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| "Gaza is Drowning" by Palestinian artist Mahmoud Abbas |
September was 9/11 and the criminal 2001 Al-Qaeda terror attacks on America.
October is Oct 7th and the criminal 2023 HAMAS terror attack on Israel.
November is elections- and Thanksgiving for many Americans, but not all.
No matter who is elected next month, I very much hope our elected
leaders start to seriously invest in peace and prosperity for all
people, not just white "Christian" con-artists, Billionaire tech bros,
corporate corruption, AI delusions, and escalating pollution.
I hope our elected leaders STOP arming war violence and injustice.
Start with Palestine and the United Nations. Fund diplomacy and
international law, and aid for those in need- not bombs and bully
tactics.
And I hope our mainstream media- our fourth estate- starts being fully honest about Israeli crimes against humanity.
The brilliant headline fixer, Assal Rad, recently wrote a revealing new book "Don't Say Palestine: How the Media Manufactured Consent for Genocide". Read it and learn the many ways Americans have been essentially lied to and swindled by the way "Mainstream Western media consistently downplays Israeli responsibility, “others” Palestinians, and casts doubt on inviolable tenets of international law like the sanctity of hospitals and journalists in war zones." https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/834977/dont-say-palestine-by-assal-rad/
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
NOTES
https://anniesnewletters.blogspot.com/search/label/Notes
What happened to America’s compassion | Joyce M. Davis in The Patriot News, Pennsylvania
Peace & development are 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱. It's time to rebalancing world military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future... Global military spending is soaring, fueling a new arms race and placing immense pressure on national budgets and priorities
61m tonnes of rubble: Gaza aid workers face delicate task of clearing ruins concealing up to 10,000 bodies. Removal of war debris, in which lives, memories and unexploded Israeli bombs lie buried, is one of largest clearance operations in modern history
It’s not hypothetical: the dangers of AI are already here- Israel and the US have used AI to kill in Gaza and Iran, while law enforcement uses it in surveillance and arrests. The future is here
Weapon of distraction: How Israel uses greenwashing to mask its climate crimes
"Peace and security. Inequality. Climate. Artificial intelligence. These are the four great power tests of the future. And they are interlinked." - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
Israel uproots 400 olive trees in occupied West Bank as harvest season approaches... The trees are hundreds of years old- uprooting them not only destroys the trees, but also affects the livelihoods of Palestinian families that depend on them
Towards A More Just World... learn more
Refaat Alareer 1979-2023 killed by Israel (but not silenced) poet, professor, writer, & one of the co-founders of We Are Not Numbers: We remember him not only for how he died, but for how he lived — teaching and inspiring generations of young Palestinians to write back and tell their stories.
Breaking the Silence: " The IDF delegated target identification to an AI system, a deeply problematic step in itself. This enabled the military to carry out strikes at an unprecedented pace. Combined with the IDF’s extremely permissive collateral damage policy, this sent the death toll in Gaza skyrocketing. "
Genocide by Deprivation: How Israel keeps killing going in Gaza even without bombing
"Let this anniversary mark not only another year of mourning, but also a renewed determination to build a different future in which Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace & security, with their rights, dignity & aspirations fulfilled." United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ message marking three years since the attacks of 7 October 2023
Israeli settlers beat press photographer as soldiers watch in West Bank- Jaafar Ashtiyeh was covering violence against olive farmers when settlers set upon him with the butts of their rifles
“Silence in the face of suffering and injustice is not neutrality, it is complicity,” he wrote. “Shutting down discussion on the starvation of the Palestinian people weakens the reputation of the organisation and the legitimacy of our mandate. Being true to our mandate calls for a frank and open discussion around starvation, famine, and genocide in Palestine and elsewhere.” Benjamin Davis, Former UN food agency official claims he was fired for highlighting hunger in Gaza
Gaza before and after the Genocide
Palestinian Ministry of Education says over 22 thousands Palestinian students have been killed by Israel in the last three years; 179 public schools and 105 UNRWA schools were destroyed. Yet 700 teaching locations in Gaza opened for Gaza students
‘Had I resigned, I would have handed them that victory on a plate,’ says former UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini
In Gaza, farmers rescue roots buried under rubble to grow fruit again. Gazan fig and date farmers are replanting crops from roots that survived years of Israeli bombing.
Mosaic view of Gaza in the Church of St Stephen, Um ar-Rasas, Jordan. It was constructed in 756CE by the mosaics artists Stauranchius & Euremius
With deep sorrow and grief, His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, mourns the passing of Mrs. Maysa Khader Ibrahim Abu Daoud (Ayyad) and Mrs. Mary Hafez Michel Najjar (Abu Daoud), who were killed in the Israeli air strike that took place last night October 2nd, 2026, in Gaza City.
