Funny How America Bristles When Netanyahu Indicted...,

thehill  |   U.S. officials went on the offensive Monday after the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed arrest warrants against two top Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza, a move that Congress and the White House slammed for equating Israel’s conduct with the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 attack.

President Biden and moderate Democrats united with Republicans in Congress to criticize the ICC shortly after the Monday notice that arrest warrants had been filed for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with three top Hamas officials. 

They argued the ICC has no jurisdiction in the case and was undermining its own credibility, while House Republican leaders threatened to sanction the court over the warrants.

Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the ICC inserted a “false moral equivalency” for issuing arrest warrants targeting both Hamas and Israel. 

“Today’s ICC decision is absurd. The ICC, like the rest of the international community, continues to be obsessed with targeting Israel during its time of need,” Risch said in a statement. “Today’s actions have hurt the credibility of the court and seriously harmed legitimate accountability efforts where true war crimes are occurring, like Ukraine, Syria, and across Africa.” 

The White House also criticized the ICC for the arrest warrants, with Biden calling it “outrageous” in a statement and denouncing the equivalence of Hamas and Israel. 

White House national security communications adviser John Kirby told reporters that while there have been too many casualties in Gaza, the Israeli military is not intentionally targeting civilians. 

“[Israeli] soldiers are not waking up in the morning putting their boots on the ground with direct orders to go kill innocent civilians in Gaza,” he said.

The U.S. and Israel have repeatedly contrasted the army’s actions with Hamas, saying the militant group deliberately targeted Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 when fighters killed more than 1,100 people and took another roughly 250 hostages, about 130 of whom are still being held captive, an unknown number alive. They also accuse Hamas of using civilians as human shields in Gaza. 

“There should be no equivalence at all,” Kirby said. “It’s ridiculous.” 

But ICC top prosecutor Karim Khan deflected criticism in a Monday interview with CNN, noting he appointed an independent panel of international law experts to review the warrant process. 

 

Leaving Labels Aside For A Moment - Netanyahu's Reality Is A Moral Abomination

This video will be watched in schools and Universities for generations to come, when people will ask the question: did we know what was really happening and why, and what did we say about it as it was happening? pic.twitter.com/9DgvGSN5F4

— Robin Monotti (@robinmonotti) May 18, 2024

 

WHO Put The Hit On Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico?

Eyes on Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico who has just announced a Covid Inquiry that will investigate the vaccine, excess deaths, the EU Pfizer deal and Big Pharma’s ability to control the Government.

‘The Slovak public simply needs an answer. Needs an answer about… pic.twitter.com/V84S04uyan

— Kat A 🌸 (@SaiKate108) January 28, 2024

igor-chudov  |   1. The media taks about the strong motivations of the guy regarding the Ukraine war. Who is interested in Fico being killed, when viewed from the Ukraine war angle?

Clearly, not the Russians. Fico and Orban (the PM's of Slovakia and Hungary) are the only ones in the EU that do not want this war to continue. The rest of the EU is either captured by their corrupt leaders and/or are vested in delivering arms (such as the Czech Republic that has major orders now for ammunition), they want this war to continue, mostly pushed by the US and NATO. Especially the US considers this proxy war "good for business" and both the UK and US foreign ministers are doing a sales roadshow, literally stating how good it is for business (since every military contractor earns money, while soldiers of the Ukraine and Russia, not of other countries, are dying). A despicable immoral attitude, but factual. And people have become totally insensitive to this message, when they should be outraged about politicians openly talking about war like business, ignoring the devastation.

So whatever the motivators in intimidating Slovakia regarding the war, it does not serve Russian interests.

But what is the media full with already? "Pro-Russian militant group with ties to the assassin". Totally illogical. Just like the first media message that emerged about the blowing up of the North-stream pipeline, as if Russia were behind it, blowing up its own money maker. But it does fit with the media and political narrative of the collective West, the military industrial complex and some other interests I will cover in the next bulletpoints. So whatever news will now appear that wants to implicate Russia, is obviously a lie. Like so many other media news on politics, including the reasons for this war, how it's progressing and the effects on the economy. But the power of the media will have the masses believe the official narrative nonetheless, just like that "safe and effective" jab they forced on people.

2. What other controversial topics did Fico deal with that may cause him to be assassinated?

Well, the list is pretty long. He does not like the way NATO is going, he does not want to finance the Ukraine war, he does not like the Covid plandemic enforcement by the WHO and wanted to investigate it, he is opposing the LGBTQ+ narrative, so he pretty much seems to be standing up against the current rages, most of which are fuelled by interest groups in the US. I would say that he is stepping on all of the Deep State toes at the same time with this. BigPharma, the Military Industrial Complex, all globalists' plans on the future of humanity, the whole DEI concept, he is opposing all of these. So there are plenty of interests that would want him gone.

In that sense, I do not think that this assassination is isolated to the WHO or BigPharma interests solely, though they are vested of course.

3. Perhaps the most important aspect is overlooked, as we are frantically looking for the interests behind this: we are beyond conspiracies at this point. A sole gunman or a group that laid out a plan to remove a problematic leader, it boils down to the same: the sign of the times. This is our world now and it is no longer an isolated effect. Whether it's the attempts on Bolsenaro, Abe, Fico or the 4 presidents that died under suspicious circumstances at the start of the plandemic and who were the only ones opposing the WHO orders, we see that radicalization is now mainstream. And it no longer requires conspiracies, as the brainwashing has been so effective that people assume they can afford to do such horrible deeds. The general population's big part has lost its mind, as it has lost its points of reference, since there is no such thing anymore as "normal". Just look at the Eurovision Song Contest with the satanic, queer, LGBTQ+ minority appearances en-masse: what used to be considered as fringe and extreme, is now mainstream, "pop". The foundations of our society are cast down, this IS a tectonic shift and you have to be vast asleep to not be aware of it.

Almost everything that happens as an extremity, is part of a broader narrative, whether it's an isolated event or not. Just like the extremity of an assassination, the extremeties of our politicians are portraying the same narratives. I don't even think that world leaders at this point need to get their talking points from the WEF or WHO to be fully aligned or meet behind closed doors to know their answers to crucial questions, just look at the collective pro-war insanity that almost all of the EU leaders agree on. They have a certain view of how the world should go and they are rolling it out, no matter the cost. Whether it's because they have been brainwashed as "young global leaders" under the WEF as Schwab proudly stated many times, or whether the world has taken a direction of decadence in which such authoritarian leaders are being elected as the masses have an anxiety and dissatisfaction that they want to have channeled via these leaders, it does not make a difference when it comes to the narrative that results from this unified approach. And this happens on both the left and the right, authoritarianism is now universal.

