-
News Notes
Wednesday 24 January 2024
Chronic Pain in the Courts
Recovery from knee replacement is not linear. I keep feeling like I’m getting well and overdoing it and going through set backs. Arghhhhhhhhhhh. But, I have cat therapists.
Chronic Pain
John Flannery (former prosecutor and frequent guest on MSNBC) argued a case before the D.C. Court of Appeals on behalf of chronic pain patients yesterday.
John Flannery (1/24/24)
Flannery has been doing legal work for patients who have had pain medication taken away because the DEA put their doctors out of business.
• Flannery talked in this podcast about the original 240 patients of a doctor in California whose license was suspended by the DEA.
“Every doctor that gives pain medication is suspect,” argued Flannery.
• The DEA does not accept the principle that people have to have a certain level of freedom from pain in order to function.
• When the DEA prevents a doctor from prescribing pain medication his patients are abandoned.
• The DEA thinks they should be allowed to conduct closed proceedings involving the ability of these patients to get medication.
• One of the patients and his caretaker committed suicide because they had been denied medication before (see story below).
• “We are all going to face pain in our lives.” Said Flannery
• The government is slowing an appeal of the case involving the former patients of the California doctor by claiming that there has been no decision in the case.
• “You cannot make illness a crime.”
• “There’s almost never a change…without a fight.”
• Flannery has written a book about chronic pain: “Pain in America – and How our Government Makes it Worse.” (2007) John Flannery
• Book Blurb: John P. Flannery, II, is a former federal prosecutor from New York City who prosecuted multimillion dollar heroin conspiracies. He believes, however, that our government is dead wrong to prosecute physicians for treating chronic pain patients. I am ashamed that the Justice Department is doing this, Flannery says. There are 75 million Americans who suffer long term excruciating pain and the government is making it worse . For many pain patients, neither surgery nor alternative procedures ease their pain. Congress authorized the use of controlled substances to treat their chronic pain. But the Justice Department, Flannery argues, opposes prescriptions of these controlled substances. It prosecutes the physicians who treat chronic pain patients. Flannery holds the government accountable for destroying the once sacrosanct relationship of physician and patient, for criminalizing chronic pain treatment, and for creating a public health crisis of under-treated patients. Flannery tells the tragic story of patients and physicians who are the victims in this war against pain medicine, explains the history of privacy and how the government is destroying that right, suggests how we may protect ourselves from the government, and issues a chilling warning to be vigilant in the face of this tyranny lest we lose our rights once and for all.
Sources:
Couple Commits Suicide
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dea-fentanyl-opioid-crisis-suicide-b2236501.html
-
The government has closed the gates to an estimated 120,000 Palestinian workers since the war in Gaza began, but hasn’t presented a plan to replace them with foreign workers ■ Meanwhile, business owners who have lost a considerable percentage of their workforce are paying the price
-
The dual objectives of freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas are now mutually incompatible, according to interviews with four senior military leaders, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly about their personal opinions.
There is also a clash between how long Israel would need to fully eradicate Hamas — a time-consuming slog fought in the group’s warren of underground tunnels — and the pressure, applied by Israel’s allies, to wrap up the war quickly amid a spiraling civilian death toll.
On Thursday, Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief who is serving in the war cabinet, exposed a rift inside the government when he said in a television interview that it was an “illusion” to believe that the hostages could be rescued alive through military operations.
“The situation in Gaza is such that the war aims have yet to be achieved,” said Mr. Eisenkot, adding: “For me, there’s no dilemma. The mission is to rescue civilians, ahead of killing an enemy.”
The commanders said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s equivocation about a postwar plan for Gaza was at least in part to blame for the military’s predicament on the battlefield.
Mr. Netanyahu has yet to clarify how Gaza will be governed after the war — and the commanders said that without a long-term vision for the territory, the army could not make short-term tactical decisions about how to capture the parts of Gaza that remain beyond Israeli control. Capturing the southernmost part of Gaza, which lines the Egyptian border, would require greater coordination with Egypt. But Egypt is unwilling to engage without guarantees from Israel over the postwar plan, three of the commanders said.
Asked for comment, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “The P.M. is leading the war on Hamas with unprecedented achievements in a very decisive manner.” In a speech on Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu promised both to achieve “total victory over Hamas,” and also rescue the hostages.
www.nytimes.com/2024/01/20/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-hostages-strategy.html
-
Thursday 18 January 2024
News Notes: Israel
The Inside Story Podcast (1/6/24)
Israeli Cabinet Argument About Military Evaluation
Herzi Halevi, the chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces
Interview with Ofer Cassif, Member of Knesset, Gideon Levy, Columnist for Haaretz, and Daniel Levy, President of the US Middle East Project
Israeli government fight over proposed military report assessing the events of Oct 7.
Ofer Cassif:
• The debate within the Israeli. The most important issue is to end the war. First, the death toll for civilians is excessive. Second, the death toll of soldiers is extremely high (and likely to go higher). Third the risks to the hostages are enormos. This war should not have begun in the first place.
• “Unfortunately, this government consists of bigots who do not care about the lives, let alone of Palestinians, but not even of Israeli soldiers or hostages. They are just interested in revenge and hatred. That is the main thing that drives them.
Gideon Levy
• “…the politicians, as usual, are breaking away from any responsibility…” It was a historical fiasco on the 7th, and the politicians are doing everything possible to put the blame only on the army…”
• The main issue is continuing the war, but Israel is behind continuing the war at any price.
• At the end of the day it’s a question of who will be held responsible for all the fiascos. The politicians already started in the middle of the war without any shame, blaming everyone but themselves..