Gaza: WHO appeals for massive aid influx ahead of winter- Repeated delays in bringing lifesaving medicines, prosthetics and more [food, clean water...etc...] from Israel into Gaza risk having devastating consequences on Palestinians who urgently need them in the war-torn enclave, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said [warned] on Friday
AI [artificial intelligence] weapons systems are already here. Algorithms must not decide who lives and dies. Israel’s conduct in Gaza shows the danger of using AI in warfare. Humans must remain at the center of wartime decisions
Friday's International Day of Non-Violence [October 2, 2026] marks the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, a leader who remained committed to the principle of non-violence, even in the most difficult circumstances
WCNSF — Wounded Child, No Surviving Family... Medical workers [in GAZA PALESTINE] began using it to describe children who arrive at hospitals wounded, but with no surviving family left to find them. Nothing can make the deliberate or indiscriminate harming of children acceptable. There are an estimated 30,000 WCNSF in Gaza, they are not statistics. They are someone's whole world — until there is no one left.
Just a gentle reminder from Dr. Hanan Ashrawi of Palestine: "In Gaza, Israel continues to shell Palestinians, killing up to a dozen daily, while Palestinian civil defence employees continue to dig up hundreds of remains of the ten thousand that Israel massacred in their own homes & neighborhoods. In the West Bank, Israeli settler thugs continue their daily raids & pogroms armed, funded & aided by the Israeli government & army. They uproot hundreds of thousands of mainly olive trees & steal the olives that Palestinian farmers picked. In the meantime, the Israeli government brazenly announces the stealing of more land & the building of more settlements while re-engineering the demographic reality & courses of movement in the West Bank to facilitate its fragmentation & annexation"
New Google Maps images reveal massive scale of devastation in Gaza: Satellite imagery shows further destruction of homes, businesses and places of worship since fragile ceasefire
"Perhaps I should be terrified by this announcement from a man who, for all his sins, knows a thing or two about technology. But I’m sick of hearing about the hypothetical dangers of AI when the technology is being used to kill people today. Gates may not be directly involved in Microsoft any more, but, rather than making prophecies about the future, I’d love to hear what he thinks about the company’s role in the AI-enabled destruction of Gaza." Arwa Mahdawi
"For me, as a Palestinian from Gaza who survived the ongoing genocide, when I look at the rubble of homes on Google Maps, I am not seeing only the remains of buildings, which from far look like a decaying wall. I am seeing the remains of people whose bodies were crushed beneath walls and ceilings they painted with their own hands. I see children’s toys. Books. Backpacks. Coloring pencils. An unfinished meal. Blankets. Shoes. Photo frames of grandparents whose grandchildren never met. An old key to a home in Yaffa or Haifa. I can also hear the last words of a broadcaster on the radio before the news occurred, before the radio was broken and the family crushed..." Mosab Abu Toha
They see them, then kill them: Israeli quadcopters track, deliberately target civilians in Gaza
In the Fields- Jerusalem 2026 water colors painting by Rawan Anani
As Israeli bulldozers destroy more homes, uproot more trees, tear through orchards and fields, and alter a landscape that Palestinians have tended for generations, I find myself thinking about another kind of plow. A wooden one. And the hands of the man who held it. I think of my uncle—my aunt’s husband—Abu Ali, and of happier, simpler times....
Gaza students return to makeshift schools after three years of genocide. Hundreds of thousands of children attend classes in tents as destroyed schools, overcrowding and shortages continue to disrupt education across the strip
Israel and the US have battered the international legal order. The impunity must stop
Nearly 400 members of UNRWA 's workforce in Gaza have been killed, with hundreds of premises in the Occupied Palestinian Territory made “inaccessible, severely damaged, or utterly destroyed” - Antonio Guterres warned at the UN General Assembly
‘They uprooted it all’: Israel bulldozes Palestinian-owned olive groves. Israeli bulldozers uprooted olive groves near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank weeks before the annual harvest.
Humanity in war: A global initiative for humanitarian law - As of mid-August 2026, 118 states have officially joined the Global IHL Initiative, launched by Brazil, China, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan and South Africa, together with the ICRC.
Experts say that after nearly three years of war, the environmental consequences of the destruction in Gaza are now spilling back into Israel.