Therefore, I do not believe that this one man needed to be trained for this, that there is a single group or motivator behind him, that it can be pinpointed to parties, leaders, countries or vested groups for that matter. Because I think that ALL of these are behind this, through their collective actions.

We as the people have become divided through many means, mainly (social) media. And we are now part of the problem. I do not fully agree with Mattias Desmet's analysis on the Mass Formation hypothesis (because he does not agree with finding the head kingpins that lead us to the conflict, as he believes that the problems start with us and our leaders are merely a reflection of our needs for such leaders), but I do agree with his assessment that in a time of general dissatisfaction, "free floating anxiety" as he calls it, lack of common goals, people become radicalized, even masses, not just individuals.

And this is exactly the problem. People are so divided now, that at any moment someone can perform a radical deed such as an assassination and consider it "normal", because of lack of reference point. People watch too much media as it is, especially social media and the extremities they witness daily are becoming the norm, while these have nothing to do with real life. Therefore their actions reflect this twisted world view, which in turn DOES change the world around us, making it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm afraid this person is a symptom and this will continue, even accelerate. The two people in the US lighting themselves on fire for a cause that is not theirs (the young soldier in front of an embassy shouting about Palestine, as well as the other person in front of the Trump courtcase having left messages about some financial collapse to come) are excellent examples of the insanity that people have been captured in and increasingly are, as the censorship is ramping up, to hold us back from communicating freely about facts, which would pull us back to the ground and see things more clearly, avoiding panic and fanaticism. In a sense, I see such irrational extremism emerge in the alternative media as well, where rational thinkers tend to see a conspiracy behind everything, as we too are in our echo-chambers. Most of the time these assumptions are right, but it does radicalize and make solutions on the long term impossible, where common ground needs to be found at some point with the equally radicalized oppposing side.

Like Neil Oliver said a few days ago in a podcast: the question is no longer whether our leaders have nefarious plans, but whether they will push us into destruction by coincidence, such is their incompetence and ignorance about the damage they are doing to the world. At this point, clearly they have lost control. And people are imitating their leaders, just like this lone gunman did.

The learning I think is that we need to look a this calmly and avoid a widening of the gap within our societies. People should talk more about the contested topics, instead of going full ad hominem on "the other side". Yes, there are nefarious forces at work behind deeds like this. No, the aim is not to go to war with them, because we cannot win such a war. We need to ignore them and start talking to each other more. That will take the wind out of their sails.

What It Means To Live In Netanyahu's America

al-jazeera  |  A handful of powerful businessmen pushed New York City Mayor Eric Adams to use police to crack down on pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University, donating to the politician and offering to pay for private investigators to help break up the demonstrations, the Washington Post has reported, based on leaked WhatsApp conversations.

The story, published on Thursday, says that several billionaires seeking to influence public perception of Israel’s war in Gaza discussed means of pushing the mayor and the university’s president to end the protests, which were eventually cleared last month amid criticism of the police’s heavy-handed response.

“One member of the WhatsApp chat group told The Post he donated $2,100, the maximum legal limit, to Adams that month,” the story reads.

“Some members also offered to pay for private investigators to assist New York police in handling the protests, the chat log shows — an offer a member of the group reported in the chat that Adams accepted.” The story states that city authorities denied that private investigators were used to help manage the protests.

The report comes as universities across the country continue to employ force against pro-Palestine activism, raising concerns over the repression of political expression. A number of universities have successfully negotiated with student encampments, which have called for divestment from companies involved in Israel’s war in Gaza and boycotts of Israeli institutions.

The WhatsApp chat cited by the Washington Post included prominent businessmen such as former CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Joshua Kushner, brother of former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser on Middle East issues, Jared Kushner.

Other leaders, such as snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt also said that they held a video meeting with Mayor Adams on April 26.

Sending in the police has done little to dampen the spirits of pro-Palestine protesters, and in some cases, has led to heightened support from faculty and fellow students.

While supporters of the crackdowns say they are necessary to ensure the safety of Jewish students, some of whom say they have felt discomforted by anti-Israel rhetoric at the protests, pro-Palestine students – many of them Jewish – have faced the brunt of the violence at protests across the country, with few expressions of concern from authorities.

 

 

Elite Donor Level Conflicts Openly Waged On The National Political Stage

thehill  |  House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has demanded the U.S. Chamber of Commerce answer questions about the more than $12 million its Chamber of Commerce Foundation received from the Tides Foundation, a left-leaning nonprofit, between 2018 and 2022.

In a letter last Monday to Chamber president and CEO Suzanne Clark and foundation President Carolyn Cawley, Smith said that the Tides grants appear to conflict with the Chamber’s mission to support American businesses and raise questions about the groups’ tax-exempt status.

A GOP chair investigating the Chamber and its foundation is a major shift from the historically close alignment between the group and Republicans. The probe also comes as the Chamber gears up for a massive lobbying blitz around the expiration of former President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a fight in which Smith and Ways and Means Republicans will have heavy influence.

If Republicans hold the House, Smith is expected to retain the Ways and Means gavel and run the House committee charged with tax policy. A sour relationship with Smith could compromise the Chamber’s ability to sway the 2025 tax fight and other priorities that fall before the panel.

The inquiry also represents a new phase in well-reported tensions that erupted after the 2020 election between the Chamber and an increasingly populist Republican Party, some members of which were unhappy with the Chamber’s efforts to improve its relationships with Democrats.

The Chamber and the foundation say the probe is based on a misunderstanding. Eric Eversole, president of the foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program, told The Hill the funds the foundation received “were charitable contributions from corporations made to the donor advised fund,” a charitable giving vehicle that makes it virtually impossible to trace the ultimate source of the funds.

A Tides spokesperson told The Hill that Smith’s inquiry “is a politically-motivated PR tactic during an election year, driven by actors who disagree with the social justice work of Tides and our partner organizations.”

But Smith made clear he was not satisfied with the initial response.

“The mission statement for the Chamber is pretty obvious: to help American businesses,” he said. “Getting $12 million from Tides and then trying to say it’s really not from Tides, it’s from someone else, that makes me want to look harder.”

