progressiveissuesblog

Saudi Arabia

Updated 2024-08=29

2024-08-16 Biden’s New Weapons Deal With Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bonesaw      It appears that the decades of costs in arming and defending dictatorships in the Middle East remain entirely lost on the Democratic leadership. 

Perhaps we should be grateful that it took President Biden over four years to fully abandon his campaign pledge to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia, eroding the promise bit by bit before finally announcing at the end of the day on Friday, August 9, that the administration would resume sales of offensive air-to-ground munitions to the Kingdom.

In reality, the ban was merely the last vestige of a long-abandoned policy to isolate and sanction Saudi Arabia for its various, gruesome atrocities and abuses both at home and abroad. In its place, the Biden administration’s courtiers doubled down on their embrace of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS), offering up a never-ending basket of concessions and goodies, as the golden ticket for continued U.S. primacy in the Middle East, come what may to everyone and everything else.   https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/saudi-us-weapons-deal

2024-08-14 Report: Saudi crown prince said he fears assassination over Israel normalization     Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly told visiting US lawmakers that he fears being assassinated over his pursuit of normalization with Israel.  

According to a Politico report published on Wednesday, citing three people briefed on the conversations, the crown prince indicated that he still intends to move ahead with forging ties with the Jewish state, though he fears it could cost him his life. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/report-saudi-crown-prince-said-he-fears-assassination-over-israel-normalization/ar-AA1oOk7j?

2023-10-25 Craig Murray: The Chances of a Regional War  Gaza has no defense from bombs and missiles, and there is no military reason why Israel cannot keep this up for months and simply rely upon aerial massacre. We are perhaps within a week of thirst, starvation and disease killing even more people per day than bombardment.  The population of Gaza is simply defenseless. Only international intervention can stop Israel from doing whatever it wishes, and those countries which have influence with Israel are actively abetting and encouraging the genocide.

I offer just a cautionary footnote that Saudi Arabia is not, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud quite the reliable U.S./Israeli puppet it has historically been. I do not have much time for MBS, as readers know, but his high opinion of the importance of the House of Saud and its leadership role among Arabs, makes him a different proposition from his predecessor.

Saudi Arabia has leverage. The Biden administration has gone all in on regional domination, sending two aircraft carrier groups into a situation which, if it escalates, could send oil prices to highest-ever levels, with Russia blocked from the market. U.S. President Joe Biden is risking a huge gas price hike in an election year.

Biden’s calculation, or that of his security services, is that nobody can or will intervene to save the Palestinians. They judge the genocide as containable. That is an extraordinary gamble.   https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/25/craig-murray-the-chances-of-a-regional-war/

2022-06-22 IMEU Policy Analysis #7: Biden’s Trip to Saudi, Israel Reinforces Human Rights Abuses    President Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian West Bank in July undermines his administration’s professed commitment to advancing human rights in its foreign policy.

The trip gives the Saudi regime a pass for its authoritarianism at home and its violent attacks against Yemeni civilians, and it violates Biden’s campaign pledge to make Saudi Arabia a pariah for its brutal assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident.

The trip will provide tacit support for Israel’s apartheid rule over the Palestinian people and its brutal 55-year military occupation, while violating Biden’s campaign pledges to promote freedom for the Palestinian people and to reestablish diplomatic ties with them.    https://imeu.org/article/imeu-policy-analysis-7-bidens-trip-to-saudi-arabia-israel-reinforces-author

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Israel Intelligence Failure

Updated 2023-10-29

2023-10-16 Gaza is Burning in Lockstep with the Great Reset   The latest Israel-Hamas conflict was either deliberately engineered or it was the result of a remarkable concatenation of security lapses. Current affairs commentator Efrat Fenigson, a former Israel Defense Force (IDF) reservist, was among the first to concisely unpack the sheer improbability of a Hamas sneak attack on an ultra-secure Israeli border complex.   https://www.activistpost.com/2023/10/gaza-is-burning-in-lockstep-with-the-great-reset.html

2023-10-08 SCOTT RITTER: Israel’s Massive Intelligence Failure     The origins of Israel’s intelligence failure on the Hamas attacks can be traced to the decision to rely on AI instead of the contrarian analysis born of the earlier intelligence failure of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  How did such a massive, complex undertaking escape the notice of Israel’s vaunted intelligence service?  An equally important question is why wasn’t this attack detected by the U.S. intelligence community as well, given the massive expenditures made in countering terrorism since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland of September 11, 2001?

