Palestine 2 Gaza
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SEE WOD4
merri ok
see BDS
SEE ISLAMOPHOBE
AEE ACTIV SUPPRESS
see canary mission/ student suppression
see universities columbia beaten up w/ anti-semitism cudgel BS
see academic suppress pinko prof
see the squad
bak 120 i do not see 2 26
HASAN PIKER
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an 10 26
A senior CBS News editor can be heard threatening journalists that defying management could get them fired in newly released audio from a heated staff meeting, exposing an internal fight over the network's coverage of Israel and Gaza.
Shayndi Raice, the network's foreign editor and a hire of editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, delivered the warning during a Tuesday meeting with foreign bureau staff that was leaked to media reporter Oliver Darcy and executive editor Jon Passantino on the Power Lines podcast.
"This is not your publishing platform," Raice told employees, insisting that decisions about what CBS publishes ultimately rest with her and other senior leaders.
"That is called insubordination! And it's legal grounds for firing," she said of refusing management directives in a long rant that went on for 15 minutes.
The leaked audio follows reports of disputes with two high-profile 60 Minutes segments involving Israeli settler violence by Lesley Stahl and a report by Holly Williams on the third anniversary of the October 7 attack by Hamas militants.
The issue was with Williams adding the Palestinian death toll in Gaza, which was removed from the broadcast version.
Raice denied ordering the figure's removal and said she had wanted the Israeli death toll as well, wanting to distinguish the civilian casualties from combatants. She claimed that the additional info about the deaths made the report too complicated for the time reserved for the segment to air.
Williams pushed back during the meeting, saying the revisions were given to her without having a chance to discuss it.
"I was told that I had to make the changes as written, and that there was no negotiation," she said.
According to Status, Raice also told Williams she had gotten the story wrong, claiming she understood the subject better than the veteran correspondent.
Raice defended the authority of editors to reshape stories, arguing that challenging reporters and adding layers of review were essential parts of journalism. She pointed to her experience at The Wall Street Journal, which she described as “the best journalism.”
Darcy said he felt Raice's tone was condescending, adding that the veteran CBS journalists have already worked with producers, standards officials, and senior editors before their reports reach the air as standard procedure
Bari Weiss, who had no experience before heading CBS, has been a controversial addition to the newsroom, with this being just the latest in a string of controversies, with veterans on the network accusing her of bias.
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an 10 26
A senior CBS News editor can be heard threatening journalists that defying management could get them fired in newly released audio from a heated staff meeting, exposing an internal fight over the network's coverage of Israel and Gaza.
Shayndi Raice, the network's foreign editor and a hire of editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, delivered the warning during a Tuesday meeting with foreign bureau staff that was leaked to media reporter Oliver Darcy and executive editor Jon Passantino on the Power Lines podcast.
"This is not your publishing platform," Raice told employees, insisting that decisions about what CBS publishes ultimately rest with her and other senior leaders.
"That is called insubordination! And it's legal grounds for firing," she said of refusing management directives in a long rant that went on for 15 minutes.
The leaked audio follows reports of disputes with two high-profile 60 Minutes segments involving Israeli settler violence by Lesley Stahl and a report by Holly Williams on the third anniversary of the October 7 attack by Hamas militants.
The issue was with Williams adding the Palestinian death toll in Gaza, which was removed from the broadcast version.
Raice denied ordering the figure's removal and said she had wanted the Israeli death toll as well, wanting to distinguish the civilian casualties from combatants. She claimed that the additional info about the deaths made the report too complicated for the time reserved for the segment to air.
Williams pushed back during the meeting, saying the revisions were given to her without having a chance to discuss it.
"I was told that I had to make the changes as written, and that there was no negotiation," she said.
According to Status, Raice also told Williams she had gotten the story wrong, claiming she understood the subject better than the veteran correspondent.
Raice defended the authority of editors to reshape stories, arguing that challenging reporters and adding layers of review were essential parts of journalism. She pointed to her experience at The Wall Street Journal, which she described as “the best journalism.”
Darcy said he felt Raice's tone was condescending, adding that the veteran CBS journalists have already worked with producers, standards officials, and senior editors before their reports reach the air as standard procedure
Bari Weiss, who had no experience before heading CBS, has been a controversial addition to the newsroom, with this being just the latest in a string of controversies, with veterans on the network accusing her of bias.
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DN 9 26 1 MIN TO SPK; NOT GAZA BC BUDGET MTG?
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1st amend STUDENT SUPPRESS 6 26
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AI Overview
The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) is actively representing pro-Palestinian student activists at the University of Michigan (U of M). Legal actions include a federal civil rights lawsuit against U of M officials, campus police, and private contractors for the alleged targeting, surveillance, and arrest of student advocates. [1, 2, 3]
Key developments and legal actions concerning CAIR-MI and U of M students:
- Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit: CAIR-MI, alongside the Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Josiah Walker, a Black Muslim student advocate, citing unconstitutional punishment, unlawful arrest, and harassment. [1, 2]
- DOJ Indictments: Federal prosecutors and the DOJ unsealed indictments against pro-Palestinian activists linked to the University of Michigan following coordinated FBI and state law enforcement raids. [1]
- Free Speech Advocacy: CAIR-MI has actively pushed back against disciplinary sanctions on pro-Palestinian student groups—such as the Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE)—arguing that public universities are violating students' First Amendment rights by selectively punishing them for political advocacy. [1, 2]
Review additional information on these cases via the official CAIR Press Releases or read the initial reporting from CBS News Detroit.
MICHIGAN STUDENTS DOJ 6 26 cair-mi-raises-serious-first-amendment-concerns-regarding-university-of-michigan-protest-indictments
The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) today expressed serious concerns regarding the recently unsealed indictments arising from protests at the University of Michigan, warning that while allegations of criminal conduct should be addressed through the judicial process, charging documents should not blur the line between alleged unlawful acts and constitutionally protected political expression, peaceful protest, and advocacy on matters of public concern.
WOW MJR CYA PARa]
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NYT
Eight people who federal prosecutors said had ties to the University of Michigan were accused Wednesday of conspiring to threaten campus leaders and others into severing ties with Israel.
An indictment unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, accused the pro-Palestinian activists of crossing the line from campus protest to crimes that included threats and vandalism. The defendants face varying charges, but the indictment included federal counts of conspiracy to transmit threats, witness intimidation and destruction of property to prevent seizure.
The charges in Michigan, all felonies that carry the possibility of years in prison, appeared to signify an escalation in the federal government’s efforts to crack down on pro-Palestinian activism that roiled American campuses in recent years.
“Their criminal activity included spray-painting threats, breaking windows and throwing glass jars filled with noxious chemicals into family homes,” the indictment said. “They marked their victims with threatening symbols used by Hamas, including red inverted triangles and red handprints. They used the internet and social media to broadcast their message to ensure their threats and commitment to continuing criminal activity were heard by their victims and others who support Israel.”
The Trump administration has taken a hard line against pro-Palestinian protesters, whose activism after the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza led to tumult on campuses. Until now, the administration had mostly targeted universities themselves over their response to protests, although it did move to strip visas and deport some individual students last year.
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CA
California Public Records Expose Israel Lobby Censorship
History will not look back kindly on those demanding investigations of educators who dare to teach about Palestine during a documented genocide.
Jul 11, 2026
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GUK
A Palestinian middle school student in Michigan who was publicly admonished for refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance as part of a personal protest against the war on Gaza has settled with her school district following a lawsuit around her first amendment free speech rights.
The teenager, identified as DK in court documents, said she faced racism from a teacher at the East middle school in Plymouth, Michigan, after she did not participate in the pledge. The teacher reportedly told DK to “go back to her country”, Fox 2 Detroit reported.
In a statement following the settlement, DK called the ordeal “terrifying” and “overwhelming” at times.
“But it taught me the importance of speaking up for what I believe is right,” said DK. “I feel proud of the outcome and of being part of something that reinforces how important free speech is. I’ve learned that even when it feels uncomfortable or risky, speaking out can make a difference, not just for me, but for others as well.”
DK, who is 14, chose not to participate in the pledge on 10 January 2025 given the continuing war on Gaza.
“I decided I wanted to sit down because I didn’t feel comfortable standing because of what’s happening in Palestine,” said DK at a February press conference.
After the pledge, DK said that a teacher told the class that “anyone that was sitting down was being very disrespectful to soldiers, to America”. DK said she tried to explain her view to the instructor but was told that if she did not like the US, she should go back to her own country. DK later left the room in tears.
The Arab American Civil Rights League and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan later filed a lawsuit in June 2025 against the Plymouth-Canton community schools district on behalf of DK.
As a part of the recent settlement, the Plymouth-Canton community schools district has pledged to provide diversity, sensitivity and first amendment training for staff. The district has also agreed not to punish DK, remove any indication from school files that suggest her protest was inappropriate and provide needed counseling.
Jacob Khalaf, DK’s father, applauded his daughter for her bravery in advocating for her freedom of speech.
“My daughter has shown her strong moral fiber throughout all of this,” he said in a statement to Fox 2 Detroit. “She had the courage to resist when a person in authority tried to make her relinquish her right to free speech, and then, with the help of the ACLU and ACRL, brought a lawsuit to make sure her first amendment rights, as well as those of others, were protected.”
A representative of the district could not be reached for comment by the Guardian.
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When President Donald Trump and his allies targeted pro-Palestinian activists for deportation, civil libertarians were quick to sound the alarm. Trump, they stressed, had every right to criticize their views, but targeting them for deportation because of those views was anti-First Amendment.
Now, a federal judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Judge William G. Young, is taking the Trump administration to task.
In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, March 11, Young ruled that targeting pro-Palestinian activists for deportation because of their views "was unconstitutional, abhorrent to a society that cherishes free speech."
Young wrote, "As this Court recognizes, the entire theory of this administration is that of a unitary executive with no agency independence where every single employee within the Article II executive dances to the tune of the President…. This conduct must never happen again."
President Reagan first nominated Young, now 85, for the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in September 1984 during his reelection campaign. Reagan enjoyed a landslide victory that year, winning 525 electoral votes and defeating Democratic nominee Walter Mondale by 18 percent in the national popular vote. And Young was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 1985 a few months into Reagan's second term.
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As details about President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace and its plans for the reconstruction of Gaza trickle out, two things become increasingly clear: Palestinians have barely, if at all, been consulted in these plans; and the people in Trump’s orbit stand to benefit from the project the most.
The U.N. Security Council approved the Board of Peace as a mechanism for implementing Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Israel and Gaza back in November, though its mandate now appears much broader. The BoP itself consists of high-level representatives from Gulf nations, Israel, Serbia, Albania, and Argentina, among others, with Trump himself as the chair and ultimate decision-maker. Absent from the Board of Peace are representatives from almost every EU country except Bulgaria and Hungary, and anyone representing Palestine.
The BoP’s executive board—tasked with putting the BoP’s vision into practice—is composed of billionaire businessmen like Marc Rowan, CEO of private equity firm Apollo Global Management; Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and Steve Witkoff, the real estate mogul turned Trump donor turned special envoy to the Middle East. There’s Ajay Banga, the World Bank president who prioritizes private-sector investment in global development, as well as U.S. Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio, deputy national security adviser Robert Gabriel, and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The special Gaza Executive Board adds Israeli-Cypriot real estate mogul Yakir Gabay, who enjoys a close friendship with Kushner, as well as representatives from the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey. Sigrid Kaag, the Dutch U.N. coordinator for humanitarian aid into Gaza and the lone humanitarian-sector representative, and former U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process Nickolay Mladenov lend the group a dash of gravitas—but just a dash.
The Palestinian role is reduced to a 15-member technocratic and “apolitical” governance body, led by engineer and former Palestinian Authority official Ali Shaath.
Details about how exactly Trump’s group plans to carry out Gaza’s reconstruction are limited thus far, but the number of real estate and finance bigwigs on the executive board indicates that it will likely be a highly privatized endeavor.
“When you look at the executive committee, I think it is absolutely unprecedented in multilateral organizations, which I guess the Board of Peace is supposed to be, even if it’s not really [multilateral] because of Trump’s dominance over it,” said Hugh Lovatt, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “I think it is nonetheless pretty much unprecedented to have such explicit power exerted by private individuals who are there by virtue of their business interests.” The Prospect reached out to two members of the Gaza Executive Board with questions about how board members would keep their business interests separate from their political role, but did not receive a response by press time.
Multilateral institutions like the U.N. are supposed to operate under cooperative and humanitarian principles; representatives to such bodies are supposed to represent the interests of their nations or regions, not their private businesses.
“President Trump does not seem to do anything unless it benefits the U.S., but more specifically, unless it seems to benefit himself,” Lovatt said. “And this is not something that is exclusive to Gaza or the Board of Peace, and I think is very much interwoven into his presidency.”
Among those private individuals, Kushner’s business activities have raised significant concern. He is now the owner and principal of Affinity Partners, an investment firm that doesn’t seem to be doing that much investing, according to findings from an investigation by the Senate Finance Committee. But Kushner still profits, with Affinity pocketing a 2 percent annual management fee from almost all his investors. “He’s able to get such enormous fees, as an investor with a pretty crummy record who’s just raking in money from sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf, regardless of how well he is shepherding those investments,” said Ryan Carey, chief communications adviser and deputy policy director at the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance.
The fund’s assets under management come almost exclusively from “the very Arab petrostates critical to the agreement and potential reconstruction—Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates,” journalist Mohamad Bazzi wrote in*The Guardian*. These nations have already begun investing in Syria and could be involved in rebuilding efforts in Lebanon, in a bid to exercise more influence in the region.
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Investigation
Rotten Apple: Dozens of Former Israeli Spies Hired by Silicon Valley Giant
Apple has made headlines in recent weeks for touting its commitment to privacy and human rights, rolling out tools to limit surveillance and spyware. But behind the corporate messaging lies a much darker reality.
The company has quietly brought in dozens of veterans from Unit 8200, Israel’s shadowy military intelligence unit known for blackmail, mass surveillance, and targeted killings.
Many of these hires took place as Israel escalated its war on Gaza, and as CEO Tim Cook publicly expressed support for Israel while disciplining employees for pro-Palestinian expressions. Apple’s deepening ties to Israel’s most controversial intelligence raise uncomfortable questions, not only about the company’s political loyalties, but also about how it handles vast troves of personal user data.
A MintPress News investigation has identified dozens of Unit 8200 operatives now working at Apple. The company’s hiring spree coincides with growing scrutiny of its ties to the Israeli government, including its policy of matching employee donations to groups such as Friends of the IDF and the Jewish National Fund, both of which play a role in the displacement of the Palestinian people. The intense pro-Israel bias at the corporation has led many former and current employees to speak out.
This investigation is part of a series examining the close collaboration between Unit 8200 and Western tech and media companies. Previous investigations examined the links between Unit 8200 and social media giants like TikTok, Facebook and:(style="background-color:#ffbb16ff"):}: :{Google, and how former Unit 8200 spies are now responsible for writing much of America’s news about Israel/Palestine, holding top jobs at outlets like CNN and Axios.
Revealed: The Former Israeli Spies Working in Top Jobs at Google, Facebook and Microsoft
Hundreds of agents from Israeli spying organization Unit 8200 are now employed in top roles at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
MintPress News·Alan Macleod·Nov 16, 2022
A Few (Dozen) Bad Apples
Israel’s international reputation has taken a severe hit amid multiple spying scandals and ongoing attacks against its neighbors. During this same period, Apple has ramped up its recruitment of former Israeli intelligence personnel.
The Silicon Valley giant has hired dozens of former agents from the controversial Israeli intelligence outfit, Unit 8200, raising questions about the corporation’s political direction.
Nir Shkedi is among the most prominent examples. From 2008 to 2015, he served as a commander and Chief of Learning at Unit 8200, leading a team of approximately 120 operatives who developed new artificial intelligence tools to perform rapid data analysis.
Unit 8200 is at the forefront of this technology, and is known to have used AI to auto-generate kill lists of tens of thousands of Gazans, including children. These tools helped the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) bypass what it called human targeting, “bottlenecks,” and strike huge numbers of Palestinians.
Shkedi has been a physical design engineer at Apple’s Bay Area campus since 2022.
Noa Goor is another senior Unit 8200 figure turned Apple employee. From 2015 to 2020, Goor rose to become a project manager and head of cybersecurity and big data development team at Unit 8200, where she, in her own words, “invent[ed] creative technological solutions for high priority intelligence goals” and “manag[ed] two strategically important cyber projects” for the IDF.
One of the most important cyber projects Unit 8200 has launched in recent times is the September pager attack on Lebanon, an act that injured thousands of civilians and was widely condemned as an act of international terrorism, including by former CIA Director Leon Panetta. While Goor was not personally involved in that operation, Unit 8200 has spearheaded similarly nefarious actions for decades.
In 2022, Goor was hired by Apple as a system-on-chip design engineer.
Eli Yazovitsky, meanwhile, was directly recruited from Unit 8200. In 2015, he left a high-powered nine-year career as a manager in the military unit to join Apple, where he rose to become an engineering manager. He has since moved on to tech giant Qualcomm.
Unit 8200 is Israel’s most elite—and most controversial—military intelligence unit. It serves as the backbone of both Israel’s burgeoning tech sector and its repressive surveillance apparatus. The unit has developed cutting-edge technology like facial recognition and voice-to-text software to surveil, repress, and target Palestinians.
The vast amounts of data gathered on the Palestinian population, including their medical history, sex lives, and search histories, have been used for coercion and extortion. If a certain individual needed to travel across checkpoints for crucial medical treatment, permission could be suspended until they complied. Information about extramarital affairs or sexual orientation, especially homosexuality, is exploited as blackmail material. One former Unit 8200 agent recalled that he was instructed during his training to memorize different Arabic words for “gay” so that he could listen out for them in intercepted conversations.
Internationally, Unit 8200 may be best known for its “former” agents who created the notorious Pegasus software, used by repressive governments around the world to spy on tens of thousands of prominent figures, including royals, heads of state, activists, and journalists.
Among them was Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated by Saudi operatives in Türkiye in 2018.
While military service is mandatory for Jewish Israelis, few end up in Unit 8200 by accident. Described as “Israel’s Harvard,” parents spend fortunes on STEM-based extracurricular lessons for their children in the hopes that they will be selected to join the IDF’s most elite and selective unit. Those chosen are rewarded with lucrative careers in the tech industry upon completion of their service.
Given Unit 8200’s documented history of violence, espionage, and surveillance, both domestically and internationally, it is worth asking whether tech giants should be hiring its alumni in such large numbers.
Shkedi, Goor, and Yazovitsky are the most high-profile examples, but they are from alone. A closer look reveals that dozens of other Unit 8200 veterans have also secured key roles at Apple.
Engineering and Hardware Design:
Natanel Nissan, formerly head of data analysis at Unit 8200, joined Apple’s Tel Aviv office in 2022. Ofek Har-Even, a longtime officer and manager in the unit, has been a design verification engineer at Apple since 2022. Gal Sharon, a former intelligence systems operator and data analyst, has also worked as a physical design engineer since that same year.
Mayan Hochler and Shai Buzgalo, both former Unit 8200 analysts and instructors, hold roles in physical design and validation engineering, respectively.
Software and Cybersecurity:
Ofer Tlusty, who served nearly six years in Unit 8200 as a security and intelligence analyst, has worked as a software engineer at Apple since 2021. Ofek Rafaeli, who served between 2012 and 2016 and rose to project manager during Israel’s 2016 assault on Gaza, became a software engineer at Apple in 2023.
Guy Levy, a former intelligence analyst, now also works as a software engineer.
AI, Machine Learning, and Validation:
Avital Kleiman, a six-year veteran of Unit 8200, is now a machine learning algorithm engineer at Apple. Niv Lev Ari, currently a validation engineer, notes in his LinkedIn profile that he received a letter of commendation from Unit 8200 commander Aviv Kochavi for his work in the unit.
Other Technical Roles:
Shahar Moshe, who worked as an intelligence specialist at Unit 8200 from 2012 to 2015, is now a design verification engineer. Gil Avniel, who spent over five years in the unit, currently serves as a network engineer.
An Apple Rots From the Core
The growing number of former Israeli intelligence operatives working at Apple does not seem to concern the company’s senior management. CEO Tim Cook is known to hold strongly pro-Israel views and has spearheaded the Silicon Valley giant’s collaboration with the Israeli state.
