to medea we will speak benjamin of codepink.hich held protests outside of the white house well president obama spoke the other night during then a former israeli soldier speaks out. i was sure that if the israeli public knows what i know, the occupation has to stop. it will stop, but it did not. >> eran efrati, an israeli soldier turned anti-occupation activist. he recently interviewed several israeli soldiers who participated in the shujaiya massacre in gaza. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> secretary of state john kerry is in turkey in an ongoing effort to drum up support for a u.s. military-led campaign. inthursday, john kerry was 10 arababia where countries -- egypt, iraq, jordan, lebanon and six gulf states, including saudi arabia and qatar, agreed to help the united states fight the sunni militants that have seized swathes of iraq and syria. >> arab nations play a huge role in our roles. the foreign fighters, which isil requires to thri

medea benjamin is the cofounder of codepink.rofessor vijay prashad, talk about the significance of the u.s. striking syria and the other arab countries supporting it, though it is not exactly clear what role they played. >> it is very significant that the united states struck in syria since august, there have been about 200 strikes in iraq, but the united states had been reticent to come into the syrian theater. so this is a very significant development. it is also significant that there was an announcement that there was a coalition of largely gulf arab states, but also jordan. jordan was the first one to admit publicly that they were involved in some way in the strikes. it is also-i think important to recognize that the strikes don't really have any kind of international backing. there is no u.n. resolution, nor is there any congressional approval. on the other hand, it does seem as if there were some coordination with the al-assad government in damascus, not only because the government in damascus through quickly released a s

that was medea benjamin. your thoughts -- >> that was medea benjamin.r thoughts, patrick cockburn. really, they were always going to do it, because as the u.s. chief of staff said it was absurd to bomb isis in iraq and not serious since they could just disappear across the there.and launch attacks murder of the journalists and the british aid worker -- they had to respond to that, so there's probably a simpler explanation. >> one of the problems, before we conclude, patrick cockburn, has to do with the anxieties the feelations of sunnis regarding the syrian government. to what extent -- to what extent lesse new government is sectarian then nouri al-maliki? sectarian, but will this trickle down if i am a sunni young man in a sunni village or town outside of falluja or mosul -- if i'm picked up by the army, what are my chances of staying alive, of not being tortured? unless it affects that, it is not going to change the attitude of the sunni community in iraq, and the sunni leaders have joined this government, they do not have watch clout. they cannot rea

this is cofounder medea benjamin differencing -- speaking to chuck hagel. >> [inaudible] >> i will askou nicely to please -- >> [indiscernible] >> thank you. i will ask you for the last time. medea -- >> open the way for isil. u.s. military will not be -- >> [indiscernible] >> we had 13 years of war already. >> the conflict among factions in syria has been intensifying ahead of possible u.s. strikes against islamic state fighters there. two days of syrian government airstrikes that killed at least 40 people in homs province. the syrian-based observatory for human rights says at least six children are among the dead. islamic state fighters announced they had shut down a searing military aircraft in the northern city of raqqa. in idlib, at least 34 children are said to have died after receiving tainted doses of the measles vaccine. the syrian rebel coalition to which was running the program, said supporters of the bashar al-assad regime may have tampered with the vaccines. they say the doses were supplied by unicef and the world health organization by way of the turkish government. the u