The answers lie in the history of success Israel has enjoyed in identifying and responding to Hamas operations in the past, success which manifested itself into a culture of complacency, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Israeli citizens — the very people the intelligence services were dedicated to protect.   The fact that this attack took place 50 years and a day from when Israel suffered what had been — up until this moment — Israel’s greatest intelligence failure, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, only reinforces the depth of the failure that transpired.

Israel’s fatal mistake was to openly brag about the role AI played in Operation Guardian of the Walls. Hamas was apparently able to take control of the flow of information being collected by Israel.

There has been much speculation about Hamas “going dark” regarding cell phone and computer usage to deny Israel the data that is contained in those means of communication. But “going dark” would have, by itself, been an intelligence indicator, one that AI would have certainly picked up.    Instead, it’s highly probable that Hamas maintained an elaborate communications deception plan, maintaining a level of communications sufficient in quantity and quality to avoid being singled out by AI — and by Israeli analysts deviating from the norm.   In the same way, Hamas would likely have maintained its physical profile of movement and activity to keep the Israeli AI algorithms satisfied that nothing strange was afoot.   This also meant any activity — such as training related to paragliding or amphibious operations — that might be detected and flagged by Israeli AI was done to avoid detection.

The Israelis had become prisoners of their own successes in intelligence collection.  https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/08/scott-ritter-israels-massive-intelligence-failure/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Internet

Updated 2023-10-29

2023-10-28 Israel says it will fight Elon Musk’s effort to supply Starlink internet to ‘internationally recognized aid organizations’ in Gaza    Internet and cellular services in the Gaza Strip went down after Israel bombarded the territory. It then began its first ground incursions into Gaza.   The emergency 101 telephone number wasn’t working, meaning that ambulances could not be called. Many journalists and aid workers in the Gaza Strip were also out of contact, outlets including The Guardian reported.   Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, later responded to Musk’s post on X, saying Israel would fight against the SpaceX CEO’s effort to offer Starlink to Gaza.    “Israel will use all means at its disposal to fight this,” Karhi said in the post.    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-says-it-will-fight-elon-musk-s-effort-to-supply-starlink-internet-to-internationally-recognized-aid-organizations-in-gaza/ar-AA1j0ca2?

2023-10-27 ‘Massacres Will Be Done in Total Darkness’: Huge Israeli Assault Amid Blackout in Gaza      People reportedly lost all access to internet and communication services across the Gaza Strip on Friday night as Israel announced an expansion of its ground attack and launched what observers described as the largest aerial assault since its latest bombing campaign began nearly three weeks ago.   The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it has “completely lost contact with the operations room in Gaza Strip and all our teams operating there due to the Israeli authorities cutting off all landline, cellular, and internet communications.”

“We are deeply concerned about the ability of our teams to continue providing their emergency medical services, especially since this disruption affects the central emergency number ‘101’ and hinders the arrival of ambulance vehicles to the wounded and injured,” the group said. “We are also worried about the safety of our teams working in Gaza Strip as the continuous and intense Israeli airstrikes around the clock indicate that the Israeli authorities will continue to commit war crimes while isolating Gaza from the outside world.”    https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-blackout

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Food Rationing

Updated 2023-10-29

2013-09-30 Israel Counted Minimum Calorie Needs in Gaza Blockade   Declassified documents reveal that the Israeli military calculated how many calories a typical Gazan would need to survive, in order to determine how much food to supply the Gaza Strip during Israel’s 2007–2010 blockade. The Israeli human rights group Gisha, which campaigns against Israel’s Gaza blockade, fought a legal battle to force the Israeli Ministry of Defense to release the documents.

Israel began its blockade in September 2007, identifying Gaza as a “hostile territory” that had been “seized” by Hamas. Israel claimed that the blockade was necessary to weaken Hamas. Critics accused the Israeli government of targeting Gaza’s more than 1.5 million people in its failed effort to overthrow Hamas.