Apple has acquired several Israeli tech firms and now operates three centers in the country, employing around 2,000 people. In 2014, Cook invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the company headquarters in Cupertino, CA, where, in front of the cameras, the two openly embraced. The following year, Cook accepted an invitation from President Reuven Rivlin to visit Israel. “It is a great privilege to host you and your team here,” Rivlin said, “Even for me, as one who prefers to write with a pen and paper, it is clear what a great miracle you have created when I look at my staff, and my grandchildren.”
Effusive praise for the Apple CEO has also come in the form of honors from pro-Israel organizations. In 2018, the Anti-Defamation League presented Cook with its inaugural Courage Against Hate Award at its Never Is Now Summit on anti-Semitism and Hate, where the organization described him as a “visionary leader in the business community.”
Netanyahu meets Apple CEO Tim Cook during a visit to Apple in 2014. Photo | Israeli GPO
In the wake of the October 7, 2023, attacks, Cook sent out a company-wide email expressing his solidarity with Israel. “Like so many of you, I am devastated by the horrific attacks in Israel and the tragic reports coming out of the region,” he wrote, My heart goes out to the victims, those who have lost loved ones, and all of the innocent people who are suffering as a result of this violence.”
Yet, according to Apples4Ceasefire—a group of former and current employees opposing Israeli actions in Gaza—he has yet to say anything publicly about the mass devastation caused by the Israeli response to October 7.
Indeed, the Silicon Valley corporation has a policy of matching employee donations to groups such as Friends of the IDF, which raises money to buy equipment for IDF soldiers, and the Jewish National Fund, an organization that participates in the theft and destruction of Palestinian land.
Under Cook’s leadership, Apple employees have been disciplined or even fired for wearing pins, bracelets, or keffiyehs in support of the Palestinian people. Nevertheless, groups such as Apples4Ceasefire continue to speak out about what they describe as Apple’s complicity in genocide.
The Unit 8200 Tech Takeover
To be fair, Apple is far from the only tech or media company to hire large numbers of former Unit 8200 operatives. A 2022 MintPress exposé revealed hundreds of Israeli intelligence veterans working at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Perhaps the most notable of these is Emi Palmor, a former Israeli justice ministry official who sits on Facebook’s 21-person Oversight Board. Described by Mark Zuckerberg as his platform’s “supreme court,” the board ultimately decides what content is allowed or removed from the world’s largest social network. Facebook has worked closely with the Israeli government to censor or deplatform Palestinian content and accounts.
Even TikTok, often seen as a more open platform, has been hiring former Israeli spies to help manage its operations, according to a November investigation by MintPress. Reut Medalion, for example, served as a Unit 8200 intelligence commander and led its cybersecurity operations team.
TikTok isn’t anti-Israel: It’s Hired Unit 8200 Agents to Run its Affairs
A MintPress News study has unearthed a network of former agents of Israeli spying agency Unit 8200 working at TikTok, a company charged with supposedly being a Chinese-owned hub of anti-Semitic content., Chinese influence TikTok, Israeli spying influence TikTok, Project Texas TikTok, TikTok anti-Palestine bias, TikTok former CIA hires, TikTok Israel content moderation, TikTok Israeli intelligence hires, TikTok pro-Palestine suppression, TikTok U.S.
MintPress News·Alan Macleod·Dec 30, 2024
In December 2023, during the peak of Israel’s attack on Gaza, Medalion moved to New York City to accept a job as global incident manager for TikTok’s trust and safety division. Considering the events going on in the world at the time, it’s worth asking what sorts of “global incidents” she was brought in to manage.
After MintPress exposed Medalion’s past to a worldwide audience, she deleted her entire digital footprint from the internet.
Former Israeli intelligence operatives have also found their way into American newsrooms, shaping coverage of the Middle East. A recent MintPress investigation uncovered a network of former Unit 8200 operatives working in some of the most influential newsrooms in the United States.
Revealed: The Israeli Spies Writing America's News
Media personalities like Barak Ravid, an ex-Israeli spy turned Washington journalist, play a key role in shaping media coverage that protects Israeli military actions and influences unwitting American audiences., Barak Ravid, Barak Ravid spy, Biden administration, Israel-Palestine conflict, Israeli intelligence, Israeli media influence, Media Manipulation, media whitewashing, pro-Israel bias, U.S.
MintPress News·Alan Macleod·Dec 8, 2024
Among them is Axios correspondent Barak Ravid, whose Middle Eastern coverage won him the prestigious White House Press Correspondents’ Award. Until at least 2023, Ravid was a member of Unit 8200. CNN has also hired at least two former agents to produce their news coverage, one of whom, Tal Heinrich, now serves as the official spokesperson for Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Given this pattern, Silicon Valley’s partiality towards Israel should not come as no surprise. From tech giants like Google and Amazon to social media powerhouses like TikTok and Facebook, the field is filled with former Israeli spies. Apple is no exception, having hired dozens, if not more, Unit 8200 operatives to run its platforms and shape the company.
This investigation does not claim that the Israeli state is deliberately infiltrating Silicon Valley. However, what it does unquestionably suggest is that the outlook and general biases of these entities are strongly pro-Israel. What does it say about Silicon Valley’s culture that individuals with well-documented ties to a controversial foreign spy agency are considered ideal hires?
It is unthinkable that former intelligence agents of Hezbollah, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, or Russia’s FSB or GRU would be hired en masse, and trusted with our most sensitive data. Yet, when it comes to Israel (or U.S. surveillance agencies), the answer is different. Many of these employees are not even “former” agents, and are directly recruited from Unit 8200 while still in active service, despite Israeli law explicitly prohibiting the group’s members from identifying themselves or divulging their alliances.
Thus, in this light, it appears that those like Apples4Ceasefire struggling to end the company’s double standards are fighting an uphill battle.
Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News
Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. He completed his PhD in 2017 and has since authored two acclaimed books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams. Follow Alan on Twitter for more of his work and commentary: @AlanRMacLeod.*
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MintPress News
https://www.mintpressnews.com › apple-israel-unit-8200-hiring › 290226
Rotten Apple: Apple Hires Dozens of Israeli Spies From Unit 8200
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Jared Kushner's luxury-focused 'master plan' in Gaza a pipe dream: analysis
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How would you react if you heard that a journalist visiting another country was arrested just hours after criticizing that country’s leader and foreign policy? Perhaps you would think that the journalist was visiting some authoritarian or tyrannical country, right?
Well, that was not the case last month, when British Muslim journalist Sami Hamdi was arrested by ICE agents at the San Francisco International Airport, after far-right influencers Laura Loomer and Amy Mekelburg went on an Islamophobic social media campaign against Hamdi. He was in the US on a visa and had come to speak at scheduled events but detained without much explanation and held for two weeks. ZETEO
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pvt contractors IDF shoot 600 in food lines 7 25 msnbc hayes
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YouTube Erased 700 Videos of Israeli Human Rights Violations
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ccr
in Solidarity With Katherine Franke, Our Former Board Chair
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org
Prof. Franke Will No Longer Teach at Columbia Law School, Stemming from her Defense of Palestinian Students
Jan 10, 2025, New York – In response to the end of Professor Katherine Franke’s 25-year career as a highly-esteemed member of the Columbia University Law School faculty, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:
In an egregious attack on both academic freedom and Palestinian rights advocacy, Columbia University has entered into an “agreement” with Katherine Franke to leave her teaching position after an esteemed 25-year career. The move – “a termination dressed up in more palatable terms,” according to Franke’s statement – stems from her advocacy for students who speak out in support of Palestinian rights.
Her ostensible offense was a comment expressing concern about Columbia’s failure to address harassment of Palestinians and their allies by Israeli students who come to campus straight from military service – after Israeli students sprayed Palestinian rights protestors with a toxic chemical. For this, she was investigated for harassment and found to be in violation of Columbia’s policies. The actual cause of her forced departure is the crackdown on dissent at Columbia resulting from historic protests opposing Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Franke’s fate was sealed when former Columbia president Minouche Shafik threw her under the bus during her cowardly appearance before Congress.
That charged moment has passed, but the climate of repression on college campuses is only intensifying, and Israel’s genocide of Palestinians continues unabated. The goal of the crackdown on Palestinian rights advocacy is to silence criticism of Israel’s barbaric assault, which has killed at least 46,000 Palestinians. The actual total, according to a new study, could be as high as 65,000. This is where our attention should be, and where Franke will now be able to refocus her efforts.
Read Katherine Franke’s full statement here
Statement from Katherine Franke.docx.pdf
*The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.
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guk
...A month later, Trump won the presidential election. Since then, what the Free Press editors termed “this new elite consensus” has been under siege from the federal government, which has openly sought to purge anything it considers “wokeness” from universities, newspapers and NGOs, and in particular has sought to criminalize pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel. Weiss, who has presented herself as a leading defender of free speech, has in effect leveraged her publication to help the government suppress it.
If you work at a liberal institution and you want the Trump-controlled federal government to step in and discipline it, Bari Weiss is there to help
The Free Press’s involvement in the administration’s war on Columbia University, Weiss’s alma mater (and, full disclosure, mine; I socialized with Weiss as an undergraduate, though we have not spoken in years) has been a case in point. Trump’s joint task force to combat antisemitism chose the Free Press to break the news on 7 March that the administration was withholding $400m in federal grants to Columbia over the university’s alleged failure to combat antisemitism in the wake of the 7 October attacks – essentially the opening volley in Trump’s assault on elite higher education. Two weeks later, on 21 March, Columbia conceded to Trump’s blackmail, agreeing to place its Middle East studies department – which Weiss has been crusading against since she was an undergraduate two decades ago – under academic receivership. Just four days after that, the Free Press published a leaked transcript of a private Zoom call in which the university’s then president, Katrina Armstrong, told about 75 faculty members that she did not intend to comply with all of Trump’s demands, despite her public surrender. Three days later, Armstrong resigned – and according to the New York Times, a key reason why was that Trump’s antisemitism task force expressed concern over the transcript leaked to the Free Press.
Weiss’s publication, in short, was the preferred vehicle for conveying information from Columbia insiders who wanted to purge all criticism of Israel from the university to Trump administration officials who were using unprecedented financial pressure to help them do exactly that. Just as with CBS a year ago, Weiss and the Free Press were there to help reactionaries at elite institutions advance their internal turf wars – and unlike a year ago, those reactionaries can now count on the full weight of Trump’s authoritarian administration to back them up.
david klion
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10/09/2025 rww
by
- Angry that Bad Bunny has been chosen to perform at the Super Bowl, Turning Point USA will be hosting an alternate "All-American Halftime Show."
- Racist far-right commentator Isabella Moody is desperately trying to get a position as a host of the "Her Take" podcast.
- Sen. Tommy Tuberville responds to those who are upset that "Israel [is] killing all these innocent people in Gaza": "What about the ten thousands Christians that have been killed this year in Nigeria by Islamic terrorists?"
- Nick Fuentes declares that "if you're not Catholic, you're going to Hell": "Catholics are Christians, protestants are heretics."
- Finally, Joel Webbon says that "if you fire into a crowd of liberals, you've got about a hundred percent chance of hitting exclusively child predators."
mma
09/03/25
aug 21
Human rights advocates and critics of the Trump administration are denouncing the US State Department's firing of a top media relations official who reportedly recommended "expressing condolences" for journalists killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and drafted a statement articulating US government opposition to what amounts to ethnic cleansing in the besieged enclave.
According to the Washington Post, Shahed Ghoreishi, the department's lead press officer on Israeli-Palestinian affairs, was fired Monday after a series of internal debates over how to characterize aspects of White House policy regarding Gaza, including over the release of a statement which simply said: "We do not support forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza."...
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the conv an 8 25
When people use the term “Orwellian,” it’s not a good sign.
It usually characterizes an action, an individual or a society that is suppressing freedom, particularly the freedom of expression. It can also describe something perverted by tyrannical power.
It’s a term used primarily to describe the present, but whose implications inevitably connect to both the future and the past.
In his second term, President Donald Trump has revealed his ambitions to rewrite America’s official history to, in the words of the Organization of American Historians, “reflect a glorified narrative … while suppressing the voices of historically excluded groups.”
This ambition was manifested in efforts by the Department of Education to eradicate a “DEI agenda” from school curricula. It also included a high-profile assault on what detractors saw as “woke” universities, which culminated in Columbia University’s agreement to submit to a review of the faculty and curriculum of its Middle Eastern Studies department, with the aim of eradicating alleged pro-Palestinian bias.
Now, the administration has shifted its sights from formal educational institutions to one of the key sites of public history-making: the Smithsonian, a collection of 21 museums, the National Zoo and associated research centers, principally centered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
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MUST BE SOME TERIBLE PIX TO GET BACK ON NEWS/RADAR?
BERNIE GOT 1/2 DEMS 1ST TIME 7 25
AN 7 25
A civil war is breaking out in the far-right media ecosystem, with some of the most popular MAGA podcasters now setting their sights on each other rather than Democrats.
In a Monday essay, Salon's Sophia Tesfaye delved into the right-wing podcast wars in which MAGA mascots like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes are all taking a scorched-earth approach in their criticisms of each other. Tesfaye likened it to "watching the MAGA snake eat itself," calling it "one of the few silver linings in the Trump era."
Tesfaye began by recalling Carlson's most recent podcast episode, in which he interviewed Owens for approximately two hours. Both notably attacked Ben Shapiro, who is the co-founder of the far-right Daily Wire website, for his support of Israel's ongoing offensive in Gaza. They also attacked pro-Israel donors for revoking their support of certain universities in response to pro-Palestinian campus protests, saying they were being hypocritical for not doing the same following Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
READ MORE:(Opinion) Don't 'have any other choice': Outrage grows in the midwest as political crisis spirals
Owens also lobbed shots at neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes — another MAGA-aligned podcaster who was once invited to dine with President Donald Trump and rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago — during her interview with Carlson. Even though Owens invited Fuentes to her home studio for an interview on her podcast, she described her encounter with the Holocaust denier and white supremacist as "entirely fraudulent."
Fuentes, [VID]
calling her a "DEI hire" and an "Uncle Tom token Black" who "thinks she's some kind of boss b——." He added that he was "done with all the Uncle Toms," including conservative media pundit Jason Whitlock, saying that they "built their career on a grift that is now dead."
The invective against the Jewish community and the pro-Israel lobby prompted MAGA influencer Laura Loomer — also known as President Donald Trump's unofficial "loyalty enforcer" — to observe that while she previously thought antisemitism was confined to the left, she "never realized how bad it was on the right until last year." Loomer also called Carlson a "liar and a propagandist, adding that "deep down, he’s a Trump hater too."
Tesfaye wryly noted at the end of her article that watching MAGA voices snipe at each other was somewhat cathartic: "There is some fleeting comfort in knowing how much the people who hate everyone also hate each other," Tesfaye wrote. "It’s kind of like 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians.' But at least that family’s wealth provides an aesthetically pleasing background."
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6 25 BREAK GAZA BLOCKADE SHIP GRETA T
// FREE PALESTINE 2 ATTACKS FLAMETHROWER
===
WHAT?
COMIC? MMA
July 26, 2025, edition of *The Tim Dillon Show
TIM DILLON (HOST): Obviously, I am a human and want to live, but our civilization does really deserve to be destroyed. That is the hard -- that is the really tough thing about it all, is that, if there was ever a civilization that deserved a cataclysmic, and again, not rooting for it, don't want it to happen, don't want it to happen, but just statistically, could there be a better example?
I mean, we just do -- this guy is committing a genocide, truly. I don't think anyone's even, I don't think anyone's even denying that at this point. People, like, quibbling about certain components of it. I know that people are like, well, yes, they're starving Gaza, but did you see that video of that guy from Hamas stealing a banana? Did you see that? There's a guy from Hamas eating a banana, and people are like, well, he stole the banana from the people. And they're like, Hamas is stealing the food.
In this whole thing, Israel has no culpability by the way at all. They've actually done nothing wrong. It's all been Hamas. Hamas has done everything. There's not been -- what they stole the food, they're shooting the people who are in line for the food. Israel's doing nothing. And you have to trust Israel because otherwise, the only people that are reporting out of Gaza, they're not letting journalists in, or they just say are Hamas. So if you report anything contrary to what Israel says, you are Hamas or you become Hamas.
So, I mean, I just, you know? I mean, the starvation, the photos of the starving -- number one, we're the fattest country in the world, for the fattest country in the world to fund the starvation of a group of people is insane. Look at this. Here we go. This is the thing they keep showing is that Hamas has bananas. Alright.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They got bananas. This is the -- when I ask why we're funding it -- why we're starving people, we're funding a famine. People say to me, well, maybe take a look at that video of how the guy in Hamas with the grapes. The guy in Hamas with the grapes. And you go, we're the fattest country in the world. K? Nobody is fatter than us. We are now funding the starvation of a group of people halfway across the world or all the way across the world. I'm bad with geography, but far away.
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AN 6 25
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, recently gave a press briefing about Palestinians killed close to an aid distribution centre in Gaza on June 1. A key question, she suggested, was whether the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) were really to blame, as had been reported.
“Unlike some in the media, we don’t take the word of Hamas as total truth,” she said. “We like to look into it when they speak, unlike the BBC.”
Given the explosive war of words that has broken out between US president Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, Leavitt’s accusation may now appear to be small potatoes. But it matters: this is the latest twist of Trump’s undermining of a free press that has been evolving since he first repeated the words back in 2016 that would shake the public’s belief in journalism: “Fake news!”
On inauguration day in January, my international journalism class and I were examining the seating chart for the White House press briefing room. We discussed the prime position of the Associated Press’s (AP) seat (front and centre) and the seats further back, where in the seventh row the BBC shared a position with Newsweek. We wondered if Trump might shuffle the pack, but decided that decisions were safely in the hands of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
Since then, the whole game has changed. Even an organisation as large and venerable as AP can be turfed out of the White House press pool on its ear. Meanwhile selected, right-wing newcomers like Brian Glenn of Real America’s Voice can throw a curve ball putting such an extraordinary question to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky during a White House press conference that it temporarily disturbs the course of a war.
The White House later decided to take away access given to other wire services such as Reuters and Bloomberg rather than allow AP to return to its previous access.
Media appearances and briefings for Trump are now purely performative. Friendly media companies get special invitations to Trump’s often explosive meetings with world leaders (such as that with Zelensky above), and “legacy media” have to keep raising their hands for access.
Leavitt, Trump’s young spokesperson, came out swinging at her briefing, brandishing a handy A4 printout of BBC online news stories on the shootings in Gaza on June 1.
As she waved her piece of paper – as curiously old-fashioned as Trump’s tariff whiteboard – she appeared. While referring to the page, compiled by a student activist on X,she announced that the BBC had edited “multiple headlines” about the death count, and changed claims about the deaths from being the result of tank fire to gunfire.
Without a hint of irony, she observed: “So we’re going to look into reports before we confirm them from this podium. I suggest that journalists who actually care about truth do the same to reduce the misinformation that’s going around the globe.”
Back in London, the BBC released a timely statement arguing that it updated its breaking stories throughout the events on June 1, saying this was “normal practice” and that all its figures were “clearly attributed”.
Meanwhile, the corporation’s analysis editor, Ros Atkins, put out a brief but carefully worded video, via BBC Verify, that concluded Leavitt’s accusations were “repeatedly false”. It affirmed that BBC reporters had quoted figures “with clear attribution” from the “the Hamas-run health ministry”. It also used sources such as the independent Red Cross and quoted the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in stories that day.
The White House attacks the BBC for its coverage of Gaza.
Atkins refuted Leavitt’s claims that the BBC had taken down any of its articles and confirmed that they remained online. He said that BBC Verify had examined a separate online video posted on social media (not a BBC video) and deemed it unrelated to the aid centre deaths. He said that once again the student activist had “misrepresented what BBC Verify had done. The White House then repeated this misrepresentation.”
Interestingly, following the BBC Verify examination of the other video, the Israeli army has admitted responsibility for “a previously unacknowledged strike on the al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza”, which reportedly killed at least one Palestinian and injured 30 others.
Two days after her initial briefing, Leavitt doubled down with similar accusations against the “fake news BBC”. However, it is Atkins’ final comment on his video that knocks out arguments that the White House is an arbiter of truth that is most chilling: “But in this case either the White House didn’t look into its claims about the BBC before bringing them to the podium or had no concern that they weren’t true.”