 

AIPAC Powered By Weak, Shameful, American Ejaculations

All filthy weird pathetic things belongs to the Z I O N N I I S S T S it’s in their blood pic.twitter.com/YKFjNmOyrQ

— Syed M Khurram Zahoor (@MuhammadKhurram) May 13, 2024

 

🇮🇱🇺🇸 Who's Been AIPAC's Biggest Donor Since October 7?

That would be Leonid Radvinsky, the Jewish-Zionist owner of OnlyFans.

He pledged $11 million to the pro-Israeli lobby.

Radvinsky's donation was over 5x bigger than the 2nd largest donation to AIPAC post-October 7. pic.twitter.com/NjJTTBVCJl

— Censored Men (@CensoredMen) May 13, 2024

I Don't See Taking Sides In This Intra-tribal Skirmish....,

Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry Seinfeld, just donated $5,000 (more than anyone else) to the GoFundMe of the pro-Israel UCLA rally.
At this rally, participants yelled “I hope they rape you” & spat on and used the N-word towards pro-Palestinian students. pic.twitter.com/74G7QG5SVR

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) April 29, 2024

thedailybeast  |  Jessica Seinfeld, cookbook author and wife to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, is funding a pro-Israel counterprotest at UCLA—where violence broke out Tuesday night after a mob attacked demonstrators inside a pro-Palestine encampment.

A GoFundMe for the effort, which Seinfeld promoted in an Instagram story this week after contributing at least $5,000, has since made the majority of its donations anonymous. The fundraising page has raised more than $93,000 as of Wednesday and also changed its organizer name and description since launching over the weekend.

The Daily Beast left messages for reps for the Seinfelds.

“I just gave to this GoFundMe to support more allies like yesterday’s at UCLA,” Seinfeld wrote this week. “More cities are being planned so please give what you can. Donations are annonymous [sic]. We will continue to share our light and love, as proud American Jews.”

It’s unclear whether Seinfeld coordinated with the GoFundMe to make donations anonymous after they’d been public earlier in the week. Nor is it clear whether supporters or organizers of this fundraiser were among the 100 or so counterprotesters, some wearing masks, who ripped down barricades or tossed objects including fireworks into the camp opposing Israel’s war on Gaza.

Still, it hasn’t stopped X users from roasting Seinfeld.

One observer, who shared video of a mob violently attacking the encampment, wrote, “Jessica Seinfeld must be elated seeing her 5k donation come to fruition.”

A University of California president parody account posted that campus cops were “ready to step in and continue the assault once the counterprotesters tuckered out but Jessica Seinfeld’s Zelle payments kept their fighting spirits high into the wee hours!”

Other celebrities—including actors Melissa Barrera and John Cusack—have shared footage on social media of Israel supporters ambushing the UCLA protest camp.

Billionaire hedge-funder Bill Ackman has taken to X to repost UCLA protest footage, including one account claiming a Jewish woman was beaten during a confrontation, and donated $10,000 to a separate GoFundMe financing a similar video-based effort to be held at the George Washington University.

Despite the chaos, police and campus security didn’t intervene as the counterprotesters moved in around 11 p.m., according to eyewitness accounts from journalists on scene.

UCLA’s student-run newspaper, the Daily Bruin, revealed that a counterprotester with a megaphone shouted, “If they can be there, so can we. You guys are going to want to get this. This is history being made.”

Populism Is The Voice Of The Voiceless vs. Nancy Pelosi's Crypt-Keeper Gas...,

realclearpolitics  |   Winston Marshall, the former banjo player from the band "Mumford & Sons", now host of The Winston Marshall Show podcast, spoke in opposition to an Oxford Union motion that "This House Believes Populism is a Threat to Democracy." Speaking for the motion was former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"Populism is not a threat to democracy," Marshall said. "Populism is democracy."

"Populism is not a threat to democracy, but I'll tell you what is. It is elites ordering social media to censor political opponents. It's police shutting down dissenters," he said.

WINSTON MARSHALL: Words have a tendency to change meaning when I was a boy, "woman" meant "someone who didn't have a cock."

Populism has become a word used synonymously with "racists." We've heard "ethno-nationalist," with "bigot," with "hillbilly," "redneck," with "deplorables."

Elites use it to show their contempt for ordinary people.

This is a recent change. Not long ago, Barack Obama, while he was still president, at the North American Leaders Summit in June 2016, took umbrage with the notion that Trump be called a "populist." How could Trump be called a populist? He doesn't care about working people. If anything, Obama argued he was the populist. If anything Obama argued, Bernie was the populist. It was Bernie who'd spent five decades fighting for working people. But Trump.

Something curious happens. If you watch Obama's speeches after that point, more and more recently, he uses the word "populist" interchangeably with "strong man," with "authoritarian." The word changes meaning, it becomes a negative, a pejorative, a slur.

To me, populism is not a dirty word. Since the 2008 crash and specifically the trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout, we are in the populist age, and for good reason. The elites have failed.

Let me address some common fallacies, some of which have been made tonight. If the motion was that demagoguery was a threat to democracy, I would be on that side of the House. If the motion was that political violence was a threat to democracy, I'd be on that side of the house. January 6th has been mentioned -- a dark day for America, indeed. And I'm sure Congresswoman Pelosi will agree that the entire month of June 2020, when the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon was under siege, and under insurrection by radical progressives, those too were dark days for America.

REP. NANCY PELOSI: You are not. There is no equivalence there.

WINSTON MARSHALL: So you don't agree, that is fine. You don't agree. That's fine.

REP. NANCY PELOSI: It is not like what happened on January 6, which was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.

iWINSTON MARSHALL: So you don't agree, but you will condemn those days.

My point, though is that all political movements are susceptible to violence, and indeed insurrection. And if we were arguing that fascism was a threat to democracy, I'd be on that side of the House.

Indeed, the current populist age is a movement against fascism. I've got quite a lot to get through.

Populism as you know, is the politics of the ordinary people against an elite, populism is not a threat to democracy. Populism is democracy, and why else have universal suffrage, if not to keep elites in check?

Ladies and gentlemen, given the success of Trump, and more recently, Javier Milei taking a chainsaw to the state behemoth of Argentina's bureaucratic monster, you'd be mistaken for thinking this was a right-wing populist age, but that would be ignoring Occupy Wall Street. That would be ignoring Jeremy Corbyn's "for the many, not the few," that would be ignoring Bernie against the billionaires, RFK Jr. against Big Pharma, and more recently, George Galloway against his better judgment. Now all of them, including Galloway, recognize genuine concerns of ordinary people being otherwise ignored by the establishment.

