what is happening in Palestine and Israel is a colossal failure of American diplomacy. As Israel's horrific war against the people of Gaza continues to escalate, the US refuses to condemn Israel's breaches of international and humanitarian law, Biden has closely aligned himself with Israel's most right wing extremist forces, and Netanyahu, the kind of leader the US should be condemning for its extremismist rhetoric, its attack on the independence of the Israeli judiciary, the substantial criminal charges he is facing; the closest thing Israel has to Donald Trump, et Biden publicly embraces him and ignores Palestinian oppression and suffering. The US has completely eviscerated any role it might as an honest broker, and will not be able to speak out against other countries who breach international law. Biden's questioning of Palestinian deaths is appalling - inevitable given the bombing of a trapped population where nowhere is safe. Biden's call for restraint rings hollow when his main action - apart from crossing the Atlantic to hug Netanyahu - has been to request $14 billion in military aid for Israel. The US has never made its substantial aid to Israel (most of which goes to the Israeli military) conditional on the seeking of a just, permanent and legal settlement with the Palestinians.
The US is out of step with the majority of the world's countries on this - for example yesterday's UNGA Resolution on a humanitarian pause was approved by 120 countries, but opposed by the US and Israel.
With Israel having all the military power, backed up relentlessly by the USA, the Israelis feel no need to compromise and until they do we can just look forward to more of the same. Israelis kill Palestinians and steal their land, Palestinian children quickly learn to hate their oppressors and the cycle goes on.
Thank you Heather & Professor Reich for speaking about what’s on many minds today in these dangerous times.
Aside from when he came down the escalator bashing Mexicans, I vividly recall getting a knot in my stomach back in 2015, the early days of the Trump campaign, when he had Journalist Jorge Ramos of Univision literally dragged out of his press conference for asking questions Trump found offensive.
Trump could always rely on his bodyguards to rough up anyone who annoyed him and that was found acceptable to many in the early days of his campaign. Recall the folks attacked or thrown out of his rallies???
Over the past 8 years, he’s evolved into radicalizing more people to do harm to other Americans & immigrants, on his behalf, just as a mob boss and demagogue does.
We saw how he got Bill Barr to punish Michael Cohen for testifying to Congress and how they exacted revenge on Cohen, including solitary confinement. Read both of Cohen’s book.
We saw how Trump’s administration put kids in cages and treated migrants. We saw how protestors were treated under his administration.
We heard him encourage his audiences & police officers to be physically violent with others.
We saw him send his followers on January 6th to storm The Capitol and Hang Mike Pence because he can’t emotionally accept that he lost the election.
We saw how he used and encouraged police and military to do harm to protestors.
The other harm done are the death threats and intimidation to politicians, public servants and journalists.
Consider how many politicians have quietly left office because of the threats.
Consider how many politicians have had to increase their personal security spending. See Liz Cheney & Mitt Romney’s personal stories.
This past week we saw death threats to those in his party to ensure that everyone falls in line with the vote for Mike Johnson and the key test is that they are ALL election deniers.
The GOP all LIE TO THE PUBLIC for #TraitorTrump about a stolen election to avoid death threats & being primaried.
Our media personalities, judges and prosecutors, including election and state officials nationwide are all facing death threats thanks to #TraitorTrump.
Those convicted from his attempted coup on January 6th are sitting in jail now because they didn’t figure out that they’ve been lied to, indoctrinated and radicalized for years by a New York conman and rapist who was not the successful businessman sold to them by The Apprentice and mainstream media.
Strongly recommend checking out the court case brought by the New York Attorney General which shows what a fraud he is on the business front. Most New Yorkers have known this for years.
Trump’s only way to stay out of jail for his countless crimes committed in plain sight, which includes stealing national security secrets and an attempted coup, is to get his cult followers to harm their fellow Americans.
Think about how far America has fallen since 2015, under the influence of this person, protected by Secret Service protection paid for by taxpayers, who does harm to others by sending out daily threats & messages.
From Jorge Ramos to Politicians, Judges & Prosecutors now in harm’s way 24/7!
