During a speech on Thursday at the Economic Club of New York, former President Donald Trump suggested that he would enlist multi-billionaire Elon Musk to work in his administration and help him make cuts to government spending. Musk, who owns Tesla, X (formerly Twitter) and SpaceX, apparently made the suggestion to Trump himself, the Republican nominee for president explained.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The New York Times (8/21/24), knowing that “outrage” sells, saves for the last paragraph the information that a supposedly canceled author turned down an offer to reschedule his talk in the same bookstore.
Author and journalist Joshua Leifer is the latest scribe to be—allegedly—canceled. A talk for his new book, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, at a Brooklyn bookstore was canceled when a member of the store’s staff objected to Leifer being joined by a liberal rabbi who was also a Zionist, although still critical of Israel’s right-wing government (New York Times, 8/21/24).
Leifer’s book is doing well as a result of the saga (Forward, 8/27/24). Meanwhile, the bookstore worker wasn’t so lucky, when the venue’s owner said “he would try to reschedule the event” and said “that the employee” responsible for canceling the event “‘is going to be terminated today’” (New York Jewish Week, 8/21/24).
It’s worth dissecting the affair and its impact to truly assess who can gain popular sympathy in the name of “free speech,” and who cannot, and how exactly Leifer has portrayed what happened.
To Joshua Leifer (Atlantic, 8/27/24), opposition to platforming Zionists is “straightforwardly antisemitic.”
Leifer is a journalist who has produced nuanced coverage of Israel and Jewish politics for Jewish Currents, the New York Review of Books and other outlets. Reflecting on the bookstore affair, Leifer said in the Atlantic (8/27/24) that Jewish writers like him are in a bind because of the intransigence of the left, saying “Jews who are committed to the flourishing of Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora, and who are also outraged by Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, feel like we have little room to maneuver.”
He added:
My experience last week was so demoralizing in part because such episodes make moving the mainstream Jewish community much harder. Every time a left-wing activist insists that the only way to truly participate in the fight for peace and justice is to support the dissolution of Israel, it reinforces the zero-sum (and morally repulsive) idea that opposing the status quo requires Israel’s destruction. Rhetorical extremism and dogmatism make it easier for right-wing Israel supporters to dismiss what should be legitimate demands—for instance, conditions on US military aid—as beyond the pale.
The new left-wing norm that insists on one-state maximalism is not only a moral mistake. It is also a strategic one. If there is one thing that the past year of cease-fire activism has illustrated, it is that changing US policy on Israel requires a broad coalition. That big tent must have room for those who believe in Jewish self-determination and are committed to Israel’s existence, even as they work to end its domination over Palestinians.
For me, personally, canceling Leifer’s talk was a bad move. No one would have been forced to listen or attend, and if someone wanted to challenge the inclusion of a moderate Zionist at the event, they could have done so in the question and answer session. Speech should usually be met with more speech.
But Leifer is somewhat disingenuous about a “zero-sum” game that forces people into the “morally repulsive” concept that “requires Israel’s destruction.” Many anti-Zionists and non-Zionists believe that the concept of one state, “from the river to the sea,” means a democratic state that treats all its people—Arab, Jew and otherwise—equally. Leifer’s counterposing being “committed to Israel’s existence” with “one-state maximalism” suggests that the Israel whose “existence” he is committed to is one in which one ethnic group is guaranteed supremacy over others. People who are committed to the preservation of Israel as an ethnostate are probably going to have a hard time being in a “big tent” with those who “work to end its domination over Palestinians.”
It is understandable, given the context, that some people might object to a Zionist speaker on a panel while a genocide is being carried out in Zionism’s name. Would the Atlantic have reserved editorial space if an avowed Ba’athist was booted from a panel on Syria?
And Leifer is hardly being censored, and he has much more than a “little room to maneuver.” He has access to a major publisher and the pages of notable periodicals, and is pursuing a PhD at Yale University. His book sales are doing fine, and the event’s cancellation has, if anything, helped his reputation. (It got him a commission at the Atlantic, after all.)
Osita Nwanevu (New Republic, 7/6/20) writes in defense of “freedom of association, the under-heralded right of individuals to unite for a common purpose or in alignment with a particular set of values.”
Meanwhile, a bookstore worker who expressed a questionable opinion got fired. Free speech debates tend to value the importance and rights to a platform of the saintly media class—the working class, however, doesn’t get the same attention, despite the fact that “free speech” is meant to protect everyone, not just those who write and talk for a living.
And expressing the opinion that a bookstore should not be promoting Zionism is just as much a matter of free speech as advocating Zionism itself. The First Amendment doesn’t stop publications, university lecture committees, cable television networks and, yes, bookstores from curating the views and speech they want to platform. As FAIR has quoted Osita Nwanevu at the New Republic (7/6/20) before:
Like free speech, freedom of association has been enshrined in liberal democratic jurisprudence here and across the world; liberal theorists from John Stuart Mill to John Rawls have declared it one of the essential human liberties. Yet associative freedom is often entirely absent from popular discourse about liberalism and our political debates, perhaps because liberals have come to take it entirely for granted.
eLife‘s Michael Eisen’s approval of an Onion headline (“Dying Gazans Criticized for Not Using Last Words to Condemn Hamas”) was deemed to be “detrimental to the cohesion of the community we are trying to build” (Science, 10/23/23).
Worse is what Leifer leaves out. While his event should not have been canceled, he fails to put this in the context of many other writers who have suffered more egregious cancellation because they exercised free speech in defense of Palestinians. Those writers include Masha Gessen (FAIR.org, 12/15/23), Viet Thanh Nguyen (NPR, 10/24/23) and Jazmine Hughes (Vanity Fair, 11/15/23).
New York University has “changed its guidelines around hate speech and harassment to include the criticism of Zionism as a discriminatory act” (Middle East Eye, 8/27/24). Artforum fired its top editor, David Velasco, for signing a letter in defense of Palestinian rights (New York Times, 10/26/23). Dozens of Google workers were “fired or placed on administrative leave…for protesting the company’s cloud-computing contract with Israel’s government” (CNN, 5/1/24). Michael Eisen lost his job as editor of the science journal eLife (Science, 10/23/23) because he praised an Onion article (10/13/23).
Leifer’s Atlantic piece erroneously gives the impression that since the assault on Gaza began last October, it has been the pro-Palestinian left that has enforced speech norms. A question for such an acclaimed journalist is: Why would he omit such crucial context?
The lead example of “antisemitism on…the left” offered by the Atlantic (3/4/24) was a high school protest of the bombing of Gaza at which “from the river to the sea” was reportedly chanted.