I'm actually rather surprised that our esteemed opposition, Congressman Pelosi, is on that side of the motion. I thought the left was supposed to be anti-elite. I thought the left was supposed to be anti-establishment today, particularly in America, the globalist left have become the establishment. I suppose for Miss Pelosi to have taken this side of the motion, she'd be arguing herself out of a job.

But it's here in Britain, where right and left populists united for the supreme act of democracy, Brexit. Polls have showed the number one reason people voted for Brexit was sovereignty, for more democracy.

What was the response of the Brussels elite? They did everything in their power to undermine the Democratic will of the British people and the Westminster elite were just as disgraceful. As we've heard, David Cameron called the voters "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists." The liberal Democrats did everything they could to overturn a democratic vote. Keir Starmer campaigned for a second referendum. Elites would have had us voting and voting and voting until we voted their way. Indeed, that's what happened in Ireland and in Denmark.

Let's look at some of the other populist movements. The Hong Konger populist revolt is literally called the Pro-Democracy Movement. In the Farmer revolts from the Netherlands to Germany, France, Greece, to Sri Lanka, farmers are taking their tractors to the road to protest ESG policy that's floated down to us from those all-knowing, infallible elites of Davos. The trucker movement in Canada became anti-elitist when petty tyrant Prime Minister Justin Trudeau froze their bank accounts, not the behavior of a democratic head of state. The Gilets Jaunes France, ULEZ in London, working people protesting policy that hurt them. And how are they treated? They're called conspiracy theorists. They're called far-right, by the mayor as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, populism is the voice of the voiceless. The real threat to democracy is from the elites. Now don't get me wrong, we need elites. If President Biden has shown us anything, we need someone to run the countries. When the president has severe dementia, it is not just America that crumbles, the whole world burns.

But let's examine the elites. European corporations spend over €1 billion a year lobbying Brussels, U.S. corporations spend over $2 billion a year lobbying in DC, and two-thirds of Congress receive funding from pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer alone spent $11 million in 2021. They made over $10 billion in profit. No wonder then that 66% of Americans think the is rigged against them for the rich and the powerful.

And by the way, we used to have a word for when big business and big government were in cahoots. And I think any students here of early 20th-century Italian history will know what I'm talking about.

What about Big Tech? Throughout the pandemic, Biden's team, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security colluded with Big Tech in censoring dissenting voices. Not kooky conspiracy theorists, people like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford epidemiologist, people like Harvard scientist Martin Kulldorf, people spreading true information, not misinformation, true information at odds with the government narrative.

Need I remind you, democracy without free speech is not democracy.

This was a direct breach by the way of the First Amendment. Before COVID, Intelligence services colluded with Big Tech to have Trump suspended off Twitter. Yes, the same platform which hosted the Taliban and Ayatollah "Death To Israel" Khomeini. They thought the president crossed the line when he tweeted on Jan 6 quote, "Remain peaceful. No violence! Respect the law and our great men and women in blue." That's a quote.

You may be thinking now that Trump is a populist. You are right. He didn't accept the 2020 elections and he should have. So should Hillary in 2016. So should Brussels, and so should Westminster in 2016. And so too should Congresswoman Pelosi, instead of saying the 2016 election was quote, "hijacked."

PELOSI: That doesn't mean we don't accept the results, though!

WINSTON MARSHALL: What about the mainstream media? Let me read you some mainstream media headlines. The New Yorker the day before the 2016 election, "The Case Against Democracy." The Washington Post, the day after the election, "The Problem With Our Government Is Democracy." The LA Times, June 2017, "The British Election Is A Reminder Of The Perils Of Too Much Democracy." Vox, June 2017, "Two eminent political scientists say the problem with democracy is voters." New York Times, June 2017, "The Problem With Participatory Democracy Is The Participants."

Mainstream media elites are part of a class who don't just disdain populism, they disdain the people. If the Democrats had put half their energy into delivering for the people, Trump wouldn't even have a chance in 2024. He shouldn't, he shouldn't have a chance. You've had power for four years. From the fabricated Steele dossier, to trying to take him off the ballot in both Maine and Colorado, the Democrats are the anti-Democrat party. All we need now is the Republicans to come out as the pro-Monarchist party.

Ladies and gentlemen, populism is not a threat to democracy, but I'll tell you what is. It is elites ordering social media to censor political opponents. It's police shutting down dissenters, be it anti-monarchists in this country or gender-critical voices here, or last week in Brussels, the National Conservative Movement.

I'll tell you what is a threat to democracy. It's Brussels, DC, Westminster, the mainstream media, big tech, big Pharma, corporate collusion and the Davos cronies. The threat to democracy comes from those who write off ordinary people as "deplorable." The threat to democracy comes from those who smear working people as "racists." The threat to democracy comes from those who write off working people as "populists."

And I'll say one last thing. This populist age can be brought to an end at the snap of a finger. All that needs to be done is for elites to start listening to, respecting, and God forbid, working for ordinary people. Thank you.

The Tik Tok Ban Is Exclusively Intended To Censor And Control Information Available To You

Mises |  HR 7521, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, is a recent development in American politics. TikTok has been in the news for the past few years, after the public became aware of its connections to China. The popular social media mobile app is currently owned by ByteDance Ltd, a Chinese company. China and the United States currently have a rocky relationship, leading to fears that the Chinese government could potentially use this app to spy on American citizens. Several states and counties voted to restrict the usage of the app in some ways, mostly disallowing government employees from using it on government-owned phones. Earlier this month, the United States Congress passed a piece of legislation that would restrict the app’s availability if certain requirements are not met by ByteDance.

Putting aside the idea that politicians rarely have pure motives, this act has the potential to be just as dangerous as the Patriot Act. With a supposed goal of protecting American national security, the Patriot Act granted sweeping permissions to the federal government and the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens, with far less due process. In addition to having the potential to violate privacy rights and the Fourth Amendment, this new act is a blatant attack on property rights. Mobile device manufacturers and owners have every right to install whatever software they would like, as it is their property. Any illusion of a right to national security is immediately contradicted as collective rights are positive in nature and thus not rights at all.

When looking through this act, several parts stick out. It begins by restricting any entity from distributing, maintaining, or updating any application that is controlled by a foreign adversary. As skeptics of the state would point out, this is already problematic. It should be obvious that one cannot adequately trust the American national security regime to determine which countries or entities are adversarial. A recent egregious example would be when the United States was determined to paint Iraq, and Saddam Hussein, as a uniquely evil power that assisted with the events of 9/11. Additionally, one can point to how the Trump and Biden administrations supported covid lockdowns, thus making Americans who understood the Constitution and property rights look like enemies in the eyes of many. The state has proven itself to be incapable of telling Americans who or what they should fear.

