Censorship by United States
Updated 2024-04-24
H.R.6940 – Israel Anti-Boycott Act (not passed yet only one Democrat cosponsor) This bill prohibits participation by certain entities and individuals in boycotts or requests for boycotts imposed by international governmental organizations (i.e., the United Nations and the European Union). Specifically, the bill applies to covered persons the prohibition of specified actions in compliance with or in support of a boycott against a country that is friendly to the United States and that is not itself the object of a U.S. boycott. The bill defines a covered person as a domestic concern, the U.S. government or a state government, or a representative or official of such domestic concern or government. The bill also adds to the list of specified prohibited actions the act of furnishing information to any foreign country or international governmental organization that furthers an imposed boycott.
Under current law, a person who violates the prohibitions against such boycotts may be subject to a monetary fine or imprisonment; however, the bill removes imprisonment as a potential penalty for certain violations. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6940?r=1&s=2
2024-08-20 Remembering TV Icon Phil Donahue: He Brought Antiwar Voices to the Airwaves Until MSNBC Fired Him The acclaimed television host Phil Donahue died Sunday at the age of 88. Donahue’s commitment to bringing major social and political issues to the American public spanned decades, a mission that was perhaps best encapsulated by his platforming of antiwar perspectives during the leadup to the Iraq War. He was fired in 2003 from his eponymous MSNBC talk show for doing so. In 2013, Democracy Now! spoke to Donahue about his firing. We play an excerpt from that interview and speak to journalist Jeff Cohen, who served as a senior producer on MSNBC’s Donahue before its cancellation. “Phil was a progressive. He was for peace and justice. He exuded it. It’s what made him tick,” recalls Cohen. Transcript: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/8/2… Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SugpYJxMGIg
2024-08-12 Rights Group Sues US for Placing Palestinian American on ‘Illegal, Racist Watchlist’ The largest U.S. Muslim civil rights group on Monday announced it is suing Attorney General Merrick Garland and other federal officials for placing one Palestinian American on its “no-fly” list and for seizing another’s electronic device and interrogating him about his constitutionally protected organizing for a free Palestine.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and its Los Angeles office (CAIR-LA) are suing Garland, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray, Terrorism Screening Center Director Michael Glasheen, and other national security officials on behalf of Mustafa Zeidan and Osama Abu Irshaid.
According to the lawsuit, the men “are both United States citizens of Palestinian descent” who have never “been charged or convicted of a violent crime.”
“Yet, recently, the federal government has placed Dr. Abu Irshaid and Mr. Zeidan on a secret list, subjecting one to a humiliating process of detention, questioning, and phone seizure at the border and barring the other from flying altogether,” the filing states. Irshaid is on the terrorism watchlist while Zeidan cannot fly. https://www.commondreams.org/news/cair-lawsuit
2024-05-21 Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé on Interrogation at U.S. Airport and “Collapse of the Zionist Project” We speak with renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappé about his recent trip to the United States, when he was interrogated for two hours by federal agents upon arrival at Detroit airport about his political views on Gaza, Hamas and Israel, as well as demanding to know whom he knew in U.S. Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities. Pappé was only allowed to enter the country after agents copied the contents of his phone. “They refused to tell me why they stopped me,” he says. Pappé, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, also discusses the Nakba, growing support for Palestinian rights, and why he believes “the collapse of the Zionist project” is imminent. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZinFUbEboA
2024-03-13 ‘Blatant Censorship’: Critics Blast US House Vote for TikTok Ban U.S. progressives on Wednesday decried what they called a xenophobic censorship bill passed by House lawmakers that would ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company doesn’t sell its stake in the popular social media app, with critics arguing that Congress should instead pass a comprehensive digital privacy law.
Lawmakers passed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 352-65 vote. The legislation “prohibits distributing, maintaining, or providing internet hosting services for a foreign adversary-controlled application” like TikTok, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese tech company ByteDance. Fifty House Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against the bill.
