Thank you, Jessica, for asking people to call their Representative about electing a competent non-extremist Speaker of the House. This is a matter of utmost urgency as right now there's no candidate who can get 217 votes from Republicans alone.
Tim Snyder in his book "On Tyranny" draws the lesson that we must defend our institutions in order to resist the forces of tyranny. The House is currently under attack by MAGA extremists, and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is calling for a bipartisan coalition as the path forward. See his Washington Post essay here: https://wapo.st/3F7zBKP (no subscription required)
In response to Leader Jeffries' call, the activist citizen network at www.FeathersOfHope.net is urging everyone to contact these four "traditional Republicans" (as Mr. Jeffries refers to them). We're asking them to either themselves run as a consensus candidate for Speaker of the House, or to nominate one of the others to do so.
Don Bacon (R-NE): (202) 225-4155 D.C. or (402) 938-0300 District
Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA): (202) 225-4276 D.C. or (215) 579-8102 District
Mike Gallagher (R-WI): (202) 225-5665 D.C. or (920) 301-4500 District
David Joyce (R- OH): (202) 225-5731 D.C. or (440) 352-3939 District
Israelis KILLED 278 Palestinian civilians on their own streets in 2023 BEFORE Oct 7. They raided their sacred Al Aqsa Mosque and shot people praying. If you stab your rapist, should his family kill you?
Hopefully, Jessica, you see the US publicity represented here. Crickets for Gaza. Tears for Israel. I am a good heart like you and I know you would want to know. Because Israelis and pro-Israelis will hide the truth. I find it unforgivable. I like many women loathe war and the men (and now women) who create it as well as those who act it out under order without questioning the morality of it. Thank you for being who you are and please don’t allow yourself to fall for the same manipulation most Americans fall for (trump supporters being our most shocking examples). Please read for yourself, it will be well worth your time and effort. Much love under these fractious conditions.
This person is using your platform to spread false information under the guise of being a "peace activist." Opinions are not the same as fact and "free speech" has (or should) consequences.
That is not true Erica. I am a normal American like everyone else. I am knowledgeable about this situation and I know the history in depth but like anyone in the US I had to work for it. I’ve read both sides in depth and it’s plain to see who is in the wrong when you have one side will a high tech army that invaded and oppressed the side with no weapons, no army, women and children, most males shot and killed or illegal imprisoned for years and the men for life. This violates all international laws, of illegal occupation, 4 US laws for receiving foreign military aid from us, and even the terms of the Balfour Declaration that the inhabitants of this country had no say in, and is just plain inhumane and cruel. No other place would Americans condone such violence and brutality. If we did, why on earth are we not supporting Russia in their illegal invasion and eradication of Ukraine? I can site international experts I have personally met and conversed with including number ours Israelis who have stated the facts clearly. Miko Peled, Gideon Levy, Ilan Pape, Noam Chomsky, Ronnie Barkan, Code Pink, Alison Wier, Norman Finkelstein, many American experts, and many more who clearly see and documented Israel’s brutality and inhumanity towards Palestinians, whom they had a responsibility to protect as occupiers
If ISIS were at our border (or invaded us as Hamas did), we would be defending ourselves as well. You are a bigot, but that's just my opinion. Palestinians needs to be freed...from HAMAS.
And if Gaza has a terrifying ISIS-like organization there, why on earth would you hold a concert for your own kids 1 mile from “ISIS”? Think got yourself. Israeli kids are raised in M.Night Shyamlar’s “The Village” while Palestinian kids are raised in “The Hunger Games.”