Leifer has allowed the Atlantic to spin the narrative that it is the left putting the squeeze on discourse, when around the country, at universities and major publications, it’s pro-Palestinian views that are being attacked by people in power. The magazine’s Michael Powell (4/22/24) referred to the fervor of anti-genocide activists as “oppressive.” Theo Baker, son of New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker, claimed in the Atlantic (3/26/24) that his prestigious Stanford University was overrun with left-wing “unreason” when he came face to face with students who criticized Israel.
Franklin Foer used the outlet (3/4/24) to assert that in the United States, both the left and right are squeezing Jews out of social life. Leifer is now the latest recruit in the Atlantic’s movement to frame all Jews as victims of the growing outcry against Israel’s genocide, even when that outcry includes a great many Jews.
Leifer’s piece adds to the warped portrait painted by outlets like the New York Times, which published an op-ed (5/27/24) by James Kirchick, of the conservative Jewish magazine Tablet, that asserted that “a litmus test has emerged across wide swaths of the literary world effectively excluding Jews from full participation unless they denounce Israel.” A great many canceled pro-Palestine voices would have something to add to that, but they know they can barely get a word in edgewise in most corporate media—unlike Kirchick, Foer or Leifer.
Leifer’s event should not have been canceled, and I would have been annoyed if I were in his position, but he continues to have literary success and is smartly cashing in on his notoriety. He should not, however, have lent his voice to such a lopsided narrative about free speech.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
Headlines such as ‘Antisemitism hits all-time high in explosion of hatred against British Jews’ and ‘Antisemitic incidents quadruple in UK since Hamas attack in Israel’ have again been splashed over the pages of our mainstream press. While the Canary has recently reported on two British journalists arrested for speaking about Israel’s human rights abuses in Palestine, many other areas of our society are also being prevented from speaking up, too.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a British charity that ’provides security to British Jews, records antisemitic hate crime data and analyses the activities of antisemitic extremist political movements’, documented a record number of antisemitic incidents in the first half of this year, whilst their Antisemitic Incidents Report states that in 2023, reported cases of antisemitism rose by almost 150% from the previous year.
Year after year, antisemitism figures rise despite increased government funding. Back in February, Rishi Sunak pledged to give the organisation record funding of more than £70m over the next four years, as part of the Jewish Community Protective Security Grant.
Should Jewish people be fearful of this exponential rise in antisemitism sweeping our country, or is there another explanation?
Antony Lerman, an antisemitism expert, founder and former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, is also an anti-Zionist Jew. He told the Canary:
Confusion and disagreement about what is meant by anti-Semitism have never been greater. Up until the 1980s, most people monitoring antisemitism didn’t need to have a formal definition, because everyone knew antisemitism is hatred of Jews.
But, particularly since the 1980s, the term has been expanded to include criticism of Israel.
Lerman’s book, Whatever Happened to Antisemitism? Redefinition and the Myth of the ‘Collective Jew’, discusses how Israel and its supporters began framing criticism of the state as criticism of Jews, which could be thought of as antisemitism.
He explains that from the beginning of this century there was a more formal move towards a new definition of antisemitism, equating it with anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel. This included the working definition, which was developed in 2004 mainly by pro-Israel Jewish organisations. However, it was slow to catch on until adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016, just a few months after Jeremy Corbyn – a life-long anti-racist and pro-Palestine campaigner – was elected leader of the Labour Party. Almost instantly, Corbyn fell victim to a politically motivated antisemitism smear campaign by the Israel lobby, falsely labelling him and many in his party as antisemites. Politicians and the corporate media, including the BBC, fuelled this lie, and these allegations eventually led to his suspension from the party in 2020.
Lerman argues that signing up to the IHRA definition of antisemitism is a way of establishing your antisemitism credentials, something he describes as “virtue signalling”. He points out that adopting it requires no action to be taken, but has the advantage of coming from a respected international organisation with ‘Holocaust Remembrance’ in its title.
He noted:
Who would dare question the authority of a definition of antisemitism coming from such a body? But, in my view the IHRA working definition (IHRA definition) is a fundamentally flawed document, an anti-Palestinian charter, as you can turn anything into antisemitism on the basis of what’s in the definition. I think it’s an appalling document, but it took off like wildfire and it’s been amazingly successful.
The IHRA definition was not designed to determine what hate speech is, and has been instrumentalised for political purposes. It says:
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
It also includes 11 examples of situations which could be antisemitism. The idea is that these are used to determine if a specific incident is antisemitic. They have sparked much controversy and debate:
Dr Lewis Turner, chair of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) Committee on Academic Freedom, told the Canary:
There are seven references to Israel, in these illustrative examples, and they effectively conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with racism and discrimination directed at Jews, erroneously essentialise Jewish self-determination as indistinguishable from the State of Israel, and delegitimise Palestinian claims to self-determination and opposition to Israel’s discriminatory policies against Palestinians as antisemitism. It is simply not possible to use the IHRA definition to determine whether or not an individual incident or statement is antisemitic, whilst simultaneously protecting freedom of speech and academic freedom and preventing discrimination.
Even though the use of the IHRA definition stifles free speech and academic freedom, it is often framed as an essential tool in combating antisemitism. As of 1 April 2024, 45 countries, mainly in Europe, have ‘adopted’ it, the UK being the first.
Our government, police forces, local councils, banks, businesses, the majority of universities, and even soccer teams have endorsed it, and it is utilised by both government and non-government agencies to train police, prosecutors, and judges. Although advertised and promoted as ‘non-legally binding’, it is increasingly used by public and private bodies as if it were law, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel.
Professor Haim Bresheeth, an anti-Zionist Jew, historian and filmmaker, is also founder member of Jewish Network for Palestine. He believes the IHRA definition is designed to distract from Israel’s actions. Bresheeth told the Canary:
It’s one of the smartest tricks of the Israeli Hasbara– the Israeli propaganda machine. Instead of talking about the genocide in Gaza, instead of talking about the many war crimes of Israel and Zionism, we are talking about something else- antisemitism. So it’s already succeeded in moving us from the real crimes of Zionism to another issue altogether, which is indeed related and important. Israel and its many partners in crime are using the IHRA to confuse people into thinking and believing antisemitism is anti- Zionism. Many are accepting it, and a whole lot of the elite are supporting this major lie. This means that Palestinians cannot defend Palestine, because they are immediately dubbed antisemites. The same also applies to everyone else who supports Palestine.
CST blames Hamas’s 7 October attack for the record high figures in its report, describing it as “a trigger event, which had a seismic effect on antisemitic incident levels in the UK”. However, as Bresheeth points out:
If supporting Palestine and opposing Zionism is antisemitic, then of course there is a record rise in this. People are so inflamed about the situation in Gaza that they are actually taking to the streets, writing articles, speaking on social media, to speak up against Israeli war crimes, for the simple fact they are being human and supporting the Palestinians. This, according to the IHRA, is antisemitic.
Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), stresses that by equating antisemitism with anti-Zionism the IHRA definition is used to silence critics of Israel, and shield the country from criticism of its actions. He told the Canary:
Of course, antisemitism is as abusive as any other form of racism, and should be challenged by all of us. But misuse of it, in the protection of the state of Israel and what Israel is committing in the form of apartheid, genocide, war crimes and illegal occupation- which are all proven, is totally unacceptable. The vast majority of Zionists in the world are not even Jews. They are Christian Zionists and others, who are committed to that political ideology. So, to say anyone who is anti-Zionist or anti-Israel is antisemitic, really goes against all the facts and figures.
Shadjareh says that he, his colleagues, and even his Jewish friends have been targeted as antisemites just for “opposing the very clear abuses by Israel”. The IHRC put a Palestinian flag in front of their building, as a means of supporting the Palestinians, but this led to complaints and vandalism of their building. The campaign was so vigorous that police advised them to take down the flag, which they claimed was endangering themselves and their premises. Similar happened at the University of Birmingham:
He said:
What’s so antisemitic about a Palestinian flag? They can make it unlawful for Palestinians to have their flag in the occupied Palestinian territory, but they can’t force that on all of us everywhere else. But these are the ‘antisemitic’ incidents they add to these reports. There is a huge infrastructure used to silence any opposition to the state of Israel. Part of that is the CST, which is financed mostly by our government, part of that is the Zionist Federation, and part of that is those elements who claim to represent all Jews.
The IHRC sent an open letter to the home secretary and police chiefs, complaining that:
Enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad, far-right elements have weaponised the tragic murder of three young girls in Southport to incite the country into pogroms against Muslims and people of colour.
This led to 50 members of the House of Lords claiming the remark to be antisemitic, as it perpetuates harmful antisemitic stereotypes of a ‘shadowy Jewish conspiracy controlling the world’. But, Tommy Robinson has been a key instigators of the recent far-right race riots, and he hates Muslims. We also know his benefactors are Zionists. This is the truth. It is fact. The issue of antisemitism has nothing to do with this.
Shadjareh argues that:
The Times of Israel says the rioters are supported by the Zionists. Why are they allowed to say this but I can’t and, as a non-Israeli, and non-Jew I get called antisemitic. The names of those who complained about us are almost identical to those who told Barclays not to cut its ties with Israel. They are supporting the state of Israel, but hiding behind antisemitism.
Barclays, along with other high street banks, holds billions of pounds worth of shares in companies selling military technology and weapons to Israel, provides them with loans, and has been the target of a long-running BDS campaign:
However, more than 50 members of the House of Lords recently wrote to the bank’s chairman, urging him not to cut financial relations with Israel. They argued that the BDS campaign against Israel “often crosses into antisemitism through inflammatory language and endorsements of violence” and to give in to the demands of “political activists” would “severely damage Barclay’s reputation”. A few days previous to this, Yali Rothenberg, the accountant general of Israel, told the bank:
It’s crucial that leading global financial institutions, such as Barclays, choose to resist boycotting Israel and support its legitimate right to self-defence as a leading Western democracy.
Shadjareh said:
At a time like this, while the biggest genocide of our lives is being committed by the state of Israel, this group of people – CST, the Zionist Federation, the Jewish Board of Deputies, the Chief Rabbi, and others – prevent any criticism by labelling all those supportive of Palestine as either antisemites or terrorist sympathisers. It’s shocking they get away with it, and it’s shocking that groups like CST are embedded in our police departments. At the present time, there is no way any of these people, including members of the House of Lords could defend the state of Israel, except through this hidden agenda. How else could you justify, protect or support a state that, every night, is committing genocide in front of our eyes.
According to the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC), making unfounded allegations of antisemitism and terrorism are indeed methods intentionally used to silence Palestinian rights advocates or organisations, and isolate and stile their work, and can also result in their defunding.
The mechanisms of silencing vary but are in force across countries in Europe, as last year’s report by the United Nations Human Rights Council details. It states that there is an:
increasingly restricted civic space resulting from an intentional strategy, pursued by the Government of Israel, of delegitimizing and silencing civil society. This includes criminalizing Palestinian civil society organizations and their members by labelling them as “terrorists”, pressuring and threatening institutions that give a platform for civil society discourse, actively lobbying donors and implementing measures intended to cut sources of funding to civil society.
According to the document, certain departments of the Israeli Government, including the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy and the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, are also “working towards delegitimising civil society locally and internationally”. In addition, Likud Members of the Knesset have recently set up a lobby to fight against antisemitism and delegitimisation, which focuses on combating the ‘undermining’ of Israel by foreign countries that finance human rights and civil society organisations.
Using the IHRA definition to successfully distort the meaning of antisemitism and suppress criticism against it, Israel with the help of many western governments has been able to continue, unabated, with its war crimes in Gaza and settler colonial project in the West Bank, whilst delegitimising and undermining the work of its critics – including that of international lawyers, the UN, and the ICJ.
Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem have found themselves targeted by allegations of antisemitism under the IHRA definition due to their critical reports on Israel’s human rights record. Much of their research into Israel’s practices – whether in the form of reports on settlement expansion, treatment of Palestinians, or military actions – is construed as antisemitic, leading to attempts to discredit their work.
A spokesperson for Amnesty International UK told the Canary:
The IHRA definition of antisemitism has never been fit for purpose. The definition’s overly-broad nature means that legitimate – and indeed necessary – criticism of Israel’s human rights record can be labelled antisemitic, with free speech and respect for international law both suffering as a result. The Israeli authorities and their apologists regularly weaponise the notion of antisemitism when Amnesty and other critics of Israel’s appalling human rights record speak out, and the Israeli government uses the term as an all-purpose shield. This is highly cynical and risks undermining the fight against real antisemitism.
Groups like NGO Monitor, a right-wing Israeli organisation, have accused Amnesty of disproportionately singling out Israel for condemnation. This has led to situations where detailed and well-researched reports, like Amnesty’s Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity, are dismissed or labeled as antisemitic under the IHRA definition, as one given example of antisemitism is:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, for example, claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.
Critics argue that these accusations, which have been directed at, among others, the United Nations, the International Court and international lawyers, are a means of deflecting criticism and maintaining a narrative that aligns with pro-Israel interests.
But it is not only human rights organisations that are bearing the brunt of this definition. Employees, academics, and students are also affected, as our places of work and entertainment, schools, universities, and police forces – along with on-line moderators – are suppressing pro-Palestine voices and activity, up and down the country, in a variety of ways.