“I voted no on the TikTok forced sale bill,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) said in a statement. “While I have serious data privacy concerns with TikTok, this bill was rapidly rushed to a vote by the Republicans with almost no public scrutiny—and that’s a recipe for unintended consequences.” Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who also voted no, said on social media that “not only are there First Amendment concerns, this is bad policy.” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), another no vote, said that “rather than target one company in a rushed and secretive process, Congress should pass comprehensive data privacy protections and do a better job of informing the public of the threats these companies may pose to national security.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/tiktok
2024-03-11 Biden, Netanyahu spoke on the phone for the first time in over a month Thursday Free speech defenders on Monday condemned Republican North Carolina Congresswoman Virginia Foxx’s subpoena of a labor union after its members overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution calling for a Gaza cease-fire and condemning Israeli genocide, apartheid, and other crimes in Palestine.
The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers (UAW) voted 1,067-570 in December to approve a sweeping resolution endorsing the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights and condemning Israel’s “occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide” in Palestine. The measure called for an end to these and other human rights violations as well as “an immediate cease-fire” in Gaza and an end to the Israeli siege on the embattled Palestinian territory. https://www.commondreams.org/news/virginia-foxx
2024-02-14 “Democracies” Deny the Popular Will While Suppressing Protest and Dissent Most people here in the United States, 61% according to one poll , want a ceasefire in Gaza. That number is significant but it shows no correlation whatsoever with how the state acts. Only 69 members of the House of Representatives and 5 members of the Senate have publicly called for a ceasefire. Even worse than the sparse number willing to speak up for what the people want, those who say they want a ceasefire are duplicitous in making their own case. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has visited the Rafah border crossing and was incensed that Israel is preventing aid from getting through to Gaza. In a speech on the senate floor he called Israeli officials war criminals but when push came to shove, he was pushed and he voted to send $14 billion in aid to Israel. It seems that elected representatives see no need to actually represent their constituents.
The same is true in the rest of the “democratic” nations known as the Collective West. A leaked letter from a cabinet level ministry in the Netherlands read in part, “What can we say so that it appears that Israel is not committing war crimes?” The outgoing prime minister is angling for the NATO General Secretary’s job and wants to stay on the good side of the U.S., hence the need to give the appearance that Israel isn’t committing crimes that the whole world can see. Meanwhile, Dutch civil servants protested against their own government’s support for Israel and yes, they were ignored. That nation has been ordered by its Supreme Court to stop selling F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel but the elected government has chosen to appeal their court’s decision.
Not to be outdone, France is forcing any organizations receiving governmental aid to repeat debunked allegations that Hamas committed atrocities on October 7. https://blackagendareport.com/democracies-deny-popular-will-while-suppressing-protest-and-dissent
2024-02-08 ‘Trusted Messengers:’ Volunteer Censors Trained to Control Your Community’s Speech Missouri V. Biden and congressional probes have limited the ability of the government to directly pressure tech companies to censor Americans, or do so by proxy through coordinating with private sector organizations. Because of this, the organizations that push online censorship are adopting a new strategy to entrench its influence: the recruitment and training of private individuals and civil society organizations, to build a critical mass that can survive without direct government support.
FFO recently exposed how censors are recruiting individual citizens to act as spies and censors under the brand of “Civic Listening”, a term promoted by the congressionally chartered National Conference on Citizenship’s (NCoC) censorship project, the Algorithmic Transparency Institute (ATI). Since 2020, both NCoC and the ATI have been led by Cameron Hickey, who formerly monitored “disinformation” at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.
These citizen spies use online tiplines to log “problematic” content in Junkipedia, ATI’s speech monitoring database that “centralize[s] the collection of problematic content” from all major platforms, including encrypted messenger apps like WhatsApp. In the video below, Romualdo describes his job as “capacity building” by recruiting volunteers for social media monitoring and teaching the Latino community how to spy on their community’s online messages. Recruiting people — everyday citizens to volunteer and report the speech of their peers — is the goal. https://foundationforfreedomonline.com/grassroots-censorship-volunteer-misinformation-monitors/
2023-12-29 ”Material Support” in the Form of Speech Can Be Criminalized Depending on when you hear this, the Rutgers/New Brunswick chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine might be the most recent campus group to be suspended for what administrators called “disruptive and disorderly conduct,” and “failure to comply with university or civil authority.” Calls for a ceasefire, at least, are growing in this country and around the world, but that’s in the face of ever-more aggressive, top-down efforts to shut those calls, and the people making them, down. If we are to resist what many are calling a new McCarthyism, we need to inform ourselves of what and where the concerns are, and to stay in conversation with one another.
