Sen. Warren spoke at the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland, Massachusetts, and a video of one of her exchanges was posted to X by WGBH reporter Tori Bedford (@Tori_Bedford).

A member of the congregation asked her if Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, an allegation that has been made in international forums.

She replied:

WARREN: “So, I think what’s happening now is going to be a long and involved debate over what constitutes genocide when you ask a legal question. For me it is far more important to say that what Israel is doing is wrong — and it is wrong. It is wrong to starve children, women, a civilian population, in order to try to bend them to your will. It is wrong to drop 2,000-pound bombs in densely-populated civilian areas. I think I can make a more effective argument by describing the behavior that is happening and whether I believe it is right or wrong and look people in the eyes if you want to tell people you think it is right and it should be the policy of the United States of America to support those actions. So that’s how I analyze this –”

Audience member: “You didn’t answer the question.”

WARREN: “No, I did answer the question. I said –”

Audience member: “It was a yes or no.”

Audience member: “It was a yes or no. The second question was a yes or no question, to clarify.”

WARREN: “So if you want to do it as an application of law, I believe they [the International Court of Justice] will find it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so. What I’m also trying to tell you is that I’m trying to get people past a labels argument, which seems to throw up a screen, and get them to look at the behavior on the ground, get them to look at the children; to get them to look at the moms and the old people and the people who have been displaced and the people who are living outside and the people who are drinking dirty water. And talk about what the role of the United States is in connection with supporting the Netanyahu government, which put the people of Gaza in that position.”

At a Q&A at a Wayland mosque last week, @SenWarren is asked if she thinks that Israel is committing a genocide.

"If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they will find that it is genocide," she says, adding that she's trying to get "past a labels argument" pic.twitter.com/mxqBP6oTlH

— Tori Bedford (@Tori_Bedford) April 8, 2024

I think the subtext of this exchange is that it is easier for a member of the Senate to decry particular military tactics of the Israeli government than to utter the word “genocide,” because admitting that Israel is committing genocide would require that the US cease transferring arms and perhaps even money to Tel Aviv. Even elements of the Israel lobbies must be feeling pretty conflicted about the horror story in Gaza by now, and might be willing to tolerate severe criticism of it. But “genocide” is a step too far for most of them. Most Jewish Americans, of course, know the score, and young Jews are done out with Netanyahu and increasingly with Israel; I’m talking about the AIPAC establishment.

It is important to underline that we got this admission from Warren, who has a Rutgers law degree, that under International Humanitarian Law, Israel’s conduct in Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide, only because Muslim Americans held her feet to the fire.

Israel in the halls of Congress is now the king with no clothes, and Warren has worked herself toward admitting it in public. Many of the Progressive Caucus among Democrats in the House have been saying these things for some time. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for instance, used the term genocide on the House floor two weeks ago, and so paved the way for this admission by the more circumspect Warren (who began her political career as a Republican).

Then, Power testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. Rep. Jaoquin Castro (D-TX) questioned her about the situation the Israeli government has created in Gaza (“House Foreign Affairs Committee Holds Hearing on USAID’s Foreign Policy and International Development Priorities”) (emphasis added):

“JOAQUIN CASTRO:… Administrator Power, thank you for joining us today. And of course, I’d normally ask you about locally led development and some of your great work there at USAID. But I want to ask you obviously, about the very urgent situation, humanitarian situation in Gaza. In your testimony, you said that the entire population of Gaza is living under the threat of famine.

News reports came out recently that certain USAID officials sent a cable to the National Security Council warning that famine is already likely occurring in parts of the Gaza Strip. According to the report, quote, ‘famine conditions are most severe and widespread in northern Gaza, which is under Israeli control.’ Do you think that it’s plausible or likely that parts of Gaza, and particularly northern Gaza, are already experiencing famine?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, the methodology that the IPC [Integrated food security Phase Classification] used, is one that we had our experts scrub, it’s one that’s relied upon in other settings, and that is their assessment. And we believe that assessment is credible.

JOAQUIN CASTRO: So there’s — famine is already occurring there.

SAMANTHA POWER: That is — yes.

JOAQUIN CASTRO: Yeah. OK. And more than half of the population of Gaza is under the age of 18, as you know, and are seriously affected by the lack of access to food and nutrition. And various organizations, including the United Nations, have warned that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children may die, if they don’t get necessary food and nutrition assistance in just the next two to three weeks.

Has USAID made such an assessment itself? And do you have a sense of how many such children might be at risk of dying if they don’t get access to food and nutrition that’s currently unavailable?