In the food calculation, Israel applied the average daily requirement of 2,279 calories per person to determine that it would allow roughly 1,836 grams of food per person, per day. Food imports to Gaza were cut by nearly 75 percent, from 400 trucks per day to 106 trucks per day, five days a week, from the start of the blockade.

“How can Israel claim that it is not responsible for civilian life in Gaza when it controls even the type and quantity of food that Palestinian residents of Gaza are permitted to consume?” asked Sari Bashi, Gisha’s executive director, in a statement. After Gisha published the documents, Israeli defense ministry official Guy Inbar defended the Israeli research paper as something “that came up in two discussions” but was “never made use of.”

These developments occurred against the backdrop of a diplomatic cable from 2008 showing that Israel informed US officials that it would keep Gaza’s economy “on the brink of collapse” while avoiding a humanitarian crisis.    https://www.projectcensored.org/20-israel-counted-minimum-calorie-needs-gaza-blockade/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Facebook Law

Updated2023-10-29

2022-01-22 How Israel’s ‘Facebook Law’ Plans to Control All Palestinian    What is known as the ‘Facebook Law’ is set to grant “Israeli courts the power to demand the removal of user-generated content on social media content platforms that can be perceived as inflammatory or as harming ‘the security of the state,’ or the security of people or the security of the public.”

According to a December 30 statement by the Palestinian Digital Rights Coalition (PDRC) and the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC), Israeli censorship of Palestinian content online has deepened since 2016, when Sa’ar’s bill was first introduced.

In their statement, the two organizations highlighted the fact that Israel’s so-called Cyber Unit had submitted 2,421 requests to social media companies to delete Palestinian content in 2016. That number has grown exponentially since, to the extent that the Cyber Unit alone has requested the removal of more than 20,000 Palestinian items. PDRC and PHROC suggest that the new legislation, which was already approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on December 27, “would only strengthen the relationship between the Cyber Unit and social media companies.”  

Facebook’s involvement in Israel’s efforts aimed at silencing Palestinian online voices that call for justice, freedom and end of the occupation, is itself situated in an agreement the company had reached with Israel in September 2016. Then, the Israeli government announced that it had signed an agreement with the social media giant “to work together to determine how to tackle incitement on the social media network.” Within days, the accounts of prominent Palestinian journalists and activists were reportedly being deleted.

Israel’s latest ‘Facebook Law’ does not just pertain to controlling content on Facebook-related platforms, including Instagram and others. According to a Haaretz editorial published on December 29, the impact of this particular bill is far-reaching, as it will grant District Court judges throughout the country the power to remove posts, not only from Facebook and other social media outlets, “but from any website at all”.   https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/25/how-israels-facebook-law-plans-to-control-all-palestinian-content-online/

2021-05-07 Sheikh Jarrah: Activists raise concerns over deleted social media content     Rights groups and activists have raised concerns that the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are silencing Palestinian voices, after a number of posts about increased tensions in the East Jerusalem Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood were taken down and accounts suspended.

Hundreds of people shared screenshots of their suspended accounts and blank screens after they had shared posts related to the forced evictions of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, a residential area less than a kilometre away from the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.  https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sheikh-jarrah-israel-palestine-activists-social-media-deleted-content-concerns

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Documentary – The Lobby – USA

Updated 2023-10-29

2018-11-02 Watch the film the Israel lobby didn’t want you to see  The first two episodes here!  On 6 November, The Electronic Intifada published the final two episodes of The Lobby – USA. You can watch episodes three and four here.    The Electronic Intifada has obtained a complete copy of The Lobby – USA, a four-part undercover investigation by Al Jazeera into Israel’s covert influence campaign in the United States.

We are releasing the leaked film simultaneously with France’s Orient XXI and Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar, which have respectively subtitled the episodes in French and Arabic.   The film was made by Al Jazeera during 2016 and was completed in October 2017.    But it was censored after Qatar, the gas-rich Gulf emirate that funds Al Jazeera, came under intense Israel lobby pressure not to air the film.