Afra Sohail, an employee at Lloyds Bank at the time, took to the company’s internal communications channel to voice her opinion, after receiving an HP monitor for work purposes. She was then subjected to investigations and disciplinary hearings, and issued with a sanction which was reported to the Financial Conduct Authority and will stay on her record for six years. She is now suing Lloyds.
It was May 2021. Israeli soldiers had stormed the third holiest site of Islam, and Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, which killed at least 260 people, was underway. Sohail said:
I was absolutely disgusted and wondered why there was no uproar, and why were these issues not being talked about at work, when other subjects were?
Sohail, who was working from home, had just become aware of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign accusing HP of:
providing hardware to Israel’s military and of being complicit in Israeli ’racial segregation and apartheid.
So, when the HP branded monitor from Lloyds bank arrived at her door, she knew she wanted to return it. She took to the bank’s internal portal, highlighting her concerns and called on Lloyds to question its moral stance, and not be complicit in the violation of international humanitarian law.
Several weeks later, Sohail was asked to go along to a meeting, and was surprised to discover it was about her comments, which had offended a work colleague. She said:
Although I felt there was nothing in them that would offend, I was asked very leading questions, such as ‘Did you know anti-Semitism has increased by 400 percent?’ They beat around the bush, accusing me of anti-Semitism, without putting that label on me. Because I mentioned that Palestinians are given inferior status compared to Israel Jews, who have a lot of benefits, I was being portrayed as a criminal against Jewish people, but I was coming from the perspective that everyone should be treated equally.
Sohail, who no longer works at Lloyds, was accused of going against the group’s anti-racist values. She says it was a distressing time that left her feeling worried and confused. As a result of the allegation, she also lost out on a graduate job promised to her:
An appeal against the disciplinary action was denied. So, last month Sohail and another colleague in a similar position, both of whom are being supported in their legal fight by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC), took Lloyds to an employment tribunal, claiming they were discriminated against because of their religious and philosophical beliefs.
While a HR manager at Lloyds involved with the investigations admitted she did not know the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, a lawyer for the women said the posts were not offensive, and the allegation claiming they were antisemitic was “irrational and spurious”.
Sohail said:
As a Muslim I believe oppression and injustice are wrong, and we should stand up against it if we can. My philosophical belief is that Zionism is racism, and it’s wrong and therefore should be opposed. There needs to be safe spaces to speak out about this, without feeling scared, but the state is penalising people and trying to put them down. We all need to come together collectively and speak out about this injustice, without facing repercussions, because silence will only perpetuate it further.
The closing submissions for this case are taking place in October.
Last November, Bristol’s Arnolfini Gallery cancelled two Palestine Film Festival films, saying they put a strain on the legal requirement for arts charities to remain apolitical. An angry backlash resulted, in more than 1,000 artists vowing to boycott the venue. Arnolfini eventually apologised unreservedly, saying freedom of expression was important and the decision was “based on the information and understanding we had at the time, but now believe it was wrong”.
But their apology, which stated “the International Court of Justice has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as plausible acts of genocide”, has now been picked to pieces by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), because it contains “dangerous untruths”. UKLFI denies any genocide and claims Arnolfini was a platform for “one-sided Palestinian voices” and it needs to “remain non-political”.
Bresheeth said of the situation:
The Jewish organisations supporting Israel say there is no genocide but this is a denial of such proportions, that we haven’t seen anywhere else, and it’s really quite amazing that people would even accept this as information- but they do! Jews in this country, who support Israel’s actions, believe Israel is acting in self defence, and that Jews are in danger, everywhere, but this is completely false.
In 2020, there was a drive to encourage all universities to sign up to the IHRA definition, with the government threatening to withdraw their funding if they did not comply. As a result, suppression of voices speaking out about injustice in Palestine has been especially severe in higher education settings.
Last year, a report by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC) and the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) advised against the adoption of the IHRA definition in a higher education setting – saying it was unfit for purpose.
It analysed 40 allegations of antisemitism against university staff and students between 2017 and 2022, based on the IHRA definition. The report found, in all 38 concluded cases, the accusations of antisemitism to be unjustified.
But damage had already been done.
Events were cancelled, student groups stamped out, not to mention reputations and careers in tatters and, in all cases, staff and students reported various levels of anxiety and stress.
Although freedom of speech and expression are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, the report found the IHRA definition of antisemitism:
undercut academic freedom and the rights to lawful speech of students and staff, and caused harm to the reputations and careers of those accused.
The definition is now starting to take on the function of a speech code and, as the blurring of antisemitism and anti-Zionism continue, the UK now ranks lower in the ‘Academic Freedom Index’ than any other Western European country. Due to the wide adoption of the IHRA definition, academics and students with critical views of Israel or Zionism can easily be intimidated or silenced because of the fear of being labelled an antisemite.
This results in the chilling of discussion, making it extremely difficult to research, teach, or debate on Israel and Palestine – in relation to the conflict, Israeli government policies, the nature of the formation of the Israeli state, and the nature of Zionism as an ideology and movement.
According to Dr Turner from BRISMES, since the report findings were published last year, there has been an even greater clampdown on freedom of expression and academic freedom, with regards to Palestine, at universities throughout the UK:
Since October 2023, BRISMES has received numerous reports of university managers seeking to suppress, censor and surveil lawful expression and peaceful events relating to Palestine on university campuses. This includes cancelling events, creating unreasonable bureaucratic hurdles for event organisers, as well as subjecting staff and students to investigations, and even referring students and staff to Prevent based on their social media posts and other instances of lawful expression.
Although the University of Birmingham claims to have a ‘long track record of authorising events on campus, in recognition of the importance of the rights of freedom of speech and assembly’, back in December it prevented the go ahead of an event discussing law in Palestine, because of the inclusion, on the flyer, of watermelons, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.
A University of Birmingham student, who wanted to remain anonymous because of fear of reprisals, told the Canary:
It was really important that I go to this event, because I study International Law and Globalisation. When the genocide started, the module we were studying was Transitional Justice After Genocide. We learned about previous genocides, such as in Bosnia, but there was no mention at all about Palestine. It was really hurtful for a lot of students there, especially those from Palestine. We really wanted our teacher to talk about how the international law was being broken.
Students wanted to know why, as future international lawyers, they were not being taught properly about this topic. Why was there was not even a mention of Palestine? That is why there was such excitement about the planned event, organised by some lecturers in the law department. Internal lecturers, who were experts in their field, were scheduled to discuss the topic.