Part of Trump’s playbook involves sowing uncertainty among the public about the truth. He and his associates repeatedly hurl accusations, and then sit back and see what sticks. Going after one of the world’s most trusted media organisationsneatly serves this purpose, even though the BBC is a UK-based corporation and there are no straightforward domestic political gains in so doing.
This attack does however do a job of tarnishing the BBC’s reputation with some members of the public which can only please the Israeli government, whose own reputation within the international community could not be lower, according to the Pew Research Center. At the UN security council, this week, the US was the only country out of 15 to veto the draft resolution calling for an “unconditional and permanent” ceasefire in Gaza.
While British and international media correspondents are still calling for permission to enter Gaza to report on the situation, it is clearly not in the Israeli government’s interests to allow this. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has now confirmed he has authorised the supplying of weapons to another, purportedly anti-Hamas militia in Gaza, further muddying the waters of exactly who fired on whom.
Welcome to the latest twist in the Trump government’s media strategy that is designed to promote uncertainty while distracting from troubling events: “Oh look, a squirrel!”
Colleen Murrell, Chair of the Editorial Board, and Full Professor in Journalism, *Dublin City University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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MMA
CHYRON ANTI ISRAEL COL STUD ORDERED RELEASED
Mahmoud Khalil — a 30-year-old Columbia University student
May 1, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
LAWRENCE JONES (CO-HOST): I don't care about international law. I care about the laws that govern this country. And I think we are setting a dangerous precedent that we have the courts involved with the visa process. So now every time someone doesn't like that their visa got denied or rejected, we have essentially said now that's up to the courts to decide?
Show me any statute that talks about the visa process. Sure there's laws that govern our immigration process. But, when it comes to the visa process, the secretary of state has wide discretion.
And now we have a guy that is beating his chest. He has anti-American views. He is trying to destroy a lot of the things that we hold true to our country. He stands with Hamas and a lot of the pro-Palestinian causes that are there that we don't support. And now we're letting him celebrate it outside of the courtroom. Not a good look.
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an 3 25
Since March 8, Mahmoud Khalil — a 30-year-old Columbia University student — has been held in a federal detention center in Louisiana for, Trump Administration officials allege, expressing sympathy to the terrorist group Hamas during protests on the campus.
Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, is a legal resident of the United States and is not accused of any acts of violence. And his wife is a U.S. citizen. But Khalil is at risk for deportation, and critics of the Trump Administration and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi are arguing that his detention is an example of thought policing — not an action based on legitimate national security concerns.
Two of those critics are attorneys Thomas Anthony Durkin and Bernard Harcourt (a law professor at Columbia University in New York City).
READ MORE:Sabotaging Social Security: Behind the leaked memo to cut agency staff and critical services
In an op-ed published by The Guardian on March 21, Durkin and Harcourt argue that the movement to deport students for saying controversial things recalls the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy's (R-Wisconsin) witch hunt of the 1950s.
"The legal risks are real," Durkin and Harcourt warn. "They are perilous, and they are alarming. Where a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO) — such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or related organizations such as the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network — is concerned, the line separating political advocacy from material support to terrorism can be razor thin, and any doubt tends to be resolved against those engaged in the political advocacy. FTOs are foreign organizations that the Bureau of Counterterrorism in the U.S. State Department designates as terrorist entities under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act."
The legal scholars add, "Once such a designation is made, it becomes unlawful for a U.S. person to knowingly provide that group with 'material support or resources.'"
According to Durkin and Harcourt, the "questionable legal strategy" being used against Khalil and other student protesters raises major civil liberties concerns.
READ MORE:'Clear and present danger': Experts alarmed at 'insanity' of Musk getting secret war plans
"Legal jeopardy for political advocacy has long existed in this country despite its storied embrace of the First Amendment," the attorneys explain. "But the Justice Department's new taskforce and threatened anti-terrorist prosecutions reach deeper into policing political dissent than anything seen since the McCarthy era. The consequences could be far more draconian than the usual campus risk of a misdemeanor civil-disobedience arrest or student discipline. The threat to the values of free speech and open debate on college campuses could hardly be more consequential."
READ MORE:Trump official urging Fox viewers to buy Tesla stock decried as 'abuse of power'
*Thomas Anthony Durkin and Bernard Harcourt's full op-ed for The Guardian is available at this link.
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mma
Right-wing media cheer Trump administration’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil
The Trump team is trying to deport a permanent resident of the United States and revoke his green card, and right-wing media are celebrating the effort
Written by Gideon Taaffe & Jack Winstanley
Published 03/13/25
Legal resident Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement following his activism for Gaza at Columbia University, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a story about him online, writing, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported."
Such arrests are a policy goal of the Heritage Foundation and Khalil's arrest reportedly followed some online targeting of him. Right-wing media have responded to his arrest by calling for more arrests and deportations, arguing that the administration needs to “send a message” and that students are “going to lose."
ICE arrested Khalil after the Trump administration cracked down on college protests
- Mahmoud Khalil was detained by ICE following his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University. According to his attorney, ICE agents initially claimed his student visa had been revoked, but when Khalil noted he is a lawful permanent resident with a green card, they detained him anyway. Khalil’s wife, who is a U.S. citizen, was also threatened with arrest. The Washington Post, [3/9/25]
- The Department of Homeland Security told CBS News that Khalil’s arrest was “in support of President Trump's executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism” and claimed he “led activities aligned to Hamas,” but it did not provide any charges or alleged crimes. The executive order called for the deportation of “pro-jihadist” protesters. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on social media that the U.S. will revoke green cards of anyone who “supports Hamas.” According to legal scholar Steve Vladeck, “To sustain the lawfulness of Khalil’s arrest, the government has to identify the specific basis on which it believes that Khalil is subject to removal.” CBS, [3/10/25; NPR, 1/30/25; The Daily Beast, 3/10/25; One First with Steve Vladeck, 3/10/25]
- Khalil is being held in a Louisiana detention center, and his lawyers have objected to that location. Khalil’s lawyer called his move to Louisiana “a blatantly improper but familiar tactic designed to frustrate the New York federal court's jurisdiction, and isolate Mahmoud far from his lawyers, his home, and his local community of support.” A U.S. district judge ordered Khalil to remain in the U.S. “to preserve the court's jurisdiction” and is scheduled to oversee a detention hearing on Wednesday. NBC News, [3/10/25]
- ## Deporting activists such as Khalil is a policy goal of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther” and reportedly followed online targeting
- Project Esther, a Heritage Foundation-backed plan to “combat antisemitism,” calls for “Foreign HSO [Hamas Support Organizations] leaders and members” to be “deported from the U.S.” The Jewish magazine Forward notes, “The plan’s first targets are pro-Palestinian organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.” The Heritage plan also suggests that these organizations are “dedicated to the destruction of capitalism and democracy” and benefit “from the support and training of America’s overseas enemies.” According to the plan, such organizations have “infiltrated their ideology into the U.S. education system across all levels. ... The U.S. education system fosters antisemitism under the guise of ‘pro-Palestinian,’ anti-Israel, anti-Zionist narratives across universities, high schools, and elementary schools, often under the umbrella or within the rubric of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and similar Marxist ideology.” Heritage Foundation, [10/7/24; Forward, 11/19/24]
- Khalil’s detention and his arrest was reportedly preceded by a series of online posts that identified him as a protester and “SUSPECTED FOREIGN NATIONAL.” At least one of the posts tagged Rubio and asked him to “revoke Mahmoud Khalil’s visa.” Drop Site News, [3/9/25]
- ## Right-wing media and guests cheered the arrest and argued that the Trump administration “needs to go further” to tamp down pro-Palestinian protests
- OnFaulkner Focus, former Fox contributor Leo Terrell, who is on the White House task force combating “anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” stated that Khalil’s arrest “is the beginning of a series of victories.” Terrell added, “This arrest of this individual is an indication and should serve as a deterrent that the Trump administration is not going to allow individuals on a student visa with a green card to commit antisemitic behavior on our college campuses.” Fox News, *The Faulkner Focus*, [3/10/25; Department of Justice, 2/3/25]
- On Newsmax, right-wing political activist Kennedy Goetz argued that if you support pro-Palestinian protests, “your visa should be provoked,” after she was asked about whether Khalil's green card should be revoked.She also said that “if you come into our country, it is a privilege, and it is an absolute privilege to be a United States citizen.” Newsmax, *The National Report*, [3/10/25]
- Fox News’ Aishah Hasnie said the Trump administration has to “send a message” and “make an example of somebody” to get college protests to end. Hasnie continued, “You can’t keep behaving this way, especially if the universities don't do anything about it.” Co-anchor John Roberts commented that the student protests are “trespassing at the very least along with potentially giving support and comfort to a terrorist organization.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [3/10/25]
- Right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt called Khalil’s arrest “a warning shot as well to anyone supporting Hamas,” despite admitting the government has “not produced evidence showing he has made a specific statement of support of Hamas.” Hewitt explained that the Trump administration is testing the waters with Khalil, saying, “I think they've begun with Mr. Khalil. He has the highest level of protection that a noncitizen can have, legal permanent resident.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [3/11/25]
- OnFox & Friends, co-host Lawrence Jones noted to attorney Chris Swecker that Trump administration officials “haven't even explored the criminal element” regarding Khalil yet. Swecker argued that “they need to go further” and stated that the arrest “sends the right message,” adding, “Resources need to be devoted to this, and I think this is just the beginning, Lawrence. I think this was just a shot across the bow.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [3/11/25]
- Fox host Brian Kilmeade warned, “Students, you are going to lose,” due to the Trump administration’s “relentless” actions, adding that no Democrat is “going to stand up for you.” Jones, added, “If the Democrats want to make this kid their martyr, I don’t think it’s going to go well for them. I want them to target the rest of them.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [3/11/25]
- On Newsmax, The Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavin said that Khalil is “better off getting out of here” and he hopes “all the people who were with him who are not American nationals are sent home in a big, big hurry.” Host Rob Schmitt also called Khalil a “serious pro-Hamas agitator” and commented that he hopes ICE “can get this guy and many more out of this country.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [3/10/25]
- Conservative writer Brigitte Gabriel celebrated the arrest on X, stating “ONE DOWN!” Twitter/X, [3/9/25]
- During a panel discussion of Khalil’s case,The Fiveco-host Greg Gutfeld claimed, “You can deport him. He doesn't have to be a criminal.” Gutfeld also baselessly claimed that Khalil “has seen some USAID money.” Fox News, *The Five*, [3/11/25]
- Fox News host Laura Ingraham claimed, “There are a lot more Mahmoud Khalil's out there.”She added, “And they are living here. They are working here. They are studying here on student visas, on work visas, and it is their goal — the left's goal — to normalize this notion of foreigners coming here and then advocating for the overthrow of our government.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [3/11/25]
//
04/25/24
04/24/24
12/14/23
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musk 50 100m for condom bombs in gaza is mozambique ? ~ aids
trump we will own riviera ethnic cleansing via military
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mma 2 25
demograPhic threat watters
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flipbd 9 24
how-supporting-palestine-became-a-career-killer-for-gen-z
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flipbd 9 24
how-supporting-palestine-became-a-career-killer-for-gen-z
reckon
basseema Abouassaad thought they had finally landed their dream job. Fresh out of college, Abouassaad, who uses all pronouns, was hired in April by an environmental conservation organization. It seemed like the perfect start to their career – a stable position aligned with their values. But their elation was short-lived.
By June, Abouassaad found themselves unemployed, caught in the crossfire of one of the most contentious global conflicts of our time. The reason? An article surfaced, listing Abouassaad as providing off-site legal support for pro-Palestine protesters. Abouassaad requested that their name be removed from the article for their safety, but the measure came too late.
“Two days later I was fired,” recounted Abouassaad, already widely recognized as co-founder of Red Star Texas, a mutual aid group that provides food, anti-overdose medication, and contraceptives. “They said it was so that I could ‘engage in my passions’ without any issues or barriers.”
The irony wasn’t lost on Abouassaad. The environmental organization, funded by Valero, an oil company producing ethanol, petroleum, and “green diesel,” seemed more concerned about Abouassaad’s political stance than the studies showcasing the “massive” carbon emissions resulting from Israel’s military actions since Oct. 7, 2023.
Abouassaad’s story is not unique. Across the United States, young activists are discovering that their support for Palestinian rights is clashing with the status quo, and it’s costing them job opportunities. In the wake of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which have sparked nationwide protests, a disturbing pattern has emerged: many companies are punishing Gen Z organizers for fighting for what they believe in.
From Yale to Gallaudet University, the only U.S. higher education institution specifically for the deaf and hard of hearing, student protests have returned to decry the violence, which UN officials say there are “reasonable grounds” to believe constitutes genocide. Many students have organized through the National Students for Justice in Palestine collective. The resulting backlash has been severe.
“I think right now we are seeing a resurgence of repression on campuses that we haven’t seen since the late 1960s,” said Risa Lieberwitz, a Cornell University professor of labor and employment law who serves as general counsel for the AAUP, told the Associated Press.
Several universities have defended the crackdown on students, citing campus safety concerns or older policies that prohibit the occupation of an admin building or the obstruction of pathways.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the U.S.’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization, has documented instances of Islamophobia on campus, including the destruction of Quranic artwork, harassment and threats, and even a “doxxing truck” on Harvard’s campus. Doxxing—the non-consensual publication of someone’s private information like phone numbers or home addresses—can have devastating consequences, especially for marginalized activists. Doxxing can often lead to a flood of threatening phone calls, emails, letters, physical harassment at home, and even the doxxing of loved ones.
A recent study by Intelligent paints a stark picture: nearly 30% of students who participated in pro-Palestine protests reported having job offers rescinded. Even more alarmingly, 70% faced questions about their activism during job interviews, a practice that skirts the edge of employment discrimination laws.
“Companies have taken a particular way of getting rid of people,” said Mahir Nisar, principal attorney at Nisar Law Group. “It’s necessary to raise the concern that this is not okay. They actually may be engaging in unlawful activity.”
Personal accounts highlight the severity of the situation. Ridikkuluz, a Palestinian-Jordanian student in Berlin, was fired from a finance job for refusing to write a pro-Israel statement.
“I knew that wasn’t the case,” they said, noting the immediate shunning by coworkers. Financial hardship now looms. “I would sell my work about Palestine but that wouldn’t sit right with me,” Ridikkuluz said.
“There is a level of ‘you did something wrong for this to be happening to you, you did commit some kind of crime and you are deserving of this happening to you,’” a Harvard student protester told ABC News in October.
Legal experts are raising concerns about the potential illegality of such hiring practices. Nisar, whose law firm specializes in employee discrimination, argues that pro-Palestinian activism does not pose a “legitimate business concern” to employers. “The laws basically protect people from discrimination based upon their identity,” Nisar added. “When somebody is speaking up on this particular issue, that [person] is protected against being discriminated against if you are speaking up on behalf of Palestinians or Muslims being slaughtered at this time.”
Tracing anti-Muslim bias from universities to the job market
CAIR’s Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor highlights the majority of university administrations for enabling this anti-Arab and anti-Muslim violence, which has ranged from withholding degrees to deploying aggressive police responses against peaceful protesters.
Saylor cited George Washington University as an example after they canceled a trauma support program for Palestinian students within 24 hours of its launch. “After the raid of the encampment, we were sent pictures of Islamic prayer mats being thrown in the trash,” Saylor recalled. “I’ve had several people report Qurans being trashed.”
The anti-Arab and anti-Muslim violence and punishment towards pro-Palestine advocates on campus isn’t confined to university grounds, but also extends to the job market.
Experts suggest that this repeated cycle of anti-Palestinian discrimination, both in academia and the job market, persists due to outdated legal frameworks in the United States. The law has failed to keep pace with evolving understandings of Islamophobia and its impacts on Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Americans.
“The law does not possess the language we desperately need to accurately capture the totality of Palestinian subjugation,” Palestinian American human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah writes in his article “Toward Nakba As A Legal Concept,” which was published, removed, and later reinstated at the Columbia Law Review. “There is a dire need for a new approach.”
Palestine Legal, which supports the Palestine solidarity movement, saw a 400% increase in requests for legal aid between Oct. 7 and Dec. 31, 2023.
CAIR also reported a 56% increase in anti-Muslim bias incidents nationwide in April 2024, with 44% of those occurring in the last three months of 2023. And from January to June 2024, there was a 69% jump in reported incidents compared to the same time period the prior year.
Legal strategies to hold employers and universities accountable
As campus protests have returned, backlash continues towards pro-Palestine students, faculty, and staff. While some administrations have reached tentative deals for divestment, several others have revised their protest policies. Indiana University forbids protests after 11pm. Emory University prohibited protests from midnight to 7am and enacted a total ban on encampments and building occupation. Police violently dispersed a die-in at the University of Michigan in August. In a public statement, the institution said “we are prohibited from interfering with lawful speech and are also required to intervene when anyone attempts to substantially disrupt or interfere with the lawful speech of others.”
“There’s also very reasonable concern about schools overreacting,” said Saylor. “With arrests and schools asking for prosecutions and pursuing disciplinary measures.”
In response to the escalating discrimination, legal advocates have taken rigorous action to protect students’ job prospects and hold universities accountable. Palestine Legal and CAIR have filed a series of Title VI civil rights complaints, alleging racial discrimination against pro-Palestine students. These legal efforts have prompted the Department of Education to launch federal investigations into high-profile institutions like Columbia, Emory, and Northwestern.
The catalyst for these probes was the universities’ authorization of forceful police crackdowns on student protesters. At these schools, campus security arrested peaceful demonstrators, only for the situations to devolve into violent chaos due to the outsized law enforcement response.
In the workforce, some states already carry a legal framework protecting pro-Palestine employees. Federally, all employees are protected by the First Amendment, therefore any firing can result in legal consequences to the employer. Several states also have varying laws protecting workers specifically from political discrimination, such as California, North Dakota, New Mexico, New York, Washington, and Washington D.C.
In 2021, Palestine Legal wrote a letter to Google regarding retaliation towards workers protesting Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion digital cloud deal with Amazon and the Israeli Defense Forces. Palestine Legal wrote that such treatment of employees violates Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which “gives applicable employees the right to “engage in . . . concerted activities for the purpose of mutual aid or protection.”
Political affiliation is not a protected class under Title VII, but as advocates suggest that identity on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., may be used as a strategy in the workforce. Nisar, who provides legal education on his TikTok account, stressed the importance of documenting everything for everyone. “Always develop a paper trail,” he said. “Make sure that it’s done in a written fashion. Specify that it discriminates upon your identity. You want to do it via email. You are always making sure that when you’re speaking up you’re raising your identity [in relationship] to discrimination towards Palestinians or Muslims. This requires that you preserve evidence.”
Nisar also emphasized that one be careful to not engage in anything that could constitute discriminatory practice as well. “Whenever they’re speaking up it’s important that they don’t engage in discrimination of their own. A lot of people get caught up in these situations. You can’t fight hate with hate. You have to remember that you’re fighting for a greater principle.”
While filing a lawsuit in these states or situations may seem logical, processing the ongoing conflict alongside legal battle can prove emotionally and financially taxing for many. Some might lack the resources to hire a lawyer. Others, like Abouassaad, opt for severance packages instead of lengthy legal battles. “One way to advocate for myself is continuing to be able to survive,” they said. “I accepted that money because f*ck them, pay me.”
For others like Abouassaad, the bigger picture matters more than personal grievances. “There’s a genocide happening,” they said. “I’m not at the capacity to deal with an entire lawsuit…. It still doesn’t address the overall issue of censorship against Palestinians and the ways corporations can use their access to capital to enforce their world views on other people.”
While the federal probes mark an important accountability milestone, legal experts emphasize that addressing the deeper systemic issues will be a protracted battle. They say updating anti-discrimination laws to better reflect modern understandings of Islamophobia remains a pressing imperative.
To guide students facing discrimination, CAIR has released an employee rights guide. Recommendations include setting social media accounts to private, avoiding publicly identifying employers, thoroughly documenting any problematic interactions, and demanding written explanations from HR about policy violations.
Despite ongoing repression, Saylor believes that the organizing skills and advocacy experience these young people are developing will serve them well for long-term careers.
“As this generation graduates, and hopefully come into the advocacy space, they’re going to deliver some really powerful stuff,” said Saylor.
