Tag: palestine

Leak shows ex-Trump ambassador to Israel threatening NYU over Palestine protests

A letter sent to NYU leadership claims the school is “no longer a safe space for Jewish students” while demanding policies that would shatter free speech on campus. The letter was signed by David Friedman, Trump’s rabidly pro-settlement ambassador to Israel, as well as dozens of Jewish American alumni apparently afflicted with a particularly severe version of main character syndrome.

The letter demands that NYU ramp up security for Jewish students and add mandatory coursework on the issue of “in line with universal values, fact-based critical thinking, and civil discourse.”

Read the leaked letter, “A Message from the NYU Jewish community,” here.

Additionally, the letter demands that NYU create a position “dedicated to combating anti-Semitism.” The school already maintains no fewer than 15 positions dedicated to promoting “Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation.”

The letter goes on to demand that NYU disband clubs that “utilize hate speech to promote violence and endorse terrorism” and pursue the criminal prosecution of students who “deface property and/or use hate speech in the name of terrorism.” It offers no definition of hate speech, however. The assumption seems to be that strong language denouncing Israel’s violent assault on Gaza, or supporting the Palestinian armed struggle, should be treated as equivalent to verbal threats, and even physical violence, against Jews.

While providing no evidence or documentation of open support for terrorism amongst the student body, the letter alludes to Student Bar Association president Ryna Workman, who authored an op-ed in the body’s weekly newsletter blaming the Israeli state policy of apartheid for inspiring the events of October 7. Workman was promptly canceled for her speech, losing not only her position as president of the Student Bar Association, but a job offer that had previously been extended to her. 

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‘It Feels Like the New McCarthyism’: How the Israel-Hamas War Is Redefining the Limits of Free Speech

War between Israel and Hamas has sparked extensive (mostly) online activism about the conflict — and led to a rash of firings or other workplace discipline from employers concerned about their employees’ views of the conflict.

Artforum’s top editor David Velasco was fired by his publisher, Penske Media, after posting an open letter on the site calling for a cease-fire and suggesting Israel is responsible for the beginning of a genocide; Michael Eisen was removed as editor-in-chief of the science journal eLife after retweeting a satirical article critical of Israel; and Maha Dakhil, a top executive at the Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists Agency, stepped back from leadership roles after reposting an Instagram story that implied Israel was committing genocide. That’s in addition to multiple law students who had job offers revoked after publicly criticizing Israeli actions. The statements range from expressions of sympathy for Palestinians to strident anti-Israel criticisms that seem to minimize Israeli loss of life.

The situation is making Genevieve Lakier, a professor of law at the University of Chicago whose work is focused on the changing meaning of freedom of speech in the United States, very nervous.

“It feels like the new McCarthyism,” said Lakier, who’s one of the leading legal scholars on matters of free speech.

So far, most of the firings appear to have been for expressing pro-Palestinian views — the U.S.-based advocacy organization Palestine Legal reports that they’ve responded to over 260 cases of people’s “livelihoods or careers” being targeted. But the fact that these firings have been due in large part to social media posts and the widespread broadcasting of personal political beliefs means that the trend may not stay on one issue or one side of a dispute for long; Lakier says that we are watching the relationship between free expression and employment shift in real time.

Currently, regulations concerning speech and private employment oscillate wildly from state to state — about half of states have no protections for private employees who express political beliefs, while others have laws that vary in terms of scope. Many of the employment laws that do exist find their roots in the 19th century and are little use in navigating the 21st century workplace. Meanwhile, ideas about protected speech are constantly shifting in the culture: After 9/11, for example, the war on terror brought with it new examinations into what kind of speech promulgates terrorism. More recently, debates over “cancel culture” on campuses and in the workplace have brought up similar questions of what speech is permissible — and when consequences are justified.

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US to Transfer $320 Million in Precision Bombs to Israel

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the Biden administration is planning a $320 million transfer of precision-guided bombs to Israel, a show of support for the Israeli onslaught despite the growing civilian death toll.

The report said the administration notified congressional leaders on October 31 that it intended to transfer Spice Family Gliding Bomb Assemblies, precision-guided air-to-surface munitions that can be fired by Israeli warplanes.