Daniel Levy
• The fault line is Israel is between those who say “…eradication, let’s have a second Nakba, let’s remove everyone.” “This is working. We have a very good apartheid system in place…occasionally we say to the world we’re ready to do something…” But we are not.
• Even when the opposition proposes a separate state, it’s not actually a separate state. It is more like “a Bantustan homeland” in an apartheid system than actual Palestinian freedom…”
• “You do not have any party that stands up for Palestinian rights, international law…”
• “…Netanyahu clearly doesn’t want this war to end…”
Ofer Cassif
• Netanyahu “pulls the strings” but he wants us to think he doesn’t. “Netanyahu is not interested in ending the war because he knows that once the war is over there are two alternatives. Either to begin another war, which it seems he’s interested to do in the North, or he’s going to pay the price for the fiasco and the responsibility he bears with his government for the…massacre that occurred.” “He does pull the strings” but he wants to manipulate the public and the international community and to pretend that he is a “hostage” of the larger bigots. He “manipulates and maneuvers the Israeli public and the international public to get what he personally wants.”
• There are differences of interest between Netanyahu and the “fanatics of the so-called religious Zionism.” There are differences in intention, but not in practice. In practice, they think the same and do the same.
Gideon Levy
• Question: During the argument of the cabinet, the former Defense Minister was mentioned. Is it the mention of his name that upset the ultra-orthodox? They said we don’t want him mentioned.
• No, they are just trying to postpone any investigation. This is a diversion.
• There is almost “no one who is clean (innocent) from any point of view.”
• What is being proposed is a military investigation. It is not the investigation that Israel deserves.” Israel needs an independent external investigation “by judges not generals,” but this might still come.
Daniel Levy
• Question: Netanyahu is not on good terms with the military establishment. The military establishment says that Netanyahu doesn’t have a clear plan for how to move forward. Who do you blame for this vague environment?
• “This is a remarkable, violent, destructive campaign….the key thing here (the remarkable thing) is the level of consensus (within the society).”
• The Israeli military was wounded by the 10/7 attack and is happy to pursue this campaign. But, you also have a military that increasingly reflects the society.
• The “national religious settler community” is very much integrated, part of the settler class. We see the images that are coming out.”
• Because of the consensus, change is unlikely to be generated inside the Israeli system. It will require some external vector. And the ability for this horrendous killing, and the humanitarian consequences (starvation, disease) depends on cost and consequence.
• Up until now that hasn’t happened. The US has provided Israel with the weapons and the political cover to continue.
• We have to look (for an external vector) at what South Africa has initiated in the International Criminal Court. This cannot stop the war, but it can generate pressure. “As long as Israel is treated with impunity, it will do its worst.”
Ofer Cassif:
• “We do need international pressure, that’s for sure.”
• But, there must be external and internal pressure. We go out to the street to demonstrate against the war (every week). But without international pressure, and with the support of the Biden administration, we can’t stop it.
• These are “terrible war crimes…the death toll especially of children and the elderly.”
• The South African case is based squarely on things that the members of the Knesset and members of the coalition have said.
• They have used words like “elimination” and “destruction.” We cannot ignore that. “I am in shock” that probably most Israelis support such policies and such language. And I am in disgust with an international community that does not do anything. It is in the interest of the Israelis to stop this killing. The interest of our society is “to be moral.”
Gideon Levy
• Question: The South African complaint is going directly to genocide. Could this be a decisive moment even though it will take time?
• “It is a beginning.” It’s not like we have so many tools. “We are very limited.” “The support of this war is almost overall support. I never remember a war in Israel with so little resistance and so little critic…” The international community continues to “hug Israel.”
• This procedure will take years, but we should start it.
Daniel Levy
• “We see the absolute inadequacy not to say collapse of the international system.”
• I hope that people have given up the illusion that America is a friend here, that America stands up for something in a consistent fashion.
• “There’s no silver bullet” but it’s a “building block.”
• Israelis “will never be liberated from being oppressors if they carry on like that.”
Ofer Cassif
• I still supports a two state solution. For years we have been saying that “the occupation is going to explode.” And it has.
• The “only solution is the two-state solution.”
Gideon Levy
• No. “That is a train that unfortunately has left the station.” There is no room for a real Palestinian state with 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. We’d better “stop with this illusion.” It only works to maintain the occupation. We must change the narrative to equal rights. There are two alternatives – it’s either a democracy or an apartheid state.
Daniel Levy
• Israel rejected the two-state solution.
-
The Qataris funded Hamas for years, harbored its leaders and legitimized it as a political power. But everything it did was done with full Israeli consent and encouragement. Now, as Qatar is a sort of ‘swing state’ in Middle Eastern politics, its critics better acknowledge that it will have a key role in a reconfigured region
critics say Qatar lavishly funded Hamas, harbored Hamas leaders and enabled the group by legitimizing it as a political power. In short, It’s all Qatar’s fault.
This might be true, but it’s totally devoid of the political context. As such, it is a lazily convenient way of designating a fall guy so as to detract and deflect criticism, and shift the responsibility away from those who should bear it – particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
First, Hamas committed the atrocities, not Qatar. Second, Qatar funneled money into Gaza to maintain the Hamas regime at Israel’s request. Third, when Qatar was deliberating whether to stop the payments in 2018, Israel sent high-level emissaries to Doha to plead with the Qataris to continue. Fourth, Qatar is indispensable in mediating the release of Israeli hostages. It has done so already and continues to do so. Fifth, in the broader geopolitical dimensions of a postwar Middle East, Qatar could and should be a central part of the solution, and certainly not the problem.
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