Listeners will have heard the unsettling reports—more, it seems, each day—of not only student groups being shut down on campus, but powerful people calling for publishing lists of the names of any students who even sign a petition, so that they can be denied future jobs.
We’ve seen editors and journalists and other workers fired, forced out or reprimanded for indicating in any way that they oppose, not even the state of Israel, but the killing and harming and displacing of thousands and thousands of people. Poetry and art events canceled, just for suggesting support for Palestinians, and many of it coming with this kind of fig leaf of: This targeting—which to be clear, we do hope ruins your life—it isn’t just because you don’t support Israel in all of its actions, but because, by our reckoning, you insufficiently oppose Hamas and what it does. https://fair.org/page/2/?s=Israel+Palestine
2023-12-28 Cease-Fire Now! What I Said to the UN Security Council Not many people have the opportunity to provide an oral and written statement to the United Nations Security Council. I had my chance on December 11, 2023, when I was asked as a retired U.S. Army colonel and a former U.S. diplomat to speak on weapons transfers in the Russia-Ukraine war. I introduced myself as a U.S. taxpayer who was fed up with my tax money being used by the powerful and wealthy U.S. arms industry authorized by the U.S. government for sale to countries that are killing innocent civilians.
My statement to the Security Council was simple. Wars will never end as long as weapons transfers into the conflict area continue. I noted, as the Security Council well knows, that civilians will be the primary victims of the transfer of weapons. I cited the two wars to which the U.S. is providing weapons: Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/un-security-council-cease-fire
2023-12-22 Wadie Said on the New McCarthyism People in the US, the story goes, value few things more than individual freedom and money. So you’d think the way an individual uses their money would be sacrosanct. It’s a sign of where we’re at that there are currently congressional efforts to put people in prison, fine them millions of dollars, for choosing not to buy products from countries that are not declared “official enemies” by, well, presumably whoever’s in the White House at the moment. The anti-boycott measure the House Foreign Affairs Committee is pushing may never see daylight, of course, but it indicates a willingness by some in elected office to use state power to silence and sanction anyone using their voice in dissent of official actions—in this one case, lest it be confused, of people critical of Israel’s ongoing mass murder and displacement of Palestinians. https://fair.org/home/wadie-said-on-the-new-mccarthyism/
2023-12-15 Warren Demands Facebook-Instagram Explain Censorship of Pro-Palestinian Content “It is more important than ever that social media platforms do not censor truthful and legitimate content, particularly as people around the world turn to online communities to share and find information.” The senator is seeking clarification regarding documented occurrences on Facebook and Instagram of censorship of pro-Palestinian content, labeling the Palestinian flag as “potentially offensive,” and translating the words “Palestinian” and “Alhamdulilah”—Arabic for “praise be to God”—as “Palestinian terrorist.”
Progressive U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding answers to questions about the Facebook and Instagram parent company’s alleged suppression of pro-Palestinian content during the ongoing Israeli obliteration of Gaza. “Over 90 human rights and civil society organizations have raised alarm about Meta’s reported suppression, filtering, and mistranslation of Palestine-related content over the past two months, calling on the company to provide additional transparency as to content moderation and to address discriminatory algorithmic design,” Warren (D-Mass.) wrote.
“Even more concerning, Meta reportedly manipulated its content filters to apply stricter standards to content generated in Palestine compared to the standards in place in the rest of the region and the world,” Warren noted. https://www.commondreams.org/news/facebook-censorship
2023-12-15 Gessen’s Cancellation Can’t Go Unchallenged when Gessen turned their lens to Israel, they fell victim to pro-Israel censorship. Their recent essay (New Yorker, 12/9/23) on Holocaust remembrance culture in Germany was a self-fulfilling prophecy: As a result of Gessen’s observation that the language that most accurately describes what is happening in Gaza—”the ghetto is being liquidated”—comes from the Jewish experience during World War II, the Green Party–affiliated Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBS), which was planning to award Gessen its Hannah Arendt Prize, canceled the event.
In the essay, Gessen, who uses they, criticized Germany’s unequivocal support of Israel, drawing attention to the Bundestag’s 2019 resolution condemning the Israel boycott movement BDS as antisemitic and quoting a Jewish critic of Germany’s politics of Holocaust remembrance as saying memory culture had “gone haywire.”