The student said:
We also really liked the watermelons on the flyer because, at the beginning of the genocide, all the rhetoric was about Israel, and Israel’s right to self defence. So the watermelons were a good start.
But the night before the event, students received an email claiming it had been cancelled, with no explanation given:
We were all very confused, so we emailed our lecturers, and were told there were issues with how the event was advertised. We all emailed complaints to the Dean, and the head of the law school, saying it wasn’t freedom of speech. Then, all of a sudden they switched the story, and said the event hadn’t been cancelled, only postponed, because they wanted to make it ‘more inclusive’. The teachers themselves said that they were told by management that it was the watermelons that were the issue, not inclusion. We talk about the rule of law, but it seems as though we only apply this to certain groups and certain powers, not to everyone. I am questioning everything now, even the ethics of being a lawyer.
The student the Canary spoke to claims the event still has not happened, and all has gone quiet.
Rebecca Ruth Gould, distinguished professor, Comparative Poetics and Global Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and author of Erasing Palestine: Free Speech and Palestinian Freedom, found herself at the centre of the UK’s first major conflict over the definition of antisemitism and the censorship of Israel-critical speech, in 2017.
Frustrated and outraged by the injustices she witnessed in 2011 while living in Palestine and commuting to Israel, in 2011, Gould penned ‘Beyond Anti-Semitism’ which argued that the long history of antisemitism and of the Holocaust, forms the background against which Palestinian lives have been sacrificed since the creation of the state of Israel.
She wrote:
No people’s past should be allowed to determine another people’s future.
Five years later, while a lecturer at the University of Bristol, one of her students who identified as a Zionist found this piece of work online and wrote to the student newspaper, denouncing the piece and labelling Gould an antisemite. The Telegraph then spotted the piece, and wrote an article. A huge backlash followed. Gould was accused of Holocaust denial, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews called for her to be sacked.
She points out that although fear of being perceived as antisemitic stifles necessary criticism of Israel’s policies, speaking out against its injustices is crucial. Gould told the Canary:
Silence in the face of oppression only perpetuates further injustice… At a certain point I realised my ability to speak out about Palestine was central to my reason for existing on this earth. I could not relinquish my voice without surrendering my own humanity. My only option was to write openly about what happened, and in doing so, hopefully to empower and embolden others to speak out as well.
We should all speak out for what we believe is right, and should feel encouraged to do so by the recent of David Miller’s employment tribunal, as it has now become much harder for universities and workplaces to sack anti-Zionists for expressing their viewpoint.
Miller’s anti-Zionist belief – that Zionism is inherently racist, imperialist and colonial – was ruled, by the tribunal, not to be racist or antisemitic, and qualified as a philosophical belief, protected under the Equality Act 2010. Miller, who was unfairly dismissed from the University of Bristol in 2021 because of his viewpoint on Zionism, suffered an organised campaign to silence him, mainly by Jewish student groups and the CST. In a lecture, Miller had mentioned Zionism as being a driving factor in promoting Islamophobia. The Community Security Trust, which has found its way into British universities by employing National Student Security Co-ordinators, called Miller’s lecture a “false, vile, antisemitic slur”.
This ruling has reinforced the need to move away from the politicised IHRA definition, which equates antisemitism with Zionism and criticism of Israel. As the ELSC/BRISMES report stated, it is not fit for purpose. In the workplace, universities and wider society, legal protections are already in place against racially-motivated behaviour of all kinds – including antisemitism – are covered by Equalities legislation, such as the Equalities Act 2010, and by internal codes of conduct – and these are very effective when implemented correctly.
The above are just a few examples of the many times in which the IHRA definition of antisemitism is used in an attempt to silence criticism of Israel and any debate around Palestine, and to hide all that the Palestinians endure. These are also the incidents that make up the annual CST reports, and contribute to the ‘explosion of hated’, so often wrongly reported in the press.
By automatically branding opposition to Israel as antisemitic, the Israel-focused IHRA definition is also very harmful to the real fight against antisemitism, and this is extremely worrying for Jewish people such as Lerman.
Bresheeth concluded that:
I’m the son of two holocaust survivors from Auschwitz. I’m totally against antisemitism. The Israel lobby is the strongest lobby in this country, and at the moment there’s a very systematic approach that’s trying to demonise those supporting opposition to what’s happening in Palestine.
They are selling this criminality as the way to be Jewish, but Jews have never done this in 2000 years of history.
It’s not Jewish. There’s nothing Jewish about Israel.
All Jews really must oppose this, in the name of what’s happened to them.
What Israel is doing now, is definitely adding to the problem of antisemitism and will indeed make the problem worse.
Featured image via the Times – YouTube
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.
Comedian Reginald D Hunter has been the victim of a Zionist smear operation – but not even a very good one, at that. Because the central actors at the heart of the story have a long history of agitating for the Israeli state; just ask Jeremy Corbyn. So, it wasn’t hard to expose who they really were when they tried to remain anonymous.
Social media has been in a frenzy over the story of two people who were hounded out of Reginald D Hunter’s gig at the Edinburgh Fringe – supposedly because they were from Israel. The Telegraph planted the seeds of the frenzy via Dominic Cavendish’s review of his gig. He asserted that:
Hunter… said a Channel 5 documentary containing a scene about an abusive wife herself accusing her husband of abuse made him think, “My God, it’s like being married to Israel.” There was audience laughter in response, but not from the couple on the front row, who shouted “not funny”.
The pair, who said they were from Israel, then endured their fellow audience members shouting expletives (“f— off” among them), and telling them to go – with slow-hand claps, boos and cries of “genocidal maniac”, “you’re not welcome” and “free Palestine” part of the toxic mix…
Instead of tolerating the couple’s joint heckle, he doubled down with a sinister air of beaming bellicosity: “I’ve been waiting for you all summer, where the f— you been?” He continued: “You can say it’s not funny to you, but if you say it to a room full of people who laughed, you look foolish.”
“Look at you making everyone love Israel even more,” he jeered, after the woman remonstrated with the audience.
The Telegraph then ran a separate story on the alleged incident – which noted that cops said there was no crime involved but regardless Hunter had already been cancelled by another venue. So, cue the Daily Mail ‘tracking down’ the Israeli couple – while misrepresenting the jokes entirely.
Sabrina Miller wrote for the right-wing tabloid that the couple – who wished to remain anonymous (shocker) – said that the audience had “hate in their eyes”, were afraid they would be ‘attacked and beaten’, and that Jewish people ‘were not safe in the UK’:
I tracked down and exclusively spoke to *that* Jewish Israeli couple who were hounded out of Reginald Hunter’s Fringe show.
