Tag: israel

“The Gates of Hell Will Open in Gaza” — Ceasefire Ends as Israel Launches Extensive Strikes on Hamas Terror Strongholds in Gaza for Refusing to Release Hostages

In a bold and necessary move to protect its citizens and sovereignty, Israel has launched a series of decisive airstrikes targeting Hamas terror strongholds within the Gaza Strip.

This action comes in direct response to Hamas’s blatant refusal to release Israeli hostages and its continuous threats to Israeli security.

Early Tuesday morning, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) executed extensive airstrikes across Gaza, marking the most significant military action since the ceasefire agreement in January.

“In accordance with the political echelon, the IDF and ISA are currently conducting extensive strikes on terror targets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF wrote on X.

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Suspended for Pro-Palestine Speech: My Statement on Yale Law School’s Embrace of AI-Generated Smears

The following statement was originally published on Helyeh Doutaghi’s account on the X platform on March 12, 2025. Last week, Doutaghi was placed on administrative leave by Yale Law School following an AI-generated article falsely accusing her of being a “terrorist” over connections to Palestine advocacy organizations.  (Reprinted from Mondoweiss.)

My name is Helyeh Doutaghi. I am a scholar of international law and geopolitical economy. My research engages with Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), postcolonial critiques of law, and the global political economy of sanctions. I have specifically examined the mechanisms and consequences of economic warfare on Iran, as well as the forms of knowledge produced in International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to obscure and shield U.S. military operations from accountability. On October 1, 2023, I was appointed Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project and joined the team. I also held the position of Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School (YLS), a non-tenured faculty role without teaching responsibilities.

On the morning of March 3rd, I was notified of an online report about me. An obscure AI-powered right-wing Zionist platform called “Jewish Onliner” published a report falsely accusing me of being a “terrorist”. Rather than defend me, the Yale Law School moved within less than 24 hours of learning about the report to place me on leave.

I was given only a few hours’ notice by the administration to attend an interrogation based on far-right AI-generated allegations against me, while enduring a flood of online harassment, death threats, and abuse by Zionist trolls, exacerbating ongoing unprecedented distress and complications both at work and at home. I endured all of this while fasting, and my request for religious accommodations during Ramadan was dismissed. Just a few hours later, YLS placed me on leave, revoked my IT access – including email – and banned me from campus. I was afforded no due process and no reasonable time to consult with my attorney.

Rather than investigate the source of these allegations first, the nation’s “top law school” accepted them at face value, and shifted the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused, treating me, prima facie, as guilty until proven otherwise. Whether Yale Law School’s attorneys knowingly relied on AI-fabricated claims or simply chose willful ignorance remains unanswered.

To conduct the interrogation, Yale Law School retained David Ring from the law firm Wiggin and Dana – an attorney whose public profile includes “Israel” listed as a “service” he provides and whose portfolio boasts advising “the world’s largest aerospace and defense companies.” Twice appointed by the U.S. State Department as a Special Compliance Officer, his career is deeply embedded in the very industries that sustain genocide and war crimes in Palestine. When I raised my concerns about the potential conflict of interests posed by his participation in this process, YLS dismissed them, stating there was “no concern with his ability to conduct a fair interview.” It is reprehensible that YLS would appoint a counsel who profits from the machinery of Palestinian death to “interview” an employee about their public anti-genocide and pro-Palestine positions.

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US & Israel Ask East African Countries To Resettle Palestinians

The United States and Israel have asked three East African governments to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians from Gaza, according to US and Israeli officials who spoke to The Associated Press (AP).

On Friday, AP reported that the US and Israel began discussing the forced displacement of Palestinians last month with the governments of Sudan, Somalia and its breakaway region Somaliland.

This comes after US President Donald Trump suggested in February that the US could “take over” the Gaza Strip and expel Palestinians. His declaration prompted Egypt to draft an alternative plan for Gaza’s reconstruction, which has since been adopted by Arab leaders.

The $53bn Egyptian plan rejects the displacement of Palestinians and instead focuses on redeveloping the enclave without depopulating it. 

Earlier this week, Trump appeared to signal a retreat from the proposed mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. When asked about it during a meeting in the White House with Irish leader Micheal Martin, he said: “Nobody is expelling any Palestinians from Gaza.”

However, AP’s report suggests that the US may have responded to the rejection of its displacement plan by Arab governments last month by looking further afield.

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Nomination Of Adam Boehler Pulled After Interview Comments

Trump administration hostage envoy Adam Boehler has reportedly been removed from negotiations after he said “We’re the United States, we’re not an agent of Israel. We have specific interests at play.”

The entire interview clip can be seen at the end of this article.

Adam Boehler has withdrawn his candidacy to serve as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, a senior US official told The Times of Israel on Friday, clarifying that he will continue to manage the file, which deals with efforts to release Americans wrongfully detained or held captive worldwide, but from a lower-level position that does not require Senate confirmation.

Boehler will continue to work on the issue on behalf of US President Donald Trump and in particular will keep assisting special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff’s efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages from Gaza, a second US official told The Times of Israel.