The act then goes on to even ban the hosting of internet services that enable the use of these apps, furthering the state’s control over the internet. In addition to these fears of further government censorship, Senator Rand Paul has pointed out that many Americans own a stake in ByteDance; this restriction would mean that the government is taking away American property without suspicion of a crime. The act does not just restrict companies that are directly controlled by a foreign government but even companies that are owned by private citizens of an adversarial state. When it comes to government censorship, the Chinese government is the gold standard. The American government would be following in the steps of the Chinese Communist Party if President Joe Biden chooses to sign this piece of legislation. The Constitution and the natural-law-based rights that the United States was founded upon conflict greatly with this level of state censorship.

Setting aside any pretense of national security, this act will restrict competition in the American marketplace, if not incidentally. Companies such as Alphabet and Meta will benefit greatly from a huge decrease of competition in the social media marketplace. Additionally, foreign cooperation in the global marketplace serves to spread the values of capitalism and free expression. It is understood that free trade greatly reduces the risk of traditional warfare between states, resulting in greater global competition. Further alienating states that are considered adversarial is shown to diminish peace. This is seen in how Iran reacted to the end of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, how North Korea positively reacted to President Donald Trump’s brief attempts to normalize diplomatic relations, and how Russia reacted to the expansion and aggression of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

While not quite as wide-ranging as the Patriot Act, this recent act is dangerous in multiple ways. The natural rights to free expression, property, and privacy are at further risk with legislation such as this. One can point to how this will greatly support very large companies such as Alphabet and Meta in the American marketplace, companies that have spied on American citizens on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Additionally, already-estranged nations are less likely to come to any sort of reasonable agreement as they are continually backed into a corner by the global community. Skeptical Americans who are knowledgeable of history should not trust the American national security regime to properly determine who their enemies are, or the best way to keep Americans safe. This legislation will only give increased power to the expansive state, power that the state has proven itself unable to use judiciously.

Self-Proclaimed Zionist Biden Joins The Great Pretending...,

Biden, at today's Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony, denounces the "anti-Semitic" student protests in his strongest terms yet. He recalls there were also "anti-Semitic demonstrations" and "organized riots" in Nazi Germany. He proclaims that his defense of Israel will be "iron-clad" pic.twitter.com/NWIGqTwoEp

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) May 7, 2024

NYTimes  |  President Biden on Tuesday condemned a “ferocious surge of antisemitism” in the United States following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel and said people were already forgetting the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

Speaking at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Days of Remembrance, Mr. Biden tied the anti-Jewish sentiment that led to the Nazi effort to exterminate Jews directly to Oct. 7.

“This ancient hatred of Jews didn’t begin with the Holocaust,” he said. “It didn’t end with the Holocaust, either.”

For Mr. Biden, a self-described Zionist, the speech was a clear assertion of his support for Jewish Americans as he struggles to balance his support for Israel with increasingly forceful calls for the protection of civilians in Gaza.

Mr. Biden’s address also comes as protests against Israel’s war in Gaza roil college campuses, with students demanding that the Biden administration stop sending weapons to Israel. In some cases, the demonstrations have included antisemitic rhetoric and harassment targeting Jewish students.

“I understand people have strong beliefs and deep convictions about the world,” the president said. But, he added, “there is no place on any campus in America, any place in America, for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”

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Mr. Biden also denounced attempts to minimize the Hamas attacks, which killed 1,200 people in Israel and sparked a war that has killed an estimated 34,000 people in Gaza.

“Now here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven and half months later, and people are already forgetting,” Mr. Biden said. “They are already forgetting. That Hamas unleashed this terror. It was Hamas that brutalized Israelis. It was Hamas who took and continues to hold hostages.

“I have not forgotten, nor have you,” he told the crowd of more than 100, including Holocaust survivors. “And we will not forget.”

Since the outset of the war, Mr. Biden has faced criticism from Arab Americans and Palestinians who have said they don’t hear Mr. Biden talk about the plight of their people with the same empathy and emotion that he uses to describe Israel and the Jewish people.

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The leader of the World Food Program has said that parts of Gaza are experiencing a “full-blown famine,” in part because of Israel blocking humanitarian aid.

Jewish groups have been pressuring the administration to take firmer policy steps to combat antisemitism on college campuses, in particular. On Tuesday, the Biden administration fulfilled some of those requests.

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights released new guidance to every school and college outlining examples of antisemitic discrimination, as well as other forms of hate, that could lead to investigations for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

The law prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin, and the department has interpreted it as extending to Jewish students. Since the Oct. 7 attack, the department has opened more than 100 investigations into complaints about antisemitism and other forms of discrimination. The administration also announced that the Department of Homeland Security would also offer new resources, including an online campus safety resource guide.

Nathan Diament, executive director for public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, one of the groups that has been lobbying the administration for more measures for weeks, said that the Jewish community “need them implemented rapidly and aggressively.”

“President Biden’s speech today was an important statement of moral clarity at a time when too many people seem to be morally confused,” Mr. Diament said. “Just as important as the president’s words today is the announcement that his administration is taking more steps to counter the surge of antisemitism in the U.S.”

The president promised that his commitment to the security of Israel “and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad. Even when we disagree,” a reference to the arguments his administration has had with Israel’s right-wing government about the toll the war is taking in Gaza. The speech came against the backdrop of Israel’s plans to move forward with a ground operation in Rafah, which Mr. Biden opposes. More than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah.

Mr. Biden made a tacit acknowledgment during his speech that the pro-Palestinian cause has resonated with other minority groups with histories of violence and oppression.

“We must give hate no safe harbor against anyone — anyone,” Mr. Biden said in his speech, adding that Jewish people helped lead civil rights causes throughout history.

“From that experience,” he added, “we know scapegoating and demonizing any minority is a threat to every minority and the very foundation of our democracy.”