Across the pro-Palestinian community, the legal recognition of the
—the violent displacement of some 750,000 Palestinians for the creation of Israel instituted by Britain and the U.S.—is seen as critical to accountability. Eghbariah wrote, “Recognition of Nakba as a universal concept, one acknowledged and prohibited by international norms, is therefore the first step toward a just and lasting solution in Palestine.”
This could prove not only a first step towards just global accountability, but also a subsequent end to the anti-war protests and thus work discrimination. “The U.S. can totally stop sending weapons,” Abouassaad said. “After that, everything else will follow.”
fresh calls to 'reject AIPAC' after analysis of GOP money in Dem primaries](https://www.alternet.org/fresh-calls-to-reject-aipac-after-analysis-of-gop-money-in-dem-primaries/)
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mma 5 24
Right-wing media figures are misrepresenting a recent shift in casualty reporting to imply the United Nations has reduced estimates of the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza.
The U.N. recently began reporting more detailed casualty numbers from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, providing exact figures of women and children killed who have been fully identified. These detailed breakdowns are lower than larger previous estimates sourced by the U.N. from a different Gazan ministry, as thousands have not yet been definitively identified; the U.N. specified that the overall death toll estimate has not changed and that the new fully identified casualty numbers are expected to rise.
Right-wing media have nonetheless latched onto the new reported figures to falsely suggest the international body had been inflating or lying about various death tolls and casualty figures, and imply that the total estimated death toll of around 35,000 has changed.
- ## U.N. reports on casualties sourced from Gaza’s Ministry of Health were recently updated to reflect those who have been fully identified
- The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been regularly reporting estimated casualty numbers for the current conflict in Gaza, drawing on several official sources. The U.N. has regularly updated its online reporting of death toll figures, sourcing casualty numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Health and Government Media Office as well as Israeli authorities. This reporting includes an estimated overall Palestinian death toll as well as casualty breakdowns for men, women, and children. OCHA, [5/20/24; The New York Times, 5/14/24]
- The OCHA figures were recently updated to reflect a smaller number of individuals who have been fully identified in its breakdown of men, women, and children killed. A U.N. spokesperson clarified that the newest breakdowns for men, women, and children casualties are notably lower than in previous reports because the U.N. replaced estimates from Gaza’s Government Media Office with more conservative, verified numbers from the Gazan Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health numbers reflect only those who have been fully identified. From The New York Times:
The change came because the United Nations switched to citing a more conservative source for its numbers — the Gazan Ministry of Health — rather than using Gaza’s Government Media Office, as it had in recent weeks. Both offices are part of the Hamas-run government in the enclave.
Many international officials and experts familiar with the way the health ministry verifies deaths in Gaza — drawing from morgues and hospitals across the territory — say its numbers are generally reliable. The New York Times, [5/14/24]
- The number of casualties confirmed to be women and children by the Ministry of Health are currently about 50% of the estimates made by the Government Media Office, and casualty specifics will be “re-established once the full identification process is complete.” A U.N. spokesperson noted, “There's about another 10,000 plus bodies who still have to be fully identified, and so then the details of those - which of those are children, which of those are women - that will be re-established once the full identification process is complete.” NBC News, [5/14/24; Reuters, 5/13/24]
- Officials explained that the overall estimates have not changed and that having more identification information “is a step forward.” In a Geneva press briefing, several officials further clarified the data and explained they expect casualty breakdown numbers to continue rising as more bodies are identified. From Reuters:
“Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data (more than 35,000) are still the same,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing in response to questions about the toll. “The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward,” he added.
...
He added that it was “normal” for death tolls to shift in conflicts, recalling that Israel had revised down its own death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to 1,200 after checks.
“We're basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn't it?” Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said at the same briefing. “And we know that many and many of those are women and children and there are 1,000s missing under the rubble.” Reuters, [5/14/24]
- The U.N. further specified that the overall death toll of approximately 35,000 remains unchanged and that Ministry of Health figures are generally accurate. The U.N. as well as many other international agencies and experts have further underscored that Ministry of Health figures are generally reliable. The Guardian, [10/27/23, 5/13/24; Reuters, 5/13/24;The New York Times, 5/14/24]
- Critics have seized on this recent change and “confusion over the discrepancy” to fuel further debate over the accuracy of death toll estimates and suggest the U.N. had been “exaggerating the toll.” According to NBC, “Israeli officials incorrectly suggested that the data showed a significant drop in death toll numbers — and that this bolstered their claims that health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave inflate the number of children and women among the dead to disguise the large number of militant fighters killed.” The New York Times, [5/14/24; The Guardian, 5/13/24; Reuters, 5/14/24, NBC News, 5/14/24]
- ## Right-wing media figures confused the facts on death toll figures and claimed the U.N. has been “lying” about casualty numbers
* Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro began a brief discussion of the new numbers by saying the U.N. had “admitted that they’d been lying about casualty figures.” Shapiro aired some quotes from a U.N. official about the number change but did not explain the shift from one agency’s numbers to the others or the verification of dead, nor did he note that the overall death toll estimate had not changed in the segment. Instead, he went on to criticize the practice of counting individuals under the age of 20 as children, saying, “A huge number of terrorists are 16, 17, even 15 or 14 years old.” From The Ben Shapiro Show:
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): So yesterday, the U.N. admitted that they’d been lying about casualty figures. They’d been taking Hamas’ casualty figures for granted and they were simply lying about it. The U.N. admitted that they were off by 50 percent -- five zero percent -- on the original estimate of women and children who had died in the war in Gaza. The Daily Wire, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [5/14/24, 5/14/24]
- Fox anchor Trace Gallagher introduced discussion of the number change with, “Now we know that they have lowered the death toll in Gaza.” Gallagher went on to briefly read from a news article about the new casualty figures of women and children. The segment did not specify the context for the updated reporting or clarify that the overall death toll has not changed. Fox contributor Kiron Skinner reacted by suggesting that the Ministry of Health’s “numbers are never right” and that the U.N.’s decision to switch to its figures put “everything that comes out of Gaza, that Israel has hit a hospital, that Israel has hit a humanitarian truck — it puts it all under a suspect way of looking at what’s going on.” Fox News, *Fox News @ Night*, [5/13/24]
- Newsmax host Rob Schmitt told viewers that the U.N. was “forced to retract their numbers.” He did not explain the shift in numbers or clarify that the total death toll estimate had not changed. Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [5/13/24]
- One America News host Dan Ball misinformed that the overall death toll estimate had changed from “nearly 35,000 killed” to “almost less than 15,000.”From Real America with Dan Ball:
DAN BALL (HOST): So the United Nations just revised the Gaza death count, and just the deaths of women and children was exaggerated by Hamas by over 50 percent. So when they claim there was nearly 35,000 killed, the numbers actually pencil out to almost less than 15,000.
Not that that’s not horrific, but I like facts. And the fact is this isn’t a genocide because the numbers were doubled and inflated by Hamas. The Ministry of Health for Gaza, which is run by Hamas, put those numbers out the last few months and American sympathizers have swallowed that whole bait, hook, line, and sinker. One America News Network, *Real America with Dan Ball*, [5/13/24]
- Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade repeatedly framed the changed figures as a correction to “wrong” earlier estimates. Kilmeade began discussion of the story by confusingly implying the overall death toll estimate “had been wrong by about 50 percent.” He went on to specify more about the new figures and note the current death toll estimate, but he did not explain the meaning of the different numbers. From Fox & Friends:
> BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Not many people know this, but on May 6 the U.N. came out with a report on the death toll in Gaza. It turns out that they were wrong by about 50 percent. They say that total number of deaths is about 34,000 but the number includes 4,959 women, 7,797 children, a total of 12,756 civilians, as opposed to a number that was double that. How do you explain that? That means they’ve killed more Hamas fighters and less civilians.
...
Right, so there’s 24,000 civilian deaths, that’s what they thought, it turns out there was 12,000. Big difference. Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [5/14/24]
- A Fox Business segment misleadingly suggested that the U.N. cut the total casualty count “in half.” A May 14 Varney & Co. segment implied that the overall death toll had been cut by half. The segment began with Varney asking whether the U.N. update had raised “the total casualty count” or lowered it, to which reporter Lauren Simonetti replied, “They cut it in half.” A chyron on screen read “U.N. Cuts Reported Casualties In Half.” The segment did not specify that the total death toll estimate had not changed. From Varney & Co.:
STUART VARNEY (HOST): Ah, this is interesting. The U.N. quietly changed the number of casualties in Gaza since the start of the war. OK. Did they raise the total casualty count, or lower it?
LAUREN SIMONETTI (REPORTER): They cut it in half. They cut it in half. So, these are the numbers, the casualties of women and children in Gaza. Originally, 14,000 children were victims. This week the agency said, well, no, 7,797. Originally 9,500 women. Now, less than 5,000. What’s the takeaway? The U.N. was using and trusting statistics that came from Hamas.
…
VARNEY: It makes the use of the word “genocide” outrageous in this context, absolutely outrageous, and they should never do that. That’s my opinion. Fox Business, *Varney & Co.*, [5/14/24]
- On his radio show, Fox host Mark Levin implied the overall death toll had been cut. Levin began by reading from a Washington Free Beacon article that misleadingly implied the overall death toll had been cut. From The Mark Levin Show:
MARK LEVIN (HOST): United Nations cut its Gaza death toll figures by half, confirming that Hamas officials have been lying for months -- this is the U.N. doing it -- about the total number of casualties and statistics repeatedly cited by the U.N. and the American government as proof Israel is harming civilians.
The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs drastically reduced its child fatality figures, dropping them to 7,700 on May 8 from 14,500 just days before. It also revised the figures for the number of women killed, lowering them from 9,500 to 4,900.
And by the way, how many of those deaths are due to what Hamas is doing to their own citizens, putting them in harm’s way? This is urban warfare.
...
The U.N. has been citing artificially inflated figures for the last two months. And since it relies on information published by the Hamas-controlled Government Media Office in Gaza, Israeli officials and regional experts have cast doubt on these figures since the war broke out, saying that Hamas is known to inflate casualty figures as part of its global media campaign to paint Israel as an aggressor.
These figures have been used by the U.N. and the American government for months to accuse Israel of intentionally targeting citizens, including women and children. But the massive revision indicates Hamas’ figures are riddled with inaccurate -- It would be like World War II, our media would be reporting figures put out by Nazi Germany. How sick is this?
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health is the primary source for these numbers, which international organizations generally deem credible — that’s the bigger figures — but do not differentiate between Hamas fighters and civilians. So on top of all that, they don’t differentiate between the terrorist and the civilian. So it goes on and on. Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [5/13/24; The Washington Free Beacon, 5/13/24]
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Fox host calls for professors engaging in protests to be fired](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-host-calls-professors-engaging-protests-be-fired)
04/29/24
lAWRENCE JONES (CO-HOST): To your point, Ainsley, also, it's not just the students. You got the professors that are out there with the students as well.
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): They should be fired.
LAWRENCE JONES: Exactly.
BRIAN KILMEADE: Should be fired.
LAWRENCE JONES: You had in Columbia, the professors created a wall around the students. If I'm the president of a university, you got — you already have to go to online learning. Now you got professors that aren't teaching class.
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): They are teaching activism instead of how to be scholars.
BRIAN KILMEADE: I'll tell you what, I watched Fareed Zakaria's show, they had Bruce Bobbins on — I'll show you a — who is one of the senior professors over there for 27 years, and he is actually all for this. You know exactly why these students think this. He's like, I'm spending a lot of time with the encampments; basically Israel is not a democracy because they're outnumbered by Arabs in that area and if it's a really representative democracy they would be a minority. He's, basically, he looks at Israel the way we look at Assad in Syria. And if you think about this — this is a so-called intellectual that you pay $75,000 a year to get people like that — and he's backing up the students and he is saying there is no antisemitic behavior there. Well, we've talked to those students. They are getting the barbs when they walk to class, to the point where the president said it's not safe for Jews to be on campus, so what's this guy talking about?
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4 24 7 WORLD CENTRAL FOOD KITCHEN CHEF ANDRES KIA
4 24 kpfa
israel target low level hamas kill at home ok to kill 15-20, higer value kill 300 with smart munitions 4/5/24 7 am lavendar, where’s daddy
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university-of-pennsylvania-affiliates-face-mccarthy-style-treatment
Student groups across the country have beentargeted for their political leanings these last few months. Their universities have labeled the coalitions formed in the name of Palestinian liberation, critical of Israel's policies and concerned over human rights violations, as "anti-Semitic". This label of anti-Semitism has in turned been used to justify suspension and internal policies and actions reminiscent of the McCarthy era.
In fact, a group at the University of Pennsylvania issued a lawsuit making just such a claim. They've argued that the school's collecting and potential turning over of documents to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in the name of combating anti-Semitism is both a violation of free speech and a modern reimagining of McCarthyism. Just sub "communism" for "anti-Semitism" and the comparison is easy, you can do it from the comfort of home!
Criticisms of the nation-state, Israel, including statements of anti-Zionism, are First Amendment-protected speech. The new McCarthyism has, since long before October 7, been highly successful at getting individuals fired from jobs, expelled or suspended from universities, denied tenure or advancement, demoted from prominent media roles, and dropped by entertainment agents, as well as successfully obtaining the rescission of offers of employment, and of invitations to participate in conferences and workshops, speaking engagements and numerous other opportunities. The new McCarthyism, which was growing slowly before the Hamas atrocities on October 7, 2023, but is surging up very rapidly now, has already been hugely successful at ending careers and blighting lives, just like its predecessor.
LAWSUIT PENNED AGAINST PENN, PLAINTIFFS HUDA FAKHREDDINE, TROUTT POWELL, AND PENN FACULTY FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE
The Penn faculty group said, "The Committee is engaged in a partisan witch hunt by seeking syllabi, academic papers, and other material from Penn faculty of all ranks, with the search highlighting keywords like Jew, Israel, antisemitism, Palestine, Gaza, resistance, settler colonialism and diversity, equity and inclusion, to name most of their criteria."…The "would-be McCarthyesque House of Representatives is behaving as if it never heard of the First Amendment," the complaint continues. The faculty members cited the passage of House Resolution 894 — which equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism — and the fact that the committee is seeking to obtain student information deemed confidential under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
PREM THAKKER, THE INTERCEPT
Highlighting "equity and inclusion" as a keyword in an investigation to stop anti-Semitism seems like a stretch. UPenn has seen its president resign over allegations of anti-Semitism, following a hearing conducted by the House Committee.
Plaintiff Eve Troutt Powell, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Penn, told The Intercept that the university was in a difficult position, being under attack from Congress and donor pressure, but that the school should have stood firm. "We have been doxxed and we have been harassed and the university has promised it would protect us," she said, "but we now understand that the university has been giving over documents, perhaps in hopes that this congressional committee will not subpoena the university, and we don't accept it."
PREM THAKKER, THE INTERCEPT
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mma 2 24
ALEX WITT (HOST): What is the situation like in Rafah right now? How do you see it?
MATT BRADLEY (CORRESPONDENT): Well, there's a lot of fear but there's also a lot of starvation, a lot of homelessness, people living in tents. We're talking about 1.4 million Palestinians who are living on the edge of the Gaza Strip, right where Gaza meets Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. They are about to be pushed, or many of them fear they are about to be pushed, from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai Desert.
And this is why when you talk to Palestinians there, they keep on bringing up this one word: the nakba. It means "catastrophe" and that happened all the way back in 1948. That's the Arabic word for when the Israeli state was created and Palestinians feel -- and this history is still debated -- Palestinians feel as though they were forced from their homes. And that is exactly what they think is happening right now because the Israelis -- As you mentioned, Benjamin Netanyahu, he has said that he wants his military to explore or draw up a plan for a evacuation of civilians from Rafah. Well most of those people, the vast majority of them, have already been displaced from elsewhere in the Gaza Strip once, twice, three or four times. We were speaking to people who have been displaced more than four times, all of them moving from place to place as Israel's army has advanced right behind them. And that is exactly what we're seeing now.
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UK abstain, 12 yes? all others
u-s-vetoes-un-security-council-vote-for-gaza-ceasefire
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'Outrage' after MSNBC cancels 'vital voice' Mehdi hasan - Alternet.org
11 23
it’s being called a “revamp,” an “overhaul,” and a “shakeup,” but media critics, journalists, and journalism experts are expressing outrage at MSNBC for its decision to cancel the weekend show anchored by Mehdi Hasan, who many see as an important voice against authoritarianism and the far-right.
Calling Hasan an “outspoken opinion host,” and “a cult favorite online for his tough interview style and impassioned monologues,” Semafor‘s Max Tani reported MSNBC “privately announced” the cancellation of Hasan’s show Thursday morning. Hasan “will become an on-camera analyst and fill-in host. The network plans to expand host Ayman Mohyeldin’s weekend program to two hours to replace Hasan’s show.”
MSNBC is also moving Jonathan Capehart’s show to 6 PM on Saturdays and Sundays, and is cancelling Yasmin Vossoughian’s weekend show.
The cable network will launch a new weekend show, “The Weekend,” which Mediaite reports “is billed as a politics and Washington-focused program. It will be hosted from Washington D.C. by MSNBC anchors Alicia Menendez, Symone Sanders-Townsend and Michael Steele on Saturdays and Sundays from 8 to 10 a.m. ET. Both Sanders-Townsend and Menendez will be leaving their weekend programs to join the new show.
“Hasan has come under fire recently over his coverage of the Gaza war, specifically from conservative critics angry over his pro-Palestinian stance,” The Daily Beast adds. “Last month, Semafor reported that Hasan was one of three Muslim broadcasters who had been quietly pulled from the anchor’s desk following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack. A network official vehemently denied Semafor’s reporting that Hasan and others had been sidelined.”
“The same criticism Hasan has received over Israel-Hamas coverage from media rivals, however, has also followed fellow Muslim-American colleagues Velshi and Mohyeldin, who have retained their shows and even seen their roles expanded. Furthermore, as Confider reported in September, the revamped weekend lineup was already being hashed out prior to the start of the conflict in Gaza.”
Many, including those who have been critical of some of Hasan’s views, are expressing anger and outrage over the cancellation of his show, and concern for the direction of corporate media in general.
“This is an outrage,” declared journalist and media critic Dan Froomkin.
“As the warning signs for authoritarianism are going off, why demote a journalist who is really good on this topic?” asked Don Moynihan, professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Wesley Lowery, now an associate professor of investigative journalism at American University, wrote on social media that Hasan “is the best on-camera newsmaker interviewer in journalism.” He suggested, “someone give him a livelier version of what Charlie Rose once did. If you vow to measure the impact of your investment based on the quality of the journalism, not ratings or clicks, I’ll EP the first season.”
READ MORE: Pence Bombshell Resurfaces Old Questions About Grassley and January 6
“Without a doubt,” wrote former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob, who writes a newsletter on politics and the media, Hasan “has been one of the most incisive anchors on MSNBC. The cancellation of his show is an outrage — and yet another example of how major media are failing us.”
“They still have a Republican former congressman hosting a show for like six hours every morning though right?” snarked political strategist, writer, and former Media Matters executive vice president Jamison Foser.
“Wow,” exclaimed Max Burns, a Democratic strategist and columnist. Hasan “is easily one of the sharpest, toughest, best-researched interviewers working today. His back-and-forths with politicians both left and right should be models for how to do the job effectively. What a ridiculous decision.”
Burns continued, writing: “I look at bizarre news like this and think to myself, if this industry is tossing aside singular forces of journalism like Mehdi, what hope is there for anyone? Clearly doing the job well isn’t protection from corporate decisions.
Sherrilyn Ifill, the civil rights attorney, professor of law and former Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), wrote that Hasan “has shown over and over again that he is so good at his craft. His is the journalistic rigor we need in this age of misinformation, lies, and wanna be celebrities masquerading as public servants. I cannot imagine not wanting to elevate his platform.”
READ MORE: How Mike Johnson Spent the Day Protecting Mike Johnson
“Oh no,” declared David Rothkopf, the foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator, calling Hasan a “vital voice.”
“This is MSNBC’s loss. This is a cowardly move,” wrote conservative and former GOP congressman Joe Walsh, who said he and Hasan “disagree on plenty, especially with what’s happening in the Middle East. But Mehdi is an important and valuable voice. And he’s damn good at what he does. It’s so important that ALL viewpoints get heard. Bad move.”