The second US official said Trump asked Boehler to report to him as a special government employee at White House instead of the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs (SPEHA) role he was originally tapped to fill because the latter position “comes with red tape” that the administration would prefer to avoid.

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Columbia University Folds After Trump Imposes Federal Funding Freeze — Suspends and Expels Students Involved in Anti-Israel Protests

It seems like Columbia University is finally getting the message.

The New York University, long considered one of the world’s leading academic institutions, has announced it will suspend, expel, and even revoke the degrees of students involved in last year’s anti-Israel protests.

The sanctions were confirmed by the Columbia University Judicial Board on Thursday, which said their extent would depend on the severity of their behaviors.

“The outcomes issued by the UJB are based on its evaluation of the severity of behaviors at these events and prior disciplinary actions,” the university said in a statement sent to the entire school community.

“These outcomes are the result of following the thorough and rigorous processes laid out in the Rules of University Conduct in our statutes, which include investigations, hearings and deliberations.”

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No Other Land Won an Oscar. Miami Beach’s Mayor Is Trying To Evict a Movie Theater for Screening It

The mayor of Miami Beach, Florida, is trying to terminate the lease of a movie theater for screening No Other Land, an Oscar-winning documentary about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The Miami Herald reported that Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner introduced a resolution to terminate the lease of O Cinema, an independent film theater that rents space from the city, and discontinue more than $60,000 in promised grant funding. The legislation comes after Meiner tried to pressure the theater to cancel the screening.

Florida civil rights groups and First Amendment experts say such government retaliation against the theater for the content of the films it chooses to screen would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

“Simply put, the First Amendment does not allow the government to discriminate based on viewpoint or to retaliate against anyone for their speech,” says Daniel Tilley, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida. “Pulling funding from an independent, community-based cinema under these circumstances is patently unconstitutional. The government does not get to pick and choose which viewpoints the public is allowed to hear, however controversial some might find them.”

The Miami Beach mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

However, in a newsletter to Miami Beach residents earlier this week, Meiner wrote: “I am a staunch believer in free speech. But normalizing hate and then disseminating antisemitism in a facility owned by the taxpayers of Miami Beach, after O Cinema conceded the ‘concerns of antisemitic rhetoric,’ is unjust to the values of our city and residents and should not be tolerated.”

On March 5, Meiner sent O Cinema a letter on official city letterhead expressing outrage at the cinema’s decision to screen the film, which documents the destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank.

“Here in Miami Beach, our City has adopted a strong policy of support for the State of Israel in its struggle to defend itself and its residents against attacks by the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah,” the letter read. “Airing performances of the one-sided, inaccurate film ‘No Other Land’ at a movie theater facility owned by the City and operated by O Cinema is disappointing.”

This is flagrant government jawboning—an attempt to use the mayor’s bully pulpit and the implicit threat of government action to cow the theater into self-censorship.

O Cinema initially complied.

“Due to the concerns of antisemitic rhetoric, we have decided to withdraw the film from our programming,” Vivian Marthell, CEO of O Cinema, wrote to Meiner the following day. “This film has exposed a rift which makes us unable to do the thing we’ve always sought out to do which is to foster thoughtful conversations about cinematic works.”

However, the theater then reversed course and told the Miami Herald it would continue the screenings after all.

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Radical ‘Free Palestine’ Extremist Targets Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Sister with Bomb Threat

A deranged “Free Palestine” extremist attempted to terrorize the family of DEI U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett by threatening her sister with a mailbox bomb.

According to WYFF, citing the Charleston Police Department, authorities responded around 9:30 a.m. Monday after receiving an alarming bomb threat directed at Amanda Coney Williams.

The threat, sent via email to an employee of the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office late Sunday night, detailed an alleged homemade explosive device that was supposedly placed in Williams’ mailbox.

The email read:

“Using a 1×8-inch threaded galvanized pipe, end caps, a kitchen timer, some wires, metal clips and homemade black powder, I’ve constructed a pipe bomb which I recently placed in Amy Coney Barrett’s sister’s mailbox at her home in Charleston, SC.

The device’s detonation will be triggered as soon as the mailbox is next opened. Free Palestine!”

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Yes, The Trump Administration Has The Power To Deport Mahmoud Khalil

Federal authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leaders of the pro-Hamas coalition at Columbia University, last weekend on the charge that he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” and posed a threat to national security and foreign policy.

Since that time, politicians and pundits, particularly on the left, have tried to lionize this anti-West terror-supporting radical as some kind of liberal icon and have questioned whether the government has the right to deport someone of his ilk. For the record, of course it does.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) codified at 8 U.S. Code § 1182 applies to all aliens, meaning “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” This term includes both visa holders and green card holders like Khalil. 

The INA contains a number of activities for which a person can be deemed ineligible based on security and related grounds. The relevant subsection contains nine grounds related to terrorism, the majority of which are not controversial at all: members of terrorist organizations, people engaging in terrorism, etc. 