Sheryl Sandberg Lies, The NYTimes Lies, None Of This Shit Happened....,

Billionaire Zionist @sherylsandberg is confronted with a @TheGrayzoneNews takedown of the report she cites to bolster the narrative of her propaganda doc alleging mass r*pe by Hamas on Oct 7

Sandberg tacitly admits that she interviewed zero survivors, claiming without evidence… pic.twitter.com/Xa7W840QOJ

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) May 4, 2024

NYTimes |  There is a scene in “Screams Before Silence,” the harrowing documentary about the rape and mutilation of Israeli women on Oct. 7, that I can’t get out of my head. It’s an interview that the former Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, the documentary’s presenter, conducted with Ayelet Levy Sachar, the mother of 19-year-old Naama Levy, whose kidnapping that morning was filmed by Hamas. The sight of her pajama bottoms, drenched in blood at the back, was one of the earliest indications that sexual brutality was part of Hamas’s playbook.

“They’re grabbing her by the hair, and she’s all, like, messed up and like, and I’m thinking of her hair, and like, in my mind I’m stroking her hair, like I’m always doing,” Levy Sachar said of the video of her daughter’s kidnapping. “We would like to think that this couldn’t be possible. That nobody would harm a young girl. But then you just see it there.”

To have a child seized, savaged and paraded this way goes beyond a parent’s worst nightmare. Here it is compounded by an additional horror: the combination of indifference and outright denial with which much of the world has treated these sexual atrocities.

Why? “People are so polarized that they want every fact to fit into a narrative, and if their narrative is resistance, then sexual violence doesn’t fit into that narrative,” Sandberg told me when I met her in New York last Thursday, hours before the documentary’s premiere at The Times Center. “You can believe that Gaza is happening because Israel has no choice; you can believe that Gaza is happening because Israel wants to kill babies. You can hold either one of those thoughts. And you should also be able to hold the thought that sexual violence is unacceptable, no matter what.”

To watch “Screams Before Silence” is to be disabused of any lingering doubts about what Hamas did. The personal testimonies of victims, survivors and witnesses are clear and overpowering, as is the photographic evidence Sandberg was shown of mutilated corpses. And some of them have scarcely been heard about outside Israel.

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There is Tali Binner, a partygoer at the Nova music festival who hid in a small camper as other women were raped outside: “I heard a girl that started to yell for a long time. It was like, ‘Please don’t. No, no, stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. No. No. No’. It was like, she was asking someone to stop. What can they stop? Someone is abusing her. Someone touching her. Someone is doing something.”

There is Raz Cohen, who witnessed a rape as he hid with a friend in the brush: “Shoham, who was next to me, said, ‘He’s stabbing her. He’s slaughtering her,’ or something like that, and I didn’t want to look.” Cohen added, in Hebrew: “When I looked again, she was already dead, and he was still at it. He was still raping her after he had slaughtered her.”

There is Rami Davidian, who rushed to help people at the Nova site: “I saw girls tied up with their hands behind them to every tree here. Someone murdered them, raped them and abused them, here on these trees. Their legs were spread. Everyone who sees this knows right away that the girls were abused. Someone stripped them. Someone raped them. They inserted all kinds of things into their intimate organs, like wooden boards, iron rods. Over 30 girls were murdered and raped here.”

There is Amit Soussana, who was kidnapped to Gaza for 55 days and raped by her captor when she was trying to bathe: “He came toward me and just pointed a gun really hard at my forehead, screaming at me, ‘Take it off. Take it off,’ and punching me until I could not hold the towel anymore. And he started touching me, and I resisted, and then he dragged me to the bedroom. And then he forced me to commit a sexual act on him.”

 

Why Are Biden And Blinken Complicit In The Ethnic Cleansing Of The Palestinians From Israel?

americanconservative  |   ong after the current administration passes from the scene, President Joseph R. Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be remembered not for their bumbling, embarrassing encounters with the Chinese, nor for their steadfast refusal to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Russians, which set off a disastrous war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Instead, they will likely be remembered as the abettors of Israel’s transformation of Gaza into an abattoir, and will leave a legacy as bloodstained as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s.

But, to be fair, Nixon and Kissinger knew which country was theirs; they understood that the United States and Israel have distinct and vastly different interests. Indeed, it is little remembered today that as Secretary of State, Kissinger once ordered a reassessment of this so-called “special relationship.” 

Lacking the sheen of Kissinger’s not inconsiderable wit and intellect, Tony Blinken, a protege of Marty Peretz, erstwhile publisher of the New Republic and an ideological Zionist, may one day be remembered as his generation’s Robert McNamara: a bland bureaucrat carrying out the obscene orders of his commander-in-chief.

As if more were needed to bolster such a judgment, this week, after acknowledging that five Israeli military units had engaged in gross human rights abuses, the Biden administration signaled it will not apply the Leahy Law—which prohibits aid to militaries that have committed human rights abuses—to Israel. It would be hard to improve upon the following headline from the Hill: “US finds Israeli military units violated human rights; withholds consequences.” 

In an incredible performance this Monday at Foggy Bottom, the State Department spokesman Vedant Patel (yet another foreign-born bureaucrat who clearly knows little about the country he is paid to represent) ran cover for the Israelis once again, claiming that the IDF was now in line with Leahy and all is well.

Yet, given Israel’s widespread, heavily documented crimes, including the deployment of AI systems such as Lavender AI systematically to terrorize the Palestinian population, the application of Leahy would seem a mere slap on the wrist. Yet Blinken and Biden have deemed even symbolic measures of disapproval of Israel’s rampage as too great a burden on Tel Aviv. 

If Blinken and Biden were serious about stopping the carnage, they could have applied section 6201 of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits security assistance to countries blocking humanitarian aid. In late March, a group of Democratic senators and congressmen called on the administration to do just that, writing, in a letter to the President,

Federal law is clear, and, given the urgency of the crisis in Gaza, and the repeated refusal of Prime Minister Netanyahu to address U.S. concerns on this issue, immediate action is necessary to secure a change in policy by his government.

If Biden and Blinken were serious, they would have applied  Leahy and enforced the terms of the Arms Control Export Act, the U.S. War Crimes Act and the Genocide Convention Implementation Act; if they were serious, they would have supported South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice; if they were serious, they would not have instructed UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield repeatedly to veto measures in the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire; if they were serious, they would call for the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and others.

But they are not serious.

Feds Want To Turn Student Protests Into A National Security Crisis

kenklippenstein  |   The U.S. government hears the student protests and is responding — but not in the way you might hope.

For the feds, it is all about turning protests into a national security crisis, with imagined foreign influence, sympathy for Hamas and other terrorist groups, and a threat to the government itself.

It’s widely known that local law enforcement agencies like the NYPD have been responding to the Gaza protests sweeping across the country; but less well known are the federal agencies that are quietly watching and preparing. Instead of addressing the issues raised – civilian casualties and the plight of the Palestinian people, divestment from Israel, demilitarization of universities and colleges – President Biden himself bluntly dismisses the students.