Hamas is Palestinians makeshift military defense at this point, as they well deserve after 75 years of terrorism, a word that Israel invented after invading Palestine, but you’re too young to remember this. I am no bigot. Israel is only now equating Hamas with “ISIS” which interestingly no one mentioned for at least 6-8+ years. Israel is disingenuous about their claims of atrocities. Israel gets $4.87 BILLION USD and high-tech weaponry, fighter jets and drone bombs from US taxpayers EVERY YEAR to fund this ILLEGAL occupation. A one-sided “war” which is ethnic ckesnsing. How are you okay with this? Israel gets $13.1 USD A DAY, 1 year early so we don’t renig on it while Palestinians get $0.73 US cents DAY. Can you process the immortality of this? Yet Israel is claiming fear of 1500 at most not even figmalkg trained barely armed 22 year olds who attacked ONCE as evidenced by IDF’s sergeant claiming this was the worst attack on Israel in their entire history? The facts bare clear that Israel holds compete power and Palestine has NONE. Hamas has NONE. ISRAEL IS NOT AT THREAT. In fact, Israel’s Knesset passed a RESOLUTION in MARCH 2023 that they could ELIMINATE ALL of GAZA now. That’s why Netanyahu did NOTHING (apparently for 5 hours while IDF video shows MISSILES and BLARES SIRENS yet Israel “didn’t know”?? This is manipulation to attack and commit a genocide. How do people who report being victims if a genocide become the GENOCIDERS?
Oh thank you Jessica. I have been struggling with "what is mine to do" about this overwhelming tragedy.I read and shared Robert's newsletter. Reading your thoughtful essay helped. Blessings,
Unfortunately,’ Israel is seizing this opportunity to obliterate Gaza as has been their end goal and has retaliated by repeatedly bombing and destroying the roads to the Al Shifah hospital in Gaza, the grocery stores, the mosque, the telecom center disabling phone and internet services, and the homes and family members of many entire Palestinian families. Israel labels Hamas “terrorists” much as Russia would label Ukraine for occasionally fighting their oppressor (they are not supplied with weapons and have no functioning military other than Palestinian Hamas) or the U.S. for supplying weapons and aid to Ukraine, after a shocking 75 years of occupation and deliberate killing of a civilian population who are kept as prisoners in a heavily armed open air concentration camp housing roughly 2 million civilians. The 4 US news owners (down from 58 total owners in 1983) no longer permit to journalists to report on the Palestinians’ suffering under Israel’s brutal occupation (as they did prior to around 1983) under intense pressure to censor for Israel, Israel’s weekly to daily appalling kidnapping, interrogations to coerce confessions under threats to imprison or murder families, and imprisonment of children for months to years without charges, and the IDF’s blatant extrajudicial executions in the streets of Gaza. Using foreign military aid to harm or kill children violates the US’s terms for receiving that aid yet it continues year after year without accounting for the spending of the $4+ billion a year of US taxpayer money that fully funds the illegal occupation. It is estimated by experts that the occupation of Gaza and terrorization of Palestinians by Israel would end within 3-4 months if the US taxpayers stopped funding these human rights violations and war crimes in occupied territory. We as a powerful nation should get a conscience and stand for peace and not fund oppression, just as we are standing with Ukraine, but 75 horrific years later. Support Palestine by granting them the freedom to roam freely instead of being locked in a cage by armed guards in a space 5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide for 2 million people, 50% of whom are children. We the Democratic people should push Israel for the release of the several thousands of illegally held fathers and husbands, mothers, and children held against their will in Israeli prisons with no civil liberties for decades, to rot and suffer. Many have died after lengthy hunger strikes lasting 3+ months in utter desperation to be released from their oppression. Please, see beyond Israel’s suffering these past few days to ask yourself what drove these desperate fighters to attack their oppressor as Ukraine is doing to Russian soldiers trying to kill them. For excellent information on this long standing situation, go to “IfAmericansKnew.org” [they would be outraged] and “OccupationMovie.org” produced and funded by Pink Floyd’s lead singer/guitarist Roger Waters who witnessed these oppressive conditions firsthand. Read Ilan Pape, an Israeli academic scholar, exiled from Israel for criticizing the illegal occupation and inhumane treatment of Palestinians on their own land, and Gilad Atzmon, Israeli-born journalist who writes for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Miko Peled, author of “The General’s Son” son of a 5 star Israeli general and former IDF soldier who dared venturing into Palestinian Territories against prohibitions to see for himself, and many more for those interested in the suppressed truth of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the ground in 2023.
