August 7-8, 2026
“When the world’s on fire, be the rain”
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“When the world’s on fire, be the rain” Link to reel. Libby Roderick
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This is what candidates who support unconditional military aid to Israel are supporting.
Do not vote for them.
Repost fromShaiel Ben-Ephraim:
A fascinating interview in Haaretz today with an IDF artillery soldier, part of the crew that fired thousands of shells into Gaza. She has been discharged and now suffers from PTSD, partly due to trauma from combat in Lebanon and partly due to the realization she has been part of and responsible for severe war crimes:
1) She was responsible for targeting. Not picking the targets but making sure they were hit: “”My job was to calculate firing data, prepare targets, and send them to the soldiers on the guns.”
2) She explains how innacurate artillery is and how its use is inherently killing civilians even in cases where the target is military: “In the army they told us we only kill terrorists, but that’s a lie. Artillery fire isn’t accurate — a hit within a 50-meter radius is considered a good hit.”
3) She did not process all the people she had killed until after discharge. The IDF atmosphere is designed to protect you from that realization: “”I left the army and saw the number of children who had been killed, and I was shocked. I started searching obsessively. I looked up the neighborhoods we’d attacked, the villages. I saw that a lot of innocent people were killed in those places. I saw photos of dead children.”
4) The guilt ate her up: “”In my head I see the children dying, the mothers crying. I imagine them pulling out the bodies. The guilt doesn’t leave. How is it possible? I killed an innocent girl. I’m the one who fed in the targets. It’s on me.”
5) It changed her political opinions: “Before the army I was far-right, the kind who says ‘death to Arabs.’ But after the war I understood there’s a difference between Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians who want peace, who want life.”
6) She wants to atone but does not know how: “”I understood that I want to help as many people as possible — to atone for everything I did, for all the dead babies.”
This person is a war criminal. But she is also a victim of a society and army which raises you to be a war criminal. Her story is a reminder that these soldiers are human beings. Maybe they can be reached and their minds changed. But it is also a reminder of how the genocidal system that produced her.
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There is a long sordid history of effective multi-tendency progressive organizations being infiltrated by Trotskyist, Maoist, and other far left elements who are then able to out-hustle the more moderate majority and gain disproportionate influence. When we challenge them, we are accused of red-baiting and of siding with the capitalist and imperialist interests. Meanwhile, their presence and the extreme policy positions they advocate are then used to discredit the organization as a whole and any and all members of the group, even those who don’t agree with some of their positions.
We are seeing this very phenomenon in Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). I was on the International Committee for a time and had to constantly deal with apologists for Maduro, Ortega, and various autocratic regimes and movements that were by no means democratic socialist. I was frequently out-voted.
Most local DSA chapters are still committed to the principles of democratic socialism. Some locals have essentially been taken over by sectarian ideologues. The national organization is mixed. The question one constantly has to deal with in these situations is whether to stay and fight or to jump ship. This has created a real dilemma for DSA members seeking elective office.
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Truthout has just published my article examining the attack in Washington on the International Criminal Court as part of a bipartisan effort to undermine international humanitarian law.
Please consider circulating.