In September Hasan “grilled” GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Watch that interview below or at this link.
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ro khanna bernie?
palestine cease fire 11 22 23
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10 23
Since Hamas' October 7 attack on Israelis, Islamophobic rhetoric has thrived in right-wing media spaces}:
- Hamas launched its attack against Israel on October 7, with militants from the Gaza Strip targeting both civilians and Israeli military personnel. Since then, Israel has promised to eradicate Hamas, leading the Israeli military to target Gaza in an ongoing conflict that has left more than 1,400 Israelis and nearly 3,800 Palestinians dead. Al Jazeera, [10/20/23]
- Right-wing media figures fearmongered about a supposed “global day of jihad” transpiring on October 13.The notion of a “day of jihad,” in which Islamic extremists would launch Hamas-inspired attacks around the world, seemed to come in part from the mistranslation of a statement from former Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal. Without a “specific and credible threat” to the U.S., this day failed to materialize. The rhetoric nonetheless sparked increased fears of violence during a time when anti-Muslim violence is already expected to rise. Media Matters, [10/16/23; The Guardian, 10/17/23]
- An Illinois man who “‘listens to conservative talk radio on a regular basis’ and became obsessed with the war between Hamas and Israel” allegedly stabbed his 6-year-old Palestinian tenant to death in what is being investigated as a hate crime. NBC News, [10/16/23]
- ## Radio hosts and guests fearmongered about Islamic extremists attacking the U.S.
- Charlie Kirk told people to carry a gun to defend themselves in case sleeper cells are “activated” in the U.S. The Turning Point USA founder told his audience, “This needs to be a wake up call. They are here, they mean harm to the American homeland and I pray that they are not activated. Make sure you have a gun on you.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
- According to Kirk, “We have imported the dynamite right into our country.” Kirk claimed that “we have invited some of the most disgusting people on the planet into the West,” including “Third World Muslims,” and now “we shouldn’t be surprised” to see a “global day of jihad.” Media Matters, [10/16/23; Salem Media Group, The Charlie Kirk Show, 10/12/23]
- Kirk claimed that “millions of young, fighting-age Muslim men in America” have the potential to be “activated” as terrorists. Kirk said, “You have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of young, fighting-age Muslim men in America. All it takes is for a couple of them to be activated in this country.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]
- Kirk fearmongered about the potential of Islamic terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and “shooting up a public place in the name of Allah.” Kirk said, “What's to prevent one of these Muslims that came across the border … from getting their hands on a firearm and going and shooting up a public place in the name of Allah?” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/10/23]
- Sean Hannity told his audience to take the “global day of jihad” seriously despite a lack of evidence. He proclaimed, “Hamas has now called for their supporters to make tomorrow, Friday the 13, a global day of jihad. Now I care about everyone in my audience. I'm gonna urge all of you: Take this seriously.” He added, “You know, it’s a holy war, and they want it worldwide.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/12/23]
- Hannity claimed there are terrorist cells in the U.S. that have already entered the country illegally and are planning attacks.He said, “I guarantee you that among the 8 million, by the end of this year, of illegal immigrants, I guarantee you people that have connections to terrorism have entered this country and that there are terror cells plotting, planning, and scheming another attack.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show,* [10/17/23]
- On right-wing pundit Eric Metaxas’ show, a guest spread the conspiracy theory that the Biden administration is allowing men from “Muslim countries” into America to be later used to cause chaos. Appearing on The Eric Metaxas Show, The Stream senior editor John Zmirak claimed, “They were letting in thousands of military-age men from Muslim countries and spreading them all over the country. Why? My theory, my conclusion is this is the next army of political police, of political thugs whom the Democrats will send out onto the streets to riot, to burn, to threaten, to intimidate, to pillage the next time it suits their political advantage.” Salem Media Group, *The Eric Metaxas Show*, [10/11/23]
- ## Right-wing radio hosts spread blatant Islamophobia
- Steve Deace claimed that Islam has “no compunction or reservation at all about using women and children as human shields.” “Hey, I lose a wife. I've got seven more,” Deace said, mocking Muslims. “I lose a kid, I'll make another kid with the other seven wives. And that kid, you know, was just welcomed by Allah into heaven as a hero.“ Blaze Radio, *Steve Deace Show*, [10/16/23]
- Charlie Kirk maintained that the “vast majority of Muslims” live “in the 1300s” and hold a “medieval worldview.” Kirk framed the Israel-Hamas conflict as “civilization, aka Western values, versus barbarism.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
- Kirk claimed Muslims are going to kidnap people “across the world.”According to Kirk, “People are going to start getting kidnapped all across the world if we mishandle this. You’re going to see a string of kidnappings,” Kirk said. “Americans don’t travel internationally nearly as much as Europeans, but we travel internationally a lot, and there's a lot of Muslims out there.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
- Kirk falsely claimed that Islamic law justifies killing children. “It's perfectly acceptable in Islamic law to go kill kids — perfectly fine,” Kirk said. Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]
- Shapiro claimed that the United Nations is “despicable and vile” and “filled with Islamist countries that support the death of Jews.” Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/10/23]
- ## Right-wing radio hosts dehumanized Palestinians
- Charlie Kirk claimed Palestinians in Gaza are “savage animals.” The TPUSA founder and Salem Media Group radio host stated, “To be clear, they will — they'll take you out of the car and cut your head off and parade you through the streets. They're really nice people we got dealing with here. And I'll never forget — as soon as they see an Israeli license plate, they're savage animals, they’ll come after you.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
- Mark Levin declared, “The Israelis are up against these animals — they’re not even animals,” before calling Palestinians “subhumans.” On his Westwood One radio show, Levin also questioned why the safety of Palestinian civilians should be considered, “particularly when the enemy wants its own civilians killed.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/13/23]
- Levin: “And I'm supposed to, what, shed crocodile tears, for what's going to happen to these people?”Levin also called people in Gaza “barbarians” and said that their deaths are not Israel’s responsibility. Levin continued, “I'm not. Maybe I'm the only one who will voice it, but I'm not. Israel has every right to throw every damn thing it has at barbarians. And if there are innocent people, quote-unquote ‘civilians’ who are killed, then maybe they ought to organize to take out the government they elected, but it's not Israel's responsibility." Westwood One**, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/10/23]
- Levin implied that all Palestinians are evil and said that if “there's collateral damage” when Israel attacks Gaza, “so be it.” According to Levin, “One side is immoral and evil. The other side is moral and good. It's that simple.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/17/23]
- Steve Deace claimed that Palestinians are “basically Arab squatters, people who were kicked out of countries like Jordan, who didn't want them.” The Blaze Radio host said, “There’s no such thing as a Palestinian. It’s a people group that does not exist. They’re basically Arab squatters, people who were kicked out of countries like Jordan, who didn’t want them.” Blaze Radio, *The Steve Deace Show*, [10/13/23]
- Blaze Radio producer Aaron McIntire claimed that Palestinian civilians “don’t exist” and also called them “squatters.”McIntire said, “What you do with the Palestinian civilians — that don’t exist — what you do with the people, the squatters, who live in the area known as Gaza Strip: Make Egypt take them, make the Arab nations, Arab neighbors take them.” Blaze Radio, *The Steve Deace Show*, [10/13/23]
- Deace also said, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people as a people group.”He stated, “The people identifying as Palestinians — and they're not all Muslims, they're not all, you know, Hamas crazies, and every one of them's made in the image of God. Nevertheless, there is no such thing as a Palestinian people as a people group. These are folks from other Arab countries, a lot of them, a legacy like in Jordan that were kicked out of those countries, and there's a reason why these Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt are closing their borders to them now. They don't want them back.” Blaze Radio, *Steve Deace Show*,[10/16/23]
- Charlie Kirk claimed Palestinians are all antisemitic to justify attacking them: “The reality is Hamas and the Arab world, they just hate Jews. They just want Jews dead.” Salem Media Group, T*he Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]
- ## Right-wing radio figures tried to justify withholding aid to Palestinians
- Sean Hannity said any humanitarian aid to Palestine will help Hamas. Hannity stated, “Any humanitarian aid you want to give the innocent people in Gaza — I don't know what the percentage is because I don't know how deep their indoctrination is — will not go to the civilians. Innocents won't see this aid. It will go to Hamas, and they will build out their terror network.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/18/23]
- Ben Shapiro said “turning off water and electricity in military areas is normal” and emphasized that Israel is trying to avoid targeting civilians. Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/16/23]
- Shapiro claimed that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a humanitarian organization, allows for “Jew hatred” and should not be supported. According to Shapiro, “The UNRWA, the U.N. refugees administration, which is an agency that is specifically dedicated only to the Palestinians, it’s amazing. It’s a garbage administration run internationally that allows for full indoctrination in Jew hatred at UNRWA schools and the hiding of weaponry beneath UNRWA schools. They admitted yesterday on Twitter, briefly, that Hamas was literally stealing aid and then they deleted it because they’re afraid that Hamas might get mad at them.” Westwood One, T*he Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/17/23]
- On The Mark Levin Show, the president of the Zionist Organization of America declared: “The civilians are not innocent.”ZOA National President Mort Klein said that the U.S. should withhold aid because Palestinian civilians were also guilty for Hamas’ October 7 attack, saying, “In any war, do you do something against the civilians there? Do we do anything for the Vietnam civilians? For the Iraqi civilians? For the German civilians? No. It is a war. And yet strangely enough when it's Israel fighting Hamas Nazis, we want to aid the civilians. And I must add, the civilians are not innocent.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/18/23]
- ## Right-wing radio figures defended or downplayed civilian casualties in Gaza
- Mark Levin complained that asking Israel not to bomb schools or cut off food and medication to Gazan civilians constitutes too many “conditions.”Levin said: “Urban battle: It’s going to be very hard. Of course it is, but the Israelis are being told by our government, ‘Make sure your feed the population, make sure you medicate the population, make sure you don’t hit a mosque, a hospital, a school, don’t hit any of those. Now go for it.’ Look at all these conditions. All these conditions.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/16/23]
- Brian Kilmeade suggested civilians should not be let out of Gaza because terrorists might escape. According to the Fox News and radio host, “Word is — there’s some word that we are pressuring — the U.S. is pressuring Israel to hold off on the invasion so that more civilians get out. But you know who else gets out? The terrorists! Who are going to plot and plan another day and be treated like heroes when the red carpet comes out with a lot of these evil regimes or the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates around the world around the globe. “ Fox News Radio, *The Brian Kilmeade Show*, [10/16/23]
- Shapiro excused civilian casualties as necessary to achieve Israeli military objectives, saying, “This notion, that it is incumbent on Israel not to achieve its military objectives in order to prevent civilian casualties caused by Hamas, is absurd on its face.” Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/17/23]
- Shapiro also said that Palestinian civilians should not be prioritized over “the first rule of war: winning.” According to Shapiro, “Yes, of course, those of moral bent ought to work to minimize civilian casualties. Yes, of course, those of moral bent ought to work to find a place for civilians to escape from the line of fire. But neither of those rules can be prioritized over the first rule of war: winning. War is ugly by nature. Nearly the ugliest thing. As it turns out, there’s only one thing uglier: losing to those who don’t care about morality or decency at all.” Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/16/23]
- Sean Hannity claimed Hamas and Iran, not Israel, are to blame for civilian deaths in Gaza. According to the Fox News and radio host, “The people of Palestine — those that have been killed and will be killed — you can only blame one group, and that would be the terrorist group Hamas. Well, you can blame another group too — the No. 1 state sponsor of terror that helped, apparently, organize, foment these attacks against Israel. That would be Iran.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/16/23]
- Kilmeade said it’s “not Israel’s problem” that civilians are collateral damage in eradicating Hamas.According to Kilmeade, “They say go by the rules of war, and — the best you can — but if Hamas is going to use these people as human shields, prevent them from leaving, or going south, or leaving their building — even though it’s gonna be targeted — that’s not Israel’s problem, it’s their problem.” Fox News Radio, *The Brian Kilmeade Show*, [10/16/23]
- Beck claimed there are “no Israeli war crimes” and said that “every innocent harmed in Gaza is on Hamas.” Beck dismissed the number of casualties caused by Israel, arguing, “Every piece of human suffering in Gaza is on Hamas. Want more peace? Have less Hamas.” Blaze Radio, *The Glenn Beck Program*, [10/17/23]
- ## Right-wing radio figures tried to justify the complete elimination of Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip
- Blaze Radio founder Glenn Beck said Israel should make Gaza into a “parking lot,” claiming the over 2 million Palestinians who live there are simply the tools of “people who just want to kill Jews.”Beck stated, “I think Israel should park their car there. You know what I mean? Park a lot of cars there. It could be, you know, some sort of a parking lot that they make it. … The Palestinian people have been used over and over again by people who just want to kill Jews. That's it. That's — that's been the thing from the very beginning." Blaze Radio, *The Glenn Beck Program*, [10/16/23]
- Salem radio guest: “I’m OK” with an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.During an appearance on Salem Media’s The Charlie Kirk Show, Breitbart writer Joel Pollak stated, “I don’t think it’s going to be something people consider, but it's there. It's a possibility, and frankly I'm OK with it. I say that at the risk of being accused of all kinds of stuff, but, you know, if it comes down to ethnic cleansing, if you want to cleanse my people, I'll cleanse yours first. I mean, that’s where we are.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/9/23]
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an 7 22
pro-Israel lobby groups have spent “shocking” amounts of money to change the course of multiple Democratic congressional primariesover the past year alone, reports our guest Peter Beinart. The latest is in Maryland, where former Congressmember Donna Edwards is being outspent sevenfold by corporate attorney Glenn Ivey in her bid to win back her old seat in the state’s 4th Congressional District. Beinart, the editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, says the AIPAC-led PACs disguise their attack ads with local issues but in reality are designed to oust candidates who take stances in support of Palestinian rights and working people.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Today is Primary Day in Maryland. In one closely watched race, former Congressmember Donna Edwards is seeking to win back her old seat in Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, outside Washington, D.C. She is facing the corporate attorney Glenn Ivey, who has raised seven times as much money. The New York Times reports a new super PAC run by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has spent nearly $6 million on the primary race in an attempt to defeat Edwards, who served in Congress for four terms ending in 2017. In 2008, Donna Edwards made history becoming the first Black woman elected to Congress from Maryland. Another group with ties to AIPAC, the Democratic Majority for Israel, has spent over $425,000 to help defeat Edwards. The two groups also poured money into efforts to defeat other progressive Democrats, including Nina Turner in Ohio and Jessica Cisneros in Texas.
We’re joined now by Peter Beinart, editor-at-large with Jewish Currents. He recently wrote an article headlined “The Israel Lobby’s New Campaign Playbook.” Peter Beinart is a professor at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.
Thanks so much for joining us, Peter. Can you talk about what Donna Edwards is confronting right now in Maryland, the level of money that’s being poured in to defeat her?
PETER BEINART: It’s really extraordinary for a House race to see one organization, one super PAC, spending almost $6 million. What we’re seeing across the country is that AIPAC’s super PAC is often spending as much as the campaigns themselves are spending. Partly this is the result of Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision in 2010 that created super PACs, which are these entities that can accept unlimited amounts of money and spend unlimited money as long as they are theoretically not coordinated with the campaign. And it’s also the result of the fact that AIPAC and allied establishment pro-Israel organizations saw a threat starting in 2019, when people like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were elected to Congress, and have decided to spend virtually unlimited amounts of money to ensure that their brand of politics, which is more pro-Palestinian rights, but which is also more progressive on economic issues, does not become the future of the Democratic Party.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Peter, could you talk about what you discovered in terms of connections or ties between groups like Mainstream Democrats and other pro-Israel lobbyists, like the Democratic Majority for Israel?
PETER BEINART: Yes. One of the things that I found is that very often when these establishment pro-Israel organizations target a progressive candidate, those candidates are also targeted by groups that are not focused on Israel-Palestine but simply want to defeat that person because that person may be to progressive on questions of healthcare, or they may support the Green New Deal.
So, there’s a group called Mainstream Democrats. If you look at their website, it says nothing about Israel-Palestine whatsoever. It just says it doesn’t want the Democratic Party to be taken over by far-left groups. But Mainstream Democrats is actually run by Democratic Majority for Israel. So what you see is this very, very close alliance. They work out of the same offices with the same staff, so, essentially, this extremely close relationship between groups that want to defeat progressives because they support Palestinian rights, and groups that just want to defeat progressives because they essentially want the Democratic Party to be dominated by people like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who will do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry, the healthcare industry, the financial services industry.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how successful have these efforts been in the past? Amy mentioned the races of Nina Turner in Ohio and Jessica Cisneros in Texas, both of whom were targeted by AIPAC and both of whom lost their races. What’s been the track record of these efforts?
PETER BEINART: These efforts, sadly, have been very successful. There have been a couple of races — one in Pennsylvania, one in Illinois — where the progressive candidates were able to win. But in most cases, the candidates targeted have lost. And even when the targeted candidates don’t lose, it has a chilling effect. Politicians out there see this and think, “I do not want millions and millions of dollars dumped into a House race against me,” and so what it tends to do is lead candidates who might be more inclined to take progressive positions on Palestinian rights or on other issues to instead keep their heads down and not take those positions in order to try to avoid the kind of attacks that other progressives have faced.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let me ask you, back on Donna Edwards’ race, Peter — you have the speaker of the House, right, Nancy Pelosi, who actually comes from Maryland, though she represents San Francisco, coming out in full support of Donna Edwards. Now, while most of the big money spent in the race has come from AIPAC-aligned super PAC, the ads funded by the so-called United Democracy Project don’t mention the Middle East. And I wanted then to talk about Nancy Pelosi, who really came out and attacked the kind of money, the attack ads by the AIPAC-aligned groups, like United Democracy Project, prompting this response in June from House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi. This is what she said.
SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: When Donna Edwards first represented Maryland’s 4th Congressional District — and that was for nearly a decade — she was one of the most effective members in Congress. Donna fought hard for Prince George’s County, for jobs and investments in her community, to help constituents in need and to deliver results. As speaker and then as leader, I knew I could always count on Donna Edwards as a valued member of our leadership team.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Nancy Pelosi endorsing Donna Edwards. Now, the ads often, and the candidates who are supported by these massive — I mean, the massive amount of money, millions, in the case of this campaign, going to her opponent — they’re not raising the issue of Israel and Palestine, right? And also, let’s be clear: There are other pro-Israel groups, like J Street, more progressive, that supports Donna Edwards.
PETER BEINART: Yes, but J Street doesn’t have — only has a small fraction of the amount of money that AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel have on the other side. But you’re exactly right. In almost none of these races do the attack ads actually have anything to do with the actual agenda of the organizations that are paying for them. And that’s because AIPAC and DMFI know that not very many voters in these districts actually really care that much about Israel-Palestine. They care about local issues.
So, what AIPAC does is it — and DMFI do, they do poll testing. And they attack people on these kind of — whatever they think may gain traction. So, in Ohio, in the Nina Turner race, because Nina Turner was a Bernie Sanders supporter who had been critical of Joe Biden, they painted her as not a loyal Democrat. In the case of Donna Edwards, they’re claiming that she didn’t provide good constituent service when she was the congresswoman early on — as if AIPAC or DMFI could care less about the level of constituent service that Donna Edwards provided to her constituents when she was a congresswoman. I mean, it’s transparent nonsense, right? It’s just that this is their vehicle for trying to defeat her, because Donna Edwards in the past has shown some minimal — right? She’s hardly radical on this subject — but just some modest concern for Palestinian human rights. For that reason, they want to defeat her.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the role of Bakari Sellers in these campaigns?
PETER BEINART: Yes. So, Bakari Sellers is a former South Carolina politician with close ties to AIPAC who has been — now heads another super PAC that is devoted primarily at this point to defeating Rashida Tlaib in Michigan. And its claim is that it’s an organization that wants to elect Black Democrats. And Rashida Tlaibhas a Black opponent, but, again, this is also transparent nonsense — as if AIPAC and its donors are really concerned about increasing Black representation.