SAMANTHA POWER: I do not have those assessments on hand. but I will say that the — in northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition, prior to October 7th, was almost zero. And it is now one in three kids. But extrapolating out is hard. And I will say, just with some humility, because it is so hard to move around in Gaza, because the access challenges that give rise, in part, to the malnutrition are so severe, it is also you know, hard to do the kind of scaled assessments that we would wish to do. But in terms of, you know, actual severe acute malnutrition for under fives, that rate was 16 percent in January, and became 30 percent in February.

And we’re awaiting the — the March numbers. But we expect it to continue —

JOAQUIN CASTRO: So it got markedly worse.

SAMANTHA POWER: Yeah, markedly worse . . .

President Joe Biden apparently lives in a world where it is unthinkable that Israel is committing a genocide or deliberately starving the civilian population to, as Sen. Warren put it, “to try to bend them to” its will. But the people around him are not blind or stupid, and they know the score. They haven’t been able to get through to him in any significant way. He finally admitted that 30,000 are dead in Gaza and said “it cannot become 60,000.” He is not doing anything practical to forestall that result, however, and the likelihood is indeed that 60,000 will be murdered if not more.

Power declines to resign, even though she helped propel the Obama administration into a war in Libya to try to prevent the killing of 25,000 protesters by Gaddafi in 2011. If she were consistent she would be calling for a US war on Israel to make it withdraw from Gaza.

Warren, meanwhile, continues to vote to give ever more arms and money to Israel, so she appears merely to regret the genocide but prefers to be senator than to try to do anything practical to stop it.

Despite these frank admissions, which come far too late, the reek of rank hypocrisy in the Democratic Party concerning the impunity of Netanyahu and his fascist henchmen continues to lie like a thick layer of fog over our nation’s capital.

As for the truly unhinged Republican Party, which may be to the right of Netanyahu, its bright idea is to condemn Biden for being too hard on the Likud. Some Democrats say they will go along, for all the world like politicians of the Hutu Power faction denouncing Rwandans who were too soft on the Tutsi minority.

TRT World: “Pro-Israel AIPAC slammed for being ‘complicit in Gaza genocide’

 While the NYT article accurately highlights AIPAC’s involvement in financing electoral campaigns against left-leaning Democrats perceived as not adequately supportive of Israel, it overlooks AIPAC’s broader antidemocratic effects. For example, AIPAC raises funds for many right-wing politicians, including individuals commonly described as insurrectionists. In the 2022 midterm elections, AIPAC endorsed 109 Republican candidates who voted in favor of overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election.
 
3. Typically, around 75 percent of American Jews vote for liberal or progressive candidates. This trend is exemplified by instances such as Barack Obama winning 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008 and Joe Biden receiving 77 percent in 2020.
 
   Given the substantial achievements and freedoms that American Jews have enjoyed under the principles and opportunities afforded by liberalism, it’s unsurprising that the majority of them align with liberal values and consistently vote for Democratic candidates. Moreover, a consistent majority of American Jews express support for US pressure on both Israel and the Palestinians if it would help secure a peace deal.


   Accordingly, the right-wing policies championed by Likud embody what American liberals reject: occupation, apartheid, and ethnic tribalism. However, while AIPAC’s alignment with these policies places it well outside the mainstream of American Jewish opinion, its electoral practices make it very challenging for politicians to support reasonable pressure on Israel to conform to international law.


   In a 2022 Democratic primary, AIPAC allocated significant financial resources towards opposing (and ultimately defeating) the candidacy of progressive Jewish Congressman Andy Levin. Despite Levin’s robust advocacy for Israel, he aligned himself with the liberal lobby organization J Street, which espouses a pro-Israel, pro-peace stance. (Additionally, Levin supported progressive domestic policies such as the expansion of Medicare coverage.)
 
4. While Jewish donors as a whole tend to favor liberal Democratic candidates and causes, a significant portion of extremely affluent Jewish donors, such as billionaires Robert Kraft, Paul Singer and Bernie Marcus, typically endorse the AIPAC/Likud agenda. These megadonors wield considerable influence due to their substantial contributions, enabling them to lobby for specific foreign and domestic policies.


   Consequently, AIPAC not only promotes Likud-aligned foreign policies but also generally supports Republican domestic policies. The latter tendency is to be expected, as the individuals who oversee and finance AIPAC tend to be affluent, and therefore favor policies that benefit their personal and business affairs.