“Mr. President, have the protests forced you to reconsider any of the policies with regard to the region?,” a reporter asked at Biden’s press conference on Thursday. Without hesitation, Biden answered: “No.”

Those are the marching orders. So while the students continue to speak out, and so many are clearly unhappy with American policy, the federal government has wasted no time in surging resources from all across the country as it colors the students as threats to national security.

Here are just some of the federal agencies that have now become involved:

• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),

• Federal Protective Service (FPS) – the Department of Homeland Security law enforcement agency that protects federal buildings and other assets, and

• Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm.

Under the Biden’s administration’s 2023 National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, a gaggle of additional agencies are called upon to take action. These include the Department of the Interior, whose rangers and guides are directed to “identify and counter antisemitism and other forms of hate”; and the Department of Agriculture, through its law enforcement agents assigned to the Forest Service, who have been directed “to learn how to identify and counter antisemitic, Islamophobic, and related forms of discrimination.”

The Pentagon, through its various investigative arms – Army CID, Navy NCIS, Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) – and other agencies, also manages FBI-run Joint Terrorism Task Forces which are active throughout the country.

Politicians Owned By The Tiny Minority Pass Bill To Protect Zionism

AP  |  The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.

The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. It now goes to the Senate where its fate is uncertain.

Action on the bill was just the latest reverberation in Congress from the protest movement that has swept university campuses. Republicans in Congress have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, thrusting university officials into the center of the charged political debate over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war was launched in October, after Hamas staged a deadly terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” Critics say the move would have a chilling effect on free speech throughout college campuses. 

“Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing Tuesday. “By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.”

Advocates of the proposal say it would provide a much-needed, consistent framework for the Department of Education to police and investigate the rising cases of discrimination and harassment targeted toward Jewish students.

“It is long past time that Congress act to protect Jewish Americans from the scourge of antisemitism on campuses around the country,” Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., said Tuesday.

The expanded definition of antisemitism was first adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group that includes the United States and European Union states, and has been embraced by the State Department under the past three presidential administrations, including Joe Biden’s

Previous bipartisan efforts to codify it into law have failed. But the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas militants in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza have reignited efforts to target incidents of antisemitism on college campuses.

 

Trash Israeli Professional Boxer Spitting On And Beating On Kids At UCLA...,

sportspolitika  |  On Sunday, however, the mood turned ugly when thousands of demonstrators, including students and non-students, showed up on campus to protest their cause. Some joined the Palestinian solidarity encampment that was set up earlier in the week, while pro-Israeli counter-protestors demonstrated across from the encampment. 

Some of those demonstrators reportedly broke through the metal barricades that had been placed to separate the two factions, leading to skirmishes between the opposing groups. One video showed groups of protesters and counter-protesters clashing, with at least one person punching someone else.

Among the assailants was David Kaminsky, an Israeli boxer and gym owner who was caught on camera using racial insults and spitting on protestors. 

Kaminsky was quickly identified on social media and has since deactivated his personal Instagram, as well as the account belonging to his Kaminsky Boxing Gym. 

Kaminsky was further recognized by Israeli MMA fighter Haim Gozali, who expressed approval of Kaminsky’s actions in a post on Telegram. Meanwhile, Gozali himself has been garnering attention for inscribing the names of individuals he considers adversaries on artillery shells destined for Gaza. My name was among those inscribed. 

The boxer holds a 6-1 professional record, which includes three knockout victories. He has not fought since 2020, when Clay Collard handed Kaminsky his first professional loss following a split decision on the Gabriel Flores Jr.-Josec Ruiz undercard in Las Vegas.

Kaminsky has shifted his attention to managing his gym in LA’s San Fernando Valley. In the previous year, the gym gained attention when news surfaced of rapper Blueface being stabbed during a confrontation on the premises. Security footage suggested Kaminsky intervened, trying to separate Blueface from the attacker, who was able to stab the rapper in the leg before fleeing the scene with his Rottweiler. 

Kaminsky may be the only professional fighter to have been identified among the converging protestors at UCLA, this is not the first example of combat sports athletes attempting to intimidate peaceful demonstrators.

Neo-Nazi MMA fighter Robert Rundo and his white supremacist Rise Above Movement (RAM) were notorious for attacking protestors during tense demonstrations in the US following Donald Trump’s election in 2016. Three years later, a mob of MMA fighters from a gym owned by an oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin chased away local protestors who opposed the building of an Orthodox church in the Russian hinterlands. The church was being sponsored by the same oligarch who ran the fight club.

While Kaminsky has not been seen since being caught on camera hurling racial slurs earlier this week, the UCLA Gaza solidarity encampment continues to face various acts of aggression. Truthout reported that pro-Israel protestors were “hurling fireworks at the structure and beating demonstrators as campus security and city police stood by.” Such inaction from UCLA and local police contrasts sharply with the fierce crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities across the US, including Columbia University in New York City, where police arrested hundreds of students late Tuesday.

 

UCLA And The LAPD Allow Violent Counter Protestors To Attack A Pro-Palestinian Encampment

LATimes |  University administrators canceled classes at UCLA on Wednesday, hours after violence broke out at a pro-Palestinian encampment set up on campus.

Just before midnight, a large group of counterdemonstrators, wearing black outfits and white masks, arrived on campus and tried to tear down the barricades surrounding the encampment. Campers, some holding lumber and wearing goggles and helmets, rallied to defend the encampment’s perimeter. The violence occurred hours after the university declared that the camp was “unlawful and violates university policy.”

Videos showed fireworks being set off and at least one being thrown into the camp. Over several hours, counterdemonstrators threw objects, including wood and a metal barrier, at the camp and those inside, with fights repeatedly breaking out. Some tried to force their way into the camp, and the pro-Palestinian side used pepper spray to defend themselves.

A group of security guards could be seen observing the clashes but did not move in to stop them. Authorities cleared the area around 3 a.m.

Some in the camp were being treated for eye irritation and other wounds. The extent of the injuries was unclear, though The Times saw several people who were bleeding and needed medical attention. At least one person, a 26-year-old man suffering from a head injury, was taken to the hospital by paramedics, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

UCLA administrators and law enforcement are facing scrutiny from students, professors and the broader community for not intervening faster.

“The limited and delayed campus law enforcement response at UCLA last night was unacceptable — and it demands answers,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said in a statement.