In the paragraph the HBS draws attention to, Gessen wrote that “ghetto” would be “the more appropriate term” to describe Gaza, but the word “would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”
The foundation said Gessen was implying that Israel aimed to “liquidate Gaza like a Nazi ghetto,” adding that “this statement is unacceptable to us and we reject it.” https://fair.org/home/gessens-cancellation-cant-go-unchallenged/
2024-12-10 Sonya Meyerson-Knox on Jewish Voice for Peace As we record on December 7, the news from Gaza continues to be horrific: The Washington Post reports, citing Gaza Health Ministry reports, that Israel’s continued assault throughout the region has killed at least 350 people in the past 24 hours, which brings the death toll of the Israeli military campaign, launched after the October 7 attack by Hamas that killed a reported 1,200 people, to more than 17,000.
In this country, Columbia University has suspended two student groups protesting in support of Palestinian human rights and human beings, though the official message couldn’t specify which policies, exactly, had been violated.
There are many important and terrible things happening in the world right now — from fossil fuel companies working to undo any democratic restraints on their ability to profit from planetary destruction; to drugmakers who’ve devastated the lives of millions using the legal system to say money, actually, can substitute for accountability; to an upcoming election that is almost too much to think about, and the Beltway press corps acting like it’s just another day.
But the devastation of Gaza and the vehement efforts to silence anyone who wants to challenge it — and the failure of those efforts, as people nevertheless keep speaking up, keep protesting — is the story for today. We speak with Sonya Meyerson-Knox, communications director of Jewish Voice for Peace.
But first, Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent coverage of climate change. https://kpfa.org/episode/counterspin-december-10-2023/
2023-11-29 CAIR, Muslim Groups Call to Reinstate Hate-Crime Commissioner Who Compared Israel to Nazi Germany The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) wants Maryland’s attorney general to reinstate Zainab Chaudry to the state hate-crime commission following Chaudry’s ouster for her antisemitic social media posts. Chaudry is CAIR’s Maryland director and was suspended from her role on Maryland’s hate-crime commission after she compared Israel to Nazi Germany on Facebook last week. CAIR officials and two dozen Muslim organizations now want the attorney general to restore Chaudry.
“Like Zainab, many members of the Maryland community have been critical of the Israel government’s horrific crimes against the Palestinian people,” CAIR’s letter to the attorney general said. “As you know, the Israeli government has bombed residential buildings, refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, mosques and churches, killing over 13,000 people, most of them women and children.” “Israeli leaders have also made genocidal remarks about the Palestinian people, calling them ‘human animals,’ claiming that there are ‘no innocent civilians’ in Gaza, and threatening to ethnically cleanse millions of people,” the letter continued. “Suspending Zainab for criticizing the Israeli government’s horrific crimes and for expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people is unacceptable. This attack on her is an attack on all of us and we will not accept it.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cair-muslim-groups-call-to-reinstate-hate-crime-commissioner-who-compared-israel-to-nazi-germany/ar-AA1kGJvz
2023-11-28 There’s No Justification for Destroying Gaza’s Health Infrastructure As the health care system in Gaza collapses from more than seven weeks of targeted Israeli bombardment and complete siege, medical institutions in the United States have been silent. Worse, they have attempted to justify the violence. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Nov. 8, 2023, published an essay that we felt created moral ambiguity around bombing hospitals in Gaza.
We are physicians, and in countless private conversations with other physicians, nurses, and medical workers around the U.S., we hear whispers about people being afraid to lose their jobs if they show support for Palestinians. They have been instructed by their leadership not to say the words “Gaza” or “genocide” in their professional roles, while they watch Israeli forces bomb hospitals, murder health care providers, and assault ICU patients. Many health care workers are discovering—much to their surprise—how many people in leadership roles in their institutions support ethnonationalism, even when health care workers and hospitals are targets.