5. A reflection of AIPAC’s priorities is evident in its failure to initially endorse one steadfast supporter of Israel in 2022: former Republican Representative Liz Cheney. As former President Trump vehemently criticized Cheney for her condemnation of his disgraceful words and actions concerning the 2020 election, AIPAC, consistent with other Republican entities, opted to align with Trump rather than stand alongside Cheney, a vocal proponent of democratic principles. However, after public criticism from Cheney and others, AIPAC reversed its embarrassing position.
 
In conclusion, AIPAC has played an important part in shifting Israel to the far right. By consistently promoting Likud’s policies, it has undermined moderate Israeli politicians. Imagine how different Israel might look if AIPAC — easily the biggest, wealthiest and most influential player in the Israel lobby — had advocated for limitations on illegal settlement expansion, thereby fostering a climate more conducive to peace and stability. Instead, Likudniks could rightly tell Israeli voters: We can maintain a harsh occupation, expand Jewish-only settlements, all while continuing to benefit from substantial American military, economic and diplomatic support.

Via Detailed Political Quizzes

Comments can be sent to Israel-Palestine-Quiz@live.com

Detailed Political Quizzes

By Michael Schwalbe | – (Commondreams.org ) – A sad fact of jurisprudence in an unequal world is that good laws created to promote justice are often used perversely by the powerful to thwart justice. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is a prime example. Originally intended to combat discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, the law is misused today to quash pro-Palestinian speech and speech critical of Israel on university campuses.

Protection from discrimination under Title VI extends to individuals and groups defined by shared ancestry, or by citizenship or residency in a country with a dominant religion or distinct religious identity. On university campuses, responsibility for enforcement of Title VI, except for complaints citing discrimination based on religion, falls to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Education.

Under the law, complaints are warranted when students in a protected category experience severe, pervasive, and persistent harassment that creates a hostile environment that impedes their ability to learn. Examples of what the OCR considers harassment include the use of ethnic slurs, mocking of foreign accents, speech, or names, and acts of physical intimidation linked to ethnic stereotypes.

If an OCR investigation finds that a university has failed to prevent systematic discrimination or allowed severe, pervasive, and persistent harassment to flourish, the university can lose federal funding. Which means that Title VI has teeth; it can help ensure that all students have a fair opportunity to learn. This is the justice-seeking goal of the law.

Unfortunately, Title VI has also been weaponized to silence speech that supports Palestinian rights or criticizes Israel. This has been going on for at least twenty years, and is happening now more than ever. Since October 7, 2023, the Education Department’s OCR has received 33 complaints alleging discrimination based on shared ancestry involving a college or university, according to Inside Higher Ed. Many, though not all, of these complaints have come from partisans of Israel.

These complaints typically cite instances of pro-Palestinian speech or speech critical of Israel as “creating a hostile environment for Jewish students,” and therefore as violations of Title VI. Examples of incidents cited in complaints include accusing Israel of practicing apartheid, advocating for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, showing the film “Israelism,” hosting speakers who criticize Israeli state policies, protesting speakers who represent the Israeli government, students chanting pro-Palestinian slogans at rallies, and offhand classroom remarks by professors critical of Israel.

Students should never suffer discrimination or harassment based on their race, ethnicity, or national origin. That’s the problem Title VI was meant to address. For this purpose, it remains a valuable tool.

An important thing to know about these complaints is that, after full investigation, they are consistently dismissed.

The principal reason for dismissal is that the incidents cited as “harassment” are in fact obvious instances of permissible free speech. As the presiding judge wrote in a decision resolving a 2011 case at UC-Berkeley, “A very substantial portion of the conduct to which [the complainants] object represents pure political speech and expressive conduct, in a public setting, regarding matters of public concern, which is entitled to special protection under the First Amendment.”

In 2021, the OCR strongly asserted that Title VI enforcement shall not “diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law or under the First Amendment.” And to its credit, the OCR has generally abided by this principle over the years, ultimately rejecting complaints that target free speech. But these failures haven’t stopped partisans of Israel from continuing to file suits under Title VI. They carry on because prompting an investigation is consequential.

University administrators understandably want to avoid the reputational damage that can come from being subject to a civil rights investigation, and so they will often accept resolution agreements that admit no fault but make promises to do better at responding to any campus occurrences that could be construed as antisemitic, anti-Israel, or as making Jewish students feel unsafe.

