So to summarize:
Adopting BDS is criminalized
Criticizing Israel is antisemitic
Appealing to ICJ is unwarranted
Funding UNRWA is banned
Appealing to ICC Is banned
Ending the occupation is off the table
Ending the settlements is off the table
The peaceful Great March of Return is banned
Protesting peacefully on college campuses is antisemitic
Demanding return of Palestinian children held in indefinite detention in Israeli prisons is not even an option
TRT World meets a Jewish student at George Washington University in Washington DC who is facing backlash from Zionist groups for supporting Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
“It’s hard for me for me to see people talk about the Free Palestine movement and call it anti- Semitism,” says Noa.
The antisemitism awareness act, passed by congress yesterday, makes it illegal to criticize Israel on college campuses. Clear violation of the constitution, free speech.
ULWU local 10 forced the closure of the Port of Oakland yesterday, and voted to refuse to handle all Israeli cargo. Plans to ask the international to do the same.
The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill that would expand the federal definition of anti-Semitism, despite opposition from civil liberties groups.
The bill passed the House on Wednesday by a margin of 320 to 91, and it is largely seen as a reaction to the ongoing antiwar protests.
Rights groups have raised concerns the definition nevertheless conflates criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Who is creating an unsafe environment on college campuses?
Not the Palestinian solidarity protesters.They've been overwhelmingly peaceful.
It's been the cops, physically assaulting protesters, beating them, using pepper spray, tasers. In some cases placing snipers on rooftops.
It's been politicians, like Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, calling for increased violence, and deployment of National Guards.
And, at UCLA, it was a night time assault by armed Zionist vigilantes, using sticks and clubs, pepper spray and fireworks, calling some the n-word.
Don't fooled by the journalistic doublespeak. It was not a "clash between two groups of protesters." It was a brutal assault by armed armed, racist thugs, against peaceful student protesters.
The union representing 3,000 grad student workers at USC has filed an unfair labor practice charge against USC to end campus militarization and drop charges against students and faculty arrested in Pro-Palistinian protests there.
When some things end in your life, often there is a certain moment, a certain episode, where you know you cannot do it any longer. You know it's over. I had my final and complete disillusionment with my country the summer they shot and killed 223 and wounded thousands of demonstrators using live fire during the 'The Great March of Return'. Every weekend, from March 2018 until December 2019, Gazans would gather along the border with Israel, with thousands and thousands in attendance. They wanted to break the siege and attract the world's attention to their plight and oppression under so many years of brutal occupation, with no end in sight.
They were quiet demonstrations: no Israeli soldier was hurt in any of them (there may have been one case of counter-violence by Palestinians, and maybe not even that). Israel's murderous overreaction that time was placing tens, or maybe even hundreds of snipers in positions overlooking the border and the adjacent Gaza lands.
Those snipers shot and shot and shot people in unbelievable numbers. on May 14th, 2018, 52 Palestinians were killed in one demonstration. Rouzan al-Najjar, a 20-year-old nurse, was sniped to death two weeks later, on the 1st of June. She was hundreds if meters away from the fence. Her death may have been what broke me. Or maybe it was the complete obedience of everyone in the IDF. No one said: we cannot do that. This is insane. No one felt bad about it. I felt like I was losing my mind. Or maybe it was the big live concert at the center of Tel Aviv that very summer, given by Israel's fresh Eurovision winner, a day or two after one of the bloodiest weekends in The Great March of Return. It was a big deal, and everyone was happy and celebrating and proud.
On Local Call, the Hebrew version of +972 Magazine, I wrote an article titled "Accept that it is over". In that article, I also wrote that I was not going to vote in Israeli elections again, as there was no point, particularly as so many people who are ruled by Israel cannot vote.
2018 seems like so long ago now. It was before Covid, before October 7th, before the genocide. But it was that summer, that year, that I knew I lost my country.
And the absolutely beautiful, angelic face of Rouzan al-Najjar brings tears to my eyes to this day. To this moment. It is such a heartache. Such a loss to this world. Such a stupid, monstrous crime.
There has to be justice for Palestine someday. There simply must be.
If the mass arrests and violent attacks on student protesters were happening in Iran, Venezuela, Russia or China, U.S. politicians and media would be screaming for humanitarian intervention.
Instead, they're calling 'em antisemites and extremists, screaming for increased violence and mass arrests, posting snipers on the rooftops of college campuses.
Only a matter of time before we see a repeat of Jackson State and Kent State massacres.