They’re going after Rashida Tlaib for one reason only: because she’s a Palestinian member of Congress who is a passionate and eloquent defender of the humanity of Palestinians, and she brings that issue to the fore in Congress like no one else does. But again, because that agenda itself, if laid out nakedly, would not be very popular, you have these transparent claims that it’s really about something else — in this way, about the claim that somehow because she’s not Black, she can’t represent a district in Michigan, even though, in fact, she has strong Black support and has been a very, very tireless defender of the people in her district of all races.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Peter, interestingly, there is also a governor’s race in Maryland, and both competitive primaries in both the Democratic and the Republican parties to elect a successor to the Republican Governor Hogan. But has AIPAC been involved in those races at all, or is it only concentrating on these congressional races?
PETER BEINART: AIPAC’s focus has overwhelmingly been not just in congressional races, but in Democratic primaries in congressional races. AIPAC’s assessment has been that because of partisan polarization, there are fewer swing districts, which means that more often than in the past the member of Congress is chosen in the primary. They also have noticed that there are an unusually large number of open House seats this year because of redistrict and retirement. And they like to do open House races, because once an incumbent has been elected in our system, they can be difficult to dislodge. So what this play is really about is trying to create a whole new generation of younger Democrats in Congress who will toe the AIPAC line on Israel-Palestine, also in many, many cases, also take a kind of more pro-corporate position, and therefore blunt the trend that we were seeing towards the Democratic Party moving in a more progressive direction.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, but this is new, right, AIPAC having this kind of super PAC?
PETER BEINART: Yes. AIPAC, despite its name, never had a political action committee,but it saw, essentially, that it needed to roll out the big guns in response to the trends that we saw with the election of the Squad members. And it has extraordinary financial resources at its disposal. Several people, for instance, have given a million — written million-dollar checks already, and the money is still being tabulated.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents. We’ll link to your new piece, “Israel Lobby’s New Campaign Playbook: Israel advocacy groups have developed strategies to raise huge sums for their candidates by appealing to corporate interests.”
Coming up, we turn to the pioneering legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who has launched a counteroffensive against right-wing attacks targeting critical race theory. It is Freedom Summer this week around the country. That’s right, a summer school for CRT. Stay with us.
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https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/354365
no lnx many
Challenging SJP Chicago’s lies
The Horowitz Center’s leaflets expose Jew-hatred and toxic radicalism. Op-ed.
03.06.22 07:00
Antisemitism
SJP
Dr. Richard L. Cravatts
[SJP protest
William Stadtwald Demchick]
In yet another revealing example of its hypocrisy and obtuseness when assessing the consequences of its own behavior, the University of Chicago’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was again whining about being victimized by ideological opponents.
What was SJP’s complaint this time? In a letter to the editor in the university’s newspaper, The Chicago Maroon, SJP expressed its displeasure with the fact that on May 23rd, “the David Horowitz Freedom Center plastered more than 5,000 leaflets on and around campus demonizing Palestinian and pro-Palestinian students.”
Employing its tired tactic of whining that any effort by SJP’s critics is motivated by a desire to shut down any support of Palestinian self-determination, the letter preposterously suggested that the leaflets were posted on campus solely “in order to muzzle and disparage pro-Palestinian activism . . . .”
More absurdly, SJP claimed that the Horowitz Center's “work aims to censor and misrepresent our academic production and to create an environment of surveillance and fear surrounding scholarship about Palestine.”
One could make many claims about its role on the 200 or so campuses where SJP has chapters, but few would ever suggest that the toxic radicalism of the group—and the resulting effect it has on their respective campuses—amounts to “scholarship” or “academic production.” Perhaps SJP believes that by bringing perennially Jew-hating radicals like Rashid Khalidi to speak on the Chicago campus, one of the events included in the leaflet, they are promoting scholarship, but that is not the case.
When guest speakers accuse Israel of being the new incarnation of the Third Reich and when they malign and slander the Jewish state with accusations lacking any basis in fact or history, this is not, despite SJP’s contention, an example of “scholarship about Palestine”; rather, it is hatred disguised as debate about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
When Khalidi spoke, for example, according to the Horowitz leaflet, he “demonized Israel, accusing the Jewish state of ‘settler colonialism’ and ‘occupation,’ and claiming falsely that Israel attempts to terrify the Palestinians to achieve dominance rather than to ensure the nation's safety: ‘I don't think it's security [for Israel that] fully describes accurately what is at stake here. What is at stake is actually dominance and hegemony when Israeli soldiers are kicking down doors and scaring children in the night . . . .’”
What is most revealing in SJP’s baleful letter to the editor is its inability to see how its complaint about the corrosive effect of the leaflet on the University’s community mirrors exactly the effect SJP has had for a decade or more on the campuses that have experienced the hostility and aggression of their pro-Palestinian activism. The leaflets, SJP suggested in its letter. “go so far as to incite hostility and hate against and within our community. They inhibit our capacity to work and study, to commune, to feel safe.”
It is not clear what SJP means when they refer to “our community,” but that community clearly does not include U Chicago’s Jewish students, who, like Jewish students and other supporters of Israel at other campuses around the country, have been ideologically assaulted by SJP in an unrelenting campaign of lies, slanders, and distortions of history and fact, boycott resolutions, and accusations against Israel of racism and apartheid as part of SJP’s campaign to malign and destroy the Jewish state. The group clearly could not care less whether Jewish students have a “capacity to work and study, to commune, to feel safe.”
In fact, as has been documented by the AMCHA Initiative and others who track anti-Semitism on campuses, BDS activity on a campus—and especially when orchestrated by SJP or other anti-Israel groups—frequently creates a hostile climate for Jewish students and often manifests itself as raw anti-Semitism. As one AMCHA report noted, “the consideration of anti-Israel divestment resolutions in student government or by the student body was strongly linked to a surge in anti-Semitic activity,” and campuses that have an SJP chapter have witnessed a higher incidence of anti-Semitic speech and expression as a direct result of its radicalism and activism.
In November 2021, for example, as the leaflet outlined, “SJP at U. Chicago published an art zine titled ‘Cheers to Intifada.’ The zine promoted terrorism against Israel and contained violent imagery including a graphic of two lit Molotov cocktails raised in a toast . . .The zine was also rife with anti-Semitism including an image of a pig wearing a policeman's hat with a Jewish star on it. Poems in the publication promoted ancient blood libel tropes against Jews such as one describing a Jewish teenager who held Palestinians captive and had ‘animalistic lust yearning to rape bodies.’
SJP may consider this type of perverse, anti-Semitic, and genocidal propaganda to be “academic production” and “scholarship about Palestine,” but in a sane world, it represents a poisonous and hateful ideology in which fellow Jewish students are the enemies of good, are racists, support an apartheid state, deserve to be victims of an intifada which has as its objective to murder Jews wherever they are in the name of Palestinian self-determination. On no university campus, and certainly not at an institution with the reputation and quality as the University of Chicago, would this type of banal radicalism pass for scholarship, let alone acceptable academic discourse.
As they have on other campuses, SJP Chicago has also worked aggressively to promote BDS resolutions and to push a statement of solidarity for the Palestinian cause through its student government. “In June 2021,” the leaflet noted, “SJP published a lengthy statement calling on the College Council to ‘vote “NO” on the resolution to retract [the University Student Government's] statement of solidarity and support for Palestine.’ SJP's statement promoted Jew hatred and demonized Israel, calling campus supporters of the Jewish state ‘student body apartheid apologists,’ and denying Israel's self-determination by calling for the ‘abolition of a violent political state [of Israel].’”
In April, at the behest of SJP, The Chicago Maroon, retracted an op-ed written by two students, “We Must Condemn the SJP’s Online Anti-Semitism,” who questioned SJP’s tactics and ideology.
On January 26th, as the op-ed by Melody Dias and Benjamin ZeBrack noted, SJP had posted on its Instagram page the shocking admonition, “DON’T TAKE SH*TTY ZIONIST CLASSES.” Students were asked to “Support the Palestinian movement for liberation by boycotting classes on Israel or those taught by Israeli fellows.” According to the SJP post, any students who enrolled in these classes would be “participating in a propaganda campaign that creates complicity in the continuation of Israel’s occupation of Palestine” and that, in its view, “Israeli-centered classes are designed to obscure Palestinian perspectives.”
Characteristic of their reaction to anyone who answers back to their corrosive activism, SJP was incensed that anyone had the gall to question their tactics and motives. Another post on the SJP Instagram account in response to the Dias-ZeBrack op-ed expressed the defective view often held by anti-Semites that “To frame this call as ‘anti-Jewish’ not only perpetuates the dangerous (and wholly false) conflation of Jewishness and Zionism, but also deliberately diverts attention from the ongoing ethnic cleansing that the israeli [sic] colony has been inflicting on Palestinian lands and peoples from its inception to the present.”
The widely-adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, as many know, stipulates that, in many instances, attacks on Zionism can be considered anti-Semitic, particularly when those attacks are attempts to deny Jewish self-determination or when Zionism is classified as a racist, oppressive endeavor, so despite SJP’s claim that the claim is both dangerous and wholly false, experts in these matters—and not biased, anti-Semitic ideologues—have determined that there is support for Dias and LeBrack’s views.
Nevertheless, SJP demanded of the Maroon’s editors, “in response to these offenses,” the “Immediate deletion of the article,” a “public apology issued by the Maroon to SJP UChicago and to Palestinian students for the dissemination of misinformation and the disregard of journalistic integrity and factual reporting,” and, most ominously, “a public recommitment to ensuring that all columns and articles abide by expected standards of accuracy and truth, particularly those written by Zionist authors or on behalf of Zionist organizations.” [Emphasis added.] In other words, SJP requested a separate standard of exclusionary journalistic ethics and practice when Israel, Zionism, and Jews are involved.
Astoundingly, in response to SJP’s absurd demands, twofecklesseditors, Kelly Hui and Elizabeth Winkler, not only deleted the offending op-ed but published a craven, apologetic editorial of their own in which they dissected the op-ed for its perceived factual inaccuracies and justified their decision by claiming that it was the op-ed written by the pro-Israel supporters which could be the source of campus enmity, not the original action of SJP in calling for a boycott of courses about Israel.
“We condemn the pitting of Jewish and Palestinian students against one another,” they wrote, “and we deeply regret the extent to which the op-ed’s factual inaccuracies—which we should not have published—perpetuated such a harmful dynamic.” Of course, in addition to the editors’ outrageously inappropriate action in removing an opinion piece from The Chicago Maroon, written as a response to a campaign of demonization and delegitimization of Israel and Zionism by the chronically toxic activists of SJP, they compounded the offense by suggesting that sections of the op-ed contribute to “pitting of Jewish and Palestinian students against one another.” No, actually, it was SJP’s poisonous attacks on anything Zionist on campus and its initial call for “shitty” Zionist courses to be boycotted that pit pro-Israel students against pro-Palestinians, not op-eds that correct misinformation or defend Israel.
Only on university campuses where perceived victims can attack their alleged oppressors with any calumny, untruth, slander, and allegation they choose—without repercussions—could a group like Students for Justice in Palestine continue to operate with impunity, attacking Jewish students and other supporters of Israel with impunity and creating a hostile campus climate in their radical wake as it does.
But SJP at Chicago clearly does not fully understand the notion of academic free speech: that the same opportunity they have to spout their hateful rhetoric and promote their toxic ideology is also enjoyed by the group’s ideological opponents.
When pro-Israel students, guest speakers, events, courses, or even leaflets distributed around campus seek to expose SJP’s true nature—with facts and examples as opposed to lies and narratives—SJP may be inconvenienced by having to finally defend its views in a robust and equitable marketplace of ideas, not its own echo chamber where its lies are never challenged and its toxic Jew-hatred is never named for what it is.
Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D.,is a Freedom Center Journalism Fellow in Academic Free Speech and President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and the author of Jew-Hatred Rising: The Perversities of the Campus War Against Israel and Jews.
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Ocasio-Cortez takes a stand against Biden over Israel
With time running out to act, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday introduced a resolution aimed at blocking the Biden administration's proposed sale of $735...
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almost 30 Dems. arms sales stop?
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/gaza-2653011635
salon
Far right pundits cheered the Israeli airstrike that leveled a building in Gaza Saturday housing several international news outlets, including The Associated Press, Al Jazeera and the BBC.
The Israel Defense Forces later said the militant group Hamas had "military intelligence assets" in the building — though as of Sunday afternoon no evidence supporting the claims had been made public.
The bombing, broadcast live television by several journalists who had just escaped the blast, quickly gained widespread media attention Saturday due to the nature of the attack, which drew condemnation from many press freedom advocates around the globe.
Yet, right-wing pundits on Twitter had a different view on it all — they celebrated and jeered at the destruction.
Senior columnist at the right-wing site Townhall, Kurt Schlichter, called those who carried out the bombing "heroes," while seemingly finding pleasure in the attack. "Let's stop pretending that the media is not a participant and that it is somehow entitled to not be treated like every other active enemy," he declared.
Let’s stop pretending that the media is not a participant and that it is somehow entitled to not be treated like every other active enemy.
— Kurt Schlichter (@Kurt Schlichter)1621090669.0
Popular conservative Twitter pundit, Stephen L. Miller, who is currently a contributor at the conservative opinion site The Spectator, reacted by mocking the bombing with a meme of a lady smiling....[twt]
Former Newsmax TV host John Cardillo wrote on Twitter: "Looks like the IDF took out Hamas's PR team," while fellow right-wing Twitter pal David Reaboi called the bombing "based," a term coined by the rapper Lil B to signal that one agrees or approves of a statement.
"Just warms your heart to see," a contributing editor for right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire, Harry Khachatrian, responded to the attack.
@davereaboi Probably watched this a dozen times already, what a great start to the weekend
— Harry Khachatrian
Many online also tried to draw spurious connections between the destruction and last summer's Black Lives Matter protests.
GOP operative Arthur Schwartz, who is known for losing his coolafter a waiter spilled steak sauce on him while dining with Trump, tweeted, "Black Lives Matter, Inc. thugs burned and looted American cities, we're now told that property damage is a big deal? What's different here?"
No journalists were reported injured as a result of the airstrike. According to several firsthand reports from inside the building, residents and workers were warned ahead of time that the bombing would occur, sparking a mad scramble to evacuate the premises.[10 min?!]
"I have been covering lots of events from this building. We have lots of good memories with our colleagues," Safwat al-Kahlout, a reporter for Al Jazeera, said. "Now everything, in two seconds, just vanished."
The AP reports at least 188 Palestinians were killed this week in the most recent round of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. That number includes 55 children and 33 women, with more than a thousand wounded. Eight people in Israel have died from rocket attacks launched from Gaza.
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sent in a bit of vax on bad press
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an 221
in game-changer, ICC will take up Israeli war crimes and apartheid in Palestine
On Friday, the International Criminal Court found that it had jurisdiction to consider war crimes and crimes against humanity and the crime of apartheid in the Palestinian...
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===zoom Censorship of Palestine Seminars Sparks Fight Over Academic Freedom
Alice Speri, Sam Biddle
morocco is 4th cty to estb dipl tues to israel, trump ok'd anexxation
https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/state-department-plan-to-declare-human-rights-groups-anti-semitic-slammed-as-desperate-and-obscene/
no lnx twt
State Department plan to declare human rights groups 'anti-semitic' slammed as 'desperate' and 'obscene'
Brett Wilkins and Common Dreams October 22, 2020
The Trump administration is considering designating several preeminent international human rights groups "anti-Semitic" in response to their criticism of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, according to a report published Wednesday.
Politico reports the State Department could as early as this week declare groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam to be anti-Semitic organizations and urge world governments to stop supporting them.
A congressional aide told Politico that the move is backed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who reportedly has presidential aspirations and is burnishing his Zionist credentials while serving in what is arguably the most pro-Israel administration ever.
The proposal is highly controversial, however, and has raised eyebrows and ire among career State Department officials including attorneys who argue the potential designation poses serious free speech concerns.
The declaration would likely take the form of a report from Elan Carr, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. It would likely cite the groups' criticism of Israeli policies and actions, as well as their actual or perceived support for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), the peaceful global protest movement for Palestinian rights that is backed by prominent Jewish peace groups. None of the targeted organizations officially support BDS.
Carr's report is expected to cite posts, reports, and media statements by the rights groups criticizing Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, as well as the exclusively Jewish settler colonization of Palestinian territory, which is also illegal under international law. Both the occupation and settlements have been the subject of dozens of United Nations resolutions, most of them condemning Israel's actions.
Settlement building and expansion have also been called a form of ethnic cleansing and apartheid by international observers, icluding over 400 Jewish scholars and the former U.N. human rights official Richard Falk—who is also Jewish.
It is unclear what, if any, impact the proposed anti-Semitic designation would have on the rights groups. None of the three named groups receive any funding from the U.S. government. All three categorically deny accusations of anti-Semitism.
"AIUSA is deeply committed to fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of hate worldwide, and will continue to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth, and dignity are denied," Amnesty International USA iterim director Bob Goodfellow said in a statement. "We vigorously contest any allegation of anti-Semitism, and look forward to addressing the State Department's attacks in full."
Eric Goldstein, an official with HRW, said in a statement that his organization "fight[s] discrimination in all forms, including anti-Semitism."
"Criticizing government policy is not the same as attacking a specific group of people," added Goldstein. "For example, our critiques of U.S. government policy do not make us anti-American."
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920 an
omg
us mil in afgan, but also israeli palestine
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xian zionist schizo? anti-semitic?!
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dn 820
Israeli Military Attacks Gaza for 10th Consecutive Day
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FEBRUARY 10, 2020
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
Columbia University’s Rashid Khaliditalked about the history of the Israel-Palestine Conflict from 1917-2017.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?469160-1/the-hundred-years-war-palestine
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2nd hr?
author interview
https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-february-24-2020/
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220 intercept
David Sheen
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/buried-in-the-trump-netanyahu-deal-is-an-effort-to-torpedo-a-war-crimes-investigation/
no lnx
Buried in the Trump-Netanyahu deal is an effort to ‘torpedo’ a war crimes investigation
[President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence participate in an expanded bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday, Jan. 27, 2020, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)]
Written by Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams January 29, 2020
As the International Criminal Court moved forward this week with its investigation into alleged war crimes committed against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, the White House’s new so-called “peace” plan includes a largely unreported provision that would end such efforts to hold the Israeli government to account.
The document, released Tuesday, was widely criticized as a “screw the Palestinians over harder non-peace plan” that lets Israel continue its illegal occupation and a “ludicrous” proposal that offers no path towards Palestinian statehood.
The plan’s architect, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner, suggested Palestinians “take a cold shower” and accept it lest they “screw up,” he said, like with “every other opportunity that they’ve ever had in their existence.”
A portion of the document states that “the parties should conduct themselves in a manner that comports with this vision, and in a way that prepares their respective peoples for peace.” For the Palestinians, that means victims of war crimes should keep quiet.
The plan states, in part, that Palestinians must take “no action, and shall dismiss all pending actions, against the State of Israel, the United States, and any of their citizens before the International Criminal Court” and other tribunals.
A portion of the White House's "Peace to Prosperity" plan released Jan. 28, 2020.
The provision drew criticism from Amnesty International.
“A just and sustainable peace requires a plan that prioritizes the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis, and must include justice and reparation for victims of war crimes and other grave violations. This plan not only fails this fundamental test; it seeks to torpedo efforts towards justice for both Palestinians and Israelis that are currently under way,” said Philip Luther, the organization’s Middle East and North Africa research and advocacy director.
Netanyahu, who was indicted Tuesday on corruption charges and stood alongside Trump as he released the plan, reiterated his condemnation of the ICC this week.
In an interview set to air Thursday with Christian network TBN, he called on global powers to sanction the court over the probe.
“The U.S. government, under President Trump, has spoken forcefully against the ICC for this travesty, and I urge all your viewers to do the same. To ask for concrete actions, sanction against the international court, its officials, prosecutors, everyone,” he said, according to an excerpt of the interview released by the Israeli government.
The internation court, he continued, is “basically in a full-frontal attack on the democracies, both on the democracies’ right to defend themselves, and on Israel’s right, the Jewish people’s right, to live in their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel.”
Michael Lynk, the U.N. special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, has a different perspective. In December, Lynk praised the possibility of justice the investigation could bring.
“Over the years, the international community has adopted hundreds of resolutions through the United Nations condemning various features of Israel’s entrenched occupation of the Palestinian territory. Yet rarely has it ever combined criticism with consequences for Israel,” he said. “Now, the possibility of accountability is finally on the horizon.”
Trump has bristled at the possibility of the probe into alleged Israeli wrongdoing as well.
