; Dana St. George; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin;city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin; Angel, David; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Baker, Rob; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Roberta Ahlquist;Figueroa, Eric; Michelle Bigelow; Michael Pati Subject:Re: Israel’s democracy risks failureDate:Wednesday, August 6, 2025 6:41:23 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Salem, Points well taken. Palo Alto’s current police chief was appointed by a non-elected city manager by the name of Ed Shikada. The police chief is ahypocritical fellow named Andrew Binder who claims to be all in for community policing but lives an hour a way from Palo Alto in Morgan Hill. Thisfact was never disclosed to the Palo Alto community at the time Binder was appointed by City Manager Shikada to be our next police chief. At the timethe appointment process was going on in the summer of 2022 I was was interviewed by former Palo Alto City Council member Greg Tanaka on the nondemocractic police chief hiring process. aram james on elected police chief police chief - Google Searchhttps://www.google.com/gasearch? q=aram%20james%20on%20elected%20police%20chief%20police%20chief&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:e89ef260,vid:mdW0CcwU660, BTW: I'm advised that currently the police chief in each city in Santa Clara County, except those cities that rely on the Sherrif’s department for policing,except one, is a white male. In fact the current interim police chief of the town of Giroy is Palo Alto’s police chief’s brother Ken Binder. Ken Binderretired fromSanta Clara County Sheriff’s Department after several decades with the department in June of 2025. So much for diversity in the leadership of law enforcement in Santa Clara County. As an aside, all counties in California have an elected District Attorneys. In contrast, only one county, San Francisco, has an elected public defender.Years ago I was part of a movement to elect the public defender in Santa Clara County the pushback by entrenched political interests was enormous andour effort failed. Why should we have an elected public defender you ask? An AI search provided a better answer, more complete answer, than I can give: AI Overview +4 Having an elected public defender is critical because it enhances the political power of the office, making it easier to advocate for indigent defense issues and bring them into the public discourse. Elected officials, including public defenders, have a greater ability to influence policy and funding decisions related to indigent defense. This can lead to improved resources and representation for those who cannot afford legal counsel. Here's why this matters: Increased Political Influence: Elected public defenders can leverage their position to lobby for better funding, resources, and policy changes within the criminal justice system. Public Awareness: The election process itself can raise public awareness about the challenges faced by indigent defendants and the importance of a robust public defense system. Accountability: Elected officials are directly accountable to the voters, which can incentivize them to address the needs of their constituents, including those who rely on public defenders. Checks and Balances: Having an elected public defender can create a healthy balance of power between the prosecution and the defense, ensuring a more equitable justice system. Constitutional Rights: Public defense systems are essential for upholding the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of the right to counsel for those accused of crimes. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 246     My shorter answer would be that it is hard to imagine the Founding Fathers accepting the idea that the District Attorney of each county, who isresponsible for filing charges against community members, would be elected and directly accountable to the people. Meanwhile, the Chief PublicDefender of each county, tasked with ensuring a vigorous and constitutionally appropriate defense for every client, would be appointed by a local boardof supervisors, who could hire or fire the public defender at their discretion. Aram On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 4:03 PM Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: An even better solution to the insularity and intentional distancing from constituents practiced by nearly all local government (not to mention state and federal government) is to make the key "permanent bureaucracy" positions —especially the City Manager—elected positions. While we're at it, let's make the Chief of Police an elected position as is the case in the City of Santa Clara--the only municipality in California (and perhaps the U.S.) where this is the case. Santa Clara also has an elected City Clerk, though not an elected City Manager--at least not yet. Palo Alto has no elected Police Chief and no elected City Clerk, these being appointed by the Council like the City Manager. Salem From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:49 PM To: Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com> Cc: Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org <board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net <jessica@speiser.net>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov <assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Hi Henry, You've made some brilliant observations once again. Implementing a more robust participatory democracy, as you suggested with theTown Hall Meeting process, would be an excellent first step. Our city council model in Palo Alto undermines any change at truedemocracy. The current council seems more focused on protecting the elite, leaving the rest of us with just crumbs. Now, how can we prevent "Queen Vicki" from ascending to the throne in January 2026? Aram On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 247     Hi Aram Jeanne Fleming, United Neighbors entrepreneur, has a longer term idea, that she shared during a recent visit to Triple Helix Institute: make theMayor more responsive to the public and at the same time create a countervailing power to reign in the out of citizen control consultocracy, our de-facto Palo Alto governance modality. The consultocracy, firms hired by the city Manager, with nominal Council input, provides narrow, virtually indistinguishable options, (cf airport,Cubberly). Operating at the behest of permanent city management, long term direction and priorities as well as specific project design areaccomplished through a vitiated representative democratic guise (city council). Jeanne suggests (presuming it to be in the public domain to reiterate and credit her perspicacity) a more powerful elected Mayor that could bebalanced by a yearly town meeting decision making assembly of voters, aka the New England town meeting. Having Participated in and observedthis non representative, all citizen, Direct democracy format in Nantucket (with its quasi parties, virtually exclusive of summer residents, held in winter); it is nonetheless inspiring andpotentially transferable. Both ideas would surely give pressing public issues like Gaza cease fire nowAnd move Palo Alto airport to Moffett field, higher priority. At least that is the hope and intention. Of course there may be other ideas toaccomplish the objective of a leaner, more productive, government. Cheers Henry Etzkowitz “Back to the Agora”2024 Palo Alto City Council Candidate Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice Mark your calendar for One October when Elon Musk/Tesla have a date in San Jose Superior court (civil) judge Monahan has admonished ajudgement in default if no show a second time. Www.triple helix.net Sent from my iPhone On Aug 6, 2025, at 8:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Another excellent piece, Henry! The coronation of the gutless “Queen Vicki” for mayor in 2026 seems inevitable. What can we do as acommunity to push her towards declaring in favor of a ceasefire and finally speaking out on the ongoing genocide happening in realtime before the eyes of the world. Even the far-white-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has called the slaughter of Palestinianchildren a genocide. How can we allow our city leaders to remain silent on this issue without protests and push back. Avram “Just Say No To Queen Vicki for Mayor in 2026. “ Finkelstein Source: ajc Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks from party by calling Gaza conflict a genocidehttps://share.google/k741qbCv5jWfOMXlY On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >> The stellar legitimation of Israel, uniquely democratic among undemocratic states longe has lost face validity. The Knesset andcourts have failed to remove Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, hiding in plain sight from international justice.>> But failure to follow international rules of justice, although serious, is relatively minor in comparison to virtually uniform activeand passive support for a leader who is carrying out a so called “Hannibal policy” against its own citizens, concomitant with steadyescalation to a “Final Solution” in Gaza through food deprivation by withholding nutrition rather than air denial by forced> gas.>> Cease fire Now:flood in food!>> Who will be the contemporary Herbert Hoover to accomplish this objective? Given Stanford’s unique history, iconic tower andInstitute in his honour, the University should speak out institutionally as Washington University, St Louis did in leading a university-industry coalition to oppose the Vietnam war>> In this era and region, Stanford should invite Palo Alto and its Silicon Valley spinoffs to call with one voice for Gaza cease fire. >> Sincerely>> Henry Etzkowitz> 1766 sand Hill Road> Palo Alto CA 94304> 646 701 2695> Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice> 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto city council>> www.triplehelix.net {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 248     From:Salem Ajluni To:Aram James; h.etzko@gmail.com Cc:Firoozeh Dastmalchi; Trudy Willis; Charles Spanhook; Chunyan Zhou; Brian Good; Office of the Provost; Dave Price; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Avroh Shah; Mariza Almeida; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Ellen Fox; Council, City; Gerry Gras; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Emily Mibach; Today EPA; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner; Doug Minkler; Gennady Sheyner; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Burt, Patrick; Veenker, Vicki; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Linda Jolley; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Miguel Rodriguez; Damon Silver; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Daniel Barton; Pat M; Dana St. George; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin Subject:Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Date:Wednesday, August 6, 2025 4:04:00 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i An even better solution to the insularity and intentional distancing from constituents practiced by nearly all local government (not to mention state and federal government) is to make the key "permanent bureaucracy" positions—especially the City Manager—elected positions. While we're at it, let's make the Chief of Police an elected position as is the case in the City of Santa Clara--the only municipality in California (and perhaps the U.S.) where this is the case. Santa Clara also has an elected City Clerk, though not an elected City Manager--at least not yet. Palo Alto has no elected Police Chief and no elected City Clerk, these being appointed by the Council like the City Manager. Salem This message needs your attention Some Recipients have never replied to this person. This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 249     From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:49 PM To: Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com> Cc: Firoozeh Dastmalchi <firoozehdh@gmail.com>; Trudy Willis <trudysw@sbcglobal.net>; Charles Spanhook <cspanhook@gmail.com>; Chunyan Zhou <alice1082@hotmail.com>; Brian Good <snug.bug@hotmail.com>; Office of the Provost <provost@stanford.edu>; Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>; Roseline Rasolovoahangy <emma-roseline@stanfordalumni.org>; Avroh Shah <avrohshah@gmail.com>; Mariza Almeida <mariza.almeida@unirio.br>; Rebecca Eisenberg <rebecca@rebecca4water.com>; Hannah Lu <hannahlu00@gmail.com>; Ellen Fox <ellenfox787@gmail.com>; City Council <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>; Today EPA <epatoday@epatoday.org>; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>; Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>; Ed Shikada <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org <George.Lu@cityofpaloalto.org>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patrick Burt <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki Veenker <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; board@valleywater.org <board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; jessica@speiser.net <jessica@speiser.net>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov <assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; josh@joshsalcman.com <josh@joshsalcman.com>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; Andrew Binder <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; James Reifschneider <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Miguel Rodriguez <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Geoffrey Blackshire <geo.blackshire@paloalto.gov>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Anne Cribbs <acribbs@basoc.org>; Anna Griffin {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 250     <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Hi Henry, You've made some brilliant observations once again. Implementing a more robust participatory democracy, as you suggested with the Town Hall Meeting process, would be an excellent first step. Our city council model in Palo Alto undermines any change at true democracy. The current council seems more focused on protecting the elite, leaving the rest of us with just crumbs. Now, how can we prevent "Queen Vicki" from ascending to the throne in January 2026? Aram On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Aram Jeanne Fleming, United Neighbors entrepreneur, has a longer term idea, that she sharedduring a recent visit to Triple Helix Institute: make the Mayor more responsive to the publicand at the same time create a countervailing power to reign in the out of citizen controlconsultocracy, our de-facto Palo Alto governance modality. The consultocracy, firms hired by the city Manager, with nominal Council input, providesnarrow, virtually indistinguishable options, (cf airport, Cubberly). Operating at the behest ofpermanent city management, long term direction and priorities as well as specific projectdesign are accomplished through a vitiated representative democratic guise (city council). Jeanne suggests (presuming it to be in the public domain to reiterate and credit herperspicacity) a more powerful elected Mayor that could be balanced by a yearly townmeeting decision making assembly of voters, aka the New England town meeting. HavingParticipated in and observed this non representative, all citizen, Direct democracy format in Nantucket (with its quasi parties, virtually exclusive of summerresidents, held in winter); it is nonetheless inspiring and potentially transferable. Both ideas would surely give pressing public issues like Gaza cease fire nowAnd move Palo Alto airport to Moffett field, higher priority. At least that is the hope andintention. Of course there may be other ideas to accomplish the objective of a leaner, moreproductive, government. Cheers Henry Etzkowitz “Back to the Agora” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 251     2024 Palo Alto City Council Candidate Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice Mark your calendar for One October when Elon Musk/Tesla have a date in San JoseSuperior court (civil) judge Monahan has admonished a judgement in default if no show a second time. Www.triple helix.net Sent from my iPhone On Aug 6, 2025, at 8:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Another excellent piece, Henry! The coronation of the gutless “Queen Vicki”for mayor in 2026 seems inevitable. What can we do as a community to push her towards declaring in favor of a ceasefire and finally speaking out on theongoing genocide happening in real time before the eyes of the world. Even the far-white-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has called the slaughter ofPalestinian children a genocide. How can we allow our city leaders to remain silent on this issue without protests and push back. Avram “Just Say No To Queen Vicki for Mayor in 2026. “ Finkelstein Source: ajc Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks from party by calling Gaza conflict a genocide https://share.google/k741qbCv5jWfOMXlY On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>wrote: >> The stellar legitimation of Israel, uniquely democratic among undemocraticstates longe has lost face validity. The Knesset and courts have failed toremove Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, hiding in plain sight frominternational justice.>> But failure to follow international rules of justice, although serious, isrelatively minor in comparison to virtually uniform active and passivesupport for a leader who is carrying out a so called “Hannibal policy” againstits own citizens, concomitant with steady escalation to a “Final Solution” inGaza through food deprivation by withholding nutrition rather than air denialby forced> gas.>> Cease fire Now:flood in food!>> Who will be the contemporary Herbert Hoover to accomplish this {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 252     objective? Given Stanford’s unique history, iconic tower and Institute in hishonour, the University should speak out institutionally as WashingtonUniversity, St Louis did in leading a university-industry coalition to opposethe Vietnam war>> In this era and region, Stanford should invite Palo Alto and its SiliconValley spinoffs to call with one voice for Gaza cease fire. >> Sincerely>> Henry Etzkowitz> 1766 sand Hill Road> Palo Alto CA 94304> 646 701 2695> Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice> 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto city council>> www.triplehelix.net {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 253     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com Cc:Firoozeh Dastmalchi; Trudy Willis; Charles Spanhook; Chunyan Zhou; Brian Good; Office of the Provost; Dave Price; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; Avroh Shah; Mariza Almeida; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Ellen Fox; Council, City; Gerry Gras; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Emily Mibach; Today EPA; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; cromero@cityofepa.org; Gennady Sheyner; Doug Minkler; Gennady Sheyner; Lauing, Ed; Shikada, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Burt, Patrick; Veenker, Vicki; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; jessica@speiser.net; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; josh@joshsalcman.com; Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew; CityCouncil; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Foley, Michael; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Salem Ajluni; Linda Jolley; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Miguel Rodriguez; Damon Silver; Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Daniel Barton; Pat M; Dana St. George; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Justin Zalkin Subject:Re: Israel’s democracy risks failure Date:Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:50:11 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Henry, You've made some brilliant observations once again. Implementing a more robust participatory democracy, as you suggested with the Town Hall Meeting process, would be an excellent first step. Our city council model in Palo Alto undermines any change at true democracy. The current council seems more focused on protecting the elite, leaving the rest of us with just crumbs. Now, how can we prevent "Queen Vicki" from ascending to the throne in January 2026? Aram On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Aram Jeanne Fleming, United Neighbors entrepreneur, has a longer term idea, that she sharedduring a recent visit to Triple Helix Institute: make the Mayor more responsive to the publicand at the same time create a countervailing power to reign in the out of citizen controlconsultocracy, our de-facto Palo Alto governance modality. The consultocracy, firms hired by the city Manager, with nominal Council input, providesnarrow, virtually indistinguishable options, (cf airport, Cubberly). Operating at the behest ofpermanent city management, long term direction and priorities as well as specific projectdesign are accomplished through a vitiated representative democratic guise (city council). Jeanne suggests (presuming it to be in the public domain to reiterate and credit herperspicacity) a more powerful elected Mayor that could be balanced by a yearly townmeeting decision making assembly of voters, aka the New England town meeting. Having {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 254     Participated in and observed this non representative, all citizen, Direct democracy format in Nantucket (with its quasi parties, virtually exclusive of summer residents, held in winter); it is nonetheless inspiring and potentially transferable. Both ideas would surely give pressing public issues like Gaza cease fire nowAnd move Palo Alto airport to Moffett field, higher priority. At least that is the hope and intention. Of course there may be other ideas to accomplish the objective of a leaner, moreproductive, government. Cheers Henry Etzkowitz “Back to the Agora” 2024 Palo Alto City Council Candidate Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice Mark your calendar for One October when Elon Musk/Tesla have a date in San JoseSuperior court (civil) judge Monahan has admonished a judgement in default if no show a second time. Www.triple helix.net Sent from my iPhone On Aug 6, 2025, at 8:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Another excellent piece, Henry! The coronation of the gutless “Queen Vicki”for mayor in 2026 seems inevitable. What can we do as a community to push her towards declaring in favor of a ceasefire and finally speaking out on theongoing genocide happening in real time before the eyes of the world. Even the far-white-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has called the slaughter ofPalestinian children a genocide. How can we allow our city leaders to remain silent on this issue without protests and push back. Avram “Just Say No To Queen Vicki for Mayor in 2026. “ Finkelstein Source: ajc Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks from party by calling Gaza conflict a genocide https://share.google/k741qbCv5jWfOMXlY On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:54 AM Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com>wrote: > > The stellar legitimation of Israel, uniquely democratic among undemocraticstates longe has lost face validity. The Knesset and courts have failed toremove Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, hiding in plain sight frominternational justice. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 255     > > But failure to follow international rules of justice, although serious, isrelatively minor in comparison to virtually uniform active and passivesupport for a leader who is carrying out a so called “Hannibal policy” againstits own citizens, concomitant with steady escalation to a “Final Solution” inGaza through food deprivation by withholding nutrition rather than air denialby forced> gas.> > Cease fire Now:flood in food!> > Who will be the contemporary Herbert Hoover to accomplish thisobjective? Given Stanford’s unique history, iconic tower and Institute in hishonour, the University should speak out institutionally as WashingtonUniversity, St Louis did in leading a university-industry coalition to opposethe Vietnam war> > In this era and region, Stanford should invite Palo Alto and its SiliconValley spinoffs to call with one voice for Gaza cease fire. > > Sincerely> > Henry Etzkowitz> 1766 sand Hill Road> Palo Alto CA 94304> 646 701 2695> Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice> 2024 Candidate for Palo Alto city council> > www.triplehelix.net {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 256     From:Aram James To:Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Shikada, Ed; Lauing, Ed; Council, City; Human Relations Commission; Greg Tanaka; Lait,Jonathan; Stump, Molly; Perron, Zachary; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; roberta ahlquist; Dave Price;Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Gennady Sheyner; Diana Diamond; h.etzko@gmail.com; Gardener, Liz; LizKniss; EPA Today; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; San José Spotlight; SandyPerry-HCA; Linda Jolley; BoardOperations; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan;District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; Palo AltoFree Press; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Yolanda Conaway; Don Austin; Afanasiev, Alex; Barberini, Christopher;Enberg, Nicholas; Lee, Craig; Gerry Gras; Raymond Goins; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Holman,Karen (external); Tom DuBois; Burt, Patrick; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara;board@pausd.org; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; editor@paweekly.com; Palo Alto Weekly Subject:Residents claim San Jose homeless housing site unsafe, unhealthy Date:Wednesday, August 6, 2025 11:24:05 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Will the city of Palo Alto face similar problems with their Homekey project? Is our city staff and city council sufficiently overseeing the Palo Alto project to ensurethat our project will not be the lastest in a series of building boondoggles ( like our so- called Public Safety Building) ? Source: San José Spotlight Palo Alto feuds with contractor over public safety building - San José Spotlight https://share.google/8NyzMtDc8tL2gkI9R Homekey Palo Alto is a new modular interim housing shelter with the capacity to serve over 200 individuals annually with on-site support services. The project is being codeveloped by the City of Palo Alto and LifeMoves. Located at 1237 San Antonio Road in Palo Alto near the Palo Alto Baylands, Residents claim San Jose homeless housing site unsafe, unhealthy - San José Spotlighthttps://sanjosespotlight.com/residents-claim-san-jose-homeless-housing-site-unsafe-unhealthy/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 257     From:Aram James To:Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew; Council, City; Perron, Zachary; CityCouncil; Sean Allen; Gerry Gras; Gardener, Liz;Vicki Veenker; Daniel Kottke; Reckdahl, Keith; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California DemocraticDelegate, Assembly District 23; Josh Becker; GRP-City Council; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; board@pausd.org;board@valleywater.org; Bill Newell; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Palo Alto Renters" Association;Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; Human Relations Commission; Zelkha, Mila; h.etzko@gmail.com; Palo AltoFree Press; Lotus Fong; Liz Kniss; EPA Today; Emily Mibach Subject:Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What"s Happening In Gaza A "Genocide" Date:Monday, August 4, 2025 8:08:49 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Vicki, Check this out! Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now The First GOP Congress Member To Call What's HappeningIn Gaza A "Genocide" Source: BuzzFeed https://share.newsbreak.com/ednxbftj?s=i0 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 258     From:Aram James To:Justin Zalkin Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Roberta Ahlquist; Pnina Abir-am; Gizem Sivri; Council, City; Palo Alto Free Press; GRP-City Council; city.council@menlopark.gov;cromero@cityofepa.org; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; citycouncil@menlopark.org; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; EPA Today;Dave Price; Gennady Sheyner; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@pausd.org; Bill Newell; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Dave Price; Gennady Sheyner; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Perron, Zachary;citycouncil@nenlopark.org; Foley, Michael; Diana Diamond; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Tom DuBois; Holman, Karen (external); Lori Meyers; ShereeRoth; editor@paweekly.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; MartyWasserman; Friends of Cubberley; planning.commision@cityofpaloalto.org; Guilherme Ary Plonski; Yolanda Conaway Subject:Re: Starvation by Design Date:Monday, August 4, 2025 3:00:25 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments andclicking on links. i Hi Justin, Another particularly extremely thoughtful piece on the issue. Avram Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most- minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 12:58 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:Hey Justin, Here is a bit more Information on the Genocide. Avram Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basisto conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing tocommit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new reportpublished today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how,during its military offensive launched in the wake of thedeadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction onPalestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with totalimpunity. This message needs your attentionThis is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 259     “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel hascarried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, withthe specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These actsinclude killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month aftermonth, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhumangroup unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating itsintent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this timemust know they are violating their obligation to preventgenocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide.All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bringIsrael’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to animmediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocatingrestrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted incommitting genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm itwas inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarianassistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside militarygoals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered thescale and severity of the casualties and destruction overtime. It also analysed public statements by officials, findingthat prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession,apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these actshave been committed, we could find only one reasonableconclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said AgnèsCallamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 byHamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 260     of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide againstPalestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide tohave been committed. The commission of prohibited actswith the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’sviolations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212 people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, localauthorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldworkand analysed an extensive range of visual and digitalevidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions,the organization shared its findings with the Israeliauthorities but had received no substantive response at thetime of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brinkof collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, andinjured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has causedunprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gazauninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City toRafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024,described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing neverstops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created adeadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, andexposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated byAmnesty International constitute serious violations ofinternational humanitarian law or international human rightslaw. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 261     To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroyPalestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty Internationalanalysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeligovernment and military officials, particularly those at thehighest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s systemof apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and theunlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty Internationalexamined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targetedHamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and thatthe resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aidwere the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organizationconcluded these claims are not credible. The presence ofHamas fighters near or within a densely populated areadoes not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research foundIsrael repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimesunder international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. AmnestyInternational also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions onlife-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternativearguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly orthat it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if itneeded to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather thangenocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake- up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destructionof Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or asan acceptable by-product of this goal, this view ofPalestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by AmnestyInternational were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statementsthat were issued by Israeli government and military officialsand others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidalacts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statementsmade by senior officials in charge of managing the offensivethat appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providingdirect evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on theground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified byAmnesty International showing soldiers making calls to“erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 262     the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools anduniversities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts ofkilling and causing serious mental and bodily harm toPalestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results ofinvestigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds ofothers. Amnesty International found no evidence that any ofthese strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strikedestroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they weresleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerialattacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeateddirect attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities andinjuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead,over time, to their destruction. These conditions wereimposed through three simultaneous patterns thatrepeatedly compounded the effect of each other’sdevastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life- sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable tothe survival of the civilian population; the repeated use ofsweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” ordersto forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and thedenial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gazacutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine monthsreviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating,unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areasnorth of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an alreadyexisting humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forceddisplacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and ledto the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact wasespecially harsh on young children and pregnant orbreastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 263     The international community’s seismic,shameful failure for over a year to pressIsrael to end its atrocities in Gaza, by firstdelaying calls for a ceasefire and thencontinuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power todo so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza orlifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or their obstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displacednearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population –into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumaneconditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiple waves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basicneeds were met, showing that their actions weredeliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to theirhomes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to returnunder international law to areas they were displacedfrom in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowheresafe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure forover a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, byfirst delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing armstransfers, is and will remain a stain on our collectiveconscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades ofimpunity for Israel’s violations of international law. Statesneed to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismayand take strong and sustained international action, howeveruncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former DefenseMinister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes againsthumanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 264     principles by arresting and handing over those wanted bythe ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating andfor all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocideand remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimescommitted on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Councilto impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamasofficials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armedgroups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armedgroups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcomingAmnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in-depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well asother unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilianpopulation. The organization has called on the Office of the ICCProsecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 12:29 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Hi Justin, Israel declaring a unilateral cease-fire and leaving Hamas in power would be a potential long-term disaster not only forIsrael, but for the entire civilized world. Hamas is just one branch of a larger movement called the Muslim Brotherhood,which exists in various forms in many different countries, including the US and most of Europe, and whose stated goal isIslamic world domination. Hamas couldn't care less about the Gazans. In fact, they see dead and starving Gazans asbeneficial to their cause, because it undermines international support for Israel, which they regard as one of the chiefimpediments to their goal of world domination. The MB knows it doesn't have the military strength to conquer the world right now, so they're very sharp-eyed forpsychological weaknesses on the part of their enemies. For Israel to allow Hamas to survive because of humanitarianconcern for Gazan civilians would be seen as a critical psychological weakness which could be further exploited, notonly of Israel, but also of Western civilization itself which is pressuring Israel in this regard. This would greatlyembolden the MB worldwide and add to their confidence that they’re on the right path. Best,Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 265     On Aug 4, 2025, at 9:14 AM, Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> wrote: Hello — I see some exceptionally bright people on this thread who have differing perspectives. For the folks whothink Israel should immediately declare a ceasefire, what are your perspectives on Hamas? And what do youanticipate Hamas would most likely do with a ceasefire period? Hopefully everyone views famine among Gazans as horrible (regardless of who is to blame). My fear is thata cessation of hostilities that leaves Hamas governing would not lead to a good long term outcome forGazans (or Israelis). I am curious what others who have studied the conflict in more detail think would mostlikely happen if Hamas were to continue governing. All the Best,Justin On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:56 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: Your Stand on the Ceasefire Hi Henry, You were truly the only candidate for the Palo Alto City Council in 2024, out of nine totalcandidates, who had the courage to unequivocally call for a ceasefire. I attended the councilmeeting that night and remember your speech very well. Best regards, Avram “ One State Solution” Finkelstein On Fri, Aug 1, 2025 at 10:31 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:Marty Marty, Express away but the killing and starvation policy must stop, under UN armed supervision, ofcourse. Who is to be the Ike who said, I will go to Korea during he 1952 election campaign,achieved a cease fire, that holds to this day, despite lack of a formal peace treaty. Best,Henry > On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:19 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:> > Henry,> > One of my objections to “ceasefire now” is that it places all of the onus on Israel anddemands nothing of Hamas, and gives Hamas breathing space to regroup and rearm so theycan continue their policy of killing Jews.> > Marty> > >> On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:01 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>> >> Dear Marty>> >> I have expressed my agreement in heron to Council on their general policy of excludingforeign policy issues However, like the attorney for the holocaust victim who successfully {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 266     asked the US Supreme for a narrow exception to the statute of limitations, I argued to Councilthat there are certain issues that it behooves as as Palo Alto citizens to take a stand: Gaza ceasefire now, is one! See council video of several months ago for my full statement.>> >> Best,>> Hillel>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 9:43 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:>>> >>> There's no legitimate reason for city government to weigh in on foreign policy issues,especially in highly volatile areas like the Middle East. Such controversial resolutions changenothing in the Middle East and only promote conflict at home. Unless of course the goal isprecisely to create conflict at home.>>> >>> Martin Wasserman>>> >>> >>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 2:14 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>>>> >>>> Ps>>>> Upon reflection, accept your critique: cease fire requires repetition , will include inwritings this topic until achieved >>>> www.triplehelix.net>>>> >>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 11:45 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>> >>>>> Ok!>>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>>>> >>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 10:20 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>>> >>>>>> Agree with cease fire, and permanent treaty above and beyond. Aram, who waspresent, can assure you that I requested each council member individually and publicly tocommit Palo Alto to call for cease fire. Video supposed to be available at city website. >>>>>> >>>>>> Best>>>>>> Henry>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 8:49 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes- and how about a ceasefire? Less abstract, more concrete...?>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 1:08 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Somewhere in Israel’s Governmental bureaucracy under an innocuous title, a“collective Eichmann” is at work meticulously designing the “crime of the new century” thesystematic destruction the civil institutional environment of universities, businesses, andhousing, with the intent and objective of atomizing the citizens of GAZA Palestine into acontrollable mass. Attendant nutrition deprivation is an overlay on institutional andorganizational deprivation, conducted in Mediterranean sunlight and international, if notIsraeli, full media gaze. Rather than the inside pages of the New York Times where vGermany’s 20th century holocaust was relegated, this rolling, escalating genocide is on thefront pages of the newspaper of record where all news that fits is published, sometimesironically overshadowed by food recipes in the Internet Edition. The international community,led by Europe where the Holocaust was originated, collaborated, condoned and onlysometimes resisted in the last century, must mitigate its indelible moral stain by heading offthe Netenyahu regime’s scheme. Only a Jewish state founded on the ashes of the holocaustcould have been given such leeway, not to forget Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Who will be the futureHannah Arendt to chronicle the ubiquity of evil?>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Sincerely {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 267     >>>>>>>> Henry Etzkowitz>>>>>>>> Distinguished Fellow>>>>>>>> University of London, Birkbeck College, Centre for Innovation ManagementResearch>>>>>>>> Co-founder, Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice, 644 Menlo Avenue,Menlo Park CA 94025>>>>>>>> RE Henry Etzkowitz et al vs Elon Musk et al Case number 24CV450485 SuperiorCourt of California County of California, Downtown Courthouse 191 Notth First Street, SanJose CA 95113 civil division>>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>> >> > {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 268     From:Aram James To:Guilherme Ary Plonski; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Vicki Veenker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; NicoleChiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Kaloma Smith;Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Dennis Upton;dennis burns; Roberta Ahlquist; ParkRec Commission; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; Donna Wallach; Doug Minkler;Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Seher Awan; Liz Kniss; DavePrice; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Emily Mibach; BradenCartwright; Bryan Gobin; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Sameena Usman; <sammy@envirotekrestoration.com>;Raymond Goins; Council, City; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; h.etzko@gmail.com; Human RelationsCommission; Bryan Gobin; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; PatriceVentresca; pat@patburt.org; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; EPA Today; cromero@cityofepa.org;rabrica@cityofepa.org; Vara Ramakrishnan; james pitkin; Gennady Sheyner; Wagner, April; Justin Zalkin; ladoriscordell; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; Michael Ybarra;<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Rodriguez, Miguel Cc:Marty Wasserman; Pnina Abir-am; Gizem Sivri; Palo Alto Free Press; city.council@menlopark.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; citycouncil@menlopark.org; Michelle Bigelow; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Bill Newell; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Figueroa, Eric; Cribbs, Anne; Lotus Fong; Nash, Betsy; Binder, Andrew; Josh Becker; Yusra Hussain; Pat M; Seher Awan; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Cait James Subject:Re: Starvation by Design Date:Monday, August 4, 2025 10:25:02 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Justin, FYI: Here is a piece ( see below) I found online thatraises some provocative questions that might assistin opening up the discussion you are looking for. Ipersonally believe history will judge Hamas asquintessential freedom fighters -much like NatTurner is viewed. Nat Turner - Wikipedia https://share.google/30FlrupfbpkbzMLdG I believe history will ultimately judge Israel as aterrorist state, an apartheid state, a genocidal roguestate that must be eliminated. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 269     P.S. A one-state solution is the only just remedy. Are Hezbollah and Hamas Terrorists or FreedomFighters? Let’s Talk Nuance In many Western discussions, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are quickly labeled as "terrorists," withlittle room for nuance or consideration of context. But is it really that simple? These groups operate in asymmetrical conflicts against vastly more powerful states, often framingthemselves as resistance movements fighting for liberation. Hezbollah, for example, emerged as aresponse to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and many in the region see them as defenders of their land.Hamas claims to resist Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, a fight many Palestinians feel isnecessary for their survival and dignity. Yes, their tactics—like targeting civilians—are condemned under international law, and those actionscannot be ignored. But at the same time, we need to ask why these groups exist in the first place. Whatconditions of occupation, systemic oppression, and power imbalance give rise to them? Can we dismissthe context of ongoing displacement, blockades, and military aggression that fuels their support amongoppressed populations? International law acknowledges the right to resist occupation, yet non-state actors in asymmetrical warsare held to standards that even powerful states routinely violate. When the global community calls oneside terrorists but excuses or justifies state violence that kills far more civilians, it raises uncomfortablequestions about double standards. So, are they terrorists, freedom fighters, or something in between? What does it mean to fight forliberation in an asymmetrical conflict, and how should the world frame these struggles? On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 9:41 AM Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: Hear Rashad Khalidi today on Democracy Now. Amy Goodman Sent from my iPhone On Aug 4, 2025, at 9:14 AM, Justin Zalkin <jzalkin@gmail.com> wrote: Hello — I see some exceptionally bright people on this thread who have differingperspectives. For the folks who think Israel should immediately declare a ceasefire, what are your perspectives on Hamas? And what do you anticipateHamas would most likely do with a ceasefire period? Hopefully everyone views famine among Gazans as horrible (regardless of who is to blame). My fear is that a cessation of hostilities that leaves Hamasgoverning would not lead to a good long term outcome for Gazans (or Israelis). I am curious what others who have studied the conflict in more detail thinkwould most likely happen if Hamas were to continue governing. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 270     All the Best,Justin On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:56 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: Your Stand on the Ceasefire Hi Henry, You were truly the only candidate for the Palo Alto City Council in2024, out of nine total candidates, who had the courage to unequivocally call for a ceasefire. I attended the council meetingthat night and remember your speech very well. Best regards, Avram “ One State Solution” Finkelstein On Fri, Aug 1, 2025 at 10:31 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:Marty Marty, Express away but the killing and starvation policy must stop, under UN armed supervision, of course. Who is to be the Ikewho said, I will go to Korea during he 1952 election campaign, achieved a cease fire, that holds to this day, despite lack of aformal peace treaty. Best, Henry > On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:19 AM, Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: > > Henry, > > One of my objections to “ceasefire now” is that it places all of the onus on Israel and demands nothing of Hamas, and givesHamas breathing space to regroup and rearm so they can continue their policy of killing Jews.> > Marty {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 271     > > >> On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:01 AM, Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Dear Marty >> >> I have expressed my agreement in heron to Council on their general policy of excluding foreign policy issues However, likethe attorney for the holocaust victim who successfully asked the US Supreme for a narrow exception to the statute of limitations, Iargued to Council that there are certain issues that it behooves as as Palo Alto citizens to take a stand: Gaza cease fire now, is one!See council video of several months ago for my full statement. >> >> Best, >> Hillel>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 9:43 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:>>> >>> There's no legitimate reason for city government to weigh inon foreign policy issues, especially in highly volatile areas like the Middle East. Such controversial resolutions change nothing inthe Middle East and only promote conflict at home. Unless of course the goal is precisely to create conflict at home.>>> >>> Martin Wasserman>>> >>> >>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 2:14 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>>>> >>>> Ps>>>> Upon reflection, accept your critique: cease fire requires repetition , will include in writings this topic until achieved >>>> www.triplehelix.net >>>> >>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 11:45 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>> >>>>> Ok!>>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone>>>>> >>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 10:20 PM, Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Agree with cease fire, and permanent treaty above and beyond. Aram, who was present, can assure you that I requestedeach council member individually and publicly to commit Palo {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 272     Alto to call for cease fire. Video supposed to be available at citywebsite. >>>>>> >>>>>> Best >>>>>> Henry>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 8:49 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes- and how about a ceasefire? Less abstract, moreconcrete...? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 1:08 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Somewhere in Israel’s Governmental bureaucracyunder an innocuous title, a “collective Eichmann” is at work meticulously designing the “crime of the new century” thesystematic destruction the civil institutional environment of universities, businesses, and housing, with the intent andobjective of atomizing the citizens of GAZA Palestine into a controllable mass. Attendant nutrition deprivation is an overlayon institutional and organizational deprivation, conducted in Mediterranean sunlight and international, if not Israeli, full mediagaze. Rather than the inside pages of the New York Times where v Germany’s 20th century holocaust was relegated, this rolling,escalating genocide is on the front pages of the newspaper of record where all news that fits is published, sometimes ironicallyovershadowed by food recipes in the Internet Edition. The international community, led by Europe where the Holocaust wasoriginated, collaborated, condoned and only sometimes resisted in the last century, must mitigate its indelible moral stain byheading off the Netenyahu regime’s scheme. Only a Jewish state founded on the ashes of the holocaust could have been given suchleeway, not to forget Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Who will be the future Hannah Arendt to chronicle the ubiquity of evil?>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Sincerely>>>>>>>> Henry Etzkowitz >>>>>>>> Distinguished Fellow>>>>>>>> University of London, Birkbeck College, Centre for Innovation Management Research>>>>>>>> Co-founder, Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice, 644 Menlo Avenue, Menlo Park CA 94025>>>>>>>> RE Henry Etzkowitz et al vs Elon Musk et al Case {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 273     number 24CV450485 Superior Court of California County ofCalifornia, Downtown Courthouse 191 Notth First Street, San Jose CA 95113 civil division>>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >> > {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 274     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki Cc:Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Jeff Rosen; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Jay Boyarsky; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; h.etzko@gmail.com; Gerry Gras; Gardener, Liz; Lotus Fong; Roberta Ahlquist; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Ed Lauing; editor@paweekly.com; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Diana Diamond; Donna Wallach; Seher Awan; Zelkha, Mila; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Mark Turner; Sean Allen; CityCouncil; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Michael Pati; dr.michaelcybarra@gail.com; Drekmeier, Peter; Doug Minkler; Dana St. George; Daniel Kottke; Dan Okonkwo; Baker, Rob; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Bryan Gobin; Candice Brooks; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Jeff Hayden; Raymond Goins; Gennady Sheyner; Wagner, April; Figueroa, Eric; sharon jackson; Yusra Hussain; Human Relations Commission; Council, City; GRP- City Council; city.council@menlopark.gov; cromero@cityofepa.org; Jeff Conrad; Friends of Cubberley; Binder, Andrew; james pitkin; Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Sheree Roth; Lori Meyers; Shikada, Ed; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Kaloma Smith; HRW Silicon Valley; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; board@pausd.org; Marina Lopez; Marty Wasserman Subject:What Gaza tells us about the Democratic Party Date:Monday, August 4, 2025 8:22:51 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Vicki, This one is for you!! Just Say No To Genocide!!! It's not too late to show some courage! Saveyour soul along the way! Aram Subject:Date:From:>Reply-To:To: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 275     Sunrise Movement Logo Hey Gerald, “Gaza is a losing issue for Democrats — But not for the reasons you think”. This is an email about Gaza, but also about a toxic pattern among Democratic Leadership. Not only is it morally bankrupt, it’s driving away young voters that we desperately need to defeat MAGA authoritarianism. That’s the message of our new TikTok video. Standing up for Gaza isn’t a losing issue because it’s an unpopular stance. It’s a losing issue because Democratic leaders cling to a deeply unpopular position. Just 8 percent of Democratic voters support Israel’s assault on Gaza. EIGHT PERCENT. After enormous pressure, 27 Democratic Senators voted this week {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 276     to stop sending weapons to the Israeli military. But, party leaders continue to parrot AIPAC talking points, shame college students for standing up for human rights, and avoid the truth about what’s happening in Gaza. Like on many issues — party leaders are taking cues from big donors and political “wisdom” instead of actually listening to where people are at. It’s morally bankrupt, and strategically backwards. That’s why they are hemorrhaging young voters that we desperately need to bring in if we’re going to defeat Trump and the forces behind him. We need change. We need new leadership. That’s where we come in. We’re organizing to elect a tidal wave of new leaders to Congress in 2026 and kick failed party leaders out of power. We’re organizing people power, building media that shifts the narrative, and readying an ambitious electoral program to win elections. This work takes resources, and we can’t do it without you. Watch the video, then chip in to our 2026 Primary Challenger Fund. Every dollar gets us closer to building the next generation of unapologetic leaders. If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately: Contribute $5 Contribute $10 Contribute $27 Contribute $50 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 277     Contribute $100 Give another amount Best, Team Sunrise Sunrise is a movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. If someone forwarded you this email, sign up here to get updates from Sunrise. You may also click here to receive fewer emails from Sunrise, or if you no longer wish to receive emails from Sunrise please unsubscribe. Donate to support the movement » Paid for by Sunrise PAC, 712 H St NE Unit#626 Washington, DC 20002. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 278     From:Aram James To:Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Human Relations Commission; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Doug Minkler;Zelkha, Mila; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Gennady Sheyner; Raymond Goins; Dan Okonkwo; Roberta Ahlquist;Baker, Rob; Dave Price; Gennady Sheyner; Mark Turner; Yolanda Conaway; Don Austin; Donna Wallach;board@valleywater.org; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; BoardOperations; YusraHussain; Palo Alto Free Press; Guilherme Ary Plonski; Michael Ybarra; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>;Michael Pati; Binder, Andrew; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Figueroa, Eric; GRP-City Council; PD KristinaBell; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Pat M; board@pausd.org; Dana St. George; LizKniss; Kaloma Smith; Tom DuBois; Drekmeier, Peter; Zahra Billoo; Perron, Zachary;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Marina Lopez; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Angel, David; Dennis Upton; Lynn Krug;Rose Lynn; Bryan Gobin; Burt, Patrick; Lu, George; Reckdahl, Keith; Shikada, Ed; Ruth Silver Taube; Nash,Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Daniel Kottke; Rodriguez,Miguel; Damon Silver; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Wagner, April; Rowena Chiu; Bill Newell; Enberg,Nicholas; james pitkin; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Doug Fort;Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca; Council, City; Cait James; LoriMeyers; Sheree Roth Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Office of the Provost; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Avroh Shah; Ellen Fox; Jeanne Fleming; Brian Good; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; annika steiber; Lotus Fong; Charlie Weidanz; Bette; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Christiane Gebhardt; Mark Granovetter; Online Palo Alto; Jim Hersh; Helen Lawton Lawton- Smith; sally Tomlinson; Rabii Outamha; Stephen Adams; Anna Uvarova; Richard Horning; Laleh Raeisy; Josep Miquel Pique; Irina Dezhina; Tatiana Pospelova; Branca Terra; James Sefe Dzisah; rabeh morrar; Justin Axel- Berg; 翁默斯; Ekaterina Albats; Bette Kiernan; Carol Kemelgor; Carol Kiparsky; David Charles; Devrim Göktepe Hultén; Dorien Detombe; Christopher M Kwong; Lana Sabelfeld; Michelle Baker; Riccardo Viale; Lauing, Ed; Marty Wasserman; pat@patburt.org; John Salois; Mary Rorty; Sarah Wright; Joe Penko; Blackshire, Geoffrey; mickie winkler; Team JulieforPaloAlto; Winter Dellenbach; Mariza Almeida; Arthur Millman; Tim James; sharon jackson Subject:Re: The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible Date:Sunday, August 3, 2025 10:54:22 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Sun, Aug 3, 2025 at 10:42 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: FYI: A must Read!! I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump Rashid Khalidi The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible Dear Acting President Shipman, I am writing you an open letter since you have seen fit to communicate the recent decisions of the board of trustees and the administration in a similar fashion. These decisions, taken in close collaboration with the Trump administration, have made it impossible for me to teach modern Middle East history, the field of my {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 279     scholarship and teaching for more than 50 years, 23 of them at Columbia. Although I have retired, I was scheduled to teach a large lecture course on this topic in the fall as a “special lecturer”, but I cannot do so under the conditions Columbia has accepted by capitulating to the Trump administration in June. Man at table speaks Prominent historian cancels course at Columbia University over Trump deal Read more Specifically, it is impossible to teach this course (and much else) in light of Columbia’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition deliberately, mendaciously and disingenuously conflates Jewishness with Israel, so that any criticism of Israel, or indeed description of Israeli policies, becomes a criticism of Jews. Citing its potential chilling effect, a co-author of the IHRA definition, Professor Kenneth Stern, has repudiated its current uses. Yet Columbia has announced that it will serve as a guide in disciplinary proceedings. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 280     Under this definition of antisemitism, which absurdly conflates criticism of a nation-state, Israel, and a political ideology, Zionism, with the ancient evil of Jew- hatred, it is impossible with any honesty to teach about topics such as the history of the creation of Israel, and the ongoing Palestinian Nakba, culminating in the genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza with the connivance and support of the US and much of western Europe. The Armenian genocide, the nature of the absolute monarchies and military dictatorships that blight most of the Arab world, the undemocratic theocracy in Iran, the incipient dictatorial regime in Türkiye, the fanaticism of Wahhabism: all of these are subject to detailed analysis in my course lectures and readings. However, a simple description of the discriminatory nature of Israel’s 2018 Nation State Law – which states that only the Jewish people have the right of self-determination in Israel, half of whose subjects are Palestinian – or of the apartheid nature of its control over millions of Palestinians who have been under military occupation for 58 years would be impossible in a Middle East history course under the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Columbia’s capitulation has turned a university that was once a site of free inquiry and learning into a shadow of its former self It is not only faculty members’ academic freedom and freedom of speech that is infringed upon by Columbia’s capitulation to Trump’s diktat. Teaching assistants would be seriously constrained in leading discussion sections, as would students in their questions and discussions, by the constant fear that informers would snitch on them to the fearsome apparatus that Columbia has erected to punish speech critical of Israel, and to crack down on alleged discrimination – which at this moment in history almost invariably amounts simply to opposition to this genocide. Scores of students and many faculty members have been subjected to these kangaroo courts, students such as Mahmoud Khalil have been snatched from their university housing, and Columbia has now promised to render this repressive system even more draconian and opaque. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 281     You have stated that no “red lines” have been crossed by these decisions. However, Columbia has appointed a vice-provost initially tasked with surveilling Middle Eastern studies, and it has ordained that faculty and staff must submit to “trainings” on antisemitism from the likes of the Anti-Defamation League, for whom virtually any critique of Zionism or Israel is antisemitic, and Project Shema, whose trainings link many anti-Zionist critiques to antisemitism. It has accepted an “independent” monitor of “compliance” of faculty and student behavior from a firm that in June 2025 hosted an event in honor of Israel. According to Columbia’s agreement with the Trump administration, this “Monitor will have timely access to interview all Agreement-related individuals, and visit all Agreement-related facilities, trainings, transcripts of Agreement-related meetings and disciplinary hearings, and reviews”. Classrooms are pointedly NOT excluded from possible visits from these external non academics. The idea that the teaching, syllabuses and scholarship of some of the most prominent academics in their fields should be vetted by such a vice-provost, such “trainers” or an outside monitor from such a firm is abhorrent. It constitutes the antithesis of the academic freedom that you have disingenuously claimed will not be infringed by this shameful capitulation to the anti-intellectual forces animating the Trump I regret deeply that Columbia’s decisions have obliged me to deprive the nearly 300 students who have registered for this popular course – as many hundreds of others have done for more than two decades – of the chance to learn about the history of the modern Middle East this fall. Although I cannot do anything to compensate them fully for depriving them of the opportunity to take this course, I am planning to offer a public lecture series in New York focused on parts of this course that will be streamed and available for later viewing. Proceeds, if any, will go to Gaza’s universities, every one of which has been destroyed by Israel with US munitions, a war crime about which neither Columbia nor any other US university has seen fit to say a single word. Columbia’s capitulation has turned a university that was once a site of free inquiry and learning into a shadow of its former self, an anti-university, a gated security zone with electronic entry controls, a place of fear and loathing, where faculty and students are told from on high what they can teach and say, under penalty of severe sanctions. Disgracefully, all of this is being done to cover up one of the greatest crimes of this century, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a crime in which Columbia’s leadership is now fully complicit. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 282     – Rashid Khalidi Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University and author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine On Sun, Aug 3, 2025 at 10:00 AM Guilherme Ary Plonski <plonski2@usp.br> wrote:Dear Henry, I read your heartbreaking message with the same attention and affection with which I readyour precious texts on STIS. Like you, all good people must be shocked by the pogrom of October 7, 2023, and itsconsequences. This includes, of course, the tragedy affecting good people in Gaza, regardless of who is responsible.However, this does not make me agree with your analysis. We can include this topic in our regular conversations, if you wish.Right now, the most important thing is to seek to end the suffering of everyone—Gaza residents, Israeli abductees, and those from other countries equally held hostage by theterrorists. We can all help. Personally, on average every four days or nights, I've been forced to flee to a publicunderground shelter due to ballistic missiles fired from Yemen. I'd also like to be able to sleep in peace.Shalom from Jerusalem. Em qui., 31 de jul. de 2025 às 17:26, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> escreveu: > {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 283     > Somewhere in Israel’s Governmental bureaucracy under an innocuous title, a“collective Eichmann” is at work meticulously designing the “crime of the new century”systematic destruction of the civil institutional environment of universities,businesses, and housing, with the intent and objective of atomizing the citizens of GAZA Palestine into a controllable mass. > Attendant nutrition deprivation is an overlay on institutional and organizationaldeprivation, conducted in Mediterranean sunlight and international, if not Israeli, full media gaze. Rather than the inside pages of theNew York Times where Germany’s 20thcentury holocaust was relegated, this rolling, escalating genocide is on the front pages of the newspaper of record where all news that fits is published, sometimes ironicallyovershadowed by food recipes in the Internet Edition. > The international community, led by Europe where the Holocaust was originated, collaborated, condoned and only sometimes resisted in the last century, must mitigateits indelible moral stain by heading off the Netenyahu regime’s scheme. Only a Jewish state founded on the ashes of the holocaust could have been given such leeway, not toforget Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Who will be the future Hannah Arendt to chronicle the ubiquity of evil?> > Sincerely> Henry Etzkowitz > Distinguished Fellow> University of London, Birkbeck College, Centre for Innovation Management Research > Co-founder, Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice, 644 Menlo Avenue,Menlo Park CA 94025 > RE Henry Etzkowitz et al vs Elon Musk et al Case number 24CV450485 SuperiorCourt of California County of California, Downtown Courthouse 191 Notth First Street, San Jose CA 95113 civil division> Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 284     From:Aram James To:Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Human Relations Commission; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Doug Minkler;Zelkha, Mila; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Gennady Sheyner; Raymond Goins; Dan Okonkwo; Roberta Ahlquist;Baker, Rob; Dave Price; Gennady Sheyner; Mark Turner; Yolanda Conaway; Don Austin; Donna Wallach;board@valleywater.org; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; BoardOperations; YusraHussain; Palo Alto Free Press; Guilherme Ary Plonski; Michael Ybarra; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>;Michael Pati; Binder, Andrew; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Figueroa, Eric; GRP-City Council; PD KristinaBell; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Pat M; board@pausd.org; Dana St. George; LizKniss; Kaloma Smith; Tom DuBois; Drekmeier, Peter; Zahra Billoo; Perron, Zachary;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Marina Lopez; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Angel, David; Dennis Upton; Lynn Krug;Rose Lynn; Bryan Gobin; Burt, Patrick; Lu, George; Reckdahl, Keith; Shikada, Ed; Ruth Silver Taube; Nash,Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Daniel Kottke; Rodriguez,Miguel; Damon Silver; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; Wagner, April; Rowena Chiu; Bill Newell; Enberg,Nicholas; james pitkin; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Doug Fort;Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca; Council, City; Cait James Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Office of the Provost; Rebecca Eisenberg; Hannah Lu; Avroh Shah; Ellen Fox; Jeanne Fleming; Brian Good; Roseline Rasolovoahangy; annika steiber; Lotus Fong; Charlie Weidanz; Bette; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Christiane Gebhardt; Mark Granovetter; Online Palo Alto; Jim Hersh; Helen Lawton Lawton- Smith; sally Tomlinson; Rabii Outamha; Stephen Adams; Anna Uvarova; Richard Horning; Laleh Raeisy; Josep Miquel Pique; Irina Dezhina; Tatiana Pospelova; Branca Terra; James Sefe Dzisah; rabeh morrar; Justin Axel- Berg; 翁默斯; Ekaterina Albats; Bette Kiernan; Carol Kemelgor; Carol Kiparsky; David Charles; Devrim Göktepe Hultén; Dorien Detombe; Christopher M Kwong; Lana Sabelfeld; Michelle Baker; Riccardo Viale; Lauing, Ed; Marty Wasserman; pat@patburt.org; John Salois; Mary Rorty; Sarah Wright; Joe Penko; Blackshire, Geoffrey; mickie winkler; Team JulieforPaloAlto; Winter Dellenbach; Mariza Almeida; Arthur Millman; Tim James; sharon jackson Subject:Re: The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible Date:Sunday, August 3, 2025 10:42:47 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. FYI: A must Read!! I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump Rashid Khalidi The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible Dear Acting President Shipman, I am writing you an open letter since you have seen fit to communicate the recent decisions of the board of trustees and the administration in a similar fashion. These decisions, taken in close collaboration with the Trump administration, have made it impossible for me to teach modern Middle East history, the field of my scholarship and teaching for more than 50 years, 23 of them at Columbia. Although I have retired, I was scheduled to teach a large lecture course on this topic in the fall as a “special lecturer”, but I cannot do so under the conditions Columbia has accepted by {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 285     capitulating to the Trump administration in June. Man at table speaks Prominent historian cancels course at Columbia University over Trump deal Read more Specifically, it is impossible to teach this course (and much else) in light of Columbia’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition deliberately, mendaciously and disingenuously conflates Jewishness with Israel, so that any criticism of Israel, or indeed description of Israeli policies, becomes a criticism of Jews. Citing its potential chilling effect, a co- author of the IHRA definition, Professor Kenneth Stern, has repudiated its current uses. Yet Columbia has announced that it will serve as a guide in disciplinary proceedings. Under this definition of antisemitism, which absurdly conflates criticism of a nation- {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 286     state, Israel, and a political ideology, Zionism, with the ancient evil of Jew-hatred, it is impossible with any honesty to teach about topics such as the history of the creation of Israel, and the ongoing Palestinian Nakba, culminating in the genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza with the connivance and support of the US and much of western Europe. The Armenian genocide, the nature of the absolute monarchies and military dictatorships that blight most of the Arab world, the undemocratic theocracy in Iran, the incipient dictatorial regime in Türkiye, the fanaticism of Wahhabism: all of these are subject to detailed analysis in my course lectures and readings. However, a simple description of the discriminatory nature of Israel’s 2018 Nation State Law – which states that only the Jewish people have the right of self-determination in Israel, half of whose subjects are Palestinian – or of the apartheid nature of its control over millions of Palestinians who have been under military occupation for 58 years would be impossible in a Middle East history course under the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Columbia’s capitulation has turned a university that was once a site of free inquiry andlearning into a shadow of its former self It is not only faculty members’ academic freedom and freedom of speech that is infringed upon by Columbia’s capitulation to Trump’s diktat. Teaching assistants would be seriously constrained in leading discussion sections, as would students in their questions and discussions, by the constant fear that informers would snitch on them to the fearsome apparatus that Columbia has erected to punish speech critical of Israel, and to crack down on alleged discrimination – which at this moment in history almost invariably amounts simply to opposition to this genocide. Scores of students and many faculty members have been subjected to these kangaroo courts, students such as Mahmoud Khalil have been snatched from their university housing, and Columbia has now promised to render this repressive system even more draconian and opaque. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 287     You have stated that no “red lines” have been crossed by these decisions. However, Columbia has appointed a vice-provost initially tasked with surveilling Middle Eastern studies, and it has ordained that faculty and staff must submit to “trainings” on antisemitism from the likes of the Anti-Defamation League, for whom virtually any critique of Zionism or Israel is antisemitic, and Project Shema, whose trainings link many anti-Zionist critiques to antisemitism. It has accepted an “independent” monitor of “compliance” of faculty and student behavior from a firm that in June 2025 hosted an event in honor of Israel. According to Columbia’s agreement with the Trump administration, this “Monitor will have timely access to interview all Agreement-related individuals, and visit all Agreement-related facilities, trainings, transcripts of Agreement-related meetings and disciplinary hearings, and reviews”. Classrooms are pointedly NOT excluded from possible visits from these external non academics. The idea that the teaching, syllabuses and scholarship of some of the most prominent academics in their fields should be vetted by such a vice-provost, such “trainers” or an outside monitor from such a firm is abhorrent. It constitutes the antithesis of the academic freedom that you have disingenuously claimed will not be infringed by this shameful capitulation to the anti-intellectual forces animating the Trump administration. On Sun, Aug 3, 2025 at 10:00 AM Guilherme Ary Plonski <plonski2@usp.br> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 288     Dear Henry,I read your heartbreaking message with the same attention and affection with which I readyour precious texts on STIS.Like you, all good people must be shocked by the pogrom of October 7, 2023, and itsconsequences. This includes, of course, the tragedy affecting good people in Gaza,regardless of who is responsible.However, this does not make me agree with your analysis. We can include this topic in ourregular conversations, if you wish.Right now, the most important thing is to seek to end the suffering of everyone—Gazaresidents, Israeli abductees, and those from other countries equally held hostage by theterrorists. We can all help.Personally, on average every four days or nights, I've been forced to flee to a publicunderground shelter due to ballistic missiles fired from Yemen. I'd also like to be able tosleep in peace.Shalom from Jerusalem. Em qui., 31 de jul. de 2025 às 17:26, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> escreveu: > > Somewhere in Israel’s Governmental bureaucracy under an innocuous title, a “collectiveEichmann” is at work meticulously designing the “crime of the new century”systematicdestruction of the civil institutional environment of universities, businesses, and housing,with the intent and objective of atomizing the citizens of GAZA Palestine into acontrollable mass. > Attendant nutrition deprivation is an overlay on institutional and organizationaldeprivation, conducted in Mediterranean sunlight and international, if not Israeli, fullmedia gaze. Rather than the inside pages of theNew York Times where Germany’s 20thcentury holocaust was relegated, this rolling, escalating genocide is on the front pages ofthe newspaper of record where all news that fits is published, sometimes ironicallyovershadowed by food recipes in the Internet Edition. > The international community, led by Europe where the Holocaust was originated,collaborated, condoned and only sometimes resisted in the last century, must mitigate itsindelible moral stain by heading off the Netenyahu regime’s scheme. Only a Jewish statefounded on the ashes of the holocaust could have been given such leeway, not to forgetPol Pot’s Cambodia. Who will be the future Hannah Arendt to chronicle the ubiquity ofevil?> > Sincerely> Henry Etzkowitz> Distinguished Fellow> University of London, Birkbeck College, Centre for Innovation Management Research> Co-founder, Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice, 644 Menlo Avenue,Menlo Park CA 94025> RE Henry Etzkowitz et al vs Elon Musk et al Case number 24CV450485 Superior Courtof California County of California, Downtown Courthouse 191 Notth First Street, SanJose CA 95113 civil division> Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 289     From:Yusra Hussain To:Aram James Cc:Veenker, Vicki; Doug Minkler; Daniel Barton; Stump, Molly; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Jeff Conrad; Tim James; Cait James; Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; james pitkin; Marina Lopez; Figueroa, Eric; board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Yolanda Conaway; Human Relations Commission; Lotus Fong; Roberta Ahlquist; Rowena Chiu; BoardOperations; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; CityCouncil; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Pat M; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Diana Diamond; Roberta Ahlquist; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; David Piper; Angel, David; Carla Torres; Friends of Cubberley; Palo Alto Renters" Association; h.etzko@gmail.com Subject:Re: Dozens of Palestinians Killed Seeking Aid as Witkoff and Huckabee Tour GHF Hub in Stage-Managed Visit Date:Saturday, August 2, 2025 12:05:28 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Thank you Aram for sharing this article. I know first hand what's happening on the ground as I have a family in Gaza. I can tell you, they are starving and all those around them are starvingand being massacred. One man was holding his son on his shoulder as he was trying to get some food and a sniper shot the child. Instead of going back home with food, he carried backhis slaughtered son. On Fri, Aug 1, 2025 at 2:43 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:GAZA CITY—President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S.Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee toured an “aid distribution” site run bythe Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday.During the U.S. envoy's highly stage-managed visit, at least 82 Palestinianswere killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave, including 49 people seekingfood aid with more than 270 injured. A theatrical performance is currently taking place at the U.S. aid distributioncenters, attended by Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff: A civilized distribution of aid,without repression and pepper gas, without gunfire or casualties, withoutstampedes," Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee and acoordinator for local NGOs based in Deir al-Balah, said. "Today, the goal is todiscredit thousands of video clips, to wipe away the blood of nearly 1,000 starvingmartyrs and hundreds of wounded in the traps of humiliation.” Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 290     Drop Site News is fully reader-funded, which means we depend on supporters like you. Become a paid subscriber to gain access to our private Discord server, subscriber-only AMAs, chats, and invites to events. You can also visit our store for exclusive Drop site merchandise! Dozens of Palestinians Killed SeekingAid as Witkoff and Huckabee TourGHF Hub in Stage-Managed Visit Israel and the U.S. have done little to alleviate the widening famine inGaza, even as the forced starvation has passed the tipping point. ABDEL QADER SABBAH AND SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS AUG 1 READ IN APP We have a commitment to ensuring that our journalism is not locked behind a paywall. But the only way we can sustain this is through the voluntary support of our community of readers. If you are a free subscriber and you support our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or gifting one to a friend or family member. You can also make a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible donation to support our work. If you do not have the means to support our work financially, you can do your part by sharing our work on social media and by forwarding this email to your network of contacts. Upgrade to paid {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 291     Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee tour a GHF hub in Rafah on August 1, 2025. Source: X GAZA CITY—President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee toured an “aid distribution” site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday. During the U.S. envoy's highly stage-managed visit, at least 82 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave, including 49 people seeking food aid with more than 270 injured. The visit came as the leading international authority on food crises—the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—this week said that the “worst- case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” warning that the situation has reached “an alarming and deadly turning point” and predicting {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 292     “widespread death” without immediate action. “A theatrical performance is currently taking place at the U.S. aid distribution centers, attended by Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff: A civilized distribution of aid, without repression and pepper gas, without gunfire or casualties, without stampedes," Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee and a coordinator for local NGOs based in Deir al-Balah, said. "Today, the goal is to discredit thousands of video clips, to wipe away the blood of nearly 1,000 starving martyrs and hundreds of wounded in the traps of humiliation.” Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza reached a tipping point last month, with Palestinians collapsing in the streets and with men, women, and children dying from hunger and malnutrition on a daily basis. Three new deaths from the spreading famine were recorded by the ministry of health on Friday, bringing the total number since the start of the war to 162, including 92 children—many of them over the past three weeks alone. Dead and wounded Palestinians seeking aid at the Zikim crossing brought to Hamad hospital and Shifa hospital in northern Gaza. August 1, 2025. Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah. On Friday, many dead and wounded Palestinians attacked by Israeli forces, while seeking food from United Food convoys at the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza, were carried by people from the site to the steps of the shuttered Hamad hospital near the coast. Ambulances had been unable to reach the site of the attacks, but were waiting to transfer them to partially functioning hospitals in Gaza City. Some of the bodies carried into the hospital appeared emaciated. Emergency workers wrapped the corpses in body bags and loaded them onto ambulances. At Al-Shifa Hospital, injured young men and boys were admitted to the medical facility in a seemingly endless stream, and many were suffering gunshot wounds. Family members wept over the corpses laid on the ground in front of the hospital entrance. “The situation is hard. Deadly,” said Ahmed al-Madhoun, who was wounded in the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 293     leg trying to get food at Zikim and sat wincing in pain outside Shifa. “There were martyrs lying on the ground, wounded everywhere. It’s unreal. You see death with your own eyes,” he told Drop Site News. “I only gathered two cans of beans and a can of something else. I had just started getting out of the vehicle, and as soon as I got out, they opened fire on me. One person was martyred, and I was wounded. I kept crawling until I reached Hamad hospital.” Fares Afana, the head of emergency and ambulance services in Northern Gaza, told Drop Site that at least 14 aid seekers had been killed at Zikim on Friday and more than 150 wounded. “The Israeli occupation continues to target those waiting for aid in the Zikim area,” Afana said. “This method of distribution—we’ve spoken about it often—is a humiliating way to treat our Palestinian people.” He added, “What stood out yesterday, and today, was gunfire aimed at upper body parts: the chest and head…All the people waiting for aid are unarmed civilians. They pose no threat to the occupation forces, so there’s no justification for this direct targeting of hungry, aid-seeking Palestinians.” Meanwhile, Witkoff posted photos on X donning a flak jacket and a black MAGA hat. He was flanked by armed guards as he met with officials at the GHF site in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which has been razed to the ground and ethnically cleansed by the Israeli military. He said that he spent over five hours inside Gaza “level setting the facts on the ground, assessing conditions, and meeting with [the GHF] and other agencies…to give [the president] a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation, and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.” Huckabee, in a post on X that was quickly deleted, claimed Palestinians in Gaza “love Trump” and said that Palestinians refer to “one of the few” remaining buildings still standing in Rafah as “Trump tower.” He later posted that the visit was “to learn the truth about [GHF] aid sites,” adding “We received briefings from [the Israeli military] and spoke to folks on the ground. GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!” Drop Site News is reader-supported. Consider becoming {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 294     a free or paid subscriber. Upgrade to paid Public Relations and The Facts on The Ground The PR-oriented visit stood in stark contrast to the scenes of chaos and bloodshed from the daily aid massacres of starving Palestinians, since the GHF took over aid distribution in Gaza in late May. The GHF had established just four hubs in remote, militarized zones—three in the south and one in Wadi Gaza—and none in northern Gaza, where scant deliveries of UN aid convoys have been allowed in. Between May 27 and July 31, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food—859 in the vicinity of the GHF sites, and 514 along the routes of food convoys—according to the UN. Most of the killings were committed by the Israeli military but also by U.S. security contractors and armed Palestinian groups allied with Israel. International outcry over the images and increasing reports of starvation-related deaths in Gaza prompted Israel last week to announce that it would impose “humanitarian pauses” for 10 hours a day in parts of Gaza, allow in more aid along secure routes, and allow airdrops of food. The measures have had little effect on the ground, according to aid workers in Gaza, the UN, and international NGOS. Since the so-called “humanitarian pauses” were put in place on Sunday, at least 593 Palestinians were confirmed killed across Gaza, according to health ministry figures and news reports, including 300 seeking aid, and over 1,967 injured. The “secure routes” inside Gaza that Israel said it would designate for humanitarian aid convoys—from 6  a.m. to 11  p.m.—were said to include corridors through Zikim, Netzarim, a direct road to Deir al-Balah, and two “central routes.” But on Thursday, the UN raised serious doubts about access and safety. “Despite Israeli announcements regarding the designation of convoy routes as secure, trucks continue to face long delays that expose drivers, aid workers and crowds to danger,” UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said, adding that only “a single route has been made available” for teams exiting Kerem Shalom, where Israeli forces {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 295     maintain “an ad hoc checkpoint.” UNOCHA data underscores the dysfunction: of the 92 coordinated aid movements between last Wednesday and Tuesday, 16% were denied outright, 26% were approved but blocked or delayed, 47% were fully facilitated, and 11% were withdrawn for logistical or security reasons. Afana—the head of emergency and ambulance services in Northern Gaza—said one of the reasons for the looting was the targeting of local tribal groups trying to secure the convoys. “A group of tribal security men was targeted by surveillance drones, resulting in 6 martyrs among them,” Afana told Drop Site. The Gaza Government Media Office added that most aid never reaches UN warehouses. Instead, they are either unloaded by starving civilians who are often fired upon by Israeli forces, or looted by Israeli-backed armed gangs. Eleven tribal volunteers securing aid were also killed by Israeli forces earlier this week, the Media Office added. Meanwhile, the already minuscule amount of food reaching Palestinians has barely increased. “The slight increase in what is coming in is not nearly enough to even scratch the surface to meet the people’s needs here on the ground,” Olga Cherevko, a staff member at the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, told Al Jazeera on Friday. “There are so many factors on the ground that point to the fact that, despite the slight relaxation of [Israel’s] various constraints [on aid entry], we’re still in the same situation,” Cherevko said. “People are continuing to starve, malnutrition rates continue to go up, people are risking their lives to get food, and there’s no change substantially and operationally, really.” The Israeli military confirmed that six countries were allowed to airdrop aid into Gaza—including France, Germany, Spain, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates—yet the amount remains woefully insufficient and has been criticized as a dangerous and ineffective method of aid delivery, with parcels landing in remote, militarized areas or falling into the sea. “The ongoing airdrops and limited convoys have not succeeded in delivering food to the thousands of families living under severe conditions. The risk involved in {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 296     accessing aid remains extremely high and the quantities that do make it in are far from enough to meet even the most basic needs,” Amawi said. “People are running long distances over sand, rubble, and danger zones just to be in the right place at the right time when the parachutes fall. I personally know individuals who have made this desperate run more than five times in a single day and still return empty handed. The emotional and physical toll is overwhelming. Imagine the weight of hunger, heat, fear, and disappointment repeated again and again. This is not humanitarian relief. It is more like torment and humiliation that robs people of their dignity. Aid should not require such suffering. It should reach people where they are, not force them into a race for survival that many, especially children, the elderly, the sick, simply cannot win.” Human Rights Watch published a report on Friday concluding that “US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.” The report said, “The dire humanitarian situation is a direct result of Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war—a war crime—as well as Israel’s continued intentional deprivation of aid and basic services, which amounts to the crime against humanity of extermination, and acts of genocide.” Jawa Ahmad and Herman Gill contributed to this report. Upgrade to paid Leave a comment A guest post by Abdel Qader Sabbah journalist and videographer in northern Gaza Subscribe to Abdel {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 297     Become a Drop Site News Paid Subscriber Drop Site News is reader-supported. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. Upgrade to paid A paid subscription gets you: 15% off Drop Site store Access to our Discord, subscriber-only AMAs, chats, and invites to events, both virtual and IRL Post comments and join the community The knowledge you are supporting independent media making the lives of the powerful miserable You can also now find us on podcast platforms and on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Telegram, and YouTube. LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2025 Drop Site News, Inc.Drop Site News Inc., 1930 18th St NWSte B2 #1034, Washington, DC 20009 Unsubscribe {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 298     From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com Cc:Justin Zalkin; Ellen Bob; Gizem Sivri; Mark Granovetter; Devrim Göktepe Hultén; Laleh Raeisy; Christiane Gebhardt; Pnina Abir-am; Lotus Fong; Siva Heiman; Arthur Millman; Roberta Ahlquist; Rebecca Eisenberg; Emma Rasolovoahangy; Ellen Fox; Veenker, Vicki; Council, City; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Mark Turner; Sean Allen; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Marty Wasserman; Daniel Barton; Gerry Gras; Raymond Goins; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Linda Jolley; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; Steve Wagstaffe; Human Relations Commission; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Roberta Ahlquist; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Yolanda Conaway; Don Austin; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; EPA Today; Diana Diamond; Enberg, Nicholas; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; Carla Torres; Drekmeier, Peter; Dana St. George; Doug Minkler; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rose Lynn; Baker, Rob Subject:Re: Starvation by Design Date:Friday, August 1, 2025 7:42:08 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Subject: Quick Note Hi Henry, I just wanted to mention that since you facilitated an exchange between Martin and me, westill haven't managed to have a single civil conversation. I believe the best response to Martin comes from my dear friend, Donna Wallach. She is a Jewish long-time opponent of theterrorist state of Israel. Below is her wonderful reply to a recent email from Martin. Best, Aram When I lived in Occupied Palestine aka Israel for 15 years, 1981 - 1997, I saw and experienced the outright racism of the Israeli State towards the Palestinians. Even the Palestinian villages and towns and cities inside Israel had it much worse than Jewish Israeli cities, towns, kibbiutzes and moshavs. The funding for schools in Palestinian schools was much lower than even the schools for Jewish students in the Development Towns. Almost all cities and towns and all kibbutzes and moshavs are segregated. Only a few cities inside the Israeli State have Jews and Palestinians living in the same city, like Ramle, Yaffa, Akko and Jerusalem, but they are still segregated within the cities, they don't live next to each other. But much worse is the way soldiers treat Palestinians. I think it was in the late 1980s maybe the early or mid 1990s Gideon Levy wrote an article in the Ha'aretz weekend paper of the dozens of Palestinian children who had been shot in the head while sitting in their classrooms in Gaza, some of them dying, some of them losing their eyes. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 299     During the years of the first Intifada, around 1987 I think, the Israeli govt. shut down Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, and also closed many schools throughout Gaza. So the Palestinians had to open community schools. Israel practices their Apartheid policies on its own Jewish citizens. Jews who were forced to immigrate to Israel from Arab countries were sent to Development Towns, not to the big cities. There were meager job opportunities in the Development Towns and the funding for the schools was very low, so those students didn't get as good an education as students who were of European descent. On the radio we only heard accents of Jewish Israelis who spoke with an Ashkenazi accent, none who spoke with an accent of someone who's native tongue was Arabic and at least half of all Jewish Israelis are Arabs, i.e. they come from Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, etc. There were horrendous racist jokes about Moroccan Jews and of course even worse jokes about Palestinians. Most Jewish Israelis and the entire Israeli govt. cares nothing about the well being of the Palestinians. I have seen so much during the time I lived there, again when I visited in 2002 and again when I lived in Gaza in 2008 for 4 months. In 2002 there was a month siege on the entire city of Ramallah. 24 hours a day for weeks, nobody could leave their house, not for food, not for medicine, not to go to work, not to go to school. Many Palestinians were shot and maimed or killed just for standing outside on the rooftops to their homes or even standing next to an open window in their own home. Also, people would go out to try to buy pita, and the Israeli soldiers driving around would shoot them dead, The israeli soldiers used their tanks and other heavy armored vehicles to drive over the vehicles of the Palestinians, destroying the vehicles. Also the Israeli soldiers went into govt offices, destroying and/or stealing computers, hard drives, video cameras, paper files of the file cabinets. The soldiers defacated and urinated in the offices and the homes of Palestinians. The Israeli soldiers stole money and other properties of Palstinians whose homes they invaded. Banks were broken into and the entire infrastructure was destroyed. The Israeli soldiers went into office buildings and either destroyed or stole everything in the stores. They broke into the office of a NeoNatal Doctor and destroyed his office, broke down his door. They also refused to let him go to his clients, women who were giving birth. During that time the maternity hospital near Bethlehem was bombed. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 300     When I lived in Gaza in 2008, I witnessed how the siege on Gaza, 2 years after it started, already had a severe impact on the entire population of Gaza. Many buildings stood unfinished. Israel refused to allow the building supplies in so that the doors, windows, etc could be installed into the buildings. Many people were unemployed because of the lack of supplies and the suppressed economy. Already then at least 20% if not more of the children were malnourished. The Israeli Navy was severely limiting how far Palestinians fishers could go out into their internationally recognized waters to fish and have a livelihood and provide a good source of protein for the Palestinians living in Gaza. Some of us International volunteers went out with the fishers on their boats and witnessed the Israeli Navy come and shoot at their boats and their nets and equipment, preventing them from having a good catch of fish and also denying them their right to fish in their own waters. The Israeli Navy also used high powered hoses to spray water onto the boats, damaging the boats and injuring people. Then they started using stinky water in their high powered hoses, spraying the stinky water after a catch of fish was cast onto the boat, destroying the catch of the day. In previous years the Israeli army had invaded the Beit Hanoun area in northern Gaza and decimated the fruit groves, so all the trees that used to be there were gone. I witnessed humongous Israeli bulldozers come in through the Apartheid Wall through a gate and dig up agricultural land. The ongoing genocide and the starvation is beyond despicable and you Martin have totally lost any sense of humanity that you could claim that the Palestinians are responsible for this. The Palestinian people are one of the most kindest, generous, loving people on this planet! I saw Hamas providing tents to Palestinians in Gaza in the 1980s when the Israeli soldiers were stationed there and were destroying many Palestinian homes. Hamas also provided supplies for the families who needed supplies. Hamas also provided kindergartens for the children. Hamas means Islamic Resistance Movement and according to International Law, occupied people have the right to rebel against their occupiers! Israeli soldiers and settlers are constantly invading Palestinian lands! If you really want to know how Israel treated the Palestinians prior to 1948 and from 1948 onwards read these books: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 301     "State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel" by Thomas Suarez http://thomassuarez.com/SoT.html "The Hundred Years War on Palestine" by Rashid Khalidi "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" by Illan Pappe Donna Wallach On Fri, Aug 1, 2025, at 7:12 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Henry, I have no problem with civil discourse, but I think your dream of Israel and "Palestine"living side-by-side as friendly sister states is a delusion. The two cultures could not be moredifferent. Israeli culture is life-oriented, while Palestinian culture is death-oriented (Don'ttake my word for it. Read what Palestinian leaders say about themselves). Long and bitterexperience has shown that these two cultures cannot coexist peacefully side-by-side, but willalways be in conflict until one side succeeds in driving out the other. The Palestinian sideunderstands this concept very well and it’s time for the Israeli side to also understand it . Marty On Aug 1, 2025, at 5:17 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote: Up to you; free feel to as former Palo Altan, now Marin. Marty, Aram’s polaropposite also has supporters and then there are a few like this Zionist/innovation consultant to the Ramallah government, author of the prayer forpeace between the sister states of Israel/Palestine, extrapolated when EtzChayim Rabbi Chaim asked me to lead the prayer for Israel introduced the polar opposites Marty and Aram as a public experiment in thepotential of civil discourse in an increasingly fraught era Cheers Hillel On Aug 1, 2025, at 1:36 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 302     Hi Henry, Not quite sure what you mean. Talk soon. Keep educating folks re the ongoing genocide. You do a great job.Marty a difficult case at best. On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:56 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:  Subject: Your Stand on the Ceasefire Hi Henry, You were truly the only candidate for the Palo AltoCity Council in 2024, out of nine total candidates,who had the courage to unequivocally call for aceasefire. I attended the council meeting that nightand remember your speech very well. Best regards, Avram “ One State Solution” Finkelstein On Fri, Aug 1, 2025 at 10:31 AM, Henry Etzkowitz<h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:Marty Marty, Express away but the killing and starvation policy must stop, under UN armed supervision, of course.Who is to be the Ike who said, I will go to Korea during he 1952 election campaign, achieved acease fire, that holds to this day, despite lack of a formal peace treaty. Best,Henry > On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:19 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:> > Henry,> > One of my objections to “ceasefire now” is thatit places all of the onus on Israel and demands {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 303     nothing of Hamas, and gives Hamas breathingspace to regroup and rearm so they can continue their policy of killing Jews.