The Young Turks Video: “Pro-Palestinian Protestors Report Chemical Spray Attack At Columbia University”

In the shadow of these agreements, administrators often begin to aggressively monitor campus activities that might draw further negative attention. Administrators may then also look for ways to mute the speech—meaning pro-Palestinian speech or speech critical of Israel—that they see as causing the trouble. Common tactics of suppression include requiring “balance” when pro-Palestinian speakers are brought to campus, insisting that organizers of pro-Palestinian events pay prohibitively high fees for security, and, in extreme cases, suspending pro-Palestinian student groups, making it impossible for them to hold events on campus.

The threat of reputational damage can likewise affect other members of a campus community. Students, faculty, and staff may be deterred from speaking out in support of Palestinian rights, criticizing Israel, or joining groups that support Palestinian liberation, for fear of being labeled antisemitic, accused of discrimination, or involved in a civil rights suit. So even without repressive administrative action, free speech and association in support of Palestinian rights can be chilled.

We don’t need to guess about the motives of pro-Israel bullies. Proponents of the complaint-filing strategy can be surprisingly unabashed about what they’re up to. For instance, Kenneth Marcus, founder and current leader of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, explained how the strategy is supposed to work.

“These [Title VI cases],” Marcus wrote in a 2013 op-ed in The Jerusalem Post, “even when rejected expose administrators to bad publicity. … [I]t hurts them with donors, faculty, political leaders and prospective students.” Students, too, are a target, Marcus admitted. “We are creating a very strong disincentive for outrageous behavior by students. … Needless to say, getting caught up in a civil rights complaint is not a good way to build a resume or impress a future employer.” Could the intent to suppress speech be any clearer?

As noted, the strategy of misusing Title VI to chill speech critical of Israel is being pursued with new vigor. In the current political climate, this is hard for the Department of Education to resist. But resist it should, as Palestinian rights organizations have long urged, or else free speech in the university stands to be greatly harmed. A case now pending at UNC-Chapel Hill suggests how expedited disposition of politically motivated Title VI complaints could help to prevent this harm.

The complaint against UNC was filed in December, 2023, after a New York-based attorney, David E. Weisberg, learned of two incidents on the North Carolina campus. In one incident, a pro-Palestinian speaker on a seven-person panel titled, “No Peace Without Justice: A Round-Table Talk on Social Justice in Palestine,” praised the ingenuity displayed by Hamas fighters on October 7 and refused to apologize for the violence used to break out of what she called, referring to Gaza, a “concentration camp.”

The other incident allegedly occurred in October, 2023, in a class on rhetoric and public issues. According to the complaint, the professor remarked on one occasion that Israel and the United States “do not give a shit about international law or war crimes.” Later, amidst Israel’s assault on Gaza, the professor reportedly described Israel as “a clearly fascist state committing genocide under the guise of it supposedly being the only democracy in the Middle East.”

No doubt these blunt remarks might unsettle students who embrace the glowing image of itself that Israel tries to project to the world. But having one’s beliefs challenged is part of what higher education ought to entail. And remarks critical of a state, remarks protected by principles of free speech and academic freedom, cannot fairly be seen as actionable harassment under Title VI.

Weisberg, the complainant, invoked the contentiously broad definition of antisemitism advanced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) to label these incidents antisemitic, further alleging that the incidents created a hostile educational environment for students of Jewish descent who “entertain positive feelings toward the modern State of Israel.” The Department of Education’s OCR agreed to investigate.

Even though the OCR expressly states that agreeing to investigate a complaint is not a judgment of a complaint’s merits, doing so nonetheless appears sufficiently validating to give a legal bully a partial victory. In the UNC case, the incidents cited in the complaint are protected expressive speech, and by no means amount to severe, pervasive, and persistent harassment. As with similar complaints that have been filed over the years, this one will be investigated and almost certainly dismissed.

No doubt these blunt remarks might unsettle students who embrace the glowing image of itself that Israel tries to project to the world. But having one’s beliefs challenged is part of what higher education ought to entail.

For now, though, the university must deal with the investigation, and administrators will feel pressure to resolve the complaint, perhaps agreeing—as on a previous occasion—to be more alert and responsive to anything on campus construable as antisemitic, no matter how far-fetched such a construal might be. Campus supporters of Palestinian rights will also be subject to closer scrutiny as the investigation proceeds, and perhaps find it harder to hold events and draw an audience. The goal of the bullying strategy will thus be achieved. Other campuses where investigations are underway will be similarly affected.