We wrote the following essay in response to JAMA’s promotion of ethical ambiguity around bombing hospitals. It was rejected for publication—yet another act of institutional silencing. As Israeli media now tours the Gaza hospitals that Israel destroyed, alleging these were military targets, we see no Hamas command center. But we do see thousands of dead patients—many of them children—and hundreds of dead medical workers as a result of Israel’s unprecedented violence. https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2023/11/28/hospital-israel-bombing-gaza
2023-11-27 NYU Cancer Doctor Sues After Firing for Racist Posts In New York, the former director of NYU Langone hospital’s cancer center has filed a lawsuit after he was fired for sharing racist cartoons of Arab people on social media, as well as several messages against Palestinians, including one questioning the scale of the death toll in Gaza due to Israel’s nonstop bombardment. Dr. Benjamin Neel is accusing NYU Langone Health of violating city and state human rights laws. Neel’s firing came after NYU Langone first removed a Palestinian medical resident from one of its hospitals. Dr. Zaki Masoud posted messages on social media in solidarity with Palestine. Neel responded, saying he had been “offered up as a sacrificial lamb” so NYU Langone could claim impartiality.https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/27/headlines/nyu_cancer_doctor_sues_after_firing_for_racist_posts
2023-11-23 Susan Sarandon DROPPED By Talent Agency For Opposing Genocide Susan Sarandon has been a full-throated supporter of Palestinian rights, and now as a result the Academy Award-winning actress has been dropped by her talent agency, UTA. As Glenn Greenwald points out, of all the people who’ve lost their jobs or otherwise been censured surrounding the recent flareup of violence between Israel and Hamas, ALL have been supporters of Palestine. Jimmy and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger discuss the time Sarandon referred to Jimmy as a “loose cannon.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XcngOeKbbQ
2023-11-19 Firing of Law Firm Associate for Anti-Israel Letter https://reason.com/volokh/2023/11/19/firing-of-law-firm-associate-for-anti-israel-letter/
2023-11-17 PUBLIC DEFENDERS GET RESTRAINING ORDER TO BLOCK THEIR OWN UNION FROM VOTING ON GAZA STATEMENT FIVE GROUPS PROVIDING public defender services in New York City are cracking down on speech about Palestine. Leadership at the groups are pushing back on statements or internal communications that reference the siege on Gaza, and at least one staffer has been forced to resign.
Two of the organizations sent cease-and-desist letters to union shops considering resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Another group called staffers into meetings with human resources for using work channels to share links about Palestine and proposing to do fundraising for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund in lieu of an annual holiday party.
Management at several of the offices said statements on Gaza under consideration by their unions were jeopardizing funding. Pro-Israel activists launched a petition to defund the Bronx Defenders after its union issued a statement opposing Israel’s “genocidal intent in Gaza.” Public defender offices across the country are already severely underfunded. While most rely heavily on public funding, many also receive support from private institutions, including major law firms. Several firms have responded to criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza by rescinding job offers and threatening to curb recruiting efforts at law schools.
The suppression of speech at publicly funded legal defense agencies comes as governments and workplaces around the world have disciplined and fired staffers for criticizing Israel’s nonstop bombing of Gaza. Suppression of speech about Palestine has come in the form of bans on rallies and vigils, suspensions of student groups, doxxing and death threats, and the cancellation of television interviews with Palestinian commentators. https://theintercept.com/2023/11/17/public-defender-gaza-legal-aid-bronx-defenders/
2023-11-14 NY Times Writers Jazmine Hughes & Jamie Keiles Resign, Join Letter Against Israeli War on Gaza Democracy Now! speaks to award-winning writers Jazmine Hughes and Jamie Lauren Keiles in their first broadcast interview since being forced out of The New York Times Magazine for signing an open letter condemning Israel’s siege on Gaza. The magazine’s editor Jake Silverstein said the letter violated the outlet’s policy on public protest, but Keiles says there are no clear guidelines, especially for contributing writers. He explains he signed on to the letter due to his disappointment in the journalistic standards missing from mainstream coverage of the war in Gaza, saying “this is an industrywide question.” Both writers say their former institution’s scrutiny of pro-Palestinian activism is a double standard that indicates tacit support for Israel. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRk-iR6gGoU
2023-11-11 Doctors Are Being Fired After Pro-Hamas Posts A prominent watchdog group has been calling attention to doctors who have posted messages in support of Hamas, and several of those doctors have since reportedly been fired. StopAntisemitism, an American nonprofit watchdog organization, began resharing alleged pro-Hamas posts from doctors following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/doctors-are-being-fired-after-pro-hamas-posts/ar-AA1jJoq2
2023-11-02 Ron DeSantis Comes Out AGAINST Free Speech! Ron DeSantis may have stood up to the Pharma lobby — somewhat — during the height of COVID, but one powerful interest he’s NOT standing up to today is the Israel lobby. In fact, DeSantis has responded to the latest flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian violence by sending weaponry from the state of Florida directly to Israel while echoing the most bloodthirsty language embracing violence against Hamas and Palestinians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BJBGBHnyc&t=46s
2023-10-31 US regime change activist named Web Summit CEO after founder forced out for condemning Israeli ‘war crimes’ The CEO of one of the world’s leading tech conferences was forced to resign after criticizing Israel’s assault on Gaza. He was quickly replaced by one of the industry’s most prominent US government-affiliated regime change specialists.