The bombs will be transferred from weapons manufacturer Rafael USA to its Israeli parent company, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It’s unclear what funds will be used for the transfer.

Israel receives $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the US, and the Biden administration is looking to provide another $14 billion to support the Gaza campaign. In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, the US began immediately shipping new military equipment to Israel.

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Far-right minister: Nuking Gaza is an option, population should ‘go to Ireland or deserts’

A minister from the extremist Otzma Yehudit party says one of Israel’s options in the war in Gaza is to drop a nuclear bomb on the Strip.

Asked in an interview with Radio Kol Berama whether he was suggesting that some kind of nuclear bomb might be dropped on the enclave, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu says “That’s one way.”

Eliyahu, of Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right party, is not part of the security cabinet which is involved in the wartime decision-making, nor does he hold sway over the war cabinet directing the war against the Hamas terror group.

Eliyahu also voices his objection during the interview to allowing any humanitarian aid into Gaza, saying “we wouldn’t hand the Nazis humanitarian aid,” and charging that “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza.”

He backs retaking the Strip’s territory and restoring the settlements there. Asked about the fate of the Palestinian population, he says: “They can go to Ireland or deserts, the monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves.”

He says the northern Strip has no right to exist, adding that anyone waving a Palestinian or Hamas flag “shouldn’t continue living on the face of the earth.”

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Media’s In-House Critics to Reporters: Quit Quoting Palestinians About Civilian Deaths

The devastating explosion at a Gaza hospital on October 17 provoked soul-searching in US corporate media—over the willingness of press outlets to quote Gaza officials who attributed the calamity to an Israeli airstrike.

“News Outlets Backtrack on Gaza Blast After Relying on Hamas as Key Source,” NPR (10/24/23) reported. “The initial coverage of a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital last week offers a fresh reminder of how hard it can be to get the news right—and what happens when it goes awry,” wrote NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik.

“How the Media Got the Hospital Explosion Wrong” was the headline of an Atlantic article by Yascha Mounk (10/23/23), which asserted:

As more details about the blast emerged, the initial claims so credulously repeated by the world’s leading news outlets came to look untenable….

The cause of the tragedy, it appears, is the opposite of what news outlets around the world first reported. Rather than having been an Israeli attack on civilians, the balance of evidence suggests that it was a result of terrorists’ disregard for the lives of the people on whose behalf they claim to be fighting.

The New York Times (10/23/23) offered an editorial mea culpa, saying its initial coverage “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified.”

(What seems to be the New York Times‘ first mention of the blast—posted on its live feed on the “Israel/Hamas War” at 4:41 pm EDT on October 17—was headed “Hundreds Die in an Explosion at a Gaza Hospital, Setting Off Exchanges of Blame.” The first paragraph concluded, “The authorities blamed an Israeli airstrike, but the assertion was disputed by the Israel Defense Forces, which blamed an errant rocket fired by an armed Palestinian faction.” By 7:32 that evening, the feed was headed, “Israelis and Palestinians Blame Each Other for Blast at Gaza Hospital That Killed Hundreds.”)

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Biden ‘Countering Islamophobia’ While Incinerating Gaza Is The Most Democrat Thing Ever

In what is arguably the most liberal thing ever to have happened in all of human history, the Biden administration has announced its plans to develop a US National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia even as it helps Israel massacre Muslims by the thousands in Gaza.

“For too long, Muslims in America, and those perceived to be Muslim, such as Arabs and Sikhs, have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks and other discriminatory incidents,” reads a White House statement on the announcement. “We all mourn the recent barbaric killing of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian American Muslim boy, and the brutal attack on his mother in their home outside Chicago.”

This comes as the death toll from the US-backed bombing campaign in Gaza nears 10,000, including 3,760 children, in what experts and authorities around the world are describing with increasing frequency as a genocide. If these people were Jewish instead of Muslim, they would not be trapped in a giant concentration camp while the IDF hammers them with a nonstop barrage of military explosives, but because of their ethnicity they are subjected to this horror.

