Last week we published a piece on the recent wave of actions in support of Palestine across the United States. I wrote that these were easily the biggest anti-war protests since the Iraq War and that the mainstream media was largely failing to convey their scope.
“The polls continue to show this organizing is working,” US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid told me.“The media is doing the best it can to slow down the efforts of the mass movement. We are seeing concerted efforts from U.S. decision-makers to stifle this conversation in a public way. That means we need to double down and keep going hard.”
Here’s just some the actions that have occurred since we published that story last weekend:
- Jewish activists interrupted a speech by Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) calling on the House member to back a ceasefire.
- Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg interrupted a speech by President Biden demanding a ceasefire.
- Activists staged a sit-in at the office of Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) calling for him to back a ceasefire and end U.S. military aid to Israel.
- A large group of NYC protesters demonstrated in Brooklyn.
- Thousands protested Biden’s visit to Minneapolis. The group chanted, “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
- Over a dozen protesters interrupted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Senate hearing.
- Protesters demanding a ceasefire gathered at Rep. Val Hoyle’s (D-OR) office.
- 9 people were arrested in Cambridge, Massachusetts while protesting outside the offices of Elbit Systems. Elbit is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.
- 30 students walked out of a lecture from Hillary Clinton’s at Columbia University over the school’s complicity in shaming students who are critical of Israel.
- Boston activists entered the city’s public radio station on Tuesday, October 31, during a live broadcast to deliver a message in support of Palestinians.
- Over 200 of Rep. Yvette D. Clarke’s (D-NY) constituents gathered outside her office to on her to support a ceasefire.
This weekend we might see the biggest protest yet, as tens of thousands are headed to Washington, D.C. to march and demand a ceasefire. Over 200 organizations have endorsed the event so far (including Mondoweiss. And I’ll be there, so if you’re in D.C., be sure to say hi).
Palestinian Youth Movement organizer Danya Al-Saleh wrote about the action and the moment at the site:
“We are witnessing an emergent movement in the United States, one that upholds Black Lives from Ferguson to Minneapolis, champions Native sovereignty from the Hawaiian mountains to the Plains of the Dakotas, knows no borders from the Texas deserts to the California valley and reclaims our stolen labor from the classrooms of Oklahoma to the factories of Michigan and the hotels of Los Angeles,” reads her piece. “It is a mass base, cross-coalition movement unwavering in its struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Although it may appear disparate at times, its compass is the world-historical refusal of the downtrodden, and as the Palestinian revolutionary intellectual Ghassan Kanafani makes clear, Palestine unites us, for “the Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary wherever he is, as a cause of the exploited and oppressed.”
“This movement did not begin two weeks ago but builds on decades of grassroots and youth-led struggle wherever Palestinians, Arabs, and those who stand with them against Zionist colonialism find themselves,” she continues. “On November 4th, this movement will make its way to Washington, DC’s Freedom Plaza, to march for an end to the siege on Gaza, a ceasefire, and an end to the U.S. aid to Israel. Organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), National Students for Justice in Palestine, ANSWER Coalition, The People’s Forum, Al-Awda, US Palestinian Community Network, American Muslim Alliance, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Maryland2Palestine and the Palestinian Feminist Collective, this march represents a critical moment in the Palestine struggle, signaling the consolidation of a mass movement in the United States committed to challenging the decades-long role of the American government in the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Back to the polling that Ahmad Abuznaid referenced: a recent Data for Progress survey conducted between October 18 and 19 found that 66% of Americans support a ceasefire. That includes 80% of Democrats, 56% of Republicans (!!!) and 57% of independents.
Israel Lobby
Some notable developments among the lobbying groups.
After the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other lawmakers for voting against a pro-Israel resolution that didn’t mention the siege on Gaza, the congresswoman pushed back on the organization over Twitter.
“AIPAC endorsed scores of Jan 6th insurrectionists,” she wrote. They are no friend to American democracy. They are one of the more racist and bigoted PACs in Congress as well, who disproportionately target members of color. They are an extremist organization that destabilizes US democracy.”
This prompted a number of lawmakers to echo her point.