Europe’s biggest tech conference, Web Summit, has appointed a veteran US regime-change operative named Katherine Maher as its new CEO, just days after founder Paddy Cosgrave stepped down from the position following an industry-wide backlash to his suggestion that Israel forces have carried out “war crimes” in their ongoing assault of Gaza.
Cosgrave’s future at Web Summit had been in doubt since October 13, when he sparked pro-Israel outrage after tweeting that “war crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies.” Industrial and tech behemoths including Siemens, Intel, Amazon, Meta and Google subsequently declared that they wouldn’t be attending this year’s conference, which is slated to take place in Lisbon, Portugal from November 13 to 16. https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/31/regime-change-web-summit-ceo-israeli-war-crimes/
2023-10-27 Stanford Slammed by Alumni, Students for Hamas Response Stanford University leadership is coming under increasing criticism for failing to clearly condemn the Hamas attacks on Israel and recent acts of antisemitism on campus. More than 1,400 people have so far put their names to an open letter sent to interim President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez. The list includes Menlo Ventures partner Shawn Carolan and tech luminaries from Latin America, including David Velez and Marcos Galperin.
The Stanford letter called on Saller and Martinez to unequivocally condemn antisemitism and the Hamas attack, and to take concrete actions to ensure the safety of Jewish and Israeli students, faculty and staff. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the US and the European Union. The letter said that Stanford’s actions now are inconsistent with its prior statements, including “the plight of black people in America after the brutal murder of George Floyd” when former President Marc Tessier-Lavigne demonstrated his thorough understanding of the issue. Tessier-Lavigne resigned in July after scrutiny over flaws in his scientific research and the university is currently seeking a new president.
At the University of Pennsylvania, a group of donors and alumni have demanded that the school’s leadership quit. At Harvard, billionaire donors have pulled their support, while Harvard Business School alumni Mitt Romney and hedge fund manager Seth Klarman led an open letter accusing the school of ignoring the safety of Jewish students amid pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Investor Leon Cooperman has said he’ll no longer give to Columbia University because of anti-Israel protests.
The university’s leadership issued a statement Oct. 11 condemning “all terrorism and mass atrocities. This includes the deliberate attack on civilians this weekend by Hamas.” A non-faculty instructor at the school in Palo Alto, California, was also suspended this month for allegedly singling out students based on their backgrounds while discussing events in Israel. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/stanford-slammed-by-alumni-students-for-hamas-response/ar-AA1iX74Y
2023-10-27 Israeli targets journalists, kills their families as Big Tech & Biden admin silence Palestinians With Israeli airstrikes on Gaza killing at least twenty Palestinian journalists—and the Biden administration working to muzzle others—Big Tech is quietly coordinating with Tel Aviv to muzzle Palestinian media outfits.
Big Tech censorship has proven indispensable to Israel’s propaganda war. In the aftermath of October 7, multiple social media platforms have suspended or deactivated profiles belonging to numerous prominent journalists, human rights advocates, and Palestinian activists. The crackdown follows years of complaints alleging double standards when it comes to anti-Zionist content on social media.
Despite Meta’s denial, it is worth recalling the company’s record of complying with Israeli government censorship requests. Following the approval of a so-called “Facebook Bill” aimed at clamping down on digital “incitement” in 2016, fanatical former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked bragged that Facebook, Twitter and Google were complying with 70 percent of their takedown orders. https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israeli-assassinates-journalists-big-tech-biden-palestinians/
2023-10-21 AP erases Israeli pledge to attack Gaza like ‘Axis Power’ as officials threaten Palestinians with ‘Dresden’ doctrine As Israeli officials proudly compare their bombardment of the Gaza Strip to the Allied firebombing of Dresden, the Associated Press has quietly removed a section noting US alarm over the historical comparison.