‘The looks on people’s faces in the audience – it was like they wanted to attack us and beat us’ the couple tell me.
https://t.co/7imGftjkfI pic.twitter.com/txxhAl6hQb
— Sabrina Miller (@SabriSun_Miller) August 17, 2024
They concluded by saying, as the Daily Mail wrote, that:
they now want to use their platform to tackle the rising wave of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel racism in Britain.
The wife added: ‘I do have an important message to get across and that is that people must stand up and not let hate win.
‘I’ve always spoken out, whether it’s about something Jewish or not’.
Aside from the fact that Reginald D Hunter’s joke wasn’t about Jewish people – it was about the genocidal Israeli state – this ‘anonymous’ couple have already used their ‘platform’ to speak out about what they view as antisemitism in the UK. This is because we now know who the couple are:
He did however remember this woman and her partner, because these were the very people who disrupted his humorous stories. He ALWAYS remembers people who disrupt his humourous stories. He loves telling humourous stories. pic.twitter.com/DptzEKs1xN
— Reginald D Hunter (@reginalddhunter) August 18, 2024
Yes, that’s right. It’s Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal – the couple who infamously went on the BBC claiming they were leaving the UK because of Jeremy Corbyn. So, it seems there are quite a lot of questions they, and the Daily Mail’s Miller, have to answer over the Reginald D Hunter story:
Will Mark Lewis, Mandy Blumenthal and journalist Sabrina Miller tell us the truth about what happened at the Reginald D Hunter gig?
Because “Shimon and Talia” don’t exist, there was no “romantic holiday” and they weren’t “tracked down” for their story. Mark and Mandy are in… pic.twitter.com/jvSwuC0ioZ
— James Wilson (@per_incuriam2) August 19, 2024
Unfortunately, Mark and Mandy seemed to forget what century we were in (as did Sabrina Miller) – because video footage has already come out:
Video footage of ‘Israeli couple’ at the Reginal D Hunter gig in Edinburgh, who turned out to be professional UK Zionist victims Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal, famous for Corbyn-bashing, representing Rachel Riley in legal actions and various publicity stunts.@reginalddhunter pic.twitter.com/XPpeZK7A9g
— Ragged Trousered Philanderer (@RaggedTP) August 19, 2024
Plus, journalist Sangita Myska was actually there:
I hoped to stay out of this (due to stress since April) but it’s unethical to let it pass: I was, coincidentally, at this show. The events are not being reported accurately by some press. Yes, it was upsetting but the couple were not ‘hounded out’ by a ‘baying’ antisemitic crowd https://t.co/ig8rGGsBU1
— Sangita Myska (@SangitaMyska) August 18, 2024
Photos emerged:
Incredible. This is a confrontation deliberately staged by Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal?
If anyone is looking shouty and angry, it’s Mandy?
And then they’ve gone to the press with some cock and bull story about a romantic holiday?
Completely mind-boggling. https://t.co/yhDPwRBXoF pic.twitter.com/UFO2o20YgM
— James Wilson (@per_incuriam2) August 18, 2024
Yet still – STILL – Sabrina Miller doubled-down on the story:
All day people have tried to discredit, gaslight and intimidate the brave Jewish, Israeli couple who spoke up about their experiences at Reginald Hunter’s show.
Thank goodness @domcavendish was in that audience to tell their story. https://t.co/7imGftjkfI pic.twitter.com/jKVzxjXzNh
— Sabrina Miller (@SabriSun_Miller) August 18, 2024
Let’s be clear – Mark and Mandy are NOT a “brave” couple:
This is Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal with fellow pro-Israel activists Jonathan Hoffman and Sharon Klaff – whose links to the extreme right we exposed in ep 2 of The Labour Files.
Any journalist swallowing the idea this was a random "Israeli couple" is beyond incompetent. /1 https://t.co/OcihLmXpKz pic.twitter.com/qNsMLsZaB5
— Richard Sanders (@PulaRJS) August 19, 2024
Nor are they just a ‘random’ couple. Lewis is a lawyer (involved in notorious Zionist outfit Campaign Against Antisemitism) who just happened to defend Rachel Riley in court and called for “unapologetic Zionism” in the UK.
So, it seems that the whole thing was a set-up. Reginald D Hunter’s joke about the STATE of Israel was NOT about Jewish people, nor did it mention Jewish people. Might we remind you that it is antisemitic to blame Jewish people for Israel’s actions? Yet here we are, with it being presented as if it was.
However, there is a big BUT with this whole story. Why would the Zionist lobby target Reginald D Hunter specifically? Maybe Mark and Mandy were genuinely at his show – and saw an opportunity for a quick newspaper headline and some faux outrage. Either way, this whole concocted story is just that; another example of why the phrase ‘it was a scam’ still rings true.
Featured image via X – screengrab
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
Multiple corporate media outlets – including the Independent and GB News – smeared members of a Palestine Support community as antisemitic for supposedly staging a protest outside a performance of Fiddler on the Roof. In reality however, they hosted no such protest.
What’s more, it was in fact Zionists attending the theatre show who threatened and hurled racist abuse at the group as they queued for ice-cream and coffee. Despite this, the corporate press spun the story to vilify them, and paint them as the agitators.
The Canary spoke to the group about the hate incident, and the impact of the spurious reporting which followed.
On Tuesday 6 August, numerous corporate media outlets falsely accused a group of people of antisemitism. Specifically, the mainstream press suggested that the group – carrying Palestine flags – had turned out to protest a performance of Fiddler on the Roof in Regent’s Park.
The Independent ran the headline:
Pro-Palestine demonstrators accused of antisemitism after protesting outside Fiddler on the Roof”
Meanwhile, GB News plastered its video coverage with the specious title:
‘Jew haters’ – Pro-Palestine demonstrators accused of anti-Semitism after Fiddler on the Roof march
The Jewish Chronicle carried the most in-depth report and was the first to publish on the incident. Notably, it included a series of comments from a party of theatre-goers claiming victimhood of the supposed antisemitic protest.
The outlets presented a series of videos from X posts portending to back this up. Of course, these invariably cherry-picked select clips from the footage, without portraying the full picture. Predictably also, none of the outlets contacted the supposed pro-Palestine protest group, or the venue to verify this. Unsurprisingly then, the reporting was a serious misrepresentation of events.
Crucially, the group in keffiyehs and Palestine flags weren’t protesting the theatre performance at all. Instead, they were queuing together for refreshments in a public cafe – at least a couple of hundred metres away from the open air show. What’s more, it was the JC’s interviewees – who proudly self-professed as Zionists – that actually enacted a vile tirade of racist abuse against the group of cafe patrons.
Given this, the Canary asked the group of cafe customers what happened from their perspective. We’ve maintained their anonymity for their own safety after the incident.