Shame on Americans for allowing this country to slip into Fascism by allowing this most corrupt criminal, #TraitorTrump back into the White House.
No one can say they weren’t warned in 2023 given that he’s fully taken over one of America’s political parties through fear and intimidation and his conduct is well documented daily.
The violence he champions is NOT normal in a civilized society.
More attention needs to be paid to who Mike Johnson actually is. To use an old phrase, he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. This man is more to the right than most MAGA people and has views that are so unAmerican and deeply divisive. He really is lost in the 17th century and has never come to terms with modern America. Look at how he reacted to the mass shooting in Maine? The cause----teaching evolution? He's scary because he looks innocuous, but he's against the views of at least 80% of Americans on abortion, LBGTQ, climate change, teaching evolution and science. Scary guy.
The west has emboldened Isreal for so long they now feel that they can destroy the Palestinians without consequence. If the French resistance were not terrorists why are Palestinians labelled as terrorists.
😊 Good to see you both, wish there was more encouraging news to report on. Sending lots of good vibes to Robert, Heather, their support team and subscribers. 💗🌞💗
I know that the Palestinians can recover if they are not completely wiped out. Then what?
The perpetrators of 1948 should come up with a solution and rebuild Gaza for the people.
Every Colonial power leaves country's in a fearful mess. Why? Because they never taught the enslaved people how to rule.
I was born in Sri Lanka in 1949 just after Independence the horrors I saw growing up have never left me. My parents were British Colonials and they disgusted me from a very young age. Many of the elite Sri Lankan's became just like the British.
America has the leverage to make Israel back off by not sending any more money to Israel until they learn tolerance.
I know that a huge number of Israeli people protested for many weeks against Netanyahu's Govt. and they have a vote. Get Netanyahu OUT and form a new Govt. of compassion.
The conflict is complicated, involving rejection, discrimination, and hatred--all of which combined and led to hatred and mistrust. I mean that the conflict has been going on for over 2000 years. For those familiar with the Bible, Abraham rejected Hagar and his own son Ishmael when his formerly barren wife Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Hagar and Ishmael were thrown out of the community, with little or no resources to help them. It's my opinion that this is when the conflict began. There needs to be healing on both sides which will only happen when each honestly searches themselves and becomes accountable--much like healing between races here in this country needs truth telling and owning up to the fact that white supremacists cruelly enslaved people and decimated the indigenous tribes.
I love seeing your beautiful faces! This adds to your presentation! Please keep it up! Robert, your eyes tell the story of a deeply loving and compassionate man with superior intelligence. Heather is really photogenic.
Oct 28, 2023·edited Oct 28, 2023Liked by Heather Lofthouse
Great Coffee Klatch! Thank you Heather and Robert. Wonderful way to start my birthday despite all the chaos nationally and internationally.
I have been shaking my head for years regarding our involvement in the Middle East as the US seems to get it wrong most of the times.
Why doesn’t the DoD hire cultural anthropologist when they enter a country that is vastly different than ours when they engage in war? Why did we invade Iraq? I often wonder if the outcome of invading Iraq helped create new terrorist organizations. It feels like we added to the destabilization of that part of the world. Arabs always look at American invasions as politically and economically motivated.
While I’m a San Francisco born American, I spent my formative years in Baghdad and Tehran. At that time, they were amazing countries to live in and learn about the cultures. We ruined Iraq. We stole national and historic treasures, that ended up in the hands of republican party donors. How does that happen?
What Hamas did was horrific, Isreal doubling down on innocent Palestinians isn’t the answer. Is Isreal trying take out the underground tunnels in Gaza? Innocent Palestinian woman and children will become collateral damage. It simply inflames the tension in that part of the world. I didn’t realize that the Gaza strip is a Ghetto with 2 million people who don’t have many opportunities and have substandard living conditions. Half of the population is under 18. The conditions that the families live in doesn’t foster peace.