“AIPAC literally ran ads with my face next to Hamas rockets, resulting in a string of threats against my life,” wrote Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MI) .”When Democratic Leadership called them out, they refused to apologize and kept the ads up. What they are doing is insulting and Islamophobic. You cannot claim to be progressive while launching a Super PAC that exclusively targets progressives and supports Republicans in the general.”
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) actually got into it with the lobby group’s account.
“What AIPAC doesn’t tell you is they raise money from big Republican donors & spend it in Democratic primaries against Democrats,” he wrote. “It’s a cynical, undemocratic strategy. And since they clearly don’t care about dead, kids, it’s all about backing a conservative Netanyahu position.”
AIPAC said that Pocan took money from PACs and said they were being singled out.
“If you, Mark Pocan, really cared about the children, Israeli or Palestinian, you wouldn’t be calling for an end to the fighting, you’d be calling for the end of Hamas,” wrote whoever runs AIPAC’s Twitter. “PS – have you returned the PAC money yet?”
“I think you are confused by actual PACs and groups like yourself trying to be Trojan horses for the GOP,” replied Pocan. “You do know what a Trojan horse is, right? (Look in mirror).”
Meanwhile, AIPAC’s junior varsity team DMFI is running an ad in Detroit attacking Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
The six-figure buy attacks Tlaib’s support of Palestine. “Tell Rashida Tlaib she’s on the wrong side of history and humanity,” it concludes. The move indicates that pro-Israel groups might see Tlaib as potentially vulnerable in her primary race.
The progressive, Jewish group IfNotNow put out a statement on the ad.
“This dangerous ad must be roundly condemned by Democratic officials and taken down immediately. DMFI and AIPAC use Republican donor money to pit Jewish Democrats against Muslim Democrats,” it reads. “But we won’t let them tear our communities apart with the same kind of fear-mongering we worked so hard to defeat after 9/11.”
“This racist and Islamophobic ad also ignores the fact that Representative Tlaib has repeatedly condemned attacks on Israeli civilians. Instead, in a painful reminder of post-9/11 bigotry against Muslim Americans, DMFI smeared Tlaib, the only Palestinian American Member of Congress, as a terrorist sympathizer,” it continues. “We’re grateful for Rep. Tlaib’s ceasefire resolution which recognizes the tremendous loss of life among both Palestinians and Israelis.”
Then we have a piece at The Intercept from Daniel Boguslaw on new House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) relationship with AIPAC:
THE AMERICAN ISRAEL Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, was the top donor to Rep. Mike Johnson during his most recent campaign, chipping in $25,000 between 2021 and 2022, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of his political contributors. Johnson’s first order of business as speaker of the House is to seek budget cuts in exchange for a $14 billion aid package for Israel.
The Louisiana Republican’s proposal for the aid to Israel, which comes as the country continues its unchecked bombardment of Gaza, would strip $14 billion from the Internal Revenue Service, including for a program the agency is developing to allow Americans to file their taxes for free.
AIPAC, for its part, is pushing Congress to provide additional funding to Israel amid the ongoing war. In an ominous statement on Monday, AIPAC tweeted, “We strongly support the measure to fully fund critical security assistance for Israel in its fight to destroy Hamas. We recognize that this is the first step in a process that will continue to unfold. Each step of the process, we will work for overwhelming bipartisan Congressional support for this critical assistance.”
Odds & Ends
???? The attempt to censure Rashida Tlaib for alleged antisemitism failed. It was initiated by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who once claimed that a Jewish space laser started wildfires.
???????? Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has become the first Senator to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“I cover the history of AIPAC in my new book and Dick Durbin was AIPAC’s first successful recruit, beating a pro-Palestine incumbent Republican (!) in 1982,” notes Ryan Grim on Twitter. “That AIPAC’s first recruit is now to the left of Bernie and the Biden administration is quite something.”
???? Palestine Legal’s Radhika Sainath in Boston Review:
At a time when Israel has ordered 1 million Palestinians to leave northern Gaza—the literal definition of ethnic cleansing—and continues to mount air and ground assaults, it’s important to understand that the underlying erasure of Palestinian suffering that undergirds all of this is a form of anti-Palestinian racism. In cases where university administrators have tried to support Palestinian students by expressing symmetric concern for lives lost in both Israel and Gaza, big donors and lobby groups complain that there is not enough sympathy for Israeli victims of Hamas’s attack. While universities have been swift to condemn Russia’s occupation of Ukraine and to support Black or Asian students faced with racist attacks, there is often radio silence when it comes to the suffering of Palestinians. Palestinians, and those who believe they are human beings deserving of rights, are appalled at their institutions’ double standards.