The current debate concerns § 212(a)(3)(b)(i)(vii), which allows for the deportation of any alien who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.” Some have claimed that deporting someone for these reasons violates the First Amendment. That is incorrect.

The premise of the question rests on the assumption that an alien (even a legal alien) has First Amendment rights that are exactly the same in every situation as the rights of a U.S. national or citizen. That is not the case. As the Supreme Court has made clear, sometimes the government may impose distinctions and conditions.

See, for example, Citizens United v. FEC (2010):

The Government routinely places special restrictions on the speech rights of students, prisoners, members of the Armed Forces, foreigners, and its own employees. When such restrictions are justified by a legitimate governmental interest, they do not necessarily raise constitutional problems. … [T]he constitutional rights of certain categories of speakers, in certain contexts, ‘are not automatically coextensive with the rights’ that are normally accorded to members of our society. (Emphasis added.)

The question then becomes, how might speech rights be applied differently to foreigners? For example, could such a condition involve not advocating for certain groups that the government, for good reason, considers dangerous and a threat to national security? 

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Trump Backpedals On Controversial Plan: ‘No One Is Expelling Anyone From Gaza’

President Trump in a Wednesday press conference while hosting Irish prime minister Micheál Martin at the White House appeared to backpedal on his plan to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” by expelling all Palestinian inhabitants. 

Trump told reporters “Nobody is expelling any Palestinians” in response to a question on whether he still stands by his ultra-provocative remarks which were tantamount to calling for ethnic cleansing of the enclave.

“We’re working hard with Israel… to see [how] we can solve the problem,” Trump explained. 

The fresh remarks stand in stark contrast with his earlier February words spoken alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he said, “The US will take over the Gaza Strip… I see it as a long-term ownership position.” He had explained that Palestinians in Gaza would have to leave and be resettled elsewhere.

In the Wednesday back-and-forth with reporters he actually again called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer a “Palestinian” and then quipped “He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore.”

The White House position on Gazans being expelled to other countries is based on the prior explanation that “Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance,” in the earlier words of US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes.

But even many Republicans see the plan as completely unrealistic and absurd, given that for starters it would ensure years more of brutal war, and the likelihood that conflict would spiral over into other Arab countries.

Removal of the debris which has piled up in the demolished Strip could take years or even decades…

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Professor at Center of Columbia University Deportation Scandal is Former Israeli Spy

The professor at the center of the Columbia University deportation scandal is a former Israeli intelligence official, MintPress News can reveal.

Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of the university’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), was abducted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Saturday for his role in organizing protests last year against Israel’s attack on Gaza. Khalil’s dean, Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, head of the School of International and Public Affairs, is a former Israeli military intelligence officer and official at Israel’s Mission to the United Nations. Yarhi-Milo played a significant role in drumming up public concern about a supposed wave of intolerable anti-Semitism sweeping over the campus, thereby laying the groundwork for the extensive crackdown on civil liberties that has followed the protests.

Spooks in Our Midst

Before entering academia, Dr. Yarhi-Milo served as an officer and an intelligence analyst with the Israeli Defense Forces. Given that she was recruited into the intelligence services because of her ability to speak Arabic fluently, her job likely entailed surveilling the Arab population.

After leaving the world of intelligence, she worked for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. While there, she met and married her husband, Israel’s official United Nations spokesperson.

Although she is now an academic, she has never left the world of international security, making the subject her area of expertise. She has made a point of trying to lift women’s voices in the field. One of these was the then-U.S. Director of National Security, Avril Haines, whom she spoke with in 2023. But even though Khalil was a student in her school, she had nothing to say about his arrest. Indeed, rather than speak out on the issue (as activists have demanded), she instead chose this week to invite Naftali Bennett, prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022, to speak at Columbia. Students protesting Tuesday’s event were condemned by university authorities for “harassing” Yarhi-Milo.

Unprecedented Protests, Unprecedented Repression

Columbia was the epicenter of a massive protest movement across university campuses nationwide last year. It is estimated that at least eight percent of all American college students participated in demonstrations denouncing the genocidal attack on Gaza and calling on educational institutions to divest from Israel. The response was equally vast in its scale. Well over 3,000 protestors were arrested, including faculty members themselves.

The nationwide movement began at Columbia on April 17, when a modest Gaza solidarity encampment was established. Protestors were shocked when university president Minouche Shafik immediately called in the New York Police Department – the first time the university had allowed police to suppress dissent on campus since the famous 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War.

Mahmoud Khalil was among the leaders of the movement. The Syrian-born Palestinian refugee was willing to speak calmly and cogently to the press about the protest’s goals. A permanent resident of the United States, he was abducted by ICE on Saturday.

“ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a radical foreign pro-Hamas student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come,” President Trump stated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump’s ominous threat, announcing, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” In another clear threat, the Trump administration moved to cancel $400 million in funding to Columbia University, citing the institution’s failure to sufficiently crack down on “antisemitic” incidents on campus.

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