In a statement last April celebrating his administration’s successful intimidation campaign to stop an ICC investigation into alleged war crimes the U.S. committed in Afghanistan, Trump said, “Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response.”
Despite U.S. and Israeli objections to the ICC probe into war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza, the effort—at least at this point—continues to advance.
The ICC announced Tuesday that it set a March 16 deadline for Israel, Palestine, and alleged victims to submit documents to the court.
Situation in #Palestine: #ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I invites Palestine, #Israel, interested States & others to submit observations on the Prosecutor’s request related to the scope of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction. Read more ?https://t.co/cwIfEEfY0W
— Int’l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) January 28, 2020
ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in December that “there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine” as she was “satisfied that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip,” and “there are no substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/it-is-a-war-plan-trump-netanyahu-deal-decried-as-shameful-attack-on-palestinian-rights
no lnx
‘It is a war plan’: Trump-Netanyahu deal decried as shameful attack on Palestinian rights
President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, in the East Room of the White House to unveil details of the Trump administration’s Middle East Peace Plan. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)]
Written by Julia Conley / Common Dreams January 28, 2020
Human rights advocates condemned U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “annexation plan” for large swaths of Palestinian territory as the two leaders on Tuesday presented what they termed a “peace deal” for Israel and Palestine.
Critics joined Palestinian leaders in rejecting the premise of the so-called “vision for peace,” which was drafted by the White House and Netanyahu without the input of Palestinians.
The resulting plan is “shameful and disingenuous,” tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
They could have guaranteed justice, and brought everyone into this peace deal.
Instead these two embattled heads of state, impeached and indicted, have a “ just us” peace deal.
It’s shameful and disingenuous! https://t.co/THIniOEv8B
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 28, 2020
The plan aims to expand and make official Israeli control of Palestinian territories while assuring Palestine that it will be afforded “a pathway to a future state”—but one that will have no military of its own and in which Israel will maintain security control over some areas.
“This is not a peace plan,” tweeted Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. “It is a war plan.”
This is not a peace plan, it is a war plan.
A war on peace
A war on justice
A war on freedom
A war on equality
A war on Palestinian existence
— (((YousefMunayyer))) (@YousefMunayyer) January 28, 2020
“It’s stunning that Donald Trump doesn’t know that this is insulting to Palestinians,” tweeted James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute.
It’s stunning that @realDonaldTrump doesn’t know that this is insulting to Palestinians. It’s not a “state” it’s a “Bantustan.” Palestinians lose more land w/out sovereignty & independence. Israel gets more land & keeps settlements. It’s Trump’s plan to try to legalize illegality https://t.co/RDE6iJ0krf
— James J. Zogby (@jjz1600) January 28, 2020
“This plan is simply a rubber stamp for the Israeli government’s continuing violations of international law, separate-and-unequal policies, land grabs, and human rights abuses against the Palestinian people,” said the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights in a statement. “Any attempt to address the Israeli-Palestinian issue that does not begin and end with the full acknowledgment of the Palestinian right to self-determination, freedom, justice, and equality is a non-starter.”
Major points within the deal include:
Jerusalem will be established as Israel’s “undivided” capitol, undermining Palestinians’ aim to recognize East Jerusalem as their capitol;
the recognition of the majority of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine;
the recognition of the Jordan Valley, which makes up a third of the occupied West Bank, as part of Israel; and
the refusal by Israel to grant Palestinians the “right to return” to their homes lost in the Six-Day War and other conflicts.
Palestinians in occupied territories held protests on Tuesday ahead of the deal’s announcement. Larger demonstrations are planned for Wednesday.
“I am not against peace, but what is being talked about is not peace,” Ahmed Shafiq, a student in Gaza, told The Guardian. “Peace is not imposed on people.”
The so-called “peace deal” amounts to “an endorsement of Israel’s aggression, allowing it to take over whatever Palestinian lands it wants and punishing the victims for daring to object to having their homeland stolen,” said Omar Baddar, deputy director of the Arab American Institute, in a short video the group released.
Want to know why this “ultimate deal” is a sham & a disgrace that will never lead to peace? @OmarBaddar explains:#DealOfTheCentury #Apartheid pic.twitter.com/1k9Ig0q9ND
— Arab American Instit. (@AAIUSA) January 28, 2020
A map released showing Trump and Netanyahu’s vision for the future of Palestine resembled “a Native American reservation” more than a sovereign state, said entrepreneur Shahed Amanullah.
This doesn’t look like a state. It looks like a Native American reservation. https://t.co/ZwHMt0L0V7 pic.twitter.com/S2gO5gdV4t
— Shahed Amanullah (@shahed) January 28, 2020
“This is not a peace plan,” tweeted Omar. “It is theft. It is erasure.”
Munayyer of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights called on Americans and the international community to reject Trump’s attempt to “whitewash the apartheid reality alongside his Israeli partners-in-war-crimes.”
“The only suitable response from people of conscience is to reject this effort and demand immediate accountability for Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights,” Munayyer said. “The separate-and-unequal reality the Israeli government has imposed on Palestinians, with the support of the U.S., flies in the face of the values Americans claim to uphold. Freedom, justice, and equality for Palestinians is the only way forward.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from occupied Palestine, slammed Trump and Netanyahu for releasing the plan as both are facing re-election campaigns and legal battles.
“It’s fitting that the Trump-Netanyahu plan was released by a forever impeached president on the same day that Netanyahu was indicted for corruption,” Tlaib tweeted. “This political stunt gets us no closer to peace or justice.”
It’s fitting that the @realDonaldTrump–@netanyahu “plan” was released by a forever impeached President on the same day that Netanyahu was indicted for corruption.
This political stunt gets us no closer to peace or justice. As a member of Congress, I consider it a non-starter. https://t.co/PIYYZ75PWc
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) January 28, 2020
“This is a political ploy by both leaders to distract from their abuse of power, designed to help Netanyahu win the election in less than six weeks,” Emily Meyer, co-founder of Jewish progressive group If Not Now, said in a statement. “The plan itself is a plan for permanent Israeli military occupation and control, not a plan for peace. It is simply a continuation of Trump’s strategy since entering office: to disenfranchise Palestinians and deny their rights, their agency, and even their identity.”
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https://yyy.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/sep/27/the-palestinian-entrepreneur-bringing-power-to-gaza-majd-mashharawi
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UN researcher hails ICC’s pursuit of war crimes probe in Palestine as ‘momentous step’
Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams
A United Nations human rights researcher on Tuesday hailed the International Criminal Court’s recent decision to pursue a formal investigation of alleged war crimes in Palestinian territories occupied by Israel…
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‘Guantanamo on domestic soil’: The Trump administration is using an obscure provision of the Patriot Act to indefinitely detain a Palestinian manAlex Henderson
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aha: djt trying to shore up the core of the base, not just evang but dominionist?!
1119 bibi corruption charges
coup rhet
us djt declares settlements legal; bernie pro-palestine in campaign
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no lnx 919
REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER SEEKS TO MUZZLE STUDENTS CRITICAL OF ISRAEL
Josh Ruebner
9 August 2019
Misleadingly-named Anti-Semitism Awareness Act introduced in US House of Representatives just before summer recess.
REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER SEEKS TO MUZZLE STUDENTS CRITICAL OF ISRAEL
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/josh-ruebner/republican-lawmaker-seeks-muzzle-students-critical-israel
The misleadingly-named Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2019 has been introduced to the US House of Representatives shortly before its summer recess.
Republican lawmaker Doug Collins, who proposed the bill, is portraying it as “an effective tool for investigating whether prohibited discriminatory actions have become a barrier to learning” in universities.
As the legislation notes, however, the Department of Education already is empowered to investigate incidents of anti-Semitism as a form of discrimination.
A careful reading of its text suggests that its real intent is to muzzle students and teachers who oppose Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.
The bill had earlier this year been introduced in the US Senate by Tim Scott, another Republican lawmaker.
It embraces the working definition of anti-Semitism approved in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), a body bringing together 33 governments.
That definition is accompanied by several “examples” of anti-Semitism. They include claims that Israel’s foundation was a “racist endeavor” and “applying double standards” to Israel by requiring from it “behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
These examples affect political speech clearly protected by the First Amendment of the US constitution.
For example, students could run afoul of these examples by advocating for a one-state solution in Palestine, by hosting a speaker addressing Israel’s separate-and-unequal policies which discriminate between Jews and non-Jews, and running campus campaigns to boycott Israeli products or divest university funds from corporations profiting from Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.
If the new bill were to become law, then the US Department of Education would be required to “take into consideration” these types of examples when assessing if an incident reported on US campuses was “motivated by anti-Semitic intent.”
A university which does not take action against students or teachers accused of anti-Semitism – based on their advocacy for Palestinian rights – could potentially lose federal funding.
New power to stifle activism
With passage of this bill, the US Congress would provide the Trump administration with powerful new statutory authority to further police and crack down on campus speech for Palestinian rights, a process well underway already.
When Donald Trump was running for president ahead of the 2016 election, his campaign team pledged to stifle campus activism for Palestinian rights. Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, who at the time served as the co-chairs of Trump’s Israel Advisory Committee committed the future Trump administration to “ask the Justice Department to investigate coordinated attempts on college campuses to intimidate students who support Israel.”
Greenblatt now serves as Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, while Friedman is the US ambassador to Israel.
The Trump administration has delivered on its threat. Last year The Intercept published an exposé on the FBI’s use of the Canary Mission – a shadowy pro-Israel group – to question college students advocating for Palestinian rights.
The Trump administration also has attempted to crack down on Palestine activism on campus by nominating Kenneth Marcus as the assistant secretary for civil rights for the Department of Education.
Previously, Marcus was president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
In that capacity, he filed or otherwise supported complaints against Palestinian rights campaigners by alleging that their activities violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That provision bans discrimination based on race and national origin in all bodies receiving federal funding.
Last year, Marcus wrote a letter to the Zionist Organization of America announcing that the Office of Civil Rights was now using the controversial IHRA definition and examples of anti-Semitism to guide its investigations. He had not given any prior notice of that decision to the public.
The organization Palestine Legal argued at the time that Marcus was “sending a clear signal that attacking free speech for Palestinian rights is at the top of his agenda.”
The so-called Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is a dangerous attempt by Congress to retroactively provide Marcus with the legal authority to justify his use of this controversial definition to further muzzle campus criticism of Israel.
- Doug Collins
- International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
- Tim Scott
- Donald Trump
- Jason Greenblatt
- David Friedman
- FBI
- Canary Mission
- Kenneth Marcus
- Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights
- Zionist Organization of America
- Palestine Legal
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trump tax lawyer replaced by non-enitity
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919
AN
Netanyahu vows to annex large swathes of West Bank ‘in maximum coordination with Trump’Jake Johnson / Common Dreams
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NYT presents murder of a Palestinian boy as ‘national trauma’—for Jewish Israelis
HBO has a series based on a real-life crime in Israel—a 2014 case involving (in the New York Times‘ words) “a Palestinian teenager snatched off a Jerusalem street by Orthodox…
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no lnx
Palestinians dismiss economic portion of Kushner plan as dead-on-arrival
written by Jon Queally / Common Dreams June 24, 2019
The economic proposal purportedly designed to help foment Israeli-Palestinian peace and made public over the weekend by Jared Kushner, top advisor and son-in-law to President Donald Trump, fell predictably flat as Palestinians rejected it immediately as not tethered to reality and an insult to those who continue to struggle while living under the U.S.-backed military occupation of the Israelis.
Part of what has become know as Kushner’s “Deal of the Century” proposal to end the Israel-Palestine conflict, it was treated as largely unserious by Palestinians and those who advocate for their liberation.
According to Reuters:
The “peace to prosperity” plan, set to be presented by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner at an international conference in Bahrainnext week, includes 179 infrastructure and business projects, according to details of the plan and interviews with U.S. officials. The approach towards reviving the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process was criticized by the Palestinians on Saturday.
The ambitious economic revival plan, the product of two years of work by Kushner and other aides, would take place only if a political solution to the region’s long-running problems is reached.
More than half of the $50 billion would be spent in the economically troubled Palestinian territories over 10 years while the rest would be split between Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. Some of the projects would be in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, where investments could benefit Palestinians living in adjacent Gaza, a crowded and impoverished coastal enclave.
The answer from Palestinians — abrupt and dismissive — was emphatic: the proposal is a nonstarter.
“Palestine is not for sale,” said the Hamas government in Gaza in response.
In an interview on Al-Jazeera, Palestinian rights activist Ali Abunimah, co-founder and editor of the Electric Intifada, was incredulous and saidKushner — who has a “real credibility problem” to begin with — “can’t tell us he cares about ending poverty for Palestinians while inflicting more poverty on them.”
As opposed to something that anyone who has seriously studied the issue would dare present as a serious solution, Abunimah characterized it as nothing more than “slick marketing” and the “repackaging of recycled and hollow slogans that fail to address the root problem: Israeli occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.”
Watch:]
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, echoed others in the Palestine Authority who said that it makes no sense to talk about economic investments until the political crisis at the heart of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands is ended.
“First lift the siege of Gaza,stop the Israeli theft of our land, resources and funds, give us our freedom of movement and control over our borders, airspace, territorial waters etc.,” Ashrawi said on Saturday. “Then watch us build a vibrant prosperous economy as a free and sovereign people.”
Trump’s economic apartheid plan has been met with a resoundingly cold reception on all fronts: Israeli officials dismiss it as irrelevant, neighboring Arab states call it a bribe, and Palestinians say it fails to address any genuine political aspirations. https://t.co/j0Vq72xvD0 pic.twitter.com/67V42p1upf
— The IMEU (@theIMEU) June 23, 2019
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the same as he rejected the proposal on Saturday. “The economic situation should not be discussed before the political one,” Abbas said. “As long as there is no political solution, we do not deal with any economic solution.”
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619 secret plan out jared? $ to help ppl?
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https://YYY.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/04/usa.israelandthepalestinians
susan goldberg
the Bush administration, caught out by the rise of Hamas, embarked on a secret project for the armed overthrow of the Islamist government in Gaza, it emerged yesterday.
Vanity Fair reports in its April edition that President George Bush and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, signed off on a plan for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to remove the Hamas authorities in Gaza. The plan called for Washington's allies in the region to funnel arms and salaries to Fatah fighters who would lead a rising against Hamas.
But the project was controversial even within the administration, the magazine reports. "There were severe fissures among neoconservatives over this," David Wurmser, a former Middle East adviser to the vice-president, Dick Cheney, told the magazine. "We were ripping each other to pieces."
Wurmser resigned his post in the vice-president's office in July 2007, only weeks after bloody clashes in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah that led to the Islamist organisation taking total control of the territory. "It looks to me that what happened wasn't so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen," he said.
The Bush administration plan sought to undo the results of elections in the West Bank and Gaza in January 2006 which, to the chagrin of White House and State Department officials, saw Hamas win a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislature.
The project was approved by Bush, Rice, and Elliott Abrams, the hawkish deputy national security adviser.
The 2006 election result was seen as an affront to the central premise of the Bush administration's policy in the Middle East - that democratic elections would inexorably lead to pro-western governments.
With the victory of Hamas, Rice moved swiftly to try to persuade Abbas to take steps to dissolve the Hamas authority in Gaza. When Abbas did not move quickly enough, the US consul general in Jerusalem, Jake Walles, was despatched to Ramallah to deliver a curt reminder.
The magazine quotes a memo for Walles's meeting with Hamas as saying: "You should make clear your intention to declare a state of emergency and form an emergency government."
The central man figure in Washington's plan was Mohammed Dahlan, who had been Yasser Arafat's security chief in Gaza and who had established close ties with the CIA as early as the 1990s. The magazine cites three unidentified US officials quoting Bush as saying: "He's our guy."
According to the magazine, Rice played a main role in trying to persuade Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to offer training and funding to the Fatah fighters. Israeli officials admitted in December 2006 that Egypt had sent weapons to the Fatah faction in Gaza.
The US effort did not end with the establishment of a Palestinian national unity government. Vanity Fair describes the administration's plan B, which called for adding 4,700 new Fatah troops with additional training in Jordan and Egypt.
A state department memo put the cost for salaries, training and weapons at $1.27bn (£640m) over five years.
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https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-september-19-2017/
$raise occupation of the Am Mind mef.org
luntzI pjt terror not territory; hamas charter mantra
hamas reject long ago but "PR gold"
if land, israel loses PR, but if ideology, terror, wins
==
==
https://kpfa.org/episode/sunday-show-april-7-2019/
In the second hour “Inshala” with {Hatem}_{ Bazian,}_ co-founder and Professor of Islamic Law and Theology at Zaytuna College and lecturer in the Departments of Near Eastern and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
djt spk at jewish gop conf;
mus guard killed charlie hebdo, imam saved 100's in holocaust, 3rd eg ~ terror label
==
FAIR Studies
FAIR studies explore particular media issues or outlets in-depth, adding hard numbers to debates over media content and journalistic practices.
MARCH 20, 2019
When They Don’t Ignore, US Media Often Disparage Palestinians’ Right of Return
GREGORY SHUPAK
When They Don’t Ignore, US Media Often Disparage Palestinians’ Right of Return
When the right of return is mentioned in media, pundits and other journalists often baselessly call its legitimacy into question.
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https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-march-13-2019/
Ahmed Abu Artema
Born in Rafah, Gaza Strip, in 1984, Ahmed Abu Artema is a Palestinian refugee. An independent Gaza-based writer and social-media activist, he has written the book "Organized Chaos" [in Arabic only?] and numerous articles. He is one of the original founders and organizers of the Great Return March.
https://www.commondreams.org/author/ahmed-abu-artema
https://www.thenation.com/article/with-the-great-return-march-palestinians-are-demanding-a-life-of-dignity/
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predicted unlivable 2020, just called by UN
siege 10 years
rept: "Gaza 1o years later"
90 mw
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yikes
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/jared-kushner-thinks-he-has-deal-century-middle-east-peace-it-would-have
Leaked emails from Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and appointed steward of the Israel-Palestine conflict, are shedding light on his planned “deal of the century” for peace in the Middle East. In extracts published by Foreign Policy magazine, Kushner proposes “disrupting” the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and ending the refugee status of 5m Palestinians across the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria....
==
OMG
Israel and Palestine
Abrams was also at the center of another attempt to thwart the outcome of a democratic election, in 2006. Bush had pushed for legislative elections in the West Bank and Gaza in order to give Fatah, the highly corrupt Palestinian organization headed by Yasser Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, some badly needed legitimacy. To everyone’s surprise, Fatah’s rival Hamas won, giving it the right to form a government.
This unpleasant outburst of democracy was not acceptable to the Bush administration, in particular Rice and Abrams. They hatched a plan to form a Fatah militia to take over the Gaza Strip, and crush Hamas in its home territory.As reported by Vanity Fair, this involved a great deal oftorture and executions. But Hamas stole a march on Fatah with their own ultra-violence. David Wurmser, a neoconservative who worked for Dick Cheney at the time, told Vanity Fair, “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen.” Yet ever since, these events have been turned upside down in the U.S. media, with Hamas being presented as the aggressors.
While the U.S. plan was not a total success, it also was not a total failure from the perspective of America and Israel. The Palestinian civil war split the West Bank and Gaza into two entities, with rival governments in both. For the past 13 years, there’s been little sign of the political unity necessary for Palestinians to get a decent life for themselves.
Abrams then left office with Bush’s exit.
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https://yyy.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/14/bds-boycott-divestment-sanctions-movement-transformed-israeli-palestinian-debate
noi few lnx
BDS: how a controversial non-violent movement has transformed the Israeli-Palestinian debate
Israel sees the international boycott campaign as an existential threat to the Jewish state. Palestinians regard it as their last resort.
By Nathan Thrall
Tue 14 Aug 2018 01.00 EDT Last modified on Fri 24 Aug 2018 07.00 EDT
The movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel – known as BDS – has been driving the world a little bit mad. Since its founding 13 years ago, it has acquired nearly as many enemies as the Israelis and Palestinians combined. It has hindered the efforts of Arab states to fully break their own decades-old boycott in pursuit of increasingly overt cooperation with Israel. It has shamed the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah by denouncing its security and economic collaboration with Israel’s army and military administration. It has annoyed the Palestine Liberation Organization by encroaching on its position as the internationally recognised advocate and representative of Palestinians worldwide.