???? Anti-war protesters interrupted Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Senate hearing yelling, “Ceasefire now!”
???? The xenophobic immigration rhetoric of GOP presidential candidates has been given an anti-Palestinian twist in recent days.
“I don’t know what Biden’s going to do, but we cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis during a recent event. “If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic. None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”
“We aren’t bringing in anyone from Gaza,” said former President Donald Trump.
????️ In a new poll from the Arab American Institute just 17% of Arab-Americans say they will vote for Biden in 2024, down from 59% in 2020.
“Arab Americans should not be put in this position by President Biden,” New Generation for Palestine president Amer Zahr told Time. “And I think if [Democrats] now turn and say, ‘Well, you got no choice—it’s us or Trump,’ if that’s the best argument they have, well, that’s a verdict on this administration too. I don’t find that to be a very inspiring bumper sticker.”
???? Mondoweiss’s Palestine News Director Yumna Patel was on The Katie Halper Show talking about the war on Palestine.
???? ‘Palestine is the exception to free speech and academic freedom at Barnard’
???? ‘We are witnessing the largest U.S. anti-war protests in 20 years’
???? Activist and attorney Dan Kovalik was shoved and kicked out of a campaign event for Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) after asking the lawmaker why he opposes a ceasefire.
????️ The Biden administration announced that its unveiling new actions to combat antisemitism on college campuses. From NBC News:
The departments of Justice and Homeland Security are partnering with campus law enforcement to track hate-related threats and provide federal resources to schools, according to the plan, which was shared exclusively with NBC News.
Some of what they will be assessing includes specific and credible threats that are flagged online.
Dozens of cybersecurity and protective security experts at DHS have been detailed to engage with schools as they navigate incredibly tense environments, a White House official said.
???????? At The Intercept Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw report on the U.S. expanding its “secret” military base in Israel:
The U.S. Army is quietly moving ahead with construction at Site 512, a classified base perched atop Mt. Har Qeren in the Negev, to include what government records describe as a “life support facility”: military speak for barracks-like structures for personnel.
Though President Joe Biden and the White House insist that there are no plans to send U.S. troops to Israel amid its war on Hamas, a secret U.S. military presence in Israel already exists. And the government contracts and budget documents show it is evidently growing.
???????? The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on President Biden to “stop the madness” after Israeli forces tortured naked Palestinian prisoners on camera, used a tank to blow up a fleeing civilian vehicle in northern Gaza, and massacred more than 100 Palestinians in bombings of Jabalia refugee camp.
CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad: “Enough is enough. President Biden must end our nation’s complicity in Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly genocidal campaign of violence against Palestinian civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank. Every new massacre that the Israeli government commits further stains our nation’s reputation and refutes the claim that our nation supports human rights. If our leaders truly do view Palestinians as human beings worthy of life and freedom, we must stop this madness.”
???? ‘Advocates fear Biden’s campus antisemitism plan will mobilize law enforcement to surveil students’
???????? Judith Butler: ‘In defense of the freedom to speak out against genocide’
???????? Spencer Ackerman in The Nation: ‘The ADL Is Defaming Palestinian Students as Terrorist Supporters’
???? ‘Bernie Sanders’s failure to back Israel-Gaza ceasefire upsets US followers’
???? ‘Weapons makers treat genocide as a business opportunity’
????️ ‘Youngest House Democratic recruits speak out for Israel’
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked if Israel was abiding by international law during yesterday’s briefing:
QUESTION: There’s been back and forth in this briefing room about this, but given there was the big attack yesterday on the refugee camp, I have to ask again: What is the U.S. assessment so far in terms of whether Israel is following the rules of war?
MR MILLER: Again, I will say that I’m not able to offer an assessment on that strike as I’m not able to offer assessment on other individual strikes. What I will say is that we will continue to discuss with them directly, as we will say publicly, that it is our expectation that in all of their activities, all of their military campaigns, that they comply with the laws of war.