Also search Robert Martin (on FB and Twitter), an Australian human rights activist compelled to support and advocate for Palestine after witnessing firsthand the land blatant theft and inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people under decades of occupation and their treatment by Israelis as “non-humans” and dehumanized by Israelis referring to them as “animals,” uncomfortably similar to Jews being dehumanized by the Nazis. Please do this before it’s too late! Netanyahu has been threatening to annihilate them for years and just made his most clear promise to kill every one of them to make the civilians suffer for Hama’s violence.
As a peace activist, I must express how deeply saddened I am by the unnecessary loss of life and trauma suffered by both Israelis and Palestinians in this seemingly endless struggle over land and life. I appreciate your tolerance Jessica to express the experiences of the Palestinians in this conversation in our media by Israeli experiences to hear the screams of desperation by a people all but broken by this tragedy. As Israelis well know, it is demoralizing to be seen by fellow human beings as objects without worth. No one deserves this. It is my hope that especially as women here, we can see the pain and suffering of ALL people and come together as the creators of life itself to show true empathy for others despite what we’ve been taught and to work diligently to remedy this suffering with love and respect. Salaam/peace.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. This horrific war is so traumatic for so many.
Please know that Hadassah Hospitals in Israel treat ALL victims of this war, regardless of who they are: to donate to their mission please consider this site https://hadassah.gospringboard.com/secure/israelatwar
I have seen their incredible work first hand.
Thank you for the recommendation!
Thank you, Jessica, for asking people to call their Representative about electing a competent non-extremist Speaker of the House. This is a matter of utmost urgency as right now there's no candidate who can get 217 votes from Republicans alone.
Tim Snyder in his book "On Tyranny" draws the lesson that we must defend our institutions in order to resist the forces of tyranny. The House is currently under attack by MAGA extremists, and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is calling for a bipartisan coalition as the path forward. See his Washington Post essay here: https://wapo.st/3F7zBKP (no subscription required)
In response to Leader Jeffries' call, the activist citizen network at www.FeathersOfHope.net is urging everyone to contact these four "traditional Republicans" (as Mr. Jeffries refers to them). We're asking them to either themselves run as a consensus candidate for Speaker of the House, or to nominate one of the others to do so.
Don Bacon (R-NE): (202) 225-4155 D.C. or (402) 938-0300 District
Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA): (202) 225-4276 D.C. or (215) 579-8102 District
Mike Gallagher (R-WI): (202) 225-5665 D.C. or (920) 301-4500 District
David Joyce (R- OH): (202) 225-5731 D.C. or (440) 352-3939 District
Please join us and call them today. If you'd like to know more about the individuals named above, see our post here: https://jerryweiss.substack.com/p/if-mccarthys-out-whos-in
.
Very smart! Thank you!
Thank you for this. I've been a mess since waking up at 5 am on Saturday morning. It takes very little to get me full on crying at my desk. I've heard from my two sets of cousins in Israel and, thank G-d, they are all safe, but two of my cousins were called to the reserves like many. But so many families are mourning and worrying. And we are all anxious too about an escalation and more loss of life, both Israeli and Palestinian. I'm grateful that I have so many postcards to write that I can't dwell on the news too much. I donated to New Israel Fund yesterday and subscribed to Haaretz for their great coverage and in honor of their reporter, Amir Tibon, who wrote this: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-08/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/my-62-year-old-dad-fought-hamas-terrorists-to-free-my-family-the-israeli-state-failed-us/0000018b-1068-dcc2-a99b-15794b0d0000?gift=6776869f2ea24a8bb4514453c135bdfe
Thanks for this, Ellen.
I appreciate your messages more than ever in this awful time. Thank you so much.
You’re very welcome, Leslie.
Thank you for being an ally. My heart is broken and I can no longer compartmentalize the atrocities we are suffering.
But you can with the Palestinians’ suffering caused directly by the IDF?
Hamas caused that suffering.
Israelis KILLED 278 Palestinian civilians on their own streets in 2023 BEFORE Oct 7. They raided their sacred Al Aqsa Mosque and shot people praying. If you stab your rapist, should his family kill you?
Loved telling my Republican congressman to “knock it off” in your script.
Sweet! Thanks for calling!
Crickets 🦗
Not at all. I agree. The entire situation is brutal beyond belief. AND none of it justifies what is happening now. Two things can--and must--be true.