How do we eliminate hate when we allow conditions to exist that fosters it? Not unlike our own crime ridden neighborhoods that have high rates of gun violence. What happens to those children that live in an insecure environment day after day. PTSD that is probably diagnosed as ADD or ADHD. Forgive my random thinking.
Do you think the aftermath of Covid has caused the political flair-ups internationally?
Mass shooting are becoming normalized. Where is the outrage?
Israel’s approach is like bombing blue states to get rid of Donald Trump. The Palestinians are not Hamas Hamas is horrific, but the retaliation against the Palestinian civilians under the guise of solving a problem becomes just as horrific. They have people in the box and they’re starving them and bombing them, in the name of solving a problem, and the media (and some previously sane politicians) seems to be most often behind Israel’s revenge, starvation and torture. If it proves anything, it proves that you don’t solve problems with violence, particularly against innocent people. Our country, and even the rest of the world seems to be choosing might over right. There is some fascination with power that is destroying all of us. Even Joe Biden seems to be getting it wrong half the time when he tries to distinguish Hamas from the Palestinians And Might and revenge from right.
Israeli political leaders have decided that Palestinian civilians, including children, are collateral damage. (Heard one of them use exactly those words on the BBC) They will not stop until they turn Gaza into a wasteland, push the remaining Palestinians out of the West Bank, and become a pariah state. All with the aid and comfort of the USA on their side.
Could we start with one basic foundational principle: Israel has a right to exist!
One could rightly argue that its modern coming into existence left a lot to be desired and gave scant thought to the welfare and feelings of the extant inhabitants. Very few nations can boast of a pristine birth and modern Israel is no exception.
The state of Israel is going nowhere.
So let us start from that premise and work forward from there.
By the way, I have scant tolerance for the, mostly American, aggressive "settlers" on the West Bank who portray a sort of Jewish, Baptist Presbyterianism complete with a "my way or the highway"conviction of their own righteousness.
The traumatised inflict trauma on the traumatised. No one wins, except the global military industrial complex.
Trauma is emotional, not logical. It will go on for generations, unless the two sides are permanently separated in their own sovereign states.
what is happening in Palestine and Israel is a colossal failure of American diplomacy. As Israel's horrific war against the people of Gaza continues to escalate, the US refuses to condemn Israel's breaches of international and humanitarian law, Biden has closely aligned himself with Israel's most right wing extremist forces, and Netanyahu, the kind of leader the US should be condemning for its extremismist rhetoric, its attack on the independence of the Israeli judiciary, the substantial criminal charges he is facing; the closest thing Israel has to Donald Trump, et Biden publicly embraces him and ignores Palestinian oppression and suffering. The US has completely eviscerated any role it might as an honest broker, and will not be able to speak out against other countries who breach international law. Biden's questioning of Palestinian deaths is appalling - inevitable given the bombing of a trapped population where nowhere is safe. Biden's call for restraint rings hollow when his main action - apart from crossing the Atlantic to hug Netanyahu - has been to request $14 billion in military aid for Israel. The US has never made its substantial aid to Israel (most of which goes to the Israeli military) conditional on the seeking of a just, permanent and legal settlement with the Palestinians.
The US is out of step with the majority of the world's countries on this - for example yesterday's UNGA Resolution on a humanitarian pause was approved by 120 countries, but opposed by the US and Israel.
With Israel having all the military power, backed up relentlessly by the USA, the Israelis feel no need to compromise and until they do we can just look forward to more of the same. Israelis kill Palestinians and steal their land, Palestinian children quickly learn to hate their oppressors and the cycle goes on.
Thank you Heather & Professor Reich for speaking about what’s on many minds today in these dangerous times.
Aside from when he came down the escalator bashing Mexicans, I vividly recall getting a knot in my stomach back in 2015, the early days of the Trump campaign, when he had Journalist Jorge Ramos of Univision literally dragged out of his press conference for asking questions Trump found offensive.
Trump could always rely on his bodyguards to rough up anyone who annoyed him and that was found acceptable to many in the early days of his campaign. Recall the folks attacked or thrown out of his rallies???