The Associated Press has quietly deleted a reference to official Israeli threats to subject the Gaza Strip to a Dresden-style firebombing campaign — the latest move in legacy media outlets’ ongoing push to downplay the impacts of Tel Aviv’s siege of over two million Palestinians.
“Four U.S. officials familiar with the discussions said American diplomats became increasingly alarmed by comments from their Israeli counterparts regarding their intention to deny water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel into Gaza, as well as the inevitability of civilian casualties,” the AP article previously stated. https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/21/israeli-attack-axis-gaza-dresden/
2023-10-18 US Campaign for Palestinian Rights’s (USCPR) Yesterday, the Hilton Houston Post Oak Hotel, capitulating to external pressure from hate groups, unilaterally canceled the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights’s (USCPR) upcoming conference. The cancellation was made with very little notice or advanced warning. Our experience is not an isolated incident. Across the country we have seen a concerted effort to vilify and silence anyone who speaks up for Palestinian human rights.
USCPR Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid said, “The breach by Hilton is clearly an act of ethnic, racial and religious discrimination. Further, canceling the conference because of our organization’s political positions goes against our First Amendment rights. Not only has Hilton breached their agreement with us, they have also sent a strong message that they stand on the side of hate and bigotry. Moving forward we will explore all options to remedy this. We will fight back and remain undeterred in our mission to advocate for justice, equality, and self-determination for the Palestinian people.”
Following the breach by Hilton, an alarming tweet by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, which attacked our organizers, and dehumanized Palestinians, put our staff, volunteers, and participants in harm’s way. The Governor’s rhetoric, and actions by the hotel echo and inflame the sharp increase in hate incidents that are targeting Arabs, rhetoric that led to the murder of 6-year-old Wadie Al Fayoume.
We stand with countless others who have been subjected to similar unjust actions in the past. Such incidents remind us that we must persist in our efforts to shed light on the ongoing human rights abuses in Palestine and the need for international intervention. https://www.uscprconference.org/
2023-10-18 Major Jewish-Led Protest in Capital Calls for Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza inside the White House and other government buildings, staffers have shared with reporters the challenges in calling out Israel’s crimes against Palestinians. Government employees say they fear possible retaliation for even raising the issue of humanitarian protections or restraining Israel. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/18/headlines/biden_sides_with_israel_after_airstrikes_level_gazan_hospital_killing_hundreds_of_palestinians
2023-10-16 Israel Is Just A Nonstop Bombing Campaign With A Flag You are required to turn yourself into an unthinking mental infant who can only relate to world events by pointing at them and yelling “GOOD!” or “BAD!”, with “good” and “bad” always perfectly aligning with the information interests of the US-centralized empire.
If the answers go against the information interests of the US-centralized empire, then you’re not allowed to ask the questions. You can only believe what the talking heads tell you to believe and clap along to the beat of the imperial drum, like a child clapping along to a song on a cartoon show.
When empire simps berate you and accuse you of treasonous malfeasance for talking about the causes of terrible world events, what they are really saying is, “Stop asking questions. Stop thinking. Believe only what you are told. Become stupid. Become a drooling moron with American flags in your eyes. Stop using that tongue to question authority and affix it firmly to the imperial boot forever.”
If you can’t talk about the causes of violence, then you can’t prevent violence. So if you’re an empire that’s held together by endless violence, that’s the last thing you want people doing. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-is-just-a-nonstop-bombing
2023-10-16 State Dept. Reportedly Bans Officials from Publicly Using Terms “De-escalation,” “Ceasefire” HuffPost reports the State Department instructed officials not to use certain terms when speaking in public about the war, including “de-escalation,” “ceasefire,” “end to violence” and “restoring calm.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/16/headlines/protests_across_the_us_call_for_israel_to_end_its_siege_and_genocide_in_gaza
2023-10-10 Playboy fires former adult film star for ‘disgusting and reprehensible comments’ on Hamas attack Mia Khalifa, a former adult film performer who was born in Beirut, Lebanon, has been expressing her views on the conflict on X, formerly Twitter. And Playboy has fired her from its Centerfold platform in response to some anti-Israel comments it slammed as “disgusting and reprehensible.” At Playboy, we encourage free expression and constructive political debate, but we have a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech.”