Firstly, the cafe group emphasised to the Canary how the reporting was an “utter lie”. One member expressed how:
We were getting a coffee after a Palestine Support event about a mile away from Regents Park. We knew nothing about any screening. We were all standing in the queue, chatting in pairs etc, waiting to order, and obviously just relaxing.
However, things suddenly soon took a turn. The cafe group member said that it was at this point that they were:
accosted by a group of Zionists who immediately started telling us to get out of the cafe, because some of us were (still) carrying Palestine flags.
Eventually, he said that:
We began to realise they had some kind of event going on because after several minutes one the women there started saying “you know we’re doing a screening today!” We tried to find out what she was talking about but she didn’t tell us.
It was only an hour or two later when I took a walk to investigate some orchestral sounds I’d heard that I discovered the cinema (which I didn’t even know existed!) and a poster for Fiddler on the Roof. I went back to the group and explained that that’s what I had found and we were all mutually stunned that anyone would believe that peace protesters would have been anywhere to protest about a film like Fiddler on the Roof.
Another member of the cafe group told the Canary that in the videos the Zionist theatre-goers supplied to the press, it appeared:
They also cut out of their video the fact that we asked multiple times what “what’s screening?” when they said “you’re here because of the screening aren’t you?”
One member who spoke to the Canary articulated that they had personal connections to Fiddler on the Roof, which made the accusations all the more shocking to them:
I was particularly amazed because the Jewish side of my family were the very same people that the film is about – Russian Jews who left due to the Cossack pogroms!
Aside from the corporate outlets purposely leaving out these vital details, they also omitted footage showing the extreme prejudice and bigotry the Zionist theatre-goers directed at the cafe group. One of the cafe group customers described the vile racist and abusive comments the Zionists shouted at them:
They called us animals, pigs one of them called my friend a dirtbag
Notably, they singled out a Black Somalian member of the cafe group and “went right up into” her face and:
said very aggressively “look at your face”
The cafe group explained that they felt the hate-fueled verbal assault:
had massive potential to descend into public disorder because of the suddenness, the volume, the physically threatening nature of the Zionist attack on our group.
Notably, a member said to the Canary how:
one man in particular looked like he was going to punch one of our group so I stepped in between them to ensure that he was aware there were several males there.
Eventually the aggressive man who kept rolling his sleeves up and was being held back by several women, this group went back outside to the tables.
What’s more, other people in the cafe appeared to recognise the risk of the Zionist party escalating the hate incident too. The cafe group member described how:
Other customers were worried for our safety, as evidenced by one man – of large physique – approaching us and saying if you need any help I’m just outside here – just shout for me.
Vitally, he felt that the fact that their group:
reacted rationally to their improved behaviour meant that the situation eventually de-escalated as we started to disengage with them.
To make matters worse, the cafe group told us how the Zionists verbally assaulted them while they were out socialising with their children.
Speaking separately to Migration Films about the incident, one of the children present told them it made him feel:
Distressed and scared, because I didn’t know what they were going to do
Migration Films also corroborated the group’s accounts with cafe staff:
AN INSIGHT INTO ZIONISTS IN LONDON…
‘On Monday 5th Aug, some people went into the Regent’s Park cafe for some refreshments – What followed was a barrage of insults, threats and an accusation of Antisemitism against them’
Investigation by Migration Filmspic.twitter.com/3Mt08Q2FG3
— Save Our Citizenships
(@LetsStopC9) August 18, 2024
They independently confirmed that the group of Zionists were the aggressors. Notably, one staff member stated that:
The guys with the Palestine flags – they just came in – they were just peaceful, they were just going about their way. And I think people just didn’t like that they had their Palestine flags in there.
Videos on X also backed up their story:
Those with
flags were there to buy refreshments. They didn’t want to leave.
They then faced verbal abuse from
the other customers in the form of foul language & other hate speech2/3 pic.twitter.com/chJYfQgZ7X
— Viv (@VivCat123) August 7, 2024
Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that the Jewish Chronicle had entirely fabricated a story to slander anti-racists and people critical of Israel. The Canary consistently covered the outlet’s vile smear campaign against dedicated anti-racists and socialists in the Labour Party during Jeremy Corbyn’s time as party leader.
Unsurprisingly, a number of people have previously won legal cases against the Jewish Chronicle for its libelous and fictitious reporting. Moreover, throughout Israel’s ongoing genocide and war crimes, the Zionist media site has run relentless stories branding pro-Palestine protesters as antisemitic.
Similarly, right-wing GB News has deployed a hostile media campaign against people speaking out against Israel committing genocide in Gaza. One of the cafe group customers explained to the Canary how one woman said to them that they:
shouldn’t carry the Palestinian flag in public because it was “provocative”.
Naturally, the GB News piece took this a step further. National Jewish Assembly chairman Gary Mond told the GB News presenters that:
Lots of Jews feel this way, that the Palestinian flag is really a terror flag – it’s not the flag of any particular individual country.
Of course, this was a palpably fallacious and bigoted statement on a number of counts. For one, over 75% of the United Nations member states – 145 separate parties – recognise Palestinian statehood. What’s more, none of that is to mention the fact that Israel itself is a settler colonial Western-imposed state, currently illegally occupying Palestinian territories.
On top of this, it blatantly played up Israel’s rancid racist propaganda painting all Palestinians and supporters as “terrorists”. Moreover, GB News failed to detail Mond’s affiliations with Israel and its Zionist project. For instance, until April 2023, Mond was also a board executive for the Zionist apartheid-enabling organisation, the Jewish National Front (JNF).
Of course, the similarity between Mond’s reaction and the Zionist theatre-goers response demonstrates the Israeli propaganda machine in action. In other words, right-wing outlets like GB News platforming Israeli propagandists has fed fuel to the fire of the racist apartheid and genocidal state’s motivated antisemitism smear campaign.
Given that both the Jewish Chronicle and GB News had form on this however, the antisemitism smears were completely on brand. However, even the so-called Independent uncritically regurgitated the factually erroneous report.
Again, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Russian oligarch Evgeny Lebedev owns the largest shareholding in the corporate news outlet, so it’s name is a glaring misnomer. What’s more, the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), an arm of the Muslim Council of Britain, has identified distinct media bias in the UK mainstream press’s coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Independent was among these outlets showing a clear pro-Israel bias across its reporting.
In its report on this incident, the outlet sought a comment from head of policy at the Community Security Trust (CST) Dave Rich, who told it:
Fiddler On The Roof isn’t just a Jewish musical: it’s the family story of most Jewish families in this country. Holding an anti-Israel protest there is pure antisemitism.