An expedited process for handling Title VI complaints of this kind is long overdue. Instead of accepting new complaints that mirror the bogus complaints that have been rejected again and again—complaints that point to nothing but clear instances of free speech and offer no credible evidence of harassment or discrimination—the OCR should quickly review and summarily reject these frivolous complaints as attacks on free speech that impede everyone’s ability to learn.

Real discrimination is of course intolerable and calls for corrective action. Students should never suffer discrimination or harassment based on their race, ethnicity, or national origin. That’s the problem Title VI was meant to address. For this purpose, it remains a valuable tool.

But the law can also be misused, as partisans of Israel have done, to protect Israel from criticism and stifle pro-Palestinian voices. This isn’t ultimately about the safety of Jewish students, many of whom are already critical of Israel and Zionism. It is, rather, about keeping the ideologies that sustain oppressive social arrangements safe from the corrosive effects of critical education. To keep this liberatory possibility alive, we should resist threats to free speech, and be especially wary when they are disguised as efforts to fight discrimination.

Michael Schwalbe

Unfor­tu­nately, the event was can­celed after charges of anti­semit­ism were leveled against me and the other sched­uled speaker, Pro­fessor Joel Gor­don. Sub­sequently, due to the atmo­sphere cre­ated by such claims, not a single pub­lic event deal­ing with the Gaza Strip viol­ence took place at the state’s flag­ship uni­versity in fall semester 2023.

The charge against us was made by Jay Greene, a former Uni­versity of Arkan­sas pro­fessor now at the Her­it­age Found­a­tion, with Fay­etteville-based Con­duit News. Greene’s accus­a­tions played a major role in the decision to can­cel the event. More recently, on Dec. 16, law pro­fessor Robert Stein­buch quoted Greene in pub­lished a column in this paper accus­ing me and Dr. Gor­don of being the “most hos­tile to Jews” of all Uni­versity of Arkan­sas pro­fess­ors.

Anti­semit­ism is cer­tainly a ser­i­ous prob­lem in the U.S. As Bernie Stein­berg, former exec­ut­ive dir­ector at Har­vard Uni­versity’s Hil­lel chapter, observes, “Anti­semit­ism in the U.S. is a real and dan­ger­ous phe­nomenon, most press­ingly from the alt-right white-suprem­acist polit­ics that have become alarm­ingly main­stream since 2016.”

But is there any­thing to asser­tions that Joel Gor­don and I are “hos­tile to Jews”? I’d sug­gest that the fact Gor­don is Jew­ish should raise ser­i­ous ques­tions about the claims. I am not Jew­ish, but per­haps a few of my career accom­plish­ments might cor­rect the pic­ture painted by Stein­buch and Greene:

In sum­mer 2008, I served as a vis­it­ing pro­fessor in the M.A. Pro­gram in Middle East Stud­ies at Ben Gur­ion Uni­versity of the Negev in Beer­sheba, Israel (Gor­don has taught there as well).

After pub­lish­ing a book, “Memor­ies of Revolt,” deal­ing with res­ist­ance to the Brit­ish colo­nial occu­pa­tion of Palestine dur­ing the 1930s, I began to do research on the cul­ture of Middle East­ern Jews. It is still not well known that Jews lived and often thrived throughout the Middle East for cen­tur­ies, a his­tory that was tra­gic­ally dis­rup­ted with the cre­ation of the state of Israel.

Among my pub­lic­a­tions on Jew­ish sing­ers of Middle East­ern back­ground is a book chapter in “The Rout­ledge Com­pan­ion to Con­tem­por­ary Jew­ish Cul­tures” that deals with cel­eb­rated Israeli pop singer Dana Inter­na­tional of Yemeni ori­gin.

Dur­ing my ten­ure as Pro­gram Coordin­ator of the Middle East Stud­ies Cen­ter, in spring 2019 I organ­ized a con­fer­ence on “Jew­ish Con­tri­bu­tions to Middle East­ern Music.” Six Jew­ish experts in the field (among them a pro­fessor at Hebrew Uni­versity in Jer­u­s­alem) offered lec­tures, and in addi­tion we put on a con­cert fea­tur­ing Ira­nian Jew­ish pray­ers sung by Galeet Dar­dashti, a Jew­ish-Ira­nian-Amer­ican artist and musi­co­lo­gist who also serves as a can­tor in her local syn­agogue.

