Activists Attacked
2024-02-23
2024-01-11 ‘Protest Is the Tool by Which We Realize Our Democracy’ CounterSpin interview with Chip Gibbons on the right to protest. So at Defending Rights & Dissent, we like to say that we defend your right to know and your freedom to act. We oppose government secrecy and the government attempts to hide its own crimes, and we also defend the rights of the people to take to the streets, to call their members of Congress, to engage in dissent.
Dissent is vital to our democracy, and, I believe I’ve commented in the past, protest is the tool by which we realize our democracy, that we realize the democratic ambitions of our country. The right to protest is both a fundamental right, and it is a core tool for achieving other fundamental rights. Without the right to protest, we wouldn’t have made as much progress as we have on civil rights (and I know there’s a lot more progress to be made); we wouldn’t have made as much progress on women’s rights, on LGBTQ rights, on peace and disarmament (although that cause feels very far from being realized these days). https://fair.org/home/protest-is-the-tool-by-which-we-realize-our-democracy/
2023-10-05 Israel’s Current Government Cannot Envisage First, let me say that, for me, it has become more difficult over time to keep using the term Left in order to describe a certain political worldview. Identity politics has divided the Left, various segments of the so-called radical Left have developed an insufferable tolerance problem, and universalism has become passé. In this sense, I miss the old communist/anarchist left. Having said that, it was wild watching “leftists” appearing to celebrate Hamas’s atrocities, or finding excuses for the killing of innocent civilians, including children, women, and elderly. It’s one thing to say that we need to understand the context of a conflict, and yet another thing to applaud the massacre of innocent civilians. In today’s world, perhaps more than ever before, we need a humanist left and a left that is socialist and universalist. We know that the Israeli regime is brutal towards Palestinians and that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful. But what does Hamas represent?
[MEK Note: UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43 of 1982 which recognized “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle”. That resolution specifically reaffirmed this right in the case of the Palestinian struggle.
Badly outnumbered, if you, your family and friends were violently terrorized, attacked and even killed repeatedly for many years, should you be condemned if you fought back as best you could and actually killed some of your attackers. Should we have condemned the resistance movement against Nazi Germany?
Palestinians have endured 75 years of violent oppression where non-violent protest has been violently suppressed! Then on an occasion like October 7th, some Palestinians are able to break out of their open-air prison and fight back many to their death. Are these Palestinians to be condemned because some of their oppressors are actually killed. Further, some still want to condemn these same Palestinians after a million+ of their fellow Palestinians have become homeless without adequate food, water, medical care and safety while over 10,00 have been murdered with their communities in ruins. While I can and want to feel for each Israel individual who has lost their life, I see no humanitarian concern of Palestinians murdered by those who live on solen land. Oppressed people who have been denied non-violent redress have a legal right to defend themselves in whatever way they can.]
The assault on Gaza is driven by rage. But I also believe that Netanyahu is mostly interested in quelling the public anger against him and is hoping that he can do so with a war against Hamas, which he called “a battle of civilization against barbarians.” And in the process of doing so, he doesn’t care how many “Palestinian animals” are killed. Apparently, this is what leaders of civilized nations do, according to Benjamin Netanyahu! Nor does he care about the hostages. Unfortunately, however, he may have the majority of Israeli citizens on his side. Netanyahu’s government is more than extreme, but “Jewish Israeli citizens have moved significantly rightward over the years.” And hate speech against Palestinians seems to have become today something of a national sport for many Israelis. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-gaza-vision-for-peace
2023-05-22 Canary Mission Blacklists Pro-Palestinian Activists, Chilling Free Speech Rights Pro-Palestinian activism—including the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that works to peacefully pressure Israel to obey international law and respect Palestinians’ human rights—has become a contentious testing ground for activists’ rights and free-speech policies, especially on US college and university campuses.
For an October 2020 article published by the Intercept, Murtaza Hussain interviewed a handful of pro-Palestinian activists who have been targeted by Canary Mission, an anonymously-run website, established in 2015, that seeks to publicly discredit critics of Israel as “terrorists” and “anti-Semites.” As Hussain wrote, “Canary Mission is difficult to describe as anything other than a blacklist.” One activist told the Intercept that Canary Mission has proven “very powerful in silencing people and making them think free speech is not their right. It instills a powerful sense of fear and paranoia.” https://www.projectcensored.org/6-canary-mission-blacklists-pro-palestinian-activists-chilling-free-speech-rights/
2018-09-10 LEAKED CLIPS FROM CENSORED DOCUMENTARY ON ISRAEL LOBBY REVEAL ATTACKS ON US ACTIVISTS At the Electronic Intifada, you and your colleague Asa Winstanley have reported extensively on this censored documentary. On August 27, you published an article at the Electronic Intifada titled, Censored film names Adam Milstein as Canary Mission funder. Canary Mission is a blacklist for pro-Palestine activists that effectively smears them as racists and tries to get them fired from their jobs or prevent them from getting future jobs. Thanks to this film and the leak that you obtained, you now know the funder. Can you talk about what your reporting has shown and why this film has been censored?
And what it also shows is that Canary Mission is part of a much bigger effort, effectively orchestrated by the Israeli government, in which groups like the Israel on Campus Coalition and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies are acting as agents or front groups for the Israeli government, helping it to gather information on U.S. citizens, to harass U.S. citizens and other activities without being registered as foreign agents of the state of Israel.
Well, Noah Pollak is part of the crew that Ali describes as essentially unregistered Israeli agents, Adam Milstein, Jacob Baime of the Israel on Campus Coalition, that are effectively surveilling and attacking American students on behalf of the Israeli government. These are Likudnik operatives, figures who align with the right wing in Israel, who are substantially funded by Milstein as well as Sheldon Adelson, who is one of the largest donors to both Donald Trump and to the political empire of Benjamin Netanyahu. https://therealnews.com/leaked-clips-from-censored-documentary-on-israel-lobby-reveal-attacks-on-us-activists
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