UCLA officials decried the violence and said they had requested help from the Los Angeles Police Department. It is not clear whether police made any arrests. UCLA police did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

“Horrific acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight and we immediately called law enforcement for mutual aid support. The fire department and medical personnel are on the scene. We are sickened by this senseless violence and it must end,” Mary Osako, vice chancellor for UCLA Strategic Communications, said in a statement.

A law enforcement source told The Times on Wednesday that the LAPD reached out to campus police shortly after the violence broke out. They were told not to bring in anti-riot police, but eventually UCLA agreed to accept help from the larger police force. The discussion unfolded over several hours until officers with the LAPD and California Highway Patrol were given the green light to intervene around 1 a.m., the source said.

At around 1:40 a.m., police officers in riot gear arrived, and some counterprotesters began to leave. But the police did not immediately break up the clashes at the camp, which continued despite the law enforcement presence.

One representative of the camp said the counterdemonstrators repeatedly pushed over barricades that outline the boundaries of the encampment, and some campers said they were hit by a substance they thought was pepper spray. As counterprotesters attempted to pull down the wood boards surrounding the encampment, at least one person could be heard yelling, “Second nakba,” referring to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Daily Bruin News Editor Catherine Hamilton said she was sprayed with some type of irritant and repeatedly punched in the chest and upper abdomen as she was reporting on the unrest. Another student journalist was pushed to the ground by counterprotesters and was beaten and kicked for nearly a minute. Hamilton was treated at a hospital and released.

“I truly did not expect to be directly assaulted. I know that these individuals — at least the individual who initiated the mobilization against us — knew that we were journalists,” she said. “And while I did not think that protected us from harassment, I thought that might have [prevented us from being] assaulted. I was mistaken.”

At around 3 a.m., a line of officers arrived at the camp and pushed the remaining counterprotesters out of the quad area. The police told people to leave or face arrest.

“What we’ve just witnessed was the darkest day in my 32 years at UCLA,” said David Myers, a professor of Jewish history at UCLA who is working on initiatives to bridge differences on campus. He called the situation a “complete and total systems failure at the university, city and state levels.”

“Why didn’t the police, UCPD and LAPD, show up? Those in the encampment were defenseless in the face of a violent band of thugs. And no one, wherever they stand politically, is safer today,” Myers said.

Ananya Roy, a professor of urban planning, social welfare and geography, echoed concerns about the university’s lack of response when faced with a violent counterprotest.

“It gives people impunity to come to our campus as a rampaging mob,” she said. “The word is out they can do this repeatedly and get away with it. I am ashamed of my university.”

These IDF Trained PoPo's Are Going To Hurt Or Kill The Wrong Kid - Then It's ON!!!!

slate  |   The ADL is arguably the most prominent organization in the country dedicated toward countering antisemitism. It is not that the ADL has not faced criticism before (earlier this year, a report from the Intercept charged that the ADL had “lobbied for counterterror legislation that singled out Palestinians”). Nor is it the case that the ADL has never before chosen to cooperate with law enforcement or authority over forging solidarity with left-wing Jews. (Indeed, it did so during the Red Scare.) Still, the group is the go-to American organization on antisemitism, and it also played a prominent role in championing civil rights historically. It has also been a resource for me personally: I have, over the years, interviewed and been greatly informed by various ADL staffers, and have turned to the organization’s research in my own writing and thinking on antisemitism. I believe that a civil rights organization “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all,” the founding principle of the ADL, remains necessary in this country.

But the ADL, under the leadership of Greenblatt, is insisting on conflating anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and it has made this conflation central to the ADL’s work. This has not only muddied the waters of its own antisemitism research, it has also undermined the safety, security, and pluralism of American Jews.

For example, the ADL reportedly mapped protests for a cease-fire led by the Jewish groups Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow as antisemitic incidents. The ADL also, in its report on antisemitism this year, updated its methodology to include certain anti-Israel incidents in its calculation of how much antisemitism had risen. This not only makes it more difficult to see what the actual year-over-year change in antisemitic incidents was—of course an increase will seem more dramatic if you are now counting incidents that you weren’t before—but it also arguably undermines the rest of the ADL’s reporting on antisemitism. If the group tracking antisemitism considers pro-Palestinian speech or differences in foreign policy preferences to be motivated by antisemitism, how seriously will those who disagree with the ADL on foreign policy take its calls to tackle antisemitism?

At least as troubling as the new research methods, though, are the statements and posture of Greenblatt himself. Some observers thinking that he privileges support for Israel over civil rights is not new; a Jewish Currents story from 2021 revealed that former ADL employees felt Greenblatt was choosing defense of Israel over protecting civil liberties, one of the group’s stated missions. In March of last year, the same publication published a report on internal dissent over Greenblatt comparing pro-Palestinian groups to the extreme right.

But if this had been a running undercurrent, the past six months have thrown it to the surface. In November, mere days after X boss Elon Musk called an antisemitic conspiracy “the actual truth,” Greenblatt praised Musk’s suggestion of banning the terms “from the river to the sea” and “decolonization” from the platform.

In a speech at Brown University in February, Greenblatt reiterated that he thought anti-Zionism was antisemitism, and said he wanted to define the terms before “activists who participate in ‘BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now’ start to object.” The next month, addressing the Never Is Now Conference, Greenblatt similarly dismissed “the editors at left-wing Jewish magazines that very few of us actually read,” and said, “I must say, I have to share: What amazes me is that when ADL says that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, or when the Hillel director says that the mob chanting ‘from the river to the sea’ [is], … journalists at major newspapers don’t listen to the victim. Instead, they literally go looking for an alternative point of view. … You’ve all read these paragraphs: ‘To be sure, Professor So and So says’ or ‘the head of Jewish Voice for Peace counters …’ ”

These students and professors and activists are also Jewish. Again, historically, the ADL has had as its mission not only to protect Jews, but also to protect civil liberties for Jews and all Americans; on its website today, one can still read that the ADL stands up for religious freedom and against discrimination. It is thus theoretically Greenblatt’s job to defend these ostensibly little-read journalists and Professors So and So, too, even if he disagrees with them on Israel. Instead, he has repeatedly used his platform not to defend their right to expression even as he disagrees with their definition of antisemitism, but to undercut them. That isn’t just abandonment of part of the ADL’s mandate, but an abandonment of some of the people who are at risk of antisemitism.

In the past week, this dynamic has intensified. Speaking outside Columbia University last week, Greenblatt suggested that the National Guard may need to be called to ensure the safety of Jewish students.