Why, one won­ders, did Gor­don and I get smeared with the charge that we are hos­tile to Jews? Clearly it is not because we hold far­right anti­semitic beliefs, but instead because both of us have cri­ti­cized Israeli policies. In this respect, the accus­a­tions against us should be seen as part of a much lar­ger polit­ical trend in the U.S., one that has meta­stas­ized since the hor­rors of Oct. 7: the weapon­iz­a­tion of the charge of anti­semit­ism against those who pub­licly express dis­sent from Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.

The aim of such weapon­iz­a­tion, as Bernie Stein­berg of Har­vard Hil­lel has observed, is to “to intim­id­ate and ulti­mately silence legit­im­ate cri­ti­cism of Israel and of Amer­ican policy on Israel.”

Invest­ig­at­ive journ­al­ist James Bam­ford describes in The Nation the efforts of one of the most import­ant organ­iz­a­tions involved in this cam­paign, the well-fun­ded Canary Mis­sion. This organ­iz­a­tion, Bam­ford shows, is “a massive black­list­ing and doxxing oper­a­tion dir­ec­ted from Israel that tar­gets stu­dents and pro­fess­ors crit­ical of Israeli policies, and then launches slan­der­ous charges against them — charges designed to embar­rass and humi­li­ate them and dam­age their future employ­ab­il­ity.”

Since Oct. 7, many in the U.S. have been so tar­geted, which has res­ul­ted in the ban­ning of stu­dent organ­iz­a­tions, the fir­ing of employ­ees, the can­cel­la­tion of many uni­versity pub­lic events and for­ums, and so on.

Daniel Levy, who served as an Israeli nego­ti­ator in the Oslo B peace pro­cess, explains another key factor that motiv­ates these cam­paigns. At a time when the most respec­ted inter­na­tional human rights organ­iz­a­tions, like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Inter­na­tional, have charged Israel with prac­ti­cing a policy of apartheid against Palestini­ans, it makes emin­ent sense for the Israeli state to shift the focus of the con­ver­sa­tion. And so Israel and its allies are work­ing dili­gently to turn the dis­cus­sion away from Israeli actions and to shine the spot­light instead on indi­vidu­als who might express cri­ti­cism of Israeli policies, alleging they are anti­semitic.

What pos­sible harm would have been done if Uni­versity of Arkan­sas stu­dents had atten­ded a forum and heard from two pro­fess­ors with wide exper­i­ence in the con­flict region and 50-plus years of teach­ing exper­i­ence at the uni­versity? From a pro­fessor with rel­at­ives in Israel who has taught courses on the Israel-Palestine con­flict for years (Gor­don). From a scholar with field research exper­i­ence inside Israel and the Israeli-occu­pied ter­rit­or­ies, who lived in Lebanon dur­ing the first year of the Lebanon civil war, who made the first of his three vis­its to the Gaza Strip in 1968 (me). From two pro­fess­ors with friends and col­leagues whose loved ones and com­rades were killed or kid­napped on Oct. 7, and who also know many who have fam­ily in Gaza that have been killed and/or been rendered home­less by Israel’s attacks.

That the sched­uled event did not occur is argu­ably due to what Andrea Long Chu, writ­ing in New York magazine, describes as a nation­wide “one-sided, McCarthy­ist crack­down on pro-Palestine speech.”

To my mind, the sad­dest part of the story is that the Uni­versity of Arkan­sas admin­is­tra­tion failed to stand up to the McCarthy­ist chal­lenge, and denied stu­dents the oppor­tun­ity to hear any dis­cus­sion of the Gaza Strip con­flict in fall semester. I con­sider this a sin­gu­lar and shame­ful fail­ure for a state uni­versity in whose respec­ted Middle East Stud­ies pro­gram I taught between 1996 and 2022.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette

They found that 62% of Americans have no idea what Zionism is. Zionism is, of course, a form of Jewish nationalism born in Central Europe in the late 19th century, which seeks to turn the Jewish religion into a platform for a state, and which excludes non-Jews from sovereignty over territory claimed by this Jewish state.

In the case of Palestine, this ideology has produced the statelessness of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and has made citizens of Israel of Palestinian heritage into second-class citizens. That is, Zionism is akin to other ethnic supremacist ideologies such as white nationalism or the Baathist form of Arab nationalism (which made Kurds second-class citizens in Iraq and perpetuated their non-citizen status in Syria).

The mantra often found among US politicians, that Israel must be democratic and Jewish, reflects the ethnic supremacism implicit in Zionist thinking. What would happen, for instance, if the proportion of Israelis of non-Jewish heritage rose to become a majority? If the state must be “Jewish,” this development would presumably require the expulsion or disenfranchisement of non-Jews.