QUESTION: I mean, in terms of yesterday’s attack, there are various commentators – some countries, international human rights lawyers – some of them are calling it war crimes. And we know that in this building when you are making these kinds of legal determinations, there is a process for that. Has there been any thinking of starting such a process for Israel’s actions in this war?
MR MILLER: It is not an assessment that we are making now. No.
Stay safe in DC,
Michael
IN MEMORY OF ADY BARKAN:
■ What Ilhan Omar Said About AIPAC Was Right | by Ady Barkan | The Nation | February 12, 2019
I’m ashamed to admit that endorsing AIPAC positions was all about the Benjamins for me and my candidate.
CONCLUDING EXCERPT: . . . For 12 years, I have harbored minor private shame for advising Vic [i.e., a congressional candidate he was working for in 2006] to endorse AIPAC’s position papers and more significant shame for not doing enough to stop the oppression of the Palestinian people.
I am speaking up now because it may be my last chance. Although I am only 35, I am dying. As I write these words, I am sitting with my wife in the waiting room of the Santa Barbara hospital emergency room, slowly bleeding from my stomach into a pile of gauze. I had a feeding tube inserted four days ago but it isn’t healing properly. I am losing the ability to swallow, because I have ALS, a poorly understood neurological disease with no treatment, which seized my body 28 months ago and has basically paralyzed me since. My hands do not work and almost nobody can understand my mumbling, so I am using amazing technology that tracks the location of my eyes and allows me to slowly type out these words with my pupil-tips.
This is my chance to redeem my Jewish guilt, to speak out against the oppression that is being perpetrated in my name, and I do not intend to let a minor obstacle like ALS stop me.
Young Jews across America increasingly agree with Omar and me, and that is making the Israel lobby very nervous. As it should: The occupation is too immoral, illegal, and inhumane to survive an open and honest conversation in the marketplace of ideas. That is why AIPAC and its associates work to silence criticism of Israel by accusing its detractors of anti-Semitism and claiming that nobody may ever talk about how the Israel lobby uses money to build power.
The ugly truth is that the Israel lobby, like other powerful lobbies led by Jew and gentile alike, wields its money strategically and effectively. Outrage should be directed not at those who point this out (most often Muslims and people of color) but at the suffering of the Palestinian people and the simultaneous dependence of the Republican Party on genuine anti-Semites.
I do not expect to live to see the liberation of the Palestinian people. But I maintain hope that my toddler son will. If he does, it will be because young American Jews like him do the honest self-reflection taught by our forebears, take pride in our tradition of justice, and join in solidarity and struggle with fellow Semites like Omar.
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/ady-barkan-aipac-ilhan-omar/
Are these Congresspeople so desperate that they are willing to forget ethics and morals, and take campaign funding from a foreign lobby that interferes in our political system, tries to intimidate and threaten candidates who stand up to that apartheid nation, and are willing to put the interests of that nation over their own?
We must change our election laws, to prohibit foreign lobbies, and agents that pretend to do work for America, but in reality keep doing the work of an Occupying nation. They must register as a foreign agent, and keep out of acting like bullies among our candidates. Our sick relationship with Israel, and the fact that we keep pandering to it, has brought us more hate and the possibility of more terrorist threats. It feels like we have a venomous snake inside our house, and cannot get it out.
While rallies and protests make participants feel good about themselves while demanding very little of them, when do they make any difference to governmental actions? Perhaps if there were a general strike, and there were widespread physical attacks on military bases in the USA, and there were physical attacks on weapons manufacturing facilities… then there might be some changes. Failing those, we can confidently predict that the USA (and my own government here in the UK) will continue supporting Israel’s 75-year-old campaign to erase the Palestinian people.
VIDEO — “Former Israeli Government Minister Shulamit Aloni confesses that “it’s a trick” for Israel to use false anti-Semitism accusations in accordance with its interests”
https://twitter.com/DailySabah/status/1478077074233561107?lang=en
I don’t see any mention (let alone condemnation ) of the explosion of Anti-Semitism in the US and Europe.
see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPVe2CsBqmM&ab_channel=MojoStory
Free the kidnapped hostages!!!