At 76, Mansoura’s most precious possession is the key to her former home... ‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza
25 Million Stitches - One Stitch, One Refugee; Raising awareness of the global refugee crisis through Art
‘I’m afraid they’ll bomb the cafe where I work, or bomb me’: a day in the life of a 12-year-old boy in Gaza, Palestine
Jordan's king tells The United Nations that Israel's 'expansionist appetite' is a regional threat.... “This sense of impunity has reached terrifying levels,” he continued, warning that “no one in this assembly should assume [Israel's] ambitions stop at Palestine.”
"What we know is that, because Israel controls about seventy per cent of the territory of the Gaza Strip, some two million people are squeezed into thirty per cent of the territory. We know that eighty-one per cent of the Gaza Strip is damaged or destroyed, and more than three hundred thousand housing units were completely destroyed during the war, in addition to schools and other infrastructure, like clinics, hospitals, and mosques."
"Bustan Al-Ard" (Garden of the Earth) 2020 painting by Palestinian artist Fayez Elhasani.
Painting "Playing for Return" (2020) from the "The Flute and the Goldfinch" series - by Palestinian artist Fayez Al-Hasani
New report shows key indicators of Earth’s health are ‘outside the safe operating space’ as climate disaster looms
Let’s give peace a chance "First,
pay attention to conflicts, even those that aren’t in the headlines.
You can ask your elected officials to make global peacemaking a
priority. Ask them to fund peacemaking initiatives rather than fuel arms
races." William Lambers in The Patriot News
“Achieving peace is not passive or automatic. It’s an active and deliberate choice to invest in a better future.” United Nations 2026
For more than 80 years, UNESCO has worked to build peace through education, culture, freedom of expression and dialogue. Peace is never secured once and for all. It is built through institutions, relationships and daily choices.
Local churches call it genocide — and say silence is no longer an option | Joyce M. Davis in The Patriot News
The Guardian view on NAZA’s persecuted directors: journalism is not treason. Politicians who threaten filmmakers rather than investigate alleged military crimes expose not strength but a leadership frightened of the evidence
“It’s good to criticise governments for violating children’s rights. It’s something that everyone should be doing. Because we’re the grownups of this world and we’re meant to keep children safe. And the fact that we are not is horrific” Ms Rachel, the queen of toddler TV- Her preschool fanbase are, of course, unaware of any of her politics, and they cannot get enough of her.
DEAR AMERICA
Dear America, I know for a fact that there are good and decent Jewish people on planet earth, there are good and decent Jewish groups on earth... but Israel is bad.
How much pollution and corruption has been generated by the manufacturing, transport, and deployment of bombs?
WE THE PEOPLE are being forced to fund weapons, escalating war, hate, and hypocrisy everywhere.
ICE and Israel should both be de-funded and de-fanged.
Jobs created by the weapons industry bring temporary economic relief to some- while inflicting immense pain and suffering on many many many more.
Pushing all commerce online to "Save A Tree" ends up decimating numerous forests and fields for energy and water hungry Data Centers. CEOs and our elected leaders take huge profits while taxpayers are left with escalating losses, including the surging loss of land and water for hyperscale Data Centers.
Anti-immigrant legislation and excessive funding for ICE are more about protecting wealthy people and corporations, who can hire illegals knowing that the workers and their families will be too afraid to complain about dangerous working conditions, low pay, long hours, and slum landlord housing.
You can't win a modern war. You can destroy homes & families, you can usurp land & resources from the rightful owners, and you can undermine & destroy a free press and the fourth estate- but people worldwide have memories, as well as a sense of right and wrong that cannot be bombed into oblivion.
STOP THE BOMBS and the bigotry, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop accepting bribes & propaganda & bad advice from a very foreign country that seeks to destroy support for UNIVERSAL human rights and the rule of fair and just laws.
Along the way we learned that slavery is wrong. We learned that domestic violence is wrong. We learned that racist hate is wrong. SO WHY are we funding Israel and why are we bombing Iran for Israel!!!
Violence is a problem- not the answer
The power of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the power of ideas to change the world. It inspires us to continue working to ensure all people can gain freedom, equality and dignity...
In 1945, 50 nations came together in San Francisco to create a new organization for peace, prosperity & human rights- the United Nations
"The United Nations is the only place on Earth where all the world's nations come together to discuss common problems and find shared solutions that benefit all of humanity. This intergovernmental organization born out of the ashes of the Second World War remains indispensable to the pursuit of world peace, justice, equality and sustainable development" https://www.un.org/en/
The right of refugees to return to homes and lands they were expelled from is an individual right and cannot be unilaterally abrogated by third parties. https://imeu.org/resources/resources/fact-sheet-palestinian-refugees-the-right-of-return-under-international-law/441
"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..." https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
