I was listening to my congressman two nights ago talk on the news. And a journalist asked him, “How many children, how many people must be killed to justify [the Isareli government’s operation against Gaza]? Is there an upper limit for the number of people that could be killed? When you would say, ‘This is just too much. This just doesn’t, you know, compute?’” . . . And I will tell you, that congressman couldn’t give a number. And I thought, “That man has been corrupted. That man has lost himself. . . . He’s lost himself in vengeance. He has lost himself in violence.”
I keep hearing this term repeated over and over again: “the right to self-defense.” What about the right to dignity? What about the right to morality? What about the right to be able to sleep at night? Because what I know is, if I was complicit – and I am complicit [through my tax dollars] – in dropping bombs on children, in dropping bombs on refugee camps, no matter who’s there, it would give me trouble sleeping at night. And I worry for the souls of people who can do this and can sleep at night.
– Ta-Nehisi Coates
Excerpted from “Ta-Nehisi Coates Speaks Out Against
Israel’s ‘Segregationist Apartheid Regime’
After West Bank Visit”
Democracy Now!
November 2, 2023
Excerpted from “Ta-Nehisi Coates Speaks Out Against
Israel’s ‘Segregationist Apartheid Regime’
After West Bank Visit”
Democracy Now!
November 2, 2023
Quote of the Day: Jehad Abusalim
– December 8, 2023
Related Off-site Links and Updates:
“This Is Your Money”: Palestinian Father Pleads with Americans to Stop Funding Israeli Assault on Gaza – Democracy Now (November 2, 2023).
Gaza Death Toll Tops 9,200 as U.N. Experts Warn “Time Is Running Out to Prevent Genocide” – Democracy Now! (November 3, 2023).
Israel-Gaza War Is Deadliest Month for Journalists Covering Conflict in Over Three Decades – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, November 3, 2023).
“Let Gaza Live!”: A Month Into Israeli War, Massive U.S. Protests Demand Cease-Fire – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, November 4, 2023).
“Paradigm-Changing Moment”: Public Opinion Shifts on Palestine. Will Gaza War Hurt Biden Reelection? – Democracy Now! (November 6, 2023).
“Stop This Madness”: Holocaust Survivor Marione Ingram, 87, Condemns Israeli Assault and Calls for Peace – Democracy Now! (November 8, 2023).
Debunking Israel’s Bogus Human Shields Lie – Novara Media (November 9, 2023).
How The U.S. Lets Israel Get Away With Murder – Novara Media (November 9, 2023).
“From the River to the Sea”: Omer Bartov on Contested Slogan and Why Two-State Solution Is Not Viable – Democracy Now! (November 10, 2023).
U.N. Humanitarian Office Says Northern Gaza Is “Hell on Earth” as Death Toll Climbs to 11,000 – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, November 10, 2023).
“Clear Intention of Ethnic Cleansing”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Omer Bartov Warns of Genocide in Gaza – Democracy Now! (November 10, 2023).
“Can You Hear the Screams?” Physician Says Western Leaders Complicit in Israeli Attacks on Gaza Hospitals – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, November 11, 2023).
Children Are Children, Whether in Israel or Gaza. They Never Deserve to Die – Gideon Levy (Haaretz, November 12, 2023).
100 U.S. Officials Sign Memo Decrying Biden’s Backing of Israeli “War Crimes” in Gaza – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, November 13, 2023).
Gaza Hospitals Fail Under Israeli Bombardment; Doctors Without Borders Describes Horrific Conditions – Democracy Now! (November 13, 2023).
Amid War Crimes Charges, Human Rights Watch Says Israel Must “End Attacks on Hospitals” – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, November 14, 2023).
Rep. Ilhan Omar Plans Bill to Prevent Biden From Selling $320 Million of Bomb Kits to Israel – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, November 14, 2023).
Marc Lamont Hill Slams Former Israeli Ambassador – Novara Media (November 14, 2023).
Biden Slammed for Israel/Gaza “Misinformation” by 100+ State Department Employees – Rising (November 14, 2023).
Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson Is Correct in Saying That the U.S. Is the World’s Biggest Arms Exporter – Louis Jacobson and Renee Romo (PolitiFact, November 14, 2023).
Why Israel Imprisons So Many Palestinians – Abdallah Fayyad (Vox, November 22, 2023).
Sen. Bernie Sanders Says Aid to Israel Should Be Conditional, Citing the Toll on Gaza – Rachel Treisman (NPR News, December 7, 2023).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
• Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
• Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
• Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
• In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
• “Nothing About Today is ‘Unprovoked’”
• “The Mistreatment and Discrimination Against Palestinians Is Not Unprecedented. It’s Baked Into the Foundation of the Political System in Israel”
• Noura Erakat: Quote of the Day – May 15, 2018
• For Some Jews, Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians is Yet Another Jewish Tragedy
• Remembering the Six-Day War and Its Ongoing Aftermath
• David Norris: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2014
Image: Gabriella Demczuk / New York Times.
2 comments:
Well, that's a blast from the past. His public writing appears to have disappeared since from before the beginning of the pandemic.
He asks valid questions, questions that can also be asked of Hamas et al. and the powers that fund them.
The Netanyahu government's mafia-syndicate has certainly committed own-goals that have left it more isolated than it might otherwise have been. That said, certain members of the fringe elements of the Euro-North American Left are basically amputating themselves out of political conversation for many years to come by pretending that the fairly vibrant "center" of conversation critical of multiple targets in the Levant doesn't exist in significant numbers and must be herded to the correct viewpoints, which has already failed. Then again, ideologies can only be failed, never fail.
That Left is repeating the patterns that have kept it as a gestural fringe for the last 50+ years: the USA, like most Anglosphere national states (with the notable exception of Scotland, and perhaps the more evenly toggling New Zealand) have been center-right polities for generations with occasional spasms of liberal-to-left reformism that then triggers varying measures of backlash. Polling about Zoomers lacks sufficient substance to cause me believe the USA is in for a deeper, longer-term shift in that regard at any time in the next two generations. Prepare to be disappointed if you have other expectations. As some say in recovery circles, expectations are pre-meditated resentments.
Coates has been busy with projects out of the public eye.
Per Wikipedia:
As of 2019, Coates was working on America in the King Years, which is a television project with David Simon, Taylor Branch, and James McBride. The project is about Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, based on one of the volumes of the books America in the King Years written by Branch, specifically At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968. The project will be produced by Oprah Winfrey and air on HBO.
Coates is working on a novel about an African American from Chicago who moves to Paris.
Coates is set to adapt Rachel Aviv's 2014 The New Yorker article "Wrong Answer" into a full-length feature film of the same title, starring Michael B. Jordan with direction by Ryan Coogler.
In February 2021, it was reported that Coates had been hired to write the script of a new Superman feature film from DC Films and Warner Bros. Pictures, with J. J. Abrams producing.
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