Such demographic developments are not theoretical but are apparent in the contemporary world. Lebanese Christians were 51% of Lebanon’s population in 1930 but probably only 22% or so today.

Saying that Israel must be democratic and Jewish is like saying the United States must be democratic and white or democratic and Christian. The second, ethnic supremacist, demand is profoundly undemocratic and so the second part of the phrase stealthily negates the first.

Joe Biden says he is a Zionist, and given his behavior during the past three months, I think we have to conclude that he is an extreme sort of Zionist. It is baffling that the overwhelming majority of Americans doesn’t even know what he means when he says this, or what the ideology is of the country that receives more US aid than any other in the world.

Interestingly, 12% of Americans have a negative perception of Zionism, and 8% have a positive one. Some 19% don’t care one way or another. Presumably this 39% comprises the bulk of those who say they know what Zionism is.

Americans who view Zionism negatively are more likely to be Democrats or Independents than Republicans, though the spread is not that great (8% are Republicans, 13% Democrats, 14% independents).

Some 15% of Americans believe that criticizing Israeli policies is a form of antisemitism (bigotry toward Jews). Only 37% say that such criticism does not constitute anti-Jewish prejudice. 48% don’t know.

If we zero in on the 52% who had an opinion on the matter, 70% said that criticizing Israel does not amount to being prejudiced toward Jews. It is worrying, however, that 28% of those who said they knew the answer to the question believe that the only way to avoid anti-Jewish bigotry is to be silent about Israeli policies and actions.

This issue is of the utmost importance, since 38 states have passed laws forbidding the boycott of Israel and punishing it by denial of state government contracts (including speaking fees to professors and journalists and writers). That is, the belief that you can’t criticize Israel is undermining basic first amendment freedoms of Americans, among them the freedom to boycott enterprises with which they disagree. The Civil Rights movement probably could not have succeeded if it had been illegal to boycott white-owned businesses practicing segregation.

The United States and France are characterized by civic nationalism, or at least that is their constitutional tradition. As long as people are loyal to the Constitution in each country, their ethnicity ideally shouldn’t matter in the law. Obviously, it does matter, de facto, but even so the terms can change. See, e.g., Barack Obama, who probably could not have been president of the USA until the 21st century. At that point, we were truer to our constitutional tradition of civic nationalism than we had earlier been. Progress is possible in civic nationalism in a way that ethnonationalism forestalls.

The big takeaway from the University of Maryland poll for me is that the corporate news media have again failed to do their job. Americans are not being educated about the world in which they live, which is consequential for our own democracy. If we are simply ignorant, it is more likely that we will get policy wrong and that we will give away our birthright as a free people with a Bill of Rights.

“It’s Israel’s way of intimidating and controlling news,” said one critic.

By Julia Conley | –

( Commondreams.org ) – CNN has long been criticized by media analysts and journalists for its deference to the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces in its coverage of the occupied Palestinian territories, and the cable network admitted Thursday that it follows a protocol that could give Israeli censors influence over its stories.

A spokesperson for the network confirmed to The Intercept that its news coverage about Israel and Palestine is run through and reviewed by the CNN Jerusalem bureau—which is subject to the IDF’s censor.

The censor restricts foreign news outlets from reporting on certain subjects of its choosing and outright censors articles or news segments if they don’t meet its guidelines.

Other news organizations often avoid the censor by reporting certain stories about the region through their news desks outside of Israel, The Intercept reported.

“The policy of running stories about Israel or the Palestinians past the Jerusalem bureau has been in place for years,” the spokesperson told the outlet. “It is simply down to the fact that there are many unique and complex local nuances that warrant extra scrutiny to make sure our reporting is as precise and accurate as possible.”

The spokesperson added that CNN does not share news copy with the censor and called the network’s interactions with the IDF “minimal.”

But James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, said the IDF’s approach to censoring media outlets is “Israel’s way of intimidating and controlling news.”

A CNN staffer who spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity confirmed that the network’s longtime relationship with the censor has ensured CNN‘s coverage of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and attacks in the West Bank since October 7 favors Israel’s narratives.

“CNN’s Jeremy Diamond points toward Israeli military hardware in a field near Israel’s border with Gaza.
(Photo: screenshot/CNN)

“Every single Israel-Palestine-related line for reporting must seek approval from the [Jerusalem] bureau—or, when the bureau is not
staffed, from a select few handpicked by the bureau and senior management—from which lines are most often edited with a very specific nuance,” the staffer said.

