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Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Rashida Tlaib: Politicians should not be allowed to profit from war

Tlaib introduced the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act to ban members of Congress and their families from owning defense stocks.

Rashida Tlaib represents Michigan's 12th District in U.S. Congress. 

It’s incredibly disturbing that children in our country are drinking lead-contaminated water — while the U.S. Congress passed another record-breaking military budget of $895.2 billion. That’s nearly a trillion dollars going to weapons and war, and the Department of Defense can’t even keep track of where it’s all going. The Pentagon just failed its seventh audit in a row.

Even more disturbing is the fact that some members of Congress who own stock in war manufacturers benefit financially when they vote to pass funding for war.

When it comes to the Pentagon budget, I never hear my colleagues ask, “How are we going to pay for it?” But when it comes to addressing critical issues here at home, like ensuring every American has clean drinking water, fighting the climate crisis, providing universal school meals to every hungry child, ensuring quality childcare for every family or guaranteeing health care as a human right, my colleagues tell me that we just don’t have the money.... READ MORE  https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2025/01/29/rashida-tlaib-federal-budget-war-profiteering-congress-defense-stocks/77854378007/?taid=679a0db8bd13980001f8af50

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

UNWRA 2025- Palestinian children dream of music and peace....


 

Education
UNWRA's students are among the most highly educated in the region. Since the 1960s, girls have made up around half of UNRWA students.
 
Quality education helps young Palestine refugees understand the world in which they live and promotes values of tolerance, cultural identity, and gender equality. Through its education system, UNRWA aims to ensure that Palestine refugee students develop their full potential and become “confident, innovative, questioning, thoughtful, and open-minded, to uphold human values and tolerance, proud of their Palestinian identity and contributing positively to the development of society and the global community”  https://www.unrwa.org/what-we-do/education
 
UNWRA provides assistance and protection for registered Palestine refugees 
 

"There is no alternative to UNRWA among UN agencies or NGOs" @‌UNLazzarini  

A family from Bethlehem in 1951

A family from Bethlehem in 1951.

“Never Again means Never Again for anybody” Holocaust Survivors speak about Israel's Genocide on Holocaust Memorial Day -January 2025

 






https://youtu.be/Posmzxqx4HA?si=3zOg7XZVPS3bkXRn

UNWRA WORKS: In the first week of the ceasefire, 60% of all the food that entered the Gaza Strip was from UNRWA. If the ban on UNRWA is implemented in the next days, it will severely challenge the already fragile ceasefire including the delivery of lifesaving aid in Gaza #UNWRAworks

In the first week of the #ceasefire, 60% of all the food that entered the #Gaza Strip was from UNRWA. If the ban on UNRWA is implemented in the next days, it will severely challenge the already fragile ceasefire including the delivery of lifesaving aid in #Gaza #UNRWAworks
 

"I don’t think that God sent us prophets and books of light to fight each other over them. They actually tell us how to live together. " Yusuf/Cat Stevens

I don’t think that God sent us prophets and books of light to fight each other over them. They actually tell us how to live together. #Peace #Religion #Faith #Unity

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Frankly every Holocaust Museum on earth should have a wing added explaining the very real plight and suffering of the native non-Jewish Palestinians. 75 years and counting...

 

                                                                           1/28/205

The White House

Dear President Trump,

I agree that it is very important to stop racism, and hopefully part of that is in remembering the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.

BUT I do not agree with your statement on the National Day of Remembrance ofthe 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, 2025 that "To this day, the Jewish people proudly represent the peak of human tenacity and the pinnacle of human triumph."  Nor do I agree with your misguided support of Israel which claims to be The Jewish State. 

I firmly believe religion should be a personal, private choice, not a state funded project. 

Israel's discriminatory laws and refusal to fully respect the Palestinians' basic human rights, including but not limited to every refugee’s inalienable right to return to original homes and lands has created Apartheid in the Holy Land, and a HUGE refugee crisis.  There is nothing to admire about that, and there is no triumph in the IDF terrorizing and killing Palestinian women and children.