BDS: how a controversial non-violent movement has transformed the Israeli-Palestinian debate – podcast]
It has infuriated the Israeli government by trying to turn it into a leper among liberals and progressives. It has exasperated what is left of the Israeli peace camp by nudging the Palestinians away from an anti-occupation struggle and towards an anti-apartheid one. It has induced such an anti-democratic counter-campaign by the Israeli government that it has made Israeli liberals fear for the future of their country. And it has caused major headaches for the Palestinians’ donor governments in Europe, which are pressured by Israel not to work with BDS-supporting organisations in the Palestinian territories, an impossible request given that nearly all major civil society groups in Gaza and the West Bank support the movement.
In an era of corporate social responsibility, BDS has given bad publicity to major businesses tied up in Israel’s occupation (Airbnb, Re/Max, HP) and helped push other large firms out of the West Bank. It has disrupted film festivals, concerts and exhibitions around the world. It has riled academic and sports organisations by politicising them, demanding that they take a stand on the highly divisive conflict. It has angered Palestinian performers and artists who work with Israeli institutions, accusing them of giving Palestinian cover for Israel’s human rights violations.
In the UK, BDS has brought turmoil to courts and local councils, embroiling them in disputes over the legality of local boycotts of settlement goods. In the US, BDS has caused two dozen states to pass bills or issue orders inhibiting or penalising those boycotting Israel or its settlements, pitting Israel’s allies against free speech advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union. It has ignited debates in Protestant churches in the US, some of the largest of which have divested from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation. It has become the bane of college administrators, forced to adjudicate complaints from BDS-supporting professors and students that their free speech has been stifled, and claims by Zionist faculty, donors and undergraduates that their campuses have become “unsafe” spaces. It has pulled liberals toward greater support for the Palestinians, making Israel an increasingly partisan issue in the US, associated less with Democrats and progressives than with Trump, evangelicals and the far right.
In the Jewish diaspora, BDS has created new schisms on the centre-left, which has been forced into a vice by the rightwing and pro-settlement Israeli government on one hand, and the non-Zionist left on the other. It has prompted liberal Zionists to grapple with why they sometimes accept the boycott of products from settlements but not the boycott of the state that creates and sustains them. It has compelled Israel’s more critical supporters to justify their opposition to non-violent forms of pressure on Israel, when the absence of real pressure has done nothing to bring occupation or settlement expansion to an end. It has put the onus on liberal Zionists to defend their support not for the abstract ideal of what they hope Israel might one day become, but for the actual, longstanding practices of the state, including expropriations of Palestinian land for Jewish settlement; detention of hundreds of Palestinians without trial or charge; collective punishment of two million Gazans living under a more than decade-long blockade; and institutionalised inequality between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. BDS has deprived Israel’s liberal supporters of the excuse that an aberrant occupation or rightwing governments are mainly to blame for the state’s undemocratic practices.
Perhaps most significantly, BDS has challenged the two-state consensus of the international community. In so doing it has upset the entire industry of Middle East peace process nonprofit organisations, diplomatic missions and think tanks by undermining their central premise: that the conflict can be resolved simply by ending Israel’s occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, leaving the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel and refugees unaddressed.
For many diaspora Jews, BDS has become a symbol of evil and repository of dread, a nefarious force transforming the Israel-Palestine debate from a negotiation over the end of the occupation and the division of territory into an argument about the conflict’s older and deeper roots: the original displacement of most of the Palestinians, and, on the ruins of their conquered villages, the establishment of a Jewish state. The emergence of the BDS movement has revived old questions about the legitimacy of Zionism, how to justify the privileging of Jewish over non-Jewish rights, and why refugees can return to their homes in other conflicts but not in this one. Above all, it has underscored an awkward issue that cannot be indefinitely neglected: whether Israel, even if it were to cease its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, can be both a democracy and a Jewish state.
...
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https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/21/did_israel_kill_yasser_arafat_stunning
Israeli intelligence officials desperately tried to prevent Ronen Bergman from writing “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” a stunning book exposing the details of Israel’s extrajudicial killing program. Israel even changed and extended secrecy laws to prevent Bergman from gaining access to historical documents. Despite this, Bergman gained unprecedented access while writing the book, scouring thousands of documents and meeting with some 1,000 sources. The result is a stunning investigation that dives deep into the targeted killing programs of Israel, which has assassinated more people than any other country in the Western world since World War II. We speak with Ronen Bergman about Israel’s many attempts to kill the former chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, and the possibility that they succeeded.
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djt close plo office in DC in retaliation for ----?
==
Peled sp Injustice
Ralph welcomes back Israeli activist, Miko Peled, who tells us about an incredible miscarriage of American justice chronicled in his book “Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”
:{:{}:
}:
https://kpfa.org/episode/the-ralph-nader-radio-hour-september-3-2018/
b2 said sleeper cells, shut down Holyland fdn, seized $
--> djt unruh also 200m$?
==
yikes
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/jared-kushner-thinks-he-has-deal-century-middle-east-peace-it-would-have
Leaked emails from Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and appointed steward of the Israel-Palestine conflict, are shedding light on his planned “deal of the century” for peace in the Middle East. In extracts published by Foreign Policy magazine, Kushner proposes “disrupting” the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and ending the refugee status of 5m Palestinians across the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Although the emails have not been published in full, these snippets are highly revealing. Kushner’s move against UNRWA marks the next stage in the Trump administration’s plan. In January 2018 – the same month that Kushner sent these emails – Trump announced drastic cuts in US aid to UNRWA.
There are signs that defunding UNRWA is just the first stage of a much grander strategy; Kushner is also reportedly pressuring Jordan to strip the 2m Palestinians living there of their refugee status. But even taken on its own, dissolving the agency would have catastrophic consequences.
Out of the picture
UNRWA currently provides emergency aid, education and healthcare to the Middle East’s millions of Palestinian refugees. Many live below the poverty line, and would have little or no support if UNRWA’s services were to end, with their host states lacking the necessary resources to step in.
The impact would be political as well as humanitarian. The status of the refugees, who lost their homes in the 1948 war, has long been one of the most contentious issues between Israel and the Palestinians. UNRWA’s work by definition implies international recognition of the refugees’ situation and underlines their lawful right of return.
If UNRWA were dissolved while the refugees remained stateless, that would imply that the contentious question of their future and status had been resolved. On these grounds, the Palestinian Authority has condemned the Kushner plan as an attempt to remove refugees from the equation and erase their right of return, effectively denying them any chance of future citizenship in Israel-Palestine.
On the other side, critics of UNRWA – including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – contend that the agency perpetuates the Palestinian refugee crisis by supporting the refugees in their current situation rather than helping pursue a political solution, and by promoting anti-Israeli feeling. According to this view, the agency’s dissolution would improve prospects for peace.
The reality suggests the opposite. UNRWA is a product rather than a cause of the conflict, which will continue even if the agency is abolished. Stripping millions of people of basic welfare is more likely to heighten tensions than calm them. Israel would pay a price too; as an occupying power, it is legally obliged to safeguard the basic needs of the population living in areas it controls, but since UNRWA currently alleviates some of its obligations by providing essential services to 800,000 registered refugees in the West Bank and more than 1m in Gaza, the Israeli government is under far less pressure than it could be to take primary responsibility for their welfare.
Kushner himself seems aware of the potential damage, writing in one email that the US should “risk breaking things” to get results. None of the leaked extracts includes any provision for minimising the fallout. But the US administration’s opposition to UNRWA isn’t just about the refugees it serves. This is part of a broader strategy to redraw the fundamental contours of the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” as a whole.
Dismantling Oslo
For more than 20 years, this process has been operating on the framework laid out in the 1993 Oslo Accords. Oslo established terms for a five-year interim period, to be followed by a full final peace agreement. It identified seven so-called permanent status issues – including that of the refugees – to be determined as part of this final agreement.
While every previous US administration since 1993 has endorsed this framework, Trump has been steadily working to take each of the permanent status issues off the table.
First, the administration recognised Jerusalem – deemed the most important final status issue – as the unified capital of Israel. Appearing to acknowledge his strategy, Trump explicitly described the move as “taking Jerusalem off the table”. The recent opening of the new US embassy in the city dashed Palestinian hopes that East Jerusalem would serve as the capital of their future state.
According to the Oslo framework, the Palestinian refugees’ future is the second most important permanent status issue; by mooting the abolition of UNRWA, the Trump administration seems to be planning to take this one off the table too.
The evidence suggests that the administration has similar plans for the third issue: Israeli settlements. In contrast to the Obama administration’s strong condemnation of settlement activity in the West Bank, Trump has been mostly quiet on the issue. Kushner, along with ambassador David Friedman, supported Israel’s recent Nation-State Law, which promotes “Jewish settlement” as a national value.
The four remaining permanent status issues are security arrangements, borders, international relations, and common interests such as allocation of water supplies. The Trump administration’s plans for each of these remains to be seen. Yet even if they are left on the table, the elimination of Jerusalem, the refugees and the settlements will leave the Palestinians – already the weaker party – exceptionally vulnerable. By gradually eliminating the permanent status issues, the Trump administration is working to severely restrict the scope of any final deal, with the aim of compelling the Palestinians to capitulate.
Anne Irfan, Teaching Fellow in Middle Eastern History, University of Sussex
This article was originally published on The Conversation
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==
https://www.alternet.org/map-shocked-obama
One afternoon in the spring of 2015, a senior State Department official named Frank Lowenstein paged through a government briefing book and noticed a map that he had never seen before. Lowenstein was the Obama Administration’s special envoy on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, a position that exposed him to hundreds of maps of the West Bank. (One adorned his State Department office.)
Typically, those maps made Jewish settlements and outposts look tiny compared to the areas where the Palestinians lived. The new map in the briefing book was different. It showed large swaths of territory that were off limits to Palestinian development and filled in space between the settlements and the outposts. At that moment, Lowenstein told me, he saw “the forest for the trees”—not only were Palestinian population centers cut off from one another but there was virtually no way to squeeze a viable Palestinian state into the areas that remained. Lowenstein’s team did the math. When the settlement zones, the illegal outposts, and the other areas off limits to Palestinian development were consolidated, they covered almost sixty per cent of the West Bank.
Their inability to clearly see the facts is the result of the Israeli government’s propaganda designed to obscure its abuse of Palestinian peoples. This propaganda is eagerly amplified by many in the US. The Israeli government’s decades long strategy to annex as much of the West Bank as possible is close to fruition. By employing force and a series of subterfuges (building permits, parks, military installations, armed settlers), the Israeli government has managed to concentrate Palestinians in the West Bank into dense, isolated pockets. Exclusively Jewish-Israeli settlements circle these areas.
Isolating Palestinian communities into small pockets cut off from each other is a calculated effort to destroy the Palestinian economy and culture. The entire apparatus of the Israeli state works relentlessly to undermine Palestinian freedom of movement. This has reached its zenith in Gaza, where an entire generation has lived its life confined to a 140 square mile area, isolated from the rest of the Palestinian population, from towns and places that used to form an integral part of their lives.
Things are hardly better in the West Bank. Palestinians seeking to travel outside of their small towns have to contend with a network of Israeli “checkpoints” designed to humiliate them. They are often staffed with belligerent soldiers who are fully aware that a system of impunity will protect them from any repercussions when they abuse Palestinian, and even if they kill them.
Each checkpoint exacts a toll from Palestinians who wish to visit family or visit the next town over to conduct business. These costs are imposed within towns as well, where certain streets are reserved for Jewish settlers. They exist at the edges of Palestinian towns and villages where the Israeli army imposes curfews and arbitrarily stops travelers to harass them. And they exist at the borders, where the ability of Palestinians to travel abroad is constrained by the Israeli government’s control of the borders and its ability to deny them the “right to return”. The Israeli government makes no bones about it’s desire to see as many Palestinians “self-deport” as possible.
And amid all these abuses, a propaganda effort surgically blames the shackled victims for low economic growth. Palestinian enterprises face enormous barriers to develop and produce products, while companies owned by Jewish Israelis are often given free rein to illegally exploit resources in the West Bank. The Palestinian response has been to advocate for a boycott of Israeli goods and services. This peaceful boycott has been vilified by an organized lobbying and propaganda campaign that seeks to undermine it.
...Apart from the building, the Israeli state continues to attack and bomb Palestinians on a daily basis. Two children were killed by an IAF bomb while playing in a park in Gaza:
Electronic Intifada ✔@intifada
Friends Amir al-Nimra, 15 and Louay Kuhail, 16, died together in an Israeli air attack in Gaza on Saturday //bit.ly/2KT1Env
The bombs that were dropped on them and the plane that did it were likely a gift from the US government, which sends several billion dollars in military aid each year to the Israeli government. This support is in violation of the Leahy act, since numerous Israeli army units have engaged in human rights abuses.
It’s impossible to escape the thought that if two Israeli children had been killed by Palestinian bombs, American newspapers would have devoted front page stories to them. Since the victims are Palestinian, the story is buried if reported at all. This despite the fact that the bombs dropped on them were almost certainly made in American factories and paid for by American taxpayers, as were the aircraft that made the bombing run....
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https://www.alternet.org/white-house-edits-transcript-jared-kushner-calling-protestors-gaza-part-problem
==
https://www.alternet.org/ex-evangelist-slams-moron-christians-believing-trumps-jerusalem-embassy-will-hasten-jesus-second
on AM Joy on Sunday morning, a former evangelist-turned-filmmaker swatted down Christians who were gleeful that President Donald Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, believing it will hasten the return of Jesus.
Speaking with MSNBC host Joy Reid, religious reform activist Frank Schaeffer was asked about Pastor Robert Jeffress who was invited to speak at the embassy opening despite the fact that he has previously said Jews are condemned to Hell if they don't convert.
Noting Jeffress, also said God let six million Jews perish in the Holocaust to get them to "come back to the land of Israel," Reid asked, "Why would these two groups be in the same space? Israelis and people who believe that they are going to Hell?""
The reason they are in the same space -- while Palestinians are being shot by snipers over a wall in a 60 to nothing confrontation where 60 Palestinians were killed and no Israeli soldiers are killed at that moment that that is going on -- there are white evangelical Trump supporters talking about the embassy coming into Jerusalem as a sort of act of god," Schaeffer began.
"But actually it is not by chance," he elaborated. "The Israeli government and the present prime minister have made it clear that lobbying for the Jerusalem embassy and also support of Israel has focused on pandering to the extremists, the lunatic fringe. Forgive me, the moron fringe of the evangelical white movement in America that believes that Israel had to return to the original borders described in the Bible in order for Jesus to come back."
"And by the way," he noted. "When he does come back it is to burn most of the Jews who have not believed in him while he's setting up the new Earth and the new heaven. So we are now looking at exactly what happens with so much evil in the world that comes down to tribalized religious thinking."
You can watch the video below via MSNBC
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https://theintercept.com/2018/03/14/campus-free-speech-bds-israel-boycott/
POLITICIANS AROUND THE country are seizing upon highly publicized episodes of conservatives faced with harassment and heckling on college campuses by responding with a wave of legislation supposedly aimed at preserving free speech rights for campus speakers. But that commitment, while draped in the mantle of a principled defense of the First Amendment, does not always extend to speakers who criticize Israel and its policies.
This renewed concern about free speech comes after a number of high-profile incidents in which students interrupted conservative speakers, and in a few cases, even used violence at protests. At a hearing on campus free speech in October, U.S. senators expressed bipartisan support for the First Amendment on college campuses, but lawmakers around the country are demanding free speech with one hand, and passing laws that punish boycotts of Israel with the other.
One of the most prominent examples comes from Wisconsin, where Republican state Sen. Leah Vukmir has used the issue of campus free speech to launch a campaign for U.S. Senate this year, challenging the incumbent, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Vukmir is the original sponsor of “free speech” legislation that calls for a strict disciplinary system for those who infringe on others’ free speech rights on college campuses in her state. “Students, professors, and administrators are using intimidation tactics to silence those they disagree with,” Vukmir said, after unveiling her legislation last May.
She went on to launch a campaign with the help of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, for lawmakers in other states to duplicate her campus free speech efforts. “Senator Vukmir is a champion of free speech issues,” reads a press release from ALEC, which awarded Vukmir its “Iron Lady Award” for taking tough stands as a legislator.
But Vukmir, a strong supporter of Israel, is apparently selective in her championing of free speech.
Just months after sponsoring the free speech legislation last year, Vukmir sponsored a so-called anti-BDS law in Wisconsin, prohibiting the state from entering into contracts with businesses that choose to express themselves by engaging in a boycott to protest Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Gov. Scott Walker signed an executive order establishing the anti-BDS policy in October.
BDS refers to the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that advocates for economic pressure to force Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories. BDS campaigns have gained traction across the United States in recent years, particularly on college campuses. Palestine Legal, a nonprofit advocacy group, notes that boycotts have long played a significant role in U.S. history, and that the “Supreme Court has held that boycotts to effect political, social, and economic change are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.”
But pro-Israel advocacy organizations, including the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, known by its acronym AIPAC, have spearheaded an aggressive campaign to encourage lawmakers to stifle BDS activism. Twenty-four states have now passed legislation designed to penalize or prohibit BDS activity.
Rather than focus on the suppression of pro-Palestinian activism, legislators have almost singularly focused on a string of high-profile attacks on right-wing speakers on college campuses. One example is Milo Yiannopoulos, an “alt-right” provocateur who has collaboratedwith white supremacist figures. He was a relatively obscure figure until left-wing activists protested violently when he came to the University of California, Berkeley campus, elevating him as a national figure. At the October Senate hearing, Allison Stanger, a Middlebury College professor, testified about her experience moderating a talk with American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray, whose book, “The Bell Curve,” on IQ as a determinant of socioeconomic status has been criticized as being racist. The protesters disrupted the speaking engagement, assaulting Stanger and leaving her hospitalized.These laws have been used to suppress the speech of a wide range of people and businesses. In Kansas, a star teacher was denied payment to train other teachers because she was following her church’s guidance and boycotting Israel. (A federal court struck down the Kansas law following that controversy.) In Texas, a town seeking contractors to rebuild after a devastating hurricane mistakenly used an anti-BDS clause to prevent the hiring of anyone who also boycotted Israel.
ACROSS THE COUNTRY, politicians are hoping to harness the outrage over such incidents into political benefit, supposedly in the name of securing free speech.
...
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https://www.democracynow.org/2018/1/18/headlines/un_agency_for_palestinians_appeals_for_funds_as_us_slashes_contributions
omg
Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees made an urgent appeal for funds Wednesday, after the Trump administration canceled $65 million in annual contributions to the agency, known as UNRWA. In Gaza, residents say they could soon starve unless international donors step up to fill the funding gap left by President Trump.
Fathiya Abed al-Jawad: “We will be lost. It will be a catastrophe. People will be stealing from each other. We will live in a catastrophe. We will suffer to provide food and wheat. People will kill each other.”
Naim Hamad: “What should I do? Should I go sell one of my kids or sell my kidney? What should I do? Should I go and steal or work as a spy? I need cooking oil, yogurt, eggs and bread.”
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https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/21/criminalizing_critics_of_israel_congress_considers
U.S. lawmakers are seeking to criminally outlaw support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. If a proposed bipartisan law is passed, backers of BDS could face up to 20 years in prison and a million-dollar fine. We speak to Rabbi Joseph Berman of Jewish Voice for Peace and Ryan Grim of The Intercept. His latest article is titled "U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Criminally Outlaw Support for Boycott Campaign Against Israel."
==
Year of the Locust captures in page-turning detail the end of the Ottoman world and a pivotal moment in Palestinian history. In the diaries of Ihsan Hasan al-Turjman (1893–1917), the first ordinary recruit to describe World War I from the Arab side, we follow the misadventures of an Ottoman soldier stationed in Jerusalem. There he occupied himself by dreaming about his future and using family connections to avoid being sent to the Suez. His diaries draw a unique picture of daily life in the besieged city, bringing into sharp focus its communitarian alleys and obliterated neighborhoods, the ongoing political debates, and, most vividly, the voices from its streets—soldiers, peddlers, prostitutes, and vagabonds. Salim Tamari’s indispensable introduction places the diary in its local, regional, and imperial contexts while deftly revising conventional wisdom on the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.
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1967 war anniv
https://kpfa.org/episode/voices-of-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-june-2-2017/
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