Over the past 8 years, he’s evolved into radicalizing more people to do harm to other Americans & immigrants, on his behalf, just as a mob boss and demagogue does.
We saw how he got Bill Barr to punish Michael Cohen for testifying to Congress and how they exacted revenge on Cohen, including solitary confinement. Read both of Cohen’s book.
We saw how Trump’s administration put kids in cages and treated migrants. We saw how protestors were treated under his administration.
We heard him encourage his audiences & police officers to be physically violent with others.
We saw him send his followers on January 6th to storm The Capitol and Hang Mike Pence because he can’t emotionally accept that he lost the election.
We saw how he used and encouraged police and military to do harm to protestors.
The other harm done are the death threats and intimidation to politicians, public servants and journalists.
Consider how many politicians have quietly left office because of the threats.
Consider how many politicians have had to increase their personal security spending. See Liz Cheney & Mitt Romney’s personal stories.
This past week we saw death threats to those in his party to ensure that everyone falls in line with the vote for Mike Johnson and the key test is that they are ALL election deniers.
The GOP all LIE TO THE PUBLIC for #TraitorTrump about a stolen election to avoid death threats & being primaried.
Our media personalities, judges and prosecutors, including election and state officials nationwide are all facing death threats thanks to #TraitorTrump.
Those convicted from his attempted coup on January 6th are sitting in jail now because they didn’t figure out that they’ve been lied to, indoctrinated and radicalized for years by a New York conman and rapist who was not the successful businessman sold to them by The Apprentice and mainstream media.
Strongly recommend checking out the court case brought by the New York Attorney General which shows what a fraud he is on the business front. Most New Yorkers have known this for years.
Trump’s only way to stay out of jail for his countless crimes committed in plain sight, which includes stealing national security secrets and an attempted coup, is to get his cult followers to harm their fellow Americans.
Think about how far America has fallen since 2015, under the influence of this person, protected by Secret Service protection paid for by taxpayers, who does harm to others by sending out daily threats & messages.
From Jorge Ramos to Politicians, Judges & Prosecutors now in harm’s way 24/7!
Shame on Americans for allowing this country to slip into Fascism by allowing this most corrupt criminal, #TraitorTrump back into the White House.
No one can say they weren’t warned in 2023 given that he’s fully taken over one of America’s political parties through fear and intimidation and his conduct is well documented daily.
The violence he champions is NOT normal in a civilized society.
Wake up, Get involved and Cast your votes wisely.
More attention needs to be paid to who Mike Johnson actually is. To use an old phrase, he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. This man is more to the right than most MAGA people and has views that are so unAmerican and deeply divisive. He really is lost in the 17th century and has never come to terms with modern America. Look at how he reacted to the mass shooting in Maine? The cause----teaching evolution? He's scary because he looks innocuous, but he's against the views of at least 80% of Americans on abortion, LBGTQ, climate change, teaching evolution and science. Scary guy.
Terri Quint
The west has emboldened Isreal for so long they now feel that they can destroy the Palestinians without consequence. If the French resistance were not terrorists why are Palestinians labelled as terrorists.
😊 Good to see you both, wish there was more encouraging news to report on. Sending lots of good vibes to Robert, Heather, their support team and subscribers. 💗🌞💗
I know that the Palestinians can recover if they are not completely wiped out. Then what?
The perpetrators of 1948 should come up with a solution and rebuild Gaza for the people.
Every Colonial power leaves country's in a fearful mess. Why? Because they never taught the enslaved people how to rule.
I was born in Sri Lanka in 1949 just after Independence the horrors I saw growing up have never left me. My parents were British Colonials and they disgusted me from a very young age. Many of the elite Sri Lankan's became just like the British.
America has the leverage to make Israel back off by not sending any more money to Israel until they learn tolerance.
I know that a huge number of Israeli people protested for many weeks against Netanyahu's Govt. and they have a vote. Get Netanyahu OUT and form a new Govt. of compassion.