Hopefully, Jessica, you see the US publicity represented here. Crickets for Gaza. Tears for Israel. I am a good heart like you and I know you would want to know. Because Israelis and pro-Israelis will hide the truth. I find it unforgivable. I like many women loathe war and the men (and now women) who create it as well as those who act it out under order without questioning the morality of it. Thank you for being who you are and please don’t allow yourself to fall for the same manipulation most Americans fall for (trump supporters being our most shocking examples). Please read for yourself, it will be well worth your time and effort. Much love under these fractious conditions.
This person is using your platform to spread false information under the guise of being a "peace activist." Opinions are not the same as fact and "free speech" has (or should) consequences.
That is not true Erica. I am a normal American like everyone else. I am knowledgeable about this situation and I know the history in depth but like anyone in the US I had to work for it. I’ve read both sides in depth and it’s plain to see who is in the wrong when you have one side will a high tech army that invaded and oppressed the side with no weapons, no army, women and children, most males shot and killed or illegal imprisoned for years and the men for life. This violates all international laws, of illegal occupation, 4 US laws for receiving foreign military aid from us, and even the terms of the Balfour Declaration that the inhabitants of this country had no say in, and is just plain inhumane and cruel. No other place would Americans condone such violence and brutality. If we did, why on earth are we not supporting Russia in their illegal invasion and eradication of Ukraine? I can site international experts I have personally met and conversed with including number ours Israelis who have stated the facts clearly. Miko Peled, Gideon Levy, Ilan Pape, Noam Chomsky, Ronnie Barkan, Code Pink, Alison Wier, Norman Finkelstein, many American experts, and many more who clearly see and documented Israel’s brutality and inhumanity towards Palestinians, whom they had a responsibility to protect as occupiers
If ISIS were at our border (or invaded us as Hamas did), we would be defending ourselves as well. You are a bigot, but that's just my opinion. Palestinians needs to be freed...from HAMAS.
And if Gaza has a terrifying ISIS-like organization there, why on earth would you hold a concert for your own kids 1 mile from “ISIS”? Think got yourself. Israeli kids are raised in M.Night Shyamlar’s “The Village” while Palestinian kids are raised in “The Hunger Games.”
Hamas is Palestinians makeshift military defense at this point, as they well deserve after 75 years of terrorism, a word that Israel invented after invading Palestine, but you’re too young to remember this. I am no bigot. Israel is only now equating Hamas with “ISIS” which interestingly no one mentioned for at least 6-8+ years. Israel is disingenuous about their claims of atrocities. Israel gets $4.87 BILLION USD and high-tech weaponry, fighter jets and drone bombs from US taxpayers EVERY YEAR to fund this ILLEGAL occupation. A one-sided “war” which is ethnic ckesnsing. How are you okay with this? Israel gets $13.1 USD A DAY, 1 year early so we don’t renig on it while Palestinians get $0.73 US cents DAY. Can you process the immortality of this? Yet Israel is claiming fear of 1500 at most not even figmalkg trained barely armed 22 year olds who attacked ONCE as evidenced by IDF’s sergeant claiming this was the worst attack on Israel in their entire history? The facts bare clear that Israel holds compete power and Palestine has NONE. Hamas has NONE. ISRAEL IS NOT AT THREAT. In fact, Israel’s Knesset passed a RESOLUTION in MARCH 2023 that they could ELIMINATE ALL of GAZA now. That’s why Netanyahu did NOTHING (apparently for 5 hours while IDF video shows MISSILES and BLARES SIRENS yet Israel “didn’t know”?? This is manipulation to attack and commit a genocide. How do people who report being victims if a genocide become the GENOCIDERS?
Thank you Jessica! I really appreciate your good heart and strength and all of your work!
What about our Palestinian friends?
I mentioned them...twice.
Oh thank you Jessica. I have been struggling with "what is mine to do" about this overwhelming tragedy.I read and shared Robert's newsletter. Reading your thoughtful essay helped. Blessings,
Oh I'm glad it was helpful. Very hard to form the right words in this situation.