Jerusalem bureau chief Richard Greene announced it had expanded its review team to include editors outside of Israel, calling the new policy “Jerusalem SecondEyes.” The expanded review process was ostensibly put in place to bring “more expert eyes” to CNN‘s reporting particularly when the Jerusalem news desk is not staffed.

In practice, the staff member told The Intercept, “‘War-crime’ and ‘genocide’ are taboo words. Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as ‘blasts’ attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed.”

Meanwhile, reporters are under intensifying pressure to question anything they learn from Palestinian sources, including casualty statistics from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health is run by Hamas, which controls Gaza’s government. The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said in October, as U.S. President Joe Biden was publicly questioning the accuracy of the ministry’s reporting on deaths and injuries, that its casualty statistics have “proven consistently credible in the past.”

Despite this, CNN‘s senior director of news standards and practices, David Lindsey, told journalists in a November 2 memo that “Hamas representatives are engaging in inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda… We should be careful not to give it a platform.”

Another email sent in October suggested that the network aimed to present the Ministry of Health’s casualty figures as questionable, with the News Standards and Practices division telling staffers, “Hamas controls the government in Gaza and we should describe the Ministry of Health as ‘Hamas-controlled’ whenever we are referring to casualty statistics or other claims related to the present conflict.”

Newsroom employees were advised to “remind our audiences of the immediate cause of this current conflict, namely the Hamas attack and mass murder and kidnap of Israeli civilians” on October 7.

At least 22,600 people have been confirmed killed in Gaza and 57,910 have been wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. Thousands more are feared dead under the rubble left behind by airstrikes. In Israel, the death toll from Hamas’ attack stands at 1,139.

Jim Naureckas, editor of the watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, noted that the Israeli government is controlling journalists’ reporting on Gaza as it’s been “credibly accused of singling out journalists for violent attacks in order to suppress information.”

“To give that government a heightened role in deciding what is news and what isn’t news is really disturbing,” he told The Intercept.

Meanwhile, pointed out author and academic Sunny Singh, even outside CNN, “every bit of reporting on Gaza in Western media outlets has been given unmerited weight which not granted to Palestinian reporters.”

“Western media—not just CNN—has been pushing Israeli propaganda all through” Israel’s attacks, said Singh.

Israel’s total war on Gaza, following Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack on Oct. 7, has roiled higher education in the United States. The atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel two months ago have reverberated on many U.S. campuses, deeply traumatizing many Jewish students. But so too has Israel’s massive military response in Gaza, which has been equally shocking to Palestinian-American, Arab American and Muslim American students, among many others.

In the heated atmosphere prevailing since then, questions have arisen about the limits to free speech in the classroom, among student and faculty organizations, and on the social media accounts of university members, from professors to administrators. Often, these charged debates reflect the advent of significant numbers of minority students on university campuses, some from the post-1965 immigration wave, who view the Israel-Palestine conflict very differently than the white majority on many campuses, as a recent Gallup poll demonstrates. These controversies also reflect the efforts of special interest groups and outside organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League, to discipline campus speech and brand some of it as support for terrorism.

Some of these campaigns have attempted to silence Palestinian-Americans and their perspectives outright. In October, Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis ordered all public universities in the state to derecognize Students for Justice in Palestine chapters on their campus. The move came after the organization issued a “toolkit” for understanding the context of the Oct. 7 attacks, in which they characterized Hamas as a resistance organization. The SJP insisted that its student members are part of the resistance, not merely in solidarity with it. DeSantis’s order immediately provoked threats of civil lawsuits that would personally name university officials participating in the shutdown. Emma Camp at Reason magazine reported that as a result, the Chancellor of the University of Florida system, Ray Rodrigues, announced that he was backing off any action against SJP, though he did hold out the possibility that the university would require the group to pledge nonviolence and disassociate itself from Hamas. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a civil liberties group, immediately pointed out that that requirement would also be unconstitutional.

Photo by Merch HÜSEY on Unsplash

But that did not stop the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law from taking up DeSantis’s program, writing a letter to university presidents pressuring them to close down SJP chapters on the grounds that the group gave material assistance to terrorism (a charge the letter does not substantiate). Under U.S. law, “material assistance” involves training, expert advice or assistance, service and personnel. Given that the SJP is not hosting training camps for Hamas fighters or actively advising the organization on tactics, the letter is nonsensical and, in a just world, would be found libelous.