The Lobby – USA, episode 1   The Covert War  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lSjXhMUVKE

The Lobby – USA, episode 2   Managing Elites.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XytkI7afHcQ

The Lobby – USA, episode 3   The Witch Hunt   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm-Dm4pO0xY

The Lobby – USA, episode 4    Marketing Occupation     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1OgxfCT044

https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876

2023-06-04 “National security” cited as reason Al Jazeera nixed Israel lobby film      Al Jazeera’s investigative documentary into the US Israel lobby was censored by Qatar over “national security” fears, The Electronic Intifada has learned.   These include that broadcast of the film could add to pressure for the US to pull its massive Al Udeid air base out of the Gulf state or make a Saudi military invasion more likely.  

A source has confirmed that broadcast of The Lobby – USA was indefinitely delayed as “a matter of national security” for Qatar. The source has been briefed by a high-level individual in Doha.    One of the Israel lobby groups whose activities are revealed in the film has been mounting a campaign to convince the US to withdraw its military forces from Qatar – which leaders in the emirate would see as a major blow to their security.

The tiny gas-rich monarchy houses and funds satellite channel Al Jazeera.  https://electronicintifada.net/content/national-security-cited-reason-al-jazeera-nixed-israel-lobby-film/24566

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Death Merchants

2023-10-27 Reports Expose US Billionaires and Corporate Profiteers Enabling Israel’s War on Gaza     After Israel declared war in response to Hamas killing over 1,400 Israelis and taking around 200 hostages, the stocks of major American and European war profiteers soared. A Thursday report from Eyes on the Ties—the news site of LittleSis and Public Accountability Initiative—targets five U.S. firms with a record of providing weaponry to Israel.

The outlet stressed that while announcing a supplemental funding request that includes $14.3 billion for Israel, U.S. President Joe Biden last week “invoked ‘patriotic American workers’ who are ‘building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom,’ but it’s the defense company CEOs who rake in tens of millions a year, and Wall Street shareholders, who are the real beneficiaries of warmongering.”    

The five targeted industry giants collectively recorded $196.5 billion in military-related revenue last year, Eyes on the Tiesreported. They are Boeing ($30.8 billion), General Dynamics ($30.4 billion), Lockheed Martin ($63.3 billion), Northrop Grumman ($32.4 billion), and RTX, formerly Raytheon ($39.6 billion).

“The top shareholders in these five defense companies largely consist of big asset managers, or big banks with asset management wings, that include BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, Capital Group, Wellington, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Newport Trust Company, Longview Asset Management, Massachusetts Financial Services Company, Geode Capital, and Bank of America,” the news outlet noted.   https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-weapons-to-israel

2023-10-27 ‘Stop Arming Israel’: Protesters Target Weapons Makers Supplying the Gaza Bombardment    Protesters with Palestine Action on Thursday disrupted three different weapons factories in the U.K. that send arms to Israel as the country continues its siege and bombardment of Gaza that has killed thousands of people and prompted warnings of genocide.

In the largest gathering, more than 100 people blockaded both entrances to the Instro Precision factory in Sandwich, Kent, which is owned by Israel’s largest arms company Elbit Systems. Elbit has also been targeted by activists in the U.S. since Israel began its latest assault on Gaza following an October 7 attack by Hamas.  https://www.commondreams.org/news/protesters-target-israel-weapons-makers

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Corporate Profit of Occupation

Updated 2023-10-29

Who Profits is an independent research center dedicated to exposing the role of the private sector in the Israeli occupation economy     “Israeli and international companies profit from, sustain and bolster Israel’s military-industrial complex. Systematic violence inflicted on Palestinian bodies also serves as a testing ground for such companies’ technology ” List of occupation supporting corporations here!  https://www.whoprofits.org/

2010-05-08 Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine   Israeli and international corporations are directly involved in the occupation of Palestine. Along with various political, religious and national interests, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights is fueled by corporate interests. These occupying companies and corporations lead real estate deals, develop the Israeli colonies and infrastructure, and contribute to the construction and operation of an ethnic separation system, including checkpoints, walls and roads. They also design and supply equipment and tools used in the control and repression of the civilian population under occupation.