On October 7, Khalifa tweeted, “Can someone please tell the freedom fighters in Palestine to flip their phones and film horizontal.” Later in the day, Khalifa posted, “I can’t believe the Zionist apartheid regime is being brought down by guerrilla fighters in fake Gucci shirts – the biopics of these moments better reflect that.” https://www.alternet.org/israel-hamas-2665870125/
2023-02-17 Silencing Critics of Israel: Biden Pulls Nomination of Human Rights Lawyer For Decrying Apartheid Last Friday, the State Department announced the nomination of James Cavallaro, a widely respected human rights attorney, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. But earlier this week, the State Department withdrew Cavallaro’s nomination after reports emerged that he had described Israel as an apartheid state and had criticized House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s close ties to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Defending the withdrawal of Cavallaro’s nomination, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, “His statements clearly do not reflect U.S. policy. They are not a reflection of what we believe, and they are inappropriate to say the least.” The decision has sparked outrage within the human rights community. Cavallaro joins us to explain that this move by the Biden administration is particularly troubling because the role he was nominated for does not have any authority over U.S.-Israel relations and is an independent position. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfslgTvNymk
BDS is a global movement driven by citizen activists. It works to peacefully pressure corporations, universities, and cultural organizations to stop doing business with the state of Israel, with the goal of pressuring Israel to obey international law and respect the human rights of Palestinians. https://www.projectcensored.org/24-silenced-in-savannah-journalist-abby-martin-challenges-georgias-bds-gag-law/
2020-11-28 Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Misguided Defense of John Brennan and The Logan Act: a Dangerous and Unconstitutional Law The right to dissent from, and to work against, the official foreign policy of the U.S. Government is vital: foundational to Constitutional liberties. There is very little such dissent in the U.S. Congress, where many of the core tenets of the Foreign Policy Community (from CIA drone warfare and clandestine coups to steadfast support for Gulf State and Middle East tyrannies as well as Israel) enjoy overwhelming, at times virtually unanimous, bipartisan support.
This 219-year-old statute (Logan Act) is one of the most unconstitutional and dangerous laws in the U.S. Code. Because it has never been used to prosecute anyone, and was only used to obtain an indictment one time in its entire history — back in 1803, against someone who wrote an op-ed criticizing U.S. foreign policy toward France — nobody knows what it actually prescribes or allows because there is no binding judicial precedent interpreting what it means. It is precisely because it has never been used to prosecute anyone that there is no judicial clarity about what it means, and that’s how the U.S. Government wants it (for the same exact reason, the DOJ has never made good on its threats to prosecute any journalist who publishes classified information under the Espionage Act of 1917: they prefer to weaponize the fear of uncertainty regarding the law’s scope and application rather than prosecute journalists under it and thus risk a judicial ruling declaring it unconstitutional or inapplicable to journalists). The wildly broad vagueness and lack of clarity is what makes it so dangerous to leave the Logan Act on the books. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/rep-ilhan-omars-misguided-defense
2019-12-05 TIM WISE SPEECH AT “CRIMINALIZING DISSENT” PALESTINIAN RIGHTS PANEL AT UMASS Criminalizing Dissent: The Attack on BDS & Pro-Palestinian Speech, a panel featuring Cornel West, Linda Sarsour, Shaun King, Omar Barghouti, Tim Wise, and Dima Khalidi, was held at the UMass-Amherst Fine Arts Center on Nov. 12, 2019 in front of a capacity crowd despite being condemned by university officials and right-wing pro-Israel pressure groups. The panel addressed mounting efforts by U.S. political leaders, right-wing lobbying groups, and college and university administrators to silence pro-Palestinian speech on American campuses and criminalize support for BDS, a nonviolent movement that seeks to pressure Israel to end its violations of Palestinian human rights. Topics included the recent bipartisan vote by the U.S. House of Representatives to condemn BDS, a new U.S. Department of Education policy that threatens to withdraw federal funding from institutions that allow pro-Palestinian speech critical of Israeli policy, and a formal statement issued by the chancellor of UMass condemning the event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-PpLugQAqI
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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
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