> > Marty> > >> On Aug 1, 2025, at 10:01 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>> >> Dear Marty>> >> I have expressed my agreement in heron toCouncil on their general policy of excluding foreign policy issues However, like the attorneyfor the holocaust victim who successfully asked the US Supreme for a narrow exception to thestatute of limitations, I argued to Council that there are certain issues that it behooves as as Palo Altocitizens to take a stand: Gaza cease fire now, is one! See council video of several months ago formy full statement. >> >> Best, >> Hillel>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 9:43 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:>>> >>> There's no legitimate reason for citygovernment to weigh in on foreign policy issues, especially in highly volatile areas like the MiddleEast. Such controversial resolutions change nothing in the Middle East and only promoteconflict at home. Unless of course the goal is precisely to create conflict at home.>>> >>> Martin Wasserman>>> >>> >>>> On Aug 1, 2025, at 2:14 AM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>>>> >>>> Ps>>>> Upon reflection, accept your critique: cease fire requires repetition , will include in writingsthis topic until achieved >>>> www.triplehelix.net>>>> >>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 11:45 PM, RobertaAhlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 304     >>>>> >>>>> Ok! >>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>> >>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 10:20 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>>> >>>>>> Agree with cease fire, and permanenttreaty above and beyond. Aram, who was present, can assure you that I requested each councilmember individually and publicly to commit Palo Alto to call for cease fire. Video supposed to beavailable at city website. >>>>>> >>>>>> Best >>>>>> Henry>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 8:49 PM, Roberta Ahlquist <finnroberta@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes- and how about a ceasefire? Lessabstract, more concrete...? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Jul 31, 2025, at 1:08 PM, Henry Etzkowitz <h.etzko@gmail.com> wrote:>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Somewhere in Israel’s Governmentalbureaucracy under an innocuous title, a “collective Eichmann” is at work meticulously designing the“crime of the new century” the systematic destruction the civil institutional environment of universities, businesses, and housing, with the intent and objective of atomizing the citizens ofGAZA Palestine into a controllable mass. Attendant nutrition deprivation is an overlay oninstitutional and organizational deprivation, conducted in Mediterranean sunlight andinternational, if not Israeli, full media gaze. Rather than the inside pages of the New York Timeswhere v Germany’s 20th century holocaust was relegated, this rolling, escalating genocide is on thefront pages of the newspaper of record where all news that fits is published, sometimes ironicallyovershadowed by food recipes in the Internet {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 305     Edition. The international community, led byEurope where the Holocaust was originated, collaborated, condoned and only sometimes resisted in the last century, must mitigate its indelible moral stain by heading off the Netenyahuregime’s scheme. Only a Jewish state founded on the ashes of the holocaust could have been givensuch leeway, not to forget Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Who will be the future Hannah Arendt tochronicle the ubiquity of evil? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Sincerely >>>>>>>> Henry Etzkowitz>>>>>>>> Distinguished Fellow >>>>>>>> University of London, BirkbeckCollege, Centre for Innovation Management Research>>>>>>>> Co-founder, Neighbors for Environmental and Social Justice, 644 MenloAvenue, Menlo Park CA 94025 >>>>>>>> RE Henry Etzkowitz et al vs ElonMusk et al Case number 24CV450485 Superior Court of California County of California,Downtown Courthouse 191 Notth First Street, San Jose CA 95113 civil division>>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >> > {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 306     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Doug Minkler; Daniel Barton; Stump, Molly; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; JoshBecker; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Donna Wallach; Zelkha, Mila; Jeff Conrad; Tim James; Cait James; MarkTurner; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; james pitkin; Marina Lopez; Figueroa, Eric;board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Yolanda Conaway; Human RelationsCommission; Yusra Hussain; Lotus Fong; Roberta Ahlquist; Rowena Chiu; BoardOperations;boardfeedback@smcgov.org; CityCouncil; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Pat M; EmilyMibach; Dave Price; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Diana Diamond; Roberta Ahlquist;Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Gardener, Liz; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; David Piper; Angel, David; Carla Torres; Friends of Cubberley; Palo Alto Renters"Association; h.etzko@gmail.com Subject:Fwd: Dozens of Palestinians Killed Seeking Aid as Witkoff and Huckabee Tour GHF Hub in Stage-Managed Visit Date:Friday, August 1, 2025 2:43:21 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. GAZA CITY—President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S.Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee toured an “aid distribution” site run bythe Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday. Duringthe U.S. envoy's highly stage-managed visit, at least 82 Palestinians were killedin Israeli attacks across the enclave, including 49 people seeking food aid withmore than 270 injured. A theatrical performance is currently taking place at the U.S. aid distributioncenters, attended by Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff: A civilized distribution of aid,without repression and pepper gas, without gunfire or casualties, withoutstampedes," Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee and acoordinator for local NGOs based in Deir al-Balah, said. "Today, the goal is todiscredit thousands of video clips, to wipe away the blood of nearly 1,000 starvingmartyrs and hundreds of wounded in the traps of humiliation.” Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Drop Site News is fully reader-funded, which means we depend on supporters like you. Become a paid subscriber to gain access to our private Discord server, subscriber-only AMAs, chats, and invites to events. You can also visit our store for exclusive Drop site merchandise! Dozens of Palestinians Killed SeekingAid as Witkoff and Huckabee TourGHF Hub in Stage-Managed Visit {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 307     Israel and the U.S. have done little to alleviate the widening famine inGaza, even as the forced starvation has passed the tipping point. ABDEL QADER SABBAH AND SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS AUG 1 READ IN APP We have a commitment to ensuring that our journalism is not locked behind a paywall. But the only way we can sustain this is through the voluntary support of our community of readers. If you are a free subscriber and you support our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or gifting one to a friend or family member. You can also make a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible donation to support our work. If you do not have the means to support our work financially, you can do your part by sharing our work on social media and by forwarding this email to your network of contacts. Upgrade to paid {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 308     Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee tour a GHF hub in Rafah on August 1, 2025. Source: X GAZA CITY—President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee toured an “aid distribution” site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday. During the U.S. envoy's highly stage-managed visit, at least 82 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave, including 49 people seeking food aid with more than 270 injured. The visit came as the leading international authority on food crises—the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—this week said that the “worst- case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” warning that the situation has reached “an alarming and deadly turning point” and predicting {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 309     “widespread death” without immediate action. “A theatrical performance is currently taking place at the U.S. aid distribution centers, attended by Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff: A civilized distribution of aid, without repression and pepper gas, without gunfire or casualties, without stampedes," Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee and a coordinator for local NGOs based in Deir al-Balah, said. "Today, the goal is to discredit thousands of video clips, to wipe away the blood of nearly 1,000 starving martyrs and hundreds of wounded in the traps of humiliation.” Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza reached a tipping point last month, with Palestinians collapsing in the streets and with men, women, and children dying from hunger and malnutrition on a daily basis. Three new deaths from the spreading famine were recorded by the ministry of health on Friday, bringing the total number since the start of the war to 162, including 92 children—many of them over the past three weeks alone. Dead and wounded Palestinians seeking aid at the Zikim crossing brought to Hamad hospital and Shifa hospital in northern Gaza. August 1, 2025. Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah. On Friday, many dead and wounded Palestinians attacked by Israeli forces, while seeking food from United Food convoys at the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza, were carried by people from the site to the steps of the shuttered Hamad hospital near the coast. Ambulances had been unable to reach the site of the attacks, but were waiting to transfer them to partially functioning hospitals in Gaza City. Some of the bodies carried into the hospital appeared emaciated. Emergency workers wrapped the corpses in body bags and loaded them onto ambulances. At Al-Shifa Hospital, injured young men and boys were admitted to the medical facility in a seemingly endless stream, and many were suffering gunshot wounds. Family members wept over the corpses laid on the ground in front of the hospital entrance. “The situation is hard. Deadly,” said Ahmed al-Madhoun, who was wounded in the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 310     leg trying to get food at Zikim and sat wincing in pain outside Shifa. “There were martyrs lying on the ground, wounded everywhere. It’s unreal. You see death with your own eyes,” he told Drop Site News. “I only gathered two cans of beans and a can of something else. I had just started getting out of the vehicle, and as soon as I got out, they opened fire on me. One person was martyred, and I was wounded. I kept crawling until I reached Hamad hospital.” Fares Afana, the head of emergency and ambulance services in Northern Gaza, told Drop Site that at least 14 aid seekers had been killed at Zikim on Friday and more than 150 wounded. “The Israeli occupation continues to target those waiting for aid in the Zikim area,” Afana said. “This method of distribution—we’ve spoken about it often—is a humiliating way to treat our Palestinian people.” He added, “What stood out yesterday, and today, was gunfire aimed at upper body parts: the chest and head…All the people waiting for aid are unarmed civilians. They pose no threat to the occupation forces, so there’s no justification for this direct targeting of hungry, aid-seeking Palestinians.” Meanwhile, Witkoff posted photos on X donning a flak jacket and a black MAGA hat. He was flanked by armed guards as he met with officials at the GHF site in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which has been razed to the ground and ethnically cleansed by the Israeli military. He said that he spent over five hours inside Gaza “level setting the facts on the ground, assessing conditions, and meeting with [the GHF] and other agencies…to give [the president] a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation, and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.” Huckabee, in a post on X that was quickly deleted, claimed Palestinians in Gaza “love Trump” and said that Palestinians refer to “one of the few” remaining buildings still standing in Rafah as “Trump tower.” He later posted that the visit was “to learn the truth about [GHF] aid sites,” adding “We received briefings from [the Israeli military] and spoke to folks on the ground. GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!” Drop Site News is reader-supported. Consider becoming {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 311     a free or paid subscriber. Upgrade to paid Public Relations and The Facts on The Ground The PR-oriented visit stood in stark contrast to the scenes of chaos and bloodshed from the daily aid massacres of starving Palestinians, since the GHF took over aid distribution in Gaza in late May. The GHF had established just four hubs in remote, militarized zones—three in the south and one in Wadi Gaza—and none in northern Gaza, where scant deliveries of UN aid convoys have been allowed in. Between May 27 and July 31, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food—859 in the vicinity of the GHF sites, and 514 along the routes of food convoys—according to the UN. Most of the killings were committed by the Israeli military but also by U.S. security contractors and armed Palestinian groups allied with Israel. International outcry over the images and increasing reports of starvation-related deaths in Gaza prompted Israel last week to announce that it would impose “humanitarian pauses” for 10 hours a day in parts of Gaza, allow in more aid along secure routes, and allow airdrops of food. The measures have had little effect on the ground, according to aid workers in Gaza, the UN, and international NGOS. Since the so-called “humanitarian pauses” were put in place on Sunday, at least 593 Palestinians were confirmed killed across Gaza, according to health ministry figures and news reports, including 300 seeking aid, and over 1,967 injured. The “secure routes” inside Gaza that Israel said it would designate for humanitarian aid convoys—from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.—were said to include corridors through Zikim, Netzarim, a direct road to Deir al-Balah, and two “central routes.” But on Thursday, the UN raised serious doubts about access and safety. “Despite Israeli announcements regarding the designation of convoy routes as secure, trucks continue to face long delays that expose drivers, aid workers and crowds to danger,” UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said, adding that only “a single route has been made available” for teams exiting Kerem Shalom, where Israeli forces {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 312     maintain “an ad hoc checkpoint.” UNOCHA data underscores the dysfunction: of the 92 coordinated aid movements between last Wednesday and Tuesday, 16% were denied outright, 26% were approved but blocked or delayed, 47% were fully facilitated, and 11% were withdrawn for logistical or security reasons. Afana—the head of emergency and ambulance services in Northern Gaza—said one of the reasons for the looting was the targeting of local tribal groups trying to secure the convoys. “A group of tribal security men was targeted by surveillance drones, resulting in 6 martyrs among them,” Afana told Drop Site. The Gaza Government Media Office added that most aid never reaches UN warehouses. Instead, they are either unloaded by starving civilians who are often fired upon by Israeli forces, or looted by Israeli-backed armed gangs. Eleven tribal volunteers securing aid were also killed by Israeli forces earlier this week, the Media Office added. Meanwhile, the already minuscule amount of food reaching Palestinians has barely increased. “The slight increase in what is coming in is not nearly enough to even scratch the surface to meet the people’s needs here on the ground,” Olga Cherevko, a staff member at the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, told Al Jazeera on Friday. “There are so many factors on the ground that point to the fact that, despite the slight relaxation of [Israel’s] various constraints [on aid entry], we’re still in the same situation,” Cherevko said. “People are continuing to starve, malnutrition rates continue to go up, people are risking their lives to get food, and there’s no change substantially and operationally, really.” The Israeli military confirmed that six countries were allowed to airdrop aid into Gaza—including France, Germany, Spain, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates—yet the amount remains woefully insufficient and has been criticized as a dangerous and ineffective method of aid delivery, with parcels landing in remote, militarized areas or falling into the sea. “The ongoing airdrops and limited convoys have not succeeded in delivering food to the thousands of families living under severe conditions. The risk involved in {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 313     accessing aid remains extremely high and the quantities that do make it in are far from enough to meet even the most basic needs,” Amawi said. “People are running long distances over sand, rubble, and danger zones just to be in the right place at the right time when the parachutes fall. I personally know individuals who have made this desperate run more than five times in a single day and still return empty handed. The emotional and physical toll is overwhelming. Imagine the weight of hunger, heat, fear, and disappointment repeated again and again. This is not humanitarian relief. It is more like torment and humiliation that robs people of their dignity. Aid should not require such suffering. It should reach people where they are, not force them into a race for survival that many, especially children, the elderly, the sick, simply cannot win.” Human Rights Watch published a report on Friday concluding that “US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.” The report said, “The dire humanitarian situation is a direct result of Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war—a war crime—as well as Israel’s continued intentional deprivation of aid and basic services, which amounts to the crime against humanity of extermination, and acts of genocide.” Jawa Ahmad and Herman Gill contributed to this report. Upgrade to paid Leave a comment A guest post by Abdel Qader Sabbah journalist and videographer in northern Gaza Subscribe to Abdel {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 314     Become a Drop Site News Paid Subscriber Drop Site News is reader-supported. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. Upgrade to paid A paid subscription gets you: 15% off Drop Site store Access to our Discord, subscriber-only AMAs, chats, and invites to events, both virtual and IRL Post comments and join the community The knowledge you are supporting independent media making the lives of the powerful miserable You can also now find us on podcast platforms and on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Telegram, and YouTube. LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2025 Drop Site News, Inc.Drop Site News Inc., 1930 18th St NWSte B2 #1034, Washington, DC 20009 Unsubscribe {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 315     From:Aram James To:Shankar Ramamoorthy; Doug Minkler Subject:The New York Times Repeated Israeli Claims of Hamas Stealing Aid Without Evidence Date:Thursday, July 31, 2025 7:06:13 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. The New York Times Repeated Israeli Claims of Hamas Stealing Aid https://theintercept.com/2025/07/30/new-york-times-hamas-aid-israel-gaza-famine/ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 316     From:Yusra Hussain To:Aram James Cc:Vicki Veenker; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Gardener, Liz; Gennady Sheyner; BoardOperations; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Josh Becker; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Vara Ramakrishnan; board@valleywater.org; GRP-City Council; Council, City; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; Binder, Andrew; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Hayden; Jeff Conrad; h.etzko@gmail.com; Liz Kniss; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; roberta ahlquist; Dave Price; Diana Diamond; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; dennis burns; Dennis Upton; Donna Wallach; Don Austin; yolanda; Yolanda Conaway; Doug Minkler; editor@almanacnews.com; EPA Today; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Dana St. George; Gerry Gras; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; Councilmember Chappie Jones; district1@bos.sccgov.org; District2@sanjoseca.gov; cromero@cityofepa.org; Anna Griffin; Cribbs, Anne; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; San José Spotlight; editor@paweekly.com; Pat M; Carla Torres; sharon jackson; Sheree Roth; Lori Meyers; Tom DuBois; Ruth Silver Taube; Steve Wagstaffe; Palo Alto Free Press; Figueroa, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; Daniel Kottke; Reckdahl, Keith; Lauing, Ed; Salem Ajluni; Roberta Ahlquist; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; Zelkha, Mila; Damon Silver; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; Patrice Ventresca; Michael Pati; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; ladoris cordell; Reckdahl, Keith; Bill Newell; Baker, Rob; Robert Salonga; Templeton, Cari; Angel, David Subject:Re: In Gaza, Hunger Has Overtaken War as Israel’s Cruelest Weapon Date:Thursday, July 31, 2025 1:34:26 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Thank you Aram for your words. In times like this when the whole world is speaking up against the cruelty of the Israeli armyand the silence of our leaders and representative, history will not be kind to people who remained silent, or worse, took a stand to support the genocide. Vickie, I hope you find it in you to speak up against the starvation of the Gazan people. Thesepolicies of Israeli war tactics are not helping the greater Israeli society or their image in the world. We are all witnessing the worst man made starvation of the Palestinian people at thehands of the Israeli army. Yusra Hussain, MD On Wed, Jul 30, 2025 at 9:04 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: Speaking Out Against Genocide Hi Vicki, It is time for you to speak out against the genocide. Will you finally find the courage to voice your stance, despite the pressure from those around you who This message needs your attention No employee in your company has ever replied to this person. This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 317     insist you remain silent? Next year, you will be Palo Alto’s mayor. What kind of example are you setting for the children in our community? Do you want your obituary to read: “Vicki Veenker was an outstanding lawyer and politician, but she remained silent and refused to speak out against the genocide in Palestine ”? Avram “Time for VV to say end the genocide now” Finkelstein Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Drop Site News is fully reader-funded, which means we depend on supporters like you. Become a paid subscriber to gain access to our private Discord server, subscriber-only AMAs, chats, and invites to events. You can also visit our store for exclusive Drop site merchandise! In Gaza, Hunger Has Overtaken Waras Israel’s Cruelest Weapon "We do not need pity. We need pressure on those who are blockingfood, those who remain silent, and those who still have the power tostop this but choose not to." DROP SITE NEWS JUL 30 READ IN APP The article you are about to read was written by Heba Almaqadma, a 24-year-old Palestinian journalist, translator, and writer living in Gaza City. Heba was born and raised in Gaza, and has remained in Gaza City during the war, despite being displaced from her home on multiple occasions. Her account of the war—and the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 318     current wave of starvation overtaking the territory—offers a window into the experiences of ordinary Palestinians struggling to survive amid the escalating genocide in the territory. —Murtaza Hussain Upgrade to paid In Gaza City, on July 30, 2025, a Palestinian woman picks out food scraps amid the rubble. (Photo by Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images). Story by Heba Almaqadma {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 319     GAZA CITY—In Gaza, there’s a popular saying that has been passed down by generations of families, reflecting our resilience in the face of difficult conditions: “No one dies of hunger.” For the longest time, that was true. In the Gaza that we knew, people struggled because of poverty, unemployment, and the other consequences of the occupation, but no one died because they had nothing to eat. Today, we are witnessing the unthinkable. Hundreds are dying. And the cause? Hunger. Behind the headlines and beyond the numbers, flesh and blood people are cut off from basic necessities, including food, clean water, and medical care. They are facing a slow, quiet, forcibly imposed death. Starvation is not a looming threat; it is a brutal, daily reality. Children cry themselves to sleep on an empty stomach. Parents break under the weight of helplessness, watching their sons and daughters grow thinner, weaker. Bread, once a basic staple, has become a luxury. Vegetables, milk, eggs have become unimaginable for most families. Hunger has overtaken war as the cruelest weapon. Subscribe to Drop Site News. Upgrade to paid In recent weeks, thousands of Palestinians have been killed or injured risking their lives to try to find food. My cousin, Yousef Ala’atal, just 14 years old, was among them. Hunger pushed him to seek food from an aid distribution site managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). He came back not only empty-handed, but with a bullet in his head, blood soaking his body, and lasting damage from the injury. Yousef asked his mother with a pain that a child’s heart cannot endure: “Am I going to stay like this?” After that question, silence overtook their family. Children are the primary victims in this deliberate campaign of starvation; young ones can’t understand what it means that there is no food. Breaking their parents’ hearts with their hunger, older ones try to go to the GHF, which we refer to in Gaza as “death traps.” Many are killed, while others return injured, heartbroken, or {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 320     sometimes find themselves detained. Mohammed Dababsh, a 35 year old and father of two young children—Yazan and Masa—was killed on July 11 while trying to get food from an aid site run by the GHF. “He never wanted to go. He was completely against their humiliating and chaotic aid system,” recounted his wife, Ghandoura Abu Ziada. “But, one day, after they ordered us to evacuate from Khan Younis, he told me to take the kids and stay with my family until he could find us a safer place. He stayed behind in Khan Younis.” As the family separated, the crushing burden of being unable to provide for his young children continued to weigh on Mohammed. This ultimately led him to try and risk getting food from a GHF site. “Masa has been asking for Indomie [instant] noodles for months. We kept explaining that bread and lentils are all we have, but her little mind couldn’t grasp it. While he was still in Khan Younis, his friends tried to convince him to go to the GHF, saying he might be able to get Indomie and biscuits for the kids.” While Ghandoura was waiting for a regular call from Mohammed, she received one from his brother instead. He had been injured at a GHF site, he said, and was being taken to Nasser Hospital for treatment. Ghandoura rushed to the hospital searching and hoping to find him among the wounded. Half an hour after her arrival an ambulance arrived carrying his body. “Our children still can’t understand. 'What do you mean he’s never coming back?' they ask. A few nights ago, Masa was going to the bathroom when she heard her grandfather’s voice and thought it was her father. She told me, 'Dad is here, let me go see him.' I told her he’s in heaven now, while my heart aches and cries,” she said. “They still wait for him. And so do I. I can’t believe it. I keep waiting for him to return. Mohammed was the one who provided for us. Now that he’s gone, everything has become even harder." “We Don’t Want Them” Sohaib Madi, a 24-year-old, was shot in the head while he was trying to get aid from the GHF for his family earlier this month. As a result, the right side of his {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 321     body was paralyzed, and he lost his vision. He came to the GHF site desperate for food, and was transported to hospital still on an empty stomach. His mother cried for him for days. She feared losing him after she lost her daughter in January 2024, after being shot in the neck by a sniper while hanging laundry on a balcony in Khan Younis. Palestinian women continue to bear a disproportionate share of the suffering in the Gaza Strip, enduring the same violence, displacement, starvation, and maltreatment as the rest of the population, but with the added burden of having to care for their families alone once male providers for their households are killed. Last week, the GHF announced that they would dedicate a day exclusively for women to receive aid. The implied assumption was that women are not seen as a threat and, therefore, wouldn’t be targeted or killed while gathering aid. Yet this supposed extension of goodwill resulted in even more tragedy for Palestinian women. Maria, a mother of seven who had lost her husband 10 months earlier, needed to secure her kids with food, and she had no choice but to go to one of the sites. Her daughter, Malak Sheikh El Eid, later recounted that her mother went twice and came back with nothing, having stared death in the face. They pleaded with her not to go for aid again, but if she insisted, they asked to at least take them all with her. Their mother promised she wouldn’t go, but when they woke up, they found she had already left. Mariam recounted bitterly how, when she called her mother on the phone to check on her, a stranger answered and told her that her mother had sustained moderate injuries. Later, Malak learned that her mother had been martyred with a bullet in her head, leaving behind seven orphaned children, who now have no father, no mother, and no food. Malak cried while recounting what happened in a video later posted on Instagram. Barely able to catch her breath through her tears, she said: “Close the GHF aid. We don’t want them.” Survivors’ Guilt {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 322     Each day in Gaza we see dozens of people killed or wounded in the most humiliating way, while merely trying to obtain food for themselves and their families. Many Palestinian children now must live with the knowledge that their mother or father died while trying to secure them food, leaving them with a survivors’ guilt that will last a lifetime. The deprivation from starvation and siege is visible upon people’s faces. People are looking hollow-eyed and tired. We are suffering not just from hunger, but from abandonment. Palestinians have been turned into symbols of suffering and defiance, whereas what we want is not only to survive, but also to truly live and feel alive once more. Instead, as the whole world watches, for nearly two years we have been brutally murdered and tormented in the most horrific and innovative ways that a human mind can devise. The world is silent, but inside Gaza, there is no silence. There are the sounds of children collapsing from malnutrition, parents crying in frustration, communities trying to survive without food, fuel, or medicine. The suffering isn’t sudden: it is slow, deliberate, and devastating. As the expert on famine Alex de Waal said in a recent television interview, this starvation is the product of a “minutely engineered” Israeli policy aimed at breaking our ability to live. We are not starving because of drought. We are not starving because of natural disasters. We are starving because of Israel’s decision to use starvation as a weapon against Gaza’s civilian population, and the world’s decision to permit it. Closing borders, shooting people waiting for aid, and turning away aid trucks has become acceptable, as long as it’s Gaza. No political justification for this policy can erase the hollow look in a child’s eyes, the desperate hope in a mother’s voice, or the slow and cruel death of a people who are being starved in full view of the world. We do not need pity. We need pressure on those who are blocking food, those who remain silent, and those who still have the power to stop this but choose not to. Because tomorrow, someone else will write another article. Another photo will circulate. Another child will die. And we will ask again: how many more lives must be extinguished before the world decides that Gaza deserves to live? {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 323     Upgrade to paid Leave a comment Become a Drop Site News Paid Subscriber Drop Site News is reader-supported. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. Upgrade to paid A paid subscription gets you: 15% off Drop Site store Access to our Discord, subscriber-only AMAs, chats, and invites to events, both virtual and IRL Post comments and join the community The knowledge you are supporting independent media making the lives of the powerful miserable You can also now find us on podcast platforms and on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Telegram, and YouTube. LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2025 Drop Site News, Inc.Drop Site News Inc., 1930 18th St NWSte B2 #1034, Washington, DC 20009 Unsubscribe {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 324     {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 325     From:Aram James To:Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Liz Kniss; Gardener, Liz; Roberta Ahlquist; Sean Allen; Palo Alto Free Press; LotusFong; h.etzko@gmail.com; Tim James; Cait James; Human Relations Commission; Bill Newell; Pat M; Dave Price;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; EPA Today; Diana Diamond; Braden Cartwright; Emily Mibach; Gennady Sheyner Subject:Source: BBC News Date:Wednesday, July 30, 2025 10:09:12 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Source: BBC News What does recognising a Palestinian state mean? - BBC News https://share.google/ioJxEIQs9GRpsP2GJ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 326     From:Aram James To:Vicki Veenker Cc:Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Gardener, Liz; Gennady Sheyner; BoardOperations; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Josh Becker; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Vara Ramakrishnan; board@valleywater.org; GRP-City Council; Council, City; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; Binder, Andrew; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Hayden; Jeff Conrad; h.etzko@gmail.com; Liz Kniss; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; roberta ahlquist; Dave Price; Diana Diamond; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; dennis burns; Dennis Upton; Donna Wallach; Don Austin; yolanda; Yolanda Conaway; Doug Minkler; editor@almanacnews.com; EPA Today; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; Yusra Hussain; Dana St. George; Gerry Gras; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; Councilmember Chappie Jones; district1@bos.sccgov.org; District2@sanjoseca.gov; cromero@cityofepa.org; Anna Griffin; Cribbs, Anne; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; San José Spotlight; editor@paweekly.com; Pat M; Carla Torres; sharon jackson; Sheree Roth; Lori Meyers; Tom DuBois; Ruth Silver Taube; Steve Wagstaffe; Palo Alto Free Press; Figueroa, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; Daniel Kottke; Reckdahl, Keith; Lauing, Ed; Salem Ajluni; Roberta Ahlquist; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; Zelkha, Mila; Damon Silver; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; Patrice Ventresca; Michael Pati; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; ladoris cordell; Reckdahl, Keith; Bill Newell; Baker, Rob; Robert Salonga; Templeton, Cari; Angel, David Subject:In Gaza, Hunger Has Overtaken War as Israel’s Cruelest Weapon Date:Wednesday, July 30, 2025 9:04:19 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Subject: Speaking Out Against Genocide Hi Vicki, It is time for you to speak out against the genocide. Will you finally find the courage to voice your stance, despite the pressure from those around you who insist you remain silent? Next year, you will be Palo Alto’s mayor. What kind of example are you setting for the children in our community? Do you want your obituary to read: “Vicki Veenker was an outstanding lawyer and politician, but she remained silent and refused to speak out against the genocide in Palestine ”? Avram “Time for VV to say end the genocide now” Finkelstein Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Drop Site News is fully reader-funded, which means we depend on supporters like you. Become a paid subscriber to gain access to our private Discord server, subscriber-only AMAs, chats, and invites to events. You can also visit our store for exclusive Drop site merchandise! {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 327     In Gaza, Hunger Has Overtaken Waras Israel’s Cruelest Weapon "We do not need pity. We need pressure on those who are blockingfood, those who remain silent, and those who still have the power tostop this but choose not to." DROP SITE NEWS JUL 30 READ IN APP The article you are about to read was written by Heba Almaqadma, a 24-year-old Palestinian journalist, translator, and writer living in Gaza City. Heba was born and raised in Gaza, and has remained in Gaza City during the war, despite being displaced from her home on multiple occasions. Her account of the war—and the current wave of starvation overtaking the territory—offers a window into the experiences of ordinary Palestinians struggling to survive amid the escalating genocide in the territory. —Murtaza Hussain Upgrade to paid {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 328     In Gaza City, on July 30, 2025, a Palestinian woman picks out food scraps amid the rubble. (Photo by Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images). Story by Heba Almaqadma GAZA CITY—In Gaza, there’s a popular saying that has been passed down by generations of families, reflecting our resilience in the face of difficult conditions: “No one dies of hunger.” For the longest time, that was true. In the Gaza that we knew, people struggled because of poverty, unemployment, and the other consequences of the occupation, but no one died because they had nothing to eat. Today, we are witnessing the unthinkable. Hundreds are dying. And the cause? Hunger. Behind the headlines and beyond the numbers, flesh and blood people {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 329     are cut off from basic necessities, including food, clean water, and medical care. They are facing a slow, quiet, forcibly imposed death. Starvation is not a looming threat; it is a brutal, daily reality. Children cry themselves to sleep on an empty stomach. Parents break under the weight of helplessness, watching their sons and daughters grow thinner, weaker. Bread, once a basic staple, has become a luxury. Vegetables, milk, eggs have become unimaginable for most families. Hunger has overtaken war as the cruelest weapon. Subscribe to Drop Site News. Upgrade to paid In recent weeks, thousands of Palestinians have been killed or injured risking their lives to try to find food. My cousin, Yousef Ala’atal, just 14 years old, was among them. Hunger pushed him to seek food from an aid distribution site managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). He came back not only empty-handed, but with a bullet in his head, blood soaking his body, and lasting damage from the injury. Yousef asked his mother with a pain that a child’s heart cannot endure: “Am I going to stay like this?” After that question, silence overtook their family. Children are the primary victims in this deliberate campaign of starvation; young ones can’t understand what it means that there is no food. Breaking their parents’ hearts with their hunger, older ones try to go to the GHF, which we refer to in Gaza as “death traps.” Many are killed, while others return injured, heartbroken, or sometimes find themselves detained. Mohammed Dababsh, a 35 year old and father of two young children—Yazan and Masa—was killed on July 11 while trying to get food from an aid site run by the GHF. “He never wanted to go. He was completely against their humiliating and chaotic aid system,” recounted his wife, Ghandoura Abu Ziada. “But, one day, after they ordered us to evacuate from Khan Younis, he told me to take the kids and stay with my family until he could find us a safer place. He stayed behind in Khan Younis.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 330     As the family separated, the crushing burden of being unable to provide for his young children continued to weigh on Mohammed. This ultimately led him to try and risk getting food from a GHF site. “Masa has been asking for Indomie [instant] noodles for months. We kept explaining that bread and lentils are all we have, but her little mind couldn’t grasp it. While he was still in Khan Younis, his friends tried to convince him to go to the GHF, saying he might be able to get Indomie and biscuits for the kids.” While Ghandoura was waiting for a regular call from Mohammed, she received one from his brother instead. He had been injured at a GHF site, he said, and was being taken to Nasser Hospital for treatment. Ghandoura rushed to the hospital searching and hoping to find him among the wounded. Half an hour after her arrival an ambulance arrived carrying his body. “Our children still can’t understand. 'What do you mean he’s never coming back?' they ask. A few nights ago, Masa was going to the bathroom when she heard her grandfather’s voice and thought it was her father. She told me, 'Dad is here, let me go see him.' I told her he’s in heaven now, while my heart aches and cries,” she said. “They still wait for him. And so do I. I can’t believe it. I keep waiting for him to return. Mohammed was the one who provided for us. Now that he’s gone, everything has become even harder." “We Don’t Want Them” Sohaib Madi, a 24-year-old, was shot in the head while he was trying to get aid from the GHF for his family earlier this month. As a result, the right side of his body was paralyzed, and he lost his vision. He came to the GHF site desperate for food, and was transported to hospital still on an empty stomach. His mother cried for him for days. She feared losing him after she lost her daughter in January 2024, after being shot in the neck by a sniper while hanging laundry on a balcony in Khan Younis. Palestinian women continue to bear a disproportionate share of the suffering in the Gaza Strip, enduring the same violence, displacement, starvation, and maltreatment as the rest of the population, but with the added burden of having {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 331     to care for their families alone once male providers for their households are killed. Last week, the GHF announced that they would dedicate a day exclusively for women to receive aid. The implied assumption was that women are not seen as a threat and, therefore, wouldn’t be targeted or killed while gathering aid. Yet this supposed extension of goodwill resulted in even more tragedy for Palestinian women. Maria, a mother of seven who had lost her husband 10 months earlier, needed to secure her kids with food, and she had no choice but to go to one of the sites. Her daughter, Malak Sheikh El Eid, later recounted that her mother went twice and came back with nothing, having stared death in the face. They pleaded with her not to go for aid again, but if she insisted, they asked to at least take them all with her. Their mother promised she wouldn’t go, but when they woke up, they found she had already left. Mariam recounted bitterly how, when she called her mother on the phone to check on her, a stranger answered and told her that her mother had sustained moderate injuries. Later, Malak learned that her mother had been martyred with a bullet in her head, leaving behind seven orphaned children, who now have no father, no mother, and no food. Malak cried while recounting what happened in a video later posted on Instagram. Barely able to catch her breath through her tears, she said: “Close the GHF aid. We don’t want them.” Survivors’ Guilt Each day in Gaza we see dozens of people killed or wounded in the most humiliating way, while merely trying to obtain food for themselves and their families. Many Palestinian children now must live with the knowledge that their mother or father died while trying to secure them food, leaving them with a survivors’ guilt that will last a lifetime. The deprivation from starvation and siege is visible upon people’s faces. People are looking hollow-eyed and tired. We are suffering not just from hunger, but from abandonment. Palestinians have been turned into symbols of suffering and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 332     defiance, whereas what we want is not only to survive, but also to truly live and feel alive once more. Instead, as the whole world watches, for nearly two years we have been brutally murdered and tormented in the most horrific and innovative ways that a human mind can devise. The world is silent, but inside Gaza, there is no silence. There are the sounds of children collapsing from malnutrition, parents crying in frustration, communities trying to survive without food, fuel, or medicine. The suffering isn’t sudden: it is slow, deliberate, and devastating. As the expert on famine Alex de Waal said in a recent television interview, this starvation is the product of a “minutely engineered” Israeli policy aimed at breaking our ability to live. We are not starving because of drought. We are not starving because of natural disasters. We are starving because of Israel’s decision to use starvation as a weapon against Gaza’s civilian population, and the world’s decision to permit it. Closing borders, shooting people waiting for aid, and turning away aid trucks has become acceptable, as long as it’s Gaza. No political justification for this policy can erase the hollow look in a child’s eyes, the desperate hope in a mother’s voice, or the slow and cruel death of a people who are being starved in full view of the world. We do not need pity. We need pressure on those who are blocking food, those who remain silent, and those who still have the power to stop this but choose not to. Because tomorrow, someone else will write another article. Another photo will circulate. Another child will die. And we will ask again: how many more lives must be extinguished before the world decides that Gaza deserves to live? Upgrade to paid Leave a comment Become a Drop Site News Paid Subscriber {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 333     Drop Site News is reader-supported. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. 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LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2025 Drop Site News, Inc.Drop Site News Inc., 1930 18th St NWSte B2 #1034, Washington, DC 20009 Unsubscribe {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 334     From:Bob Cohen To:Aram James; Martin Wasserman Cc:Palo Alto Free Press; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Sean Allen; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; patricia.guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Diana Diamond; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP- City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; Rosen, Jeff; Baker, Rob; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan; Dave Price; Dan Okonkwo; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Emily Mibach; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Senator Becker; frances.rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Marina Lopez; Josie James-Le; Tim James; sharon jackson; Lewis James; Douglas A. Murray; freddie.quintana@sen.ca.gov; Michael Ybarra; yolanda; Seher Awan; Roberta Ahlquist Subject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWII Date:Tuesday, July 29, 2025 5:00:04 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Thanks Marty, You responded very well to his selective choice of "facts". Cheers Bob On Sunday, July 27, 2025 at 08:58:03 AM PDT, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: Aram, I don't think too many Gazans would agree with your characterization of Hamas as "freedom fighters." They've never done anything to make Gazans freer. In fact, they’ve oppressed them far worse than the Israelis ever did, and their fanatical hatred against Jews and Israel has brought nothing but death and destruction to Gaza. This message needs your attention No employee in your company has ever replied to this person. This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 335     Your theory that Israel intentionally allowed October 7 to happen in order to have a pretext to invade Gaza is beyond ludicrous. If Israel wanted a pretext, it could easily have found one that involved no loss of Jewish lives, let alone over 1200 Jewish lives! Your claim that Israel always planned to expel all the Palestinian Arabs is also absurd. If so, why did they grant full Israeli citizenship to so many of them, over a million of which continue to enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship today, including the right to vote. It's true that some pre-state Jewish leaders considered the possibility of expelling the Arabs in light of their continued hostility, but this has never been the policy of the State. On the other hand, top Arab leaders have repeatedly boasted, especially in 1948 and 1967, that they were going to “ massacre” the Jews and “drive them into the sea,” and Hamas to this day insists that its goal is to remove every single Jew from the Land of Israel. You accuse Israel of dehumanizing the Palestinians. You should take a look at how Jews are portrayed in Palestinian textbooks and classrooms. It seems that everything you accuse Israel of doing to the Arabs are things that the Arabs do, or try to do, to the Jews. Your claim that the conflict is not between equals is also disingenuous. Hamas itself is no match for Israel, but it's important to recognize that Hamas is just one branch of a larger movement called the Muslim Brotherhood. It also has wealthy and powerful patrons in Arab and Muslim countries, and it's diverted hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid, intended to benefit the Gazan people, into militarizing the Strip for protracted warfare against Israel. And given its fanatical dedication to killing Jews, which it regards as a religious obligation, and its being willing and even eager to give their own lives to do so, it indeed poses an existential threat that Israel must deal with in a very forceful way. Martin Wasserman On Jul 25, 2025, at 9:58 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Mark, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 336     I place no blame on Hamas for the current situation. For decades, the U.S. and Israel have kept the people of Gaza in what can only be described as the largest outdoor prison and concentration camp in world history. This reality is well-documented by Jewish scholars like Norman Finkelstein and Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé. Like Nat Turner Hamas members can be viewed as freedom fighters of the first order. . It was known to Israel that Hamas was preparing for the October 7 attack for a significant period—possibly weeks or even months —before the actual event. The IDF was ordered to stand down by military leaders with the full consent of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. It seems that Israel sought a precipitating event to trigger violence, aiming toward the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their historic homeland. Based on historical records that predate its establishment in 1948, Israel and its Zionist leadership have always planned to expel the Palestinian people through violence and military force. The Israelis routinely dehumanize the Palestinian people, similarly to how Europeans characterized Native Americans, providing justification for land theft and atrocities (Settler Colonialism). This is not a conflict between two equal parties. It is Israel, supported by substantial military and financial aid from the U.S. (billions of dollars every year), engaged in a systematic slaughter of the Palestinian people. Israel possesses one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with a functioning army, navy, air force, and nuclear weapons. In contrast, Palestine has no army, no navy, no air force, and no nuclear weapons. The Palestinians survive through their resourcefulness, while Israel relies on military strength supplied by the U.S. This situation transcends the classic narrative of David versus Goliath. Avram “Eliminate the state of Israel now." — Finkelstein {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 337     On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:28 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: The ongoing genocide and war crimes committed by Israel, with the full support of the United States, will eventually be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This will happen regardless of any alleged actions by Hamas. It is crucial to understand that the ongoing genocide is a separate and distinct crime from the alleged behavior of the group referred to as Hamas (freedom fighters). As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” In a similar vein, you don’t need a genocide expert to recognize that Israel is currently engaged in a massive, full-blown genocide of the Palestinian people. One can offer various intellectual rationalizations, but the reality remains indisputable—the actions of the state of Israel amount to genocide beyond all reasonable doubt. Israel is guilty as charged of war crimes and genocide. Avram “Let The Prosecution Begin” Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:23 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoring propaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 338     'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII | Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation- of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 339     From:Martin WassermanTo:Aram JamesCc:Sean Allen; Salem Ajluni; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; jessica@speiser.net; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Enberg,Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Miguel Rodriguez; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Palo Alto Free Press; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Diana Diamond; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; BillJohnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP-City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Stump, Molly; Jeff Rosen; Rob Baker; Ruth SilverTaube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; David Angel; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara RamakrishnanSubject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWIIDate:Monday, July 28, 2025 8:43:33 AMAttachments:image1.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. i Hamas could end the suffering anytime it wants just by laying down its arms and releasing the hostages. But it has no interest in ending the suffering. As part of a culture that defines itself as revering death rather than life, Hamas believes that any Gazan who dies of starvation will go straight to heaven as a martyr, so there's really no problem. And it also serves asgood anti-Israel propaganda. Martin Wasserman On Jul 25, 2025, at 8:26 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Why Is the World Letting It Happen?”: U.K. Surgeon, Back from Gaza, on Starving Children | Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/25/nick_maynard_gaza On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 12:30 AM Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com > wrote: Good evening, Martin, I want to start by expressing my apologies before we delve into today’s discussion. Unfortunately, several major U.S. media outlets have reported perspectives that contradict your position. I find that your argument lacks substantial logic. Given the global perception of the United States as a superior military power, it raises the question of how the people of Gaza, even under Hamas leadership,could pose a significant threat to any country supported by U.S. military resources. The attached photos speak volumes and challenge the validity of your position. Best regards, Sean This message needs your attentionThis is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 340     Sent from my iPhone On Jul 24, 2025, at 6:36 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:  This is utter nonsense. If Israel's modus operandi has always been "maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity of lives of civilian non-combatants,” why did they sign the 1993 Oslo Accord which brought Yasser Arafat and the PLO out of exile and gave them sovereignty of Arab areas in Judea and Samaria? Andwhy did they forcibly evacuate all Jewish settlements in Gaza in 2005 instead of strengthening those settlements and digging in? The reality is, it was always the Arab leadership that sought to exterminate the Jews, giving the Jews no choice but to fight back. When Israel goes to war, it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but groups like Hamas go out of their way to target Israeli civilians, and the Palestinian Authority gives large cash rewards to any Arab who murders any Jew, whether civilian or otherwise. Right now, people in Gaza are starving, not because of Israel, but because Hamas refuses to lay down its arms and release the hostages. The conflict would be over tomorrow if Hamas would do these simple things. In fact, Hamas tries forcibly, often with gunfire, to prevent Gazans from receiving life-giving aid that doesn't come through them,saying that receiving such aid amounts to "collaborating with the enemy.” The truth is, Israel has displayed more concern for the lives of Gazan civilians than the Gazans’ own leaders have. Perhaps the reason for this is that Israeli culture is based on reverence for life, while Hamas culture defines itself as revering death, and seeking martyrdom in battle as the highest possible goal. Martin Wasserman On Jul 24, 2025, at 2:45 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: As a modest contribution to a better understanding of the thinking and practices of the Israeli state, past and present, I recommend a very useful and short book that I read more than 40 years ago. It was written by Livia Rokach, the daughter of Israel Rokach who was the Israeli Interior Minister in the government of Moshe Sharett, the latter being the second prime minister of the new state (1953-1955). She translated and published her father's diaries, as well as parts of Sharett's diaries, both of which give us insights into the private elite thinking, planning and actions of main actors in the Israeli state vis-a-vis its neighboring countries in the 1950s (and vis-s-vis the U.S. and European powers) (see https://ia804501.us.archive.org/17/items/sacred-terrorism/Sacred-Terrorism.pdf). The resonance and parallels between Israeli leadership thinking and actions in the 1950s (as explained by Rokach) and in the 21st century with regard to the states and peoples of Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza and Egypt (and, by extension, Iraq, Yemen and Iran) are instructive. There are considerable continuities across time and space: aggressive and domineering (supremicist?) thinking and behavior; an expansionist impulse; a sociopathic and homicidal (genocidal?) animus towards Arabs, especially Palestinians. It was all there in the 1940s and 1950s, as Rokach tells us, and it's all there now, as we witness on a daily basis. Israel certainly didn't need Hamas to induce such thinking and behavior. In fact, the Hamas movement wasn't formally inaugurated until late 1987, almost two generations after the establishment of the state of Israel. Reading historical accounts of the conflict teaches us that only thebugaboo changes (e.g. Nasser, the PLO, Saddam Hussein, Hizballah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, etc.)—the Israeli modus operandi is more or less a constant--maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity of the lives of civilian non-combatants. The Israeli state was ushered in and made possible by the intial displacement of the majority of Mandate Palestine's Arab population during 1947-1949 (on these events, see Ilan Pappe's book based in large part on official Israeli archivalsourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethnic_Cleansing_of_Palestine). It behooves us to remember that about two-thirds of Gaza's population are themselves refugees from Madate Palestine or the offspring of those refugees. No disconinuities there either. Regards, Salem From: Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 341     Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2025 10:23 PMTo: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>Cc: Veenker, Vicki <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; Lythcott-Haims, Julie <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; Ed Lauing <elauing@equitysearchpartners.com>; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23 <jessica@speiser.net>; Lori Meyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>; Sheree Roth<ssroth29@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; Michelle Bigelow <Michelle.Bigelow@morganhill.ca.gov>; Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>;eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org <eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org>; 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Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; Rodriguez, Miguel <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; editor@paweekly.com <editor@paweekly.com>; April Wagner <april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>; DonAustin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Burt, Patrick <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov <Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Seher Awan <firebrand.dr@gmail.com>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; David Piper <david.piper@wvm.edu>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org<michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Diana Diamond <dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; ladoris cordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; rabrica@cityofepa.org<rabrica@cityofepa.org>;Bill Newell <billnewell2850@gmail.com>; Bill Johnson <bjohnson@paweekly.com>; Bill James <billjames99@gmail.com>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Carla Torres <xicanamagic@hotmail.com>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; Zachary.Perron@CityofPaloAlto.org<zachary.perron@cityofpaloalto.org>; City Attorney <CityAttorney@santaclaraca.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Clerk, City <city.clerk@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Clerk <CLERK2@redwoodcity.org>; Friends of Cubberley <friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; ParkRec Commission<ParkRec.commission@cityofpaloalto.org>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Karen Holman <kcholman@sbcglobal.net>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Patrice Ventresca <patriceventresca@gmail.com>; Rowena Chiu <rowena.chiu@gmail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Damon Silver<damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Daniel Kottke <daniel.k@earthlink.net>; Dennis Upton <kathy8420@qq.com>; Zahra Billoo <zbilloo@cair.com>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg <supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>; Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>;Stump, Molly <molly.stump@cityofpaloalto.org>; Rosen, Jeff <JRosen@dao.sccgov.org>; Baker, Rob <rbaker@dao.sccgov.org>; Ruth Silver Taube <ruthsilvertaube16@gmail.com>; Tom DuBois <tom.dubois@gmail.com>; Blackshire, Geoffrey <Geo.Blackshire@cityofpaloalto.org>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Dennis Upton<denkafer1@yahoo.com>; dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>; Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org <Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org>; Alex Afanasiev <Alex.Afanasiev@cityofpaloalto.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; Angel, David <dangel@dao.sccgov.org>; Greg Tanaka <greg@gregtanaka.org>; Reifschneider, James<james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>; Yolanda Conaway <yconaway@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org>Subject: Re: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoring propaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives oftheir own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel'sStarvation of Gaza Most'Minutely Designed andControlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 342     From:Aram James To:Sean Allen; Rose Lynn Cc:Mark Turner; Tim James; Cait James; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; CityCouncil; cromero@cityofepa.org; Perron, Zachary; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Reckdahl, Keith; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; editor@paweekly.com; Ed Lauing; eddie.aubrey@sanjoseca.gov; Daniel Kottke; Daniel Kottke; Pat M; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Michael Ybarra; Seher Awan; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Gerry Gras; Gardener, Liz; Liz Kniss; GRP-City Council; Bill Newell; DuJuan Green; Anna Griffin; Cribbs, Anne; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Veenker, Vicki; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Foley, Michael; Mickie Winkler; Michael Pati; Zelkha, Mila; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Rowena Chiu; Nicole Chiu- Wang; Doug Minkler; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Lewis James; JIM MINKLER1; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Rodriguez, Miguel; Robert. Jonsen; Palo Alto Free Press; Raymond Goins; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; city.council@menlopark.gov; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; board@pausd.org; Salem Ajluni; Damon Silver; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Lotus Fong; Figueroa, Eric; Michelle Bigelow; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; Carla Torres; Ruth Silver Taube; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; Baker, Rob; Steve Wagstaffe; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Sheree Roth; Lori Meyers; Friends of Cubberley; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Burt, Patrick; Kaloma Smith; Templeton, Cari; Wagner, April; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto Subject:Source: The Intercept Date:Sunday, July 27, 2025 9:38:41 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. I mean, James Baldwin writes about this quite eloquently, and he talks about theconfusion of ignorance with innocence. That somehow Americans are innocent.Well, they’re innocent in their own eyes because they’re willfully ignorant. They willfully blind themselves to who they are, what they’ve done. Whether it’s in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan or Gaza, where this genocide would not be perpetuated but for the stockpiles of munitions that are sent to Israel. : The Intercept Starvation as a Weapon: Chris Hedges on Gazahttps://share.google/COtxMVrRF93V3PmIQ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 343     From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Lauing, Ed; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader forCalifornia Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Josh Becker; Gennady Sheyner; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky;Dave Price; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Veenker, Vicki; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Council, City; board@pausd.org;board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Zelkha, Mila; Human Relations Commission; GRP-City Council;city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@nenlopark.org; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner Subject:In one context, you talk about the creation myth of Israel and how Israelis are unwilling to question what they’re conditioned to believe about the state of Israel. Date:Sunday, July 27, 2025 7:07:56 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. In it, you talk about the use of myth to justify or perpetuate war. In one context, you talk about the creation myth of Israel and how Israelis are unwilling to question what they’re conditioned to believe about the state ofIsrael. Source: The Intercept Starvation as a Weapon: Chris Hedges on Gaza https://share.google/QmqqFEiuHOTTQStYX {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 344     From:Aram James To:Mark Turner; Marty Wasserman; Palo Alto Free Press; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Seher Awan; Sean Allen;Michelle Bigelow; Council, City; Donna Wallach; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker;Gardener, Liz; Tim James; Cait James; board@valleywater.org; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Jay Boyarsky;h.etzko@gmail.com; Jeff Rosen; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Human Relations Commission; BillNewell; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; GRP-City Council; city.council@menlopark.gov; Binder, Andrew;Reifschneider, James; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Zelkha, Mila; EPA Today; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; PatM; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov Subject:Man who murdered Palestinian American 6-year-old boy dies in custody, officials say Date:Sunday, July 27, 2025 10:06:30 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Man who murdered Palestinian American 6-year-old boy dies in custody, officials say Source: USA TODAY https://share.newsbreak.com/e8y7043n?s=i0 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 345     From:Aram James To:Palo Alto Free Press Cc:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Sean Allen; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Diana Diamond; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP-City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; Rosen, Jeff; Baker, Rob; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan; Dave Price; Dan Okonkwo; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Emily Mibach; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Senator Becker; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Marina Lopez; Josie James-Le; Tim James; sharon jackson; Lewis James; Douglas A. Murray; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Michael Ybarra; yolanda; Seher Awan; Roberta Ahlquist; Marty Wasserman Subject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWII Date:Sunday, July 27, 2025 9:22:43 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Folks: please read the Intercept interview of the brilliant and acclaimed journalist, author, and speaker Chris Hedges ( Starvation as a weapon). You can also listen to it ( 38 mins) Published July 25, 2025 Israel’s Creation Myth In it, you talk about the use of myth to justify or perpetuate war. In one context, you talk about the creation myth of Israel and how Israelis are unwilling to question what they’re conditioned to believe about the state of Israel. Source: The Intercept Starvation as a Weapon: Chris Hedges onGaza https://share.google/QmqqFEiuHOTTQStYX On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 9:03 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Mark, I place no blame on Hamas for the current situation. For decades, the U.S. andIsrael have kept the people of Gaza in what can only be described as the largest {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 346     outdoor prison and concentration camp in world history. This reality is well-documented by Jewish scholars like Norman Finkelstein and Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé. Like Nat Turner Hamas members can be viewed as freedom fighters of the firstorder. . It was known to Israel that Hamas was preparing for the October 7 attack for asignificant period—possibly weeks or even months—before the actual event.The IDF was ordered to stand down by military leaders with the full consent ofPrime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. It seems that Israel sought a precipitating eventto trigger violence, aiming toward the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinianpeople from their historic homeland. Based on historical records that predate its establishment in 1948, Israel and itsZionist leadership have always planned to expel the Palestinian people throughviolence and military force. The Israelis routinely dehumanize the Palestinianpeople, similarly to how Europeans characterized Native Americans, providingjustification for land theft and atrocities (Settler Colonialism). This is not a conflict between two equal parties. It is Israel, supported bysubstantial military and financial aid from the U.S. (billions of dollars everyyear), engaged in a systematic slaughter of the Palestinian people. Israel possesses one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with afunctioning army, navy, air force, and nuclear weapons. In contrast, Palestinehas no army, no navy, no air force, and no nuclear weapons. The Palestinians survive through their resourcefulness, while Israel relies onmilitary strength supplied by the U.S. This situation transcends the classicnarrative of David versus Goliath. Avram “Eliminate the state of Israel now." — Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:28 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:The ongoing genocide and war crimes committed by Israel, with the full support of the United States, will eventually be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This will happen regardless of any alleged actions by Hamas. It is crucial tounderstand that the ongoing genocide is a separate and distinct crimefrom the alleged behavior of the group referred to as Hamas (freedom fighters). As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don't need a weatherman to know whichway the wind blows.” In a similar vein, you don’t need a genocide expert torecognize that Israel is currently engaged in a massive, full-blown genocide ofthe Palestinian people. One can offer various intellectual rationalizations, but {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 347     the reality remains indisputable—the actions of the state of Israel amount togenocide beyond all reasonable doubt. Israel is guilty as charged of war crimes and genocide. Avram “Let The Prosecution Begin” Finkelstein On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 8:58 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, I don't think too many Gazans would agree with your characterization of Hamas as "freedom fighters." They've never done anything to make Gazans freer. Infact, they’ve oppressed them far worse than the Israelis ever did, and theirfanatical hatred against Jews and Israel has brought nothing but death and destruction to Gaza. Your theory that Israel intentionally allowed October 7 to happen in order tohave a pretext to invade Gaza is beyond ludicrous. If Israel wanted a pretext, it could easily have found one that involved no loss of Jewish lives, let alone over 1200 Jewish lives! Your claim that Israel always planned to expel all the Palestinian Arabs is also absurd. If so, why did they grant full Israeli citizenship to so many of them, over a million of which continue to enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship today,including the right to vote. It's true that some pre-state Jewish leaders considered the possibility of expelling the Arabs in light of their continued hostility, but this has never beenthe policy of the State. On the other hand, top Arab leaders have repeatedlyboasted, especially in 1948 and 1967, that they were going to “ massacre” the Jews and “drive them into the sea,” and Hamas to this day insists that its goal is to remove every single Jew from the Land of Israel. You accuse Israel of dehumanizing the Palestinians. You should take a look at how Jews are portrayed in Palestinian textbooks and classrooms. It seems that everything you accuse Israel of doing to the Arabs are things that the Arabs do, or try to do, to the Jews. Your claim that the conflict is not between equals is also disingenuous. Hamas itself is no match for Israel, but it's important to recognize that Hamas is just one branch of a larger movement called the Muslim Brotherhood. It also has wealthyand powerful patrons in Arab and Muslim countries, and it's diverted hundreds {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 348     of millions of dollars in international aid, intended to benefit the Gazan people,into militarizing the Strip for protracted warfare against Israel. And given its fanatical dedication to killing Jews, which it regards as a religious obligation, and its being willing and even eager to give their own lives to do so, it indeed poses an existential threat that Israel must deal with in a very forceful way. Martin Wasserman On Jul 25, 2025, at 9:58 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Mark, I place no blame on Hamas for the current situation. For decades, the U.S. and Israel have kept the people of Gaza in what can only be described as the largest outdoor prison and concentration camp in world history. This reality is well-documented by Jewish scholarslike Norman Finkelstein and Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé. Like Nat Turner Hamas members can be viewed as freedom fighters of the first order. . It was known to Israel that Hamas was preparing for the October 7 attack for a significant period—possibly weeks or even months— before the actual event. The IDF was ordered to stand down bymilitary leaders with the full consent of Prime Minister BibiNetanyahu. It seems that Israel sought a precipitating event to trigger violence, aiming toward the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their historic homeland. Based on historical records that predate its establishment in 1948, Israel and its Zionist leadership have always planned to expel the Palestinian people through violence and military force. The Israelis routinely dehumanize the Palestinian people, similarly to howEuropeans characterized Native Americans, providing justification for land theft and atrocities (Settler Colonialism). This is not a conflict between two equal parties. It is Israel, supportedby substantial military and financial aid from the U.S. (billions of dollars every year), engaged in a systematic slaughter of the Palestinian people. Israel possesses one of the most powerful militaries in the world, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 349     with a functioning army, navy, air force, and nuclear weapons. Incontrast, Palestine has no army, no navy, no air force, and no nuclear weapons. The Palestinians survive through their resourcefulness, while Israelrelies on military strength supplied by the U.S. This situationtranscends the classic narrative of David versus Goliath. Avram “Eliminate the state of Israel now." — Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:28 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:The ongoing genocide and war crimes committed by Israel, with the full support of the United States, will eventually be prosecutedin the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This will happenregardless of any alleged actions by Hamas. It is crucial to understand that the ongoing genocide is a separate and distinct crime from the alleged behavior of the group referred to as Hamas(freedom fighters). As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” In a similar vein, you don’t needa genocide expert to recognize that Israel is currently engaged in amassive, full-blown genocide of the Palestinian people. One can offer various intellectual rationalizations, but the reality remains indisputable—the actions of the state of Israel amount to genocide beyond all reasonable doubt. Israel is guilty as charged of warcrimes and genocide. Avram “Let The Prosecution Begin” Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:23 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end thesuffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasingthe hostages. But they care more about scoring propaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 350     On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'MinutelyDesigned and Controlled' Since WWII | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 351     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:Palo Alto Free Press; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Sean Allen; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Diana Diamond; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP- City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; Rosen, Jeff; Baker, Rob; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan; Dave Price; Dan Okonkwo; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Emily Mibach; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Senator Becker; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Marina Lopez; Josie James-Le; Tim James; sharon jackson; Lewis James; Douglas A. Murray; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Michael Ybarra; yolanda; Seher Awan; Roberta Ahlquist Subject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWII Date:Sunday, July 27, 2025 9:03:51 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Becautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Mark, I place no blame on Hamas for the current situation. For decades, the U.S. and Israel have kept the people of Gaza in what can only be described as the largest outdoor prison and concentration camp in world history. This reality is well- documented by Jewish scholars like Norman Finkelstein and Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé. Like Nat Turner Hamas members can be viewed as freedom fighters of the first order. . It was known to Israel that Hamas was preparing for the October 7 attack for asignificant period—possibly weeks or even months—before the actual event. The IDF was ordered to stand down by military leaders with the full consent of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. It seems that Israel sought a precipitating event to trigger violence, aiming toward the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian peoplefrom their historic homeland. Based on historical records that predate its establishment in 1948, Israel and its Zionist leadership have always planned to expel the Palestinian people throughviolence and military force. The Israelis routinely dehumanize the Palestinian people, similarly to how Europeans characterized Native Americans, providing justification for land theft and atrocities (Settler Colonialism). {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 352     This is not a conflict between two equal parties. It is Israel, supported by substantial military and financial aid from the U.S. (billions of dollars every year), engaged in a systematic slaughter of the Palestinian people. Israel possesses one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with a functioning army, navy, air force, and nuclear weapons. In contrast, Palestine has no army, no navy, no air force, and no nuclear weapons. The Palestinians survive through their resourcefulness, while Israel relies on military strength supplied by the U.S. This situation transcends the classic narrative of David versus Goliath. Avram “Eliminate the state of Israel now." — Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:28 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com > wrote: The ongoing genocide and war crimes committed by Israel, with the full support of the United States, will eventually be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This will happen regardless of any alleged actions by Hamas. It is crucial to understand that the ongoing genocide is a separate and distinct crime from the alleged behavior of the group referred to as Hamas (freedom fighters). As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” In a similar vein, you don’t need a genocide expert to recognize that Israel is currently engaged in a massive, full-blown genocide of the Palestinian people. One can offer various intellectual rationalizations, butthe reality remains indisputable—the actions of the state of Israel amount to genocide beyond all reasonable doubt. Israel is guilty as charged of war crimes and genocide. Avram “Let The Prosecution Begin” Finkelstein On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 8:58 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, I don't think too many Gazans would agree with your characterization of Hamas as "freedom fighters." They've never done anything to make Gazans freer. In fact, they’ve oppressed them far worse than the Israelis ever did, and their fanaticalhatred against Jews and Israel has brought nothing but death and destruction to {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 353     Gaza. Your theory that Israel intentionally allowed October 7 to happen in order to have a pretext to invade Gaza is beyond ludicrous. If Israel wanted a pretext, it could easily have found one that involved no loss of Jewish lives, let alone over 1200Jewish lives! Your claim that Israel always planned to expel all the Palestinian Arabs is also absurd. If so, why did they grant full Israeli citizenship to so many of them, over amillion of which continue to enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship today,including the right to vote. It's true that some pre-state Jewish leaders considered the possibility of expellingthe Arabs in light of their continued hostility, but this has never been the policy ofthe State. On the other hand, top Arab leaders have repeatedly boasted, especially in 1948 and 1967, that they were going to “ massacre” the Jews and “drive them into the sea,” and Hamas to this day insists that its goal is to remove every single Jew from the Land of Israel. You accuse Israel of dehumanizing the Palestinians. You should take a look at how Jews are portrayed in Palestinian textbooks and classrooms. It seems that everything you accuse Israel of doing to the Arabs are things that the Arabs do, ortry to do, to the Jews. Your claim that the conflict is not between equals is also disingenuous. Hamas itself is no match for Israel, but it's important to recognize that Hamas is just onebranch of a larger movement called the Muslim Brotherhood. It also has wealthy and powerful patrons in Arab and Muslim countries, and it's diverted hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid, intended to benefit the Gazan people, into militarizing the Strip for protracted warfare against Israel. And given its fanaticaldedication to killing Jews, which it regards as a religious obligation, and its being willing and even eager to give their own lives to do so, it indeed poses an existential threat that Israel must deal with in a very forceful way. Martin Wasserman On Jul 25, 2025, at 9:58 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Mark, I place no blame on Hamas for the current situation. For {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 354     decades, the U.S. and Israel have kept the people of Gaza in what can only be described as the largest outdoor prison and concentration camp in world history. This reality is well- documented by Jewish scholars like Norman Finkelstein and Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé. Like Nat Turner Hamas members can be viewed as freedom fighters of the first order. . It was known to Israel that Hamas was preparing for the October 7 attack for a significant period—possibly weeks or even months —before the actual event. The IDF was ordered to stand down by military leaders with the full consent of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. It seems that Israel sought a precipitating event to trigger violence, aiming toward the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their historic homeland. Based on historical records that predate its establishment in 1948, Israel and its Zionist leadership have always planned to expel the Palestinian people through violence and military force. The Israelis routinely dehumanize the Palestinian people, similarly to how Europeans characterized Native Americans, providing justification for land theft and atrocities (Settler Colonialism). This is not a conflict between two equal parties. It is Israel, supported by substantial military and financial aid from the U.S. (billions of dollars every year), engaged in a systematic slaughter of the Palestinian people. Israel possesses one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with a functioning army, navy, air force, and nuclear weapons. In contrast, Palestine has no army, no navy, no air force, and no nuclear weapons. The Palestinians survive through their resourcefulness, while Israel relies on military strength supplied by the U.S. This situation transcends the classic narrative of David versus Goliath. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 355     Avram “Eliminate the state of Israel now." — Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:28 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: The ongoing genocide and war crimes committed by Israel, with the full support of the United States, will eventually be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This will happen regardless of any alleged actions by Hamas. It is crucial to understand that the ongoing genocide is a separate and distinct crime from the alleged behavior of the group referred to as Hamas (freedom fighters). As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” In a similar vein, you don’t need a genocide expert to recognize that Israel is currently engaged in a massive, full-blown genocide of the Palestinian people. One can offer various intellectual rationalizations, but the reality remains indisputable—the actions of the state of Israel amount to genocide beyond all reasonable doubt. Israel is guilty as charged of war crimes and genocide. Avram “Let The Prosecution Begin” Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:23 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoring propaganda pointsagainst Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 356     Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'MinutelyDesigned and Controlled' Since WWII | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 357     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:Palo Alto Free Press; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Sean Allen; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Diana Diamond; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP- City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; Rosen, Jeff; Baker, Rob; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan; Dave Price; Dan Okonkwo; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Emily Mibach; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Senator Becker; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Marina Lopez; Josie James-Le; Tim James; sharon jackson; Lewis James; Douglas A. Murray; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Michael Ybarra; yolanda; Seher Awan; Roberta Ahlquist Subject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWII Date:Sunday, July 27, 2025 8:58:13 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Aram, I don't think too many Gazans would agree with your characterization of Hamas as"freedom fighters." They've never done anything to make Gazans freer. In fact, they’ve oppressed them far worse than the Israelis ever did, and their fanatical hatred against Jews and Israel has brought nothing but death and destruction to Gaza. Your theory that Israel intentionally allowed October 7 to happen in order to have a pretext to invade Gaza is beyond ludicrous. If Israel wanted a pretext, it could easily have found one that involved no loss of Jewish lives, let alone over 1200 Jewishlives! Your claim that Israel always planned to expel all the Palestinian Arabs is also absurd. If so, why did they grant full Israeli citizenship to so many of them, over a This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 358     million of which continue to enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship today,including the right to vote. It's true that some pre-state Jewish leaders considered the possibility of expelling the Arabs in light of their continued hostility, but this has never been the policy ofthe State. On the other hand, top Arab leaders have repeatedly boasted, especially in1948 and 1967, that they were going to “ massacre” the Jews and “drive them into the sea,” and Hamas to this day insists that its goal is to remove every single Jew from the Land of Israel. You accuse Israel of dehumanizing the Palestinians. You should take a look at how Jews are portrayed in Palestinian textbooks and classrooms. It seems that everything you accuse Israel of doing to the Arabs are things that the Arabs do, or try to do, tothe Jews. Your claim that the conflict is not between equals is also disingenuous. Hamas itself is no match for Israel, but it's important to recognize that Hamas is just one branchof a larger movement called the Muslim Brotherhood. It also has wealthy andpowerful patrons in Arab and Muslim countries, and it's diverted hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid, intended to benefit the Gazan people, into militarizing the Strip for protracted warfare against Israel. And given its fanatical dedication to killing Jews, which it regards as a religious obligation, and its beingwilling and even eager to give their own lives to do so, it indeed poses an existential threat that Israel must deal with in a very forceful way. Martin Wasserman On Jul 25, 2025, at 9:58 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Mark, I place no blame on Hamas for the current situation. For decades, the U.S. and Israel have kept the people of Gaza in what can only be described as the largest outdoor prison and concentration camp in world history. This reality is well-documented by Jewish scholars like Norman Finkelstein and Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé. Like Nat Turner Hamas members can be viewed as freedom fighters of the first order. . It was known to Israel that Hamas was preparing for the October {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 359     7 attack for a significant period—possibly weeks or even months —before the actual event. The IDF was ordered to stand down by military leaders with the full consent of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. It seems that Israel sought a precipitating event to trigger violence, aiming toward the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their historic homeland. Based on historical records that predate its establishment in 1948, Israel and its Zionist leadership have always planned to expel the Palestinian people through violence and military force. The Israelis routinely dehumanize the Palestinian people, similarly to how Europeans characterized Native Americans, providing justification for land theft and atrocities (Settler Colonialism). This is not a conflict between two equal parties. It is Israel, supported by substantial military and financial aid from the U.S. (billions of dollars every year), engaged in a systematic slaughter of the Palestinian people. Israel possesses one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with a functioning army, navy, air force, and nuclear weapons. In contrast, Palestine has no army, no navy, no air force, and no nuclear weapons. The Palestinians survive through their resourcefulness, while Israel relies on military strength supplied by the U.S. This situation transcends the classic narrative of David versus Goliath. Avram “Eliminate the state of Israel now." — Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:28 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: The ongoing genocide and war crimes committed by Israel, with the full support of the United States, will eventually be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This will happen regardless of any alleged actions by Hamas. It is crucial to understand that the ongoing genocide is a separate and distinct crime from the alleged behavior of the group referred to as Hamas (freedom fighters). {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 360     As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” In a similar vein, you don’t need a genocide expert to recognize that Israel is currently engaged in a massive, full-blown genocide of the Palestinian people. One can offer various intellectual rationalizations, but the reality remains indisputable—the actions of the state of Israel amount to genocide beyond all reasonable doubt. Israel is guilty as charged of war crimes and genocide. Avram “Let The Prosecution Begin” Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:23 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire articlementions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end thesuffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoring propaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s- starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 361     {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 362     From:Aram James To:Palo Alto Free Press Cc:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Sean Allen; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Diana Diamond; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP-City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; Rosen, Jeff; Baker, Rob; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan; Marty Wasserman; Dave Price; Dan Okonkwo; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Emily Mibach; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Senator Becker; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Marina Lopez; Josie James-Le; Tim James; sharon jackson; Lewis James; Douglas A. Murray; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Michael Ybarra; yolanda; Seher Awan; Roberta Ahlquist Subject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWII Date:Friday, July 25, 2025 9:58:40 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Mark, I place no blame on Hamas for the current situation. For decades, the U.S. and Israel have kept the people of Gaza in what can only be described as the largest outdoor prison and concentration camp in world history. This reality is well-documented by Jewish scholars like Norman Finkelstein and Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé. Like Nat Turner Hamas members can be viewed as freedom fighters of the first order. . It was known to Israel that Hamas was preparing for the October 7 attack for a significant period—possibly weeks or even months—before the actual event. The IDF was ordered to stand down by military leaders with the full consent of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. It seems that Israel sought a precipitating event to trigger violence, aiming toward the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their historic homeland. Based on historical records that predate its establishment in 1948, Israel and its Zionist leadership have always planned to expel the Palestinian {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 363     people through violence and military force. The Israelis routinely dehumanize the Palestinian people, similarly to how Europeans characterized Native Americans, providing justification for land theft and atrocities (Settler Colonialism). This is not a conflict between two equal parties. It is Israel, supported by substantial military and financial aid from the U.S. (billions of dollars every year), engaged in a systematic slaughter of the Palestinian people. Israel possesses one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with a functioning army, navy, air force, and nuclear weapons. In contrast, Palestine has no army, no navy, no air force, and no nuclear weapons. The Palestinians survive through their resourcefulness, while Israel relies on military strength supplied by the U.S. This situation transcends the classic narrative of David versus Goliath. Avram “Eliminate the state of Israel now." — Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:28 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: The ongoing genocide and war crimes committed by Israel, with the full support of the United States, will eventually be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This will happen regardless of any alleged actions by Hamas. It is crucial to understand that the ongoing genocide is a separate and distinct crime from the alleged behavior of the group referred to as Hamas (freedom fighters). As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” In a similar vein, you don’t need a genocide expert to recognize that Israel is currently engaged in a massive, full- blown genocide of the Palestinian people. One can offer various intellectual rationalizations, but the reality remains indisputable—the actions of the state of Israel amount to genocide beyond all reasonable doubt. Israel is guilty as charged of war crimes and genocide. Avram “Let The Prosecution Begin” Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:23 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 364     The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentionsHamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoring propaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed andControlled' Since WWII | Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 365     From:Aram JamesTo:Donna WallachCc:Martin Wasserman; Sean Allen; Salem Ajluni; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; jessica@speiser.net; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; JayBoyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; RaymondGoins; Miguel Rodriguez; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Palo Alto Free Press; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Diana Diamond;jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney;citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP-City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; DamonSilver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Stump, Molly; Jeff Rosen; Rob Baker; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green;Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; David Angel; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan; Tim James; Tim James; Lewis James; JIM MINKLER1;Dave Price; Emily Mibach; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Henry RiggsSubject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWIIDate:Friday, July 25, 2025 5:52:47 PMAttachments:image1.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Excellent piece, Donna! Aram On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 5:16 PM Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com> wrote:Martin Wasserman you are as despicable as all the other Zionists who refuse to open your eyes, your mind and your hearts. You are the same as the hateful Klu Klux Klan who murdered andcontinue to murder Black Americans just because they are Black. There is so much truthful online information about the War Crimes, genocide, starvation that the Israeli govt is committing infull live stream view for the entire world to see. Israeli journalists are reporting about it, i.e. Gideon Levy and Amira Hass. Other Israelis are reporting about it, Ilan Pappe is one, right now I'mforgetting the name of the other one. Tens of thousands of young American Jews protested on campuses across the USA along with tens of thousands of other students against the genocide, many of them sacrificed their diplomas. JVP has issued many statements and calls for ending the genocide, calling for a ceasefire. The Palestinians have done nothing to deserve this genocide, Ethnic cleansing and starvation, that recently Ralph Nader is calling an Omnicide meaning that the intent of Israel is to eliminate theentire Palestinian population living there from the face of the earth. The Israeli govt continues to say that their goal is to make Gaza Jewish and to annex the entire West Bank and to remove byforce each and every Palestinian Martin get your head out of your butt! You disgust me beyond words! The Palestinans are one of the most kindest, lovingest, generous people I have ever met and lived among. Free Palestine! Long Live Palestine! "Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."Assata Shakur Books you must read: "Against Our Better Judgement: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel" by Alison Weirhttp://www.againstourbetterjudgment.com/ "State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel" by Thomas Suarezhttp://thomassuarez.com/SoT.html "The Hundred Years War on Palestine"by Rashid Khalidi "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"by Illan Pappé Free Palestine!Right of Return to Palestine for all Palestinians! Free all political prisoners! Mumia Abu-Jamal @mumiafreedomtourThe Holy Land Five: Shukri Abu Baker Ghassan Elashi Mufid Abdulqader Abdulrahman Odeh Mohammad Elmezainhttps://www.mintpressnews.com/the-trial-and-conviction-of-the-holy-land-foundation-five/237440/and thousands more End Solitary Confinementhttps://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com California Prison Focus http://newest.prisons.org/our_story End United $tates of Amerikkka invasions and occupationsU.S. Government and UN Occupation Force Soldiers - Hands off Haiti!http://www.haitisolidarity.net/ Syria Solidarity Movement, Solidarity with the Syrian people https://syriasupportmovement.org Donna WallachDonnaIsAnActivist@gmail.comInstagram: @palestine_is_and_will_be_freeInstagram: @donnawallach1Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donna.wallachTwitter: @PalestineWillBe(cell) 408-569-6608 On Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 12:26 Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Hamas could end the suffering anytime it wants just by laying down its arms and releasing the hostages. But it has no interest in ending the suffering. As part of a culturethat defines itself as revering death rather than life, Hamas believes that any Gazan who dies of starvation will go straight to heaven as a martyr, so there's really noproblem. And it also serves as good anti-Israel propaganda. Martin Wasserman On Jul 25, 2025, at 8:26 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Why Is the World Letting It Happen?”: U.K. Surgeon, Back from Gaza, on Starving Children | Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/25/nick_maynard_gaza {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 366     On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 12:30 AM Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com > wrote: Good evening, Martin, I want to start by expressing my apologies before we delve into today’s discussion. Unfortunately, several major U.S. media outlets have reported perspectives that contradictyour position. I find that your argument lacks substantial logic. Given the global perception of the United States as a superior military power, it raises the question of how thepeople of Gaza, even under Hamas leadership, could pose a significant threat to any country supported by U.S. military resources. The attached photos speak volumes andchallenge the validity of your position. Best regards, Sean Sent from my iPhone On Jul 24, 2025, at 6:36 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 367     This is utter nonsense. If Israel's modus operandi has always been "maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity oflives of civilian non-combatants,” why did they sign the 1993 Oslo Accord which brought Yasser Arafat and the PLO out of exile and gave themsovereignty of Arab areas in Judea and Samaria? And why did they forcibly evacuate all Jewish settlements in Gaza in 2005 instead ofstrengthening those settlements and digging in? The reality is, it was always the Arab leadership that sought to exterminate the Jews, giving theJews no choice but to fight back. When Israel goes to war, it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but groups like Hamas go out of their way to target Israeli civilians,and the Palestinian Authority gives large cash rewards to any Arab who murders any Jew, whether civilian or otherwise. Right now, people in Gaza are starving, not because of Israel, but because Hamas refuses to lay down its arms and release the hostages. Theconflict would be over tomorrow if Hamas would do these simple things. In fact, Hamas tries forcibly, often with gunfire, to prevent Gazans fromreceiving life-giving aid that doesn't come through them, saying that receiving such aid amounts to "collaborating with the enemy.” The truth is, Israel has displayed more concern for the lives of Gazan civilians than the Gazans’ own leaders have. Perhaps the reason for this isthat Israeli culture is based on reverence for life, while Hamas culture defines itself as revering death, and seeking martyrdom in battle as thehighest possible goal. Martin Wasserman On Jul 24, 2025, at 2:45 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: As a modest contribution to a better understanding of the thinking and practices of the Israeli state, past and present, I recommend a very useful and short book that I read more than 40 years ago. It was written by Livia Rokach, the daughter of Israel Rokach who was the Israeli Interior Minister in the government of Moshe Sharett, the latter being the second prime minister of the new state (1953-1955). She translated and published her father's diaries, as well as parts of Sharett's diaries, both of which give us insights into the private elite thinking, planning and actions of main actors in the Israeli state vis-a-vis its neighboring countries in the 1950s (and vis-s-vis the U.S. and European powers) (see https://ia804501.us.archive.org/17/items/sacred-terrorism/Sacred-Terrorism.pdf). The resonance and parallels between Israeli leadership thinking and actions in the 1950s (as explained by Rokach) and in the 21st century with regard to the states and peoples of Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza and Egypt (and, by extension, Iraq, Yemen and Iran) are instructive. There are considerable continuities across time and space: aggressive and domineering (supremicist?) thinking and behavior; an expansionist impulse; a sociopathic and homicidal (genocidal?) animus towards Arabs, especially Palestinians. It was all there in the 1940s and 1950s, as Rokach tells us, and it's all there now, as we witness on a daily basis. Israel certainly didn't need Hamas to induce such thinking and behavior. In fact, the Hamas movement wasn't formally inaugurated until late 1987, almost two generations after the establishment of the state of Israel. Reading historical accounts of the conflict teaches us that only the bugaboo changes (e.g. Nasser, the PLO, Saddam Hussein, Hizballah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, etc.)