An extensive, on-going grassroots investigation, which exposes hundreds of international companies and corporations involved in the occupation, is being conducted and posted online at http://www.whoprofits.org  by the Israeli group Coalition of Women for Peace. The project currently focuses on three main areas of corporate involvement in the occupation: the settlement industry, economic exploitation, and control of the population. At this stage they are not investigating the vast industry of military production and arms trade (see story # 9).

The ongoing business of construction in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Golan Heights includes housing developments as well as extensive infrastructure projects such as roads and water systems for the exclusive use of Israeli settlers, on lands confiscated from Palestinians. The construction industry includes real estate dealers, contractors, planners, suppliers of materials, as well as security, surveillance, and maintenance services.

While the US government has on numerous occasions affirmed the illegality of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, it encourages American support by providing tax deductions for donations to these settlements, which have nearly doubled within a year and are rapidly accelerating. An audit conducted by Reuters of American tax records found that thirteen tax exempt groups linked explicitly to settlements managed to collect more than $35 million in the past five years alone.  Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice defended the tax incentives as “humanitarian,” and rejected any comparison to Palestinian charities facing US sanctions for suspected links with Islamic parties, such as Hamas.    https://www.projectcensored.org/11-private-corporations-profit-from-the-occupation-of-palestine/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Child Detainees

Updated 2024-08-24

2024-07-23 Israeli Forces Post Pictures of Stripped Detained Palestinian Children Online      Israeli forces have taken pictures of Palestinian children they have abducted into their torture camps and posted them online with humiliating captions, a report finds as Israel holds thousands of Palestinians in detention without charges.

A Human Rights Watch review of 37 posts on social media published Tuesday finds that Israeli soldiers regularly post pictures of Palestinians abducted from Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Most of the pictures are of men and boys, with many showing them stripped to their underwear or totally naked. The people pictured are often handcuffed, blindfolded and injured, the report says.

One post, published by an Israeli soldier in Gaza on December 8, depicts nearly two dozen detained people, including two who appear to be children. The people are all stripped to their underwear, and some of them are blindfolded. https://truthout.org/articles/israeli-forces-post-pictures-of-stripped-detained-palestinian-children-online/

2024-03-17 Gaza and the Language of the Unheard   I don’t know how many Palestinians were held in administrative detention in 1992, or how many of these were children, then. It is reported that just before Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, the number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons without charges, without trials, was more than 1,300, the highest number in three decades. The number has since increased dramatically to more than 7,000.    

Children in Israeli jails are often denied parental visits, and there are reports of widespread abuse.  These past months I have been thinking about those kids often, about their parents, wondering what they are doing now. Are some still in jail? Are some of them dead? For those alive and at large, how has that trauma they suffered three decades ago and the traumas suffered since altered the course of their lives? Have some taken up arms?

When in 1967, speaking of the riots in American cities that summer in his “The Other America” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard,” he was not justifying violence. He was explaining its inevitability. “And so,” he said, “in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”

As long as Israel postpones justice, it stands in the position of having these occurrences like October 7 over and over again.      https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/gaza-language-unheard

2010-04-29 Plight of Palestinian Child Detainees Highlights Global Problem   According to Catherine Cook, Adah Kay, and Adam Hanieh, approximately 350 Palestinian children ages 12-18, are currently being held in Israeli prisons. Over 2,000 children have been arrested since the beginning of the second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation. This number corresponds with number given in a report by the human rights organization Defense for Children International, which adds that another 170 children are held in military detention centers.

Looking at the testimonies from hundreds of detained children, Cook et al found a pattern in the children’s experience of arrest, interrogation, sentencing and prison conditions. The children overwhelmingly reported abuse during their experience in either prison or detention camp. The consistency of these reports reveals that these patterns of abuse are not just the actions of a few bad soldiers, but perhaps reveals a broader policy. Virtually every child interviewed describes a deliberate pattern of behavior by Israeli soldiers or police characterized by violence, physical and psychological threats, and overwhelming force, often in the middle of the night. Cook, Kay and Hanieh believe that the similarity in testimonies from child prisoners points to a systematic approach to child abuse, calculated to exploit children’s vulnerability and create feelings of fear, intimidation and helplessness.    https://www.projectcensored.org/23-plight-of-palestinian-child-detainees-highlights-global-problem/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Canary Mission

Updated 2023-10-29

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/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World