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US Rep. Mast, a Former IDF Solider, Denies There Are ‘Innocent Palestinian Civilians’

Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), a former member of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), dismissed the idea there are “innocent Palestinian civilians” in a debate on the House floor.

“I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians, as frequently said,” Mast said on Wednesday. “I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term ‘innocent Nazi civilians’ during World War II.”

Mast recently wore his IDF uniform on Capitol Hill, demonstrating his staunch support for Israel. “As the only member to serve with both the United States Army and the Israel Defense Forces, I will always stand with Israel,” he wrote on X in a post showing pictures of him in the uniform.

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City council candidate doubles down on saying Holocaust was Israel’s ‘advance punishment’

A Michigan candidate for city council is doubling down on comments he made about Jews and the Holocaust as well as child marriage and homosexuality, the Detroit Metro Times reported.

Nasr Hussain, who is running for a seat on the Hamtramck City Council, made posts on Facebook where he said the Holocaust was “advance punishment” for Israel’s “savagery” against Palestinians in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas.

“A heinous act proving that they’re as savage and cruel as the Nazis themselves who tormented them, or maybe even worse,” Hussain posted in a Facebook group.

He also defended child marriage.

“She was betrothed at six, marriage consummated at nine after reaching puberty and giving her consent,” Hussain wrote in response to a news story about a child getting married to an adult man. “Women reach puberty between 8 and 12. If she was ok with it and her parents were ok with it why does it bother you.”

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SECRET U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE IN YEMEN ADDS A TWIST TO HOUTHI ATTACK ON ISRAEL

AS THE WAR between Israel and Hamas threatens to draw in Yemen, the United States military’s little noted boots on the ground in the war-torn country raise the specter of deepening American involvement in the conflict.

On Monday, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels fired ballistic and cruise missiles at Israel. The attack marked the first time ballistic missiles have been launched at Israel since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel in 1991, according to Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and expert on the region. The use of ballistic missiles represents a major escalation that threatens to ignite a regional war — with American troops stationed nearby.

“The best strategy to avoid getting sucked into another war in the Middle East is to not have troops unnecessarily in the region in the first place — and bring those who are there now home,” said Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington think tank that advocates for a restrained foreign policy. “Their presence there is not making America more safe, it’s putting America more at risk of yet another war in the Middle East.”

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Neo-Nazis and the Far-Right Are Trying to Hijack Pro-Palestine Protests

Around 40 people affiliated with the National Justice Party, a white nationalist and antisemitic group, gathered in front of the White House to protest Israel last weekend. The group was led by Mike Peinovich, a long-time white nationalist personality who previously used the alias “Mike Enoch,” and was one of the architects of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Israel “is a pure genocidal state, make no mistake,” Peinovich told rally attendees over a PA system. “We Americans have been snookered into supporting [Israel] by Jewish control of our banks, our media, and our politicians, but we have to say enough and rise up as a people.”

Their small demonstration was dwarfed by the hundreds-strong protest that flooded the streets of Washington D.C. But Peinovich’s rhetoric is an example of how far-right antisemites are trying to use the pro-Palestine movement, hijack some of its language criticizing the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, and then use that as a vehicle to push anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and tropes into the mainstream. 

The presence of the National Justice Party in D.C. shouldn’t be seen as an indication that there is some ideological kinship between that group and the wider pro-Palestine movement. Fringe extremist groups are first and foremost opportunists, and will leap at any chance to insert themselves into a popular movement. In 2020, the anti-government Boogaloo movement’s gun-toting adherents—including white supremacists—unsuccessfully tried to latch onto the Black Lives Matter movement by claiming they shared similar goals. 

“They’re not pro-Palestine, they just hate Jews, and they see this moment as an opportunity to get attention, get coverage, put their banners, their images, their ideas, into reporting patterns,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told VICE News of the recent displays by brazen antisemites. “Nine out of ten of them would probably happily commit a hate crime against anyone [at the pro-Palestine protest].”

The pro-Palestine movement has picked up enormous support in recent weeks, with hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets in cities around the world to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, where intense bombardment by the Israeli government has led to the deaths of more than 8,000 people, including thousands of children. 

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