Our mainstream media acts more like a propaganda arm of the Israeli government than a free press or a Fourth Estate, and I am starting to suspect that every politician has his Zionist keepers that keep him in line with Zionist spin. 

True democracy with real freedom and justice depends on true equality. America is still working towards that, but at least we are trying. Israel is not.  Yes, there are some very admirable Jewish individuals, but most of them live in the West, not in Israel.  

Frankly every Holocaust Museum on earth should have a wing added explaining the very real plight and suffering of the native non-Jewish Palestinians. 75 years and counting...

NEVER AGAIN has to be inclusive, or else it is totally meaningless.

International law is worth keeping, and so is UNWRA as long as the Palestinian refugees need it. 

 America's veto should be used for the universal good, not to pardon a foreign country's crimes against humanity.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

American homemaker & poet

Notes  https://anniesnewletters.blogspot.com/search/label/Notes

CIVILIANS & their homes MUST BE PROTECTED 

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 

America should not help Israel commit crimes against humanity.

Israeli Settlers threw molotov cocktails and rocks, breaking windows and setting several houses and cars on fire in each place they targeted in protest at the release of 90 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails in exchange for three Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

"Since the war in Gaza began, settler violence has intensified further, displacing entire villages for the first time. On many occasions, the Israeli army has been documented failing to stop settler attacks, or even joining in."

"“We can’t even cross the road to our olive trees now or they’ll shoot at us,” he said of the settlers. “This is our land, and our houses, but they want us to leave for good.”"

‘A constant state of panic’: how war in Gaza triggered new wave of depression and insomnia among Palestinian refugees from 1967 war The stress of seeing the destruction of their homeland sent rates of mental illness soaring in Jordan’s Jerash camp – and the ceasefire has brought scant relie

Poet Mosab Abu Toha's January 22, 2025 Statement on the destruction of the Edward Said Public Library in Gaza

Dear America- letter sent to my elected leaders: Please understand that our friend Israel already is a one state "solution" that has been oppressing and intentionally displacing the native non-Jewish Palestinians for decades now.

Unrwa may be forced to stop saving lives in Gaza. Will the world let that happen? Outrage over Israel’s attempt to dismantle our UN agency has largely petered out. The stakes are very high now Opinion piece by Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General

CSM ‘Cold is death.’ For Gazans in flimsy tents, a winter of sorrow and loss. 

Human Rights Watch joins with nearly 90 other organizations in a letter opposing US sanctions against the International Criminal Court. It would be a terrible irony if a tool designed to penalize violators of human rights could instead contribute to their impunity. 

"The U.S. provided $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024, a substantial increase from the already $3.8 billion in military aid the U.S. gives Israel annually. "

The best idea is to start with full support for fair and just laws based on full respect for basic human rights.

The United Nations & The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Always, no matter what.... Even Wars Have Rules

"If the U.S. had held Israel accountable for the killing of other Americans like Rachel Corrie or Shireen Abu Akleh, perhaps Israeli soldiers would not feel so emboldened to kill Americans, and other civilians, today." Hamad Ali in The Hill 12/14/24

Dear America- Israel and its propagandists claim it is all about self-defense, but Israel is and has been the aggressor and the rule breaker.

Dear Elected Officials- Stop poisoning the land, and undermining international law.

My Letters https://anniesnewletters.blogspot.com/search/label/letters

 

"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

 

CIVILIANS & their homes MUST BE PROTECTED

No government is beyond scrutiny.
 &

"The protection of civilians during armed conflict is therefore a cornerstone of international humanitarian law. This protection extends to their public and private property. IHL also identifies and protects particularly vulnerable civilian groups such as women, children and the displaced... "  READ MORE  https://www.icrc.org/en/document/protected-persons/civilians-protected-international-humanitarian-law