—the Israeli modus operandi is more or less a constant--maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity of the lives of civilian non-combatants. The Israeli state was ushered in and made possible by the intial displacement of the majority of Mandate Palestine's Arab population during 1947-1949 (on these events, see Ilan Pappe's book based in large part on official Israeli archival sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethnic_Cleansing_of_Palestine). It behooves us to remember that about two-thirds of Gaza's population are themselves refugees from Madate Palestine or the offspring of those refugees. No disconinuities there either. Regards, Salem From: Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2025 10:23 PMTo: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> Cc: Veenker, Vicki <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; Lythcott-Haims, Julie <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; Ed Lauing <elauing@equitysearchpartners.com>; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23 <jessica@speiser.net>; Lori Meyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>; Sheree Roth <ssroth29@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; Michelle Bigelow <Michelle.Bigelow@morganhill.ca.gov>; Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>;eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org <eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; EPA Today <epatoday@epatoday.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; dcombs@menlopark.gov <dcombs@menlopark.gov>; Steve Wagstaffe <swagstaffe@smcgov.org>; Jeff Rosen <info@jeffrosen.org>; Jeff Conrad <jeff_conrad@msn.com>; Jeff Hayden <laptoplg@mac.com>; Jay Boyarsky <jboyarsky@dao.sccgov.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com> <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas <nicholas.enberg@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mickie Winkler <mickie650@gmail.com>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Cait James <caitlin.a.james@gmail.com>; San José Spotlight <info@sanjosespotlight.com>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; boardfeedback@smcgov.org <boardfeedback@smcgov.org>; board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; Braden Cartwright <bcartwright@padailypost.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; Rodriguez, Miguel <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; editor@paweekly.com <editor@paweekly.com>; April Wagner <april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Burt, Patrick <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov <Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Seher Awan <firebrand.dr@gmail.com>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; David Piper <david.piper@wvm.edu>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 368     Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Diana Diamond <dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; ladoris cordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; rabrica@cityofepa.org<rabrica@cityofepa.org>; Bill Newell <billnewell2850@gmail.com>; Bill Johnson <bjohnson@paweekly.com>; Bill James <billjames99@gmail.com>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Carla Torres <xicanamagic@hotmail.com>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; Zachary.Perron@CityofPaloAlto.org <zachary.perron@cityofpaloalto.org>; City Attorney <CityAttorney@santaclaraca.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Clerk, City <city.clerk@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Clerk <CLERK2@redwoodcity.org>; Friends of Cubberley <friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; ParkRec Commission <ParkRec.commission@cityofpaloalto.org>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Karen Holman <kcholman@sbcglobal.net>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Patrice Ventresca <patriceventresca@gmail.com>; Rowena Chiu <rowena.chiu@gmail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Daniel Kottke <daniel.k@earthlink.net>; Dennis Upton <kathy8420@qq.com>; Zahra Billoo <zbilloo@cair.com>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg <supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>; Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Stump, Molly <molly.stump@cityofpaloalto.org>; Rosen, Jeff <JRosen@dao.sccgov.org>; Baker, Rob <rbaker@dao.sccgov.org>; Ruth Silver Taube <ruthsilvertaube16@gmail.com>; Tom DuBois <tom.dubois@gmail.com>; Blackshire, Geoffrey <Geo.Blackshire@cityofpaloalto.org>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Dennis Upton <denkafer1@yahoo.com>; dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>; Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org <Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org>; Alex Afanasiev <Alex.Afanasiev@cityofpaloalto.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; Angel, David <dangel@dao.sccgov.org>; Greg Tanaka <greg@gregtanaka.org>; Reifschneider, James <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>; Yolanda Conaway <yconaway@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org> Subject: Re: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoringpropaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel'sStarvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII | CommonDreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 369     From:Aram JamesTo:Josh Becker; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23Cc:Martin Wasserman; Sean Allen; Salem Ajluni; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; JayBoyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; RaymondGoins; Miguel Rodriguez; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Palo Alto Free Press; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Diana Diamond;jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney;citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP-City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; DamonSilver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Stump, Molly; Jeff Rosen; Rob Baker; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green;Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; David Angel; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan; Tim James; Dave Price; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz;vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Marina Lopez; JIM MINKLER1; yolanda; Emily Mibach; sharon jackson; Palo Alto Weekly; Henry Riggs; Roberta Ahlquist; Donna WallachSubject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWIIDate:Friday, July 25, 2025 5:47:47 PMAttachments:image1.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 5:16 PM Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com> wrote:Martin Wasserman you are as despicable as all the other Zionists who refuse to open your eyes, your mind and your hearts. You are the same as the hateful Klu Klux Klan who murdered andcontinue to murder Black Americans just because they are Black. There is so much truthful online information about the War Crimes, genocide, starvation that the Israeli govt is committing infull live stream view for the entire world to see. Israeli journalists are reporting about it, i.e. Gideon Levy and Amira Hass. Other Israelis are reporting about it, Ilan Pappe is one, right now I'mforgetting the name of the other one. Tens of thousands of young American Jews protested on campuses across the USA along with tens of thousands of other students against the genocide, many of them sacrificed their diplomas. JVP has issued many statements and calls for ending the genocide, calling for a ceasefire. The Palestinians have done nothing to deserve this genocide, Ethnic cleansing and starvation, that recently Ralph Nader is calling an Omnicide meaning that the intent of Israel is to eliminate theentire Palestinian population living there from the face of the earth. The Israeli govt continues to say that their goal is to make Gaza Jewish and to annex the entire West Bank and to remove byforce each and every Palestinian Martin get your head out of your butt! You disgust me beyond words! The Palestinans are one of the most kindest, lovingest, generous people I have ever met and lived among. Free Palestine! Long Live Palestine! "Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."Assata Shakur Books you must read: "Against Our Better Judgement: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel" by Alison Weirhttp://www.againstourbetterjudgment.com/ "State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel" by Thomas Suarezhttp://thomassuarez.com/SoT.html "The Hundred Years War on Palestine"by Rashid Khalidi "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"by Illan Pappé Free Palestine!Right of Return to Palestine for all Palestinians! Free all political prisoners! Mumia Abu-Jamal @mumiafreedomtourThe Holy Land Five: Shukri Abu Baker Ghassan Elashi Mufid Abdulqader Abdulrahman Odeh Mohammad Elmezainhttps://www.mintpressnews.com/the-trial-and-conviction-of-the-holy-land-foundation-five/237440/and thousands more End Solitary Confinementhttps://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com California Prison Focus http://newest.prisons.org/our_story End United $tates of Amerikkka invasions and occupationsU.S. Government and UN Occupation Force Soldiers - Hands off Haiti!http://www.haitisolidarity.net/ Syria Solidarity Movement, Solidarity with the Syrian people https://syriasupportmovement.org Donna WallachDonnaIsAnActivist@gmail.comInstagram: @palestine_is_and_will_be_freeInstagram: @donnawallach1Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donna.wallachTwitter: @PalestineWillBe(cell) 408-569-6608 On Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 12:26 Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Hamas could end the suffering anytime it wants just by laying down its arms and releasing the hostages. But it has no interest in ending the suffering. As part of a culturethat defines itself as revering death rather than life, Hamas believes that any Gazan who dies of starvation will go straight to heaven as a martyr, so there's really noproblem. And it also serves as good anti-Israel propaganda. Martin Wasserman On Jul 25, 2025, at 8:26 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Why Is the World Letting It Happen?”: U.K. Surgeon, Back from Gaza, on Starving Children | Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/25/nick_maynard_gaza {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 370     On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 12:30 AM Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com > wrote: Good evening, Martin, I want to start by expressing my apologies before we delve into today’s discussion. Unfortunately, several major U.S. media outlets have reported perspectives that contradictyour position. I find that your argument lacks substantial logic. Given the global perception of the United States as a superior military power, it raises the question of how thepeople of Gaza, even under Hamas leadership, could pose a significant threat to any country supported by U.S. military resources. The attached photos speak volumes andchallenge the validity of your position. Best regards, Sean Sent from my iPhone On Jul 24, 2025, at 6:36 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 371     This is utter nonsense. If Israel's modus operandi has always been "maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity oflives of civilian non-combatants,” why did they sign the 1993 Oslo Accord which brought Yasser Arafat and the PLO out of exile and gave themsovereignty of Arab areas in Judea and Samaria? And why did they forcibly evacuate all Jewish settlements in Gaza in 2005 instead ofstrengthening those settlements and digging in? The reality is, it was always the Arab leadership that sought to exterminate the Jews, giving theJews no choice but to fight back. When Israel goes to war, it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but groups like Hamas go out of their way to target Israeli civilians,and the Palestinian Authority gives large cash rewards to any Arab who murders any Jew, whether civilian or otherwise. Right now, people in Gaza are starving, not because of Israel, but because Hamas refuses to lay down its arms and release the hostages. Theconflict would be over tomorrow if Hamas would do these simple things. In fact, Hamas tries forcibly, often with gunfire, to prevent Gazans fromreceiving life-giving aid that doesn't come through them, saying that receiving such aid amounts to "collaborating with the enemy.” The truth is, Israel has displayed more concern for the lives of Gazan civilians than the Gazans’ own leaders have. Perhaps the reason for this isthat Israeli culture is based on reverence for life, while Hamas culture defines itself as revering death, and seeking martyrdom in battle as thehighest possible goal. Martin Wasserman On Jul 24, 2025, at 2:45 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: As a modest contribution to a better understanding of the thinking and practices of the Israeli state, past and present, I recommend a very useful and short book that I read more than 40 years ago. It was written by Livia Rokach, the daughter of Israel Rokach who was the Israeli Interior Minister in the government of Moshe Sharett, the latter being the second prime minister of the new state (1953-1955). She translated and published her father's diaries, as well as parts of Sharett's diaries, both of which give us insights into the private elite thinking, planning and actions of main actors in the Israeli state vis-a-vis its neighboring countries in the 1950s (and vis-s-vis the U.S. and European powers) (see https://ia804501.us.archive.org/17/items/sacred-terrorism/Sacred-Terrorism.pdf). The resonance and parallels between Israeli leadership thinking and actions in the 1950s (as explained by Rokach) and in the 21st century with regard to the states and peoples of Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza and Egypt (and, by extension, Iraq, Yemen and Iran) are instructive. There are considerable continuities across time and space: aggressive and domineering (supremicist?) thinking and behavior; an expansionist impulse; a sociopathic and homicidal (genocidal?) animus towards Arabs, especially Palestinians. It was all there in the 1940s and 1950s, as Rokach tells us, and it's all there now, as we witness on a daily basis. Israel certainly didn't need Hamas to induce such thinking and behavior. In fact, the Hamas movement wasn't formally inaugurated until late 1987, almost two generations after the establishment of the state of Israel. Reading historical accounts of the conflict teaches us that only the bugaboo changes (e.g. Nasser, the PLO, Saddam Hussein, Hizballah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, etc.)—the Israeli modus operandi is more or less a constant--maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity of the lives of civilian non-combatants. The Israeli state was ushered in and made possible by the intial displacement of the majority of Mandate Palestine's Arab population during 1947-1949 (on these events, see Ilan Pappe's book based in large part on official Israeli archival sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethnic_Cleansing_of_Palestine). It behooves us to remember that about two-thirds of Gaza's population are themselves refugees from Madate Palestine or the offspring of those refugees. No disconinuities there either. Regards, Salem From: Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2025 10:23 PMTo: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> Cc: Veenker, Vicki <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; Lythcott-Haims, Julie <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; Ed Lauing <elauing@equitysearchpartners.com>; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23 <jessica@speiser.net>; Lori Meyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>; Sheree Roth <ssroth29@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; Michelle Bigelow <Michelle.Bigelow@morganhill.ca.gov>; Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>;eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org <eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; EPA Today <epatoday@epatoday.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; dcombs@menlopark.gov <dcombs@menlopark.gov>; Steve Wagstaffe <swagstaffe@smcgov.org>; Jeff Rosen <info@jeffrosen.org>; Jeff Conrad <jeff_conrad@msn.com>; Jeff Hayden <laptoplg@mac.com>; Jay Boyarsky <jboyarsky@dao.sccgov.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com> <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas <nicholas.enberg@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mickie Winkler <mickie650@gmail.com>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Cait James <caitlin.a.james@gmail.com>; San José Spotlight <info@sanjosespotlight.com>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; boardfeedback@smcgov.org <boardfeedback@smcgov.org>; board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; Braden Cartwright <bcartwright@padailypost.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; Rodriguez, Miguel <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; editor@paweekly.com <editor@paweekly.com>; April Wagner <april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Burt, Patrick <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov <Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Seher Awan <firebrand.dr@gmail.com>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; David Piper <david.piper@wvm.edu>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 372     Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Diana Diamond <dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; ladoris cordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; rabrica@cityofepa.org<rabrica@cityofepa.org>; Bill Newell <billnewell2850@gmail.com>; Bill Johnson <bjohnson@paweekly.com>; Bill James <billjames99@gmail.com>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Carla Torres <xicanamagic@hotmail.com>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; Zachary.Perron@CityofPaloAlto.org <zachary.perron@cityofpaloalto.org>; City Attorney <CityAttorney@santaclaraca.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Clerk, City <city.clerk@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Clerk <CLERK2@redwoodcity.org>; Friends of Cubberley <friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; ParkRec Commission <ParkRec.commission@cityofpaloalto.org>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Karen Holman <kcholman@sbcglobal.net>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Patrice Ventresca <patriceventresca@gmail.com>; Rowena Chiu <rowena.chiu@gmail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Daniel Kottke <daniel.k@earthlink.net>; Dennis Upton <kathy8420@qq.com>; Zahra Billoo <zbilloo@cair.com>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg <supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>; Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Stump, Molly <molly.stump@cityofpaloalto.org>; Rosen, Jeff <JRosen@dao.sccgov.org>; Baker, Rob <rbaker@dao.sccgov.org>; Ruth Silver Taube <ruthsilvertaube16@gmail.com>; Tom DuBois <tom.dubois@gmail.com>; Blackshire, Geoffrey <Geo.Blackshire@cityofpaloalto.org>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Dennis Upton <denkafer1@yahoo.com>; dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>; Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org <Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org>; Alex Afanasiev <Alex.Afanasiev@cityofpaloalto.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; Angel, David <dangel@dao.sccgov.org>; Greg Tanaka <greg@gregtanaka.org>; Reifschneider, James <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>; Yolanda Conaway <yconaway@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org> Subject: Re: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoringpropaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel'sStarvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII | CommonDreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 373     From:Donna WallachTo:Martin WassermanCc:Aram James; Sean Allen; Salem Ajluni; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; jessica@speiser.net; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com;Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Miguel Rodriguez; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Palo Alto Free Press; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Diana Diamond; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; BillJames; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP-City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Stump, Molly; Jeff Rosen; Rob Baker; Ruth Silver Taube; TomDuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; David Angel; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara RamakrishnanSubject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWIIDate:Friday, July 25, 2025 5:19:06 PMAttachments:image1.pngimage1.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. i Martin Wasserman you are as despicable as all the other Zionists who refuse to open your eyes, your mind and your hearts. You are the same as the hateful Klu Klux Klan who murdered and continue to murder Black Americans just because they are Black. There is so much truthful online information about the War Crimes, genocide, starvation that the Israeli govt is committing in full live stream view for the entireworld to see. Israeli journalists are reporting about it, i.e. Gideon Levy and Amira Hass. Other Israelis are reporting about it, Ilan Pappe is one, right now I'm forgetting the name of the other one. Tens of thousands of young American Jews protested on campuses across the USA along with tens of thousands of other students against the genocide, many of them sacrificed their diplomas. JVP has issued many statements and calls for ending the genocide, calling for a ceasefire. The Palestinians have done nothing to deserve this genocide, Ethnic cleansing and starvation, that recently Ralph Nader is calling an Omnicide meaning that the intent of Israel is to eliminate the entire Palestinian population living there from the face of the earth. The Israeli govt continues to say that their goal is to make Gaza Jewish and to annex the entire West Bank and to remove by force each and everyPalestinian Martin get your head out of your butt! You disgust me beyond words! The Palestinans are one of the most kindest, lovingest, generous people I have ever met and lived among. Free Palestine! Long Live Palestine! "Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."Assata Shakur Books you must read: "Against Our Better Judgement: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel" by Alison Weirhttp://www.againstourbetterjudgment.com/ "State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel" by Thomas Suarezhttp://thomassuarez.com/SoT.html "The Hundred Years War on Palestine"by Rashid Khalidi "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"by Illan Pappé Free Palestine!Right of Return to Palestine for all Palestinians! Free all political prisoners!Mumia Abu-Jamal @mumiafreedomtourThe Holy Land Five: Shukri Abu Baker Ghassan Elashi Mufid Abdulqader Abdulrahman Odeh Mohammad Elmezainhttps://www.mintpressnews.com/the-trial-and-conviction-of-the-holy-land-foundation-five/237440/and thousands more End Solitary Confinementhttps://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com California Prison Focus http://newest.prisons.org/our_story End United $tates of Amerikkka invasions and occupationsU.S. Government and UN Occupation Force Soldiers - Hands off Haiti!http://www.haitisolidarity.net/ Syria Solidarity Movement, Solidarity with the Syrian people https://syriasupportmovement.org Donna WallachDonnaIsAnActivist@gmail.comInstagram: @palestine_is_and_will_be_freeInstagram: @donnawallach1Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donna.wallachTwitter: @PalestineWillBe(cell) 408-569-6608 On Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 12:26 Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Hamas could end the suffering anytime it wants just by laying down its arms and releasing the hostages. But it has no interest in ending the suffering. As part of a culture that defines itself as revering death rather than life, Hamas believes that any Gazan who dies of starvation will go straight to heaven as a martyr, so there's really no problem. And it also serves asgood anti-Israel propaganda. Martin Wasserman On Jul 25, 2025, at 8:26 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Why Is the World Letting It Happen?”: U.K. Surgeon, Back from Gaza, on Starving Children | Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/25/nick_maynard_gaza On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 12:30 AM Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com > wrote: Good evening, Martin, I want to start by expressing my apologies before we delve into today’s discussion. Unfortunately, several major U.S. media outlets have reported perspectives that contradict your position. I find that your argument lacks substantial logic. Given the global perception of the United States as a superior military power, it raises the question of how the people of Gaza, even under Hamas leadership,could pose a significant threat to any country supported by U.S. military resources. The attached photos speak volumes and challenge the validity of your position. Best regards, Sean This message needs your attentionThis is a personal email address.This is their first email to your company. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 374     Sent from my iPhone On Jul 24, 2025, at 6:36 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:  This is utter nonsense. If Israel's modus operandi has always been "maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity of lives of civilian non-combatants,” why did they sign the 1993 Oslo Accord which brought Yasser Arafat and the PLO out of exile and gave them sovereignty of Arab areas in Judea and Samaria? Andwhy did they forcibly evacuate all Jewish settlements in Gaza in 2005 instead of strengthening those settlements and digging in? The reality is, it was always the Arab leadership that sought to exterminate the Jews, giving the Jews no choice but to fight back. When Israel goes to war, it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but groups like Hamas go out of their way to target Israeli civilians, and the Palestinian Authority gives large cash rewards to any Arab who murders any Jew, whether civilian or otherwise. Right now, people in Gaza are starving, not because of Israel, but because Hamas refuses to lay down its arms and release the hostages. The conflict would be over tomorrow if Hamas would do these simple things. In fact, Hamas tries forcibly, often with gunfire, to prevent Gazans from receiving life-giving aid that doesn't come through them,saying that receiving such aid amounts to "collaborating with the enemy.” The truth is, Israel has displayed more concern for the lives of Gazan civilians than the Gazans’ own leaders have. Perhaps the reason for this is that Israeli culture is based on reverence for life, while Hamas culture defines itself as revering death, and seeking martyrdom in battle as the highest possible goal. Martin Wasserman On Jul 24, 2025, at 2:45 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: As a modest contribution to a better understanding of the thinking and practices of the Israeli state, past and present, I recommend a very useful and short book that I read more than 40 years ago. It was written by Livia Rokach, the daughter of Israel Rokach who was the Israeli Interior Minister in the government of Moshe Sharett, the latter being the second prime minister of the new state (1953-1955). She translated and published her father's diaries, as well as parts of Sharett's diaries, both of which give us insights into the private elite thinking, planning and actions of main actors in the Israeli state vis-a-vis its neighboring countries in the 1950s (and vis-s-vis the U.S. and European powers) (see https://ia804501.us.archive.org/17/items/sacred-terrorism/Sacred-Terrorism.pdf). The resonance and parallels between Israeli leadership thinking and actions in the 1950s (as explained by Rokach) and in the 21st century with regard to the states and peoples of Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza and Egypt (and, by extension, Iraq, Yemen and Iran) are instructive. There are considerable continuities across time and space: aggressive and domineering (supremicist?) thinking and behavior; an expansionist impulse; a sociopathic and homicidal (genocidal?) animus towards Arabs, especially Palestinians. It was all there in the 1940s and 1950s, as Rokach tells us, and it's all there now, as we witness on a daily basis. Israel certainly didn't need Hamas to induce such thinking and behavior. In fact, the Hamas movement wasn't formally inaugurated until late 1987, almost two generations after the establishment of the state of Israel. Reading historical accounts of the conflict teaches us that only thebugaboo changes (e.g. Nasser, the PLO, Saddam Hussein, Hizballah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, etc.)—the Israeli modus operandi is more or less a constant--maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity of the lives of civilian non-combatants. The Israeli state was ushered in and made possible by the intial displacement of the majority of Mandate Palestine's Arab population during 1947-1949 (on these events, see Ilan Pappe's book based in large part on official Israeli archivalsourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethnic_Cleansing_of_Palestine). It behooves us to remember that about two-thirds of Gaza's population are themselves refugees from Madate Palestine or the offspring of those refugees. No disconinuities there either. Regards, Salem From: Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2025 10:23 PM {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 375     To: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>Cc: Veenker, Vicki <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; Lythcott-Haims, Julie <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; Ed Lauing <elauing@equitysearchpartners.com>; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23 <jessica@speiser.net>; Lori Meyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>; Sheree Roth<ssroth29@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; Michelle Bigelow <Michelle.Bigelow@morganhill.ca.gov>; Josh Becker<becker.josh@gmail.com>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>;eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org <eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; EPA Today <epatoday@epatoday.org>; Gennady Sheyner<gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; dcombs@menlopark.gov <dcombs@menlopark.gov>; Steve Wagstaffe <swagstaffe@smcgov.org>; Jeff Rosen <info@jeffrosen.org>; Jeff Conrad <jeff_conrad@msn.com>; Jeff Hayden <laptoplg@mac.com>; Jay Boyarsky <jboyarsky@dao.sccgov.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto<wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com> <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas <nicholas.enberg@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mickie Winkler <mickie650@gmail.com>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Cait James <caitlin.a.james@gmail.com>; San José Spotlight<info@sanjosespotlight.com>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; boardfeedback@smcgov.org <boardfeedback@smcgov.org>; board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; Braden Cartwright <bcartwright@padailypost.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; Rodriguez, Miguel<miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; editor@paweekly.com <editor@paweekly.com>; April Wagner <april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Burt, Patrick <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov <Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Seher Awan<firebrand.dr@gmail.com>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; David Piper <david.piper@wvm.edu>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Diana Diamond <dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; ladoriscordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; rabrica@cityofepa.org<rabrica@cityofepa.org>; Bill Newell <billnewell2850@gmail.com>; Bill Johnson <bjohnson@paweekly.com>; Bill James <billjames99@gmail.com>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Carla Torres <xicanamagic@hotmail.com>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>;CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; Zachary.Perron@CityofPaloAlto.org <zachary.perron@cityofpaloalto.org>; City Attorney <CityAttorney@santaclaraca.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Clerk, City <city.clerk@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Clerk <CLERK2@redwoodcity.org>; Friends of Cubberley<friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; ParkRec Commission <ParkRec.commission@cityofpaloalto.org>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Karen Holman <kcholman@sbcglobal.net>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Patrice Ventresca <patriceventresca@gmail.com>; Rowena Chiu<rowena.chiu@gmail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Daniel Kottke <daniel.k@earthlink.net>; Dennis Upton <kathy8420@qq.com>; Zahra Billoo <zbilloo@cair.com>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg <supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>;Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Stump, Molly <molly.stump@cityofpaloalto.org>; Rosen, Jeff <JRosen@dao.sccgov.org>; Baker, Rob <rbaker@dao.sccgov.org>; Ruth Silver Taube <ruthsilvertaube16@gmail.com>; Tom DuBois <tom.dubois@gmail.com>; Blackshire, Geoffrey <Geo.Blackshire@cityofpaloalto.org>; Jasso, Tamara<Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Dennis Upton <denkafer1@yahoo.com>; dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>; Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org <Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org>; Alex Afanasiev <Alex.Afanasiev@cityofpaloalto.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; Angel, David<dangel@dao.sccgov.org>; Greg Tanaka <greg@gregtanaka.org>; Reifschneider, James <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>; Yolanda Conaway <yconaway@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org>Subject: Re: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoring propaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives oftheir own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel'sStarvation of Gaza Most'Minutely Designed andControlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 376     From:Aram James To:Council, City; Lauing, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Vicki Veenker; Burt, Patrick; Lu, George; gstone22@gmail.com Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Gardener, Liz; Lotus Fong; Sean Allen; ladoris cordell; Human Relations Commission; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Jay Boyarsky; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Jeff Rosen; Baker, Rob; Dan Okonkwo Subject:Re: forever Date:Friday, July 25, 2025 9:33:26 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 6:56 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Each of your name's your silence on the genocide are burnt into the psyche of our community in perpetuity ( you will each live in infamy as the history of this genocide is written). Leaders ( the entire city council) whose silent complicity speaks volumes about each of your individual characters. Shame across future generations will attach to your names forever, forever. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 377     From:Aram James To:Sean Allen; sharon jackson; Carla Torres; Pat M; Seher Awan; David Piper; Ruth Silver Taube; William Armaline;Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Lewis James; Yolanda Conaway; Dan Okonkwo; Steve Wagstaffe Cc:Mark Turner; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; Wagner, April; Perron, Zachary; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Dave Price; cromero@cityofepa.org; Raymond Goins; rabrica@cityofepa.org; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; Diana Diamond; San José Spotlight; Jeff Conrad; Baker, Rob; Robert Salonga; Roberta Ahlquist; Kaloma Smith; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Human Relations Commission; Emily Mibach; h.etzko@gmail.com; Angel, David; Dave Price; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Zelkha, Mila; Doug Minkler; Friends of Cubberley; Veenker, Vicki; Burt, Patrick; Gerry Gras; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; Zahra Billoo; Salem Ajluni; Rick Callender; EXT.Richard.Hobbs; Dana St. George; Bill Newell; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Donna Wallach; Tom DuBois; Michael Pati; Michelle; Don Austin; Rose Lynn; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; city.council@menlopark.gov; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; eddie.aubrey@sanjoseca.gov; Lauing, Ed; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Enberg, Nicholas; Afanasiev, Alex; Nious, Kevin (NBCUniversal); Gennady Sheyner; Liz Kniss; Reckdahl, Keith; Gardener, Liz; Tim James; Cait James; Marina Lopez; Josie James- Le Subject:Ben Crump on Breonna Taylor, William McNeil, Saniyah Cheatham & Demand to Release Malcolm X Files Date:Friday, July 25, 2025 9:19:27 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/25/ben_crump_breonna_taylor {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 378     From:Aram James To:Sean AllenCc:Martin Wasserman; Salem Ajluni; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; jessica@speiser.net; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; JeffHayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations;Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Miguel Rodriguez; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Palo Alto Free Press; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael;Zelkha, Mila; Renters" Association Palo Alto; Diana Diamond; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of MayorMatt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP-City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission;Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Stump, Molly; JeffRosen; Rob Baker; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; David Angel; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; BryanGobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan Subject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWIIDate:Friday, July 25, 2025 8:26:52 AM Attachments:image1.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Why Is the World Letting It Happen?”: U.K. Surgeon, Back from Gaza, on Starving Children | Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/25/nick_maynard_gaza On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 12:30 AM Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com > wrote: Good evening, Martin, I want to start by expressing my apologies before we delve into today’s discussion. Unfortunately, several major U.S. media outlets have reported perspectives that contradict yourposition. I find that your argument lacks substantial logic. Given the global perception of the United States as a superior military power, it raises the question of how the people ofGaza, even under Hamas leadership, could pose a significant threat to any country supported by U.S. military resources. The attached photos speak volumes and challenge the validityof your position. Best regards, Sean {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 379     Sent from my iPhone On Jul 24, 2025, at 6:36 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:  This is utter nonsense. If Israel's modus operandi has always been "maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity of lives ofcivilian non-combatants,” why did they sign the 1993 Oslo Accord which brought Yasser Arafat and the PLO out of exile and gave them sovereignty ofArab areas in Judea and Samaria? And why did they forcibly evacuate all Jewish settlements in Gaza in 2005 instead of strengthening those settlementsand digging in? The reality is, it was always the Arab leadership that sought to exterminate the Jews, giving the Jews no choice but to fight back. When Israel goes to war, it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but groups like Hamas go out of their way to target Israeli civilians, and thePalestinian Authority gives large cash rewards to any Arab who murders any Jew, whether civilian or otherwise. Right now, people in Gaza are starving, not because of Israel, but because Hamas refuses to lay down its arms and release the hostages. The conflictwould be over tomorrow if Hamas would do these simple things. In fact, Hamas tries forcibly, often with gunfire, to prevent Gazans from receiving life-giving aid that doesn't come through them, saying that receiving such aid amounts to "collaborating with the enemy.” The truth is, Israel has displayed more concern for the lives of Gazan civilians than the Gazans’ own leaders have. Perhaps the reason for this is thatIsraeli culture is based on reverence for life, while Hamas culture defines itself as revering death, and seeking martyrdom in battle as the highestpossible goal. Martin Wasserman On Jul 24, 2025, at 2:45 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote: As a modest contribution to a better understanding of the thinking and practices of the Israeli state, past and present, I recommend a very useful and short book that I read more than 40 years ago. It was written by Livia Rokach, the daughter of Israel Rokach who was the Israeli Interior Minister in the government of Moshe Sharett, the latter being the second prime minister of the new state (1953-1955). She translated and published her father's diaries, as well as parts of Sharett's diaries, both of which give us insights into the private elite thinking, planning and actions of main actors in the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 380     Israeli state vis-a-vis its neighboring countries in the 1950s (and vis-s-vis the U.S. and European powers) (see https://ia804501.us.archive.org/17/items/sacred-terrorism/Sacred-Terrorism.pdf). The resonance and parallels between Israeli leadership thinking and actions in the 1950s (as explained by Rokach) and in the 21st century with regard to the states and peoples of Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza and Egypt (and, by extension, Iraq, Yemen and Iran) are instructive. There are considerable continuities across time and space: aggressive and domineering (supremicist?) thinking and behavior; an expansionist impulse; a sociopathic and homicidal (genocidal?) animus towards Arabs, especially Palestinians. It was all there in the 1940s and 1950s, as Rokach tells us, and it's all there now, as we witness on a daily basis. Israel certainly didn't need Hamas to induce such thinking and behavior. In fact, the Hamas movement wasn't formally inaugurated until late 1987, almost two generations after the establishment of the state of Israel. Reading historical accounts of the conflict teaches us that only the bugaboo changes (e.g. Nasser, the PLO, Saddam Hussein, Hizballah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, etc.)—the Israeli modus operandi is more or less a constant--maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity of the lives of civilian non-combatants. The Israeli state was ushered in and made possible by the intial displacement of the majority of Mandate Palestine's Arab population during 1947-1949 (on these events, see Ilan Pappe's book based in large part on official Israeli archival sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethnic_Cleansing_of_Palestine). It behooves us to remember that about two- thirds of Gaza's population are themselves refugees from Madate Palestine or the offspring of those refugees. No disconinuities there either. Regards, Salem From: Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2025 10:23 PMTo: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> Cc: Veenker, Vicki <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; Lythcott-Haims, Julie <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; Ed Lauing <elauing@equitysearchpartners.com>; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23 <jessica@speiser.net>; Lori Meyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>; Sheree Roth <ssroth29@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; Michelle Bigelow <Michelle.Bigelow@morganhill.ca.gov>; Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov<assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>;eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org <eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; EPA Today <epatoday@epatoday.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; dcombs@menlopark.gov <dcombs@menlopark.gov>; Steve Wagstaffe <swagstaffe@smcgov.org>; Jeff Rosen <info@jeffrosen.org>; Jeff Conrad <jeff_conrad@msn.com>; Jeff Hayden <laptoplg@mac.com>; Jay Boyarsky <jboyarsky@dao.sccgov.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com> <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas <nicholas.enberg@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mickie Winkler <mickie650@gmail.com>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Cait James <caitlin.a.james@gmail.com>; San José Spotlight <info@sanjosespotlight.com>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; boardfeedback@smcgov.org <boardfeedback@smcgov.org>; board@valleywater.org<board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; Braden Cartwright <bcartwright@padailypost.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; 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Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Carla Torres <xicanamagic@hotmail.com>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; Zachary.Perron@CityofPaloAlto.org <zachary.perron@cityofpaloalto.org>; City Attorney <CityAttorney@santaclaraca.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Clerk, City <city.clerk@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Clerk <CLERK2@redwoodcity.org>; Friends of Cubberley <friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; ParkRec Commission <ParkRec.commission@cityofpaloalto.org>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Karen Holman <kcholman@sbcglobal.net>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Patrice Ventresca <patriceventresca@gmail.com>; Rowena Chiu <rowena.chiu@gmail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Daniel Kottke <daniel.k@earthlink.net>; Dennis Upton <kathy8420@qq.com>; Zahra Billoo <zbilloo@cair.com>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg <supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>; Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Stump, Molly <molly.stump@cityofpaloalto.org>; Rosen, Jeff <JRosen@dao.sccgov.org>; Baker, Rob <rbaker@dao.sccgov.org>; Ruth Silver Taube <ruthsilvertaube16@gmail.com>; Tom DuBois <tom.dubois@gmail.com>; Blackshire, Geoffrey <Geo.Blackshire@cityofpaloalto.org>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Dennis Upton <denkafer1@yahoo.com>; dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>; Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org <Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org>; Alex Afanasiev <Alex.Afanasiev@cityofpaloalto.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; Angel, David <dangel@dao.sccgov.org>; Greg Tanaka <greg@gregtanaka.org>; Reifschneider, James <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>; Yolanda Conaway <yconaway@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org> Subject: Re: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoring propaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 381     On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel'sStarvation of Gaza Most'Minutely Designed andControlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII | CommonDreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 382     From:Aram James To:Sean Allen; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Baker, Rob; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; Michelle Bigelow; Gardener, Liz;h.etzko@gmail.com; Human Relations Commission; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Veenker, Vicki; Dan Okonkwo;Rodriguez, Miguel; Gerry Gras; Don Austin; Rowena Chiu; Rose Lynn; james pitkin; Cait James; Tim James;Marina Lopez; Steve Wagstaffe; Raymond Goins; Dana St. George; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan;Dave Price; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Diana Diamond; Braden Cartwright; Enberg, Nicholas; Barberini,Christopher; Wagner, April; Palo Alto Free Press; Afanasiev, Alex; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; dennis burns;DuJuan Green; Tom DuBois; Holman, Karen (external); Roberta Ahlquist; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; sharonjackson; Carla Torres; Vara Ramakrishnan; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; GRP-City Council; Greg Tanaka;Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Pat M Subject:Whites-only community plotting expansion to another state as its efforts to build a ‘white nation’ continue Date:Friday, July 25, 2025 7:46:52 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Whites-only community plotting expansion to another state as its efforts to build a ‘white nation’ continue Source: The Independent https://share.newsbreak.com/e7s2jc4c?s=i0 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 383     From:Aram James To:Shikada, Ed; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Gerry Gras; Council, City; Sean Allen; h.etzko@gmail.com;Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; Yolanda Conaway; Don Austin; EPA Today; Raymond Goins; Gardener,Liz; Liz Kniss; DuJuan Green; dennis burns; Gennady Sheyner; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; CouncilmemberChappie Jones; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23;board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Jeff Rosen;jay.boyarsky@da.sccgov.org; Friends of Cubberley; GRP-City Council; city.council@menlopark.gov;citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Wagner, April; Perron, Zachary; Human Relations Commission; Kaloma Smith;Baker, Rob; Bill Newell Subject:They are still discovering bodies in Altadena 6 months after fire. Are there other victims? Date:Friday, July 25, 2025 6:23:51 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. They are still discovering bodies in Altadena 6 months after fire. Are there other victims? https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-25/la-firestorm-31st-victim-found {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 384     From:Aram James To:Salem Ajluni Cc:Martin Wasserman; Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Sean Allen; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Palo Alto Free Press; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Diana Diamond; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP-City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Stump, Molly; Rosen, Jeff; Baker, Rob; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan; Dave Price; Henry Riggs; Lewis James; Kaloma Smith; Palo Alto Weekly; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; Raj Jayadev; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Dan Okonkwo; Rose Lynn; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Paul George @ PPJC; Roberta Ahlquist; ladoris cordell; Marina Lopez; Tim James; Josie James-Le; josh@joshsalcman.com; San Mateo Peace Action; EXT.Richard.Hobbs; Dave Price; Penni Wilson; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Vicki Veenker; yolanda; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov Subject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWII Date:Thursday, July 24, 2025 9:18:25 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Salem, Thank you for your well-reasoned thoughtful and historically supported statement. Your scholarship on the topic is evident in every word and sentence you write. As a trial lawyer, if I were litigating the question of Israel’s guilt or innocence regarding war crimes and genocide, you would be my most compelling expert witness on the relevant issues. Because of your grasp of the facts the attorney attempting to defend Israel would have an impossible job of impeaching your credibility. I suspect the jurors would love your testimony regarding the history of Israel’s birth and your measured delivery. I would remove for cause from the jury all Zionists white supremacists cult members each badly in need of deprogramming. Freedom fighters of all backgrounds are welcome on the jury I would select. Your post contains zero {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 385     wasted words or any standard Israel talk. I learned a tremendous amount from your post and realize how much more I need to learn to be even borderline conversant on the topic. So much appreciate you, Avram Finkelstein On Thu, Jul 24, 2025 at 2:45 PM, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com> wrote:As a modest contribution to a better understanding of the thinking and practices of the Israeli state, past and present, I recommend a very useful and short book that I read more than 40 years ago. It was written by Livia Rokach, the daughter of Israel Rokach who was the Israeli Interior Minister in the government of Moshe Sharett, the latter being the second prime minister of the new state (1953-1955). She translated and published her father's diaries, as well as parts of Sharett's diaries, both of which give us insights into the private elite thinking, planning and actions of main actors in the Israeli state vis-a-vis its neighboring countries in the 1950s (and vis-s- vis the U.S. and European powers) (see https://ia804501.us.archive.org/17/items/sacred-terrorism/Sacred- Terrorism.pdf). The resonance and parallels between Israeli leadership thinking and actions in the 1950s (as explained by Rokach) and in the 21st century with regard to the states and peoples of Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza and Egypt (and, by extension, Iraq, Yemen and Iran) are instructive. There are considerable continuities across time and space: aggressive and domineering (supremicist?) thinking and behavior; an expansionist impulse; a sociopathic and homicidal (genocidal?) animus {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 386     towards Arabs, especially Palestinians. It was all there in the 1940s and 1950s, as Rokach tells us, and it's all there now, as we witness on a daily basis. Israel certainly didn't need Hamas to induce such thinking and behavior. In fact, the Hamas movement wasn't formally inaugurated until late 1987, almost two generations after the establishment of the state of Israel. Reading historical accounts of the conflict teaches us that only the bugaboo changes (e.g. Nasser, the PLO, Saddam Hussein, Hizballah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, etc.)—the Israeli modus operandi is more or less a constant--maximal violence and aggression with little to no regard for the sanctity of the lives of civilian non- combatants. The Israeli state was ushered in and made possible by the intial displacement of the majority of Mandate Palestine's Arab population during 1947-1949 (on these events, see Ilan Pappe's book based in large part on official Israeli archival sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethnic_Cleansing_of_Palestine). It behooves us to remember that about two-thirds of Gaza's population are themselves refugees from Madate Palestine or the offspring of those refugees. No disconinuities there either. Regards, Salem From: Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2025 10:23 PM To: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> Cc: Veenker, Vicki <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>; Lythcott-Haims, Julie <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>; Keith Reckdahl <reckdahl@yahoo.com>; Ed Lauing <elauing@equitysearchpartners.com>; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 387     Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23 <jessica@speiser.net>; Lori Meyers <meyers.lk@gmail.com>; Sheree Roth <ssroth29@gmail.com>; Henry Etzkowitz <H.Etzko@gmail.com>; Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mark Turner <mark.turner@morganhill.ca.gov>; CityCouncil <CityCouncil@morganhill.ca.gov>; Michelle Bigelow <Michelle.Bigelow@morganhill.ca.gov>; Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov <assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov>; Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>; eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org <eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org>; Doug Minkler <dminkler@dminkler.com>; Gerry Gras <gerrygras@earthlink.net>; EPA Today <epatoday@epatoday.org>; Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@embarcaderomedia.org>; city.council@menlopark.gov <city.council@menlopark.gov>; dcombs@menlopark.gov <dcombs@menlopark.gov>; Steve Wagstaffe <swagstaffe@smcgov.org>; Jeff Rosen <info@jeffrosen.org>; Jeff Conrad <jeff_conrad@msn.com>; Jeff Hayden <laptoplg@mac.com>; Jay Boyarsky <jboyarsky@dao.sccgov.org>; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto <wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com> <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas <nicholas.enberg@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mickie Winkler <mickie650@gmail.com>; Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com>; Cait James <caitlin.a.james@gmail.com>; San José Spotlight <info@sanjosespotlight.com>; board@pausd.org <board@pausd.org>; boardfeedback@smcgov.org <boardfeedback@smcgov.org>; board@valleywater.org <board@valleywater.org>; BoardOperations <BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org>; Braden Cartwright <bcartwright@padailypost.com>; Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>; Rodriguez, Miguel <miguel.rodriguez@pdo.sccgov.org>; editor@paweekly.com <editor@paweekly.com>; April Wagner <april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>; Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>; Burt, Patrick <pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org>; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov <Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov>; Palo Alto Free Press <paloaltofreepress@gmail.com>; Seher Awan <firebrand.dr@gmail.com>; Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>; David Piper <david.piper@wvm.edu>; michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org <michael.foley@cityofpaloalto.org>; Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>; Palo Alto Renters' Association <info@paloaltorenters.org>; Diana Diamond <dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com <jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com>; ladoris cordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com>; cromero@cityofepa.org <cromero@cityofepa.org>; rabrica@cityofepa.org <rabrica@cityofepa.org>; Bill Newell <billnewell2850@gmail.com>; Bill Johnson <bjohnson@paweekly.com>; Bill James <billjames99@gmail.com>; Pat M <p.marshall81@ymail.com>; Carla Torres <xicanamagic@hotmail.com>; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>; Zachary.Perron@CityofPaloAlto.org <zachary.perron@cityofpaloalto.org>; City Attorney <CityAttorney@santaclaraca.gov>; citycouncil@mountainview.gov <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>; Clerk, City <city.clerk@cityofpaloalto.org>; GRP-City Clerk <CLERK2@redwoodcity.org>; Friends of Cubberley <friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com>; Lotus Fong <lyfong@pacbell.net>; ParkRec Commission <ParkRec.commission@cityofpaloalto.org>; Liz Gardner <Gardnerjaqua@gmail.com>; Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>; Karen Holman <kcholman@sbcglobal.net>; Liz Kniss <lizkniss@earthlink.net>; Patrice Ventresca <patriceventresca@gmail.com>; Rowena Chiu <rowena.chiu@gmail.com>; Dana St. George <danasg@earthlink.net>; Damon Silver <damon.silver@pdo.sccgov.org>; Daniel Kottke <daniel.k@earthlink.net>; Dennis Upton {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 388     <kathy8420@qq.com>; Zahra Billoo <zbilloo@cair.com>; james pitkin <jamespitkin777@yahoo.com>; Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg <supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>; Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>; Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>; Stump, Molly <molly.stump@cityofpaloalto.org>; Rosen, Jeff <JRosen@dao.sccgov.org>; Baker, Rob <rbaker@dao.sccgov.org>; Ruth Silver Taube <ruthsilvertaube16@gmail.com>; Tom DuBois <tom.dubois@gmail.com>; Blackshire, Geoffrey <Geo.Blackshire@cityofpaloalto.org>; Jasso, Tamara <Tamara.Jasso@cityofpaloalto.org>; DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>; Dennis Upton <denkafer1@yahoo.com>; dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>; Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org <Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org>; Alex Afanasiev <Alex.Afanasiev@cityofpaloalto.org>; craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>; Anna Griffin <griffinam@sbcglobal.net>; Angel, David <dangel@dao.sccgov.org>; Greg Tanaka <greg@gregtanaka.org>; Reifschneider, James <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>; Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>; Yolanda Conaway <yconaway@pausd.org>; Donna Wallach <cats4jazz@gmail.com>; Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org> Subject: Re: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoringpropaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed andControlled' Since WWII | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 389     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Sean Allen; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Palo Alto Free Press; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Diana Diamond; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP- City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; Rosen, Jeff; Baker, Rob; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan Subject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWII Date:Wednesday, July 23, 2025 12:49:06 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamas only once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoring propagandapoints against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 390     Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed andControlled' Since WWII | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 391     Nour_box.png CODEPINK Chicago outside McNally Capital. Send a letter condemning McNally Capital for investingin genocide! Send a letter! From:Aram James To:Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Michael Ybarra; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Yusra Hussain; Yolanda Conaway; DonAustin; Kaloma Smith; Human Relations Commission; Council, City; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Nash, Betsy;dcombs@menlopark.gov; GRP-City Council; city.council@menlopark.gov; Bill Newell; Raymond Goins; GerryGras; Dana St. George; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist Subject:Re: The worst way to make money… Date:Wednesday, July 23, 2025 11:13:02 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Wed, Jul 23, 2025 at 10:01 AM Jenin, CODEPINK <info@codepink.org> wrote: CODEPINK.ORG Dear Aram, I am writing this to you in a very bleak time. While one part of the world is enjoying summertime with lavish dinners and pool parties, another is being starved to the brink of extermination. Palestinians in Gaza are pleading with the rest of the world to recognize the fact that there is no food left as people are dying due to malnutrition on a daily basis. The Al-Jazeera journalist, Anas al- Sharif, recently broke down crying during a broadcast of a Palestinian woman collapsing on the floor through sheer exhaustion and starvation. It takes little to imagine what the Israeli military said about this: they accused Al-Sharif of “crocodile tears.” A very ironic statement from a self-victimizing settler colonial state that regularly weaponizes {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 392     crocodile tears to manufacture consent for the genocide in Gaza. Now, the genocide has unfolded to its deadliest phase, where Palestinians aren’t just experiencing mass casualties from bombardment, but from manufactured starvation as well. What makes it worse is that there are investment firms profiting off the Gaza “Humanitarian” Foundation’s (GHF) barbaric starvation campaign to kill Palestinians. One of the culprits is right here in Chicago – add your name to our letter to shame McNally Capital and I will deliver it to their front door! Yesterday, I attended a protest here in Chicago outside McNally Capital, the financial investors of the fake aid organization GHF. A spokesperson previously spoke on McNally’s involvement with GHF’s logistics company, Safe Reach Solutions (SRS): “McNally Capital has provided administrative advice to SRS and worked in collaboration with multiple parties to enable SRS to carry out its mission.”* Hundreds of people were gathered outside to call out the investment firm for maintaining economic ties to an organization created to kill Palestinians desperately trying to receive flour. With that information, I ask you: Is it just a coincidence that the GHF has become the privatized replacement for governmental organizations like UNRWA? Is it just a coincidence that the GHF is made up of U.S. organizations like Safe Reach Solutions, McNally Capital, and Boston Consulting Group — who all have ties to the U.S. and Israeli governments? Is it a coincidence that the aid distribution sites run by the GHF have been called “death traps”? The privatization of humanitarian aid by capitalist companies has led to the formulation of what we all know to be peace’s enemy: ethnic cleansing fueled by corporations with the intent of profiting off the land in the future. These CEOs believe that Gaza can be theirs if they kill everyone there, after which they’ll be able to sell beautiful oceanfront real estate — or drill Gaza’s oil and take the profits for themselves. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 393     Tell McNally Capital, the funders of the murderous Gaza “Humanitarian” Foundation: Shame on you! What Gaza is experiencing is textbook manufactured famine, yet international organizations like the U.N. have hesitated to say so. What will it take for the world to call what is happening in Gaza what it is? It seems that while every atrocity has been committed, no suitable action has been taken by our institutions. Just this weekend, the National Education Association’s (NEA) executive committee cancelled a vote by its rank and file to drop the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from schools all across the country. Unsurprisingly, these executives met with the heads of the ADL before making their decision. Every detriment to our society’s welfare is working in conjunction with one another. Never forget that the forces of imperialism, capitalism, and propaganda that are influencing the NEA’s decision are the same ones that are behind the dystopian GHF. The state of Israel and the U.S., forces of capitalism and imperialism, wreak havoc all over the world. Still though, what gives me hope is the fact that these truths are being uncovered by the public and being recognized as twisted schemes by many. You all reading this email know these things, you know how cruel and ruthless these companies and governments are. And that is all I need to know to have a kernel of faith in my heart, because the truth will always prevail — these wicked CEOs and politicians won’t get away with this forever. The situation in Gaza is dire. We need to keep the people’s pleas alive; you all know the truth and can mobilize yourselves and your communities to take action. The people in Gaza have called for a week of action, so please look here to see if there are any events in your area that you can turn out to. We must be in the streets with a clear message to end the horrific forced starvation and genocide the people of Palestine are being subjected to. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 394     Join us for 30 minutes of nonstop calling to McNally Capital on Friday, July 25th, at 1 pm ET to end their investment in genocide! Here are other ways to engage: Watch our Summer School Session on Resisting Propaganda! Join us at the Detroit People's Conference for Palestine! Tell Airbnb: Stop Listing Properties On Stolen Land! Follow along with our Boycott Birthright Series! Join our Palestine Working Group! Check out our bold new arrivals at our CODEPINK Store! Until Liberation, Jenin and the entire CODEPINK team *Read the Reuters article, “Chicago private equity firm has stake in Gaza aid company." P.S. Hello everyone, my name is Jenin and I am the new Palestine lead here at CODEPINK! I am a first-generation Palestinian American, born to two Palestinian immigrant parents. I’m from the city of Al-Khalil and have been blessed with the privilege of being able to visit Palestine many times. If you’re wondering why I’m named after the Palestinian city of Jenin (but not from there), I was born in June 2002, a few months after the massacre of Jenin. In April of that year, Israeli forces launched an unprecedented attack on Jenin Refugee Camp, where dozens were {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 395     killed and the camp was left almost entirely destroyed. Today, Jenin continues to be targeted by the Israeli military’s unlawful assaults. I grew up with the knowledge of my name; the weight of the city I amnamed after, a city known for its resilience and principle, is something I carry every day to motivate me in this long, hard struggle. My commitment to Palestine is unmatched. I hope I can honor my people and my homeland by engaging with you Palestine and organizing meaningful actions – until Palestine is free. Lovely to meet you all! Donate Now! Make a one-time donation or choose monthly giving. This email was sent to abjpd1@gmail.com. To unsubscribe, click here. To update your email subscription, contact info@codepink.org. © 2025 CODEPINK.ORG | Created with NationBuilder {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 396     From:Eden Housing To:Human Relations Commission Subject:Help Solaire Win — Vote Now for AHF’s Readers’ Choice Awards! Date:Wednesday, July 23, 2025 10:41:08 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. VOTE FOR SOLAIRE APARTMENTS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 397     We’re excited to share that Solaire has been named a finalist in Affordable Housing Finance’s 2025 Readers’ Choice Awards! This national recognition celebrates some of the most inspiring affordable housing communities built in 2024 and 2025, and we are proud to see Solaire on that list. More than just buildings, communities like Solaire tell the story of resilience, compassion, and hope. With 130 affordable homes—half dedicated to permanent supportive housing for those who’ve experienced homelessness—Solaire was thoughtfully designed with trauma-informed principles and inclusivity at its core. Voting is open July 18 through August 13 for all subscribers as of July 25 (registration is quick and free if you’re not yet signed up!). {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 398     Cast your vote for Solaire Apartments and help us show the power of permanent supportive housing done right. Vote for Solaire Apartments Thank you for your support! Eden Housing22645 Grand StreetHayward, CA 94541United States If you believe you received this message in error or wish to no longer receive email from us, please unsubscribe. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 399     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie Cc:Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; editor@paweekly.com; Reckdahl, Keith; Reckdahl, Keith; Gennady Sheyner; Gardener, Liz; Lotus Fong; Council, City; Mark Turner; Michelle Bigelow; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; City Attorney; Friends of Cubberley; GRP-City Council; GRP-City Clerk; Human Relations Commission; citycouncil@menlopark.org; Perron, Zachary; Binder, Andrew; Jay Boyarsky; Reifschneider, James; Jeff Rosen Subject:DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May whiletrying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly near aid sites run by an American contractor, the U.N. human rightsoffice said Tuesday. Date:Wednesday, July 23, 2025 9:30:28 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly near aid sites run by an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office said Tuesday. . https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=e478ba3a-a98c-4756-9301-6192a18c2b1e&appcode=SAN252&eguid=00981d02-bb69-41db-805f- b0ba4a0c85fa&pnum=14# For more great content like this subscribe to the The MercuryNews e-edition app here: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 400     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki Cc:Sean Allen; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; jessica@speiser.net; Foley, Michael; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; RajJayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda;Don Austin; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; Rob Baker;Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan;Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; Today EPA; GennadySheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Stump,Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Miguel Rodriguez; Cait James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha,Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire,Geoffrey; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler;Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth;Ellen Fox; Marty Wasserman; Dave Price; Angel, David Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Tuesday, July 22, 2025 10:32:20 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments andclicking on links. The ongoing genocide and war crimes committed by Israel, with the full support of the United States, will eventually be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This will happen regardless of any alleged actions by Hamas. It is crucial to understand that the ongoing genocide is a separate and distinct crime from the alleged behavior of the group referred to as Hamas (freedom fighters). As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” In a similar vein, you don’t need a genocide expert to recognize that Israel is currently engaged in a massive, full-blown genocideof the Palestinian people. One can offer various intellectual rationalizations, but the reality remains indisputable—the actions of the state of Israel amount to genocide beyond all reasonable doubt. Israel is guilty as charged ofwar crimes and genocide. Avram “Let The Prosecution Begin” Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:05 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Sean, There's a very popular ideology nowadays, which I'm guessing you subscribe to, that the world would be a better place ifeveryone would give up their national and religious identities and join in a common universal culture. I strongly doubt thiswill ever happen. First, the differences between nations can be so profound that it’s impossible to create a cultureacceptable to all. Also, peoples’ identities are very important to them. Asking people to stop being who they are for somenebulous goal of peace is a definite nonstarter. This is certainly true of Jews. People have been trying to erase Jewishidentity for over 3000 years, including some of the most powerful empires in history. As a believing Jew, I believe God haspreserved us because he has a purpose for us. And I don't think that purpose is to renounce our connection to Him, lose ouridentity and live according to other people's dictates. You say Israel lacks humanitarianism toward African refugees. I would argue that Israel’s humanitarianism is second tonone. But there's a limit. It's a tiny country surrounded by enemies. It's taken in many African refugees that it didn't have to.But why is all your criticism directed at tiny Israel when the vast Arab world refuses to do anything at all for theserefugees, most of whom are their own coreligionists? I’ll also note that the world is a highly competitive place where nations compete for power and domination every singleday. Israel knows that it has to fight if it wants to survive. Although it has strong humanitarian instincts, it's primaryobjective has to be to maintain its existence and its integrity, and the values that have sustained us as a people for over threemillennia. Caring for the humanitarian needs of strangers, though indeed an important Jewish value, definitely has to besecondary to this. Best,Martin On Jul 21, 2025, at 6:00 PM, Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Hi Martin, Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I understand your perspective on the importance of national security, and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 401     your response highlights my previous point regarding Israel's desire to maintain its purity and identity. Yourremarks seem to support the premise that Israel’s actions promote a sense of exclusivity, prioritizing itsnational identity over the humanitarian needs of others. Moreover, your position suggesting that Muslims and others should seek assistance outside of Israel reinforcesthe notion of maintaining a specific national identity, which further emphasizes purity but also points todiscrimination against those who don't fit that identity. The refusal to support those seeking refuge can be seenas a troubling aspect of how Israel navigates its humanitarian obligations. Additionally, the United States has a lengthy history of championing humanitarian efforts, being a countrybuilt on the foundation of immigration and diversity. It feels counterintuitive for the U.S. to support nationsthat do not uphold the same values of compassion and assistance to those in need, especially when taxpayermoney is involved. The commitment to shared responsibility and collective morality should guide ourpartnerships and aid. While I appreciate the unique history and culture of the Jewish people, it is possible to uphold national identitywhile also extending compassion and support to those facing perilous situations. Finding a balance betweenthese values is essential for fostering a more inclusive and just society. Looking forward to your thoughts. Best, Sean Sent from my iPhone On Jul 21, 2025, at 5:08 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: Sean, Humanitarian values are important, but realistically, national security concerns will alwaysoverride them in virtually any country on Earth. In fact, any nation that puts humanitarianismabove its own national security interests probably won't be a nation for long. And if we accept theidea that any person’s need creates an obligation for others to fulfill that need, the world wouldvery quickly sink into chaos. Regarding African refugees in Israel, it's a testimony to Israel’s humanitarianism that theserefugees, mostly Muslims, know they'll receive more compassionate care in the one Jewish statethan in any Arab or Muslim state. Nevertheless, Israel is a very small country, and it's also thenation state of the Jewish people, a people with their own unique religion, language, and cultureand a very long history. If it opened its gates to everyone who was in need, it would quickly beswamped, and would no longer be the nation state of the Jewish people. Israel is not going tocompromise its national identity, and it's unreasonable to think that it should, for the sake ofhelping strangers who have no particular connection to Jews or Judaism. Best,Martin On Jul 21, 2025, at 12:03 PM, Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Martin, I appreciate your perspective on the complexities of national security andhumanitarian obligations. However, it's crucial to recognize that viewing civilians as"enemies" can lead to a dangerous precedent where humanitarian needs aredisregarded in the name of security. In both the case of African asylum-seekers and Palestinians in Gaza, the individualsaffected are often civilians who are fleeing violence, persecution, or dire living {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 402     conditions. They should not be categorized merely as "enemy civilians," as thisoversimplifies the multifaceted nature of conflict and ignores their humanity. Treatingany civilian population as an enemy undermines the basic principles of internationalhumanitarian law, which emphasize the protection of non-combatants in conflictsituations. The actions of Israel toward African asylum-seekers further illustrate this point. In theface of significant geopolitical and humanitarian challenges, Israel has opted to deportEritrean and Sudanese asylum-seekers, often leaving them vulnerable to persecutionin third countries, demonstrating a troubling pattern of prioritizing security measuresover humanitarian responsibilities. Like the civilians in Gaza, these asylum-seekersare fleeing perilous situations; thus, their humanity should be recognized regardless ofthe circumstances surrounding their migration. Regarding your historical references, while it is true that during times of war, nationshave made decisions that prioritize military objectives, it's essential to acknowledgethat the moral implications of such decisions have evolved. The internationalcommunity increasingly recognizes the importance of humanitarian considerationseven amid conflict. Ignoring humanitarian needs, particularly of vulnerablepopulations, can perpetuate cycles of violence and instability that ultimately harmnational interests in the long run. Additionally, while you mention Israeli perspectives on Gazan civilians voting forHamas, it's critical to understand that many civilians may have done so under coerciveconditions or without the full capacity to consider the implications of their choices.Many Gazans are indeed caught in a cycle of violence, facing repercussions for thedecisions made by leadership they may not support. You also note Israel's earlier actions to facilitate the entry of food and supplies intoGaza. However, the effectiveness and sufficiency of this aid must be contextualizedagainst the wider backdrop of blockades and military operations that significantlyrestrict access to essential services, creating a humanitarian crisis. In summary, while national security is undoubtedly critical, it should not come at thecost of abandoning the fundamental human rights and dignity of civilians caught inconflict. The tragic plight of those affected by violence—whether they are asylum-seekers or civilians in Gaza—demands a compassionate and just approach thatacknowledges their humanity. Is the refusal to recognize the humanity of theseindividuals truly an acceptable stance in the pursuit of security, or is it more aboutmaintaining purity? Regards, Sean Sent from my iPhone On Jul 21, 2025, at 10:31 AM, Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:  Sean, I appreciate your concern for humanitarian issues. However, the reality isthat when a nation is fighting for its very existence, as Israel is doingright now, its highest priority has to be to defeat the enemy, and caringfor the humanitarian needs of enemy civilians has to be a much lowerpriority. In fact, most nations would ridicule the idea of helping enemy civilianswhile a war is ongoing, arguing that it’s equivalent to helping the enemyhimself. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 403     During World War II, for example, the overriding imperative wasvictory, and the US showed no concern for the humanitarian well-beingof the enemy civilians it was bombing, nor did any other nation involvedin that conflict. Humanitarian concerns could be addressed after the war,but not during it. It’s also worth noting that Israelis don't necessarily see Gazan civilians asinnocent bystanders. They remember how they voted Hamas into power,and how many of them followed Hamas into Israel on October 7 and tookdirect part in the plunder and pillage of that day. They also recall theoutbursts of delirious joy as the Israeli hostages were paraded through thestreets of Gaza, and how not a single Gazan did anything to help theIsraeli hostages escape from their captivity. Nevertheless, Israel has shown more concern for humanitarian issuesthan virtually any other country in a similar situation. Earlier in the war,it allowed huge amounts of food and supplies into Gaza, even though itknew that most of the aid was being stolen by Hamas, thereby prolongingthe war and making victory more difficult to achieve. Incidentally, therewere many in Israel who thought this policy was very foolish and highlycounterproductive. Regards,Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 8:34 PM, Sean Allen<sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Martin, Thank you for sharing your perspective. While it's importantto consider the complex dynamics at play, the impact ofrationing food and resources cannot be overlooked. Limitingaccess to basic necessities can lead to dire consequences forthe civilian population, contributing to significant sufferingand hardship, irrespective of intent. Historically, we have seen that during crises, peopleinstinctively fight and even resort to violence over limitedresources. This was evident in the aftermath of HurricaneKatrina in the United States, where widespread desperationfor food, water, and safety led to chaos and alarming acts ofviolence. Reports from that time highlighted how individualslooted stores and clashed with each other as they scrambledfor basic survival needs, demonstrating how fragile socialorder can become when resources are scarce. Similarly, inSomalia, we witnessed violence surrounding the distributionof humanitarian aid, as factions vied for control over theresources being provided to those in need. Rationing food and resources has the potential to produceoutcomes that are as devastating as direct violence, akin tothe effects of bombing a population. Furthermore, militaryunits should never base their decisions to slaughter non-combatants on the basis that their opposition does not releasehostages, regardless of the justification for conflict. Unlessthe motive is to create more chaos through infighting, whichwould lead to similar devastation as bombing non-combatantcommunities, the humane approach is to provide theseindividuals with the necessary amount of humanitarian aidand stop the slaughter. Bombing non-combatants is not war;it’s slaughter and inhumane. Even our Constitution prohibitspunishing a group of people because of the actions of others. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 404     While military objectives may focus on specific groups, wemust recognize that the broader impact on civilian livesremains profound. The suffering of Gazans should not bediminished or overlooked, as their well-being is affected bythe decisions made in the context of this conflict. Best, Sean Allen Sent from my iPhone On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 405     impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 406     Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 407     weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible sourceon this issue. It appears that the once-respectable organization has been taken overby malevolent actors with a political axe togrind. Their anti-Israel bias is evidentthroughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make nomention at all of Hamas’ explicit genocidalpolicy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating internationallaw, but make no reference at all to the factthat Israel is facing a ruthless enemy thatobserves no international laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions atall, they do it in the mildest language possible,and then use the most damning possiblelanguage when describing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is anapartheid state, a blatantly false accusationthat is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegallyoccupying Palestinian land, as if the territoriesof Judea and Samaria, the heartland of theancient Jewish nation, don't belong to Jews atall, but are instead the property of a fictitiouscountry called “Palestine” which has neveractually existed in any historical period. In short, this entire report is a politicallymotivated “hatchet job” that deserves nocredibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM,Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty International {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 408     investigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basisto conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing tocommit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied GazaStrip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’sGenocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how,during its military offensive launched in the wake of thedeadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel hascarried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, withthe specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These actsinclude killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month aftermonth, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhumangroup unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating itsintent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this timemust know they are violating their obligation to preventgenocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide.All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bringIsrael’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to animmediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocatingrestrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted incommitting genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm itwas inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarianassistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside militarygoals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 409     Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both theirimmediate impact and their cumulative and mutuallyreinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, findingthat prohibited acts were often announced or called for inthe first place by high-level officials in charge of the warefforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find onlyone reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physicaldestruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with,or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victimsof other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide againstPalestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide tohave been committed. The commission of prohibited actswith the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’sviolations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212 people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, localauthorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldworkand analysed an extensive range of visual and digitalevidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions,the organization shared its findings with the Israeliauthorities but had received no substantive response at thetime of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brinkof collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, andinjured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has causedunprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gazauninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City toRafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024,described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 410     “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have toprotect your children from insects, from the heat, and thereis no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created adeadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, andexposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel alsosubjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza toincommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations ofinternational humanitarian law or international human rightslaw. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s militarycampaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts,genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroyPalestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty Internationalanalysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza,reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at thehighest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s systemof apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and theunlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinianterritory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targetedHamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and thatthe resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aidwere the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and otherarmed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence ofHamas fighters near or within a densely populated areadoes not absolve Israel from its obligations to take allfeasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimesunder international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. AmnestyInternational also found no evidence that the diversion of aidcould explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternativearguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly orthat it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if itneeded to destroy Palestinians in the process,demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 411     of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or asan acceptable by-product of this goal, this view ofPalestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by AmnestyInternational were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statementsthat were issued by Israeli government and military officialsand others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidalacts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statementsmade by senior officials in charge of managing the offensivethat appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providingdirect evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on theground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified byAmnesty International showing soldiers making calls to“erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebratingthe destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts ofkilling and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds ofothers. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinahneighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations ofPalestinians, including 16 children, while they weresleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted inways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities andinjuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflictedconditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead,over time, to their destruction. These conditions wereimposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’sdevastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable tothe survival of the civilian population; the repeated use ofsweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 412     denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services,humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies intoand within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine monthsreviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating,unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energysources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian accesswithin Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areasnorth of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an alreadyexisting humanitarian crisis. This, combined with theextensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water andsanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact wasespecially harsh on young children and pregnant orbreastfeeding women, with anticipated long-termconsequences for their health. The international community’s seismic,shameful failure for over a year to pressIsrael to end its atrocities in Gaza, by firstdelaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve thehumanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or theirobstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situationhas grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displacednearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiplewaves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeplytraumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life,Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that wouldhave protected displaced civilians and ensured their basicneeds were met, showing that their actions weredeliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to their homes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to otherparts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel,continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displacedfrom in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowheresafe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 413     “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure forover a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, byfirst delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing armstransfers, is and will remain a stain on our collectiveconscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades ofimpunity for Israel’s violations of international law. Statesneed to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismayand take strong and sustained international action, howeveruncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former DefenseMinister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes againsthumanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted bythe ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consideradding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocideand remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostagesto be released unconditionally and for Hamas and otherPalestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Councilto impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamasofficials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southernIsrael and carried out deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in-depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes underinternational law committed by Israeli forces, including directattacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well as other unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilianpopulation. The organization has called on the Office of the ICCProsecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in theState of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, clickhere. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 414     INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must be protected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish governmentto press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensurethe right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 415     EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-IsraelAssociation Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawfulbetrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rightseverywhere. Your donation can transform thelives of millions. ABOUT US Contact UsHow We’re RunModern Slavery Act Statement FinancesRESOURCES Media CentreHuman Rights EducationHuman Rights Courses Annual report archiveGET INVOLVED JoinTake ActionVolunteer LATEST NewsCampaignsResearchWORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 416     about human rights then AmnestyInternational wants to hear fromyou. Privacy Policy {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 417     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Sean Allen; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Palo Alto Free Press; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Diana Diamond; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP- City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; Rosen, Jeff; Baker, Rob; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan Subject:Re: Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWII Date:Tuesday, July 22, 2025 10:28:29 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. The ongoing genocide and war crimes committed by Israel, with the full support of the United States, will eventually be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This will happen regardless of any alleged actions by Hamas. It is crucial to understand that the ongoing genocide is a separate and distinct crime from the alleged behavior of the group referred to as Hamas (freedom fighters). As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” In a similar vein, you don’t need a genocide expert to recognize that Israel is currently engaged in a massive, full-blown genocide of the Palestinian people. One can offer various intellectual rationalizations, but the reality remains indisputable—the actions of the state of Israel amount to genocide beyond all reasonable doubt. Israel is guilty as charged of war crimes and genocide. Avram “Let The Prosecution Begin” Finkelstein On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 10:23 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:The bias of the author is evident in the fact that the entire article mentions Hamasonly once, in passing. Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by layingdown their arms and releasing the hostages. But they care more about scoring propaganda points against Israel than about saving the lives of their own people. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 418     Martin Wasserman On Jul 22, 2025, at 3:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed andControlled' Since WWII | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 419     From:Martin Wasserman To:Sean Allen Cc:Aram James; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; jessica@speiser.net; Foley, Michael; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev;Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin;jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; Rob Baker; Robert. Jonsen;Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; CouncilmemberChappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; Council,City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org;BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Miguel Rodriguez; Cait James; Josh Becker; Assemblymember.Berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuanGreen; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tom DuBois; Friends ofCubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; CityAttorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; Ellen Fox Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Tuesday, July 22, 2025 10:05:30 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments andclicking on links. i Sean, There's a very popular ideology nowadays, which I'm guessing you subscribe to, that the world would be a better place ifeveryone would give up their national and religious identities and join in a common universal culture. I strongly doubt this willever happen. First, the differences between nations can be so profound that it’s impossible to create a culture acceptable to all.Also, peoples’ identities are very important to them. Asking people to stop being who they are for some nebulous goal of peaceis a definite nonstarter. This is certainly true of Jews. People have been trying to erase Jewish identity for over 3000 years,including some of the most powerful empires in history. As a believing Jew, I believe God has preserved us because he has apurpose for us. And I don't think that purpose is to renounce our connection to Him, lose our identity and live according to otherpeople's dictates. You say Israel lacks humanitarianism toward African refugees. I would argue that Israel’s humanitarianism is second to none.But there's a limit. It's a tiny country surrounded by enemies. It's taken in many African refugees that it didn't have to. But whyis all your criticism directed at tiny Israel when the vast Arab world refuses to do anything at all for these refugees, most ofwhom are their own coreligionists? I’ll also note that the world is a highly competitive place where nations compete for power and domination every single day.Israel knows that it has to fight if it wants to survive. Although it has strong humanitarian instincts, it's primary objective has tobe to maintain its existence and its integrity, and the values that have sustained us as a people for over three millennia. Caringfor the humanitarian needs of strangers, though indeed an important Jewish value, definitely has to be secondary to this. Best,Martin On Jul 21, 2025, at 6:00 PM, Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Hi Martin, Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I understand your perspective on the importance of national security, andyour response highlights my previous point regarding Israel's desire to maintain its purity and identity. Yourremarks seem to support the premise that Israel’s actions promote a sense of exclusivity, prioritizing its nationalidentity over the humanitarian needs of others. Moreover, your position suggesting that Muslims and others should seek assistance outside of Israel reinforces thenotion of maintaining a specific national identity, which further emphasizes purity but also points to discriminationagainst those who don't fit that identity. The refusal to support those seeking refuge can be seen as a troublingaspect of how Israel navigates its humanitarian obligations. Additionally, the United States has a lengthy history of championing humanitarian efforts, being a country built onthe foundation of immigration and diversity. It feels counterintuitive for the U.S. to support nations that do notuphold the same values of compassion and assistance to those in need, especially when taxpayer money isinvolved. The commitment to shared responsibility and collective morality should guide our partnerships and aid. This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 420     While I appreciate the unique history and culture of the Jewish people, it is possible to uphold national identitywhile also extending compassion and support to those facing perilous situations. Finding a balance between thesevalues is essential for fostering a more inclusive and just society. Looking forward to your thoughts. Best, Sean Sent from my iPhone On Jul 21, 2025, at 5:08 PM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: Sean, Humanitarian values are important, but realistically, national security concerns will always overridethem in virtually any country on Earth. In fact, any nation that puts humanitarianism above its ownnational security interests probably won't be a nation for long. And if we accept the idea that anyperson’s need creates an obligation for others to fulfill that need, the world would very quickly sinkinto chaos. Regarding African refugees in Israel, it's a testimony to Israel’s humanitarianism that these refugees,mostly Muslims, know they'll receive more compassionate care in the one Jewish state than in anyArab or Muslim state. Nevertheless, Israel is a very small country, and it's also the nation state of theJewish people, a people with their own unique religion, language, and culture and a very long history.If it opened its gates to everyone who was in need, it would quickly be swamped, and would no longerbe the nation state of the Jewish people. Israel is not going to compromise its national identity, and it'sunreasonable to think that it should, for the sake of helping strangers who have no particularconnection to Jews or Judaism. Best,Martin On Jul 21, 2025, at 12:03 PM, Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Martin, I appreciate your perspective on the complexities of national security and humanitarianobligations. However, it's crucial to recognize that viewing civilians as "enemies" can leadto a dangerous precedent where humanitarian needs are disregarded in the name ofsecurity. In both the case of African asylum-seekers and Palestinians in Gaza, the individualsaffected are often civilians who are fleeing violence, persecution, or dire living conditions.They should not be categorized merely as "enemy civilians," as this oversimplifies themultifaceted nature of conflict and ignores their humanity. Treating any civilianpopulation as an enemy undermines the basic principles of international humanitarian law,which emphasize the protection of non-combatants in conflict situations. The actions of Israel toward African asylum-seekers further illustrate this point. In theface of significant geopolitical and humanitarian challenges, Israel has opted to deportEritrean and Sudanese asylum-seekers, often leaving them vulnerable to persecution inthird countries, demonstrating a troubling pattern of prioritizing security measures overhumanitarian responsibilities. Like the civilians in Gaza, these asylum-seekers are fleeingperilous situations; thus, their humanity should be recognized regardless of thecircumstances surrounding their migration. Regarding your historical references, while it is true that during times of war, nations havemade decisions that prioritize military objectives, it's essential to acknowledge that the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 421     moral implications of such decisions have evolved. The international communityincreasingly recognizes the importance of humanitarian considerations even amid conflict.Ignoring humanitarian needs, particularly of vulnerable populations, can perpetuate cyclesof violence and instability that ultimately harm national interests in the long run. Additionally, while you mention Israeli perspectives on Gazan civilians voting for Hamas,it's critical to understand that many civilians may have done so under coercive conditionsor without the full capacity to consider the implications of their choices. Many Gazans areindeed caught in a cycle of violence, facing repercussions for the decisions made byleadership they may not support. You also note Israel's earlier actions to facilitate the entry of food and supplies into Gaza.However, the effectiveness and sufficiency of this aid must be contextualized against thewider backdrop of blockades and military operations that significantly restrict access toessential services, creating a humanitarian crisis. In summary, while national security is undoubtedly critical, it should not come at the costof abandoning the fundamental human rights and dignity of civilians caught in conflict.The tragic plight of those affected by violence—whether they are asylum-seekers orcivilians in Gaza—demands a compassionate and just approach that acknowledges theirhumanity. Is the refusal to recognize the humanity of these individuals truly an acceptablestance in the pursuit of security, or is it more about maintaining purity? Regards, Sean Sent from my iPhone On Jul 21, 2025, at 10:31 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:  Sean, I appreciate your concern for humanitarian issues. However, the reality is thatwhen a nation is fighting for its very existence, as Israel is doing right now,its highest priority has to be to defeat the enemy, and caring for thehumanitarian needs of enemy civilians has to be a much lower priority. In fact, most nations would ridicule the idea of helping enemy civilians whilea war is ongoing, arguing that it’s equivalent to helping the enemy himself. During World War II, for example, the overriding imperative was victory,and the US showed no concern for the humanitarian well-being of the enemycivilians it was bombing, nor did any other nation involved in that conflict.Humanitarian concerns could be addressed after the war, but not during it. It’s also worth noting that Israelis don't necessarily see Gazan civilians asinnocent bystanders. They remember how they voted Hamas into power, andhow many of them followed Hamas into Israel on October 7 and took directpart in the plunder and pillage of that day. They also recall the outbursts ofdelirious joy as the Israeli hostages were paraded through the streets of Gaza,and how not a single Gazan did anything to help the Israeli hostages escapefrom their captivity. Nevertheless, Israel has shown more concern for humanitarian issues thanvirtually any other country in a similar situation. Earlier in the war, it allowedhuge amounts of food and supplies into Gaza, even though it knew that mostof the aid was being stolen by Hamas, thereby prolonging the war and makingvictory more difficult to achieve. Incidentally, there were many in Israel whothought this policy was very foolish and highly counterproductive. Regards, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 422     Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 8:34 PM, Sean Allen<sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Martin, Thank you for sharing your perspective. While it's important toconsider the complex dynamics at play, the impact of rationingfood and resources cannot be overlooked. Limiting access tobasic necessities can lead to dire consequences for the civilianpopulation, contributing to significant suffering and hardship,irrespective of intent. Historically, we have seen that during crises, people instinctivelyfight and even resort to violence over limited resources. This wasevident in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the UnitedStates, where widespread desperation for food, water, and safetyled to chaos and alarming acts of violence. Reports from thattime highlighted how individuals looted stores and clashed witheach other as they scrambled for basic survival needs,demonstrating how fragile social order can become whenresources are scarce. Similarly, in Somalia, we witnessedviolence surrounding the distribution of humanitarian aid, asfactions vied for control over the resources being provided tothose in need. Rationing food and resources has the potential to produceoutcomes that are as devastating as direct violence, akin to theeffects of bombing a population. Furthermore, military unitsshould never base their decisions to slaughter non-combatants onthe basis that their opposition does not release hostages,regardless of the justification for conflict. Unless the motive is tocreate more chaos through infighting, which would lead tosimilar devastation as bombing non-combatant communities, thehumane approach is to provide these individuals with thenecessary amount of humanitarian aid and stop the slaughter.Bombing non-combatants is not war; it’s slaughter andinhumane. Even our Constitution prohibits punishing a group ofpeople because of the actions of others. While military objectives may focus on specific groups, we mustrecognize that the broader impact on civilian lives remainsprofound. The suffering of Gazans should not be diminished oroverlooked, as their well-being is affected by the decisions madein the context of this conflict. Best, Sean Allen Sent from my iPhone On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 423     By Al Mayadeen EnglishSource: The Guardian8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 424     reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 425     Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source onthis issue. It appears that the once-respectableorganization has been taken over by malevolentactors with a political axe to grind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make nomention at all of Hamas’ explicit genocidal policyagainst Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 426     but make no reference at all to the fact that Israelis facing a ruthless enemy that observes nointernational laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all,they do it in the mildest language possible, andthen use the most damning possible languagewhen describing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheidstate, a blatantly false accusation that is very easilydisproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegallyoccupying Palestinian land, as if the territories ofJudea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancientJewish nation, don't belong to Jews at all, but areinstead the property of a fictitious country called“Palestine” which has never actually existed in anyhistorical period. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated“hatchet job” that deserves no credibilitywhatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, AramJames <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing tocommit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied GazaStrip, the organization said in a landmark new reportpublished today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’sGenocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how,during its military offensive launched in the wake of thedeadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction onPalestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel hascarried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These actsinclude killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm anddeliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of lifecalculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month aftermonth, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating itsintent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard,Secretary General of Amnesty International.  {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 427     “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this timemust know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide.All states with influence over Israel, particularly key armssuppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EUmember states, the UK and others, must act now to bringIsrael’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement andannihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted incommitting genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so indefiance of countless warnings about the catastrophichumanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza arelawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicateHamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside militarygoals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutuallyreinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction overtime. It also analysed public statements by officials, findingthat prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the warefforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession,apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these actshave been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction ofPalestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means toachieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victimsof other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy theprotected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide tohave been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’sviolations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 428     2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, localauthorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldworkand analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysedstatements by senior Israeli government and militaryofficials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeliauthorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, andinjured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wipingout entire multigenerational families. It has causedunprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religioussites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gazauninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City toRafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have toprotect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing neverstops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created adeadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, andexposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza toincommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated byAmnesty International constitute serious violations ofinternational humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s militarycampaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts,genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroyPalestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty Internationalanalysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeligovernment and military officials, particularly those at thehighest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s systemof apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and theunlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty Internationalexamined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 429     the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aidwere the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and otherarmed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilianpopulation or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence ofHamas fighters near or within a densely populated areadoes not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoidindiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimesunder international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aidcould explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions onlife-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternativearguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if itneeded to destroy Palestinians in the process,demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or asan acceptable by-product of this goal, this view ofPalestinians as disposable and not worthy of considerationis in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statementsthat were issued by Israeli government and military officialsand others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 anddehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statementsmade by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providingdirect evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on theground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified byAmnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebratingthe destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools anduniversities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts ofkilling and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results ofinvestigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds ofothers. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 430     these strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strikedestroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinahneighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they weresleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerialattacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeateddirect attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted inways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities andinjuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflictedconditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead,over time, to their destruction. These conditions wereimposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’sdevastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use ofsweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and thedenial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services,humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gazacutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine monthsreviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating,unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian accesswithin Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an alreadyexisting humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water andsanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forceddisplacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact wasespecially harsh on young children and pregnant orbreastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. The international community’s seismic,shameful failure for over a year to pressIsrael to end its atrocities in Gaza, by firstdelaying calls for a ceasefire and thencontinuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve thehumanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza orlifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or theirobstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 431     has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displacednearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population –into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiplewaves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeplytraumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life,Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basicneeds were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to theirhomes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to otherparts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displacedfrom in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure forover a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, byfirst delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing armstransfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless toend this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. Statesneed to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, howeveruncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some ofIsrael’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former DefenseMinister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes againsthumanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international lawprinciples by arresting and handing over those wanted bythe ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating andfor all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and otherPalestinian armed groups responsible for the crimescommitted on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Councilto impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamasofficials most implicated in crimes under international law. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 432     Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel andcarried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-takingthere, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, andabducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimesperpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming AmnestyInternational report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in-depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes underinternational law committed by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well asother unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilianpopulation. The organization has called on the Office of the ICCProsecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, clickhere. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIANTERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 433     DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must beprotected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish governmentto press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter-extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-IsraelAssociation Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform thelives of millions. ABOUT US Contact UsHow We’re RunModern Slavery Act Statement {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 434     FinancesRESOURCES Media CentreHuman Rights Education Human Rights CoursesAnnual report archiveGET INVOLVED Join Take ActionVolunteerLATEST News CampaignsResearchWORK WITH US If you are talented and passionateabout human rights then AmnestyInternational wants to hear from you. Privacy PolicyAccessibilityCookie Statement PermissionsRefunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON:Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AMMartin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide,then Israel is clearly NOTcommitting genocide in Gaza. IfIsrael were trying to kill as manyGazans as possible, the death tollwould be much, much higher than itis. They wouldn't allow any food ormedicine in at all, and they wouldn'tissue evacuation warnings beforestriking Hamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 435     lengths to avoid civilian casualties,but Hamas makes it very difficult bydeliberately placing their commandcenters in civilian locations such asschools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants todestroy is Hamas, which does havean explicit policy of genocide (byyour definition) against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, butHamas could end their sufferingtomorrow if they wanted to. Allthey have to do is lay down theirarms and release the hostages, andthe war would be over immediately.But Hamas has no interest in endingthe suffering of the Gazans. Whatthey're actually calling for is anopen-ended war of attrition againstIsrael, no matter what the cost totheir own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from aparticular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at4:04 PM MartinWasserman<deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:It appears that "genocide" can bedefined in severaldifferent ways.Perhaps we should stop using thatterm altogether andstick to words thathave clear and unambiguousmeanings. On Jul {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 436     18, 2025,at12:25 PM, AramJames<abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 437     Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 438     officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend. *** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 439     clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEM ENT SKIPADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 440     Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out.*** {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 441     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie Cc:Reckdahl, Keith; Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; h.etzko@gmail.com; Binder, Andrew; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Figueroa, Eric; Doug Minkler; Gerry Gras; Dave Price; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Jay Boyarsky; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Enberg, Nicholas; Mickie Winkler; Marty Wasserman; Tim James; Sean Allen; Cait James; San José Spotlight; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Braden Cartwright; Raymond Goins; Rodriguez, Miguel; Emily Mibach; editor@paweekly.com; Wagner, April; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Palo Alto Free Press; Seher Awan; Daniel Barton; David Piper; Foley, Michael; Zelkha, Mila; Palo Alto Renters" Association; Diana Diamond; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; ladoris cordell; cromero@cityofepa.org; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Bill Newell; Bill Johnson; Bill James; Pat M; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Council, City; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; City Attorney; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; GRP-City Clerk; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Gardener, Liz; Human Relations Commission; Holman, Karen (external); Liz Kniss; Patrice Ventresca; Rowena Chiu; Dana St. George; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Dennis Upton; Zahra Billoo; james pitkin; Roberta Ahlquist; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; Rosen, Jeff; Baker, Rob; Ruth Silver Taube; Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; DuJuan Green; Dennis Upton; dennis burns; Jensen, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; Greg Tanaka; Reifschneider, James; Bryan Gobin; Yolanda Conaway; Donna Wallach; Vara Ramakrishnan Subject:Famine Expert: Israel"s Starvation of Gaza Most "Minutely Designed and Controlled" Since WWII Date:Tuesday, July 22, 2025 3:09:36 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' SinceWWII | Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/news/famine-expert-israel-s- starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 442     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Lythcott-Haims, Julie Cc:Reckdahl, Keith; Lu, George; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Shikada, Ed; Sheree Roth; Lori Meyers; Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley; Roberta Ahlquist; Josh Becker; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Friends of Cubberley; Doug Minkler; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Tim James; Cait James; Don Austin; yolanda; Yolanda Conaway; Gerry Gras; Gennady Sheyner; Robert Salonga; Raymond Goins; Emily Mibach; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Carla Torres; David Piper; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; board@pausd.org; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Dana St. George; Salem Ajluni; Steve Wagstaffe; Figueroa, Eric; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; Foley, Michael; Burt, Patrick; GRP-City Council; DuJuan Green; dennis burns; Dave Price; Diana Diamond; Henry Riggs; h.etzko@gmail.com; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; sharon jackson; Mark Turner; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Khalia Parish ( Homeless Advocate); Dave Price; ParkRec Commission; Human Relations Commission; Daniel Barton; Stump, Molly; Damon Silver; Wagner, April; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Braden Cartwright; Baker, Rob; Roberta Ahlquist; Robert. Jonsen; Donna Wallach; Bill Newell; Raymond Goins; Vara Ramakrishnan; Marina Lopez; EPA Today; cromero@cityofepa.org; Angel, David; Anna Griffin; Binder, Andrew; Mickie Winkler; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Bryan Gobin; Rose Lynn; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Michael Pati; Kaloma Smith; Patrice Ventresca Subject: Meet the Films We"re Uplifting This Season Date:Tuesday, July 22, 2025 3:00:07 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. New Films We're Supporting Dear Israelism Supporters, At Tikkun Olam Productions, the non-profit production company behind Israelism, we’ve started helping a number of hand-selected films exploring Palestine, Jewish identity, and justice with grassroots film distribution. We’re heartened to get to share more about these incredible projects with you and share the many ways that you can access, support, and experience them. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 443     Online Screenings This Week This week, we’re proud to announce two online screenings of incredible new films, Seven Jewish Children, and The Other. Seven Jewish Children is a hauntingly beautiful 15-minute short film based on the 2009 play by Caryl Churchill, that explores dehumanization - what it does to oneself, and what it does to others - through the stories of multiple generations of Jewish families in Europe and in Palestine. The film is raising funds for Medical Aid for Palestinians, and this Saturday, July 26, Holocaust survivor and esteemed trauma expert Gabor Maté will be hosting a free online screening and Q&A of Seven Jewish Children, with the film’s director Omri Dayan. Israelism’s Co-Director Erin Axelman will be moderating the discussion. Register Here The Other is a new documentary focused on peacebuilders from Palestine and Israel, featuring some of Israelism’s storytellers and friends including Sami Awad and Osama Elewat. The film holds and explores that question of how to end cycles of generational trauma and work towards a future of equality and justice for all. This Thursday, July 24, join director Joy Sela for the film’s first {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 444     ever virtual community screening, with a Q&A in conversation with acclaimed writer friend of the film Elad Nehorai (who recorded an Israelism story last year). Register Here Creative Distribution & Impact Additionally, we’re supporting the incredible new documentary Coexistence, My Ass!, which follows anti-Apartheid Israeli activist and comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi, as she creates a comedy show by the same name. Raised in Wahat as- Salam / Neve Shalom, the only community in Israel where Israelis and Palestinians have chosen to live together as community members, Noam grows disillusioned with traditional peace activism, and pivots to stand up comedy. But as her star rises, everything around her falls apart, especially as the genocide in Gaza begins to unfold after October 7. Coexistence My, Ass is being taughted as an early Oscar contender by Deadline, and it’s been selling out festival screenings all over the world. Follow their Instagram page here, and visit their website for information about upcoming screenings. Lastly, we’re so proud of the work we did to support the record-breaking release {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 445     of The Encampments alongside our distributor Watermelon Pictures. This powerful documentary follows Mahmoud Khalil and other Columbia student leaders as they pressure their university to divest from weapons companies complicit in the mass slaughter of Palestinians. The national and international backlash to this peaceful protest movement was profound in its scale, and led to Mahmoud Khalil’s illegal kidnapping by the Trump administration. The Encampments set the record for highest per screen opening for a documentary in US history, and is available to watch now on Apple TV, Google Play, Amazon Prime, and Watermelon’s new streaming service Watermelon+ Watch The Encampments Now We’ll have many more exciting updates about projects we’re supporting and about Israelism itself in the upcoming months. We’re honored so many people are still connecting with our film. We just passed 2.5 million free views on Al Jazeera and Vice’s YouTube channels, and we’ll never stop doing this work. In solidarity, The Israelism team Tikkun Olam Productions 165 Middlesex Avenue, 02145, Somerville This email was sent to abjpd1@gmail.com You've received this email because you've subscribed to our newsletter. Unsubscribe {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 446     From:Sean Allen To:Martin Wasserman Cc:Aram James; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; jessica@speiser.net; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder,Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; HumanRelations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Rob Baker; Robert. Jonsen;Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; BillNewell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov;District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Betsy Nash; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org;BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Miguel Rodriguez; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; Assemblymember.Berman@assembly.ca.gov;Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; DanaSt. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Greg Tanaka; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; BilBarber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; MichelleBigelow; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Tuesday, July 22, 2025 12:58:20 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. i Martin, I appreciate your perspective on the complexities of national security and humanitarian obligations.However, it's crucial to recognize that viewing civilians as "enemies" can lead to a dangerous precedentwhere humanitarian needs are disregarded in the name of security. In both the case of African asylum-seekers and Palestinians in Gaza, the individuals affected are oftencivilians who are fleeing violence, persecution, or dire living conditions. They should not be categorizedmerely as "enemy civilians," as this oversimplifies the multifaceted nature of conflict and ignores theirhumanity. Treating any civilian population as an enemy undermines the basic principles of internationalhumanitarian law, which emphasize the protection of non-combatants in conflict situations. The actions of Israel toward African asylum-seekers further illustrate this point. In the face of significantgeopolitical and humanitarian challenges, Israel has opted to deport Eritrean and Sudanese asylum-seekers,often leaving them vulnerable to persecution in third countries, demonstrating a troubling pattern ofprioritizing security measures over humanitarian responsibilities. Like the civilians in Gaza, these asylum-seekers are fleeing perilous situations; thus, their humanity should be recognized regardless of thecircumstances surrounding their migration. Regarding your historical references, while it is true that during times of war, nations have made decisionsthat prioritize military objectives, it's essential to acknowledge that the moral implications of such decisionshave evolved. The international community increasingly recognizes the importance of humanitarianconsiderations even amid conflict. Ignoring humanitarian needs, particularly of vulnerable populations, canperpetuate cycles of violence and instability that ultimately harm national interests in the long run. Additionally, while you mention Israeli perspectives on Gazan civilians voting for Hamas, it's critical tounderstand that many civilians may have done so under coercive conditions or without the full capacity toconsider the implications of their choices. Many Gazans are indeed caught in a cycle of violence, facingrepercussions for the decisions made by leadership they may not support. You also note Israel's earlier actions to facilitate the entry of food and supplies into Gaza. However, theeffectiveness and sufficiency of this aid must be contextualized against the wider backdrop of blockades and This message needs your attentionThis is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 447     military operations that significantly restrict access to essential services, creating a humanitarian crisis. In summary, while national security is undoubtedly critical, it should not come at the cost of abandoning thefundamental human rights and dignity of civilians caught in conflict. The tragic plight of those affected byviolence—whether they are asylum-seekers or civilians in Gaza—demands a compassionate and justapproach that acknowledges their humanity. Is the refusal to recognize the humanity of these individualstruly an acceptable stance in the pursuit of security, or is it more about maintaining purity? Regards, Sean Sent from my iPhone On Jul 21, 2025, at 10:31 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:  Sean, I appreciate your concern for humanitarian issues. However, the reality is that when a nation isfighting for its very existence, as Israel is doing right now, its highest priority has to be to defeatthe enemy, and caring for the humanitarian needs of enemy civilians has to be a much lowerpriority. In fact, most nations would ridicule the idea of helping enemy civilians while a war is ongoing,arguing that it’s equivalent to helping the enemy himself. During World War II, for example, the overriding imperative was victory, and the US showedno concern for the humanitarian well-being of the enemy civilians it was bombing, nor did anyother nation involved in that conflict. Humanitarian concerns could be addressed after the war,but not during it. It’s also worth noting that Israelis don't necessarily see Gazan civilians as innocent bystanders.They remember how they voted Hamas into power, and how many of them followed Hamas intoIsrael on October 7 and took direct part in the plunder and pillage of that day. They also recallthe outbursts of delirious joy as the Israeli hostages were paraded through the streets of Gaza,and how not a single Gazan did anything to help the Israeli hostages escape from their captivity. Nevertheless, Israel has shown more concern for humanitarian issues than virtually any othercountry in a similar situation. Earlier in the war, it allowed huge amounts of food and suppliesinto Gaza, even though it knew that most of the aid was being stolen by Hamas, therebyprolonging the war and making victory more difficult to achieve. Incidentally, there were manyin Israel who thought this policy was very foolish and highly counterproductive. Regards,Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 8:34 PM, Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Martin, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 448     Thank you for sharing your perspective. While it's important to consider thecomplex dynamics at play, the impact of rationing food and resources cannot beoverlooked. Limiting access to basic necessities can lead to dire consequences forthe civilian population, contributing to significant suffering and hardship,irrespective of intent. Historically, we have seen that during crises, people instinctively fight and evenresort to violence over limited resources. This was evident in the aftermath ofHurricane Katrina in the United States, where widespread desperation for food,water, and safety led to chaos and alarming acts of violence. Reports from that timehighlighted how individuals looted stores and clashed with each other as theyscrambled for basic survival needs, demonstrating how fragile social order canbecome when resources are scarce. Similarly, in Somalia, we witnessed violencesurrounding the distribution of humanitarian aid, as factions vied for control overthe resources being provided to those in need. Rationing food and resources has the potential to produce outcomes that are asdevastating as direct violence, akin to the effects of bombing a population.Furthermore, military units should never base their decisions to slaughter non-combatants on the basis that their opposition does not release hostages, regardless ofthe justification for conflict. Unless the motive is to create more chaos throughinfighting, which would lead to similar devastation as bombing non-combatantcommunities, the humane approach is to provide these individuals with thenecessary amount of humanitarian aid and stop the slaughter. Bombing non-combatants is not war; it’s slaughter and inhumane. Even our Constitution prohibitspunishing a group of people because of the actions of others. While military objectives may focus on specific groups, we must recognize that thebroader impact on civilian lives remains profound. The suffering of Gazans shouldnot be diminished or overlooked, as their well-being is affected by the decisionsmade in the context of this conflict. Best, Sean Allen Sent from my iPhone On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian 8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 449     Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 450     reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 451     which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 452     On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. Itappears that the once-respectable organization has been taken over bymalevolent actors with a political axe to grind. Their anti-Israel biasis evident throughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’explicit genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make noreference at all to the fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemy thatobserves no international laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in themildest language possible, and then use the most damning possiblelanguage when describing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantlyfalse accusation that is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinianland, as if the territories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of theancient Jewish nation, don't belong to Jews at all, but are instead theproperty of a fictitious country called “Palestine” which has neveractually existed in any historical period. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” thatdeserves no credibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basisto conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied GazaStrip, the organization said in a landmark new report {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 453     published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of thedeadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction onPalestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, withthe specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm anddeliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of lifecalculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhumangroup unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to theinternational community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide.All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EUmember states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocatingrestrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so indefiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza arelawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account their recurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 454     immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered thescale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for inthe first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these actshave been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction ofPalestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 byHamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide againstPalestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy theprotected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide tohave been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’sviolations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212 people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, localauthorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digitalevidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysedstatements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions,the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at thetime of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brinkof collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of themin direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has causedunprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, levelling entire cities and destroying criticalinfrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 455     uninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have toprotect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing neverstops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created adeadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel alsosubjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza toincommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations ofinternational humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts,genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty Internationalanalysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeligovernment and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and theunlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targetedHamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aidwere the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organizationconcluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated areadoes not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research foundIsrael repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions onlife-saving humanitarian aid. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 456     In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly orthat it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather thangenocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destructionof Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view ofPalestinians as disposable and not worthy of considerationis in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 anddehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensivethat appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language wasfrequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to“erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools anduniversities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm toPalestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any ofthese strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strikedestroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations ofPalestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 457     While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities andinjuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead,over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’sdevastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life- sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable tothe survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and thedenial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies intoand within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gazacutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating,unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an alreadyexisting humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forceddisplacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact wasespecially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to pressIsrael to end its atrocities in Gaza, by firstdelaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve thehumanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 458     lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or theirobstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displacednearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population –into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiplewaves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life,Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that wouldhave protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions weredeliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to their homes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel,continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to returnunder international law to areas they were displaced from in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure forover a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collectiveconscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades ofimpunity for Israel’s violations of international law. Statesneed to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, howeveruncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former DefenseMinister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect forthe court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted bythe ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 459     adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and otherPalestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamasofficials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcomingAmnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including directattacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well asother unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in theState of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, clickhere. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 460     Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must beprotected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish government to press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensurethe right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-IsraelAssociation Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 461     HUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rightseverywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact Us How We’re Run Modern Slavery Act StatementFinances RESOURCES Media CentreHuman Rights Education Human Rights CoursesAnnual report archiveGET INVOLVED JoinTake Action VolunteerLATEST News CampaignsResearchWORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rights {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 462     then Amnesty International wants to hear from you. Privacy Policy Accessibility Cookie StatementPermissions Refunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON: Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearlyNOT committing genocide in Gaza. If Israel weretrying to kill as many Gazans as possible, the death tollwould be much, much higher than it is. They wouldn'tallow any food or medicine in at all, and they wouldn'tissue evacuation warnings before striking Hamastargets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoidcivilian casualties, but Hamas makes it very difficultby deliberately placing their command centers incivilian locations such as schools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas,which does have an explicit policy of genocide (byyour definition) against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could endtheir suffering tomorrow if they wanted to. All theyhave to do is lay down their arms and release thehostages, and the war would be over immediately. ButHamas has no interest in ending the suffering of theGazans. What they're actually calling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, no matter what thecost to their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 463     Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using thatterm altogether and stick to wordsthat have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at12:25 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 464     genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 465     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 466     People inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...JehadAlshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend.*** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 467     Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 468     humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out.*** {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 469     From:Martin Wasserman To:Sean Allen Cc:Aram James; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; jessica@speiser.net; Foley, Michael; GRP-City Council; RaymondGoins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond;Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto;Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; Rob Baker; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PDKristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov;District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; VaraRamakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations;Damon Silver; Miguel Rodriguez; Cait James; Josh Becker; Assemblymember.Berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuanGreen; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; TomDuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler;Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; Lori Meyers;Sheree Roth; Ellen Fox Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Monday, July 21, 2025 5:08:54 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. i Sean, Humanitarian values are important, but realistically, national security concerns will always override them invirtually any country on Earth. In fact, any nation that puts humanitarianism above its own national securityinterests probably won't be a nation for long. And if we accept the idea that any person’s need creates an obligationfor others to fulfill that need, the world would very quickly sink into chaos. Regarding African refugees in Israel, it's a testimony to Israel’s humanitarianism that these refugees, mostlyMuslims, know they'll receive more compassionate care in the one Jewish state than in any Arab or Muslim state.Nevertheless, Israel is a very small country, and it's also the nation state of the Jewish people, a people with theirown unique religion, language, and culture and a very long history. If it opened its gates to everyone who was inneed, it would quickly be swamped, and would no longer be the nation state of the Jewish people. Israel is notgoing to compromise its national identity, and it's unreasonable to think that it should, for the sake of helpingstrangers who have no particular connection to Jews or Judaism. Best,Martin On Jul 21, 2025, at 12:03 PM, Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Martin, I appreciate your perspective on the complexities of national security and humanitarian obligations.However, it's crucial to recognize that viewing civilians as "enemies" can lead to a dangerousprecedent where humanitarian needs are disregarded in the name of security. In both the case of African asylum-seekers and Palestinians in Gaza, the individuals affected are oftencivilians who are fleeing violence, persecution, or dire living conditions. They should not becategorized merely as "enemy civilians," as this oversimplifies the multifaceted nature of conflict andignores their humanity. Treating any civilian population as an enemy undermines the basic principlesof international humanitarian law, which emphasize the protection of non-combatants in conflictsituations. The actions of Israel toward African asylum-seekers further illustrate this point. In the face of This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 470     significant geopolitical and humanitarian challenges, Israel has opted to deport Eritrean and Sudaneseasylum-seekers, often leaving them vulnerable to persecution in third countries, demonstrating atroubling pattern of prioritizing security measures over humanitarian responsibilities. Like the civiliansin Gaza, these asylum-seekers are fleeing perilous situations; thus, their humanity should berecognized regardless of the circumstances surrounding their migration. Regarding your historical references, while it is true that during times of war, nations have madedecisions that prioritize military objectives, it's essential to acknowledge that the moral implications ofsuch decisions have evolved. The international community increasingly recognizes the importance ofhumanitarian considerations even amid conflict. Ignoring humanitarian needs, particularly ofvulnerable populations, can perpetuate cycles of violence and instability that ultimately harm nationalinterests in the long run. Additionally, while you mention Israeli perspectives on Gazan civilians voting for Hamas, it's criticalto understand that many civilians may have done so under coercive conditions or without the fullcapacity to consider the implications of their choices. Many Gazans are indeed caught in a cycle ofviolence, facing repercussions for the decisions made by leadership they may not support. You also note Israel's earlier actions to facilitate the entry of food and supplies into Gaza. However,the effectiveness and sufficiency of this aid must be contextualized against the wider backdrop ofblockades and military operations that significantly restrict access to essential services, creating ahumanitarian crisis. In summary, while national security is undoubtedly critical, it should not come at the cost ofabandoning the fundamental human rights and dignity of civilians caught in conflict. The tragic plightof those affected by violence—whether they are asylum-seekers or civilians in Gaza—demands acompassionate and just approach that acknowledges their humanity. Is the refusal to recognize thehumanity of these individuals truly an acceptable stance in the pursuit of security, or is it more aboutmaintaining purity? Regards, Sean Sent from my iPhone On Jul 21, 2025, at 10:31 AM, Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:  Sean, I appreciate your concern for humanitarian issues. However, the reality is that when anation is fighting for its very existence, as Israel is doing right now, its highest priority hasto be to defeat the enemy, and caring for the humanitarian needs of enemy civilians has tobe a much lower priority. In fact, most nations would ridicule the idea of helping enemy civilians while a war isongoing, arguing that it’s equivalent to helping the enemy himself. During World War II, for example, the overriding imperative was victory, and the USshowed no concern for the humanitarian well-being of the enemy civilians it wasbombing, nor did any other nation involved in that conflict. Humanitarian concerns couldbe addressed after the war, but not during it. It’s also worth noting that Israelis don't necessarily see Gazan civilians as innocentbystanders. They remember how they voted Hamas into power, and how many of themfollowed Hamas into Israel on October 7 and took direct part in the plunder and pillage of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 471     that day. They also recall the outbursts of delirious joy as the Israeli hostages wereparaded through the streets of Gaza, and how not a single Gazan did anything to help theIsraeli hostages escape from their captivity. Nevertheless, Israel has shown more concern for humanitarian issues than virtually anyother country in a similar situation. Earlier in the war, it allowed huge amounts of foodand supplies into Gaza, even though it knew that most of the aid was being stolen byHamas, thereby prolonging the war and making victory more difficult to achieve.Incidentally, there were many in Israel who thought this policy was very foolish andhighly counterproductive. Regards,Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 8:34 PM, Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Martin, Thank you for sharing your perspective. While it's important to consider thecomplex dynamics at play, the impact of rationing food and resources cannotbe overlooked. Limiting access to basic necessities can lead to direconsequences for the civilian population, contributing to significant sufferingand hardship, irrespective of intent. Historically, we have seen that during crises, people instinctively fight andeven resort to violence over limited resources. This was evident in theaftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the United States, where widespreaddesperation for food, water, and safety led to chaos and alarming acts ofviolence. Reports from that time highlighted how individuals looted storesand clashed with each other as they scrambled for basic survival needs,demonstrating how fragile social order can become when resources arescarce. Similarly, in Somalia, we witnessed violence surrounding thedistribution of humanitarian aid, as factions vied for control over theresources being provided to those in need. Rationing food and resources has the potential to produce outcomes that areas devastating as direct violence, akin to the effects of bombing a population.Furthermore, military units should never base their decisions to slaughternon-combatants on the basis that their opposition does not release hostages,regardless of the justification for conflict. Unless the motive is to create morechaos through infighting, which would lead to similar devastation as bombingnon-combatant communities, the humane approach is to provide theseindividuals with the necessary amount of humanitarian aid and stop theslaughter. Bombing non-combatants is not war; it’s slaughter and inhumane.Even our Constitution prohibits punishing a group of people because of theactions of others. While military objectives may focus on specific groups, we must recognizethat the broader impact on civilian lives remains profound. The suffering ofGazans should not be diminished or overlooked, as their well-being isaffected by the decisions made in the context of this conflict. Best, Sean Allen Sent from my iPhone {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 472     On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op- ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 473     Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 474     Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 475     weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. Itappears that the once-respectable organization has been takenover by malevolent actors with a political axe to grind. Theiranti-Israel bias is evident throughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all ofHamas’ explicit genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make noreference at all to the fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemythat observes no international laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it inthe mildest language possible, and then use the most damningpossible language when describing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, ablatantly false accusation that is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupyingPalestinian land, as if the territories of Judea and Samaria, theheartland of the ancient Jewish nation, don't belong to Jews atall, but are instead the property of a fictitious country called“Palestine” which has never actually existed in any historicalperiod. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchetjob” that deserves no credibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committing {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 476     genocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing tocommit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied GazaStrip, the organization said in a landmark new reportpublished today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’sGenocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how,during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction onPalestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with totalimpunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel hascarried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, withthe specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of lifecalculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month aftermonth, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard,Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this timemust know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key armssuppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EUmember states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement andannihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocatingrestrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm itwas inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so indefiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarianassistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza arelawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicateHamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 477     goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both theirimmediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered thescale and severity of the casualties and destruction overtime. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the warefforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonableconclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction ofPalestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide againstPalestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy theprotected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide tohave been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’sviolations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212 people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, localauthorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldworkand analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and militaryofficials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions,the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, andinjured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has causedunprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, levelling entire cities and destroying critical {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 478     infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City toRafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have toprotect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created adeadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel alsosubjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza toincommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations ofinternational humanitarian law or international human rightslaw. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza,reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeligovernment and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and theunlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinianterritory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty Internationalexamined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targetedHamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and otherarmed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilianpopulation or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated areadoes not absolve Israel from its obligations to take allfeasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimesunder international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aidcould explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions onlife-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 479     that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if itneeded to destroy Palestinians in the process,demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake- up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destructionof Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of considerationis in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statementsthat were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidalacts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensivethat appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providingdirect evidence of genocidal intent. This language wasfrequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified byAmnesty International showing soldiers making calls to“erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts ofkilling and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any ofthese strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations ofPalestinians, including 16 children, while they weresleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerialattacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeateddirect attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 480     ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities and injuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflictedconditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns thatrepeatedly compounded the effect of each other’sdevastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life- sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use ofsweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” ordersto forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies intoand within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine monthsreviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating,unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areasnorth of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water andsanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forceddisplacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant orbreastfeeding women, with anticipated long-termconsequences for their health. The international community’s seismic,shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by firstdelaying calls for a ceasefire and thencontinuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve thehumanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or theirobstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situationhas grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displacednearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population –into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiple {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 481     waves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residents are refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life,Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that wouldhave protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to theirhomes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to otherparts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to returnunder international law to areas they were displaced from in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowheresafe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure forover a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, byfirst delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. Statesneed to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismayand take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes againsthumanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted bythe ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating andfor all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostagesto be released unconditionally and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Councilto impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most implicated in crimes under international law. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 482     Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-takingthere, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimesperpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during thisattack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in-depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well asother unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in theState of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, clickhere. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIANTERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must not {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 483     come at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must beprotected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish government to press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensurethe right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter-extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawfulbetrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 484     Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact UsHow We’re RunModern Slavery Act Statement FinancesRESOURCES Media Centre Human Rights EducationHuman Rights CoursesAnnual report archive GET INVOLVED Join Take Action VolunteerLATEST News CampaignsResearchWORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about humanrights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 485     Privacy Policy Accessibility Cookie StatementPermissionsRefunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON:Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel isclearly NOT committing genocide in Gaza. IfIsrael were trying to kill as many Gazans aspossible, the death toll would be much, muchhigher than it is. They wouldn't allow any foodor medicine in at all, and they wouldn't issueevacuation warnings before striking Hamastargets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoidcivilian casualties, but Hamas makes it verydifficult by deliberately placing their commandcenters in civilian locations such as schools andhospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy isHamas, which does have an explicit policy ofgenocide (by your definition) against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas couldend their suffering tomorrow if they wanted to.All they have to do is lay down their arms andrelease the hostages, and the war would be overimmediately. But Hamas has no interest inending the suffering of the Gazans. What they'reactually calling for is an open-ended war ofattrition against Israel, no matter what the cost totheir own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, AramJames <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 486     ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PMMartin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" canbe defined in several differentways. Perhaps we should stopusing that term altogether andstick to words that have clearand unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at12:25 PM, AramJames<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 487     shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 488     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 489     People inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/AssociatedPress The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend. *** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT SKIPADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 490     Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 491     this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out.*** {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 492     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser,Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins;Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; YolandaConaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary;Robert Salonga; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell;Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov;District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; VaraRamakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org;BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas;Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley;Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; CityAttorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; josh@joshsalcman.com;board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Jay Boyarsky; Linda Jolley; San José Spotlight; vramirez@redwoodcity.org Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Monday, July 21, 2025 1:19:08 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. i Again, Hamas could end the suffering tomorrow just by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages. Martin Wasserman On Jul 21, 2025, at 10:59 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Sew Zee Palestinians Are Collapsing inGaza's Streets From Israeli-ImposedStarvation Campaign A frontline report on a people forced to face death from starvation or being shot in aperilous quest to obtain meager rations ABDEL QADER SABBAH AND SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS JUL 21 READ IN APP The level of killing and forced starvation in Gaza by the Israeli military in recent days has been difficult to fathom. This message needs your attentionThis is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 493     Journalist Abdel Qader Sabbah, who reported this story from northern Gaza, is himself struggling to fight the spreading famine. He is severely weakened and can barely stand on his own two feet anymore. On Sunday, his meal for the entire day consisted of half a loaf of bread. “There is nothing to eat,” he said. His bravery and resilience in reporting on the unfolding genocide in Gaza is remarkable. We have a commitment to ensuring that our journalism is not locked behind a paywall. But the only way we can sustain this is through the voluntary support of our community of readers. If you are a free subscriber and you support our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You can also make a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible donation to support our work. Upgrade to paid The bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack on the Zikim area in the northern Gaza Strip are seen lying on the ground at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza, on July 20, 2025. (Photo by Saeed M. M. T. Jaras/Anadolu via Getty Images) {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 494     GAZA CITY—Israel's war of extermination in Gaza continues to plunge to new depths of horror. Starving Palestinians have begun to collapse in the streets and die of hunger as a result of the siege. Those who try to get food are gunned down in ever deadlier aid massacres. The Israeli military issues frequent mass expulsion orders and further expands its ground operations, slicing up the enclave and forcibly displacing Palestinians into more concentrated zones. All the while, the relentless aerial assault and ground attacks persist. Over the past five days alone, more than 550 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to ministry of health figures. The confirmed death toll since the beginning of the war crossed 59,000 on Monday in what is widely acknowledged to be a vast undercount. Over the past two months, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed as they are forced to seek aid in militarized zones in a system mostly overseen by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy U.S.- and Israeli-backed group. One of the deadliest days for aid seekers came on Sunday, when over 70 people were killed, at least 67 of them in northern Gaza where Israeli troops opened fire on crowds trying to get food from a World Food Program convoy entering through the Zikim crossing. “The tank came, surrounded us, and started shooting at us and we kept raising our hands,” Ibrahim Hamada, who was wounded in the leg, told Drop Site as he lay on a hospital gurney wincing in pain. “There were many martyrs, no one was able to retrieve them. I crawled on my stomach just to reach a car to take me to the hospital,” he said. “I went there to eat, because there was no food at home.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 495     Scenes from Shifa hospital after Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinians seeking aid near the Zikim crossing. Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah. July 20, 2025. Over 150 people were wounded in the attack. Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was overwhelmed with the dead and wounded, most of them young men and boys. Malnourished, gaunt faces poked out of white shrouds laid over their bodies on the ground. At the nearby Sheikh Radwan clinic, more than a dozen corpses in white body bags were lined up in the courtyard. Relatives searching for their loved ones came and gingerly pulled back part of the surface of the body bags to peer inside and see if they recognized anyone. “The situation is very difficult. We transported the martyrs, as you can see, and moved the injured from a place close to the area that was targeted by quadcopter bombs, gunfire, or by the new [weaponized] crane located at the aid distribution site,” said Mohammed al-Hout, an emergency medical worker with the Red Crescent. “People were shot in the head or the feet.… Some of the martyrs have shattered skulls.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 496     Scenes from Sheikh Radwan clinic after Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinians seeking aid near the Zikim crossing. Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah. July 20, 2025. The UN World Food Program said in a statement that 25 trucks carrying food entered Gaza on Sunday through the Zikim crossing “destined for starving communities in northern Gaza.” “Shortly after passing the final checkpoint beyond the Zikim crossing point into Gaza, the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies,” the WFP said. “As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers, and other gunfire.” The statement added: “These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation.” Also on Sunday, nine Palestinians were killed near an “aid distribution” hub in Rafah run by the GHF. The killings happened at the same site where over 20 people had been killed a few days earlier when GHF guards gassedstarving Palestinians fenced in at the hub, causing many to die from suffocation and a stampede. These daily killings of Palestinians desperate for food and an imminent famine have combined to create an unprecedented emergency in Gaza. Israel’s full-spectrum blockade imposed on March 2 was nominally lifted on May 27 when meager amounts of aid began to be distributed to four militarized GHF hubs, three of which are located in the southern end of Gaza and one in Wadi Gaza. With the entire population on the brink of famine, Palestinians have no choice but to starve or risk their lives at so-called aid distribution hubs. “People got hungry. They had no choice but to head towards the places of death. Either way, they’re going to die,” Abu Maher Al-Masry, who witnessed Sunday’s killings near the Zikim crossing, told Drop Site. “I am a grown man who can't even walk from hunger. It has been more than a day since I last had a single bite to eat.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 497     On Sunday, the health ministry said that 18 people had died from starvation over the past day. A day earlier, the ministry issued an urgent bulletin saying “unprecedented numbers of starving people of all ages are arriving at emergency rooms in a state of extreme exhaustion and fatigue. We warn that hundreds of those whose bodies have emaciated will be at risk of certain death as a result of starvation and their bodies' ability to withstand being overwhelmed.” Multiple reports have documented Palestinians sifting through garbage, scraping spilled food from the ground and eating from trash in the streets. The UN estimates that nearly one in three people is not eating for days. Journalist Nahed Hajjaj posted on social media: “Do not be surprised when we journalists stop covering news here. I swear by God that today I could not get up from the hunger. There is no food. Even if someone has money, there is nothing in the market to even purchase.” Meanwhile, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif broke down in tears during a live broadcast outside Al-Shifa Hospital as a woman nearby collapsed from hunger. “People are collapsing in the streets from hunger—just falling right there from extreme starvation,” he said. In response, an Israeli military spokesperson jeered at Al- Sharif on social media, saying it was “nothing but crocodile tears that comes as part of a deceptive and staged Hamas performance.” A total of 86 Palestinians, including 76 children, have died of hunger and malnutrition since the war began in what the health ministry on Sunday called “a silent massacre.” Drop Site News is reader-supported. Consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Upgrade to paid Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 498     and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)—that used to help oversee aid distribution in Gaza before Israel imposed its blockade and barred independent organizations—said on social media that the crisis was “all man-made, in total impunity.” “Food is available only a few kilometers away,” Lazzarini posted on X on Sunday. “UNRWA alone has enough stock available outside of #Gaza for the entire population for the next 3 months. We have not been allowed to bring any aid in since 2 March.” The widening starvation and famine comes as the Israeli military continues to expand its ground invasion, issuing repeated displacement orders, with more than 86% of Gaza now in a so-called “red zone”—either under active displacement orders or in a “combat” zone. For the first time since the beginning of the war, the Israeli military on Saturday issueddisplacement orders in an area of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, stretching to the coastline, along the so-called “Kissufim corridor.” Deir al- Balah is one of the few areas where Israeli ground troops have rarely operated and where the headquarters of several UN agencies and medical NGOs are based. The expulsion order effectively cuts access between Deir al- Balah and cities in the south of Khan Younis and Rafah. The Israeli military ordered people to head south to al- Mawasi, a tent camp on the southern coast that has been designated a “humanitarian zone,” which Israel has regularly bombed—most recently killing over 20 people, including children, sheltering in tents in an airstrike on Sunday. Displacement orders were also reissued for northern Gaza, with the entire area north of al-Quds street and Salah Khalaf street designated an off limit “combat zone.” Last week, the Israeli military announced it had finished bulldozing a 15-kilometer (9.3-mile) path through Khan Younis establishing what it called the "Magen Oz" corridor, cutting eastern Khan Younis off from the west side. The corridor is the latest of several zones that the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 499     Israeli military has carved through Gaza using wide-scale demolitions to divide the strip into separate regions: the Morag corridor, which adjoins Magen Oz and cuts Rafah off from Khan Younis; the Mefalsim corridor, which separates northern Gaza from Gaza City; and the Netzarim corridor, which runs along Wadi Gaza, cutting off the north from the south. There are no signs that Israel’s assault will ease anytime soon and the international community has taken no steps to force Israel to end its attacks and to allow massive amounts of aid needed to stave off mass starvation. “Damn this silence. Damn this famine,” said Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee and a coordinator for local NGOs. “Damn it all—humanity has collapsed.” Drop Site News Middle East Research Fellow Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report. Leave a comment A guest post by Abdel Qader Sabbah journalist and videographer in northern Gaza Subscribe to Abdel Become a Drop Site News PaidSubscriber Drop Site News is reader-supported. Please consider becoming a paid subscribertoday. Upgrade to paid {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 500     A paid subscription gets you: 15% off Drop Site store Access to our Discord, subscriber-only AMAs, chats, and invites to events, both virtual and IRL Post comments and join the community The knowledge you are supporting independent media making the lives of the powerful miserable You can also now find us on podcast platforms and on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Telegram, and YouTube. LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2025 Drop Site News, Inc.Drop Site News Inc., 4315 50th St. NWSte 100 Unit #2560, Washington, DC 20016Unsubscribe On Mon, Jul 21, 2025 at 10:46 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Hi Avram, There seems to be a contradiction in your statement. You say you want Israel to beeliminated, but also say that you want it to pay reparations for 100 years. How could itpay reparations if it no longer exists? Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 8:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: A Call for Change Hi Martin, I want to be very clear about my position. I support the elimination of Israel and advocate for a one-state solution. Israel must pay reparations to the Palestinian people for a hundred years and rebuild Gaza and the West Bank. The genocidal {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 501     Israeli war criminals must be held fully accountable, just like the Nazi war criminals. As a secular Jew, I find no value in Hebrew scripture; to me, it is merely creative writing and fantasy at best. The nations that have stood up to the Nazi- like Israeli state are the true heroes. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 7:26 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:The Hebrew Scriptures predict a time when all the nations will gathertogether against Israel, and God will then intervene on Israel’s behalf and judge all those nations with truth and justice. We appear to be approaching that time very rapidly, and I strongly suspect that those people and nationswho have dedicated themselves to Israel’s destruction will fare verypoorly in those judgments! Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 502     international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 503     shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 504     Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. Itappears that the once-respectable organization has been taken overby malevolent actors with a political axe to grind. Their anti-Israelbias is evident throughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’explicit genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make noreference at all to the fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemy thatobserves no international laws whatsoever. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 505     When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in themildest language possible, and then use the most damning possiblelanguage when describing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantlyfalse accusation that is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinianland, as if the territories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of theancient Jewish nation, don't belong to Jews at all, but are instead theproperty of a fictitious country called “Palestine” which has neveractually existed in any historical period. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” thatdeserves no credibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 506     international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besiegedpopulation is facing starvation, displacement andannihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocatingrestrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted incommitting genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm itwas inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so indefiance of countless warnings about the catastrophichumanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarianassistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza arelawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicateHamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside militarygoals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both theirimmediate impact and their cumulative and mutuallyreinforcing consequences. The organization considered thescale and severity of the casualties and destruction overtime. It also analysed public statements by officials, findingthat prohibited acts were often announced or called for inthe first place by high-level officials in charge of the warefforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession,apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these actshave been committed, we could find only one reasonableconclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction ofPalestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means toachieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said AgnèsCallamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 byHamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victimsof other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide againstPalestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 507     protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212 people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brinkof collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, andinjured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of themin direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wipingout entire multigenerational families. It has causedunprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying criticalinfrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religioussites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gazauninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 508     To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be no justification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destructionof Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or asan acceptable by-product of this goal, this view ofPalestinians as disposable and not worthy of considerationis in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by AmnestyInternational were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statementsthat were issued by Israeli government and military officialsand others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 anddehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidalacts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 509     made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities and injuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life- sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 510     sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. The international community’s seismic,shameful failure for over a year to pressIsrael to end its atrocities in Gaza, by firstdelaying calls for a ceasefire and thencontinuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve thehumanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power todo so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza orlifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or theirobstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situationhas grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displacednearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population –into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumaneconditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiplewaves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeplytraumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life,Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that wouldhave protected displaced civilians and ensured their basicneeds were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to theirhomes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to otherparts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel,continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displacedfrom in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure forover a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 511     first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former DefenseMinister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes againsthumanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect forthe court’s decision and for universal international lawprinciples by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consideradding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating andfor all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocideand remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostagesto be released unconditionally and for Hamas and otherPalestinian armed groups responsible for the crimescommitted on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Councilto impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamasofficials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel andcarried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-takingthere, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well as other unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 512     For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must beprotected amid police crackdown {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 513     Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish government to press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-IsraelAssociation Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawfulbetrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact Us How We’re Run Modern Slavery Act Statement Finances RESOURCES Media CentreHuman Rights EducationHuman Rights CoursesAnnual report archive {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 514     GET INVOLVED JoinTake ActionVolunteerLATEST NewsCampaignsResearchWORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rightsthen Amnesty International wants to hear from you. Privacy PolicyAccessibilityCookie StatementPermissionsRefunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON:Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel isclearly NOT committing genocide in Gaza. If Israelwere trying to kill as many Gazans as possible, thedeath toll would be much, much higher than it is. Theywouldn't allow any food or medicine in at all, and theywouldn't issue evacuation warnings before strikingHamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoidcivilian casualties, but Hamas makes it very difficultby deliberately placing their command centers incivilian locations such as schools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas,which does have an explicit policy of genocide (byyour definition) against Jews. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 515     Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could endtheir suffering tomorrow if they wanted to. All theyhave to do is lay down their arms and release thehostages, and the war would be over immediately. ButHamas has no interest in ending the suffering of theGazans. What they're actually calling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, no matter whatthe cost to their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:It appears that "genocide" can bedefined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to wordsthat have clear and unambiguousmeanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at12:25 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 516     genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 517     From:Aram James To:assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California DemocraticDelegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; PatriceVentresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway;yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary;Robert Salonga; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PDKristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov;District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City;city.council@menlopark.gov; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>;Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns;DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire,Geoffrey; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach;Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M;Carla Torres; David Piper; josh@joshsalcman.com; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Jay Boyarsky; LindaJolley; San José Spotlight; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Marty Wasserman Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Monday, July 21, 2025 10:59:47 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Sew Zee Palestinians Are Collapsing in Gaza'sStreets From Israeli-Imposed StarvationCampaign A frontline report on a people forced to face death from starvation or being shot in aperilous quest to obtain meager rations ABDEL QADER SABBAH AND SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS JUL 21 READ IN APP The level of killing and forced starvation in Gaza by the Israeli military in recent days has been difficult to fathom. Journalist Abdel Qader Sabbah, who reported this story from northern Gaza, is himself struggling to fight the spreading famine. He is severely weakened and can barely stand on his own two feet anymore. On Sunday, his meal for the entire day consisted of half a loaf of bread. “There is nothing to eat,” he said. His bravery and resilience in reporting on the unfolding {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 518     genocide in Gaza is remarkable. We have a commitment to ensuring that our journalism is not locked behind a paywall. But the only way we can sustain this is through the voluntary support of our community of readers. If you are a free subscriber and you support our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You can also make a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible donation to support our work. Upgrade to paid The bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack on the Zikim area in the northern Gaza Strip are seen lying on the ground at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza, on July 20, 2025. (Photo by Saeed M. M. T. Jaras/Anadolu via Getty Images) GAZA CITY—Israel's war of extermination in Gaza continues to plunge to new depths of horror. Starving Palestinians have begun to collapse in the streets and die of hunger as a result of the siege. Those who try to get food are gunned down in ever deadlier aid massacres. The {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 519     Israeli military issues frequent mass expulsion orders and further expands its ground operations, slicing up the enclave and forcibly displacing Palestinians into more concentrated zones. All the while, the relentless aerial assault and ground attacks persist. Over the past five days alone, more than 550 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to ministry of health figures. The confirmed death toll since the beginning of the war crossed 59,000 on Monday in what is widely acknowledged to be a vast undercount. Over the past two months, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed as they are forced to seek aid in militarized zones in a system mostly overseen by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy U.S.- and Israeli-backed group. One of the deadliest days for aid seekers came on Sunday, when over 70 people were killed, at least 67 of them in northern Gaza where Israeli troops opened fire on crowds trying to get food from a World Food Program convoy entering through the Zikim crossing. “The tank came, surrounded us, and started shooting at us and we kept raising our hands,” Ibrahim Hamada, who was wounded in the leg, told Drop Site as he lay on a hospital gurney wincing in pain. “There were many martyrs, no one was able to retrieve them. I crawled on my stomach just to reach a car to take me to the hospital,” he said. “I went there to eat, because there was no food at home.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 520     Scenes from Shifa hospital after Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinians seeking aid near the Zikim crossing. Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah. July 20, 2025. Over 150 people were wounded in the attack. Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was overwhelmed with the dead and wounded, most of them young men and boys. Malnourished, gaunt faces poked out of white shrouds laid over their bodies on the ground. At the nearby Sheikh Radwan clinic, more than a dozen corpses in white body bags were lined up in the courtyard. Relatives searching for their loved ones came and gingerly pulled back part of the surface of the body bags to peer inside and see if they recognized anyone. “The situation is very difficult. We transported the martyrs, as you can see, and moved the injured from a place close to the area that was targeted by quadcopter bombs, gunfire, or by the new [weaponized] crane located at the aid distribution site,” said Mohammed al-Hout, an emergency medical worker with the Red Crescent. “People were shot in the head or the feet.… Some of the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 521     martyrs have shattered skulls.” Scenes from Sheikh Radwan clinic after Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinians seeking aid near the Zikim crossing. Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah. July 20, 2025. The UN World Food Program said in a statement that 25 trucks carrying food entered Gaza on Sunday through the Zikim crossing “destined for starving communities in northern Gaza.” “Shortly after passing the final checkpoint beyond the Zikim crossing point into Gaza, the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies,” the WFP said. “As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers, and other gunfire.” The statement added: “These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation.” Also on Sunday, nine Palestinians were killed near an “aid distribution” hub in Rafah run by the GHF. The killings happened at the same site where over 20 people had been killed a few days earlier when GHF guards gassedstarving Palestinians fenced in at the hub, causing many to die from suffocation and a stampede. These daily killings of Palestinians desperate for food and an imminent famine have combined to create an unprecedented emergency in Gaza. Israel’s full-spectrum blockade imposed on March 2 was nominally lifted on May 27 when meager amounts of aid began to be distributed to four militarized GHF hubs, three of which are located in the southern end of Gaza and one in Wadi Gaza. With the entire population on the brink of famine, Palestinians have no choice but to starve or risk their lives at so-called aid distribution hubs. “People got hungry. They had no choice but to head {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 522     towards the places of death. Either way, they’re going to die,” Abu Maher Al-Masry, who witnessed Sunday’s killings near the Zikim crossing, told Drop Site. “I am a grown man who can't even walk from hunger. It has been more than a day since I last had a single bite to eat.” On Sunday, the health ministry said that 18 people had died from starvation over the past day. A day earlier, the ministry issued an urgent bulletin saying “unprecedented numbers of starving people of all ages are arriving at emergency rooms in a state of extreme exhaustion and fatigue. We warn that hundreds of those whose bodies have emaciated will be at risk of certain death as a result of starvation and their bodies' ability to withstand being overwhelmed.” Multiple reports have documented Palestinians sifting through garbage, scraping spilled food from the ground and eating from trash in the streets. The UN estimates that nearly one in three people is not eating for days. Journalist Nahed Hajjaj posted on social media: “Do not be surprised when we journalists stop covering news here. I swear by God that today I could not get up from the hunger. There is no food. Even if someone has money, there is nothing in the market to even purchase.” Meanwhile, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif broke down in tears during a live broadcast outside Al-Shifa Hospital as a woman nearby collapsed from hunger. “People are collapsing in the streets from hunger—just falling right there from extreme starvation,” he said. In response, an Israeli military spokesperson jeered at Al- Sharif on social media, saying it was “nothing but crocodile tears that comes as part of a deceptive and staged Hamas performance.” A total of 86 Palestinians, including 76 children, have died of hunger and malnutrition since the war began in what the health ministry on Sunday called “a silent massacre.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 523     Drop Site News is reader-supported. Consider becoming a free or paidsubscriber. Upgrade to paid Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)—that used to help oversee aid distribution in Gaza before Israel imposed its blockade and barred independent organizations—said on social media that the crisis was “all man-made, in total impunity.” “Food is available only a few kilometers away,” Lazzarini posted on X on Sunday. “UNRWA alone has enough stock available outside of #Gaza for the entire population for the next 3 months. We have not been allowed to bring any aid in since 2 March.” The widening starvation and famine comes as the Israeli military continues to expand its ground invasion, issuing repeated displacement orders, with more than 86% of Gaza now in a so-called “red zone”—either under active displacement orders or in a “combat” zone. For the first time since the beginning of the war, the Israeli military on Saturday issueddisplacement orders in an area of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, stretching to the coastline, along the so-called “Kissufim corridor.” Deir al- Balah is one of the few areas where Israeli ground troops have rarely operated and where the headquarters of several UN agencies and medical NGOs are based. The expulsion order effectively cuts access between Deir al- Balah and cities in the south of Khan Younis and Rafah. The Israeli military ordered people to head south to al- Mawasi, a tent camp on the southern coast that has been designated a “humanitarian zone,” which Israel has regularly bombed—most recently killing over 20 people, including children, sheltering in tents in an airstrike on {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 524     Sunday. Displacement orders were also reissued for northern Gaza, with the entire area north of al-Quds street and Salah Khalaf street designated an off limit “combat zone.” Last week, the Israeli military announced it had finished bulldozing a 15-kilometer (9.3-mile) path through Khan Younis establishing what it called the "Magen Oz" corridor, cutting eastern Khan Younis off from the west side. The corridor is the latest of several zones that the Israeli military has carved through Gaza using wide-scale demolitions to divide the strip into separate regions: the Morag corridor, which adjoins Magen Oz and cuts Rafah off from Khan Younis; the Mefalsim corridor, which separates northern Gaza from Gaza City; and the Netzarim corridor, which runs along Wadi Gaza, cutting off the north from the south. There are no signs that Israel’s assault will ease anytime soon and the international community has taken no steps to force Israel to end its attacks and to allow massive amounts of aid needed to stave off mass starvation. “Damn this silence. Damn this famine,” said Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee and a coordinator for local NGOs. “Damn it all—humanity has collapsed.” Drop Site News Middle East Research Fellow Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report. Leave a comment A guest post by Abdel Qader Sabbah journalist and videographer in northern Gaza Subscribe to Abdel {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 525     Become a Drop Site News PaidSubscriber Drop Site News is reader-supported. Pleaseconsider becoming a paid subscriber today. Upgrade to paid A paid subscription gets you: 15% off Drop Site store Access to our Discord, subscriber-only AMAs, chats, and invites to events, both virtual and IRL Post comments and join the community The knowledge you are supporting independent media making the lives of the powerful miserable You can also now find us on podcast platforms and on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Telegram, and YouTube. LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2025 Drop Site News, Inc.Drop Site News Inc., 4315 50th St. NWSte 100 Unit #2560, Washington, DC 20016Unsubscribe On Mon, Jul 21, 2025 at 10:46 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Hi Avram, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 526     There seems to be a contradiction in your statement. You say you want Israel to beeliminated, but also say that you want it to pay reparations for 100 years. How could it payreparations if it no longer exists? Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 8:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: A Call for Change Hi Martin, I want to be very clear about my position. I support the elimination of Israel and advocate for a one-state solution. Israel must pay reparations to the Palestinian people for a hundred years and rebuild Gaza and the West Bank. The genocidal Israeli war criminals must be held fully accountable, just like the Nazi war criminals. As a secular Jew, I find no value in Hebrew scripture; to me, it is merely creative writing and fantasy at best. The nations that have stood up to the Nazi- like Israeli state are the true heroes. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 7:26 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:The Hebrew Scriptures predict a time when all the nations will gather togetheragainst Israel, and God will then intervene on Israel’s behalf and judge all thosenations with truth and justice. We appear to be approaching that time veryrapidly, and I strongly suspect that those people and nations who have dedicatedthemselves to Israel’s destruction will fare very poorly in those judgments! Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 527     8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 528     He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 529     newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 530     weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. It appears thatthe once-respectable organization has been taken over by malevolent actorswith a political axe to grind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout thereport. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’explicit genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make no reference atall to the fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemy that observes nointernational laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in the mildestlanguage possible, and then use the most damning possible language whendescribing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantly falseaccusation that is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, asif the territories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewishnation, don't belong to Jews at all, but are instead the property of afictitious country called “Palestine” which has never actually existed in anyhistorical period. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” thatdeserves no credibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty International {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 531     investigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied GazaStrip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of thedeadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with totalimpunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel hascarried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, withthe specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of lifecalculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating itsintent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide.All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bringIsrael’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to animmediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement andannihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocatingrestrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted incommitting genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 532     humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarianassistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza arelawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gaza closely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered thescale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for inthe first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession,apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonableconclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction ofPalestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said AgnèsCallamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victimsof other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy theprotected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldworkand analysed an extensive range of visual and digitalevidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and militaryofficials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions,the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 533     Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brinkof collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of themin direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has caused unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religioussites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and thereis no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing neverstops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created adeadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza toincommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated byAmnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s militarycampaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroyPalestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeligovernment and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and theunlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and thatthe resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 534     were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and otherarmed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organizationconcluded these claims are not credible. The presence ofHamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoidindiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions onlife-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternativearguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process,demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake- up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or asan acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 anddehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providingdirect evidence of genocidal intent. This language wasfrequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified byAmnesty International showing soldiers making calls to“erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools anduniversities. Killing and causing serious bodily or {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 535     mental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts ofkilling and causing serious mental and bodily harm toPalestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinahneighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeateddirect attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities andinjuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions wereimposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” ordersto forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies intoand within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gazacutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine monthsreviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian accesswithin Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an alreadyexisting humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forceddisplacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 536     to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant orbreastfeeding women, with anticipated long-termconsequences for their health. The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to pressIsrael to end its atrocities in Gaza, by firstdelaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or theirobstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displacednearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumaneconditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiplewaves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basicneeds were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to their homes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel,continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displacedfrom in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, byfirst delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 537     “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades ofimpunity for Israel’s violations of international law. Statesneed to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, howeveruncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some ofIsrael’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted bythe ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocideand remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostagesto be released unconditionally and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimescommitted on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamasofficials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armedgroups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcomingAmnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes underinternational law committed by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well asother unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in theState of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 538     For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 539     Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must be protected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish governmentto press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-IsraelAssociation Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact Us How We’re Run Modern Slavery Act StatementFinances {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 540     RESOURCES Media CentreHuman Rights EducationHuman Rights Courses Annual report archiveGET INVOLVED JoinTake Action VolunteerLATEST NewsCampaigns Research WORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rights thenAmnesty International wants to hear from you. Privacy PolicyAccessibility Cookie Statement PermissionsRefunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON: Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOTcommitting genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill asmany Gazans as possible, the death toll would be much,much higher than it is. They wouldn't allow any food ormedicine in at all, and they wouldn't issue evacuationwarnings before striking Hamas targets. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 541     The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civiliancasualties, but Hamas makes it very difficult by deliberatelyplacing their command centers in civilian locations such asschools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, whichdoes have an explicit policy of genocide (by your definition)against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end theirsuffering tomorrow if they wanted to. All they have to do islay down their arms and release the hostages, and the warwould be over immediately. But Hamas has no interest inending the suffering of the Gazans. What they're actuallycalling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, nomatter what the cost to their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM,Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 542     Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 543     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California DemocraticDelegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev;Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; YolandaConaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto;Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Jeff Conrad;Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones;District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne;<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; CaitJames; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras;Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tom DuBois;Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; MickieWinkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; josh@joshsalcman.com; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Jay Boyarsky; Linda Jolley;San José Spotlight; vramirez@redwoodcity.org Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Monday, July 21, 2025 10:49:00 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. i Hi Avram, There seems to be a contradiction in your statement. You say you want Israel to be eliminated, but also say that you want it to pay reparations for 100 years. How could it pay reparations if it no longer exists? Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 8:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: A Call for Change Hi Martin, I want to be very clear about my position. I support the elimination of Israel and advocate for a one-state solution. Israel must pay reparations to the Palestinian people for a hundred years and rebuild Gaza and the West Bank. The genocidal Israeli war criminals must be held fully accountable, just like the Nazi war criminals. As a secular Jew, I find no value in Hebrew scripture; This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 544     to me, it is merely creative writing and fantasy at best. The nations that have stood up to the Nazi- like Israeli state are the true heroes. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 7:26 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:The Hebrew Scriptures predict a time when all the nations will gather together against Israel, and God will then intervene on Israel’s behalf and judge all thosenations with truth and justice. We appear to be approaching that time veryrapidly, and I strongly suspect that those people and nations who have dedicated themselves to Israel’s destruction will fare very poorly in those judgments! Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian 8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 545     outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 546     shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 547     Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. It appears thatthe once-respectable organization has been taken over by malevolent actorswith a political axe to grind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout thereport. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 548     They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’explicit genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make no reference atall to the fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemy that observes nointernational laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in the mildestlanguage possible, and then use the most damning possible language whendescribing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantly falseaccusation that is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, asif the territories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewishnation, don't belong to Jews at all, but are instead the property of afictitious country called “Palestine” which has never actually existed in anyhistorical period. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” thatdeserves no credibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basisto conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing tocommit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction onPalestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with totalimpunity. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 549     “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating itsintent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard,Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EUmember states, the UK and others, must act now to bringIsrael’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to animmediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularly acute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm itwas inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so indefiance of countless warnings about the catastrophichumanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both theirimmediate impact and their cumulative and mutuallyreinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 550     “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 byHamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victimsof other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’sviolations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at thetime of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has causedunprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying criticalinfrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religioussites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 551     “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, andexposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel alsosubjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza toincommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroyPalestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty Internationalexamined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targetedHamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and thatthe resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoidindiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research foundIsrael repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimesunder international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. AmnestyInternational also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 552     demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view ofPalestinians as disposable and not worthy of considerationis in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by AmnestyInternational were preceded by officials urging their implementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statementsmade by senior officials in charge of managing the offensivethat appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providingdirect evidence of genocidal intent. This language wasfrequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on theground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any ofthese strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strikedestroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 553     attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities and injuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’sdevastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable tothe survival of the civilian population; the repeated use ofsweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” ordersto forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating,unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energysources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian accesswithin Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areasnorth of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-termconsequences for their health. The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and thencontinuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it has repeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 554     do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or their obstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displaced nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population –into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumaneconditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiplewaves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeplytraumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns and villages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to theirhomes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to otherparts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel,continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displaced from in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure forover a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, byfirst delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing armstransfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, howeveruncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some ofIsrael’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 555     “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetrators to justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostagesto be released unconditionally and for Hamas and otherPalestinian armed groups responsible for the crimescommitted on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes underinternational law committed by Israeli forces, including directattacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well asother unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilianpopulation. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIANTERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 556     WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must beprotected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish government to press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 557     betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact UsHow We’re RunModern Slavery Act StatementFinancesRESOURCES Media Centre Human Rights Education Human Rights Courses Annual report archiveGET INVOLVED JoinTake ActionVolunteerLATEST {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 558     NewsCampaignsResearch WORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you. Privacy Policy Accessibility Cookie Statement Permissions Refunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON:Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOTcommitting genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill asmany Gazans as possible, the death toll would be much,much higher than it is. They wouldn't allow any food ormedicine in at all, and they wouldn't issue evacuationwarnings before striking Hamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civiliancasualties, but Hamas makes it very difficult by deliberatelyplacing their command centers in civilian locations such asschools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, whichdoes have an explicit policy of genocide (by your definition)against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end theirsuffering tomorrow if they wanted to. All they have to do islay down their arms and release the hostages, and the warwould be over immediately. But Hamas has no interest inending the suffering of the Gazans. What they're actually {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 559     calling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, nomatter what the cost to their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be definedin several different ways. Perhaps weshould stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM,Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 560     A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 561     From:Martin Wasserman To:Sean Allen Cc:Aram James; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; jessica@speiser.net; Foley, Michael; EmilyMibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong;Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin;jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; RobertSalonga; roberta ahlquist; Rob Baker; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April;Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov;District2@sanjoseca.gov; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Betsy Nash; VaraRamakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Miguel Rodriguez; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker;Assemblymember.Berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas;Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Greg Tanaka; Tom DuBois;Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; MickieWinkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres;David Piper Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Monday, July 21, 2025 10:31:22 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. i Sean, I appreciate your concern for humanitarian issues. However, the reality is that when a nation isfighting for its very existence, as Israel is doing right now, its highest priority has to be to defeat theenemy, and caring for the humanitarian needs of enemy civilians has to be a much lower priority. In fact, most nations would ridicule the idea of helping enemy civilians while a war is ongoing,arguing that it’s equivalent to helping the enemy himself. During World War II, for example, the overriding imperative was victory, and the US showed noconcern for the humanitarian well-being of the enemy civilians it was bombing, nor did any othernation involved in that conflict. Humanitarian concerns could be addressed after the war, but notduring it. It’s also worth noting that Israelis don't necessarily see Gazan civilians as innocent bystanders. Theyremember how they voted Hamas into power, and how many of them followed Hamas into Israel onOctober 7 and took direct part in the plunder and pillage of that day. They also recall the outbursts ofdelirious joy as the Israeli hostages were paraded through the streets of Gaza, and how not a singleGazan did anything to help the Israeli hostages escape from their captivity. Nevertheless, Israel has shown more concern for humanitarian issues than virtually any other countryin a similar situation. Earlier in the war, it allowed huge amounts of food and supplies into Gaza, eventhough it knew that most of the aid was being stolen by Hamas, thereby prolonging the war andmaking victory more difficult to achieve. Incidentally, there were many in Israel who thought thispolicy was very foolish and highly counterproductive. Regards,Martin Wasserman This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 562     On Jul 20, 2025, at 8:34 PM, Sean Allen <sallen6444@yahoo.com> wrote: Martin, Thank you for sharing your perspective. While it's important to consider the complexdynamics at play, the impact of rationing food and resources cannot be overlooked.Limiting access to basic necessities can lead to dire consequences for the civilianpopulation, contributing to significant suffering and hardship, irrespective of intent. Historically, we have seen that during crises, people instinctively fight and even resort toviolence over limited resources. This was evident in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina inthe United States, where widespread desperation for food, water, and safety led to chaosand alarming acts of violence. Reports from that time highlighted how individuals lootedstores and clashed with each other as they scrambled for basic survival needs,demonstrating how fragile social order can become when resources are scarce. Similarly,in Somalia, we witnessed violence surrounding the distribution of humanitarian aid, asfactions vied for control over the resources being provided to those in need. Rationing food and resources has the potential to produce outcomes that are as devastatingas direct violence, akin to the effects of bombing a population. Furthermore, military unitsshould never base their decisions to slaughter non-combatants on the basis that theiropposition does not release hostages, regardless of the justification for conflict. Unless themotive is to create more chaos through infighting, which would lead to similar devastationas bombing non-combatant communities, the humane approach is to provide theseindividuals with the necessary amount of humanitarian aid and stop the slaughter.Bombing non-combatants is not war; it’s slaughter and inhumane. Even our Constitutionprohibits punishing a group of people because of the actions of others. While military objectives may focus on specific groups, we must recognize that thebroader impact on civilian lives remains profound. The suffering of Gazans should not bediminished or overlooked, as their well-being is affected by the decisions made in thecontext of this conflict. Best, Sean Allen Sent from my iPhone On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen EnglishSource: The Guardian 8 Jul 2025 13:47 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 563     2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 564     end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 565     pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 566     "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. It appears thatthe once-respectable organization has been taken over by malevolent actorswith a political axe to grind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout thereport. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’explicit genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make no reference atall to the fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemy that observes nointernational laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in the mildestlanguage possible, and then use the most damning possible language whendescribing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantly falseaccusation that is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, asif the territories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewishnation, don't belong to Jews at all, but are instead the property of a fictitiouscountry called “Palestine” which has never actually existed in any historicalperiod. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” thatdeserves no credibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 567     On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new reportpublished today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with totalimpunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month aftermonth, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhumangroup unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating itsintent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this timemust know they are violating their obligation to preventgenocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 568     population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocatingrestrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarianassistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for inthe first place by high-level officials in charge of the warefforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means toachieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said AgnèsCallamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetratordoes not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy theprotected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 569     authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digitalevidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysedstatements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brinkof collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has causedunprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024,described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created adeadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, andexposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel alsosubjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rightslaw. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s militarycampaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts,genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 570     reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at thehighest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s systemof apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and thatthe resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aidwere the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and otherarmed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take allfeasible precautions to spare civilians and avoidindiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research foundIsrael repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be no justification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternativearguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly orthat it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake- up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destructionof Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statementsthat were issued by Israeli government and military officialsand others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 571     Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified byAmnesty International showing soldiers making calls to“erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebratingthe destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm toPalestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results ofinvestigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strikedestroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinahneighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations ofPalestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted inways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities andinjuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions wereimposed through three simultaneous patterns thatrepeatedly compounded the effect of each other’sdevastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life- sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services,humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 572     and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine monthsreviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating,unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energysources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water andsanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forceddisplacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and ledto the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and thencontinuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it has repeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or theirobstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situationhas grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displaced nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiple waves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeplytraumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basicneeds were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to their {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 573     homes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel,continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displacedfrom in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, byfirst delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing armstransfers, is and will remain a stain on our collectiveconscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismayand take strong and sustained international action, howeveruncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some ofIsrael’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect forthe court’s decision and for universal international lawprinciples by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating andfor all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocideand remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Councilto impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamasofficials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 574     carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, andabducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimesperpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including directattacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well asother unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIANTERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 575     New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must be protected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish governmentto press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensurethe right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 576     Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rightseverywhere. Your donation can transform thelives of millions. ABOUT US Contact Us How We’re Run Modern Slavery Act Statement Finances RESOURCES Media CentreHuman Rights Education Human Rights Courses Annual report archive GET INVOLVED JoinTake ActionVolunteerLATEST News CampaignsResearchWORK WITH US {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 577     If you are talented and passionate about human rights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you. Privacy PolicyAccessibility Cookie Statement Permissions Refunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON:Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOTcommitting genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill asmany Gazans as possible, the death toll would be much,much higher than it is. They wouldn't allow any food ormedicine in at all, and they wouldn't issue evacuationwarnings before striking Hamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civiliancasualties, but Hamas makes it very difficult by deliberatelyplacing their command centers in civilian locations such asschools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, whichdoes have an explicit policy of genocide (by your definition)against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end theirsuffering tomorrow if they wanted to. All they have to do islay down their arms and release the hostages, and the warwould be over immediately. But Hamas has no interest inending the suffering of the Gazans. What they're actuallycalling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, nomatter what the cost to their own people. Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 578     On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM,Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 579     But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 580     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 581     genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend.*** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 582     SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 583     expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out.*** {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 584     From:Sean Allen To:Aram James Cc:Martin Wasserman; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; jessica@speiser.net; Foley,Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa,Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jason.green@bayareanewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto;Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Rob Baker; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe;Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office ofMayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov;District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; Today EPA; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Betsy Nash; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; MiguelRodriguez; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; Assemblymember.Berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennisburns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St.George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Greg Tanaka; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; GregTanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Monday, July 21, 2025 8:27:07 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. i Martin, Thank you for sharing your perspective. While it's important to consider the complex dynamicsat play, the impact of rationing food and resources cannot be overlooked. Limiting access tobasic necessities can lead to dire consequences for the civilian population, contributing tosignificant suffering and hardship, irrespective of intent. Historically, we have seen that during crises, people instinctively fight and even resort toviolence over limited resources. This was evident in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in theUnited States, where widespread desperation for food, water, and safety led to chaos andalarming acts of violence. Reports from that time highlighted how individuals looted stores andclashed with each other as they scrambled for basic survival needs, demonstrating how fragilesocial order can become when resources are scarce. Similarly, in Somalia, we witnessedviolence surrounding the distribution of humanitarian aid, as factions vied for control over theresources being provided to those in need. Rationing food and resources has the potential to produce outcomes that are as devastating asdirect violence, akin to the effects of bombing a population. Furthermore, military units shouldnever base their decisions to slaughter non-combatants on the basis that their opposition does notrelease hostages, regardless of the justification for conflict. Unless the motive is to create morechaos through infighting, which would lead to similar devastation as bombing non-combatantcommunities, the humane approach is to provide these individuals with the necessary amount ofhumanitarian aid and stop the slaughter. Bombing non-combatants is not war; it’s slaughter and This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first email to your company. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 585     inhumane. Even our Constitution prohibits punishing a group of people because of the actions ofothers. While military objectives may focus on specific groups, we must recognize that the broaderimpact on civilian lives remains profound. The suffering of Gazans should not be diminished oroverlooked, as their well-being is affected by the decisions made in the context of this conflict. Best, Sean Allen Sent from my iPhone On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian 8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 586     piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 587     650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 588     the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 589     On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. It appears that theonce-respectable organization has been taken over by malevolent actors with apolitical axe to grind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’ explicitgenocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make no reference at all tothe fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemy that observes no international lawswhatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in the mildestlanguage possible, and then use the most damning possible language whendescribing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantly false accusationthat is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, as if theterritories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewish nation, don'tbelong to Jews at all, but are instead the property of a fictitious country called“Palestine” which has never actually existed in any historical period. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” that deserves nocredibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide against {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 590     Palestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how,during its military offensive launched in the wake of thedeadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction onPalestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with totalimpunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to theinternational community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besiegedpopulation is facing starvation, displacement andannihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 591     International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza arelawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicateHamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside militarygoals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gaza closely and in their totality, taking into account their recurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession,apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these actshave been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetratordoes not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212 people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and militaryofficials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 592     authorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has caused unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City toRafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024,described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza toincommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 593     of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinianterritory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be no justification based on Hamas’s actions. AmnestyInternational also found no evidence that the diversion of aidcould explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions onlife-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by AmnestyInternational were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 594     Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts ofkilling and causing serious mental and bodily harm toPalestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results ofinvestigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerialattacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeateddirect attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities and injuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life- sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 595     sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and thedenial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services,humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies intoand within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact wasespecially harsh on young children and pregnant orbreastfeeding women, with anticipated long-termconsequences for their health. The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and thencontinuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it has repeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or their obstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displaced nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumaneconditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiplewaves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeplytraumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948Nakba. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 596     Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to their homes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to returnunder international law to areas they were displacedfrom in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowheresafe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating andfor all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocideand remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 597     committed on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southernIsrael and carried out deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in-depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes underinternational law committed by Israeli forces, including directattacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well as other unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 598     Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must be protected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish governmentto press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter-extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 599     DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact Us How We’re Run Modern Slavery Act Statement FinancesRESOURCES Media Centre Human Rights Education Human Rights Courses Annual report archive GET INVOLVED Join Take Action Volunteer {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 600     LATEST News Campaigns Research WORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rights then AmnestyInternational wants to hear from you. Privacy Policy AccessibilityCookie StatementPermissionsRefunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON: Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOTcommitting genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill as manyGazans as possible, the death toll would be much, much higherthan it is. They wouldn't allow any food or medicine in at all, andthey wouldn't issue evacuation warnings before striking Hamastargets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties,but Hamas makes it very difficult by deliberately placing theircommand centers in civilian locations such as schools andhospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, which doeshave an explicit policy of genocide (by your definition) againstJews. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 601     Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end their sufferingtomorrow if they wanted to. All they have to do is lay down theirarms and release the hostages, and the war would be overimmediately. But Hamas has no interest in ending the suffering ofthe Gazans. What they're actually calling for is an open-ended warof attrition against Israel, no matter what the cost to their ownpeople. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stopusing that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, AramJames <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 602     to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 603     the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 604     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 605     people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend. *** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 606     people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out. *** {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 607     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California DemocraticDelegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa,Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; DonAustin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; RobertSalonga; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD KristinaBell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov;District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>;Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Josh Becker;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; RowenaChiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley;Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee;Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; josh@joshsalcman.com; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Jay Boyarsky; Linda Jolley; San José Spotlight;vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; Ellen Fox Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 9:18:51 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. i Avram, You're entitled to your opinions and you'll bear the consequences of them one way or another. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 8:08 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: A Call for Change Hi Martin, I want to be very clear about my position. I support the elimination of Israel and advocate for a one-state solution. Israel must pay reparations to the Palestinian people for a hundred years and rebuild Gaza and the West Bank. The genocidal Israeli war criminals must be held fully accountable, just like the Nazi war criminals. As a secular Jew, I find no value in Hebrew scripture; to me, it is merely creative writing and fantasy at This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 608     best. The nations that have stood up to the Nazi- like Israeli state are the true heroes. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 7:26 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:The Hebrew Scriptures predict a time when all the nations will gather togetheragainst Israel, and God will then intervene on Israel’s behalf and judge all thosenations with truth and justice. We appear to be approaching that time very rapidly, and I strongly suspect that those people and nations who have dedicated themselves to Israel’s destruction will fare very poorly in those judgments! Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 609     "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 610     Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 611     Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. It appears thatthe once-respectable organization has been taken over by malevolent actorswith a political axe to grind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout thereport. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 612     They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’explicit genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make no reference atall to the fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemy that observes nointernational laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in the mildestlanguage possible, and then use the most damning possible language whendescribing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantly falseaccusation that is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, asif the territories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewishnation, don't belong to Jews at all, but are instead the property of afictitious country called “Palestine” which has never actually existed in anyhistorical period. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” thatdeserves no credibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basisto conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing tocommit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction onPalestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with totalimpunity. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 613     “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating itsintent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard,Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EUmember states, the UK and others, must act now to bringIsrael’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to animmediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularly acute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm itwas inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so indefiance of countless warnings about the catastrophichumanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both theirimmediate impact and their cumulative and mutuallyreinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 614     “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 byHamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victimsof other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings andhostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’sviolations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at thetime of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has causedunprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying criticalinfrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religioussites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 615     “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, andexposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel alsosubjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza toincommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroyPalestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty Internationalexamined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targetedHamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and thatthe resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoidindiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research foundIsrael repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimesunder international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. AmnestyInternational also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 616     demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view ofPalestinians as disposable and not worthy of considerationis in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by AmnestyInternational were preceded by officials urging their implementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statementsmade by senior officials in charge of managing the offensivethat appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providingdirect evidence of genocidal intent. This language wasfrequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on theground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any ofthese strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strikedestroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 617     attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities and injuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’sdevastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable tothe survival of the civilian population; the repeated use ofsweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” ordersto forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating,unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energysources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian accesswithin Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areasnorth of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-termconsequences for their health. The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and thencontinuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it has repeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 618     do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or their obstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displaced nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population –into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumaneconditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiplewaves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeplytraumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns and villages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to theirhomes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to otherparts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel,continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displaced from in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure forover a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, byfirst delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing armstransfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, howeveruncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some ofIsrael’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 619     “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetrators to justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostagesto be released unconditionally and for Hamas and otherPalestinian armed groups responsible for the crimescommitted on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes underinternational law committed by Israeli forces, including directattacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well asother unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilianpopulation. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIANTERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 620     WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must beprotected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish government to press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 621     betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact UsHow We’re RunModern Slavery Act StatementFinancesRESOURCES Media Centre Human Rights Education Human Rights Courses Annual report archiveGET INVOLVED JoinTake ActionVolunteerLATEST {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 622     NewsCampaignsResearch WORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you. Privacy Policy Accessibility Cookie Statement Permissions Refunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON:Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOTcommitting genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill asmany Gazans as possible, the death toll would be much,much higher than it is. They wouldn't allow any food ormedicine in at all, and they wouldn't issue evacuationwarnings before striking Hamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civiliancasualties, but Hamas makes it very difficult by deliberatelyplacing their command centers in civilian locations such asschools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, whichdoes have an explicit policy of genocide (by your definition)against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end theirsuffering tomorrow if they wanted to. All they have to do islay down their arms and release the hostages, and the warwould be over immediately. But Hamas has no interest inending the suffering of the Gazans. What they're actually {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 623     calling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, nomatter what the cost to their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM MartinWasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be definedin several different ways. Perhaps weshould stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM,Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 624     A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 625     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for CaliforniaDemocratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; RaymondGoins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener,Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human RelationsCommission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; RobertaAhlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of MayorMatt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov;District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City;city.council@menlopark.gov; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne;<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez,Miguel; Cait James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuanGreen; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George;Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; EdLauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil;Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; josh@joshsalcman.com;board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Jay Boyarsky; Linda Jolley; San José Spotlight;vramirez@redwoodcity.org Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 8:14:17 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of theorganization. Be cautious of opening attachmentsand clicking on links. Subject: A Call for Change Hi Martin, I want to be very clear about my position. I support the elimination of Israel and advocate for a one-state solution. Israel must pay reparations to the Palestinian people for a hundred years and rebuild Gaza and the West Bank. The genocidal Israeli war criminals must be held fully accountable, just like the Nazi war criminals. As a secular Jew, I find no value in Hebrew scripture; to me, it is merely creative writing and fantasy at best. The nations that have stood up to the Nazi- like Israeli state are the true heroes. Avram “Eliminate Israel Now” Finkelstein On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 7:26 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:The Hebrew Scriptures predict a time when all the nations will gather together against Israel, and God will then intervene on Israel’s behalf and judge all those nations with truth and justice. We appear to be approaching that time very rapidly, and I strongly suspect that those people and nations who have dedicated themselves {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 626     to Israel’s destruction will fare very poorly in those judgments! Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian 8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 627     impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 628     Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 629     Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. It appears that theonce-respectable organization has been taken over by malevolent actors with apolitical axe to grind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’ explicit {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 630     genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make no reference at all tothe fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemy that observes no international lawswhatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in the mildestlanguage possible, and then use the most damning possible language whendescribing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantly false accusationthat is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, as if theterritories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewish nation, don'tbelong to Jews at all, but are instead the property of a fictitious country called“Palestine” which has never actually existed in any historical period. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” that deserves nocredibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basisto conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new reportpublished today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction onPalestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 631     “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel hascarried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of lifecalculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating itsintent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key armssuppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to animmediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularlyacute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm itwas inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside militarygoals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account their recurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutuallyreinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 632     that prohibited acts were often announced or called for inthe first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction ofPalestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victimsof other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide tohave been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysedstatements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeliauthorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brinkof collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wipingout entire multigenerational families. It has caused unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying criticalinfrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 633     sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gazauninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City toRafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, andexposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations ofinternational humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeligovernment and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and theunlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aidwere the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organizationconcluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoidindiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 634     under international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly orthat it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather thangenocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake- up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of considerationis in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by AmnestyInternational were preceded by officials urging their implementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officialsand others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providingdirect evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified byAmnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 635     Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results ofinvestigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any ofthese strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strikedestroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they weresleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerialattacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities andinjuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead,over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’sdevastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life- sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” ordersto forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies intoand within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gazacutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian accesswithin Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an alreadyexisting humanitarian crisis. This, combined with theextensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 636     to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact wasespecially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. The international community’s seismic,shameful failure for over a year to pressIsrael to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and thencontinuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or their obstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situationhas grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displacednearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiplewaves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residents are refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns and villages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life,Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions weredeliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to theirhomes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to returnunder international law to areas they were displaced from in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 637     first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing armstransfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismayand take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former DefenseMinister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international lawprinciples by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating andfor all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetrators to justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimescommitted on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Councilto impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 638     international law committed by Israeli forces, including directattacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well as other unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICCProsecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIANTERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 639     DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must beprotected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish governmentto press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawfulbetrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 640     Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform thelives of millions. ABOUT US Contact Us How We’re Run Modern Slavery Act Statement FinancesRESOURCES Media Centre Human Rights Education Human Rights CoursesAnnual report archive GET INVOLVED Join Take Action VolunteerLATEST News Campaigns ResearchWORK WITH US {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 641     If you are talented and passionate about human rights then AmnestyInternational wants to hear from you. Privacy Policy Accessibility Cookie StatementPermissions Refunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON: Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOTcommitting genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill as manyGazans as possible, the death toll would be much, much higherthan it is. They wouldn't allow any food or medicine in at all, andthey wouldn't issue evacuation warnings before striking Hamastargets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties,but Hamas makes it very difficult by deliberately placing theircommand centers in civilian locations such as schools andhospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, which doeshave an explicit policy of genocide (by your definition) againstJews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end their sufferingtomorrow if they wanted to. All they have to do is lay down theirarms and release the hostages, and the war would be overimmediately. But Hamas has no interest in ending the suffering ofthe Gazans. What they're actually calling for is an open-ended warof attrition against Israel, no matter what the cost to their ownpeople. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 642     Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, AramJames <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 643     2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “ {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 644     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for CaliforniaDemocratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; RaymondGoins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human RelationsCommission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; RobertaAhlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office ofMayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov;District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez,Miguel; Cait James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuanGreen; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George;Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; EdLauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 7:31:51 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. i The Hebrew Scriptures predict a time when all the nations will gather together againstIsrael, and God will then intervene on Israel’s behalf and judge all those nations with truth and justice. We appear to be approaching that time very rapidly, and I stronglysuspect that those people and nations who have dedicated themselves to Israel’s destruction will fare very poorly in those judgments! Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian 8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses This message needs your attentionThis is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 645     Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 646     He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News 650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 647     "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 648     crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. It appears that theonce-respectable organization has been taken over by malevolent actors with apolitical axe to grind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’ explicitgenocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make no reference at all tothe fact that Israel is facing a ruthless enemy that observes no international lawswhatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in the mildestlanguage possible, and then use the most damning possible language whendescribing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantly false accusationthat is very easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, as if theterritories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewish nation, don'tbelong to Jews at all, but are instead the property of a fictitious country called“Palestine” which has never actually existed in any historical period. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 649     In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” that deserves nocredibility whatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how,during its military offensive launched in the wake of thedeadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating itsintent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard,Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 650     genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key armssuppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EUmember states, the UK and others, must act now to bringIsrael’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to animmediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularly acute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm itwas inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so indefiance of countless warnings about the catastrophichumanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarianassistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gaza closely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both theirimmediate impact and their cumulative and mutuallyreinforcing consequences. The organization considered thescale and severity of the casualties and destruction overtime. It also analysed public statements by officials, findingthat prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 byHamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 651     Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’sviolations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, localauthorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldworkand analysed an extensive range of visual and digitalevidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has caused unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying criticalinfrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religioussites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gazauninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 652     subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and theunlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinianterritory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be nojustification based on Hamas’s actions. AmnestyInternational also found no evidence that the diversion of aidcould explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions onlife-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake- {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 653     up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by AmnestyInternational were preceded by officials urging theirimplementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to“erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebratingthe destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools anduniversities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts ofkilling and causing serious mental and bodily harm toPalestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 654     attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeateddirect attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities and injuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life- sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services,humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies intoand within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-termconsequences for their health. The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 655     Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve thehumanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power todo so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza orlifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or their obstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displaced nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiple waves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residents are refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns and villages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to their homes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to returnunder international law to areas they were displacedfrom in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure forover a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, byfirst delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing armstransfers, is and will remain a stain on our collectiveconscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 656     Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect forthe court’s decision and for universal international lawprinciples by arresting and handing over those wanted bythe ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetrators to justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostagesto be released unconditionally and for Hamas and otherPalestinian armed groups responsible for the crimescommitted on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel andcarried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-takingthere, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in-depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well as other unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 657     ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 658     Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must be protected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish government to press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rightseverywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 659     Contact UsHow We’re RunModern Slavery Act StatementFinancesRESOURCES Media Centre Human Rights Education Human Rights Courses Annual report archive GET INVOLVED JoinTake ActionVolunteerLATEST News Campaigns Research WORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rights then AmnestyInternational wants to hear from you. Privacy Policy Accessibility Cookie StatementPermissionsRefunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON:Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 660     <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOTcommitting genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill as manyGazans as possible, the death toll would be much, much higherthan it is. They wouldn't allow any food or medicine in at all, andthey wouldn't issue evacuation warnings before striking Hamastargets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties,but Hamas makes it very difficult by deliberately placing theircommand centers in civilian locations such as schools andhospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, which doeshave an explicit policy of genocide (by your definition) againstJews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end their sufferingtomorrow if they wanted to. All they have to do is lay down theirarms and release the hostages, and the war would be overimmediately. But Hamas has no interest in ending the suffering ofthe Gazans. What they're actually calling for is an open-ended warof attrition against Israel, no matter what the cost to their ownpeople. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined inseveral different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to wordsthat have clear and unambiguous meanings. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 661     On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, AramJames <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 662     operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 663     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 664     People inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/AssociatedPress The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend. *** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 665     SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 666     enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out.*** {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 667     From:Aram James To:Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Veenker, Vicki Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; sharon jackson; Marty Wasserman Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 5:03:36 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 4:52 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Toddlers Trained to Die For Israel as young as five years old!!!!! Toddlers Trained to die for Israel “ There is a direct funnel from educating toddlers to, as soon as they turn 18 — they’re of military age and they’re indoctrinated and groomed and brainwashed, and they’re ready to fight the battle.” Tzofim “begins educating kids at five years old,” said one former Zionist youth leader in Australia, who requested anonymity for fear of professional retaliation. He took part in groups affiliated with Tzofim as a teen. “There is a direct funnel from educating toddlers to, as soon as they turn 18 — they’re of military age and they’re indoctrinated and groomed and brainwashed, and they’re ready to fight the battle.” Tzofim “begins educating kids at five years old,” said one former Zionist youth leader in Australia, who requested anonymity for fear of professional retaliation. He took part in groups affiliated with Tzofim as a teen. “There is a direct funnel from educating toddlers to, as soon as they turn 18 — they’re of military age and they’re indoctrinated and groomed and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 668     brainwashed, and they’re ready to fight the battle.” RESERVEDAMERICAN VOLUNTEERS FOR the Israeli army have partied with Ben Shapiro in Boca Raton, met with House Republicans Brian Mastand Mike Lawler in Washington, and joinedNew York City Mayor Eric Adams at Gracie Mansion. On a Manhattan rooftop late last year, they sipped cocktails and reconnected with people they’d met before — supporting Israel in its campaign of bombing, displacement, and starvation in Gaza. These efforts were organized by Nevut, a New York-based charity supporting American “lone soldiers” who sign up for the Israeli military. Among its upcoming events is a wellness retreat to Panama for lone soldier veterans who served in the Israeli military during its ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has killed more than 58,000 people — nearly half of them children — according to Gaza’s health ministry. Other estimates put the death toll at 80,000 or higher. Nevut, which operates across 22 states, is one of at least 20 U.S.-based charities directly funding lone soldier programs. Since 2020, according to The Intercept’s analysis of their tax forms, these organizations have spent over $26 million to recruit and support lone soldiers from initial drafting to reintegration. The groups provide subsidized apartments, therapy, wellness retreats, and equipment to Israeli military units. MOST READ ICE Lawyers Are HidingTheir Names in ImmigrationCourt Debbie Nathan {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 669     Four CUNY Professors SayThey Were Fired forSupporting Palestine Sanya Mansoor The Military Occupied LA for40 Days and All They DidWas Detain One Guy Nick Turse The Intercept reviewed five years of tax documents that show 2023 was the most lucrative year on record for lone soldier programs. After Israel began calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, U.S. donors poured funding into the organizations. Each year from 2002 to 2020, between 3,000 and 4,000 lone soldiers served in the Israeli military, about a third of them from North America. Since October 7, 2023, it is estimatedthat 7,000 lone soldiers from the U.S. alone have either signed up or returned to Israel to serve. The programs have helped to prop up an Israeli military now facing its biggest recruitment crisis in decades. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drags the assault on Gaza through its second year, civilians have protested his government and soldiers have refused to show up for reserve duty. With an estimated 100,000 Israeli soldiers refusing service, volunteers from the U.S. and other countries provide reinforcements. Last year, the Israeli military estimated that at least 23,000 American citizens were currently serving, a combination of lone soldiers and Americans who immigrated to Israel with their families. On social media, Nevut and other organizations post pictures, videos, and testimonies from lone soldiers serving in Gaza.Earlier this month, Nevut promoted a videoadvertising a day at a shooting range as “a little dose of enjoyable fire.” A man wearing military tactical gear says: “All the guys here serve in the IDF; a majority serve in the war in Gaza.” Another Instagram video encourages lone soldier veterans to reach out if they’re {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 670     thinking of going back into combat. One Nevut post advises viewers on “What not to ask a lone soldier,” including: “Did you kill anyone?” “How many people died over there?” and “Were you in Gaza or Lebanon?” “These can potentially feel like dismissive, political, or emotionally charged questions,” the post warns. A screenshot from Nevut's Instagram. Screenshot: Nevut / Instagram While the United States’ steady supply of weapons shipments to Israel has come under scrutiny from elected officials to the United Nations, thousands of U.S. civilians who travel to Israel to join the army have received markedly less attention. Back at home, American lone soldiers do speaking tours to cleanse the reputation of the Israeli military. “I almost died for Palestinian children,” said lone soldier Eli Wininger at an event in an Alabama church put on by the Massachusetts-based lone soldier organization Growing Wings. A Los Angeles native, Wininger has touched many sides of the lone soldier ecosystem: He was recruited after taking part in the youth scouts program Garin Tzabar, served with the Israeli military in Gaza,returned to the United States, and recently started a volunteer position as a youth leader with the U.S. nonprofit Friends of the IDF. Speaking at the Growing Wings event earlier this {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 671     year, he said he was instructed “not to kill Palestinian children. There is not a single soldier in there that is doing that.” According to the U.N., over 50,000 childrenhave been killed or injured in Gaza since October 7, 2023 — though this is likely an undercount. Wininger did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. Related They Went to Get Flour With Their Mother in Gaza. “SheCame Back in a White Shroud.” In response to questions on lone soldiers and the army’s affiliation with U.S. nonprofit groups, the IDF told The Intercept it had “no comment.” Neither Nevut nor Growing Wings responded to The Intercept’s requests for comment. Federal law prohibits recruiting for foreign armies within U.S. borders, but it allows donations and promotion of foreign volunteering. Where, if at all, efforts to help American teens join the Israeli military run afoul of U.S. policy on foreign fighting is hard to determine, experts say. “The State Department basically says on the website that we don’t want Americans serving abroad,” said David Malet, an associate professor of justice, law, and criminology at American University who researches foreign fighters. “But realistically, we know it’s kind of hard to enforce that.” A State Department spokesperson said U.S. citizens serving in the Israeli military are not required to register their service with the U.S. government. Dual citizens must comply with the laws of both countries of which they are a citizen, including any mandatory military service. The department said U.S. citizens are encouraged {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 672     to consult current travel advisories for Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. (It recommends that people reconsider their travel to Israel and the West Bank, and not travel to Gaza.) “Our embassies overseas maintain rough estimates of U.S. citizens in their countries for contingency planning purposes, but these estimates are imperfect, can vary, and are constantly changing, which is why we do not generally disclose them publicly,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. “U.S. citizens are not required to register their travel to a foreign country with us, so we cannot track with certainty how many U.S. citizens are in any particular country.” The State Department referred questions about legal implications of serving in a foreign military to the Department of Justice. DOJ referred questions to the Department of Defense, which referred questions to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS referred questions back to the State Department. Across the Jewish diaspora and in Israel, lone soldiers are receiving more recognition than ever. “I’m definitely aware of increased numbers of volunteers which are welcomed in Israel right now,” Malet said. “You can see a lot more recognition and efforts to honor fallen lone soldiers than you would have seen before October 7.” “I had just finished guarding a West Bank settlement,” said Strober, now an anti- occupation activist. “Even then, I was like, this is such a weird experience.” Strober was first introduced to the possibility of joining the Israeli military when she was 17, during a high school semester she spent in Israel. She said alumni of the semester in Israel program wearing miliary uniforms spoke to her group. “There were a lot of informal ways of talking about enlisting in the army,” Strober told The Intercept. She later joined after participating in the Garin Tzabar program, which runs two majordrafting sessions each year. The program is funded by Tzofim, the biggest {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 673     Zionist youth movement in Israel and the U.S. Also known as the Friends of Israel Scouts, the group has a U.S. nonprofit in New York. Tzofim “begins educating kids at five years old,” said one former Zionist youth leader in Australia, who requested anonymity for fear of professional retaliation. He took part in groups affiliated with Tzofim as a teen. “There is a direct funnel from educating toddlers to, as soon as they turn 18 — they’re of military age and they’re indoctrinated and groomed and brainwashed, and they’re ready to fight the battle.” Garin Tzabar continues to recruit lone soldiers from the U.S., who often end up serving in combat in Gaza and “protecting civilians” in the West Bank — where Israeli settlers and forces have killed 1,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023. Israeli soldiers talking to settlers in the West Bank in April 2025.Photo: Georgia Gee The recruitment pipeline includes many U.S. day schools — from more conservative yeshivas to modern Jewish day schools — that advertise how many alumni go on to serve in the Israeli military. The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, had51 alumni serving in the Israeli {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 674     military as of 2023. Another school in New Jersey, the Rae Kushner Yeshiva, has congratulated an alum who became a social media manager in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. “Her work was recognized as important for hasbara by the Israeli news,” the school boasted on Facebook, using a term for Israeli public diplomacy, including propagandatailored to international audiences. Another alum of the school served as a lone soldier in the army and was a friend of the son of Netanyahu, who commemorated him after he died while traveling in 2018. One charity reviewed by The Intercept, the Lone Soldier Foundation, specifically provides funds for the children of families that attend a synagogue in northern New Jersey who join the Israeli military. According to the group’s most recent tax filing, it also supports the units in which the children of members of its congregation serve. In 2023, the group spent over $80,000 on providing “non-combat and equipment to IDF units in which eligible American citizens served.” Read Our Complete Coverage Israel’s War on Gaza North American lone soldiers are a “great example of the Zionist spirit or the Zionist dream,” Strober told The Intercept. “It keeps American Jewish communities very, very close to the Israel question. It doesn’t allow them to think critically because it’s so close, because you know people who have been killed, or people {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 675     who have served.” The Charities Under heightened public scrutiny, U.S. nonprofits have distanced themselves from directly funding projects in the West Bank or other settlements, which are illegal under international law. But U.S.-based nonprofits granted $8.8 million to specific lone soldier programs in 2023 alone, The Intercept found. It’s possible the real number is higher, as nonprofits only have to report foreign grants above a certain threshold. “It doesn’t allow American Jewish communities to think critically, becauseyou know people who have been killed.” The biggest known funder is Friends of the IDF, which has spent nearly $20 million on its lone soldier program since 2020, supporting more than 6,500 lone soldiers each year, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. In a statement, Friends of the IDF, an official partner of the Israeli military, said it provides more than 7,000 lone soldiers “with practical, emotional and mental health support throughout their service to make sure they never feel alone.” The group said about half of the soldiers it backs are from Israel but are considered lone soldiers because they don’t have family support. On its Instagram page, the group says it is the “only U.S. non-profit working directly with IDF leadership to provide critical support for Israel soldiers’ health, well-being & education.” Other organizations help offset the costs of living for lone soldiers. Bayit Brigade, which operates in both the U.S. and Israel, helps lone soldiers find affordable housing in Tel Aviv and raises emergency funds to help transport soldiers to their bases and provide supplies in the field. Bayit Brigade has posted videos of volunteers providing resources to the Israeli military’s Yahalom Unit, which conducts “tunnel warfare” and demolitions in Gaza, including destroying areas to allow the military to operate. The organization’s revenue jumped from approximately $160,000 in 2022 to $1.3 million in 2023, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 676     according to nonprofit documents. In a statement, the group told The Intercept that following October 7, it “temporarily expanded its community support efforts to address urgent needs on the ground,” but have “no formal relationship with any government entity or with the IDF.” The lines between support, education and recruitment of lone soldiers — including what a formal relationship entails — are often blurred, said Strober, the former lone soldier. Garin Tzabar, for example, is operated in partby Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration. Other efforts to finance lone soldiers, like Bayit Brigade, distance themselves from any sort of affiliation with the Israeli government. Other organizations also advertise their support for soldiers who fought in Gaza. Friends of Emek Lone Soldiers held concerts in the West Bank for women who served in Gaza. The website of the Michael Levin Lone Soldier Foundation includes testimonies of soldiers who received support while serving in Gaza. When she was part of the Israeli military, Strober still considered herself a believer in human rights, she told The Intercept. She was working for a human rights organization that supported Gazans’ freedom of movement when, in 2014, Israel launched a series of attacks on Gaza that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians in under two months. “I didn’t really know anything about Gaza,” Strober said. “It was kind of the first time that I had any concept of who Palestinians were on the other side and how much control Israel had.” Strober said she watched her friends get called up from the reserves and realized she didn’t want to go serve in Gaza. “I just remember thinking, I’m not going to go zero in guns to kill Gazans when I’m talking to Gazans on the phone every day,” she said. WE’RE INDEPENDENT OF {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 677     CORPORATE INTERESTS — AND POWERED BY MEMBERS. JOIN US. BECOME A MEMBER {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 678     These efforts were organized by Nevut, a New York-based charity supporting American “lone soldiers” who sign up for the Israeli military. Among its upcoming events is a wellness retreat to Panama for lone soldier veterans who served in the Israeli military during its ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has killed more than 58,000 people — nearly half of them children — according to Gaza’s health ministry. Other estimates put the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 679     death toll at 80,000 or higher. Nevut, which operates across 22 states, is one of at least 20 U.S.-based charities directly funding lone soldier programs. Since 2020, according to The Intercept’s analysis of their tax forms, these organizations have spent over $26 million to recruit and support lone soldiers from initial drafting to reintegration. The groups provide subsidized apartments, therapy, wellness retreats, and equipment to Israeli military units. MOST READ ICE Lawyers Are HidingTheir Names in ImmigrationCourt Debbie Nathan Four CUNY Professors SayThey Were Fired forSupporting Palestine Sanya Mansoor The Military Occupied LA for40 Days and All They DidWas Detain One Guy Nick Turse The Intercept reviewed five years of tax documents that show 2023 was the most lucrative year on record for lone soldier programs. After Israel began calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, U.S. donors poured funding into the organizations. Each year from 2002 to 2020, between 3,000 and 4,000 lone soldiers served in the Israeli military, about a third of them from North America. Since October 7, 2023, it is estimatedthat 7,000 lone soldiers from the U.S. alone have either {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 680     signed up or returned to Israel to serve. The programs have helped to prop up an Israeli military now facing its biggest recruitment crisis in decades. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drags the assault on Gaza through its second year, civilians have protested his government and soldiers have refused to show up for reserve duty. With an estimated 100,000 Israeli soldiers refusing service, volunteers from the U.S. and other countries provide reinforcements. Last year, the Israeli military estimated that at least 23,000 American citizens were currently serving, a combination of lone soldiers and Americans who immigrated to Israel with their families. On social media, Nevut and other organizations post pictures, videos, and testimonies from lone soldiers serving in Gaza.Earlier this month, Nevut promoted a videoadvertising a day at a shooting range as “a little dose of enjoyable fire.” A man wearing military tactical gear says: “All the guys here serve in the IDF; a majority serve in the war in Gaza.” Another Instagram video encourages lone soldier veterans to reach out if they’re thinking of going back into combat. One Nevut post advises viewers on “What not to ask a lone soldier,” including: “Did you kill anyone?” “How many people died over there?” and “Were you in Gaza or Lebanon?” “These can potentially feel like dismissive, political, or emotionally charged questions,” the post warns. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 681     A screenshot from Nevut's Instagram. Screenshot: Nevut / Instagram While the United States’ steady supply of weapons shipments to Israel has come under scrutiny from elected officials to the United Nations, thousands of U.S. civilians who travel to Israel to join the army have received markedly less attention. Back at home, American lone soldiers do speaking tours to cleanse the reputation of the Israeli military. “I almost died for Palestinian children,” said lone soldier Eli Wininger at an event in an Alabama church put on by the Massachusetts-based lone soldier organization Growing Wings. A Los Angeles native, Wininger has touched many sides of the lone soldier ecosystem: He was recruited after taking part in the youth scouts program Garin Tzabar, served with the Israeli military in Gaza,returned to the United States, and recently started a volunteer position as a youth leader with the U.S. nonprofit Friends of the IDF. Speaking at the Growing Wings event earlier this year, he said he was instructed “not to kill Palestinian children. There is not a single soldier in there that is doing that.” According to the U.N., over 50,000 childrenhave been killed or injured in Gaza since October 7, 2023 — though this is likely an undercount. Wininger did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. Related They Went to Get Flour With Their Mother in Gaza. “She CameBack in a White Shroud.” In response to questions on lone soldiers and the army’s affiliation with U.S. nonprofit groups, the IDF told The Intercept it had “no comment.” Neither Nevut nor Growing Wings responded to The Intercept’s requests for comment. Federal law prohibits recruiting for foreign armies within U.S. borders, but it allows donations and promotion of foreign volunteering. Where, if at all, efforts to help American teens join the Israeli military run afoul of U.S. policy on foreign fighting is hard to determine, experts say. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 682     “The State Department basically says on the website that we don’t want Americans serving abroad,” said David Malet, an associate professor of justice, law, and criminology at American University who researches foreign fighters. “But realistically, we know it’s kind of hard to enforce that.” A State Department spokesperson said U.S. citizens serving in the Israeli military are not required to register their service with the U.S. government. Dual citizens must comply with the laws of both countries of which they are a citizen, including any mandatory military service. The department said U.S. citizens are encouraged to consult current travel advisories for Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. (It recommends that people reconsider their travel to Israel and the West Bank, and not travel to Gaza.) “Our embassies overseas maintain rough estimates of U.S. citizens in their countries for contingency planning purposes, but these estimates are imperfect, can vary, and are constantly changing, which is why we do not generally disclose them publicly,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. “U.S. citizens are not required to register their travel to a foreign country with us, so we cannot track with certainty how many U.S. citizens are in any particular country.” The State Department referred questions about legal implications of serving in a foreign military to the Department of Justice. DOJ referred questions to the Department of Defense, which referred questions to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS referred questions back to the State Department. Across the Jewish diaspora and in Israel, lone soldiers are receiving more recognition than ever. “I’m definitely aware of increased numbers of volunteers which are welcomed in Israel right now,” Malet said. “You can see a lot more recognition and efforts to honor fallen lone soldiers than you would have seen before October 7.” WE’RE INDEPENDENT OF CORPORATE INTERESTS — AND POWERED BY MEMBERS. JOIN US. BECOME A MEMBER The Pipeline {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 683     Becca Strober was hailed as a hero when she returned to the U.S. while serving as a lone soldier in Israel. As she walked around her father’s synagogue in Philadelphia in 2009, the congregants stood up to shake her hand and thank her. “I had just finished guarding a West Bank settlement,” said Strober, now an anti-occupation activist. “Even then, I was like, this is such a weird experience.” Strober was first introduced to the possibility of joining the Israeli military when she was 17, during a high school semester she spent in Israel. She said alumni of the semester in Israel program wearing miliary uniforms spoke to her group. “There were a lot of informal ways of talking about enlisting in the army,” Strober told The Intercept. She later joined after participating in the Garin Tzabar program, which runs two majordrafting sessions each year. The program is funded by Tzofim, the biggest Zionist youth movement in Israel and the U.S. Also known as the Friends of Israel Scouts, the group has a U.S. nonprofit in New York. Tzofim “begins educating kids at five years old,” said one former Zionist youth leader in Australia, who requested anonymity for fear of professional retaliation. He took part in groups affiliated with Tzofim as a teen. “There is a direct funnel from educating toddlers to, as soon as they turn 18 — they’re of military age and they’re indoctrinated and groomed and brainwashed, and they’re ready to fight the battle.” Garin Tzabar continues to recruit lone soldiers from the U.S., who often end up serving in combat in Gaza and “protecting civilians” in the West Bank — where Israeli settlers and forces have killed 1,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 684     Israeli soldiers talking to settlers in the West Bank in April 2025.Photo: Georgia Gee The recruitment pipeline includes many U.S. day schools — from more conservative yeshivas to modern Jewish day schools — that advertise how many alumni go on to serve in the Israeli military. The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, had51 alumni serving in the Israeli military as of 2023. Another school in New Jersey, the Rae Kushner Yeshiva, has congratulated an alum who became a social media manager in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. “Her work was recognized as important for hasbara by the Israeli news,” the school boasted on Facebook, using a term for Israeli public diplomacy, including propagandatailored to international audiences. Another alum of the school served as a lone soldier in the army and was a friend of the son of Netanyahu, who commemorated him after he died while traveling in 2018. One charity reviewed by The Intercept, the Lone Soldier Foundation, specifically provides funds for the children of families that attend a synagogue in northern New Jersey who join the Israeli military. According to the group’s most recent tax filing, it also supports the units in which the children of members of its congregation serve. In 2023, the group spent over $80,000 on providing “non-combat and equipment to IDF units in which eligible American citizens served.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 685     Read Our Complete Coverage Israel’s War on Gaza North American lone soldiers are a “great example of the Zionist spirit or the Zionist dream,” Strober told The Intercept. “It keeps American Jewish communities very, very close to the Israel question. It doesn’t allow them to think critically because it’s so close, because you know people who have been killed, or people who have served.” The Charities Under heightened public scrutiny, U.S. nonprofits have distanced themselves from directly funding projects in the West Bank or other settlements, which are illegal under international law. But U.S.-based nonprofits granted $8.8 million to specific lone soldier programs in 2023 alone, The Intercept found. It’s possible the real number is higher, as nonprofits only have to report foreign grants above a certain threshold. “It doesn’t allow American Jewish communities to think critically, becauseyou know people who have been killed.” The biggest known funder is Friends of the IDF, which has spent nearly $20 million on its lone soldier program since 2020, supporting more than 6,500 lone soldiers each year, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. In a statement, Friends of the IDF, an official partner of the Israeli military, said it provides more than 7,000 lone soldiers “with practical, emotional and mental health support throughout their service to make sure they never feel alone.” The group said about half of the soldiers it backs are from {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 686     Israel but are considered lone soldiers because they don’t have family support. On its Instagram page, the group says it is the “only U.S. non-profit working directly with IDF leadership to provide critical support for Israel soldiers’ health, well-being & education.” Other organizations help offset the costs of living for lone soldiers. Bayit Brigade, which operates in both the U.S. and Israel, helps lone soldiers find affordable housing in Tel Aviv and raises emergency funds to help transport soldiers to their bases and provide supplies in the field. Bayit Brigade has posted videos of volunteers providing resources to the Israeli military’s Yahalom Unit, which conducts “tunnel warfare” and demolitions in Gaza, including destroying areas to allow the military to operate. The organization’s revenue jumped from approximately $160,000 in 2022 to $1.3 million in 2023, according to nonprofit documents. In a statement, the group told The Intercept that following October 7, it “temporarily expanded its community support efforts to address urgent needs on the ground,” but have “no formal relationship with any government entity or with the IDF.” The lines between support, education and recruitment of lone soldiers — including what a formal relationship entails — are often blurred, said Strober, the former lone soldier. Garin Tzabar, for example, is operated in partby Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration. Other efforts to finance lone soldiers, like Bayit Brigade, distance themselves from any sort of affiliation with the Israeli government. Other organizations also advertise their support for soldiers who fought in Gaza. Friends of Emek Lone Soldiers held concerts in the West Bank for women who served in Gaza. The website of the Michael Levin Lone Soldier Foundation includes testimonies of soldiers who received support while serving in Gaza. When she was part of the Israeli military, Strober still considered herself a believer in human rights, she told The Intercept. She was working for a human rights organization that supported Gazans’ freedom of movement when, in 2014, Israel launched a series of attacks on Gaza that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians in under two months. “I didn’t really know anything about Gaza,” Strober said. “It was kind of the first time that I had any concept of who Palestinians were on the other side and how much control Israel had.” Strober said she watched her friends get called up from the reserves and realized she didn’t {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 687     O want to go serve in Gaza. “I just remember thinking, I’m not going to go zero in guns to kill Gazans when I’m talking to Gazans on the phone every day,” she said. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 4:22 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel This article is more than 11 months oldIsraeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip in January. Photograph: IDF/GPO/Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history – and overlapped with mainstream Israeli views to a shocking degree By Omer Bartov Tue 13 Aug 2024 00.00 EDT Share n 19 June 2024, I was scheduled to give a lecture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Be’er Sheva, Israel. My lecture was part of an event about the worldwide campus protests against Israel, and I planned to address the war in Gaza and more broadly the question of whether the protests were sincere expressions of outrage or motivated by antisemitism, as some had claimed. But things did not work out as planned. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 688     When I arrived at the entrance to the lecture hall, I saw a group of students congregating. It soon transpired that they were not there to attend the event but to protest against it. The students had been summoned, it appeared, by a WhatsApp message that went out the day before, which flagged the lecture and called for action: “We will not allow it! How long will we commit treason against ourselves?!?!?!??!!” The message went on to allege that I had signed a petition that described Israel as a “regime of apartheid” (in fact, the petition referred to a regime of apartheid in the West Bank). I was also “accused” of having written an article for the New York Times, in November 2023, in which I stated that although the statements of Israeli leaders suggested genocidal intent, there was still time to stop Israel from perpetrating genocide. On this, I was guilty as charged. The organiser of the event, the distinguished geographer Oren Yiftachel, was similarly criticised. His offences included having served as the director of the “anti-Zionist” B’Tselem, a globally respected human rights NGO. As the panel participants and a handful of mostly elderly faculty members filed into the hall, security guards prevented the protesting students from entering. But they did not stop them from keeping the lecture hall door open, calling out slogans on a bullhorn and banging with all their might on the walls. After over an hour of disruption, we agreed that perhaps the best step forward would be to ask the student protesters to join us for a conversation, on the condition that they stop the disruption. A fair number of those activists eventually walked in and for the next two hours we sat down and talked. As it turned out, most of these {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 689     young men and women had recently returned from reserve service, during which they had been deployed in the Gaza Strip. This was not a friendly or “positive” exchange of views, but it was revealing. These students were not necessarily representative of the student body in Israel as a whole. They were activists in extreme rightwing organisations. But in many ways, what they were saying reflected a much more widespread sentiment in the country. I had not been to Israel since June 2023, and during this recent visit I found a different country from the one I had known. Although I have worked abroad for many years, Israel is where I was born and raised. It is the place where my parents lived and are buried; it is where my son has established his own family and most of my oldest and best friends live. Knowing the country from the inside and having followed events even more closely than usual since 7 October, I was not entirely surprised by what I {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 690     I encountered on my return, but it was still profoundly disturbing. n deliberating these issues, I cannot but draw on my personal and professional background. I served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for four years, a term that included the 1973 Yom Kippur War and postings in the West Bank, northern Sinai and Gaza, ending my service as an infantry company commander. During my time in Gaza, I saw first-hand the poverty and hopelessness of Palestinian refugees eking out a living in congested, decrepit neighbourhoods. Most vividly, I remember patrolling the shadeless, silent streets of the Egyptian town of ʿArīsh – which was then occupied by Israel – pierced by the gazes of the fearful, resentful population observing us from their shuttered windows. For the first time, I understood what it meant to occupy another people. Military service is mandatory for Jewish Israelis when they turn 18 – though there are a few exceptions – but afterwards, you can still be called upon to serve again in the IDF, for training or operational duties, or in case of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 691     emergencies such as a war. When I was called up in 1976, I was an undergraduate studying at Tel Aviv University. During that first deployment as a reserve officer, I was severely wounded in a training accident, along with a score of my soldiers. The IDF covered up the circumstances of this event, which was caused by the negligence of the training base commander. I spent most of that first semester in the hospital of Be’er Sheva, but returned to my studies, graduating in 1979 with a speciality in history. These personal experiences made me all the more interested in a question that had long preoccupied me: what motivates soldiers to fight? In the decades after the second world war, many American sociologists argued that soldiers fight first and foremost for each other, rather than for some bigger ideological goal. But that didn’t quite fit with what I’d experienced as a soldier: we believed that we were in it for a larger cause that surpassed our own group of buddies. By the time I had completed my undergraduate degree, I had also begun to ask whether, in the name of that cause, soldiers could be made to act in ways they would otherwise find reprehensible. Taking the extreme case, I wrote my Oxford PhD thesis, later published as a book, on the Nazi indoctrination of the German army and the crimes it perpetrated on the eastern front in the second world war. What I found ran counter to how Germans in the 1980s understood their past. They preferred to think that the army had fought a “decent” war, even as the Gestapo and the SS perpetrated genocide “behind its back”. It took Germans many more years to realise just how complicit their own fathers and grandfathers had been in the Holocaust and the mass murder of many other groups in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 692     When the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, broke out in late 1987 I was teaching at Tel Aviv University. I was appalled by the instruction of Yitzhak Rabin, then minister of defence, to the IDF to “break the arms and legs” of Palestinian youths who were throwing rocks at heavily armed troops. I wrote a letter to him warning that, based on my research into the indoctrination of the armed forces of Nazi Germany, I feared that under his leadership the IDF was heading down a similarly slippery path. View im ‘I was not entirely surprised by what I encountered, but it wasstill profoundly disturbing’ … Omer Bartov. Photograph:David Degner/The Guardian As my research had shown, even before their conscription, young German men had internalised core elements of Nazi ideology, especially the view that the subhuman Slav masses, led by insidious Bolshevik Jews, were threatening Germany and the rest of the civilised world with destruction, and that therefore Germany had the right and duty to create for itself a “living space” in the east and to decimate or enslave that region’s {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 693     population. This worldview was then further inculcated into the troops, so that by the time they marched into the Soviet Union they perceived their enemies through that prism. The fierce resistance put up by the Red Army only confirmed the need to utterly destroy Soviet soldiers and civilians alike, and most especially the Jews, who were seen as the main instigators of Bolshevism. The more destruction they wrought, the more fearful German troops became of the revenge they could expect if their enemies prevailed. The result was the killing of up to 30 million Soviet soldiers and citizens. To my astonishment, a few days after writing to him, I received a one-line response from Rabin, chiding me for daring to compare the IDF to the German military. This gave me the opportunity to write him a more detailed letter, explaining my research and my anxiety about using the IDF as a tool of oppression against unarmed occupied civilians. Rabin responded again, with the same statement: “How dare you compare the IDF to the Wehrmacht.” But in retrospect, I believe this exchange revealed something about his subsequent intellectual journey. For as we know from his later engagement in the Oslo peace process, however flawed, he did eventually recognise that in the long run Israel could not sustain the military, political and moral price of the occupation. Since 1989, I have been teaching in the United States. I have written profusely on war, genocide, nazism, antisemitism and the Holocaust, seeking to understand the links between the industrial killing of soldiers in the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 694     T first world war and the extermination of civilian populations by Hitler’s regime. Among other projects, I spent many years researching the transformation of my mother’s home town – Buchach in Poland (now Ukraine) – from a community of inter-ethnic coexistence into one in which, under the Nazi occupation, the gentile population turned against their Jewish neighbours. While the Germans came to the town with the express goal of murdering its Jews, the speed and efficiency of the killing was greatly facilitated by local collaboration. These locals were motivated by pre-existing resentments and hatreds that can be traced back to the rise of ethnonationalism in the preceding decades, and the prevalent view that the Jews did not belong to the new nation states created after the first world war. In the months since 7 October, what I have learned over the course of my life and my career has become more painfully relevant than ever before. Like many others, I have found these last months emotionally and intellectually challenging. Like many others, members of my own and of my friends’ families have also been directly affected by the violence. There is no dearth of grief wherever you turn. he Hamas attack on 7 October came as a tremendous shock to Israeli society, one from which it has not begun to recover. It was the first time Israel has lost control of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 695     part of its territory for an extended period of time, with the IDF unable to prevent the massacre of more than 1,200 people – many killed in the cruellest ways imaginable – and the taking of well over 200 hostages, including scores of children. The sense of abandonment by the state and of ongoing insecurity – with tens of thousands of Israeli citizens still displaced from their homes along the Gaza Strip and by the Lebanese border – is profound. Today, across vast swaths of the Israeli public, including those who oppose the government, two sentiments reign supreme. The first is a combination of rage and fear, a desire to re- establish security at any cost and a complete distrust of political solutions, negotiations and reconciliation. The military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that war was the extension of politics by other means, and warned that without a defined political objective it would lead to limitless destruction. The sentiment that now prevails in Israel similarly threatens to make war into its own end. In this view, politics is an obstacle to achieving goals rather than a means to limit destruction. This is a view that can only ultimately lead to self-annihilation. The second reigning sentiment – or rather lack of sentiment – is the flipside of the first. It is the utter inability of Israeli society today to feel any empathy for the population of Gaza. The majority, it seems, do not even want to know what is happening in Gaza, and this desire is reflected in TV coverage. Israeli television news {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 696     these days usually begins with reports on the funerals of soldiers, invariably described as heroes, fallen in the fighting in Gaza, followed by estimates of how many Hamas fighters were “liquidated”. References to Palestinian civilian deaths are rare and normally presented as part of enemy propaganda or as a cause for unwelcome international pressure. In the face of so much death, this deafening silence now seems like its own form of vengefulness. Of course, the Israeli public long ago became inured to the brutal occupation that has characterised the country for 57 out of the 76 years of its existence. But the scale of what is being perpetrated in Gaza right now by the IDF is as unprecedented as the complete indifference of most Israelis to what is being done in their name. In 1982, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested against the massacre of the Palestinian population in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatilain western Beirut by Maronite Christian militias, facilitated by the IDF. Today, this kind of response is inconceivable. The way people’s eyes glaze over whenever one mentions the suffering of Palestinian civilians, and the deaths of thousands of children and women and elderly people, is deeply unsettling. Meeting my friends in Israel this time, I frequently felt that they were afraid that I might disrupt their grief, and that living out of the country I could not grasp their pain, anxiety, bewilderment and helplessness. Any suggestion that living in the country had numbed them to the pain of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 697     others – the pain that, after all, was being inflicted in their name – only produced a wall of silence, a retreat into themselves, or a quick change of subject. The impression that I got was consistent: we have no room in our hearts, we have no room in our thoughts, we do not want to speak about or to be shown what our own soldiers, our children or grandchildren, our brothers and sisters, are doing right now in Gaza. We must focus on ourselves, on our trauma, fear and anger. In an interview conducted on 7 March 2024, the writer, farmer and scientist Zeev Smilansky expressed this very sentiment in a manner that I found shocking, precisely because it came from him. I have known Smilansky for more than half a century, and he is the son of the celebrated Israeli author S Yizhar, whose 1949 novella Khirbet Khizeh was the very first text in Israeli literature to confront the injustice of the Nakba, the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from what became the state of Israel in 1948. Speaking about his own son, Offer, who lives in Brussels, Smilansky commented: Offer says that for him every child is a child, no matter whether he is in Gaza or here. I don’t feel like him. Our children here are more important to me. There is a shocking humanitarian disaster there, I understand that, but my heart is blocked and filled with our children and our hostages … There is no room in my heart for the children in Gaza, however shocking and terrifying it is and even though I know that war is not the solution. I listen to Maoz Inon, who lost both his parents [murdered by Hamas on 7 October] … and who speaks so beautifully and persuasively about the need to look forward, that we need to bring hope and to want peace, because wars won’t accomplish anything, and I agree with him. I agree with him, but I cannot find the strength in my heart, with all my leftist inclinations and love for humanity, I cannot … It is not just {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 698     From:Aram James To:Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Veenker, Vicki Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; sharon jackson; Marty Wasserman Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 4:53:15 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Toddlers Trained to Die For Israel as young as five years old!!!!! Toddlers Trained to die for Israel “ There is a direct funnel from educating toddlers to, as soon as they turn 18 — they’re of military age and they’re indoctrinated and groomed and brainwashed, and they’re ready to fight the battle.” Tzofim “begins educating kids at five years old,” said one former Zionist youth leader in Australia, who requested anonymity for fear of professional retaliation. He took part in groups affiliated with Tzofim as a teen. “There is a direct funnel from educating toddlers to, as soon as they turn 18 — they’re of military age and they’re indoctrinated and groomed and brainwashed, and they’re ready to fight the battle.” Tzofim “begins educating kids at five years old,” said one former Zionist youth leader in Australia, who requested anonymity for fear of professional retaliation. He took part in groups affiliated with Tzofim as a teen. “There is a direct funnel from educating toddlers to, as soon as they turn 18 — they’re of military age and they’re indoctrinated and groomed and brainwashed, and they’re ready to fight the battle.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 699     RESERVEDAMERICAN VOLUNTEERS FOR the Israeli army have partied with Ben Shapiro in Boca Raton, met with House Republicans Brian Mastand Mike Lawler in Washington, and joinedNew York City Mayor Eric Adams at Gracie Mansion. On a Manhattan rooftop late last year, they sipped cocktails and reconnected with people they’d met before — supporting Israel in its campaign of bombing, displacement, and starvation in Gaza. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 700     These efforts were organized by Nevut, a New York-based charity supporting American “lone soldiers” who sign up for the Israeli military. Among its upcoming events is a wellness retreat to Panama for lone soldier veterans who served in the Israeli military during its ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has killed more than 58,000 people — nearly half of them children — according to Gaza’s health ministry. Other estimates put the death toll at 80,000 or higher. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 701     Nevut, which operates across 22 states, is one of at least 20 U.S.-based charities directly funding lone soldier programs. Since 2020, according to The Intercept’s analysis of their tax forms, these organizations have spent over $26 million to recruit and support lone soldiers from initial drafting to reintegration. The groups provide subsidized apartments, therapy, wellness retreats, and equipment to Israeli military units. MOST READ ICE Lawyers Are HidingTheir Names in ImmigrationCourt Debbie Nathan Four CUNY Professors SayThey Were Fired forSupporting Palestine Sanya Mansoor The Military Occupied LA for40 Days and All They DidWas Detain One Guy Nick Turse The Intercept reviewed five years of tax documents that show 2023 was the most lucrative year on record for lone soldier programs. After Israel began calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, U.S. donors poured funding into the organizations. Each year from 2002 to 2020, between 3,000 and 4,000 lone soldiers served in the Israeli military, about a third of them from North America. Since October 7, 2023, it is estimatedthat 7,000 lone soldiers from the U.S. alone have either signed up or returned to Israel to serve. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 702     The programs have helped to prop up an Israeli military now facing its biggest recruitment crisis in decades. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drags the assault on Gaza through its second year, civilians have protested his government and soldiers have refused to show up for reserve duty. With an estimated 100,000 Israeli soldiers refusing service, volunteers from the U.S. and other countries provide reinforcements. Last year, the Israeli military estimated that at least 23,000 American citizens were currently serving, a combination of lone soldiers and Americans who immigrated to Israel with their families. On social media, Nevut and other organizations post pictures, videos, and testimonies from lone soldiers serving in Gaza.Earlier this month, Nevut promoted a videoadvertising a day at a shooting range as “a little dose of enjoyable fire.” A man wearing military tactical gear says: “All the guys here serve in the IDF; a majority serve in the war in Gaza.” Another Instagram video encourages lone soldier veterans to reach out if they’re thinking of going back into combat. One Nevut post advises viewers on “What not to ask a lone soldier,” including: “Did you kill anyone?” “How many people died over there?” and “Were you in Gaza or Lebanon?” “These can potentially feel like dismissive, political, or emotionally charged questions,” the post warns. A screenshot from Nevut's Instagram. Screenshot: Nevut / Instagram While the United States’ steady supply of weapons shipments to Israel has come under {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 703     scrutiny from elected officials to the United Nations, thousands of U.S. civilians who travel to Israel to join the army have received markedly less attention. Back at home, American lone soldiers do speaking tours to cleanse the reputation of the Israeli military. “I almost died for Palestinian children,” said lone soldier Eli Wininger at an event in an Alabama church put on by the Massachusetts-based lone soldier organization Growing Wings. A Los Angeles native, Wininger has touched many sides of the lone soldier ecosystem: He was recruited after taking part in the youth scouts program Garin Tzabar, served with the Israeli military in Gaza,returned to the United States, and recently started a volunteer position as a youth leader with the U.S. nonprofit Friends of the IDF. Speaking at the Growing Wings event earlier this year, he said he was instructed “not to kill Palestinian children. There is not a single soldier in there that is doing that.” According to the U.N., over 50,000 childrenhave been killed or injured in Gaza since October 7, 2023 — though this is likely an undercount. Wininger did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. Related They Went to Get Flour With Their Mother in Gaza. “She CameBack in a White Shroud.” In response to questions on lone soldiers and the army’s affiliation with U.S. nonprofit groups, the IDF told The Intercept it had “no comment.” Neither Nevut nor Growing Wings responded to The Intercept’s requests for comment. Federal law prohibits recruiting for foreign armies within U.S. borders, but it allows donations and promotion of foreign volunteering. Where, if at all, efforts to help American teens join the Israeli military run afoul of U.S. policy on foreign fighting is hard to determine, experts say. “The State Department basically says on the website that we don’t want Americans serving abroad,” said David Malet, an associate professor of justice, law, and criminology at American University who researches foreign fighters. “But realistically, we know it’s kind of hard to {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 704     enforce that.” A State Department spokesperson said U.S. citizens serving in the Israeli military are not required to register their service with the U.S. government. Dual citizens must comply with the laws of both countries of which they are a citizen, including any mandatory military service. The department said U.S. citizens are encouraged to consult current travel advisories for Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. (It recommends that people reconsider their travel to Israel and the West Bank, and not travel to Gaza.) “Our embassies overseas maintain rough estimates of U.S. citizens in their countries for contingency planning purposes, but these estimates are imperfect, can vary, and are constantly changing, which is why we do not generally disclose them publicly,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. “U.S. citizens are not required to register their travel to a foreign country with us, so we cannot track with certainty how many U.S. citizens are in any particular country.” The State Department referred questions about legal implications of serving in a foreign military to the Department of Justice. DOJ referred questions to the Department of Defense, which referred questions to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS referred questions back to the State Department. Across the Jewish diaspora and in Israel, lone soldiers are receiving more recognition than ever. “I’m definitely aware of increased numbers of volunteers which are welcomed in Israel right now,” Malet said. “You can see a lot more recognition and efforts to honor fallen lone soldiers than you would have seen before October 7.” WE’RE INDEPENDENT OF CORPORATE INTERESTS — AND POWERED BY MEMBERS. JOIN US. BECOME A MEMBER The Pipeline Becca Strober was hailed as a hero when she returned to the U.S. while serving as a lone soldier in Israel. As she walked around her father’s synagogue in Philadelphia in 2009, the congregants stood up to shake her hand and thank her. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 705     “I had just finished guarding a West Bank settlement,” said Strober, now an anti-occupation activist. “Even then, I was like, this is such a weird experience.” Strober was first introduced to the possibility of joining the Israeli military when she was 17, during a high school semester she spent in Israel. She said alumni of the semester in Israel program wearing miliary uniforms spoke to her group. “There were a lot of informal ways of talking about enlisting in the army,” Strober told The Intercept. She later joined after participating in the Garin Tzabar program, which runs two majordrafting sessions each year. The program is funded by Tzofim, the biggest Zionist youth movement in Israel and the U.S. Also known as the Friends of Israel Scouts, the group has a U.S. nonprofit in New York. Tzofim “begins educating kids at five years old,” said one former Zionist youth leader in Australia, who requested anonymity for fear of professional retaliation. He took part in groups affiliated with Tzofim as a teen. “There is a direct funnel from educating toddlers to, as soon as they turn 18 — they’re of military age and they’re indoctrinated and groomed and brainwashed, and they’re ready to fight the battle.” Garin Tzabar continues to recruit lone soldiers from the U.S., who often end up serving in combat in Gaza and “protecting civilians” in the West Bank — where Israeli settlers and forces have killed 1,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 706     Israeli soldiers talking to settlers in the West Bank in April 2025.Photo: Georgia Gee The recruitment pipeline includes many U.S. day schools — from more conservative yeshivas to modern Jewish day schools — that advertise how many alumni go on to serve in the Israeli military. The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, had51 alumni serving in the Israeli military as of 2023. Another school in New Jersey, the Rae Kushner Yeshiva, has congratulated an alum who became a social media manager in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. “Her work was recognized as important for hasbara by the Israeli news,” the school boasted on Facebook, using a term for Israeli public diplomacy, including propagandatailored to international audiences. Another alum of the school served as a lone soldier in the army and was a friend of the son of Netanyahu, who commemorated him after he died while traveling in 2018. One charity reviewed by The Intercept, the Lone Soldier Foundation, specifically provides funds for the children of families that attend a synagogue in northern New Jersey who join the Israeli military. According to the group’s most recent tax filing, it also supports the units in which the children of members of its congregation serve. In 2023, the group spent over $80,000 on providing “non-combat and equipment to IDF units in which eligible American citizens served.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 707     Read Our Complete Coverage Israel’s War on Gaza North American lone soldiers are a “great example of the Zionist spirit or the Zionist dream,” Strober told The Intercept. “It keeps American Jewish communities very, very close to the Israel question. It doesn’t allow them to think critically because it’s so close, because you know people who have been killed, or people who have served.” The Charities Under heightened public scrutiny, U.S. nonprofits have distanced themselves from directly funding projects in the West Bank or other settlements, which are illegal under international law. But U.S.-based nonprofits granted $8.8 million to specific lone soldier programs in 2023 alone, The Intercept found. It’s possible the real number is higher, as nonprofits only have to report foreign grants above a certain threshold. “It doesn’t allow American Jewish communities to think critically, becauseyou know people who have been killed.” The biggest known funder is Friends of the IDF, which has spent nearly $20 million on its lone soldier program since 2020, supporting more than 6,500 lone soldiers each year, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. In a statement, Friends of the IDF, an official partner of the Israeli military, said it provides more than 7,000 lone soldiers “with practical, emotional and mental health support throughout their service to make sure they never feel alone.” The group said about half of the soldiers it backs are from Israel but are {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 708     considered lone soldiers because they don’t have family support. On its Instagram page, the group says it is the “only U.S. non-profit working directly with IDF leadership to provide critical support for Israel soldiers’ health, well-being & education.” Other organizations help offset the costs of living for lone soldiers. Bayit Brigade, which operates in both the U.S. and Israel, helps lone soldiers find affordable housing in Tel Aviv and raises emergency funds to help transport soldiers to their bases and provide supplies in the field. Bayit Brigade has posted videos of volunteers providing resources to the Israeli military’s Yahalom Unit, which conducts “tunnel warfare” and demolitions in Gaza, including destroying areas to allow the military to operate. The organization’s revenue jumped from approximately $160,000 in 2022 to $1.3 million in 2023, according to nonprofit documents. In a statement, the group told The Intercept that following October 7, it “temporarily expanded its community support efforts to address urgent needs on the ground,” but have “no formal relationship with any government entity or with the IDF.” The lines between support, education and recruitment of lone soldiers — including what a formal relationship entails — are often blurred, said Strober, the former lone soldier. Garin Tzabar, for example, is operated in partby Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration. Other efforts to finance lone soldiers, like Bayit Brigade, distance themselves from any sort of affiliation with the Israeli government. Other organizations also advertise their support for soldiers who fought in Gaza. Friends of Emek Lone Soldiers held concerts in the West Bank for women who served in Gaza. The website of the Michael Levin Lone Soldier Foundation includes testimonies of soldiers who received support while serving in Gaza. When she was part of the Israeli military, Strober still considered herself a believer in human rights, she told The Intercept. She was working for a human rights organization that supported Gazans’ freedom of movement when, in 2014, Israel launched a series of attacks on Gaza that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians in under two months. “I didn’t really know anything about Gaza,” Strober said. “It was kind of the first time that I had any concept of who Palestinians were on the other side and how much control Israel had.” Strober said she watched her friends get called up from the reserves and realized she didn’t want to go serve in Gaza. “I just remember thinking, I’m not going to go zero in guns to kill Gazans when I’m talking to Gazans on the phone every day,” she said. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 709     O On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 4:22 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel This article is more than 11 months oldIsraeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip in January. Photograph: IDF/GPO/Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history – and overlapped with mainstream Israeli views to a shocking degree By Omer Bartov Tue 13 Aug 2024 00.00 EDT Share n 19 June 2024, I was scheduled to give a lecture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Be’er Sheva, Israel. My lecture was part of an event about the worldwide campus protests against Israel, and I planned to address the war in Gaza and more broadly the question of whether the protests were sincere expressions of outrage or motivated by antisemitism, as some had claimed. But things did not work out as planned. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 710     When I arrived at the entrance to the lecture hall, I saw a group of students congregating. It soon transpired that they were not there to attend the event but to protest against it. The students had been summoned, it appeared, by a WhatsApp message that went out the day before, which flagged the lecture and called for action: “We will not allow it! How long will we commit treason against ourselves?!?!?!??!!” The message went on to allege that I had signed a petition that described Israel as a “regime of apartheid” (in fact, the petition referred to a regime of apartheid in the West Bank). I was also “accused” of having written an article for the New York Times, in November 2023, in which I stated that although the statements of Israeli leaders suggested genocidal intent, there was still time to stop Israel from perpetrating genocide. On this, I was guilty as charged. The organiser of the event, the distinguished geographer Oren Yiftachel, was similarly criticised. His offences included having served as the director of the “anti-Zionist” B’Tselem, a globally respected human rights NGO. As the panel participants and a handful of mostly elderly faculty members filed into the hall, security guards prevented the protesting students from entering. But they did not stop them from keeping the lecture hall door open, calling out slogans on a bullhorn and banging with all their might on the walls. After over an hour of disruption, we agreed that perhaps the best step forward would be to ask the student protesters to join us for a conversation, on the condition that they stop the disruption. A fair number of those activists eventually walked in and for the next two hours we sat down and talked. As it turned out, most of these young men and women had recently returned from reserve service, during which they had been deployed in the Gaza Strip. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 711     This was not a friendly or “positive” exchange of views, but it was revealing. These students were not necessarily representative of the student body in Israel as a whole. They were activists in extreme rightwing organisations. But in many ways, what they were saying reflected a much more widespread sentiment in the country. I had not been to Israel since June 2023, and during this recent visit I found a different country from the one I had known. Although I have worked abroad for many years, Israel is where I was born and raised. It is the place where my parents lived and are buried; it is where my son has established his own family and most of my oldest and best friends live. Knowing the country from the inside and having followed events even more closely than usual since 7 October, I was not entirely surprised by what I encountered on my return, but it was still profoundly disturbing. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 712     I n deliberating these issues, I cannot but draw on my personal and professional background. I served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for four years, a term that included the 1973 Yom Kippur War and postings in the West Bank, northern Sinai and Gaza, ending my service as an infantry company commander. During my time in Gaza, I saw first-hand the poverty and hopelessness of Palestinian refugees eking out a living in congested, decrepit neighbourhoods. Most vividly, I remember patrolling the shadeless, silent streets of the Egyptian town of ʿArīsh – which was then occupied by Israel – pierced by the gazes of the fearful, resentful population observing us from their shuttered windows. For the first time, I understood what it meant to occupy another people. Military service is mandatory for Jewish Israelis when they turn 18 – though there are a few exceptions – but afterwards, you can still be called upon to serve again in the IDF, for training or operational duties, or in case of emergencies such as a war. When I was called up in 1976, I was an undergraduate studying at Tel Aviv University. During that first deployment as a reserve officer, I was severely wounded in a training accident, along with a {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 713     score of my soldiers. The IDF covered up the circumstances of this event, which was caused by the negligence of the training base commander. I spent most of that first semester in the hospital of Be’er Sheva, but returned to my studies, graduating in 1979 with a speciality in history. These personal experiences made me all the more interested in a question that had long preoccupied me: what motivates soldiers to fight? In the decades after the second world war, many American sociologists argued that soldiers fight first and foremost for each other, rather than for some bigger ideological goal. But that didn’t quite fit with what I’d experienced as a soldier: we believed that we were in it for a larger cause that surpassed our own group of buddies. By the time I had completed my undergraduate degree, I had also begun to ask whether, in the name of that cause, soldiers could be made to act in ways they would otherwise find reprehensible. Taking the extreme case, I wrote my Oxford PhD thesis, later published as a book, on the Nazi indoctrination of the German army and the crimes it perpetrated on the eastern front in the second world war. What I found ran counter to how Germans in the 1980s understood their past. They preferred to think that the army had fought a “decent” war, even as the Gestapo and the SS perpetrated genocide “behind its back”. It took Germans many more years to realise just how complicit their own fathers and grandfathers had been in the Holocaust and the mass murder of many other groups in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 714     When the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, broke out in late 1987 I was teaching at Tel Aviv University. I was appalled by the instruction of Yitzhak Rabin, then minister of defence, to the IDF to “break the arms and legs” of Palestinian youths who were throwing rocks at heavily armed troops. I wrote a letter to him warning that, based on my research into the indoctrination of the armed forces of Nazi Germany, I feared that under his leadership the IDF was heading down a similarly slippery path. View im ‘I was not entirely surprised by what I encountered, but it wasstill profoundly disturbing’ … Omer Bartov. Photograph:David Degner/The Guardian As my research had shown, even before their conscription, young German men had internalised core elements of Nazi ideology, especially the view that the subhuman Slav masses, led by insidious Bolshevik Jews, were threatening Germany and the rest of the civilised world with destruction, and that therefore Germany had the right and duty to create for itself a “living space” in the east and to decimate or enslave that region’s population. This worldview was then further inculcated into the troops, so that by the time they marched into the Soviet Union they perceived their enemies through that prism. The fierce resistance put up by the Red Army only {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 715     confirmed the need to utterly destroy Soviet soldiers and civilians alike, and most especially the Jews, who were seen as the main instigators of Bolshevism. The more destruction they wrought, the more fearful German troops became of the revenge they could expect if their enemies prevailed. The result was the killing of up to 30 million Soviet soldiers and citizens. To my astonishment, a few days after writing to him, I received a one-line response from Rabin, chiding me for daring to compare the IDF to the German military. This gave me the opportunity to write him a more detailed letter, explaining my research and my anxiety about using the IDF as a tool of oppression against unarmed occupied civilians. Rabin responded again, with the same statement: “How dare you compare the IDF to the Wehrmacht.” But in retrospect, I believe this exchange revealed something about his subsequent intellectual journey. For as we know from his later engagement in the Oslo peace process, however flawed, he did eventually recognise that in the long run Israel could not sustain the military, political and moral price of the occupation. Since 1989, I have been teaching in the United States. I have written profusely on war, genocide, nazism, antisemitism and the Holocaust, seeking to understand the links between the industrial killing of soldiers in the first world war and the extermination of civilian populations by Hitler’s regime. Among other projects, I spent many years researching the transformation of my mother’s home town – Buchach in Poland (now Ukraine) {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 716     T – from a community of inter-ethnic coexistence into one in which, under the Nazi occupation, the gentile population turned against their Jewish neighbours. While the Germans came to the town with the express goal of murdering its Jews, the speed and efficiency of the killing was greatly facilitated by local collaboration. These locals were motivated by pre-existing resentments and hatreds that can be traced back to the rise of ethnonationalism in the preceding decades, and the prevalent view that the Jews did not belong to the new nation states created after the first world war. In the months since 7 October, what I have learned over the course of my life and my career has become more painfully relevant than ever before. Like many others, I have found these last months emotionally and intellectually challenging. Like many others, members of my own and of my friends’ families have also been directly affected by the violence. There is no dearth of grief wherever you turn. he Hamas attack on 7 October came as a tremendous shock to Israeli society, one from which it has not begun to recover. It was the first time Israel has lost control of part of its territory for an extended period of time, with the IDF unable to prevent the massacre of more than 1,200 people – many killed in the cruellest ways imaginable – and the taking of well over 200 hostages, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 717     including scores of children. The sense of abandonment by the state and of ongoing insecurity – with tens of thousands of Israeli citizens still displaced from their homes along the Gaza Strip and by the Lebanese border – is profound. Today, across vast swaths of the Israeli public, including those who oppose the government, two sentiments reign supreme. The first is a combination of rage and fear, a desire to re- establish security at any cost and a complete distrust of political solutions, negotiations and reconciliation. The military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that war was the extension of politics by other means, and warned that without a defined political objective it would lead to limitless destruction. The sentiment that now prevails in Israel similarly threatens to make war into its own end. In this view, politics is an obstacle to achieving goals rather than a means to limit destruction. This is a view that can only ultimately lead to self-annihilation. The second reigning sentiment – or rather lack of sentiment – is the flipside of the first. It is the utter inability of Israeli society today to feel any empathy for the population of Gaza. The majority, it seems, do not even want to know what is happening in Gaza, and this desire is reflected in TV coverage. Israeli television news these days usually begins with reports on the funerals of soldiers, invariably described as heroes, fallen in the fighting in Gaza, followed by estimates of how many Hamas fighters were “liquidated”. References to {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 718     Palestinian civilian deaths are rare and normally presented as part of enemy propaganda or as a cause for unwelcome international pressure. In the face of so much death, this deafening silence now seems like its own form of vengefulness. Of course, the Israeli public long ago became inured to the brutal occupation that has characterised the country for 57 out of the 76 years of its existence. But the scale of what is being perpetrated in Gaza right now by the IDF is as unprecedented as the complete indifference of most Israelis to what is being done in their name. In 1982, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested against the massacre of the Palestinian population in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatilain western Beirut by Maronite Christian militias, facilitated by the IDF. Today, this kind of response is inconceivable. The way people’s eyes glaze over whenever one mentions the suffering of Palestinian civilians, and the deaths of thousands of children and women and elderly people, is deeply unsettling. Meeting my friends in Israel this time, I frequently felt that they were afraid that I might disrupt their grief, and that living out of the country I could not grasp their pain, anxiety, bewilderment and helplessness. Any suggestion that living in the country had numbed them to the pain of others – the pain that, after all, was being inflicted in their name – only produced a wall of silence, a retreat into themselves, or a quick change of subject. The impression that I got was consistent: we have no room in {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 719     our hearts, we have no room in our thoughts, we do not want to speak about or to be shown what our own soldiers, our children or grandchildren, our brothers and sisters, are doing right now in Gaza. We must focus on ourselves, on our trauma, fear and anger. In an interview conducted on 7 March 2024, the writer, farmer and scientist Zeev Smilansky expressed this very sentiment in a manner that I found shocking, precisely because it came from him. I have known Smilansky for more than half a century, and he is the son of the celebrated Israeli author S Yizhar, whose 1949 novella Khirbet Khizeh was the very first text in Israeli literature to confront the injustice of the Nakba, the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from what became the state of Israel in 1948. Speaking about his own son, Offer, who lives in Brussels, Smilansky commented: Offer says that for him every child is a child, no matter whether he is in Gaza or here. I don’t feel like him. Our children here are more important to me. There is a shocking humanitarian disaster there, I understand that, but my heart is blocked and filled with our children and our hostages … There is no room in my heart for the children in Gaza, however shocking and terrifying it is and even though I know that war is not the solution. I listen to Maoz Inon, who lost both his parents [murdered by Hamas on 7 October] … and who speaks so beautifully and persuasively about the need to look forward, that we need to bring hope and to want peace, because wars won’t accomplish anything, and I agree with him. I agree with him, but I cannot find the strength in my heart, with all my leftist inclinations and love for humanity, I cannot … It is not just Hamas, it’s all Gazans who agree that it’s OK to kill Jewish children, that this is a worthy cause … With Germany there was reconciliation, but they apologised and paid reparations, and what [will happen] here? We too did terrible things, but nothing that comes close to what happened here on 7 October. It will be necessary to reconcile but we need some distance. This was a pervasive sentiment among many left-leaning, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 720     O liberal friends and acquaintances I spoke with in Israel. It was, of course, quite different from what rightwing politicians and media figures have been saying since 7 October. Many of my friends recognise the injustice of the occupation, and, as Smilansky said, profess a “love for humanity”. But at this moment, under these circumstances, this is not what they are focused on. Instead, they feel that in the struggle between justice and existence, existence must win out, and in the struggle between one just cause and another – that of the Israelis and that of the Palestinians – it is our own cause that must be triumphant, no matter the price. To those who doubt this stark choice, the Holocaust is presented as the alternative, however irrelevant it is to the current moment. This feeling did not appear suddenly on 7 October. Its roots are much deeper. n 30 April 1956, Moshe Dayan, then IDF chief of staff, gave a short speech that would become one of the most famous in Israel’s history. He was addressing mourners at the funeral of Ro’i Rothberg, a young security officer of the newly founded Nahal Oz kibbutz, which was established by the IDF in 1951 and became a civilian community two years later. The kibbutz was located just a few hundred metres from the border with the Gaza Strip, facing the Palestinian neighbourhood of Shuja’iyya. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 721     Rothberg had been killed the day before, and his body was dragged across the border and mutilated, before being returned to Israeli hands with the help of the United Nations. Dayan’s speech has become an iconic statement, used both by the political right and left to this day: Yesterday morning Ro’i was murdered. Dazzled by the calm of the morning, he did not see those waiting in ambush for him at the edge of the furrow. Let us not cast accusations at the murderers today. Why should we blame them for their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been dwelling in Gaza’s refugee camps, as before their eyes we have transformed the land and the villages in which they and their forefathers had dwelled into our own property. We should not seek Roi’s blood from the Arabs in Gaza but from ourselves. How have we shut our eyes and not faced up forthrightly to our fate, not faced up to our generation’s mission in all its cruelty? Have we forgotten that this group of lads, who dwell in Nahal Oz, is carrying on its shoulders the heavy gates of Gaza, on whose other side crowd hundreds of thousands of eyes and hands praying for our moment of weakness, so that they can tear us apart – have we forgotten that?… We are the generation of settlement; without a steel helmet and the muzzle of the cannon we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home. Our children will not have a life if we do not dig shelters, and without barbed wire and machine guns we will not be able to pave roads and dig water wells. Millions of Jews who were exterminated because they had no land are looking at us from the ashes of Israeli history and ordering us to settle and resurrect a land for our people. But beyond the border’s furrow an ocean of hatred and an urge for vengeance rises, waiting for the moment that calm will blunt our readiness, for the day that we heed the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, who call upon us to put down our arms … Let us not flinch from seeing the loathing that accompanies and fills the lives of hundreds of thousands {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 722     of Arabs who dwell around us and await the moment they can reach for our blood. Let us not avert our eyes lest our hands grow weak. This is the destiny of our generation. This is the choice of our lives – to be ready and armed and strong and tough. For if the sword falls from our fist, our lives will be cut down. The following day, Dayan recorded his speech for Israeli radio. But something was missing. Gone was the reference to the refugees watching the Jews cultivate the lands from which they had been evicted, who should not be blamed for hating their dispossessors. Although he had uttered these lines at the funeral and written them subsequently, Dayan chose to omit them from the recorded version. He, too, had known this land before 1948. He recalled the Palestinian villages and towns that were destroyed to make room for Jewish settlers. He clearly understood the rage of the refugees across the fence. But he also firmly believed in both the right and the urgent need for Jewish settlement and statehood. In the struggle between addressing injustice and taking over the land, he chose his side, knowing that it doomed his people to forever rely on the gun. Dayan also knew well what the Israeli public could accept. It was because of his ambivalence about where guilt and responsibility for injustice and violence lay, and his deterministic, tragic view of history, that the two versions of his speech ended up appealing to vastly different political orientations. View im {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 723     Moshe Dayan, then Israel’s minister of defence, with HenryKissinger, US national security advisor, in 1974. Photograph: PhotoQuest/Getty Images Decades later, after many more wars and rivers of blood, Dayan titled his last book Shall the Sword Devour Forever? Published in 1981, the book detailed his role in reaching a peace agreement with Egypt two years earlier. He had finally learned the truth of the second part of the biblical verse from which he took the book’s title: “Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?” But in his 1956 speech, with his references to carrying the heavy gates of Gaza and the Palestinians waiting for a moment of weakness, Dayan was alluding to the biblical story of Samson. As his listeners would have recalled, Samson the Israelite, whose superhuman strength derived from his long hair, was in the habit of visiting prostitutes in Gaza. The Philistines, who viewed him as their mortal enemy, hoped to ambush him against the locked gates of the city. But Samson simply lifted the gates on his shoulders and walked free. It was only when his mistress Delilah tricked him and cut off his hair that the Philistines could capture and imprison him, rendering him all the more powerless by poking out his eyes (as the Gazans who mutilated Ro’i are alleged to have also done). But in a last feat of bravery, as he is mocked by his captors, Samson calls for God’s help, seizes the pillars of the temple to which he had been led, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 724     O and collapses it on the merry crowd surrounding him, calling out: “Let me die with the Philistines!” Those gates of Gaza are lodged deeply in the Zionist Israeli imagination, a symbol of the divide between us and the “barbarians”. In the case of Ro’i, Dayan asserted, “the longing for peace blocked his ears, and he did not hear the voice of murder waiting in ambush. The gates of Gaza weighed too heavily on his shoulders and brought him down.” On 8 October 2023, President Isaac Herzog addressed the Israeli public, citing the last line of Dayan’s speech: “This is the destiny of our generation. This is the choice of our lives – to be ready and armed and strong and tough. For if the sword falls from our fist, our lives will be cut down.” The previous day, 67 years after Ro’i’s death, Hamas militants had murdered 15 residents of the Nahal Oz kibbutz and taken eight hostages. Since Israel’s retaliatory invasion of Gaza, the Palestinian neighbourhood of Shuja’iyya facing the kibbutz, where 100,000 people had been living, has been emptied of its population and turned into one vast pile of rubble. ne of the rare literary attempts to expose the grim logic of Israel’s wars is Anadad Eldan’s extraordinary 1971 poem Samson Tearing His Clothes, in which this ancient Hebrew hero crashes his way into and out of Gaza, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 725     leaving only desolation in his tracks. I first learned about this poem from Arie Dubnov’s outstanding Hebrew- language essay, “The Gates of Gaza,” published in January 2024. Samson the hero, the prophet, the subduer of the nation’s eternal enemy, is transformed into its angel of death, a death which, as we recall, he ends up bringing also on himself in a grand suicidal action that has echoed through the generations to this very day. When I went to Gaza I met Samson coming out ripping his clothes on his scratched face rivers flowed and the houses bent to let him pass his pains uprooted trees and got caught up in the tangled roots. In the roots were strands of his hair. His head shone like a skull made of rock and his faltering steps tore up my tears Samson walked dragging a weary sun shattered windowpanes and chains in Gaza’s sea were drowned. I heard how the earth groaned under his steps, how he slit her gut. Samson’s shoes screeched when he walked. Born in Poland in 1924 as Avraham Bleiberg, Eldan came to Palestine as a child, fought in the 1948 war, and in 1960 moved to Kibbutz Be’eri, about 4km from the Gaza Strip. On 7 October 2023, the 99-year-old Eldan and his wife survived the massacre of about a hundred inhabitants of the kibbutz, when the militants who walked into their home inexplicably spared them. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 726     After 7 October, in the wake of this obscure poet’s miraculous survival, a different work of his was widely shared on Israeli media. For it seemed as if Eldan, a longtime chronicler of the sorrow and pain brought on by oppression and injustice, had predicted the catastrophe that befell his home. In 2016, he had published a collection of poems under the title Six the Hour of Dawn. That was the hour when the Hamas attack began. The book contains the harrowing poem On the Walls of Be’eri, mourning his daughter’s death from illness (in Hebrew the name of the kibbutz also means “my well”). In the wake of 7 October, the poem eerily seems both to forecast destruction and to convey a certain view of Zionism, as originating in diasporic catastrophe and despair, bringing the nation to a cursed land where children are buried by their parents, yet holding out the hope for a new and hopeful dawn: On the walls of Be’eri I wrote her story from origins and depths frayed by the cold when they read what was happening in pain and her lights tumbled into the mist and darkness of night and a howl engendered prayer, for her children have fallen and a door is locked for the grace of heaven they breathe desolation and grief who will console inconsolable parents, for a curse is whispering let there be neither dew nor rain, you may weep if you can there is a time when darkness roars but there is dawn and radiance Like Dayan’s eulogy for Ro’i, On the Walls of Be’eri means different things to different people. Should it be read as a lament for the destruction of a beautiful and innocent kibbutz in the desert, or is it a cry of pain over the endless bloody vendetta between the two peoples of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 727     A this land? The poet has not told us his meaning, as is the way of poets. After all, he wrote this years ago in mourning for his beloved daughter. But given his many years of quiet, precise and searing work, it does not seem fanciful to believe that the poem was a call for reconciliation and coexistence, rather than for more cycles of bloodshed and revenge. s it happens, I have a personal connection to the Be’eri kibbutz. It is where my daughter-in-law grew up, and my trip to Israel in June was primarily to visit the twins – my grandchildren – she had brought into the world in January 2024. The kibbutz, though, had been abandoned. My son, daughter-in-law and their children had moved into a nearby vacant apartment with a family of survivors – close relatives, whose father is still being held hostage – making for an unimaginable combination of new life and inconsolable sorrow in one home. As well as seeing family, I had also come to Israel to meet friends. I hoped to make sense of what had happened in the country since the war began. The aborted lecture in BGU was not on the top of my agenda. But once I arrived at the lecture hall on that mid-June day, I quickly understood that this explosive situation could also provide some clues to understanding the mentality of a younger generation of students and soldiers. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 728     After we sat down and began to talk, it became clear to me that the students wanted to be heard, and that no one, perhaps even their own professors and university administrators, was interested in listening. My presence, and their vague knowledge of my criticism of the war, triggered in them a need to explain to me, but perhaps also to themselves, what they had been engaged in as soldiers and as citizens. One young woman, recently returned from long military service in Gaza, leapt on the stage and spoke forcefully about the friends she had lost, the evil nature of Hamas, and the fact that she and her comrades were sacrificing themselves to ensure the country’s future safety. Deeply distraught, she began crying halfway through her speech and stepped down. A young man, collected and articulate, rejected my suggestion that criticism of Israeli policies was not necessarily motivated by antisemitism. He then launched on a brief survey of the history of Zionism as a response to antisemitism and as a political path that no gentiles had a right to deny. While they were upset by my views and agitated by their own recent experiences in Gaza, the opinions expressed by the students were in no way exceptional. They reflected much greater swaths of public opinion in Israel. Knowing that I had previously warned of genocide, the students were especially keen to show me that they were humane, that they were not murderers. They had no doubt that the IDF was, in fact, the most moral army in {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 729     the world. But they were also convinced that any damage done to the people and buildings in Gaza was totally justified, that it was all the fault of Hamas using them as human shields. They showed me photos on their phones to prove that they had behaved admirably toward children, denied that there was any hunger in Gaza, insisted that the systematic destruction of schools, universities, hospitals, public buildings, residences and infrastructure was necessary and justifiable. They viewed any criticism of Israeli policies by other countries and the United Nations as simply antisemitic. Unlike the majority of Israelis, these young people had seen the destruction of Gaza with their own eyes. It seemed to me that they had not only internalised a particular view that has become commonplace in Israel – namely, that the destruction of Gaza as such was a legitimate response to 7 October – but had also developed a way of thinking that I had observed many years ago when studying the conduct, worldview and self- perception of German army soldiers in the second world war. Having internalised certain views of the enemy – the Bolsheviks as Untermenschen; Hamas as human animals – and of the wider population as less than human and undeserving of rights, soldiers observing or perpetrating atrocities tend to ascribe them not to their own military, or to themselves, but to the enemy. Thousands of children were killed? It’s the enemy’s fault. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 730     Our own children were killed? That is certainly the enemy’s fault. If Hamas carry out a massacre in a kibbutz, they are Nazis. If we drop 2,000-pound bombs on refugee shelters and kill hundreds of civilians, it’s Hamas’s fault for hiding close to these shelters. After what they did to us, we have no choice but to root them out. After what we did to them, we can only imagine what they would do to us if we don’t destroy them. We simply have no choice. In mid-July 1941, just weeks after Germany launched what Hitler had proclaimed to be a “war of annihilation” against the Soviet Union, a German noncommissioned officer wrote home from the eastern front: The German people owe a great debt to our Führer, for had these beasts, who are our enemies here, come to Germany, such murders would have taken place that the world has never seen before … What we have seen … borders on the unbelievable … And when one reads Der Stürmer [a Nazi newspaper] and looks at the pictures, that is only a weak illustration of what we see here and the crimes committed here by the Jews. An army propaganda leaflet issued in June 1941 paints a similarly nightmarish picture of Red Army political officers, which many soldiers soon perceived as a reflection of reality: Anyone who has ever looked at the face of a Red commissar knows what the Bolsheviks are like. Here there is no need for theoretical expressions. We would insult the animals if we described these mostly Jewish men as beasts. They are the embodiment of the satanic and insane hatred against the whole of noble humanity … [They] would have brought an end to all meaningful life, had this eruption not been dammed at the last moment. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 731     View im Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits Rafah inthe Gaza Strip on 18 July 2024. Photograph: Avi Ohayon/IsraelGpo/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock Two days after the Hamas attack, defence minister Yoav Gallant declared, “We are fighting human animals, and we must act accordingly,” later adding that Israel would “break apart one neighbourhood after another in Gaza”. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett confirmed: “We are fighting Nazis.” Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu exhorted Israelis to “remember what Amalek has done to you”, alluding to the biblical call to exterminate Amalek’s “men and women, children and infants”. In a radio interview, he said about Hamas: “I don’t call them human animals because that would be insulting to animals.” Deputy Knesset speaker Nissim Vaturi wrote on X that Israel’s goal should be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth”. On Israeli TV he stated, “There are no uninvolved people … we must go in there and kill, kill, kill. We must kill them before they kill us.” Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich stressed in a speech, “The work must be completed … Total destruction. ‘Blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.’” Avi Dichter, agriculture minister and former head of the Shin Bet intelligence service, spoke about “rolling out the Gaza Nakba”. One Israeli 95-year- old military veteran, whose motivational speech to IDF troops preparing for the invasion of Gaza exhorted them {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 732     to “wipe out their memory, their families, mothers and children”, was given a certificate of honour by Israeli president Herzog for “providing a wonderful example to generations of soldiers”. No wonder that there have been innumerable social media posts by IDF troops in Gaza calling to “kill the Arabs”, “burn their mothers” and “flatten” Gaza. There has been no known disciplinary action by their commanders. This is the logic of endless violence, a logic that allows one to destroy entire populations and to feel totally justified in doing so. It is a logic of victimhood – we must kill them before they kill us, as they did before – and nothing empowers violence more than a righteous sense of victimhood. Look at what happened to us in 1918, German soldiers said in 1942, recalling the propagandistic “stab-in-the-back” myth, which attributed Germany’s catastrophic defeat in the first world war to Jewish and communist treason. Look at what happened to us in the Holocaust, when we trusted that others would come to our rescue, IDF troops say in 2024, thereby giving themselves licence for indiscriminate destruction based on a false analogy between Hamas and the Nazis. The young men and women I spoke with that day were filled with rage, not so much against me – they calmed down a bit when I mentioned my own military service – but because, I think, they felt betrayed by everyone around them. Betrayed by the media, which they {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 733     perceived as too critical, by senior commanders who they thought were too lenient toward Palestinians, by politicians who had failed to prevent the 7 October fiasco, by the IDF’s inability to achieve “total victory”, by intellectuals and leftists unfairly criticising them, by the US government for not delivering sufficient munitions fast enough, and by all those hypocritical European politicians and antisemitic students protesting against their actions in Gaza. They seemed fearful and insecure and confused, and some were likely also suffering from PTSD. I told them the story of how, in 1930, the German student union was democratically taken over by the Nazis. The students of that time felt betrayed by the loss of the first world war, the loss of opportunity because of the economic crisis, and the loss of land and prestige in the wake of the humiliating peace treaty of Versailles. They wanted to make Germany great again, and Hitler seemed able to fulfil that promise. Germany’s internal enemies were put away, its economy flourished, other nations feared it again, and then it went to war, conquered Europe and murdered millions of people. Finally, the country was utterly destroyed. I wondered aloud whether perhaps the few German students who survived those 15 years regretted their decision in 1930 to support nazism. But I do not think the young men and women at BGU understood the implications of what I had told them. The students were frightening and frightened at the same {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 734     A time, and their fear made them all the more aggressive. This level of menace, as well as a degree of overlap in opinion, seemed to have generated fear and obsequiousness in their superiors, professors and administrators, who demonstrated great reluctance to discipline them in any way. At the same time, a host of media pundits and politicians have been cheering on these angels of destruction, calling them heroes just a moment before putting them in the ground and turning their backs on their grief-stricken families. The fallen soldiers died for a good cause, the families are told. But no one takes the time to articulate what that cause actually is beyond sheer survival through ever more violence. And so, I also felt sorry for these students, who were so unaware of how they had been manipulated. But I left that meeting filled with trepidation and foreboding. s I headed back to the United States at the end of June, I contemplated my experiences over those two messy and troubling weeks. I was conscious of my deep connection to the country I had left. This is not just about my relationship with my Israeli family and friends, but also with the particular tenor of Israeli culture and society, which is characterised by its lack of distance or deference. This can be heartwarming and revealing; one can, almost instantaneously, find oneself in intense, even intimate {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 735     conversations with others on the street, in a cafe, at a bar. Yet this same aspect of Israeli life can also be endlessly frustrating, since there is so little respect for social niceties. There is almost a cult of sincerity, an obligation to speak your mind, no matter who you’re talking to or how much offence it may cause. This shared expectation creates both a sense of solidarity, and of lines that cannot be crossed. When you are with us, we are all family. If you turn against us or are on the other side of the national divide, you are shut out and can expect us to come after you. This may also have been the reason why this time, for the first time, I had been apprehensive about going to Israel, and why part of me was glad to leave. The country had changed in ways visible and subtle, ways that might have raised a barrier between me, as an observer from the outside, and those who have remained an organic part of it. But another part of my apprehension had to do with the fact that my view of what was happening in Gaza had shifted. On 10 November 2023, I wrote in the New York Times: “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is now taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening. […] We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for genocide before it occurs, rather than belatedly condemn it after it has taken place. I think we still have that time.” {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 736     I no longer believe that. By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions. It was not just that this attack against the last concentration of Gazans – most of them displaced already several times by the IDF, which now once again pushed them to a so- called safe zone – demonstrated a total disregard of any humanitarian standards. It also clearly indicated that the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory. In other words, the rhetoric spouted by Israeli leaders since 7 October was now being translated into reality – namely, as the 1948 UN Genocide Convention puts it, that Israel was acting “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”, the Palestinian population in Gaza, “as such, by killing, causing serious harm, or inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group’s destruction”. These were issues that I could only discuss with a very small handful of activists, scholars, experts in international law and, not surprisingly, Palestinian citizens of Israel. Beyond this limited circle, such statements on the illegality of Israeli actions in Gaza are anathema in Israel. Even the vast majority of protesters against the government, those calling for a ceasefire and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 737     the release of the hostages, will not countenance them. Since I returned from my visit, I have been trying to place my experiences there into a larger context. The reality on the ground is so devastating, and the future appears so bleak, that I have allowed myself to indulge in some counter-factual history and to entertain some hopeful speculations about a different future. I ask myself, what would have happened had the newly created state of Israel fulfilled its commitment to enact a constitution based on its Declaration of Independence? That same declaration which stated that Israel “will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 738     From:Aram James To:Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Veenker, Vicki Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper; sharon jackson; Marty Wasserman Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 4:22:56 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel This article is more than 11 months oldIsraeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip in January. Photograph:IDF/GPO/Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history – and overlapped with mainstream Israeli views to a shocking degree By Omer Bartov Tue 13 Aug 2024 00.00 EDT Share {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 739     O n 19 June 2024, I was scheduled to give a lecture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Be’er Sheva, Israel. My lecture was part of an event about the worldwide campus protests against Israel, and I planned to address the war in Gaza and more broadly the question of whether the protests were sincere expressions of outrage or motivated by antisemitism, as some had claimed. But things did not work out as planned. When I arrived at the entrance to the lecture hall, I saw a group of students congregating. It soon transpired that they were not there to attend the event but to protest against it. The students had been summoned, it appeared, by a WhatsApp message that went out the day before, which flagged the lecture and called for action: “We will not allow it! How long will we commit treason against ourselves?!?!?!??!!” The message went on to allege that I had signed a petition that described Israel as a “regime of apartheid” (in fact, the petition referred to a regime of apartheid in the West Bank). I was also “accused” of having written an article for the New York Times, in November 2023, in which I stated that although the statements of Israeli leaders suggested genocidal intent, there was still time to stop Israel from perpetrating genocide. On this, I was guilty as charged. The organiser of the event, the distinguished geographer Oren Yiftachel, was similarly criticised. His offences included having served as the director of the “anti-Zionist” B’Tselem, a globally {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 740     respected human rights NGO. As the panel participants and a handful of mostly elderly faculty members filed into the hall, security guards prevented the protesting students from entering. But they did not stop them from keeping the lecture hall door open, calling out slogans on a bullhorn and banging with all their might on the walls. After over an hour of disruption, we agreed that perhaps the best step forward would be to ask the student protesters to join us for a conversation, on the condition that they stop the disruption. A fair number of those activists eventually walked in and for the next two hours we sat down and talked. As it turned out, most of these young men and women had recently returned from reserve service, during which they had been deployed in the Gaza Strip. This was not a friendly or “positive” exchange of views, but it was revealing. These students were not necessarily {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 741     I representative of the student body in Israel as a whole. They were activists in extreme rightwing organisations. But in many ways, what they were saying reflected a much more widespread sentiment in the country. I had not been to Israel since June 2023, and during this recent visit I found a different country from the one I had known. Although I have worked abroad for many years, Israel is where I was born and raised. It is the place where my parents lived and are buried; it is where my son has established his own family and most of my oldest and best friends live. Knowing the country from the inside and having followed events even more closely than usual since 7 October, I was not entirely surprised by what I encountered on my return, but it was still profoundly disturbing. n deliberating these issues, I cannot but draw on my personal and professional background. I served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for four years, a term that included the 1973 Yom Kippur War and postings in the West Bank, northern Sinai and Gaza, ending my service as an infantry company commander. During my time in Gaza, I saw first-hand the poverty and hopelessness of Palestinian refugees eking out a living in congested, decrepit neighbourhoods. Most vividly, I remember patrolling the shadeless, silent streets of the Egyptian town of ʿArīsh – which was then occupied by Israel – pierced by the gazes of the fearful, resentful population observing us from their shuttered windows. For the first time, I understood what it meant to occupy another people. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 742     Military service is mandatory for Jewish Israelis when they turn 18 – though there are a few exceptions – but afterwards, you can still be called upon to serve again in the IDF, for training or operational duties, or in case of emergencies such as a war. When I was called up in 1976, I was an undergraduate studying at Tel Aviv University. During that first deployment as a reserve officer, I was severely wounded in a training accident, along with a score of my soldiers. The IDF covered up the circumstances of this event, which was caused by the negligence of the training base commander. I spent most of that first semester in the hospital of Be’er Sheva, but returned to my studies, graduating in 1979 with a speciality in history. These personal experiences made me all the more interested in a question that had long preoccupied me: what motivates soldiers to fight? In the decades after the second world war, many American sociologists argued that soldiers fight first and foremost for each other, rather than for some bigger ideological goal. But that didn’t quite fit with what I’d experienced as a soldier: we believed that we were in it for a larger cause that surpassed our own group of buddies. By the time I had completed my undergraduate degree, I had also begun to ask whether, in the name of that cause, soldiers could be made to act in ways they would otherwise find reprehensible. Taking the extreme case, I wrote my Oxford PhD thesis, later published as a book, on the Nazi indoctrination of the German army and the crimes it perpetrated on the eastern front in the second world war. What I found ran counter to how Germans in the 1980s understood their past. They preferred to think that the army had fought a {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 743     “decent” war, even as the Gestapo and the SS perpetrated genocide “behind its back”. It took Germans many more years to realise just how complicit their own fathers and grandfathers had been in the Holocaust and the mass murder of many other groups in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. When the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, broke out in late 1987 I was teaching at Tel Aviv University. I was appalled by the instruction of Yitzhak Rabin, then minister of defence, to the IDF to “break the arms and legs” of Palestinian youths who were throwing rocks at heavily armed troops. I wrote a letter to him warning that, based on my research into the indoctrination of the armed forces of Nazi Germany, I feared that under his leadership the IDF was heading down a similarly slippery path. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 744     View im ‘I was not entirely surprised by what I encountered, but it wasstill profoundly disturbing’ … Omer Bartov. Photograph:David Degner/The Guardian As my research had shown, even before their conscription, young German men had internalised core elements of Nazi ideology, especially the view that the subhuman Slav masses, led by insidious Bolshevik Jews, were threatening Germany and the rest of the civilised world with destruction, and that therefore Germany had the right and duty to create for itself a “living space” in the east and to decimate or enslave that region’s population. This worldview was then further inculcated into the troops, so that by the time they marched into the Soviet Union they perceived their enemies through that prism. The fierce resistance put up by the Red Army only confirmed the need to utterly destroy Soviet soldiers and civilians alike, and most especially the Jews, who were seen as the main instigators of Bolshevism. The more destruction they wrought, the more fearful German troops became of the revenge they could expect if their enemies prevailed. The result was the killing of up to 30 million Soviet soldiers and citizens. To my astonishment, a few days after writing to him, I received a one-line response from Rabin, chiding me for daring to compare the IDF to the German military. This gave me the opportunity to write him a more detailed letter, explaining my research and my anxiety about using {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 745     the IDF as a tool of oppression against unarmed occupied civilians. Rabin responded again, with the same statement: “How dare you compare the IDF to the Wehrmacht.” But in retrospect, I believe this exchange revealed something about his subsequent intellectual journey. For as we know from his later engagement in the Oslo peace process, however flawed, he did eventually recognise that in the long run Israel could not sustain the military, political and moral price of the occupation. Since 1989, I have been teaching in the United States. I have written profusely on war, genocide, nazism, antisemitism and the Holocaust, seeking to understand the links between the industrial killing of soldiers in the first world war and the extermination of civilian populations by Hitler’s regime. Among other projects, I spent many years researching the transformation of my mother’s home town – Buchach in Poland (now Ukraine) – from a community of inter-ethnic coexistence into one in which, under the Nazi occupation, the gentile population turned against their Jewish neighbours. While the Germans came to the town with the express goal of murdering its Jews, the speed and efficiency of the killing was greatly facilitated by local collaboration. These locals were motivated by pre-existing resentments and hatreds that can be traced back to the rise of ethnonationalism in the preceding decades, and the prevalent view that the Jews did not belong to the new nation states created after the first world war. In the months since 7 October, what I have learned over {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 746     T the course of my life and my career has become more painfully relevant than ever before. Like many others, I have found these last months emotionally and intellectually challenging. Like many others, members of my own and of my friends’ families have also been directly affected by the violence. There is no dearth of grief wherever you turn. he Hamas attack on 7 October came as a tremendous shock to Israeli society, one from which it has not begun to recover. It was the first time Israel has lost control of part of its territory for an extended period of time, with the IDF unable to prevent the massacre of more than 1,200 people – many killed in the cruellest ways imaginable – and the taking of well over 200 hostages, including scores of children. The sense of abandonment by the state and of ongoing insecurity – with tens of thousands of Israeli citizens still displaced from their homes along the Gaza Strip and by the Lebanese border – is profound. Today, across vast swaths of the Israeli public, including those who oppose the government, two sentiments reign supreme. The first is a combination of rage and fear, a desire to re- establish security at any cost and a complete distrust of political solutions, negotiations and reconciliation. The military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that war was the extension of politics by other means, and warned that without a defined political objective it would lead to limitless destruction. The sentiment that now prevails in Israel similarly threatens to make war into its own end. In this view, politics is an obstacle to achieving goals rather than a means to limit destruction. This is a view that can only ultimately lead to self-annihilation. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 747     The second reigning sentiment – or rather lack of sentiment – is the flipside of the first. It is the utter inability of Israeli society today to feel any empathy for the population of Gaza. The majority, it seems, do not even want to know what is happening in Gaza, and this desire is reflected in TV coverage. Israeli television news these days usually begins with reports on the funerals of soldiers, invariably described as heroes, fallen in the fighting in Gaza, followed by estimates of how many Hamas fighters were “liquidated”. References to Palestinian civilian deaths are rare and normally presented as part of enemy propaganda or as a cause for unwelcome international pressure. In the face of so much death, this deafening silence now seems like its own form of vengefulness. Of course, the Israeli public long ago became inured to the brutal occupation that has characterised the country for 57 out of the 76 years of its existence. But the scale of what is being perpetrated in Gaza right now by the IDF is as unprecedented as the complete indifference of most Israelis to what is being done in their name. In 1982, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested against the massacre of the Palestinian population in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatilain western Beirut by Maronite Christian militias, facilitated by the IDF. Today, this kind of response is inconceivable. The way people’s eyes glaze over whenever one mentions the suffering of Palestinian civilians, and the deaths of thousands of children and women and elderly people, is deeply unsettling. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 748     Meeting my friends in Israel this time, I frequently felt that they were afraid that I might disrupt their grief, and that living out of the country I could not grasp their pain, anxiety, bewilderment and helplessness. Any suggestion that living in the country had numbed them to the pain of others – the pain that, after all, was being inflicted in their name – only produced a wall of silence, a retreat into themselves, or a quick change of subject. The impression that I got was consistent: we have no room in our hearts, we have no room in our thoughts, we do not want to speak about or to be shown what our own soldiers, our children or grandchildren, our brothers and sisters, are doing right now in Gaza. We must focus on ourselves, on our trauma, fear and anger. In an interview conducted on 7 March 2024, the writer, farmer and scientist Zeev Smilansky expressed this very sentiment in a manner that I found shocking, precisely because it came from him. I have known Smilansky for more than half a century, and he is the son of the celebrated Israeli author S Yizhar, whose 1949 novella Khirbet Khizeh was the very first text in Israeli literature to confront the injustice of the Nakba, the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from what became the state of Israel in 1948. Speaking about his own son, Offer, who lives in Brussels, Smilansky commented: Offer says that for him every child is a child, no matter whether he is in Gaza or here. I don’t feel like him. Our children here are more important to me. There is a shocking humanitarian disaster there, I understand that, but my heart is blocked and filled with our children and our hostages … There is no room in my heart for the children in Gaza, however shocking and terrifying it is and even though I know that war is not the solution. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 749     I listen to Maoz Inon, who lost both his parents [murdered by Hamas on 7 October] … and who speaks so beautifully and persuasively about the need to look forward, that we need to bring hope and to want peace, because wars won’t accomplish anything, and I agree with him. I agree with him, but I cannot find the strength in my heart, with all my leftist inclinations and love for humanity, I cannot … It is not just Hamas, it’s all Gazans who agree that it’s OK to kill Jewish children, that this is a worthy cause … With Germany there was reconciliation, but they apologised and paid reparations, and what [will happen] here? We too did terrible things, but nothing that comes close to what happened here on 7 October. It will be necessary to reconcile but we need some distance. This was a pervasive sentiment among many left-leaning, liberal friends and acquaintances I spoke with in Israel. It was, of course, quite different from what rightwing politicians and media figures have been saying since 7 October. Many of my friends recognise the injustice of the occupation, and, as Smilansky said, profess a “love for humanity”. But at this moment, under these circumstances, this is not what they are focused on. Instead, they feel that in the struggle between justice and existence, existence must win out, and in the struggle between one just cause and another – that of the Israelis and that of the Palestinians – it is our own cause that must be triumphant, no matter the price. To those who doubt this stark choice, the Holocaust is presented as the alternative, however irrelevant it is to the current moment. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 750     O This feeling did not appear suddenly on 7 October. Its roots are much deeper. n 30 April 1956, Moshe Dayan, then IDF chief of staff, gave a short speech that would become one of the most famous in Israel’s history. He was addressing mourners at the funeral of Ro’i Rothberg, a young security officer of the newly founded Nahal Oz kibbutz, which was established by the IDF in 1951 and became a civilian community two years later. The kibbutz was located just a few hundred metres from the border with the Gaza Strip, facing the Palestinian neighbourhood of Shuja’iyya. Rothberg had been killed the day before, and his body was dragged across the border and mutilated, before being returned to Israeli hands with the help of the United Nations. Dayan’s speech has become an iconic statement, used both by the political right and left to this day: Yesterday morning Ro’i was murdered. Dazzled by the calm of the morning, he did not see those waiting in ambush for him at the edge of the furrow. Let us not cast accusations at the murderers today. Why should we blame them for their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been dwelling in Gaza’s refugee camps, as before their eyes we have transformed the land and the villages in which they and their forefathers had dwelled into our own property. We should not seek Roi’s blood from the Arabs in Gaza but from ourselves. How have we shut our eyes and not faced up forthrightly to our fate, not faced up to our generation’s mission in all its cruelty? Have we forgotten that this group of lads, who dwell in Nahal Oz, is carrying on its shoulders the heavy gates of Gaza, on whose other side crowd hundreds of thousands of eyes and hands praying for our moment of weakness, so that they can tear us apart – have we forgotten that?… {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 751     We are the generation of settlement; without a steel helmet and the muzzle of the cannon we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home. Our children will not have a life if we do not dig shelters, and without barbed wire and machine guns we will not be able to pave roads and dig water wells. Millions of Jews who were exterminated because they had no land are looking at us from the ashes of Israeli history and ordering us to settle and resurrect a land for our people. But beyond the border’s furrow an ocean of hatred and an urge for vengeance rises, waiting for the moment that calm will blunt our readiness, for the day that we heed the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, who call upon us to put down our arms … Let us not flinch from seeing the loathing that accompanies and fills the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who dwell around us and await the moment they can reach for our blood. Let us not avert our eyes lest our hands grow weak. This is the destiny of our generation. This is the choice of our lives – to be ready and armed and strong and tough. For if the sword falls from our fist, our lives will be cut down. The following day, Dayan recorded his speech for Israeli radio. But something was missing. Gone was the reference to the refugees watching the Jews cultivate the lands from which they had been evicted, who should not be blamed for hating their dispossessors. Although he had uttered these lines at the funeral and written them subsequently, Dayan chose to omit them from the recorded version. He, too, had known this land before 1948. He recalled the Palestinian villages and towns that were destroyed to make room for Jewish settlers. He clearly understood the rage of the refugees across the fence. But he also firmly believed in both the right and the urgent need for Jewish settlement and statehood. In the struggle between addressing injustice and taking over the land, he chose his side, knowing that it doomed his people to forever rely on the gun. Dayan also knew well what the Israeli public could accept. It was because of his ambivalence about where guilt and responsibility for {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 752     injustice and violence lay, and his deterministic, tragic view of history, that the two versions of his speech ended up appealing to vastly different political orientations. View im Moshe Dayan, then Israel’s minister of defence, with HenryKissinger, US national security advisor, in 1974. Photograph:PhotoQuest/Getty Images Decades later, after many more wars and rivers of blood, Dayan titled his last book Shall the Sword Devour Forever? Published in 1981, the book detailed his role in reaching a peace agreement with Egypt two years earlier. He had finally learned the truth of the second part of the biblical verse from which he took the book’s title: “Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?” But in his 1956 speech, with his references to carrying the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 753     heavy gates of Gaza and the Palestinians waiting for a moment of weakness, Dayan was alluding to the biblical story of Samson. As his listeners would have recalled, Samson the Israelite, whose superhuman strength derived from his long hair, was in the habit of visiting prostitutes in Gaza. The Philistines, who viewed him as their mortal enemy, hoped to ambush him against the locked gates of the city. But Samson simply lifted the gates on his shoulders and walked free. It was only when his mistress Delilah tricked him and cut off his hair that the Philistines could capture and imprison him, rendering him all the more powerless by poking out his eyes (as the Gazans who mutilated Ro’i are alleged to have also done). But in a last feat of bravery, as he is mocked by his captors, Samson calls for God’s help, seizes the pillars of the temple to which he had been led, and collapses it on the merry crowd surrounding him, calling out: “Let me die with the Philistines!” Those gates of Gaza are lodged deeply in the Zionist Israeli imagination, a symbol of the divide between us and the “barbarians”. In the case of Ro’i, Dayan asserted, “the longing for peace blocked his ears, and he did not hear the voice of murder waiting in ambush. The gates of Gaza weighed too heavily on his shoulders and brought him down.” On 8 October 2023, President Isaac Herzog addressed the Israeli public, citing the last line of Dayan’s speech: “This is the destiny of our generation. This is the choice of our lives – to be ready and armed and strong and tough. For if the sword falls from our fist, our lives will be cut down.” The previous day, 67 years after Ro’i’s death, Hamas militants had murdered 15 residents of the Nahal Oz kibbutz and taken eight hostages. Since Israel’s retaliatory invasion of Gaza, the Palestinian neighbourhood of Shuja’iyya facing the kibbutz, where 100,000 people had been living, has been emptied of its population and turned into one vast pile of rubble. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 754     O ne of the rare literary attempts to expose the grim logic of Israel’s wars is Anadad Eldan’s extraordinary 1971 poem Samson Tearing His Clothes, in which this ancient Hebrew hero crashes his way into and out of Gaza, leaving only desolation in his tracks. I first learned about this poem from Arie Dubnov’s outstanding Hebrew- language essay, “The Gates of Gaza,” published in January 2024. Samson the hero, the prophet, the subduer of the nation’s eternal enemy, is transformed into its angel of death, a death which, as we recall, he ends up bringing also on himself in a grand suicidal action that has echoed through the generations to this very day. When I went to Gaza I met Samson coming out ripping his clothes on his scratched face rivers flowed and the houses bent to let him pass his pains uprooted trees and got caught up in the tangled roots. In the roots were strands of his hair. His head shone like a skull made of rock and his faltering steps tore up my tears Samson walked dragging a weary sun shattered windowpanes and chains in Gaza’s sea were drowned. I heard how the earth groaned under his steps, how he slit her gut. Samson’s shoes screeched when he walked. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 755     Born in Poland in 1924 as Avraham Bleiberg, Eldan came to Palestine as a child, fought in the 1948 war, and in 1960 moved to Kibbutz Be’eri, about 4km from the Gaza Strip. On 7 October 2023, the 99-year-old Eldan and his wife survived the massacre of about a hundred inhabitants of the kibbutz, when the militants who walked into their home inexplicably spared them. After 7 October, in the wake of this obscure poet’s miraculous survival, a different work of his was widely shared on Israeli media. For it seemed as if Eldan, a longtime chronicler of the sorrow and pain brought on by oppression and injustice, had predicted the catastrophe that befell his home. In 2016, he had published a collection of poems under the title Six the Hour of Dawn. That was the hour when the Hamas attack began. The book contains the harrowing poem On the Walls of Be’eri, mourning his daughter’s death from illness (in Hebrew the name of the kibbutz also means “my well”). In the wake of 7 October, the poem eerily seems both to forecast destruction and to convey a certain view of Zionism, as originating in diasporic catastrophe and despair, bringing the nation to a cursed land where children are buried by their parents, yet holding out the hope for a new and hopeful dawn: On the walls of Be’eri I wrote her story from origins and depths frayed by the cold when they read what was happening in pain and her {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 756     A lights tumbled into the mist and darkness of night and a howl engendered prayer, for her children have fallen and a door is locked for the grace of heaven they breathe desolation and grief who will console inconsolable parents, for a curse is whispering let there be neither dew nor rain, you may weep if you can there is a time when darkness roars but there is dawn and radiance Like Dayan’s eulogy for Ro’i, On the Walls of Be’eri means different things to different people. Should it be read as a lament for the destruction of a beautiful and innocent kibbutz in the desert, or is it a cry of pain over the endless bloody vendetta between the two peoples of this land? The poet has not told us his meaning, as is the way of poets. After all, he wrote this years ago in mourning for his beloved daughter. But given his many years of quiet, precise and searing work, it does not seem fanciful to believe that the poem was a call for reconciliation and coexistence, rather than for more cycles of bloodshed and revenge. s it happens, I have a personal connection to the Be’eri kibbutz. It is where my daughter-in-law grew up, and my trip to Israel in June was primarily to visit the twins – my {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 757     grandchildren – she had brought into the world in January 2024. The kibbutz, though, had been abandoned. My son, daughter-in-law and their children had moved into a nearby vacant apartment with a family of survivors – close relatives, whose father is still being held hostage – making for an unimaginable combination of new life and inconsolable sorrow in one home. As well as seeing family, I had also come to Israel to meet friends. I hoped to make sense of what had happened in the country since the war began. The aborted lecture in BGU was not on the top of my agenda. But once I arrived at the lecture hall on that mid-June day, I quickly understood that this explosive situation could also provide some clues to understanding the mentality of a younger generation of students and soldiers. After we sat down and began to talk, it became clear to me that the students wanted to be heard, and that no one, perhaps even their own professors and university administrators, was interested in listening. My presence, and their vague knowledge of my criticism of the war, triggered in them a need to explain to me, but perhaps also to themselves, what they had been engaged in as soldiers and as citizens. One young woman, recently returned from long military service in Gaza, leapt on the stage and spoke forcefully about the friends she had lost, the evil nature of Hamas, and the fact that she and her comrades were sacrificing themselves to ensure the country’s future safety. Deeply distraught, she began crying halfway through her speech and stepped down. A young man, collected and articulate, rejected my suggestion that criticism of Israeli policies was not necessarily motivated by antisemitism. He then launched on a brief survey of the history of Zionism as a response to antisemitism and as a political path that no gentiles had a right to deny. While they were upset by my views and agitated by their own recent experiences in Gaza, the opinions expressed by the students were in no way exceptional. They reflected much greater swaths of public opinion in Israel. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 758     Knowing that I had previously warned of genocide, the students were especially keen to show me that they were humane, that they were not murderers. They had no doubt that the IDF was, in fact, the most moral army in the world. But they were also convinced that any damage done to the people and buildings in Gaza was totally justified, that it was all the fault of Hamas using them as human shields. They showed me photos on their phones to prove that they had behaved admirably toward children, denied that there was any hunger in Gaza, insisted that the systematic destruction of schools, universities, hospitals, public buildings, residences and infrastructure was necessary and justifiable. They viewed any criticism of Israeli policies by other countries and the United Nations as simply antisemitic. Unlike the majority of Israelis, these young people had seen the destruction of Gaza with their own eyes. It seemed to me that they had not only internalised a particular view that has become commonplace in Israel – namely, that the destruction of Gaza as such was a legitimate response to 7 October – but had also developed a way of thinking that I had observed many years ago when studying the conduct, worldview and self- perception of German army soldiers in the second world war. Having internalised certain views of the enemy – the Bolsheviks as Untermenschen; Hamas as human animals – and of the wider population as less than human and undeserving of rights, soldiers observing or perpetrating atrocities tend to ascribe them not to their own military, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 759     or to themselves, but to the enemy. Thousands of children were killed? It’s the enemy’s fault. Our own children were killed? That is certainly the enemy’s fault. If Hamas carry out a massacre in a kibbutz, they are Nazis. If we drop 2,000-pound bombs on refugee shelters and kill hundreds of civilians, it’s Hamas’s fault for hiding close to these shelters. After what they did to us, we have no choice but to root them out. After what we did to them, we can only imagine what they would do to us if we don’t destroy them. We simply have no choice. In mid-July 1941, just weeks after Germany launched what Hitler had proclaimed to be a “war of annihilation” against the Soviet Union, a German noncommissioned officer wrote home from the eastern front: The German people owe a great debt to our Führer, for had these beasts, who are our enemies here, come to Germany, such murders would have taken place that the world has never seen before … What we have seen … borders on the unbelievable … And when one reads Der Stürmer [a Nazi newspaper] and looks at the pictures, that is only a weak illustration of what we see here and the crimes committed here by the Jews. An army propaganda leaflet issued in June 1941 paints a similarly nightmarish picture of Red Army political officers, which many soldiers soon perceived as a reflection of reality: Anyone who has ever looked at the face of a Red {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 760     commissar knows what the Bolsheviks are like. Here there is no need for theoretical expressions. We would insult the animals if we described these mostly Jewish men as beasts. They are the embodiment of the satanic and insane hatred against the whole of noble humanity … [They] would have brought an end to all meaningful life, had this eruption not been dammed at the last moment. View im Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits Rafah inthe Gaza Strip on 18 July 2024. Photograph: Avi Ohayon/IsraelGpo/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock Two days after the Hamas attack, defence minister Yoav Gallant declared, “We are fighting human animals, and we must act accordingly,” later adding that Israel would “break apart one neighbourhood after another in Gaza”. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett confirmed: “We are fighting Nazis.” Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu exhorted Israelis to “remember what Amalek has done to you”, alluding to the biblical call to exterminate Amalek’s “men and women, children and infants”. In a radio interview, he said about Hamas: “I don’t call them human animals because that would be insulting to animals.” Deputy Knesset speaker Nissim Vaturi wrote on X that Israel’s goal should be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth”. On Israeli TV he stated, “There are no uninvolved people … we must go in there and kill, kill, kill. We must kill them before they kill {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 761     us.” Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich stressed in a speech, “The work must be completed … Total destruction. ‘Blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.’” Avi Dichter, agriculture minister and former head of the Shin Bet intelligence service, spoke about “rolling out the Gaza Nakba”. One Israeli 95-year- old military veteran, whose motivational speech to IDF troops preparing for the invasion of Gaza exhorted them to “wipe out their memory, their families, mothers and children”, was given a certificate of honour by Israeli president Herzog for “providing a wonderful example to generations of soldiers”. No wonder that there have been innumerable social media posts by IDF troops in Gaza calling to “kill the Arabs”, “burn their mothers” and “flatten” Gaza. There has been no known disciplinary action by their commanders. This is the logic of endless violence, a logic that allows one to destroy entire populations and to feel totally justified in doing so. It is a logic of victimhood – we must kill them before they kill us, as they did before – and nothing empowers violence more than a righteous sense of victimhood. Look at what happened to us in 1918, German soldiers said in 1942, recalling the propagandistic “stab-in-the-back” myth, which attributed Germany’s catastrophic defeat in the first world war to Jewish and communist treason. Look at what happened to us in the Holocaust, when we trusted that others {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 762     would come to our rescue, IDF troops say in 2024, thereby giving themselves licence for indiscriminate destruction based on a false analogy between Hamas and the Nazis. The young men and women I spoke with that day were filled with rage, not so much against me – they calmed down a bit when I mentioned my own military service – but because, I think, they felt betrayed by everyone around them. Betrayed by the media, which they perceived as too critical, by senior commanders who they thought were too lenient toward Palestinians, by politicians who had failed to prevent the 7 October fiasco, by the IDF’s inability to achieve “total victory”, by intellectuals and leftists unfairly criticising them, by the US government for not delivering sufficient munitions fast enough, and by all those hypocritical European politicians and antisemitic students protesting against their actions in Gaza. They seemed fearful and insecure and confused, and some were likely also suffering from PTSD. I told them the story of how, in 1930, the German student union was democratically taken over by the Nazis. The students of that time felt betrayed by the loss of the first world war, the loss of opportunity because of the economic crisis, and the loss of land and prestige in the wake of the humiliating peace treaty of Versailles. They wanted to make Germany great again, and Hitler seemed able to fulfil that promise. Germany’s internal enemies {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 763     were put away, its economy flourished, other nations feared it again, and then it went to war, conquered Europe and murdered millions of people. Finally, the country was utterly destroyed. I wondered aloud whether perhaps the few German students who survived those 15 years regretted their decision in 1930 to support nazism. But I do not think the young men and women at BGU understood the implications of what I had told them. The students were frightening and frightened at the same time, and their fear made them all the more aggressive. This level of menace, as well as a degree of overlap in opinion, seemed to have generated fear and obsequiousness in their superiors, professors and administrators, who demonstrated great reluctance to discipline them in any way. At the same time, a host of media pundits and politicians have been cheering on these angels of destruction, calling them heroes just a moment before putting them in the ground and turning their backs on their grief-stricken families. The fallen soldiers died for a good cause, the families are told. But no one takes the time to articulate what that cause actually is beyond sheer survival through ever more violence. And so, I also felt sorry for these students, who were so unaware of how they had been manipulated. But I left that meeting filled with trepidation and foreboding. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 764     A s I headed back to the United States at the end of June, I contemplated my experiences over those two messy and troubling weeks. I was conscious of my deep connection to the country I had left. This is not just about my relationship with my Israeli family and friends, but also with the particular tenor of Israeli culture and society, which is characterised by its lack of distance or deference. This can be heartwarming and revealing; one can, almost instantaneously, find oneself in intense, even intimate conversations with others on the street, in a cafe, at a bar. Yet this same aspect of Israeli life can also be endlessly frustrating, since there is so little respect for social niceties. There is almost a cult of sincerity, an obligation to speak your mind, no matter who you’re talking to or how much offence it may cause. This shared expectation creates both a sense of solidarity, and of lines that cannot be crossed. When you are with us, we are all family. If you turn against us or are on the other side of the national divide, you are shut out and can expect us to come after you. This may also have been the reason why this time, for the first time, I had been apprehensive about going to Israel, and why part of me was glad to leave. The country had changed in ways visible and subtle, ways that might have raised a barrier between me, as an observer from the outside, and those who have remained an organic part of it. But another part of my apprehension had to do with the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 765     fact that my view of what was happening in Gaza had shifted. On 10 November 2023, I wrote in the New York Times: “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is now taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening. […] We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for genocide before it occurs, rather than belatedly condemn it after it has taken place. I think we still have that time.” I no longer believe that. By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions. It was not just that this attack against the last concentration of Gazans – most of them displaced already several times by the IDF, which now once again pushed them to a so- called safe zone – demonstrated a total disregard of any humanitarian standards. It also clearly indicated that the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory. In other words, the rhetoric spouted by Israeli leaders since 7 October was now being translated into reality – namely, as the 1948 UN Genocide Convention puts it, that Israel was acting “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”, the Palestinian population in Gaza, “as such, by killing, causing serious harm, or inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group’s destruction”. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 766     These were issues that I could only discuss with a very small handful of activists, scholars, experts in international law and, not surprisingly, Palestinian citizens of Israel. Beyond this limited circle, such statements on the illegality of Israeli actions in Gaza are anathema in Israel. Even the vast majority of protesters against the government, those calling for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages, will not countenance them. Since I returned from my visit, I have been trying to place my experiences there into a larger context. The reality on the ground is so devastating, and the future appears so bleak, that I have allowed myself to indulge in some counter-factual history and to entertain some hopeful speculations about a different future. I ask myself, what would have happened had the newly created state of Israel fulfilled its commitment to enact a constitution based on its Declaration of Independence? That same declaration which stated that Israel “will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations”. ‘Scars on every street’: the refugee camp where generations of Palestinians have lost their futures Read more What effect would such a constitution have had on the nature of the state? How would it have tempered the transformation of Zionism from an ideology that sought {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 767     to liberate the Jews from the degradation of exile and discrimination and to put them on equal standing with the other nations of the world, to a state ideology of ethnonationalism, oppression of others, expansionism and apartheid? During the few hopeful years of the Oslo peace process, people in Israel began speaking of making it into a “state of all its citizens”, Jews and Palestinians alike. The assassination of prime minister Rabin in 1995 put an end to that dream. Will it ever be possible for Israel to discard the violent, exclusionary, militant and increasingly racist aspects of its vision as it is embraced there now by so many of its Jewish citizens? Will it ever be able to reimagine itself as its founders had so eloquently envisioned it – as a nation based on freedom, justice and peace? It is difficult to indulge in such fantasies at the moment. But perhaps precisely because of the nadir in which Israelis, and much more so Palestinians, now find themselves, and the trajectory of regional destruction their leaders have set them on, I pray that alternative voices will finally be raised. For, in the words of the poet Eldan, “there is a time when darkness roars but there is dawn and radiance”. Follow the Long Read on X at @gdnlongread, listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here. You've read 8 articles in the last year {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 768     Article count on At this dangerous moment for dissent I hope you appreciated this article. Before you close this tab, I wanted to ask if you could support the Guardian at this crucial time for journalism in the US. When the military is deployed to quell overwhelmingly peaceful protest, when elected officials of the opposing party are arrested or handcuffed, when student activists are jailed and deported, and when a wide range of civic institutions – non-profits, law firms, universities, news outlets, the arts, the civil service, scientists – are targeted and penalized by the federal government, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that our core freedoms are disappearing before our eyes – and democracy itself is slipping away. In any country on the cusp of authoritarianism, the role of the press as an engine of scrutiny, truth and accountability becomes increasingly critical. At the Guardian, we see it as our job not only to report on the suppression of dissenting voices, but to make sure those voices are heard. Not every news organization sees its mission this way – indeed, some have been pressured by their corporate and billionaire owners to avoid antagonizing this government. 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All rights reserved. (dcr) On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOT committing genocide in Gaza.If Israel were trying to kill as many Gazans as possible, the death toll would be much, much higher than it is. They wouldn't allow any food or medicine in at all, and they wouldn't issueevacuation warnings before striking Hamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but Hamas makes it very difficult by deliberately placing their command centers in civilian locations such as schoolsand hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, which does have an explicit policy of genocide (by your definition) against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end their suffering tomorrow if they wantedto. All they have to do is lay down their arms and release the hostages, and the war would be over immediately. But Hamas has no interest in ending the suffering of the Gazans. Whatthey're actually calling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, no matter what the cost to their own people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 782     On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways.Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to wordsthat have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 783     At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 784     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 785     ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend. *** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 786     ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 787     remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out.*** Israel has denied all allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The I.D.F. says it investigates reports of crimes, although it has rarely made its findings public, and when breaches of discipline or protocol are acknowledged, it has generally meted out light reprimands to its personnel. Israeli military and political leaders repeatedly describe the I.D.F. as acting lawfully, say they issue warnings to civilian populations to evacuate sites about to be attacked and blame Hamas for using civilians as human shields. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 788     In fact, the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure — government buildings, hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, cultural heritage sites, water treatment plants, agriculture areas, and parks — reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely. According to a recent investigation by Haaretz, an estimated 174,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged, accounting for up to 70 percent of all structures in the Strip. So far, more than 58,000 people have been killed, according to Gazan health authorities, including more than 17,000 children, who make up nearly a third of the total fatality count. More than 870 of those children were less than a year old. More than 2,000 families have been wiped out, the health authorities said. In addition, 5,600 families now count only one survivor. At least 10,000 people are believed to still be buried under the ruins of their homes. More than 138,000 have been wounded and maimed. Gaza now has the grim distinction of having the highest number of amputee children per capita in the world. An entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long- term malnutrition will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives. Untold additional thousands of chronically ill persons have had little access to hospital care. The horror of what has been happening in Gaza is still described by most observers as war. But this is a misnomer. For the last year, the I.D.F. has not been fighting an organized military body. The version of Hamas that planned and carried out the attacks on Oct. 7 has been destroyed, though the weakened group continues to fight Israeli forces and retains control over the population in areas not held by the Israeli Army. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 789     Today the I.D.F. is primarily engaged in an operation of demolition and ethnic cleansing. That’s how Mr. Netanyahu’s own former chief of staff and minister of defense, the hard-liner Moshe Yaalon, in November described on Israel’s Democrat TV and in subsequent articlesand interviews the attempt to clear northern Gaza of its population. ImageA man in shadow sorts through the rubble of a home. Credit...Mahmoud Issa/Reuters On Jan. 19, under pressure from Donald Trump, who was a day away from resuming the presidency, a cease- fire went into effect, facilitating the exchange of hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. But after Israel’s breaking of the cease-fire on March 18, the I.D.F. has been executing a well-publicized plan to concentrate the entire Gazan population in a quarter of the territory in three zones: Gaza City, the central refugee camps and the Mawasi coastline in the Strip’s southwestern edge. Using large numbers of bulldozers and huge aerial bombs supplied by the United States, the military {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 790     appears to be trying to demolish every remaining structure and establish control over the other three- quarters of the territory. This is also being facilitated by a planthat provides — intermittently — limited aid supplies at a few distribution points guarded by the Israeli military, drawing people to the south. Many Gazans are killed in a desperate attempt to obtain food, and the starvation crisis deepens. On July 7, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the I.D.F. would build a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of Rafah to initially accommodate 600,000 Palestinians from the Mawasi area, who would be provisioned by international bodies and not allowed to leave. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT *** Some might describe this campaign as ethnic cleansing, not genocide. But there is a link between the crimes. When an ethnic group has nowhere to go and is constantly displaced from one so-called safe zone to another, relentlessly bombed and starved, ethnic cleansing can morph into genocide. This was the case in several well-known genocides of the 20th century, such as that of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa, now Namibia, that began in 1904; the Armenians in World War I; and, indeed, even in the Holocaust, which began with the German attempt to expel the Jews and ended up with their murder. To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust — and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 791     no institutions dedicated to researching and commemorating it — have issued warnings that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This silence has made a mockery of the slogan “Never again,” transforming its meaning from an assertion of resistance to inhumanity wherever it is perpetrated to an excuse, an apology, indeed, even a carte blanche for destroying others by invoking one’s own past victimhood. This is another of the many incalculable costs of the current catastrophe. As Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza and is exercising increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the moral and historical credit that the Jewish state has drawn on until now is running out. Israel, created in the wake of the Holocaust as the answer to the Nazi genocide of the Jews, has always insisted that any threat to its security must be seen as potentially leading to another Auschwitz. This provides Israel with license to portray those it perceives as its enemies as Nazis — a term usedrepeatedly by Israeli media figures to depict Hamas and, by extension, all Gazans, based on the popular assertion that none of them are “uninvolved,” not even the infants, who would grow up to be militants. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT This is not a new phenomenon. As early as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared Yasir Arafat, then {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 792     hunkered down in Beirut, to Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. This time, the analogy is being used in connection with a policy aimed at uprooting and removing the entire population of Gaza. The daily scenes of horror in Gaza, from which the Israeli public is shielded by its own media’s self- censorship, expose the lies of Israeli propaganda that this is a war of defense against a Nazi-like enemy. One shudders when Israeli spokespeople shamelessly utter the hollow slogan of the I.D.F. being the “most moral army in the world.” Some European nations, such as France, Britain and Germany, as well as Canada, have feebly protested Israeli actions, especially since it breached the cease- fire in March. But they have neither suspended arms shipments nor taken many concrete and meaningful economic or political steps that might deter Mr. Netanyahu’s government. For a while, the United States government seemed to have lost interest in Gaza, with President Trump initially announcing in February that the United States would take over Gaza, promising to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” and then letting Israel get on with the Strip’s destruction and turning his attention to Iran. At the moment, one can only hope that Mr. Trump will again pressure a reluctant Mr. Netanyahu to at least reach a new cease-fire and put an end to the relentless killing. *** How will Israel’s future be affected by the inevitable demolition of its incontestable morality, derived from its birth in the ashes of the Holocaust? ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 793     Israel’s political leadership and its citizenry will have to decide. There seems to be little domestic pressure for the urgently needed change of paradigm: the recognition that there is no solution to this conflict other than an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to share the land under whatever parameters the two sides agree on, be it two states, one state or a confederation. Robust external pressure from the country’s allies also appears unlikely. I am deeply worried that Israel will persist on its disastrous course, remaking itself, perhaps irreversibly, into a full-blown authoritarian apartheid state. Such states, as history has taught us, do not last. Another question arises: What consequences will Israel’s moral reversal have for the culture of Holocaust commemoration, and the politics of memory, education and scholarship, when so many of its intellectual and administrative leaders have up to now refused to face up to their responsibility to denounce inhumanity and genocide wherever they occur? Those engaged in the worldwide culture of commemoration and remembrance built around the Holocaust will have to confront a moral reckoning. The wider community of genocide scholars — those engaged in the study of comparative genocide or of any one of the many other genocides that have marred human history — is now edging ever closer toward a consensus over describing events in Gaza as a genocide. In November, a little more than a year into the war, the Israeli genocide scholar Shmuel Lederman joined the growing chorus of opinion that Israel was engaged in genocidal actions. The Canadian international lawyer William Schabas came to the same conclusion last year and has recently described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “absolutely” a genocide. Other genocide experts, such as Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the British specialist Martin Shaw (who has also said that the Hamas attack was genocidal), have reached the same conclusion, while the Australian scholar A. Dirk Moses of the City University of New York described these events in the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 794     Dutch publication NRC as a “mix of genocidal and military logic.” In the same article, Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor at the Amsterdam-based NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said there are probably scholars who still do not think it’s genocide, but “I don’t know them.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most Holocaust scholars I know don’t hold, or at least publicly express, this view. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Israeli Raz Segal, program director of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem historians Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, the majority of academics engaged with the history of the Nazi genocide of the Jews have stayed remarkably silent, while some have openly denied Israel’s crimes in Gaza, or accused their more critical colleagues of incendiary speech, wild exaggeration, well poisoning and antisemitism. In December the Holocaust scholar Norman J.W. Goda opined that “genocide charges like this have long been used as a fig leaf for broader challenges to Israel’s legitimacy,” expressing his worry that “they have cheapened the gravity of the word genocide itself.” This “genocide libel,” as Dr. Goda referred to it in an essay, “deploys a range of antisemitic tropes,” including “the coupling of the genocide charge with the deliberate killing of children, images of whom are ubiquitous on NGO, social media, and other platforms that charge Israel with genocide.” In other words, showing images of Palestinian children {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 795     ripped apart by U.S.-made bombs launched by Israeli pilots is, in this view, an antisemitic act. Most recently, Dr. Goda and a respected historian of Europe, Jeffrey Herf, wrotein The Washington Post that “the genocide accusation hurled against Israel draws on deep wells of fear and hatred” found in “radical interpretations of both Christianity and Islam.” It “has shifted opprobrium from Jews as a religious/ethnic group to the state of Israel, which it depicts as inherently evil.”*** What are the ramifications of this rift between genocide scholars and Holocaust historians? This is not merely a squabble within academe. The memory culture created in recent decades around the Holocaust encompasses much more than the genocide of the Jews. It has come to play a crucial role in politics, education and identity. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Museums dedicated to the Holocaust have served as models for representations of other genocides around the world. Insistence that the lessons of the Holocaust demand the promotion of tolerance, diversity, antiracism and support for migrants and refugees, not to mention human rights and international humanitarian law, is rooted in an understanding of the universal implications of this crime in the heart of Western civilization at the peak of modernity. Discrediting genocide scholars who call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza as antisemitic threatens to erode the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 796     foundation of genocide studies: the ongoing need to define, prevent, punish and reconstruct the history of genocide. Suggesting that this endeavor is motivated instead by malign interests and sentiments — that it is driven by the very hatred and prejudice that was at the root of the Holocaust — is not only morally scandalous, it provides an opening for a politics of denialism and impunity as well. By the same token, when those who have dedicated their careers to teaching and commemorating the Holocaust insist on ignoring or denying Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, they threaten to undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for in the past several decades. That is, the dignity of every human being, respect for the rule of law and the urgent need never to let inhumanity take over the hearts of people and steer the actions of nations in the name of security, national interest and sheer vengeance. ImagePeople at a beach and in the water as the sun sets. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times What I fear is that in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide, it will no longer be possible to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before. Because the Holocaust has been so relentlessly invoked by the state of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the I.D.F., the study and remembrance of the Holocaust could lose its claim to be concerned with universal justice and retreat into the same ethnic ghetto in which it began its life at the end of World War II — as a marginalized preoccupation by the remnants of a marginalized people, an ethnically specific event, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 797     before it succeeded, decades later, to find its rightful place as a lesson and a warning for humanity as a whole. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Just as worrisome is the prospect that the study of genocide as a whole will not survive the accusations of antisemitism, leaving us without the crucial community of scholars and international jurists to stand in the breach at a time when the rise of intolerance, racial hatred, populism and authoritarianism is threatening the values that were at the core of these scholarly, cultural and political endeavors of the 20th century. Perhaps the only light at the end of this very dark tunnel is the possibility that a new generation of Israelis will face their future without sheltering in the shadow of the Holocaust, even as they will have to bear the stain of the genocide in Gaza perpetrated in their name. Israel will have to learn to live without falling back on the Holocaust as justification for inhumanity. That, despite all the horrific suffering we are currently watching, is a valuable thing, and may, in the long run, help Israel face the future in a healthier, more rational and less fearful and violent manner. This will do nothing to compensate for the staggering amount of death and suffering of Palestinians. But an Israel liberated from the overwhelming burden of the Holocaust may finally come to terms with the inescapable need for its seven million Jewish citizens {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 798     to share the land with the seven million Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in peace, equality and dignity. That will be the only just reckoning. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 799     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 3:30:35 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Condemn Israel or be complicit in genocide': Colombia's Gustavo Petro By Al Mayadeen English Source: The Guardian 8 Jul 2025 13:47 2 Shares 4 Min Read Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a Guardian op-ed, accuses Netanyahu of genocide in Gaza and urges global action. Listen On Tuesday, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of orchestrating a "campaign of devastation" in Gaza and called on the international community to move beyond symbolic outrage toward concrete action in defense of international law. Petro has emerged as one of the most {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 800     outspoken world leaders condemning "Israel’s" war on Gaza, and his latest opinion piece adds to a growing series of forceful critiques directed at the ongoing Israeli genocide. Denouncing what he described as 600 days of systematic atrocities, Petro wrote that the world's inaction risks legitimizing a model of impunity where colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and siege warfare are normalized against a captive population. "If we fail to act now," he wrote, "we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu's government." Moral break The president highlighted a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2024, which called for "Israel" to end its illegal occupation within 12 months. He noted that Colombia was among the 124 countries that voted in favor, thereby assuming binding obligations that include sanctions, legal action, and trade measures. "The clock is now ticking," he warned, reaffirming Colombia's commitment by recalling its concrete step: suspending coal exports to "Israel." Related News {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 801     650 days of genocide: 125,000 tons of bombs 2.4 mln lives shattered Starved by 'Israel': People of Gaza are dying while the world watches In his piece, Petro mentioned that he had declared earlier this year: "We cannot fuel the machinery that slaughters Palestinian children and then claim neutrality." This is not the first bold move by the Colombian president. In May, his government formally cut diplomatic ties with "Israel," citing what Petro explicitly described as a "genocide." His administration also appointed Colombia’s first ambassador to Palestine, pledging medical treatment in Colombian hospitals for injured children from Gaza. The newly appointed ambassador, Jorge Iván Ospina, later echoed Petro’s position, warning of a "macabre intention to erase the identity of a people." In Tuesday's article, Petro praised similar actions taken by countries like Malaysia, which banned Israeli ships from its ports, and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 802     South Africa, which brought "Israel" before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. It is worth noting that Colombia joined that case as an intervening party, further deepening its legal opposition to "Israel's" war. Read more: US defends Israeli use of starvation as weapon of war before ICJ Global reckoning Looking ahead, Petro mentioned that Colombia and South Africa, co-chairs of the Hague Group, will host an emergency summit regarding Gaza on July 15. The conference aims to develop a coordinated, multilateral strategy to isolate "Israel" diplomatically and economically while restoring credibility to the global legal order. With the UN's proposed international peace conference indefinitely postponed, Petro cast the July summit as a necessary corrective to global paralysis. The Colombian president framed the Gaza crisis not just as a moral catastrophe but as an existential test for international law and nations of the Global South. "We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict," he wrote, "or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics." He concluded his piece by stressing that the choice is between complicity in colonial {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 803     violence and collective resistance against it. On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 3:12 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. It appears that the once- respectable organization has been taken over by malevolent actors with a political axe togrind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’ explicit genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make no reference at all to the fact thatIsrael is facing a ruthless enemy that observes no international laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in the mildest language possible, and then use the most damning possible language when describing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantly false accusation that isvery easily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, as if the territories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewish nation, don't belong to Jews at all,but are instead the property of a fictitious country called “Palestine” which has never actually existed in any historical period. In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” that deserves no credibilitywhatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committing {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 804     genocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with totalimpunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These actsinclude killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhumangroup unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to theinternational community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide.All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to animmediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularly acute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement andannihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 805     was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicateHamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gaza closely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction overtime. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction ofPalestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 byHamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited actswith the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 806     evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at thetime of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, andinjured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has caused unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gazauninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza toincommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rightslaw. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 807     Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aidwere the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence ofHamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research foundIsrael repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be no justification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aidcould explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly orthat it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this isgenocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of considerationis in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 808     International were preceded by officials urging their implementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensivethat appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified byAmnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any ofthese strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations ofPalestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeateddirect attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities and injuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 809     conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life- sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” ordersto forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energysources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an alreadyexisting humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and ledto the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. The international community’s seismic,shameful failure for over a year to pressIsrael to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remaina stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve thehumanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it has repeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or theirobstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displaced {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 810     nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiple waves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residents are refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns and villages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions weredeliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to their homes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel,continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to returnunder international law to areas they were displaced from in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismayand take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants forPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect forthe court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 811     “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetrators to justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and otherPalestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamasofficials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well as other unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in theState of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY MIDDLE EAST {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 812     MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must be protected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish government to press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 813     Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact Us How We’re Run Modern Slavery Act Statement Finances {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 814     RESOURCES Media Centre Human Rights Education Human Rights Courses Annual report archive GET INVOLVED JoinTake Action Volunteer LATEST News Campaigns Research WORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you. Privacy Policy Accessibility Cookie Statement PermissionsRefunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON: Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOT committing {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 815     genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill as many Gazans as possible, thedeath toll would be much, much higher than it is. They wouldn't allow anyfood or medicine in at all, and they wouldn't issue evacuation warnings beforestriking Hamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, butHamas makes it very difficult by deliberately placing their command centersin civilian locations such as schools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, which does have anexplicit policy of genocide (by your definition) against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end their suffering tomorrowif they wanted to. All they have to do is lay down their arms and release thehostages, and the war would be over immediately. But Hamas has no interestin ending the suffering of the Gazans. What they're actually calling for is anopen-ended war of attrition against Israel, no matter what the cost to theirown people. Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 816     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 817     Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 818     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 819     People inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend.*** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 820     SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 821     particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out. *** {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 822     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 3:13:06 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Aram, Amnesty International is not a credible source on this issue. It appears that the once- respectable organization has been taken over by malevolent actors with a political axe togrind. Their anti-Israel bias is evident throughout the report. They accuse Israel of genocide but make no mention at all of Hamas’ explicit genocidal policy against Jews. They accuse Israel of violating international law, but make no reference at all to the fact thatIsrael is facing a ruthless enemy that observes no international laws whatsoever. When they mention Hamas’ transgressions at all, they do it in the mildest language possible, and then use the most damning possible language when describing Israel's actions. They take it as a given that Israel is an apartheid state, a blatantly false accusation that is veryeasily disproved. They take it as a given that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, as if the territories of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewish nation, don't belong to Jews at all, butare instead the property of a fictitious country called “Palestine” which has never actually existed in any historical period. This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 823     In short, this entire report is a politically motivated “hatchet job” that deserves no credibilitywhatsoever. Martin Wasserman On Jul 20, 2025, at 11:39 AM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with totalimpunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These actsinclude killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhumangroup unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to theinternational community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 824     All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularly acute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement andannihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm itwas inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to takeimmediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicateHamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gaza closely and in their totality, taking into account theirrecurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction overtime. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction ofPalestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 byHamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 825     Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited actswith the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysedstatements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at thetime of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, andinjured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has caused unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at alevel and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gazauninhabitable. Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 826     exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts,genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeligovernment and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinianterritory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and thatthe resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organizationconcluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoidindiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be no justification based on Hamas’s actions. AmnestyInternational also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternativearguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather thangenocidal intent. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 827     Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It muststop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destructionof Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International were preceded by officials urging their implementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officialsand others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statementsmade by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on theground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools anduniversities. Killing and causing serious bodily ormental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds ofothers. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 828     destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities andinjuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and thedenial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gazacutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian accesswithin Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with theextensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact wasespecially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 829     The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain onour collective conscience. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve thehumanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it has repeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or theirobstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displaced nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population –into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiple waves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residentsare refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns and villages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life,Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to theirhomes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displaced from in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 830     “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some ofIsrael’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes againsthumanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted bythe ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating andfor all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetrators to justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostagesto be released unconditionally and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Councilto impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming AmnestyInternational report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including directattacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 831     indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well as other unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 832     DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must be protected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish government to press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 833     Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact Us How We’re Run Modern Slavery Act Statement Finances RESOURCES Media Centre Human Rights Education Human Rights Courses Annual report archiveGET INVOLVED Join Take ActionVolunteer LATEST NewsCampaigns {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 834     Research WORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you. Privacy Policy Accessibility Cookie Statement Permissions Refunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON:Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com>wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOT committinggenocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill as many Gazans as possible, thedeath toll would be much, much higher than it is. They wouldn't allow any foodor medicine in at all, and they wouldn't issue evacuation warnings beforestriking Hamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but Hamasmakes it very difficult by deliberately placing their command centers in civilianlocations such as schools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, which does have anexplicit policy of genocide (by your definition) against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end their suffering tomorrow ifthey wanted to. All they have to do is lay down their arms and release thehostages, and the war would be over immediately. But Hamas has no interest inending the suffering of the Gazans. What they're actually calling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, no matter what the cost to their ownpeople. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 835     Martin Wasserman On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM Martin Wasserman<deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 836     A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 837     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 838     officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 839     *** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 840     geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out. *** Israel has denied all allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The I.D.F. says it investigates reports of crimes, although it has rarely made its findings public, and when breaches of discipline or protocol are acknowledged, it has generally meted out light reprimands to its personnel. Israeli military and political leaders repeatedly describe the I.D.F. as acting lawfully, say they issue warnings to civilian populations to evacuate sites about to be attacked and blame Hamas for using civilians as human shields. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 841     ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In fact, the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure — government buildings, hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, cultural heritage sites, water treatment plants, agriculture areas, and parks — reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely. According to a recent investigation by Haaretz, an estimated 174,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged, accounting for up to 70 percent of all structures in the Strip. So far, more than 58,000 people have been killed, according to Gazan health authorities, including more than 17,000 children, who make up nearly a third of the total fatality count. More than 870 of those children were less than a year old. More than 2,000 families have been wiped out, the health authorities said. In addition, 5,600 families now count only one survivor. At least 10,000 people are believed to still be buried under the ruins of their homes. More than 138,000 have been wounded and maimed. Gaza now has the grim distinction of having the highest number of amputee children per capita in the world. An entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long-term malnutrition will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives. Untold additional thousands of chronically ill persons have had little access to hospital care. The horror of what has been happening in Gaza is still {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 842     described by most observers as war. But this is a misnomer. For the last year, the I.D.F. has not been fighting an organized military body. The version of Hamas that planned and carried out the attacks on Oct. 7 has been destroyed, though the weakened group continues to fight Israeli forces and retains control over the population in areas not held by the Israeli Army. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Today the I.D.F. is primarily engaged in an operation of demolition and ethnic cleansing. That’s how Mr. Netanyahu’s own former chief of staff and minister of defense, the hard-liner Moshe Yaalon, in November described on Israel’s Democrat TV and in subsequent articlesand interviews the attempt to clear northern Gaza of its population. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 843     A man in shadow sorts through the rubble of a home. Credit...Mahmoud Issa/Reuters On Jan. 19, under pressure from Donald Trump, who was a day away from resuming the presidency, a cease- fire went into effect, facilitating the exchange of hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. But after Israel’s breaking of the cease-fire on March 18, the I.D.F. has been executing a well-publicized plan to concentrate the entire Gazan population in a quarter of the territory in three zones: Gaza City, the central refugee camps and the Mawasi coastline in the Strip’s southwestern edge. Using large numbers of bulldozers and huge aerial bombs supplied by the United States, the military appears to be trying to demolish every remaining structure and establish control over the other three- quarters of the territory. This is also being facilitated by a planthat provides — intermittently — limited aid supplies at a few distribution points guarded by the Israeli military, drawing people to the south. Many Gazans are killed in a desperate attempt to obtain food, and the starvation crisis deepens. On July 7, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the I.D.F. would build a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of Rafah to initially accommodate 600,000 Palestinians from the Mawasi area, who would be provisioned by international bodies and not allowed to leave. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 844     *** Some might describe this campaign as ethnic cleansing, not genocide. But there is a link between the crimes. When an ethnic group has nowhere to go and is constantly displaced from one so-called safe zone to another, relentlessly bombed and starved, ethnic cleansing can morph into genocide. This was the case in several well-known genocides of the 20th century, such as that of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa, now Namibia, that began in 1904; the Armenians in World War I; and, indeed, even in the Holocaust, which began with the German attempt to expel the Jews and ended up with their murder. To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust — and no institutions dedicated to researching and commemorating it — have issued warnings that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This silence has made a mockery of the slogan “Never again,” transforming its meaning from an assertion of resistance to inhumanity wherever it is perpetrated to an excuse, an apology, indeed, even a carte blanche for destroying others by invoking one’s own past victimhood. This is another of the many incalculable costs of the current catastrophe. As Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza and is exercising increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the moral and historical credit that the Jewish state has drawn on until now is running out. Israel, created in the wake of the Holocaust as the answer to the Nazi genocide of the Jews, has always insisted that any threat to its security must be seen as potentially leading to another Auschwitz. This {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 845     provides Israel with license to portray those it perceives as its enemies as Nazis — a term usedrepeatedly by Israeli media figures to depict Hamas and, by extension, all Gazans, based on the popular assertion that none of them are “uninvolved,” not even the infants, who would grow up to be militants. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT This is not a new phenomenon. As early as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared Yasir Arafat, then hunkered down in Beirut, to Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. This time, the analogy is being used in connection with a policy aimed at uprooting and removing the entire population of Gaza. The daily scenes of horror in Gaza, from which the Israeli public is shielded by its own media’s self- censorship, expose the lies of Israeli propaganda that this is a war of defense against a Nazi-like enemy. One shudders when Israeli spokespeople shamelessly utter the hollow slogan of the I.D.F. being the “most moral army in the world.” Some European nations, such as France, Britain and Germany, as well as Canada, have feebly protested Israeli actions, especially since it breached the cease- fire in March. But they have neither suspended arms shipments nor taken many concrete and meaningful economic or political steps that might deter Mr. Netanyahu’s government. For a while, the United States government seemed to have lost interest in Gaza, with President Trump {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 846     initially announcing in February that the United States would take over Gaza, promising to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” and then letting Israel get on with the Strip’s destruction and turning his attention to Iran. At the moment, one can only hope that Mr. Trump will again pressure a reluctant Mr. Netanyahu to at least reach a new cease-fire and put an end to the relentless killing. *** How will Israel’s future be affected by the inevitable demolition of its incontestable morality, derived from its birth in the ashes of the Holocaust? ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Israel’s political leadership and its citizenry will have to decide. There seems to be little domestic pressure for the urgently needed change of paradigm: the recognition that there is no solution to this conflict other than an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to share the land under whatever parameters the two sides agree on, be it two states, one state or a confederation. Robust external pressure from the country’s allies also appears unlikely. I am deeply worried that Israel will persist on its disastrous course, remaking itself, perhaps irreversibly, into a full-blown authoritarian apartheid state. Such states, as history has taught us, do not last. Another question arises: What consequences will Israel’s moral reversal have for the culture of Holocaust commemoration, and the politics of memory, education and scholarship, when so many of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 847     its intellectual and administrative leaders have up to now refused to face up to their responsibility to denounce inhumanity and genocide wherever they occur? Those engaged in the worldwide culture of commemoration and remembrance built around the Holocaust will have to confront a moral reckoning. The wider community of genocide scholars — those engaged in the study of comparative genocide or of any one of the many other genocides that have marred human history — is now edging ever closer toward a consensus over describing events in Gaza as a genocide. In November, a little more than a year into the war, the Israeli genocide scholar Shmuel Lederman joined the growing chorus of opinion that Israel was engaged in genocidal actions. The Canadian international lawyer William Schabas came to the same conclusion last year and has recently described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “absolutely” a genocide. Other genocide experts, such as Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the British specialist Martin Shaw (who has also said that the Hamas attack was genocidal), have reached the same conclusion, while the Australian scholar A. Dirk Moses of the City University of New York described these events in the Dutch publication NRC as a “mix of genocidal and military logic.” In the same article, Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor at the Amsterdam-based NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said there are probably scholars who still do not think it’s genocide, but “I don’t know them.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 848     Most Holocaust scholars I know don’t hold, or at least publicly express, this view. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Israeli Raz Segal, program director of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem historians Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, the majority of academics engaged with the history of the Nazi genocide of the Jews have stayed remarkably silent, while some have openly denied Israel’s crimes in Gaza, or accused their more critical colleagues of incendiary speech, wild exaggeration, well poisoning and antisemitism. In December the Holocaust scholar Norman J.W. Goda opined that “genocide charges like this have long been used as a fig leaf for broader challenges to Israel’s legitimacy,” expressing his worry that “they have cheapened the gravity of the word genocide itself.” This “genocide libel,” as Dr. Goda referred to it in an essay, “deploys a range of antisemitic tropes,” including “the coupling of the genocide charge with the deliberate killing of children, images of whom are ubiquitous on NGO, social media, and other platforms that charge Israel with genocide.” In other words, showing images of Palestinian children ripped apart by U.S.-made bombs launched by Israeli pilots is, in this view, an antisemitic act. Most recently, Dr. Goda and a respected historian of Europe, Jeffrey Herf, wrotein The Washington Post that “the genocide accusation hurled against Israel draws on deep wells of fear and hatred” found in “radical interpretations of both Christianity and Islam.” It “has shifted opprobrium from Jews as a religious/ethnic group to the state of Israel, which it depicts as inherently evil.”*** What are the ramifications of this rift between genocide scholars and Holocaust historians? This is not merely a squabble within academe. The memory culture created in recent decades around the Holocaust encompasses much more than the genocide of the Jews. It has come to play a crucial role in politics, education and identity. ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 849     SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Museums dedicated to the Holocaust have served as models for representations of other genocides around the world. Insistence that the lessons of the Holocaust demand the promotion of tolerance, diversity, antiracism and support for migrants and refugees, not to mention human rights and international humanitarian law, is rooted in an understanding of the universal implications of this crime in the heart of Western civilization at the peak of modernity. Discrediting genocide scholars who call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza as antisemitic threatens to erode the foundation of genocide studies: the ongoing need to define, prevent, punish and reconstruct the history of genocide. Suggesting that this endeavor is motivated instead by malign interests and sentiments — that it is driven by the very hatred and prejudice that was at the root of the Holocaust — is not only morally scandalous, it provides an opening for a politics of denialism and impunity as well. By the same token, when those who have dedicated their careers to teaching and commemorating the Holocaust insist on ignoring or denying Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, they threaten to undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for in the past several decades. That is, the dignity of every human being, respect for the rule of law and the urgent need never to let inhumanity take over the hearts of people and steer the actions of nations in the name of security, national interest and sheer vengeance. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 850     People at a beach and in the water as the sun sets. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times What I fear is that in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide, it will no longer be possible to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before. Because the Holocaust has been so relentlessly invoked by the state of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the I.D.F., the study and remembrance of the Holocaust could lose its claim to be concerned with universal justice and retreat into the same ethnic ghetto in which it began its life at the end of World War II — as a marginalized preoccupation by the remnants of a marginalized people, an ethnically specific event, before it succeeded, decades later, to find its rightful place as a lesson and a warning for humanity as a whole. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 851     Just as worrisome is the prospect that the study of genocide as a whole will not survive the accusations of antisemitism, leaving us without the crucial community of scholars and international jurists to stand in the breach at a time when the rise of intolerance, racial hatred, populism and authoritarianism is threatening the values that were at the core of these scholarly, cultural and political endeavors of the 20th century. Perhaps the only light at the end of this very dark tunnel is the possibility that a new generation of Israelis will face their future without sheltering in the shadow of the Holocaust, even as they will have to bear the stain of the genocide in Gaza perpetrated in their name. Israel will have to learn to live without falling back on the Holocaust as justification for inhumanity. That, despite all the horrific suffering we are currently watching, is a valuable thing, and may, in the long run, help Israel face the future in a healthier, more rational and less fearful and violent manner. This will do nothing to compensate for the staggering amount of death and suffering of Palestinians. But an Israel liberated from the overwhelming burden of the Holocaust may finally come to terms with the inescapable need for its seven million Jewish citizens to share the land with the seven million Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in peace, equality and dignity. That will be the only just reckoning. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 852     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 11:40:00 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of theorganization. Be cautious of opening attachments andclicking on links. Amnesty Internationalinvestigation concludesIsrael is committinggenocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new reportpublished today. The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity. “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm anddeliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 853     month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bringIsrael’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.” Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularly acute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besiegedpopulation is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. “Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted incommitting genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.  “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza arelawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.” Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gazaclosely and in their totality, taking into account their recurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered thescale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the warefforts. “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 854     apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard. “The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victimsof other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetratordoes not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient. Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212 people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, localauthorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and militaryofficials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication. Unprecedented scale and magnitude Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of themin direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has caused unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21stcentury, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 855     Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions: “Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.” Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s militarycampaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion. Intent to destroy To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and theunlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targetedHamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilianpopulation or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take allfeasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be no {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 856     justification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process,demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call tothe international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of considerationis in itself evidence of genocidal intent. Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International were preceded by officials urging their implementation. The organization reviewed 102 statementsthat were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language wasfrequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebratingthe destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities. Killing and causing serious bodily or {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 857     mental harm Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds ofothers. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective. In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinahneighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping. While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerialattacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities andinjuries among the civilian population. Inflicting conditions of life calculatedto bring about physical destruction The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and thedenial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gazacutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian accesswithin Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life- {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 858     saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant orbreastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. The international community’s seismic, shameful failurefor over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience.Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it hasrepeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip or their obstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situationhas grown progressively worse. Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displaced nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumaneconditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiple waves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residents are refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns andvillages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that wouldhave protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to theirhomes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 859     parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displaced from in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to. Accountability for genocide “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collectiveconscience,” said Agnès Callamard. “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. Statesneed to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies. “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overduejustice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC. “We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetratorsto justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.” Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and otherPalestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account. The organization is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamasofficials most implicated in crimes under international law. Background {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 860     On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report. Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in- depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberatelyindiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well as other unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in theState of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire. For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY MIDDLE EAST MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA NEWS PRESS RELEASE WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 861     Related Content COUNTRY Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory NEWS New NATO defence commitments must notcome at cost of human rights NEWS Gaza: Starvation or gunfire – this is not ahumanitarian response NEWS DRC: Peace deal with Rwanda fails toaddress serious crimes committed ineastern DRC NEWS Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continueduse of starvation to inflict genocide againstPalestinians Recently added Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must be protected amid police crackdown Ireland: Amnesty’s head urges Irish government to press ahead with Occupied Territories Bill Angola: Authorities must respect and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly Russia: Proposed amendments to counter- extremism laws escalate assault on dissent EU-Israel: Refusal to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ DONATE TO PROTECTHUMAN RIGHTS {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 862     Women's Day protest in Mexico Together we can fight for human rights everywhere. Your donation can transform the lives of millions. ABOUT US Contact Us How We’re Run Modern Slavery Act Statement Finances RESOURCES Media Centre Human Rights Education Human Rights CoursesAnnual report archive GET INVOLVED JoinTake Action Volunteer LATEST News {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 863     Campaigns Research WORK WITH US If you are talented and passionate about human rights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you. Privacy Policy Accessibility Cookie Statement Permissions Refunds of Donations © 2025 Amnesty International FOLLOW US ON: Facebook Instagram X TikTok Bluesky YouTube LinkedIn On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 10:03 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOT committing genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill as many Gazans as possible, the death toll would be much, muchhigher than it is. They wouldn't allow any food or medicine in at all, and they wouldn't issue evacuation warnings before striking Hamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but Hamas makes it verydifficult by deliberately placing their command centers in civilian locations such as schools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, which does have an explicit policy ofgenocide (by your definition) against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end their suffering tomorrow if they wanted to. All they have to do is lay down their arms and release the hostages, and the war would beover immediately. But Hamas has no interest in ending the suffering of the Gazans. What they're actually calling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, no matter whatthe cost to their own people. Martin Wasserman {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 864     On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, Aram James<abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 865     crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 866     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 867     long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend.*** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 868     part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 869     convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out. *** Israel has denied all allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The I.D.F. says it investigates reports of crimes, although it has rarely made its findings public, and when breaches of discipline or protocol are acknowledged, it has generally meted out light reprimands to its personnel. Israeli military and political leaders repeatedly describe the I.D.F. as acting lawfully, say they issue warnings to civilian populations to evacuate sites about to be attacked and blame Hamas for using civilians as human shields. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 870     In fact, the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure — government buildings, hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, cultural heritage sites, water treatment plants, agriculture areas, and parks — reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely. According to a recent investigation by Haaretz, an estimated 174,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged, accounting for up to 70 percent of all structures in the Strip. So far, more than 58,000 people have been killed, according to Gazan health authorities, including more than 17,000 children, who make up nearly a third of the total fatality count. More than 870 of those children were less than a year old. More than 2,000 families have been wiped out, the health authorities said. In addition, 5,600 families now count only one survivor. At least 10,000 people are believed to still be buried under the ruins of their homes. More than 138,000 have been wounded and maimed. Gaza now has the grim distinction of having the highest number of amputee children per capita in the world. An entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long- term malnutrition will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives. Untold additional thousands of chronically ill persons have had little access to hospital care. The horror of what has been happening in Gaza is still described by most observers as war. But this is a misnomer. For the last year, the I.D.F. has not been fighting an organized military body. The version of Hamas that planned and carried out the attacks on {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 871     Oct. 7 has been destroyed, though the weakened group continues to fight Israeli forces and retains control over the population in areas not held by the Israeli Army. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Today the I.D.F. is primarily engaged in an operation of demolition and ethnic cleansing. That’s how Mr. Netanyahu’s own former chief of staff and minister of defense, the hard-liner Moshe Yaalon, in November described on Israel’s Democrat TV and in subsequent articlesand interviews the attempt to clear northern Gaza of its population. Image Credit...Mahmoud Issa/Reuters On Jan. 19, under pressure from Donald Trump, who was a day away from resuming the presidency, a cease- {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 872     A man in shadow sorts through the rubble of a home. fire went into effect, facilitating the exchange of hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. But after Israel’s breaking of the cease-fire on March 18, the I.D.F. has been executing a well-publicized plan to concentrate the entire Gazan population in a quarter of the territory in three zones: Gaza City, the central refugee camps and the Mawasi coastline in the Strip’s southwestern edge. Using large numbers of bulldozers and huge aerial bombs supplied by the United States, the military appears to be trying to demolish every remaining structure and establish control over the other three- quarters of the territory. This is also being facilitated by a planthat provides — intermittently — limited aid supplies at a few distribution points guarded by the Israeli military, drawing people to the south. Many Gazans are killed in a desperate attempt to obtain food, and the starvation crisis deepens. On July 7, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the I.D.F. would build a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of Rafah to initially accommodate 600,000 Palestinians from the Mawasi area, who would be provisioned by international bodies and not allowed to leave. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 873     *** Some might describe this campaign as ethnic cleansing, not genocide. But there is a link between the crimes. When an ethnic group has nowhere to go and is constantly displaced from one so-called safe zone to another, relentlessly bombed and starved, ethnic cleansing can morph into genocide. This was the case in several well-known genocides of the 20th century, such as that of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa, now Namibia, that began in 1904; the Armenians in World War I; and, indeed, even in the Holocaust, which began with the German attempt to expel the Jews and ended up with their murder. To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust — and no institutions dedicated to researching and commemorating it — have issued warnings that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This silence has made a mockery of the slogan “Never again,” transforming its meaning from an assertion of resistance to inhumanity wherever it is perpetrated to an excuse, an apology, indeed, even a carte blanche for destroying others by invoking one’s own past victimhood. This is another of the many incalculable costs of the current catastrophe. As Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza and is exercising increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the moral and historical credit that the Jewish state has drawn on until now is running out. Israel, created in the wake of the Holocaust as the answer to the Nazi genocide of the Jews, has always insisted that any threat to its security must be seen as potentially leading to another Auschwitz. This {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 874     provides Israel with license to portray those it perceives as its enemies as Nazis — a term usedrepeatedly by Israeli media figures to depict Hamas and, by extension, all Gazans, based on the popular assertion that none of them are “uninvolved,” not even the infants, who would grow up to be militants. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT This is not a new phenomenon. As early as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared Yasir Arafat, then hunkered down in Beirut, to Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. This time, the analogy is being used in connection with a policy aimed at uprooting and removing the entire population of Gaza. The daily scenes of horror in Gaza, from which the Israeli public is shielded by its own media’s self- censorship, expose the lies of Israeli propaganda that this is a war of defense against a Nazi-like enemy. One shudders when Israeli spokespeople shamelessly utter the hollow slogan of the I.D.F. being the “most moral army in the world.” Some European nations, such as France, Britain and Germany, as well as Canada, have feebly protested Israeli actions, especially since it breached the cease- fire in March. But they have neither suspended arms shipments nor taken many concrete and meaningful economic or political steps that might deter Mr. Netanyahu’s government. For a while, the United States government seemed to have lost interest in Gaza, with President Trump {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 875     initially announcing in February that the United States would take over Gaza, promising to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” and then letting Israel get on with the Strip’s destruction and turning his attention to Iran. At the moment, one can only hope that Mr. Trump will again pressure a reluctant Mr. Netanyahu to at least reach a new cease-fire and put an end to the relentless killing. *** How will Israel’s future be affected by the inevitable demolition of its incontestable morality, derived from its birth in the ashes of the Holocaust? ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Israel’s political leadership and its citizenry will have to decide. There seems to be little domestic pressure for the urgently needed change of paradigm: the recognition that there is no solution to this conflict other than an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to share the land under whatever parameters the two sides agree on, be it two states, one state or a confederation. Robust external pressure from the country’s allies also appears unlikely. I am deeply worried that Israel will persist on its disastrous course, remaking itself, perhaps irreversibly, into a full-blown authoritarian apartheid state. Such states, as history has taught us, do not last. Another question arises: What consequences will Israel’s moral reversal have for the culture of Holocaust commemoration, and the politics of memory, education and scholarship, when so many of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 876     its intellectual and administrative leaders have up to now refused to face up to their responsibility to denounce inhumanity and genocide wherever they occur? Those engaged in the worldwide culture of commemoration and remembrance built around the Holocaust will have to confront a moral reckoning. The wider community of genocide scholars — those engaged in the study of comparative genocide or of any one of the many other genocides that have marred human history — is now edging ever closer toward a consensus over describing events in Gaza as a genocide. In November, a little more than a year into the war, the Israeli genocide scholar Shmuel Lederman joined the growing chorus of opinion that Israel was engaged in genocidal actions. The Canadian international lawyer William Schabas came to the same conclusion last year and has recently described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “absolutely” a genocide. Other genocide experts, such as Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the British specialist Martin Shaw (who has also said that the Hamas attack was genocidal), have reached the same conclusion, while the Australian scholar A. Dirk Moses of the City University of New York described these events in the Dutch publication NRC as a “mix of genocidal and military logic.” In the same article, Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor at the Amsterdam-based NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said there are probably scholars who still do not think it’s genocide, but “I don’t know them.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 877     Most Holocaust scholars I know don’t hold, or at least publicly express, this view. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Israeli Raz Segal, program director of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem historians Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, the majority of academics engaged with the history of the Nazi genocide of the Jews have stayed remarkably silent, while some have openly denied Israel’s crimes in Gaza, or accused their more critical colleagues of incendiary speech, wild exaggeration, well poisoning and antisemitism. In December the Holocaust scholar Norman J.W. Goda opined that “genocide charges like this have long been used as a fig leaf for broader challenges to Israel’s legitimacy,” expressing his worry that “they have cheapened the gravity of the word genocide itself.” This “genocide libel,” as Dr. Goda referred to it in an essay, “deploys a range of antisemitic tropes,” including “the coupling of the genocide charge with the deliberate killing of children, images of whom are ubiquitous on NGO, social media, and other platforms that charge Israel with genocide.” In other words, showing images of Palestinian children ripped apart by U.S.-made bombs launched by Israeli pilots is, in this view, an antisemitic act. Most recently, Dr. Goda and a respected historian of Europe, Jeffrey Herf, wrotein The Washington Post that “the genocide accusation hurled against Israel draws on deep wells of fear and hatred” found in “radical interpretations of both Christianity and Islam.” It “has shifted opprobrium from Jews as a religious/ethnic group to the state of Israel, which it depicts as inherently evil.”*** What are the ramifications of this rift between genocide scholars and Holocaust historians? This is not merely a squabble within academe. The memory culture created in recent decades around the Holocaust encompasses much more than the genocide of the Jews. It has come to play a crucial role in politics, education and identity. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 878     ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Museums dedicated to the Holocaust have served as models for representations of other genocides around the world. Insistence that the lessons of the Holocaust demand the promotion of tolerance, diversity, antiracism and support for migrants and refugees, not to mention human rights and international humanitarian law, is rooted in an understanding of the universal implications of this crime in the heart of Western civilization at the peak of modernity. Discrediting genocide scholars who call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza as antisemitic threatens to erode the foundation of genocide studies: the ongoing need to define, prevent, punish and reconstruct the history of genocide. Suggesting that this endeavor is motivated instead by malign interests and sentiments — that it is driven by the very hatred and prejudice that was at the root of the Holocaust — is not only morally scandalous, it provides an opening for a politics of denialism and impunity as well. By the same token, when those who have dedicated their careers to teaching and commemorating the Holocaust insist on ignoring or denying Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, they threaten to undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for in the past several decades. That is, the dignity of every human being, respect for the rule of law and the urgent need never to let inhumanity take over the hearts of people and steer the actions of nations in the name of security, national interest and sheer vengeance. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 879     ImagePeople at a beach and in the water as the sun sets. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times What I fear is that in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide, it will no longer be possible to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before. Because the Holocaust has been so relentlessly invoked by the state of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the I.D.F., the study and remembrance of the Holocaust could lose its claim to be concerned with universal justice and retreat into the same ethnic ghetto in which it began its life at the end of World War II — as a marginalized preoccupation by the remnants of a marginalized people, an ethnically specific event, before it succeeded, decades later, to find its rightful place as a lesson and a warning for humanity as a whole. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 880     Just as worrisome is the prospect that the study of genocide as a whole will not survive the accusations of antisemitism, leaving us without the crucial community of scholars and international jurists to stand in the breach at a time when the rise of intolerance, racial hatred, populism and authoritarianism is threatening the values that were at the core of these scholarly, cultural and political endeavors of the 20th century. Perhaps the only light at the end of this very dark tunnel is the possibility that a new generation of Israelis will face their future without sheltering in the shadow of the Holocaust, even as they will have to bear the stain of the genocide in Gaza perpetrated in their name. Israel will have to learn to live without falling back on the Holocaust as justification for inhumanity. That, despite all the horrific suffering we are currently watching, is a valuable thing, and may, in the long run, help Israel face the future in a healthier, more rational and less fearful and violent manner. This will do nothing to compensate for the staggering amount of death and suffering of Palestinians. But an Israel liberated from the overwhelming burden of the Holocaust may finally come to terms with the inescapable need for its seven million Jewish citizens to share the land with the seven million Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in peace, equality and dignity. That will be the only just reckoning. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 881     From:Aram James To:Vicki Veenker Cc:Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Lauing, Ed; Reckdahl, Keith; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Lu, George; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Zelkha, Mila; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Gennady Sheyner; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Baker, Rob; Roberta Ahlquist; board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; james pitkin; Binder, Andrew; Sean Allen; Carla Torres; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; city.council@menlopark.gov; CityCouncil; Mark Turner; Michelle Bigelow; GRP-City Council; Council, City; editor@almanacnews.com; Diana Diamond; EPA Today; Damon Silver; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Conrad; Human Relations Commission; Bill Newell; Raymond Goins; Figueroa, Eric; h.etzko@gmail.com; Doug Minkler; Rowena Chiu; Lotus Fong; Linda Jolley; Friends of Cubberley; Palo Alto Free Press; Holman, Karen (external); Tom DuBois; Greg Tanaka; Braden Cartwright; Templeton, Cari; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; Angel, David; David Piper; Gerry Gras Subject:Re: Watch "Gabor Maté, Chris Hedges & Aaron Maté on "Palestine: The Moral Issue of Our Time"" on YouTube Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 10:22:24 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Subject: Presentation and Recommended Reading List July 20, 2025 Hi Vicki, I believe you will find value in the presentation by these two incredibly knowledgeable andhonorable individuals. I apologize for not having provided you with my recommended reading list regarding the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Given recent events, I plan to share myreading list with you when the council reconvenes in August. Best regards, Aram On Sat, Jul 19, 2025, at 10:29 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:https://youtu.be/fnl49IWqIcY?si=W8bBD4vdXNQ3QBlB {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 882     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Sunday, July 20, 2025 10:06:03 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Aram, If that's the definition of genocide, then Israel is clearly NOT committing genocide in Gaza. If Israel were trying to kill as many Gazans as possible, the death toll would be much, muchhigher than it is. They wouldn't allow any food or medicine in at all, and they wouldn't issue evacuation warnings before striking Hamas targets. The truth is, Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but Hamas makes it verydifficult by deliberately placing their command centers in civilian locations such as schools and hospitals. The only group that Israel wants to destroy is Hamas, which does have an explicit policy ofgenocide (by your definition) against Jews. Yes, the Gazans are suffering, but Hamas could end their suffering tomorrow if they wanted to. All they have to do is lay down their arms and release the hostages, and the war would beover immediately. But Hamas has no interest in ending the suffering of the Gazans. What they're actually calling for is an open-ended war of attrition against Israel, no matter what thecost to their own people. Martin Wasserman This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 883     On Jul 18, 2025, at 8:26 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 884     evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 885     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 886     when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend. *** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 887     therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 888     while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out.*** Israel has denied all allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The I.D.F. says it investigates reports of crimes, although it has rarely made its findings public, and when breaches of discipline or protocol are acknowledged, it has generally meted out light reprimands to its personnel. Israeli military and political leaders repeatedly describe the I.D.F. as acting lawfully, say they issue warnings to civilian populations to evacuate sites about to be attacked and blame Hamas for using civilians as human shields. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 889     In fact, the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure — government buildings, hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, cultural heritage sites, water treatment plants, agriculture areas, and parks — reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely. According to a recent investigation by Haaretz, an estimated 174,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged, accounting for up to 70 percent of all structures in the Strip. So far, more than 58,000 people have been killed, according to Gazan health authorities, including more than 17,000 children, who make up nearly a third of the total fatality count. More than 870 of those children were less than a year old. More than 2,000 families have been wiped out, the health authorities said. In addition, 5,600 families now count only one survivor. At least 10,000 people are believed to still be buried under the ruins of their homes. More than 138,000 have been wounded and maimed. Gaza now has the grim distinction of having the highest number of amputee children per capita in the world. An entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long-term malnutrition will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives. Untold additional thousands of chronically ill persons have had little access to hospital care. The horror of what has been happening in Gaza is still described by most observers as war. But this is a misnomer. For the last year, the I.D.F. has not been fighting an organized military body. The version of Hamas that planned and carried out the attacks on Oct. 7 has been destroyed, though the weakened group continues to fight Israeli forces and retains control {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 890     over the population in areas not held by the Israeli Army. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Today the I.D.F. is primarily engaged in an operation of demolition and ethnic cleansing. That’s how Mr. Netanyahu’s own former chief of staff and minister of defense, the hard-liner Moshe Yaalon, in November described on Israel’s Democrat TV and in subsequent articlesand interviews the attempt to clear northern Gaza of its population. Image Credit...Mahmoud Issa/Reuters On Jan. 19, under pressure from Donald Trump, who was a day away from resuming the presidency, a cease- fire went into effect, facilitating the exchange of hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 891     A man in shadow sorts through the rubble of a home. But after Israel’s breaking of the cease-fire on March 18, the I.D.F. has been executing a well-publicized plan to concentrate the entire Gazan population in a quarter of the territory in three zones: Gaza City, the central refugee camps and the Mawasi coastline in the Strip’s southwestern edge. Using large numbers of bulldozers and huge aerial bombs supplied by the United States, the military appears to be trying to demolish every remaining structure and establish control over the other three- quarters of the territory. This is also being facilitated by a planthat provides — intermittently — limited aid supplies at a few distribution points guarded by the Israeli military, drawing people to the south. Many Gazans are killed in a desperate attempt to obtain food, and the starvation crisis deepens. On July 7, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the I.D.F. would build a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of Rafah to initially accommodate 600,000 Palestinians from the Mawasi area, who would be provisioned by international bodies and not allowed to leave. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 892     *** Some might describe this campaign as ethnic cleansing, not genocide. But there is a link between the crimes. When an ethnic group has nowhere to go and is constantly displaced from one so-called safe zone to another, relentlessly bombed and starved, ethnic cleansing can morph into genocide. This was the case in several well-known genocides of the 20th century, such as that of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa, now Namibia, that began in 1904; the Armenians in World War I; and, indeed, even in the Holocaust, which began with the German attempt to expel the Jews and ended up with their murder. To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust — and no institutions dedicated to researching and commemorating it — have issued warnings that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This silence has made a mockery of the slogan “Never again,” transforming its meaning from an assertion of resistance to inhumanity wherever it is perpetrated to an excuse, an apology, indeed, even a carte blanche for destroying others by invoking one’s own past victimhood. This is another of the many incalculable costs of the current catastrophe. As Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza and is exercising increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the moral and historical credit that the Jewish state has drawn on until now is running out. Israel, created in the wake of the Holocaust as the answer to the Nazi genocide of the Jews, has always insisted that any threat to its security must be seen as potentially leading to another Auschwitz. This {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 893     provides Israel with license to portray those it perceives as its enemies as Nazis — a term usedrepeatedly by Israeli media figures to depict Hamas and, by extension, all Gazans, based on the popular assertion that none of them are “uninvolved,” not even the infants, who would grow up to be militants. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT This is not a new phenomenon. As early as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared Yasir Arafat, then hunkered down in Beirut, to Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. This time, the analogy is being used in connection with a policy aimed at uprooting and removing the entire population of Gaza. The daily scenes of horror in Gaza, from which the Israeli public is shielded by its own media’s self- censorship, expose the lies of Israeli propaganda that this is a war of defense against a Nazi-like enemy. One shudders when Israeli spokespeople shamelessly utter the hollow slogan of the I.D.F. being the “most moral army in the world.” Some European nations, such as France, Britain and Germany, as well as Canada, have feebly protested Israeli actions, especially since it breached the cease- fire in March. But they have neither suspended arms shipments nor taken many concrete and meaningful economic or political steps that might deter Mr. Netanyahu’s government. For a while, the United States government seemed to have lost interest in Gaza, with President Trump {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 894     initially announcing in February that the United States would take over Gaza, promising to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” and then letting Israel get on with the Strip’s destruction and turning his attention to Iran. At the moment, one can only hope that Mr. Trump will again pressure a reluctant Mr. Netanyahu to at least reach a new cease-fire and put an end to the relentless killing. *** How will Israel’s future be affected by the inevitable demolition of its incontestable morality, derived from its birth in the ashes of the Holocaust? ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Israel’s political leadership and its citizenry will have to decide. There seems to be little domestic pressure for the urgently needed change of paradigm: the recognition that there is no solution to this conflict other than an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to share the land under whatever parameters the two sides agree on, be it two states, one state or a confederation. Robust external pressure from the country’s allies also appears unlikely. I am deeply worried that Israel will persist on its disastrous course, remaking itself, perhaps irreversibly, into a full-blown authoritarian apartheid state. Such states, as history has taught us, do not last. Another question arises: What consequences will Israel’s moral reversal have for the culture of Holocaust commemoration, and the politics of memory, education and scholarship, when so many of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 895     its intellectual and administrative leaders have up to now refused to face up to their responsibility to denounce inhumanity and genocide wherever they occur? Those engaged in the worldwide culture of commemoration and remembrance built around the Holocaust will have to confront a moral reckoning. The wider community of genocide scholars — those engaged in the study of comparative genocide or of any one of the many other genocides that have marred human history — is now edging ever closer toward a consensus over describing events in Gaza as a genocide. In November, a little more than a year into the war, the Israeli genocide scholar Shmuel Lederman joined the growing chorus of opinion that Israel was engaged in genocidal actions. The Canadian international lawyer William Schabas came to the same conclusion last year and has recently described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “absolutely” a genocide. Other genocide experts, such as Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the British specialist Martin Shaw (who has also said that the Hamas attack was genocidal), have reached the same conclusion, while the Australian scholar A. Dirk Moses of the City University of New York described these events in the Dutch publication NRC as a “mix of genocidal and military logic.” In the same article, Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor at the Amsterdam-based NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said there are probably scholars who still do not think it’s genocide, but “I don’t know them.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 896     Most Holocaust scholars I know don’t hold, or at least publicly express, this view. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Israeli Raz Segal, program director of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem historians Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, the majority of academics engaged with the history of the Nazi genocide of the Jews have stayed remarkably silent, while some have openly denied Israel’s crimes in Gaza, or accused their more critical colleagues of incendiary speech, wild exaggeration, well poisoning and antisemitism. In December the Holocaust scholar Norman J.W. Goda opined that “genocide charges like this have long been used as a fig leaf for broader challenges to Israel’s legitimacy,” expressing his worry that “they have cheapened the gravity of the word genocide itself.” This “genocide libel,” as Dr. Goda referred to it in an essay, “deploys a range of antisemitic tropes,” including “the coupling of the genocide charge with the deliberate killing of children, images of whom are ubiquitous on NGO, social media, and other platforms that charge Israel with genocide.” In other words, showing images of Palestinian children ripped apart by U.S.-made bombs launched by Israeli pilots is, in this view, an antisemitic act. Most recently, Dr. Goda and a respected historian of Europe, Jeffrey Herf, wrotein The Washington Post that “the genocide accusation hurled against Israel draws on deep wells of fear and hatred” found in “radical interpretations of both Christianity and Islam.” It “has shifted opprobrium from Jews as a religious/ethnic group to the state of Israel, which it depicts as inherently evil.”*** What are the ramifications of this rift between genocide scholars and Holocaust historians? This is not merely a squabble within academe. The memory culture created in recent decades around the Holocaust encompasses much more than the genocide of the Jews. It has come to play a crucial role in politics, education and identity. ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 897     SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Museums dedicated to the Holocaust have served as models for representations of other genocides around the world. Insistence that the lessons of the Holocaust demand the promotion of tolerance, diversity, antiracism and support for migrants and refugees, not to mention human rights and international humanitarian law, is rooted in an understanding of the universal implications of this crime in the heart of Western civilization at the peak of modernity. Discrediting genocide scholars who call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza as antisemitic threatens to erode the foundation of genocide studies: the ongoing need to define, prevent, punish and reconstruct the history of genocide. Suggesting that this endeavor is motivated instead by malign interests and sentiments — that it is driven by the very hatred and prejudice that was at the root of the Holocaust — is not only morally scandalous, it provides an opening for a politics of denialism and impunity as well. By the same token, when those who have dedicated their careers to teaching and commemorating the Holocaust insist on ignoring or denying Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, they threaten to undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for in the past several decades. That is, the dignity of every human being, respect for the rule of law and the urgent need never to let inhumanity take over the hearts of people and steer the actions of nations in the name of security, national interest and sheer vengeance. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 898     People at a beach and in the water as the sun sets. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times What I fear is that in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide, it will no longer be possible to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before. Because the Holocaust has been so relentlessly invoked by the state of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the I.D.F., the study and remembrance of the Holocaust could lose its claim to be concerned with universal justice and retreat into the same ethnic ghetto in which it began its life at the end of World War II — as a marginalized preoccupation by the remnants of a marginalized people, an ethnically specific event, before it succeeded, decades later, to find its rightful place as a lesson and a warning for humanity as a whole. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 899     Just as worrisome is the prospect that the study of genocide as a whole will not survive the accusations of antisemitism, leaving us without the crucial community of scholars and international jurists to stand in the breach at a time when the rise of intolerance, racial hatred, populism and authoritarianism is threatening the values that were at the core of these scholarly, cultural and political endeavors of the 20th century. Perhaps the only light at the end of this very dark tunnel is the possibility that a new generation of Israelis will face their future without sheltering in the shadow of the Holocaust, even as they will have to bear the stain of the genocide in Gaza perpetrated in their name. Israel will have to learn to live without falling back on the Holocaust as justification for inhumanity. That, despite all the horrific suffering we are currently watching, is a valuable thing, and may, in the long run, help Israel face the future in a healthier, more rational and less fearful and violent manner. This will do nothing to compensate for the staggering amount of death and suffering of Palestinians. But an Israel liberated from the overwhelming burden of the Holocaust may finally come to terms with the inescapable need for its seven million Jewish citizens to share the land with the seven million Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in peace, equality and dignity. That will be the only just reckoning. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 900     From:Aram James To:Vicki Veenker; Raymond Goins; Gerry Gras; Gennady Sheyner; Human Relations Commission; EPA Today; CarlaTorres; GRP-City Council; Liz Kniss; Gardener, Liz; Linda Jolley; h.etzko@gmail.com; Holman, Karen (external);Tom DuBois; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Diana Diamond;Councilmember Chappie Jones; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov;District4@sanjoseca.gov; district1@bos.sccgov.org; Friends of Cubberley; Raj Jayadev; rabrica@cityofepa.org;cromero@cityofepa.org; Salem Ajluni; Gennady Sheyner; DuJuan Green; dennis burns; Dennis Upton Cc:Reckdahl, Keith; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Ed Lauing; Lauing, Ed; editor@almanacnews.com; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Dave Price; Jay Boyarsky; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; board@pausd.org; Mark Turner; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Foley, Michael; Bryan Gobin; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Sheree Roth; Emily Mibach; Lori Meyers; Figueroa, Eric; Henry Riggs; Zelkha, Mila; Doug Minkler; Dana St. George; gerald.engler@doj.ca.gov; Don Austin; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Lotus Fong; Yolanda Conaway; Braden Cartwright; Bill Newell Subject:Watch "Gabor Maté, Chris Hedges & Aaron Maté on "Palestine: The Moral Issue of Our Time"" on YouTube Date:Saturday, July 19, 2025 10:30:06 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://youtu.be/fnl49IWqIcY?si=W8bBD4vdXNQ3QBlB {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 901     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki Cc:Reckdahl, Keith; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; editor@paweekly.com; editor@almanacnews.com; Ed Lauing; Shikada, Ed; Gardener, Liz; Donna Wallach; Josh Becker; board@valleywater.org; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; Steve Wagstaffe; Dave Price; h.etzko@gmail.com; Emily Mibach; Binder, Andrew; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Rowena Chiu; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Figueroa, Eric; Human Relations Commission; Gerry Gras; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Seher Awan; Sean Allen; sharon jackson; cotton.gaines@cityofpaloalto.org; Jessica Speiser; Ruth Silver Taube; Roberta Ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Don Austin; yolanda; Yolanda Conaway; EPA Today; cromero@cityofepa.org; Raymond Goins; Vara Ramakrishnan; Raj Jayadev; Ruben Abrica; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Bill Newell; BoardOperations; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Rose Lynn Subject:Watch "Gabor Maté on Gaza: "The Moral Issue of Our Time"" on YouTube Date:Saturday, July 19, 2025 9:48:59 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://youtu.be/hLPYt9UuSdQ?si=0RjchWC9bfpyZGgG {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 902     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee; Mark Turner; City Attorney; CityCouncil; Michelle Bigelow; Sean Allen; Seher Awan; Pat M; Carla Torres; David Piper Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Friday, July 18, 2025 8:26:27 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Genocide defined: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 903     to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 904     or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 905     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 906     international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend. *** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 907     Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out. *** Israel has denied all allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The I.D.F. says it investigates reports of crimes, although it has rarely {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 908     made its findings public, and when breaches of discipline or protocol are acknowledged, it has generally meted out light reprimands to its personnel. Israeli military and political leaders repeatedly describe the I.D.F. as acting lawfully, say they issue warnings to civilian populations to evacuate sites about to be attacked and blame Hamas for using civilians as human shields. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In fact, the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure — government buildings, hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, cultural heritage sites, water treatment plants, agriculture areas, and parks — reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely. According to a recent investigation by Haaretz, an estimated 174,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged, accounting for up to 70 percent of all structures in the Strip. So far, more than 58,000 people have been killed, according to Gazan health authorities, including more than 17,000 children, who make up nearly a third of the total fatality count. More than 870 of those children were less than a year old. More than 2,000 families have been wiped out, the health authorities said. In addition, 5,600 families now count only one survivor. At least 10,000 people are believed to still be buried under the ruins of their homes. More than 138,000 have been wounded and maimed. Gaza now has the grim distinction of having {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 909     the highest number of amputee children per capita in the world. An entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long- term malnutrition will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives. Untold additional thousands of chronically ill persons have had little access to hospital care. The horror of what has been happening in Gaza is still described by most observers as war. But this is a misnomer. For the last year, the I.D.F. has not been fighting an organized military body. The version of Hamas that planned and carried out the attacks on Oct. 7 has been destroyed, though the weakened group continues to fight Israeli forces and retains control over the population in areas not held by the Israeli Army. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Today the I.D.F. is primarily engaged in an operation of demolition and ethnic cleansing. That’s how Mr. Netanyahu’s own former chief of staff and minister of defense, the hard-liner Moshe Yaalon, in November described on Israel’s Democrat TV and in subsequent articlesand interviews the attempt to clear northern Gaza of its population. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 910     A man in shadow sorts through the rubble of a home. Credit...Mahmoud Issa/Reuters On Jan. 19, under pressure from Donald Trump, who was a day away from resuming the presidency, a cease- fire went into effect, facilitating the exchange of hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. But after Israel’s breaking of the cease-fire on March 18, the I.D.F. has been executing a well-publicized plan to concentrate the entire Gazan population in a quarter of the territory in three zones: Gaza City, the central refugee camps and the Mawasi coastline in the Strip’s southwestern edge. Using large numbers of bulldozers and huge aerial bombs supplied by the United States, the military appears to be trying to demolish every remaining structure and establish control over the other three- quarters of the territory. This is also being facilitated by a planthat provides — intermittently — limited aid supplies at a few distribution points guarded by the Israeli military, drawing people to the south. Many Gazans are killed in a desperate attempt to obtain food, and the starvation crisis deepens. On July 7, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the I.D.F. would build a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of Rafah to initially accommodate 600,000 Palestinians from the Mawasi area, who would be provisioned by international bodies and not allowed to leave. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 911     *** Some might describe this campaign as ethnic cleansing, not genocide. But there is a link between the crimes. When an ethnic group has nowhere to go and is constantly displaced from one so-called safe zone to another, relentlessly bombed and starved, ethnic cleansing can morph into genocide. This was the case in several well-known genocides of the 20th century, such as that of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa, now Namibia, that began in 1904; the Armenians in World War I; and, indeed, even in the Holocaust, which began with the German attempt to expel the Jews and ended up with their murder. To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust — and no institutions dedicated to researching and commemorating it — have issued warnings that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This silence has made a mockery of the slogan “Never again,” transforming its meaning from an assertion of resistance to inhumanity wherever it is perpetrated to an excuse, an apology, indeed, even a carte blanche for destroying others by invoking one’s own past victimhood. This is another of the many incalculable costs of the current catastrophe. As Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza and is exercising increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the moral and historical credit that the Jewish state has drawn on until now is running out. Israel, created in the wake of the Holocaust as the answer to the Nazi genocide of the Jews, has always insisted that any threat to its security must be seen as potentially leading to another Auschwitz. This {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 912     provides Israel with license to portray those it perceives as its enemies as Nazis — a term usedrepeatedly by Israeli media figures to depict Hamas and, by extension, all Gazans, based on the popular assertion that none of them are “uninvolved,” not even the infants, who would grow up to be militants. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT This is not a new phenomenon. As early as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared Yasir Arafat, then hunkered down in Beirut, to Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. This time, the analogy is being used in connection with a policy aimed at uprooting and removing the entire population of Gaza. The daily scenes of horror in Gaza, from which the Israeli public is shielded by its own media’s self- censorship, expose the lies of Israeli propaganda that this is a war of defense against a Nazi-like enemy. One shudders when Israeli spokespeople shamelessly utter the hollow slogan of the I.D.F. being the “most moral army in the world.” Some European nations, such as France, Britain and Germany, as well as Canada, have feebly protested Israeli actions, especially since it breached the cease- fire in March. But they have neither suspended arms shipments nor taken many concrete and meaningful economic or political steps that might deter Mr. Netanyahu’s government. For a while, the United States government seemed to have lost interest in Gaza, with President Trump {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 913     initially announcing in February that the United States would take over Gaza, promising to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” and then letting Israel get on with the Strip’s destruction and turning his attention to Iran. At the moment, one can only hope that Mr. Trump will again pressure a reluctant Mr. Netanyahu to at least reach a new cease-fire and put an end to the relentless killing. *** How will Israel’s future be affected by the inevitable demolition of its incontestable morality, derived from its birth in the ashes of the Holocaust? ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Israel’s political leadership and its citizenry will have to decide. There seems to be little domestic pressure for the urgently needed change of paradigm: the recognition that there is no solution to this conflict other than an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to share the land under whatever parameters the two sides agree on, be it two states, one state or a confederation. Robust external pressure from the country’s allies also appears unlikely. I am deeply worried that Israel will persist on its disastrous course, remaking itself, perhaps irreversibly, into a full-blown authoritarian apartheid state. Such states, as history has taught us, do not last. Another question arises: What consequences will Israel’s moral reversal have for the culture of Holocaust commemoration, and the politics of memory, education and scholarship, when so many of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 914     its intellectual and administrative leaders have up to now refused to face up to their responsibility to denounce inhumanity and genocide wherever they occur? Those engaged in the worldwide culture of commemoration and remembrance built around the Holocaust will have to confront a moral reckoning. The wider community of genocide scholars — those engaged in the study of comparative genocide or of any one of the many other genocides that have marred human history — is now edging ever closer toward a consensus over describing events in Gaza as a genocide. In November, a little more than a year into the war, the Israeli genocide scholar Shmuel Lederman joined the growing chorus of opinion that Israel was engaged in genocidal actions. The Canadian international lawyer William Schabas came to the same conclusion last year and has recently described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “absolutely” a genocide. Other genocide experts, such as Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the British specialist Martin Shaw (who has also said that the Hamas attack was genocidal), have reached the same conclusion, while the Australian scholar A. Dirk Moses of the City University of New York described these events in the Dutch publication NRC as a “mix of genocidal and military logic.” In the same article, Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor at the Amsterdam-based NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said there are probably scholars who still do not think it’s genocide, but “I don’t know them.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 915     Most Holocaust scholars I know don’t hold, or at least publicly express, this view. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Israeli Raz Segal, program director of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem historians Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, the majority of academics engaged with the history of the Nazi genocide of the Jews have stayed remarkably silent, while some have openly denied Israel’s crimes in Gaza, or accused their more critical colleagues of incendiary speech, wild exaggeration, well poisoning and antisemitism. In December the Holocaust scholar Norman J.W. Goda opined that “genocide charges like this have long been used as a fig leaf for broader challenges to Israel’s legitimacy,” expressing his worry that “they have cheapened the gravity of the word genocide itself.” This “genocide libel,” as Dr. Goda referred to it in an essay, “deploys a range of antisemitic tropes,” including “the coupling of the genocide charge with the deliberate killing of children, images of whom are ubiquitous on NGO, social media, and other platforms that charge Israel with genocide.” In other words, showing images of Palestinian children ripped apart by U.S.-made bombs launched by Israeli pilots is, in this view, an antisemitic act. Most recently, Dr. Goda and a respected historian of Europe, Jeffrey Herf, wrotein The Washington Post that “the genocide accusation hurled against Israel draws on deep wells of fear and hatred” found in “radical interpretations of both Christianity and Islam.” It “has shifted opprobrium from Jews as a religious/ethnic group to the state of Israel, which it depicts as inherently evil.”*** What are the ramifications of this rift between genocide scholars and Holocaust historians? This is not merely a squabble within academe. The memory culture created in recent decades around the Holocaust encompasses much more than the genocide of the Jews. It has come to play a crucial role in politics, education and identity. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 916     ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Museums dedicated to the Holocaust have served as models for representations of other genocides around the world. Insistence that the lessons of the Holocaust demand the promotion of tolerance, diversity, antiracism and support for migrants and refugees, not to mention human rights and international humanitarian law, is rooted in an understanding of the universal implications of this crime in the heart of Western civilization at the peak of modernity. Discrediting genocide scholars who call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza as antisemitic threatens to erode the foundation of genocide studies: the ongoing need to define, prevent, punish and reconstruct the history of genocide. Suggesting that this endeavor is motivated instead by malign interests and sentiments — that it is driven by the very hatred and prejudice that was at the root of the Holocaust — is not only morally scandalous, it provides an opening for a politics of denialism and impunity as well. By the same token, when those who have dedicated their careers to teaching and commemorating the Holocaust insist on ignoring or denying Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, they threaten to undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for in the past several decades. That is, the dignity of every human being, respect for the rule of law and the urgent need never to let inhumanity take over the hearts of people and steer the actions of nations in the name of security, national interest and sheer vengeance. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 917     ImagePeople at a beach and in the water as the sun sets. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times What I fear is that in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide, it will no longer be possible to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before. Because the Holocaust has been so relentlessly invoked by the state of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the I.D.F., the study and remembrance of the Holocaust could lose its claim to be concerned with universal justice and retreat into the same ethnic ghetto in which it began its life at the end of World War II — as a marginalized preoccupation by the remnants of a marginalized people, an ethnically specific event, before it succeeded, decades later, to find its rightful place as a lesson and a warning for humanity as a whole. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 918     Just as worrisome is the prospect that the study of genocide as a whole will not survive the accusations of antisemitism, leaving us without the crucial community of scholars and international jurists to stand in the breach at a time when the rise of intolerance, racial hatred, populism and authoritarianism is threatening the values that were at the core of these scholarly, cultural and political endeavors of the 20th century. Perhaps the only light at the end of this very dark tunnel is the possibility that a new generation of Israelis will face their future without sheltering in the shadow of the Holocaust, even as they will have to bear the stain of the genocide in Gaza perpetrated in their name. Israel will have to learn to live without falling back on the Holocaust as justification for inhumanity. That, despite all the horrific suffering we are currently watching, is a valuable thing, and may, in the long run, help Israel face the future in a healthier, more rational and less fearful and violent manner. This will do nothing to compensate for the staggering amount of death and suffering of Palestinians. But an Israel liberated from the overwhelming burden of the Holocaust may finally come to terms with the inescapable need for its seven million Jewish citizens to share the land with the seven million Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in peace, equality and dignity. That will be the only just reckoning. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 919     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Friday, July 18, 2025 4:04:27 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i It appears that "genocide" can be defined in several different ways. Perhaps we should stop using that term altogether and stick to words that have clear and unambiguous meanings. On Jul 18, 2025, at 12:25 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 920     could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 921     severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 922     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 923     experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend. *** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 924     Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out. *** Israel has denied all allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The I.D.F. says it investigates reports of crimes, although it has rarely made its findings public, and when breaches of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 925     discipline or protocol are acknowledged, it has generally meted out light reprimands to its personnel. Israeli military and political leaders repeatedly describe the I.D.F. as acting lawfully, say they issue warnings to civilian populations to evacuate sites about to be attacked and blame Hamas for using civilians as human shields. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In fact, the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure — government buildings, hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, cultural heritage sites, water treatment plants, agriculture areas, and parks — reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely. According to a recent investigation by Haaretz, an estimated 174,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged, accounting for up to 70 percent of all structures in the Strip. So far, more than 58,000 people have been killed, according to Gazan health authorities, including more than 17,000 children, who make up nearly a third of the total fatality count. More than 870 of those children were less than a year old. More than 2,000 families have been wiped out, the health authorities said. In addition, 5,600 families now count only one survivor. At least 10,000 people are believed to still be buried under the ruins of their homes. More than 138,000 have been wounded and maimed. Gaza now has the grim distinction of having the highest number of amputee children per capita in the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 926     world. An entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long-term malnutrition will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives. Untold additional thousands of chronically ill persons have had little access to hospital care. The horror of what has been happening in Gaza is still described by most observers as war. But this is a misnomer. For the last year, the I.D.F. has not been fighting an organized military body. The version of Hamas that planned and carried out the attacks on Oct. 7 has been destroyed, though the weakened group continues to fight Israeli forces and retains control over the population in areas not held by the Israeli Army. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Today the I.D.F. is primarily engaged in an operation of demolition and ethnic cleansing. That’s how Mr. Netanyahu’s own former chief of staff and minister of defense, the hard-liner Moshe Yaalon, in November described on Israel’s Democrat TV and in subsequent articlesand interviews the attempt to clear northern Gaza of its population. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 927     A man in shadow sorts through the rubble of a home. Credit...Mahmoud Issa/Reuters On Jan. 19, under pressure from Donald Trump, who was a day away from resuming the presidency, a cease- fire went into effect, facilitating the exchange of hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. But after Israel’s breaking of the cease-fire on March 18, the I.D.F. has been executing a well-publicized plan to concentrate the entire Gazan population in a quarter of the territory in three zones: Gaza City, the central refugee camps and the Mawasi coastline in the Strip’s southwestern edge. Using large numbers of bulldozers and huge aerial bombs supplied by the United States, the military appears to be trying to demolish every remaining structure and establish control over the other three- quarters of the territory. This is also being facilitated by a planthat provides — intermittently — limited aid supplies at a few distribution points guarded by the Israeli military, drawing people to the south. Many Gazans are killed in a desperate attempt to obtain food, and the starvation crisis deepens. On July 7, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the I.D.F. would build a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of Rafah to initially accommodate 600,000 Palestinians from the Mawasi area, who would be provisioned by international bodies and not allowed to leave. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 928     *** Some might describe this campaign as ethnic cleansing, not genocide. But there is a link between the crimes. When an ethnic group has nowhere to go and is constantly displaced from one so-called safe zone to another, relentlessly bombed and starved, ethnic cleansing can morph into genocide. This was the case in several well-known genocides of the 20th century, such as that of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa, now Namibia, that began in 1904; the Armenians in World War I; and, indeed, even in the Holocaust, which began with the German attempt to expel the Jews and ended up with their murder. To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust — and no institutions dedicated to researching and commemorating it — have issued warnings that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This silence has made a mockery of the slogan “Never again,” transforming its meaning from an assertion of resistance to inhumanity wherever it is perpetrated to an excuse, an apology, indeed, even a carte blanche for destroying others by invoking one’s own past victimhood. This is another of the many incalculable costs of the current catastrophe. As Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza and is exercising increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the moral and historical credit that the Jewish state has drawn on until now is running out. Israel, created in the wake of the Holocaust as the answer to the Nazi genocide of the Jews, has always insisted that any threat to its security must be seen as potentially leading to another Auschwitz. This {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 929     provides Israel with license to portray those it perceives as its enemies as Nazis — a term usedrepeatedly by Israeli media figures to depict Hamas and, by extension, all Gazans, based on the popular assertion that none of them are “uninvolved,” not even the infants, who would grow up to be militants. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT This is not a new phenomenon. As early as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared Yasir Arafat, then hunkered down in Beirut, to Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. This time, the analogy is being used in connection with a policy aimed at uprooting and removing the entire population of Gaza. The daily scenes of horror in Gaza, from which the Israeli public is shielded by its own media’s self- censorship, expose the lies of Israeli propaganda that this is a war of defense against a Nazi-like enemy. One shudders when Israeli spokespeople shamelessly utter the hollow slogan of the I.D.F. being the “most moral army in the world.” Some European nations, such as France, Britain and Germany, as well as Canada, have feebly protested Israeli actions, especially since it breached the cease- fire in March. But they have neither suspended arms shipments nor taken many concrete and meaningful economic or political steps that might deter Mr. Netanyahu’s government. For a while, the United States government seemed to have lost interest in Gaza, with President Trump {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 930     initially announcing in February that the United States would take over Gaza, promising to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” and then letting Israel get on with the Strip’s destruction and turning his attention to Iran. At the moment, one can only hope that Mr. Trump will again pressure a reluctant Mr. Netanyahu to at least reach a new cease-fire and put an end to the relentless killing. *** How will Israel’s future be affected by the inevitable demolition of its incontestable morality, derived from its birth in the ashes of the Holocaust? ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Israel’s political leadership and its citizenry will have to decide. There seems to be little domestic pressure for the urgently needed change of paradigm: the recognition that there is no solution to this conflict other than an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to share the land under whatever parameters the two sides agree on, be it two states, one state or a confederation. Robust external pressure from the country’s allies also appears unlikely. I am deeply worried that Israel will persist on its disastrous course, remaking itself, perhaps irreversibly, into a full-blown authoritarian apartheid state. Such states, as history has taught us, do not last. Another question arises: What consequences will Israel’s moral reversal have for the culture of Holocaust commemoration, and the politics of memory, education and scholarship, when so many of {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 931     its intellectual and administrative leaders have up to now refused to face up to their responsibility to denounce inhumanity and genocide wherever they occur? Those engaged in the worldwide culture of commemoration and remembrance built around the Holocaust will have to confront a moral reckoning. The wider community of genocide scholars — those engaged in the study of comparative genocide or of any one of the many other genocides that have marred human history — is now edging ever closer toward a consensus over describing events in Gaza as a genocide. In November, a little more than a year into the war, the Israeli genocide scholar Shmuel Lederman joined the growing chorus of opinion that Israel was engaged in genocidal actions. The Canadian international lawyer William Schabas came to the same conclusion last year and has recently described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “absolutely” a genocide. Other genocide experts, such as Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the British specialist Martin Shaw (who has also said that the Hamas attack was genocidal), have reached the same conclusion, while the Australian scholar A. Dirk Moses of the City University of New York described these events in the Dutch publication NRC as a “mix of genocidal and military logic.” In the same article, Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor at the Amsterdam-based NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said there are probably scholars who still do not think it’s genocide, but “I don’t know them.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 932     Most Holocaust scholars I know don’t hold, or at least publicly express, this view. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Israeli Raz Segal, program director of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem historians Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, the majority of academics engaged with the history of the Nazi genocide of the Jews have stayed remarkably silent, while some have openly denied Israel’s crimes in Gaza, or accused their more critical colleagues of incendiary speech, wild exaggeration, well poisoning and antisemitism. In December the Holocaust scholar Norman J.W. Goda opined that “genocide charges like this have long been used as a fig leaf for broader challenges to Israel’s legitimacy,” expressing his worry that “they have cheapened the gravity of the word genocide itself.” This “genocide libel,” as Dr. Goda referred to it in an essay, “deploys a range of antisemitic tropes,” including “the coupling of the genocide charge with the deliberate killing of children, images of whom are ubiquitous on NGO, social media, and other platforms that charge Israel with genocide.” In other words, showing images of Palestinian children ripped apart by U.S.-made bombs launched by Israeli pilots is, in this view, an antisemitic act. Most recently, Dr. Goda and a respected historian of Europe, Jeffrey Herf, wrotein The Washington Post that “the genocide accusation hurled against Israel draws on deep wells of fear and hatred” found in “radical interpretations of both Christianity and Islam.” It “has shifted opprobrium from Jews as a religious/ethnic group to the state of Israel, which it depicts as inherently evil.”*** What are the ramifications of this rift between genocide scholars and Holocaust historians? This is not merely a squabble within academe. The memory culture created in recent decades around the Holocaust encompasses much more than the genocide of the Jews. It has come to play a crucial role in politics, education and identity. ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 933     SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Museums dedicated to the Holocaust have served as models for representations of other genocides around the world. Insistence that the lessons of the Holocaust demand the promotion of tolerance, diversity, antiracism and support for migrants and refugees, not to mention human rights and international humanitarian law, is rooted in an understanding of the universal implications of this crime in the heart of Western civilization at the peak of modernity. Discrediting genocide scholars who call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza as antisemitic threatens to erode the foundation of genocide studies: the ongoing need to define, prevent, punish and reconstruct the history of genocide. Suggesting that this endeavor is motivated instead by malign interests and sentiments — that it is driven by the very hatred and prejudice that was at the root of the Holocaust — is not only morally scandalous, it provides an opening for a politics of denialism and impunity as well. By the same token, when those who have dedicated their careers to teaching and commemorating the Holocaust insist on ignoring or denying Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, they threaten to undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for in the past several decades. That is, the dignity of every human being, respect for the rule of law and the urgent need never to let inhumanity take over the hearts of people and steer the actions of nations in the name of security, national interest and sheer vengeance. Image {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 934     People at a beach and in the water as the sun sets. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times What I fear is that in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide, it will no longer be possible to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before. Because the Holocaust has been so relentlessly invoked by the state of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the I.D.F., the study and remembrance of the Holocaust could lose its claim to be concerned with universal justice and retreat into the same ethnic ghetto in which it began its life at the end of World War II — as a marginalized preoccupation by the remnants of a marginalized people, an ethnically specific event, before it succeeded, decades later, to find its rightful place as a lesson and a warning for humanity as a whole. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 935     Just as worrisome is the prospect that the study of genocide as a whole will not survive the accusations of antisemitism, leaving us without the crucial community of scholars and international jurists to stand in the breach at a time when the rise of intolerance, racial hatred, populism and authoritarianism is threatening the values that were at the core of these scholarly, cultural and political endeavors of the 20th century. Perhaps the only light at the end of this very dark tunnel is the possibility that a new generation of Israelis will face their future without sheltering in the shadow of the Holocaust, even as they will have to bear the stain of the genocide in Gaza perpetrated in their name. Israel will have to learn to live without falling back on the Holocaust as justification for inhumanity. That, despite all the horrific suffering we are currently watching, is a valuable thing, and may, in the long run, help Israel face the future in a healthier, more rational and less fearful and violent manner. This will do nothing to compensate for the staggering amount of death and suffering of Palestinians. But an Israel liberated from the overwhelming burden of the Holocaust may finally come to terms with the inescapable need for its seven million Jewish citizens to share the land with the seven million Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in peace, equality and dignity. That will be the only just reckoning. Omer Bartov is a professor of Holocaust and genocidestudies at Brown University. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsAppand Threads. R e l a {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 936     t e d C o n t e n t {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 937     ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 11:27 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote: {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 938     The bill introduced by anti-Israel legislators has no chance of passing.Nevertheless, US support for Israel cannot be taken for granted. It will continue only as long as the US feels that such support is in its own national interest. The truth is, the US gets a very good return from its investment in Israel. Despite the massive international campaign ofslander, defamation and baseless accusations (genocide, apartheid,etc.) designed to undermine the Jewish state, the fact remains that Israel is America's strongest and most reliable ally in the Middle East, and a powerful first line of defense against our common civilizationalenemies. Martin Wasserman On Jul 17, 2025, at 9:28 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>wrote: Members of Congress introduced the first ever bill thatproactively seeks to prevent the U.S. from sending someof the worst weapons to the Israeli military. The Israelimilitary has massacred over 58,000 people in Gaza, withthe true death toll likely far higher. Since the beginning ofIsrael’s genocide Iin Gaza, in October 2023, the US hasgiven more than $30 billion in taxpayer-fundedweapons to Israel to enable its atrocities, indirectviolation of U.S. and international human rights laws. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (Illinois) introduced HR3565, the Block the Bombs Act, on May 21. Currently 26other representatives are cosponsoring. This historic legislation that would prevent Trump fromsending some of the worst-offender weapons that Israelhas used to carry out genocide against Palestinians inGaza Tell your member of Congress to endorse theBlock the Bombs Act! Jvpaction.org/tell-congress-support-the-block-the-bombs-act For local info: southbay@jewishvoiceforpeace.org {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 939     Members of Congress introduced the first ever bill thatproactively seeks to prevent the U.S. from sending someof the worst weapons to the Israeli military. The Israelimilitary has massacred over 58,000 people in Gaza, withthe true death toll likely far higher. Since the beginning ofIsrael’s genocide Iin Gaza, in October 2023, the US hasgiven more than $30 billion in taxpayer-fundedweapons to Israel to enable its atrocities, indirectviolation of U.S. and international human rights laws. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (Illinois) introduced HR3565, the Block the Bombs Act, on May 21. Currently 26other representatives are cosponsoring. This historic legislation that would prevent Trump fromsending some of the worst-offender weapons that Israelhas used to carry out genocide against Palestinians inGaza Tell your member of Congress to endorse theBlock the Bombs Act! Jvpaction.org/tell-congress-support-the-block-the-bombs-act For local info: southbay@jewishvoiceforpeace.org {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 940     From:Aram James To:Martin Wasserman Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Friday, July 18, 2025 12:26:06 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of theorganization. Be cautious of opening attachments andclicking on links. I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof.Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 941     about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on Xthat Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 942     My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 943     concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. ImagePeople inspecting a huge pile of rubble. Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again. It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend.*** The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 944     leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most genocide scholars are cautious about applying this term to contemporary events, precisely because of the tendency, since it was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to attribute it to any case of massacre or inhumanity. Indeed, some argue that the categorization should be entirely discarded, because it often serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Yet as Mr. Lemkin recognized, and as the United Nations later agreed, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the attempt to destroy a particular group of people from other crimes under international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because, while other crimes entail indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians as individuals, genocide denotes the killing of people as members of a group, geared at irreparably destroying the group itself so that it would never be able to reconstitute itself as a political, social or cultural entity. And, as the international community signaled by adopting the convention, it is incumbent upon all signatory states to prevent such an attempt, to do all they can to stop it while it is occurring and to subsequently punish those who were engaged in this crime of crimes — even if it occurred within the borders of a sovereign state. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 945     The designation has major political, legal and moral ramifications. Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community. A finding by the International Court of Justice that a particular state is engaged in genocide, especially if enforced by the U.N. Security Council, can lead to severe sanctions. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Politicians or generals indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide or other breaches of international humanitarian law by the International Criminal Court can face arrest outside of their country. And a society that condones and is complicit in genocide, whatever the stand of its individual citizens may be, will carry this mark of Cain long after the fires of hatred and violence are put out. *** Israel has denied all allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The I.D.F. says it investigates reports of crimes, although it has rarely made its findings public, and when breaches of discipline or protocol are acknowledged, it has generally meted out light reprimands to its personnel. Israeli military and political leaders repeatedly describe the I.D.F. as acting lawfully, say they issue warnings to civilian populations to evacuate sites about to be attacked and blame Hamas for using civilians as human shields. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 946     In fact, the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure — government buildings, hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, cultural heritage sites, water treatment plants, agriculture areas, and parks — reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely. According to a recent investigation by Haaretz, an estimated 174,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged, accounting for up to 70 percent of all structures in the Strip. So far, more than 58,000 people have been killed, according to Gazan health authorities, including more than 17,000 children, who make up nearly a third of the total fatality count. More than 870 of those children were less than a year old. More than 2,000 families have been wiped out, the health authorities said. In addition, 5,600 families now count only one survivor. At least 10,000 people are believed to still be buried under the ruins of their homes. More than 138,000 have been wounded and maimed. Gaza now has the grim distinction of having the highest number of amputee children per capita in the world. An entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long- term malnutrition will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives. Untold additional thousands of chronically ill persons have had little access to hospital care. The horror of what has been happening in Gaza is still described by most observers as war. But this is a misnomer. For the last year, the I.D.F. has not been fighting an organized military body. The version of Hamas that planned and carried out the attacks on Oct. 7 has been destroyed, though the weakened group continues to fight Israeli forces and retains control over the population in areas not held by the Israeli Army. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 947     ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Today the I.D.F. is primarily engaged in an operation of demolition and ethnic cleansing. That’s how Mr. Netanyahu’s own former chief of staff and minister of defense, the hard-liner Moshe Yaalon, in November described on Israel’s Democrat TV and in subsequent articlesand interviews the attempt to clear northern Gaza of its population. ImageA man in shadow sorts through the rubble of a home. Credit...Mahmoud Issa/Reuters On Jan. 19, under pressure from Donald Trump, who was a day away from resuming the presidency, a cease- fire went into effect, facilitating the exchange of hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. But after Israel’s breaking of the cease-fire on March 18, the I.D.F. has been executing a well-publicized plan {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 948     to concentrate the entire Gazan population in a quarter of the territory in three zones: Gaza City, the central refugee camps and the Mawasi coastline in the Strip’s southwestern edge. Using large numbers of bulldozers and huge aerial bombs supplied by the United States, the military appears to be trying to demolish every remaining structure and establish control over the other three- quarters of the territory. This is also being facilitated by a planthat provides — intermittently — limited aid supplies at a few distribution points guarded by the Israeli military, drawing people to the south. Many Gazans are killed in a desperate attempt to obtain food, and the starvation crisis deepens. On July 7, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the I.D.F. would build a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of Rafah to initially accommodate 600,000 Palestinians from the Mawasi area, who would be provisioned by international bodies and not allowed to leave. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT *** Some might describe this campaign as ethnic cleansing, not genocide. But there is a link between the crimes. When an ethnic group has nowhere to go and is constantly displaced from one so-called safe zone to another, relentlessly bombed and starved, ethnic cleansing can morph into genocide. This was the case in several well-known genocides of the 20th century, such as that of the Herero and Nama {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 949     in German South West Africa, now Namibia, that began in 1904; the Armenians in World War I; and, indeed, even in the Holocaust, which began with the German attempt to expel the Jews and ended up with their murder. To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust — and no institutions dedicated to researching and commemorating it — have issued warnings that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This silence has made a mockery of the slogan “Never again,” transforming its meaning from an assertion of resistance to inhumanity wherever it is perpetrated to an excuse, an apology, indeed, even a carte blanche for destroying others by invoking one’s own past victimhood. This is another of the many incalculable costs of the current catastrophe. As Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza and is exercising increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the moral and historical credit that the Jewish state has drawn on until now is running out. Israel, created in the wake of the Holocaust as the answer to the Nazi genocide of the Jews, has always insisted that any threat to its security must be seen as potentially leading to another Auschwitz. This provides Israel with license to portray those it perceives as its enemies as Nazis — a term usedrepeatedly by Israeli media figures to depict Hamas and, by extension, all Gazans, based on the popular assertion that none of them are “uninvolved,” not even the infants, who would grow up to be militants. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 950     This is not a new phenomenon. As early as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared Yasir Arafat, then hunkered down in Beirut, to Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. This time, the analogy is being used in connection with a policy aimed at uprooting and removing the entire population of Gaza. The daily scenes of horror in Gaza, from which the Israeli public is shielded by its own media’s self- censorship, expose the lies of Israeli propaganda that this is a war of defense against a Nazi-like enemy. One shudders when Israeli spokespeople shamelessly utter the hollow slogan of the I.D.F. being the “most moral army in the world.” Some European nations, such as France, Britain and Germany, as well as Canada, have feebly protested Israeli actions, especially since it breached the cease- fire in March. But they have neither suspended arms shipments nor taken many concrete and meaningful economic or political steps that might deter Mr. Netanyahu’s government. For a while, the United States government seemed to have lost interest in Gaza, with President Trump initially announcing in February that the United States would take over Gaza, promising to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” and then letting Israel get on with the Strip’s destruction and turning his attention to Iran. At the moment, one can only hope that Mr. Trump will again pressure a reluctant Mr. Netanyahu to at least reach a new cease-fire and put an end to the relentless killing.*** How will Israel’s future be affected by the inevitable demolition of its incontestable morality, derived from its birth in the ashes of the Holocaust? ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 951     Israel’s political leadership and its citizenry will have to decide. There seems to be little domestic pressure for the urgently needed change of paradigm: the recognition that there is no solution to this conflict other than an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to share the land under whatever parameters the two sides agree on, be it two states, one state or a confederation. Robust external pressure from the country’s allies also appears unlikely. I am deeply worried that Israel will persist on its disastrous course, remaking itself, perhaps irreversibly, into a full-blown authoritarian apartheid state. Such states, as history has taught us, do not last. Another question arises: What consequences will Israel’s moral reversal have for the culture of Holocaust commemoration, and the politics of memory, education and scholarship, when so many of its intellectual and administrative leaders have up to now refused to face up to their responsibility to denounce inhumanity and genocide wherever they occur? Those engaged in the worldwide culture of commemoration and remembrance built around the Holocaust will have to confront a moral reckoning. The wider community of genocide scholars — those engaged in the study of comparative genocide or of any one of the many other genocides that have marred human history — is now edging ever closer toward a consensus over describing events in Gaza as a genocide. In November, a little more than a year into the war, the Israeli genocide scholar Shmuel Lederman joined the growing chorus of opinion that Israel was engaged in genocidal actions. The Canadian international lawyer William Schabas came to the same conclusion last year and has recently described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “absolutely” a genocide. Other genocide experts, such as Melanie O’Brien, {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 952     president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the British specialist Martin Shaw (who has also said that the Hamas attack was genocidal), have reached the same conclusion, while the Australian scholar A. Dirk Moses of the City University of New York described these events in the Dutch publication NRC as a “mix of genocidal and military logic.” In the same article, Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor at the Amsterdam-based NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said there are probably scholars who still do not think it’s genocide, but “I don’t know them.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most Holocaust scholars I know don’t hold, or at least publicly express, this view. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Israeli Raz Segal, program director of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem historians Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, the majority of academics engaged with the history of the Nazi genocide of the Jews have stayed remarkably silent, while some have openly denied Israel’s crimes in Gaza, or accused their more critical colleagues of incendiary speech, wild exaggeration, well poisoning and antisemitism. In December the Holocaust scholar Norman J.W. Goda opined that “genocide charges like this have long been used as a fig leaf for broader challenges to Israel’s legitimacy,” expressing his worry that “they have cheapened the gravity of the word genocide itself.” This “genocide libel,” as Dr. Goda referred to it in an {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 953     essay, “deploys a range of antisemitic tropes,” including “the coupling of the genocide charge with the deliberate killing of children, images of whom are ubiquitous on NGO, social media, and other platforms that charge Israel with genocide.” In other words, showing images of Palestinian children ripped apart by U.S.-made bombs launched by Israeli pilots is, in this view, an antisemitic act. Most recently, Dr. Goda and a respected historian of Europe, Jeffrey Herf, wrotein The Washington Post that “the genocide accusation hurled against Israel draws on deep wells of fear and hatred” found in “radical interpretations of both Christianity and Islam.” It “has shifted opprobrium from Jews as a religious/ethnic group to the state of Israel, which it depicts as inherently evil.” *** What are the ramifications of this rift between genocide scholars and Holocaust historians? This is not merely a squabble within academe. The memory culture created in recent decades around the Holocaust encompasses much more than the genocide of the Jews. It has come to play a crucial role in politics, education and identity. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Museums dedicated to the Holocaust have served as models for representations of other genocides around the world. Insistence that the lessons of the Holocaust demand the promotion of tolerance, diversity, antiracism and support for migrants and refugees, not {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 954     to mention human rights and international humanitarian law, is rooted in an understanding of the universal implications of this crime in the heart of Western civilization at the peak of modernity. Discrediting genocide scholars who call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza as antisemitic threatens to erode the foundation of genocide studies: the ongoing need to define, prevent, punish and reconstruct the history of genocide. Suggesting that this endeavor is motivated instead by malign interests and sentiments — that it is driven by the very hatred and prejudice that was at the root of the Holocaust — is not only morally scandalous, it provides an opening for a politics of denialism and impunity as well. By the same token, when those who have dedicated their careers to teaching and commemorating the Holocaust insist on ignoring or denying Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, they threaten to undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for in the past several decades. That is, the dignity of every human being, respect for the rule of law and the urgent need never to let inhumanity take over the hearts of people and steer the actions of nations in the name of security, national interest and sheer vengeance.Image Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times What I fear is that in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide, it will no longer be possible to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before. Because the Holocaust has been so relentlessly invoked by the state of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the I.D.F., {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 955     People at a beach and in the water as the sun sets. the study and remembrance of the Holocaust could lose its claim to be concerned with universal justice and retreat into the same ethnic ghetto in which it began its life at the end of World War II — as a marginalized preoccupation by the remnants of a marginalized people, an ethnically specific event, before it succeeded, decades later, to find its rightful place as a lesson and a warning for humanity as a whole. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 956     Just as worrisome is the prospect that the study of genocide as a whole will not survive the accusations of antisemitism, leaving us without the crucial community of scholars and international jurists to stand in the breach at a time when the rise of intolerance, racial hatred, populism and authoritarianism is threatening the values that were at the core of these scholarly, cultural and political endeavors of the 20th century. Perhaps the only light at the end of this very dark tunnel is the possibility that a new generation of Israelis will face their future without sheltering in the shadow of the Holocaust, even as they will have to bear the stain of the genocide in Gaza perpetrated in their name. Israel will have to learn to live without falling back on the Holocaust as justification for inhumanity. That, despite all the horrific suffering we are currently watching, is a valuable thing, and may, in the long run, help Israel face the future in a healthier, more rational and less fearful and violent manner. This will do nothing to compensate for the staggering amount of death and suffering of Palestinians. But an Israel liberated from the overwhelming burden of the Holocaust may finally come to terms with the inescapable need for its seven million Jewish citizens to share the land with the seven million Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in peace, equality and dignity. That will be the only just reckoning. Omer Bartov is a professor of Holocaust and genocidestudies at Brown University. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsAppand Threads. Related Content {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 957     {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 958     ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 11:27 AM Martin Wasserman <deeperlook@aol.com> wrote:The bill introduced by anti-Israel legislators has no chance of passing. Nevertheless, US support for Israel cannot be taken for granted. It will continue {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 959     only as long as the US feels that such support is in its own national interest. Thetruth is, the US gets a very good return from its investment in Israel. Despite the massive international campaign of slander, defamation and baseless accusations (genocide, apartheid, etc.) designed to undermine the Jewish state, the fact remains that Israel is America's strongest and most reliable ally in the MiddleEast, and a powerful first line of defense against our common civilizationalenemies. Martin Wasserman On Jul 17, 2025, at 9:28 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Members of Congress introduced the first ever bill that proactivelyseeks to prevent the U.S. from sending some of the worst weaponsto the Israeli military. The Israeli military has massacred over 58,000people in Gaza, with the true death toll likely far higher. Since thebeginning of Israel’s genocide Iin Gaza, in October 2023, the US hasgiven more than $30 billion in taxpayer-funded weapons toIsrael to enable its atrocities, indirect violation of U.S. andinternational human rights laws. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (Illinois) introduced HR 3565,the Block the Bombs Act, on May 21. Currently 26 otherrepresentatives are cosponsoring. This historic legislation that would prevent Trump from sendingsome of the worst-offender weapons that Israel has used to carryout genocide against Palestinians in Gaza Tell your member of Congress to endorse the Blockthe Bombs Act! Jvpaction.org/tell-congress-support-the-block-the-bombs-act For local info: southbay@jewishvoiceforpeace.org {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 960     Members of Congress introduced the first ever bill that proactivelyseeks to prevent the U.S. from sending some of the worst weaponsto the Israeli military. The Israeli military has massacred over 58,000people in Gaza, with the true death toll likely far higher. Since thebeginning of Israel’s genocide Iin Gaza, in October 2023, the US hasgiven more than $30 billion in taxpayer-funded weapons toIsrael to enable its atrocities, indirect violation of U.S. andinternational human rights laws. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (Illinois) introduced HR 3565,the Block the Bombs Act, on May 21. Currently 26 otherrepresentatives are cosponsoring. This historic legislation that would prevent Trump from sendingsome of the worst-offender weapons that Israel has used to carryout genocide against Palestinians in Gaza Tell your member of Congress to endorse the Blockthe Bombs Act! Jvpaction.org/tell-congress-support-the-block-the-bombs-act For local info: southbay@jewishvoiceforpeace.org {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 961     From:Martin Wasserman To:Aram James Cc:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee Subject:Re: Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Friday, July 18, 2025 11:27:56 AM Attachments:Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet.docx CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report The bill introduced by anti-Israel legislators has no chance of passing. Nevertheless,US support for Israel cannot be taken for granted. It will continue only as long asthe US feels that such support is in its own national interest. The truth is, the US gets a very good return from its investment in Israel. Despite the massive international campaign of slander, defamation and baseless accusations (genocide,apartheid, etc.) designed to undermine the Jewish state, the fact remains that Israelis America's strongest and most reliable ally in the Middle East, and a powerful first line of defense against our common civilizational enemies. Martin Wasserman On Jul 17, 2025, at 9:28 PM, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: Members of Congress introduced the first ever bill that proactivelyseeks to prevent the U.S. from sending some of the worst weapons tothe Israeli military. The Israeli military has massacred over 58,000people in Gaza, with the true death toll likely far higher. Since thebeginning of Israel’s genocide Iin Gaza, in October 2023, the US has Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 962     given more than $30 billion in taxpayer-funded weapons toIsrael to enable its atrocities, indirect violation of U.S. andinternational human rights laws. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (Illinois) introduced HR 3565, the Blockthe Bombs Act, on May 21. Currently 26 other representatives arecosponsoring. This historic legislation that would prevent Trump from sending someof the worst-offender weapons that Israel has used to carry outgenocide against Palestinians in Gaza Tell your member of Congress to endorse the Block theBombs Act! Jvpaction.org/tell-congress-support-the-block-the-bombs-act For local info: southbay@jewishvoiceforpeace.org Members of Congress introduced the first ever bill that proactivelyseeks to prevent the U.S. from sending some of the worst weapons tothe Israeli military. The Israeli military has massacred over 58,000people in Gaza, with the true death toll likely far higher. Since thebeginning of Israel’s genocide Iin Gaza, in October 2023, the US hasgiven more than $30 billion in taxpayer-funded weapons toIsrael to enable its atrocities, indirect violation of U.S. andinternational human rights laws. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (Illinois) introduced HR 3565, the Blockthe Bombs Act, on May 21. Currently 26 other representatives arecosponsoring. This historic legislation that would prevent Trump from sending someof the worst-offender weapons that Israel has used to carry outgenocide against Palestinians in Gaza Tell your member of Congress to endorse the Block the {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 963     Bombs Act! Jvpaction.org/tell-congress-support-the-block-the-bombs-act For local info: southbay@jewishvoiceforpeace.org {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 964     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate,Assembly District 23; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Marty Wasserman; Marina Lopez; Cait James; Tim James; Salem Ajluni; Figueroa, Eric; Foley, Michael; Rick Callender; Tom DuBois; Holman, Karen (external); Kaloma Smith; Lori Meyers; Gennady Sheyner; Sheree Roth; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Burt, Patrick; Gerry Gras; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Jasso, Tamara; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; james pitkin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; GRP-City Council; city.council@menlopark.gov; Perron, Zachary; roberta ahlquist; Robert Salonga; Roberta Ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Rowena Chiu; board@pausd.org; district1@bos.sccgov.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; boardfeedback@smcgov.org Subject:Withdrawn from Senate Ed Com AB 715 flyer_7.12.25 Date:Thursday, July 17, 2025 10:08:41 PM Attachments:Withdrawn from Senate Ed Com AB 715 flyer_7.12.25.docx CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i AB 715 Withdrawn from Senate Education Com. Agenda! Thanks to the tremendous efforts of the broad CA Coalition to Defend Public Education,AB 715 was pulled from the July 9th Senate Education Committee agenda! AB715 proposes to streamline the process to make complaints against teachers and schooldistricts for permitting so-called “antisemitic” lessons, materials or conversations inclass. This bill falsely defines antisemitism as any mention of Palestine or criticism ofIsrael. Anonymous complaints would be allowed, and complaints would go directly toa proposed state Coordinator on Antisemitism, who would not need to consult with localeducational entities. Because of the censorship proposed in this bill, it has been opposedby the CA School Boards Association, CA Latino School Boards Association, CATeachers Association, the ACLU and over 70 community and labororganizations. The fact that AB 715 was suddenly pulled from the Education Committee shows peoplepower works. The thousands of emails and phone calls our community members made tosenate offices made clear that the public overwhelmingly rejects this legislation. As aresult, the pro-Israeli lobby groups pushing this bill didn’t have enough votes to ensurepassage through the committee, so they pulled it from the agenda. This is an important victory but likely not the end of our fight. The politicians andlobby groups seeking to censor Palestine and repress any criticism of the State ofIsrael are expected to either introduce a new bill or revive and amend AB715, probably in August, so we must remain vigilant! We will ask you to mobilizeagain later this summer if this bill reemerges. Sumud! Solidarity! CA Palestine Solidarity Coalition & CA Coalition to Defend Public Education This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 965     https://defendcaeducation.org Local Info: southbay@jewishvoiceforpeace.org {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 966     From:Aram James To:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki Cc:h.etzko@gmail.com; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Marty Wasserman; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Dave Price; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; GRP-City Council; Raymond Goins; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Gardener, Liz; Diana Diamond; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Don Austin; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Human Relations Commission; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Jeff Conrad; Burt, Patrick; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District4@sanjoseca.gov; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; Vara Ramakrishnan; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Stump, Molly; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Cait James; Tim James; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Zelkha, Mila; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Gerry Gras; Enberg, Nicholas; Rowena Chiu; Barberini, Christopher; Reckdahl, Keith; Dana St. George; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Tanaka, Greg; Tom DuBois; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Greg Tanaka; Bil Barber; Ed Lauing; Yi Chen; Donna Wallach; Mickie Winkler; Supervisor Otto Lee Subject:Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet Date:Thursday, July 17, 2025 9:29:36 PM Attachments:Block the Bombs_1_2 sheet.docx CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Members of Congress introduced the first ever bill that proactively seeks to prevent the U.S. from sending some of the worst weapons to the Israeli military. The Israeli military hasmassacred over 58,000 people in Gaza, with the true death toll likely far higher. Since the beginning of Israel’s genocide Iin Gaza, in October 2023, the US has given more than $30billion in taxpayer-funded weapons to Israel to enable its atrocities, indirect violation ofU.S. and international human rights laws. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (Illinois) introduced HR 3565, the Block theBombs Act, on May 21. Currently 26 other representatives are cosponsoring. This historic legislation that would prevent Trump from sending some of theworst-offender weapons that Israel has used to carry out genocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Tell your member of Congress to endorse the Block the BombsAct! Jvpaction.org/tell-congress-support-the-block-the-bombs-act For local info: southbay@jewishvoiceforpeace.org {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 967     Members of Congress introduced the first ever bill that proactively seeks toprevent the U.S. from sending some of the worst weapons to the Israeli military. The Israeli military has massacred over 58,000 people in Gaza, with the truedeath toll likely far higher. Since the beginning of Israel’s genocide Iin Gaza, inOctober 2023, the US has given more than $30 billion in taxpayer-fundedweapons to Israel to enable its atrocities, indirect violation of U.S. andinternational human rights laws. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (Illinois) introduced HR 3565, the Block theBombs Act, on May 21. Currently 26 other representatives are cosponsoring. This historic legislation that would prevent Trump from sending some of theworst-offender weapons that Israel has used to carry out genocide againstPalestinians in Gaza Tell your member of Congress to endorse the Block the BombsAct! Jvpaction.org/tell-congress-support-the-block-the-bombs-act For local info: southbay@jewishvoiceforpeace.org {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 968     From:Aram James To:Veenker, Vicki Cc:Reckdahl, Keith; Shikada, Ed; Ed Lauing; Lauing, Ed; Dana St. George; Gennady Sheyner; Gerry Gras; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; dennis burns; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; EXT.Richard.Hobbs; Rick Callender; Burt, Patrick; GRP-City Council; Council, City; Palo Alto Renters" Association; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Gennady Sheyner; EPA Today; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; Binder, Andrew; Cait James; Aram James; james pitkin; josh@sanjosespotlight.com; josh@joshsalcman.com; Zelkha, Mila; Bryan Gobin; h.etzko@gmail.com; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Figueroa, Eric; Lotus Fong; Marina Lopez; Pat M; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Bill Newell; Bil Barber; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca; Friends of Cubberley; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; roberta ahlquist; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Raj Jayadev; Baker, Rob; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Lewis james; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; Sean Allen; Cribbs, Anne; Templeton, Cari; Tim James; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; Palo Alto Free Press; Diana Diamond; Human Relations Commission; Lewis James; Afanasiev, Alex; Jensen, Eric; Enberg, Nicholas; Barberini, Christopher; Rowena Chiu; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Tom DuBois; Greg Tanaka; Holman, Karen (external); Jeff Conrad; Perron, Zachary; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Clerk, City; City Attorney; Rodriguez, Miguel; Damon Silver; Daniel Kottke; Mickie Winkler; mark weiss Subject:I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof. Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza Date:Thursday, July 17, 2025 4:12:10 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. July 17, 2025 Hi Folks, Please take a moment to listen to what Omer Bartov, a US-Israeli citizen and professor atBrown University who served in the Israeli military and is an internationally recognized Holocaust expert, said today on Democracy Now. His insights are particularly relevant as weconsider the position the Palo Alto City Council should take on AB 715, the resolution to block weapons shipments to Israel, and the ongoing genocide in Palestine. After hearing from Professor Bartov, I believe you will agree that there is only one morallydefensible stance we can take on each of these issues. Best, Avram “Eliminate The State of Israel Now” ( one state solution!) Finkelstein (aka Aram James) P.S. Palo Alto Vice Mayor Vicki Veenker:Now is your opportunity to say it loud:End The Genocide In Palestine Now!!!! “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof. Omer Bartov on the GrowingConsensus on Gaza | Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/17/omer_bartov {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 969     From:Aram James To:Sean Allen; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; Perron, Zachary; Wagner, April; Foley, Michael;<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; DuJuan Green; dennis burns; Emily Mibach; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky;Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Afanasiev, Alex; Human Relations Commission;Friends of Cubberley; Yolanda Conaway; cromero@cityofepa.org Subject:Fbi Chief Son Pulled Over #bodycam Date:Thursday, July 17, 2025 1:47:39 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. [Video] Fbi Chief Son Pulled Over #bodycam https://share.newsbreak.com/e3h4omxn?s=i0 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 970     From:Aram James To:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; Reckdahl, Keith; Lauing, Ed; dennis burns; DuJuan Green;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; board@pausd.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org;BoardOperations; Bill Newell; district1@bos.sccgov.org; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Zelkha, Mila; DonAustin; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Sean Allen; Pat M; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Rowena Chiu; Reifschneider, James; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Baker, Rob; Jeff Conrad; Salem Ajluni;Figueroa, Eric; Binder, Andrew; roberta ahlquist; Robert. Jonsen; Robert Salonga; Roberta Ahlquist; WILPFPeninsula Palo Alto; Mickie Winkler; Gardener, Liz; GRP-City Council; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Stump, Molly;PD Kristina Bell; Cribbs, Anne; Templeton, Cari; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; Bryan Gobin; Henry Riggs;h.etzko@gmail.com; Human Relations Commission; Wagner, April; Steve Wagstaffe; Bil Barber; Donna Wallach;Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Nick Tasers SF; Tom DuBois; Holman, Karen (external); Gerry Gras; Dana St.George; Daniel Barton; Daniel Kottke; Dan Okonkwo; Rose Lynn; Friends of Cubberley; Supervisor Otto Lee;Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Lotus Fong Cc:Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Julie Lythcott- Haims; Gennady Sheyner; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Blackshire, Geoffrey; Ruth Silver Taube; Jasso, Tamara; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; Dave Price; Gennady Sheyner; EPA Today; Diana Diamond; Vara Ramakrishnan; Rodriguez, Miguel; Damon Silver Subject:Superman Isn’t About Gaza—But It Sure Feels Like It Date:Thursday, July 17, 2025 12:12:11 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Superman Isn’t About Gaza —But It Sure Feels Like It Opinion | Superman Isn’t About Gaza—But It Sure Feels Like It | Common Dreamshttps://www.commondreams.org/opinion/superman-gaza {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 971     From:Veysel Yılmaz To:Human Relations Commission Subject:Ongoing Personal Safety Concerns and Unusual Intrusions Date:Wednesday, July 16, 2025 5:14:36 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Dear Human Relations Commission, I am reporting a serious and repeated concern regarding unauthorized entries into my locked vehicle while working in Palo Alto. Although no property has been stolen, these incidentsshow signs of targeted intrusion and tampering. I have filed an official report (Ref #: T25000697) and submitted supporting documentation. As someone navigating both immigration and labor rights matters, I am feeling increasinglyvulnerable and wish to document this with your commission in case the situation escalates. I am open to speaking further and cooperating with any inquiry. Respectfully, Veysel YılmazEmail: vyslylmz.pro@gmail.com Phone: +1-650-447-6153 This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first email to you. This person's name has non-English characters. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 972     From:Aram James To:Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Veenker, Vicki; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate,Assembly District 23 Cc:board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; BoardOperations; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Council, City; GRP-City Council; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; EPA Today; Diana Diamond; Stump, Molly; Figueroa, Eric; Sean Allen; Pat M; Raymond Goins; Gardener, Liz; Lotus Fong; h.etzko@gmail.com; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Binder, Andrew; Baker, Rob; Robert Salonga; Rowena Chiu; Vara Ramakrishnan; Gennady Sheyner; Salem Ajluni; PD Kristina Bell; Reifschneider, James; james pitkin; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Foley, Michael; Friends of Cubberley; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Zelkha, Mila; Rodriguez, Miguel; Human Relations Commission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway Subject:In Colombia, The Hague Group Charges Israel With Genocide Date:Tuesday, July 15, 2025 3:37:23 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. In Colombia, The Hague Group Charges Israel With Genocidehttps://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-genocide-united-states-the-hague-group-colombia- international-law-united-nations?publication_id=2510348&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=fjmzt&utm_medium=email {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 973     From:Aram James To:Richard Konda; Susan Hayase; Carla Torres; Raymond Goins; Sean Allen; Brad Imamura; Lythcott-Haims, Julie;Kaloma Smith; Human Relations Commission; Council, City Cc:ladoris cordell Subject:Fed judge: Immigration officials can"t stop people in L.A. based on race or spoken language Date:Monday, July 14, 2025 3:18:45 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Ladoris Cordell on MSNBC TODAY. Great job!! Fed judge: Immigration officials can't stop people in L.A. based on race or spoken language https://www.msnbc.com/katy-tur/watch/fed-judge-immigration-officials-can-t-stop-people-in- l-a-based-on-race-or-spoken-language-243194949509 {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 974     From:Aram James To:Binder, Andrew Cc:Robert. Jonsen; h.etzko@gmail.com; Reifschneider, James; james pitkin; Barberini, Christopher; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Jose Valle; Robert Salonga; San José Spotlight; Dave Price; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Human Relations Commission; Vara Ramakrishnan; Rodriguez, Miguel; Valeros, Gilda B; Damon Silver; Rowena Chiu; Rose Lynn; Carla Torres; EPA Today; Ruth Silver Taube; Afanasiev, Alex; Lee, Craig; Baker, Rob; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Pat M; Sean Allen; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; PD Kristina Bell; Bill Newell; Foley, Michael; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Emily Mibach; Jeff Conrad; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Steve Wagstaffe; Stump, Molly; Gennady Sheyner Subject:A judge sentenced the retired Mount Vernon police sergeant to six months in prison for tasing a man seven timesin two minutes while he was handcuffed Date:Monday, July 14, 2025 2:00:17 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Now-retired N.Y. officer sentenced for TASER deployments ruled excessive A judge sentenced the retired Mount Vernon police sergeant to six months in prison for tasinga man seven times in two minutes while he was handcuffed Source: Police1 https://share.google/zyzfx66CL99LEzfap {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 975     From:Aram James To:Binder, Andrew Cc:Council, City; GRP-City Council; PD Kristina Bell; Robert. Jonsen; editor@paweekly.com; Gennady Sheyner; Dave Price; Diana Diamond; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; Shikada, Ed; eddie.aubrey@sanjoseca.gov; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Burt, Patrick; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; DuJuan Green; dennis burns; Steve Wagstaffe; Baker, Rob; Jay Boyarsky; city.council@menlopark.gov; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Perron, Zachary; Reifschneider, James; Wagner, April; Foley, Michael; Enberg, Nicholas; Figueroa, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; h.etzko@gmail.com; EPA Today; Emily Mibach; Lu, George; Reckdahl, Keith; Braden Cartwright; Human Relations Commission; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg Subject:Aram James (DJ-1-12-18) (00000003) Date:Friday, July 11, 2025 12:32:04 AM Attachments:Aram James (DJ-1-12-18) (00000003).pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Andrew, Please read, then shelf Tasers in Palo Alto Now!! {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 976     From:Julia Grinkrug To:Human Relations Commission Subject:Human Relations Commission Meeting - July 10, 2025 Date:Thursday, July 10, 2025 3:39:58 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Hello, I would like to submit a written comment to the HRC meeting today since I am not able toparticipate. Please see below: _______ I speak today as a Jewish person born and raised in the Soviet Union—later an Israeli, and now also an American—with much of my family still in Israel. In my childhood, I experienced antisemitism firsthand: schoolyard beatings, public shaming by teachers in front of my parents. I also know the fear of totalitarianism, when the “black crow” (government vehicle) appeared outside our window and my father disappeared for weeks. Today, when my son learns about Rosh Hashanah in his Palo Alto public school, or plays the dreidel song in his school band, I cherish this sense of freedom and inclusion. But I also know how fragile it is. Antisemitism runs deep. It often hides in plain sight. And I understand why many are alarmed by its current rise. But fear—valid as it is—is also easily manipulated. Antisemitism is not the only form of racism, nor is it unique. And we as Jews are not immune to perpetuating harm. Today, I’m deeply concerned about how antisemitism is being weaponized—using the protection of Jews as a pretext to suppress and punish others. Members of the diverse Palo Alto community are being criminalized in our name— especially Palestinians, Middle Eastern, and Muslim individuals. These are people who are themselves experiencing profound pain and fear as they witness the devastation in Gaza and the West Bank—which the world is turning a blind eye on and has failed to stop. This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first email to your company. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 977     I want to commend the city for choosing a training that aims to address antisemitism and Islamophobia together—especially when these communities are so often pitted against one another. But it must be approached with honesty and clarity—not to conflate the two experiences, but to understand how each is different and how both operate within systems of exclusion. As we do this, we must distinguish between anticipated threats and the real, daily risks many already face—particularly when exercising their right to free speech. We’ve already seen students punished—even deported—for voicing their conscience. Others experience doxing, harassment and many have been fired or degraded at work. That’s why I’m alarmed that the planned training implies that certain expressions, such as “from the river to the sea”, cause harm. These words are politically charged, yes—but they carry deep meaning and deserve to be unpacked, not silenced. Suppressing speech in the name of sensitivity can backfire. If this training avoids hard conversations and seeks to muffle dissent rather than pursue restorative justice—if it prioritizes comfort over truth—it risks deepening the very divisions it hopes to heal. We need more than symbolic gestures. We need honesty, courage, and real dialogue. Our safety depends on it. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 978     From:Tom Harris To:Human Relations Commission Subject:Opposition to the Project Shema Curriculum Date:Thursday, July 10, 2025 10:32:47 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Dear Members of the HRC, I am writing to ask that you not approve or endorse the Project Shema curriculum. I believe this is a flawedapproach to anti-semitism training. At this point in our history, we must encourage voices of political dissent.Project Shema goes beyond training against anti-semitism and instead seeks to censor legitimate political speech.Right now as we witness the atrocities being inflicted by the nation of Israel against the people of Gaza, we mustencourage people to speak up against the actions of Israel. Doing so is not anti-semetic. Speaking in favor offreedom, protection, and equality for the people of Palestine is legitimate political speech and must be encouraged. I say that we must be careful of this at this moment in history because we may very well need to speak up againstabuse by our own government against our own people in the months and years to come. We must learn to speakabout protection of everyone's human rights without censoring legitimate political discourse and dissent. ProjectShema conflates anti-semitism with legitimate political discourse and it is not the curriculum we should use in PaloAlto. Peace,Rev. Tom HarrisPastorFirst Presbyterian Church Palo Alto If you need me urgently please call or text my cell phone. I check and respond to email lessfrequently from Thursday evening to Monday. This message needs your attention This is their first email to you. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 979     From:Raymond Goins To:Aram James Cc:Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Sean Allen; Pat M; Council, City; h.etzko@gmail.com; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Vicki Veenker; Reckdahl, Keith; Reckdahl, Keith; Binder, Andrew; Barberini, Christopher; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Valeros, Gilda B; Braden Cartwright; Dave Price; Gennady Sheyner; Figueroa, Eric; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Tim James; Diana Diamond; Doug Minkler; Bill Newell; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Sheree Roth; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; PD Kristina Bell; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; GRP-City Council; Burt, Patrick; Ruth Silver Taube; Gardener, Liz; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Richard Konda; Rose Lynn; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District4@sanjoseca.gov; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Supervisor Otto Lee; District10@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Emily Mibach; Liz Kniss; Afanasiev, Alex; Jensen, Eric; Enberg, Nicholas; Sheriff Transparency; Human Relations Commission Subject:Re: There’s No Excuse For Tasers In Our Jails -from the archives of Richard Konda & Aram James Date:Thursday, July 10, 2025 10:23:35 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Great artical Aram Amd Richard, y’all have been the tip of the spear in all things taser. Thank you for your leadership Raymond Lee GoinsSilicon Valley DeBug Coalition For Justice and Accountability On Thu, Jul 10, 2025 at 10:14 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: This message needs your attention No employee in your company has ever replied to this person. This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 980     From:Aram James To:Steve Wagstaffe; Jeff Rosen; Jay Boyarsky; Sean Allen; Pat M; Council, City; h.etzko@gmail.com;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Vicki Veenker; Reckdahl, Keith;Reckdahl, Keith; Binder, Andrew; Barberini, Christopher; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Valeros, Gilda B;Braden Cartwright; Dave Price; Gennady Sheyner Cc:Figueroa, Eric; james pitkin; Reifschneider, James; Tim James; Diana Diamond; Doug Minkler; Raymond Goins; Bill Newell; Wagner, April; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Sheree Roth; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz; PD Kristina Bell; Salem Ajluni; Stump, Molly; GRP-City Council; Burt, Patrick; Ruth Silver Taube; Gardener, Liz; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Robert Salonga; roberta ahlquist; Baker, Rob; Robert. Jonsen; Richard Konda; Rose Lynn; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; District4@sanjoseca.gov; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District5@sanjoseca.gov; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District3@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Supervisor Otto Lee; District10@sanjoseca.gov; EPA Today; Emily Mibach; Liz Kniss; Afanasiev, Alex; Jensen, Eric; Enberg, Nicholas; Sheriff Transparency; Human Relations Commission Subject:There’s No Excuse For Tasers In Our Jails -from the archives of Richard Konda & Aram James Date:Thursday, July 10, 2025 10:15:13 AM Attachments:Aram James (DJ-1-12-18) (00000003).pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 981     From:Van Der Zwaag, Minka To:Human Relations Commission Subject:FW: Notice for Human Relations Commission Meeting Agenda Date:Monday, July 7, 2025 3:23:10 PM Natalie, Here is the direct link to the agenda. Let me know if you need anything else. https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=15832 Regards, Minka From: Nat Fisher <sukiroo@hotmail.com> Sent: Friday, July 4, 2025 8:36 PM To: Human Relations Commission <hrc@PaloAlto.gov> Subject: Re: Notice for Human Relations Commission Meeting Agenda CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. I am unable to access the agenda! I tried several times! Please send it to me. ​Natalie ​​ From: Human Relations Commission <hrc@paloalto.gov> Sent: Thursday, July 3, 2025 4:37 PM To: sukiroo@hotmail.com <sukiroo@hotmail.com> Subject: Notice for Human Relations Commission Meeting Agenda Meeting on July 10, 2025   {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 982       Notice for Human Relations Commission Meeting Agenda   Agenda posted as of July 3, 2025 Upcoming Human Relations Commission Meeting Held in person and by virtual teleconference through Zoom July 10, 2025, Human Relations Commission Meeting Agenda Packet Learn more about the Human Relations Commission, their responsibilities, watch previous meetings, and gain previous meeting agendas and minutes here. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 983     Resources for Hybrid Meeting Attendance Hybrid meetings offer the public the flexibility of attending either virtually/remotely by using Zoom or in-person at City Hall. The new hybrid-style meetings will take place in the City Council Chambers at City Hall for all boards, commission, committee, and City Council meetings. City Hall HVAC system operations have been enhanced in alignment with CDC recommendations, and supplemental HEPA filtration will be provided in the Chambers to further improve indoor air quality. Face masks and social distancing are strongly recommended. All members of the public who wish to speak during the Human Relations Commission meeting will be able to do so, regardless of whether they are present in chambers or participating by Zoom. Members of the public who wish to comment through writing may email hrc@paloalto.gov. All public emails to the Commission are attached to the agenda under Public Documents. Commission meetings will continue to be broadcast and streamed live on the City’s YouTube channel, Channel 26 or 29 on cable TV, on the Midpen Media Center's website, and via Zoom as listed on the agenda. Pursuant to AB 361, Palo Alto City Council, Board, and Commission meetings will be held as “hybrid” meetings with the option to attend by teleconference/video conference or in person. To maximize public safety while still maintaining transparency and public access, members of the public can choose to participate from home or attend in person. Information on how the public may observe and participate in the meeting is located at the end of the agenda. The meeting will be broadcasted on Cable TV Channel 26, live on the City of Palo Alto's YouTube Channel, and Midpen Media Center. Members of the public who wish to participate by computer or phone can find the instructions at the beginning and end of each agenda. To ensure participation in a particular item, we suggest calling in or connecting online 15 minutes before the item you wish to speak on. City of Palo Alto | Commission Agendas Office of Human Services | 4000 Middlefield Rd | Palo Alto, CA 94303 US {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 984     Unsubscribe | Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 985     From:Nat Fisher To:Human Relations Commission Subject:Re: Notice for Human Relations Commission Meeting Agenda Date:Friday, July 4, 2025 8:36:51 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. I am unable to access the agenda! I tried several times! Please send it to me. ​Natalie ​​ From: Human Relations Commission <hrc@paloalto.gov> Sent: Thursday, July 3, 2025 4:37 PM To: sukiroo@hotmail.com <sukiroo@hotmail.com> Subject: Notice for Human Relations Commission Meeting Agenda     Notice for Human Relations Commission Meeting Agenda   Agenda posted as of July 3, 2025 Upcoming Human Relations Commission Meeting Held in person and by virtual teleconference through Zoom July 10, 2025, Human Relations Commission Meeting Agenda Packet Learn more about the Human Relations Commission, their responsibilities, watch {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 986     previous meetings, and gain previous meeting agendas and minutes here. Resources for Hybrid Meeting Attendance Hybrid meetings offer the public the flexibility of attending either virtually/remotely by using Zoom or in-person at City Hall. The new hybrid-style meetings will take place in the City Council Chambers at City Hall for all boards, commission, committee, and City Council meetings. City Hall HVAC system operations have been enhanced in alignment with CDC recommendations, and supplemental HEPA filtration will be provided in the Chambers to further improve indoor air quality. Face masks and social distancing are strongly recommended. All members of the public who wish to speak during the Human Relations Commission meeting will be able to do so, regardless of whether they are present in chambers or participating by Zoom. Members of the public who wish to comment through writing may email hrc@paloalto.gov. All public emails to the Commission are attached to the agenda under Public Documents. Commission meetings will continue to be broadcast and streamed live on the City’s YouTube channel, Channel 26 or 29 on cable TV, on the Midpen Media Center's website, and via Zoom as listed on the agenda. Pursuant to AB 361, Palo Alto City Council, Board, and Commission meetings will be held as “hybrid” meetings with the option to attend by teleconference/video conference or in person. To maximize public safety while still maintaining transparency and public access, members of the public can choose to participate from home or attend in person. Information on how the public may observe and participate in the meeting is located at the end of the agenda. The meeting will be broadcasted on Cable TV Channel 26, live on the City of Palo Alto'sYouTube Channel, and Midpen Media Center. Members of the public who wish to participate by computer or phone can find the instructions at the beginning and end of each agenda. To ensure participation in a particular item, we suggest calling in or connecting online 15 minutes before the item you wish to speak on. City of Palo Alto | Commission Agendas Office of Human Services | 4000 Middlefield Rd | Palo Alto, CA 94303 US Unsubscribe | Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 987     Constant Contact {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 988     From:Nasser MohamedTo:Human Relations CommissionSubject: Thank You for Walking With Us – Threads of Pride 2025Date:Thursday, July 3, 2025 4:02:02 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. A Heartfelt Thanks from Threads of Pride By: Dr. Nasser “Nas” Mohamed {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 989     Dear Friends, Family & Community, On June 24, 2025, something extraordinary unfolded at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Threads of Pride wasn’t just a fashion show—it was a movement . A moment where fabric met identity, where every model carried a story, and where we wove together resistance, celebration, and radical beauty under the banner of #WalkWithUs. From the bottom of our hearts—thank you for being part of this unforgettable evening. Every Thread Mattered Our theme, #WalkWithUs, asked you to join us in solidarity with those who have been pushed to the margins—and you did. Whether you were on stage, behind the scenes, or in the crowd, your presence carried meaning. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 990     We are grateful to the nonprofits, designers, models, production team, and sponsors who brought this vision to life. You turned fabric into storytelling and movement into change. ‍ Represented Nonprofits Thank you to the organizations that walked the runway with purpose and pride: San Francisco AIDS Foundation Center for Immigration Protection National Center for Lesbian Rights El/La Para TransLatinas SF LGBT Center Lyon-Martin Health Services Our Family Coalition San Francisco Community Health Center Alwan Foundation Designers Who Brought It to Life Our heartfelt thanks to the visionary designers who brought our stories to life on the runway: Leon Wiebers – A powerful opening look blending tradition and resistance. John Varvatos – Classic menswear with rebellious energy. Jad Racha – Couture inspired by heritage and queer pride. Vasily Vein – Regal gowns {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 991     celebrating strength and glamour. Emma Latham – Sustainable designs rooted in nature and healing. Kenlynn Wilson – Elegant knitwear honoring movement and form. To Our Models You didn’t just walk—you made history. With every step, you honored your communities, shared your truth, and transformed the runway into a space of power and pride. Pat Cleveland, Adell Hanson-Kahn, Alan + Human, Anjali Rimi, Celestina Pearl, Chelsea Hart, Chris Verdugo, Dulce Garcia, Elizabeth Lanyon, Honey Mahogany, Jacob Stensberg, Jarrod Bauman, Jupiter Peraza, Lance Toma, Mel, Mimi Demissew, Lana Patel Garcon, Jennifer Taylor, Maceo Persson, Nick Siconolfi, Suzanne Ford, Timothy Hampton, Tyler Termeer, PhD, Spring Collins, Veronica Jow, Sthefany Galante Bautista, Nguyen Pham, Natalie Thompson, and Dr. Nas Mohamed. Thank you for walking with courage, joy, and fierce authenticity. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 992     Thank You to Our Sponsors This event would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors. Your belief in our mission helped turn Threads of Pride into a powerful, joyful celebration of identity and community. San Francisco Pride – For your partnership and ongoing commitment to visibility and justice. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) – For opening your space and hearts to our vision. Visit Yerba Buena District – For championing queer art and storytelling in the cultural center of San Francisco. TurnOut – For mobilizing a phenomenal team of volunteers who made every detail shine. Mission Dance Theater – For providing rehearsal space and supporting our creative process. Yunica and Foxtail Catering – For generously donating food and nourishing our guests with care. ViiV Healthcare – For supporting our mission to uplift LGBTQ+ lives, health, and visibility on and off the runway. HRC Fertility – For standing with LGBTQ+ families and supporting reproductive justice with compassion and care. San Francisco Magazine – For shining a light on our stories and amplifying queer voices through media. Dan Perata Training – For generously supporting this event and believing in the power of community. And to the many silent partners and behind-the-scenes supporters—your contributions mattered deeply. Thank you for walking with us. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 993     Thank You to Our Staff & Creative Team Behind every moment of Threads of Pride was a group of passionate, tireless, and deeply committed individuals who brought this experience to life. Your vision, skill, and care shaped every detail, from lighting to music, to the message on the runway. We see you. We thank you. Antonio Contreras – Creative Director Natasha Koral – Executive Producer Calliope Solis – Production Manager Sydney Isabella Koral – Production Manager Ryan Christopher Milan – Choreographer Jason Brock – Performer DJ Sergio Fedasz – Music & Sound Ruby Envy Wellness – Hair/Makeup Lead Danni Zheng – Contracts & Administration Morgan Riley – Talent Coordinator Chris & Spencer at YBCA – Venue & Technical Support Smash Bang Roar, Drew Altizer, Hammash’s Eye, Vincent Gotti – Photography & Video Thank you for your time, your heart, your creativity—and for reminding us that behind every beautiful moment is a team that makes it possible. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 994     Me with Calliope and Natasha The World Was Watching Threads of Pride resonated far beyond the runway—and we’re proud to share some of the incredible coverage the event received: SF Bay Times: A New Path for Queer Resistance and Empowerment SF Chronicle Datebook: Fashion Creates Queer Joy at Threads of Pride Marya Concepcion on LinkedIn – Reflections from the Runway CBS News: Bay Area Doctor Launches LGBTQ+ Fashion Show Local News Matters: LGBTQ+ Nonprofit Leaders Walk the Runway Haute Living SF: Threads of Pride Debuts at Yerba Buena Center Here Are Some of the Photos {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 995     Relive the energy, beauty, and unforgettable moments of Threads of Pride 2025. Our photographers captured every powerful step, radiant look, and joyful connection—and now, you can experience it all again. Explore the galleries below: Vincent Gotti’s Photo Album Hammash’s Eye Photo Album Drew Altizer Photography Album Feel free to tag us and use #ThreadsOfPride and #WalkWithUs when you share—we’d love to see the celebration through your eyes too. Thank you again for walking together. I look forward to bringing this to you again next year with San Francisco Pride. With all my heart— Dr. Nas Mohamed Founder, Threads of Pride Copyright © 2025 All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 996     From:Aram James To:Jeff Rosen Cc:Ed Lauing; Jessica Speiser, Educational Leader for California Democratic Delegate, Assembly District 23; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; h.etzko@gmail.com; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Raymond Goins; Lori Meyers; Sheree Roth; ladoris cordell; Reckdahl, Keith; Gennady Sheyner; Paul George @ PPJC; Dana St. George; Gerry Gras; Jeff Conrad; Jay Boyarsky; Zelkha, Mila; Binder, Andrew; dennis burns; DuJuan Green; Sean Allen; Gennady Sheyner; Diana Diamond; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan; Councilmember Chappie Jones; District9@sanjoseca.gov; District2@sanjoseca.gov; San José Spotlight; Jensen, Eric; Jessica Speiser; Jennifer Morrow San José Spotlight; board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; BoardOperations; John Burt; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; EPA Today; Cribbs, Anne; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Steve Wagstaffe; Baker, Rob; Human Relations Commission; Burt, Patrick; Council, City; city.council@menlopark.gov; Nash, Betsy; dcombs@menlopark.gov; Don Austin; Rowena Chiu; Reifschneider, James; Donna Wallach; Raj Jayadev; Patrice Ventresca; Vara Ramakrishnan; Karen Holman; Tom DuBois; Lu, George; Jasso, Tamara; Yolanda Conaway; yolanda; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; sharon jackson; Stump, Molly; editor@paweekly.com; Shikada, Ed; Wagner, April; Bryan Gobin; james pitkin; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov Subject:Re: Dolores Carr full of it ( see her op-ed in today’s Mercury News) Date:Thursday, July 3, 2025 1:34:44 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Subject: Support for Ending the Death Penalty Hi Jeff, Thank you for your continued efforts to end the racist and unjust death penalty. While we maydisagree on the issues surrounding Israel—I support the elimination of Israel and advocate for a one-state solution—I commend your courageous stance against the death penalty. I also want to reiterate my suggestion that your office consider recusing itself from theStanford 12 case. As I mentioned before, the optics of your office's involvement in that case are concerning. If you were required to argue for a recusal, I believe an honest evaluation—given both your conscious and unconscious biases and the significant influence of your upbringing as a Zionist—would lead you to conclude that recusing yourself is the rightdecision. As the outstanding lawyer that you are, making this choice should be straightforward. Please do the right thing. Best, Aram {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 997     From:Office of Supervisor Otto LeeTo:Human Relations CommissionSubject:Fourth of July: Where to see fireworks, how to be safeDate:Thursday, July 3, 2025 10:50:52 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. i Hello, It's almost time to celebrate our country'sindependence this Fourth of July, to allow ourresidents unalienable rights that include life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As we prepare for the forthcoming federalholiday this Friday, there are a few things that Iwould encourage our District 3 residents andCounty at large to keep in mind to have the bestholiday possible! Fourth of July events throughout the county This message needs your attention You've never replied to this person. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 998     Where to watch fireworks countywide {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 999     How to stay safe around fireworks Many thanks to all of our partners countywide-- Santa Clara County Fire Department, City ofSunnyvale, City of Milpitas, City of San Jose,and all of our fire agencies -- for ensuring asafe and enjoyable holiday ahead. Enjoy your time off with your loved ones, andwe look forward to seeing you out there! {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 1000     Sincerely, Otto Lee Board President Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 3 SupervisorLee.org 70 West Hedding 10th Floor San José, CA 95110 (408) 299-5030 Email Supervisor Lee District 3 Website Unsubscribe from future messages. {{item.number}}     Packet Pg. 1001