The conflict is complicated, involving rejection, discrimination, and hatred--all of which combined and led to hatred and mistrust. I mean that the conflict has been going on for over 2000 years. For those familiar with the Bible, Abraham rejected Hagar and his own son Ishmael when his formerly barren wife Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Hagar and Ishmael were thrown out of the community, with little or no resources to help them. It's my opinion that this is when the conflict began. There needs to be healing on both sides which will only happen when each honestly searches themselves and becomes accountable--much like healing between races here in this country needs truth telling and owning up to the fact that white supremacists cruelly enslaved people and decimated the indigenous tribes.
I love seeing your beautiful faces! This adds to your presentation! Please keep it up! Robert, your eyes tell the story of a deeply loving and compassionate man with superior intelligence. Heather is really photogenic.
The audio and video was great today. Well done. Oh, and I dislike Halloween too now that my kids are grown.
I loved seeing both of you!! Felt like I was right in the room!! Take it easy this week and try to stay internally peaceful!! 🙏
Great Coffee Klatch! Thank you Heather and Robert. Wonderful way to start my birthday despite all the chaos nationally and internationally.
I have been shaking my head for years regarding our involvement in the Middle East as the US seems to get it wrong most of the times.
Why doesn’t the DoD hire cultural anthropologist when they enter a country that is vastly different than ours when they engage in war? Why did we invade Iraq? I often wonder if the outcome of invading Iraq helped create new terrorist organizations. It feels like we added to the destabilization of that part of the world. Arabs always look at American invasions as politically and economically motivated.
While I’m a San Francisco born American, I spent my formative years in Baghdad and Tehran. At that time, they were amazing countries to live in and learn about the cultures. We ruined Iraq. We stole national and historic treasures, that ended up in the hands of republican party donors. How does that happen?
What Hamas did was horrific, Isreal doubling down on innocent Palestinians isn’t the answer. Is Isreal trying take out the underground tunnels in Gaza? Innocent Palestinian woman and children will become collateral damage. It simply inflames the tension in that part of the world. I didn’t realize that the Gaza strip is a Ghetto with 2 million people who don’t have many opportunities and have substandard living conditions. Half of the population is under 18. The conditions that the families live in doesn’t foster peace.
How do we eliminate hate when we allow conditions to exist that fosters it? Not unlike our own crime ridden neighborhoods that have high rates of gun violence. What happens to those children that live in an insecure environment day after day. PTSD that is probably diagnosed as ADD or ADHD. Forgive my random thinking.
Do you think the aftermath of Covid has caused the political flair-ups internationally?
Mass shooting are becoming normalized. Where is the outrage?
Israel’s approach is like bombing blue states to get rid of Donald Trump. The Palestinians are not Hamas Hamas is horrific, but the retaliation against the Palestinian civilians under the guise of solving a problem becomes just as horrific. They have people in the box and they’re starving them and bombing them, in the name of solving a problem, and the media (and some previously sane politicians) seems to be most often behind Israel’s revenge, starvation and torture. If it proves anything, it proves that you don’t solve problems with violence, particularly against innocent people. Our country, and even the rest of the world seems to be choosing might over right. There is some fascination with power that is destroying all of us. Even Joe Biden seems to be getting it wrong half the time when he tries to distinguish Hamas from the Palestinians And Might and revenge from right.
Israeli political leaders have decided that Palestinian civilians, including children, are collateral damage. (Heard one of them use exactly those words on the BBC) They will not stop until they turn Gaza into a wasteland, push the remaining Palestinians out of the West Bank, and become a pariah state. All with the aid and comfort of the USA on their side.
Could we start with one basic foundational principle: Israel has a right to exist!
One could rightly argue that its modern coming into existence left a lot to be desired and gave scant thought to the welfare and feelings of the extant inhabitants. Very few nations can boast of a pristine birth and modern Israel is no exception.
The state of Israel is going nowhere.
So let us start from that premise and work forward from there.
By the way, I have scant tolerance for the, mostly American, aggressive "settlers" on the West Bank who portray a sort of Jewish, Baptist Presbyterianism complete with a "my way or the highway"conviction of their own righteousness.