Unfortunately,’ Israel is seizing this opportunity to obliterate Gaza as has been their end goal and has retaliated by repeatedly bombing and destroying the roads to the Al Shifah hospital in Gaza, the grocery stores, the mosque, the telecom center disabling phone and internet services, and the homes and family members of many entire Palestinian families. Israel labels Hamas “terrorists” much as Russia would label Ukraine for occasionally fighting their oppressor (they are not supplied with weapons and have no functioning military other than Palestinian Hamas) or the U.S. for supplying weapons and aid to Ukraine, after a shocking 75 years of occupation and deliberate killing of a civilian population who are kept as prisoners in a heavily armed open air concentration camp housing roughly 2 million civilians. The 4 US news owners (down from 58 total owners in 1983) no longer permit to journalists to report on the Palestinians’ suffering under Israel’s brutal occupation (as they did prior to around 1983) under intense pressure to censor for Israel, Israel’s weekly to daily appalling kidnapping, interrogations to coerce confessions under threats to imprison or murder families, and imprisonment of children for months to years without charges, and the IDF’s blatant extrajudicial executions in the streets of Gaza. Using foreign military aid to harm or kill children violates the US’s terms for receiving that aid yet it continues year after year without accounting for the spending of the $4+ billion a year of US taxpayer money that fully funds the illegal occupation. It is estimated by experts that the occupation of Gaza and terrorization of Palestinians by Israel would end within 3-4 months if the US taxpayers stopped funding these human rights violations and war crimes in occupied territory. We as a powerful nation should get a conscience and stand for peace and not fund oppression, just as we are standing with Ukraine, but 75 horrific years later. Support Palestine by granting them the freedom to roam freely instead of being locked in a cage by armed guards in a space 5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide for 2 million people, 50% of whom are children. We the Democratic people should push Israel for the release of the several thousands of illegally held fathers and husbands, mothers, and children held against their will in Israeli prisons with no civil liberties for decades, to rot and suffer. Many have died after lengthy hunger strikes lasting 3+ months in utter desperation to be released from their oppression. Please, see beyond Israel’s suffering these past few days to ask yourself what drove these desperate fighters to attack their oppressor as Ukraine is doing to Russian soldiers trying to kill them. For excellent information on this long standing situation, go to “IfAmericansKnew.org” [they would be outraged] and “OccupationMovie.org” produced and funded by Pink Floyd’s lead singer/guitarist Roger Waters who witnessed these oppressive conditions firsthand. Read Ilan Pape, an Israeli academic scholar, exiled from Israel for criticizing the illegal occupation and inhumane treatment of Palestinians on their own land, and Gilad Atzmon, Israeli-born journalist who writes for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Miko Peled, author of “The General’s Son” son of a 5 star Israeli general and former IDF soldier who dared venturing into Palestinian Territories against prohibitions to see for himself, and many more for those interested in the suppressed truth of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the ground in 2023.
Correction: Haaretz journalist is Gideon Levy. It’s 4am 😵💫
Also search Robert Martin (on FB and Twitter), an Australian human rights activist compelled to support and advocate for Palestine after witnessing firsthand the land blatant theft and inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people under decades of occupation and their treatment by Israelis as “non-humans” and dehumanized by Israelis referring to them as “animals,” uncomfortably similar to Jews being dehumanized by the Nazis. Please do this before it’s too late! Netanyahu has been threatening to annihilate them for years and just made his most clear promise to kill every one of them to make the civilians suffer for Hama’s violence.
As a peace activist, I must express how deeply saddened I am by the unnecessary loss of life and trauma suffered by both Israelis and Palestinians in this seemingly endless struggle over land and life. I appreciate your tolerance Jessica to express the experiences of the Palestinians in this conversation in our media by Israeli experiences to hear the screams of desperation by a people all but broken by this tragedy. As Israelis well know, it is demoralizing to be seen by fellow human beings as objects without worth. No one deserves this. It is my hope that especially as women here, we can see the pain and suffering of ALL people and come together as the creators of life itself to show true empathy for others despite what we’ve been taught and to work diligently to remedy this suffering with love and respect. Salaam/peace.