But as the Canary has previously noted, the CST is hardly a non-partisan organisation. In fact, director of right-wing pro-Israel group Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) Alex Hearn recently invoked a report by the CST to smear black Labour MP Clive Lewis as antisemitic. In particular, the report claimed that antisemitism had sky-rocketed after 7 October. However, as the Canary noted, the CST had purposely conflated antisemitism with anti-Zionism. We wrote that:
This has been glaringly obvious as the Western corporate media and right-wing politicians have branded pro-Palestine protest demonstrations as antisemitic on multiple occasions.
So once again, the corporate press has done this over even minor expressions of support for Palestine. In this instance however, it was simply for wearing symbols of Palestinian solidarity in public. As one of the cafe group members expressed to the Canary:
The sense is that Palestine activists seem to be designated as worthy of any kind of common assault by many Zionists who feel they have a right to abuse us because we threaten their political ideology.
Ultimately, one of the cafe group customers felt that the incident showed:
how vile, aggressive, and racist Zionists can be when they simply see a Palestinian flag, and how insidious they are in accusing people of antisemitism without justification.
Already, following the verbal assault in public and the subsequent media misreporting, Zionists have doxxed one group member. In particular, they have tried to intimidate him in his private life, targeting his business. He told the Canary that:
They were trying to shock me with the news that they have “found me” obvs implied threat to business…. Haven’t checked yet but if reviews can be left I will no doubt have a few very unflattering ones to delete etc.!
Of course, it’s also precisely the corporate media’s fabricated antisemitism smears like this that have emboldened violent, racist right-wing and Zionists attacks against Palestinians, and people showing support for Palestine in public. One of the cafe group customers argued that:
It’s a similar philosophy to the recent EDL marchers who feel they can be as violent as they like if they encounter anyone who threatens their political ideology.
In that way, this racist verbal assault and corporate media antisemitism smear cannot be extricated from the violent racist pogroms fascists carried out across the UK.
If anyone was making a mockery of the meaning behind Fiddler on the Roof, it was the racist Zionists.
They viciously impinged on the social lives of the cafe customers. Wearing traditional keffiyehs and sporting Palestinian flags in public is a mark of solidarity and an expression of cultural pride, in the midst of Israel’s abhorrent genocide. As ever though, to Zionists, the only tradition that matters is Israel’s violent crusade of ethnic cleansing.
They’ll readily weaponise spurious allegations of antisemitism to silence anyone remotely showing solidarity in their public or private lives. It shows that Israel’s propaganda reaches far beyond its illegally occupying borders. Zionists and media apologists continue to prop it up in Israel’s allied Western coloniser core – while pushing pro-Palestine voices to the margins.
Feature image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
This week, leftists on multiple social media platforms debated whether the acronym “ZOG” is an accurate or acceptable descriptor for the United States government. The term “ZOG,” which stands for Zionist Occupied Government, was popularized by The Turner Diaries — a 1978 novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce. Pierce was the founder and chairman of National Alliance, a white supremacist political…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Recent student-led campus encampments in solidarity with Palestine prompted considerable media conversation. But, according to a new FAIR study examining TV and newspaper discussions in the period from April 21 to May 12, those conversations rarely included students themselves—and even fewer included student protesters.
FAIR examined how often key corporate media discussion forums contain student and activist voices. The Sunday morning shows (ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN’s State of the Union and Fox News Sunday) brought on no students or activists, opting instead to speak primarily with government officials.
The daily news shows we surveyed—CNN’s Lead With Jake Tapper, MSNBC’s ReidOut, Fox News‘ Hannity and PBS’s NewsHour—were slightly better, with six students out of 79 guests, but only two of them were pro-Palestine protesters.
The op-ed pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and Wall Street Journal featured two students out of 52 writers, only one of whom was a protester.
The agenda-setting Sunday morning shows, which historically skew towards government officials (FAIR.org, 8/12/20, 10/21/23), showed no interest in giving airtime to student or activist voices. For the first weeks following the first encampment set up at Columbia University, when the student protests began to command national media attention, FAIR analyzed every episode of ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN’s State of the Union and Fox News Sunday.
Out of 36 one-on-one and roundtable guests across all networks, 29 (81%) were current or former government officials or politicians, and five (14%) were journalists. One academic and one think tank representative were also featured. Of the 29 government sources, only six spoke about having personal experience with the protests, or about universities in states they represent.
No students or activists, and only one academic, were invited to speak on any of the Sunday shows. The one academic, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, didn’t speak about his own experience with the encampments, but about his research on student safety.
Some guests utilized inflammatory language when discussing the protesters, who were never afforded the opportunity to defend themselves. On This Week, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton (ABC, 5/5/24), referred to the encampments as “Little Gazas,” and said the students “deserved our contempt” and “mockery.” “I mean, they’re out there in their N95 masks in the open air, with their gluten allergies, demanding that Uber Eats get delivered to them,” he said. Later on, Cotton referred to a keffiyeh—a symbol of Palestinian identity and solidarity—that protesters had put on a statue of George Washington as a “terrorist headdress.”
Jeffrey Miller lies on the pavement, one of four students killed when the National Guard was sent in to suppress protests at Kent State on May 4, 1970.
Three guests were asked about the idea of bringing in the National Guard to quell protests, only one declared it to be a bad idea. The other two gave similarly equivocal answers: Sen. J.D. Vance (Fox News Sunday, 4/28/24) said, “I don’t know if you need to call in the National Guard,” while Republican congressional candidate Tiffany Smiley (Fox News Sunday, 4/28/24) responded, “I don’t know if the National Guard is necessary.” But both agreed that some kind of police response was needed to these student protests.
In most other instances, the host would ask a politician for their thoughts on the encampments, to which the guest would respond with platitudes about nonviolence. For instance, CNN‘s Jake Tapper (5/5/24) asked Biden adviser Mitch Landrieu whether groups like Jewish Voice for Peace are “causing unrest for the American people.” Landrieu responded, “Everybody has a right to protest, but they have to protest peacefully.”
Throughout the Sunday show discussions, there was a heavy focus on whether the protests were violent and antisemitic, and next to no explanation of the demands of the protesters. Even though violence by—as opposed to against—campus protesters was very uncommon, politicians continually framed the protests as a threat to safety. White House national security communications advisor John Kirby (This Week, 4/28/24) decried “the antisemitism language that we’ve heard of late, and…all the hate speech and the threats of violence out there.”
Of all 64 questions asked to guests, only one—CNN’s interview with LA Mayor Karen Bass (4/28/24)—mentioned divestment, the withdrawal of colleges’ investments from companies linked to the Gaza military campaign and/or Israel, which was the central demand of most of the encampments. Moreover, this was the only instance in which divestment was discussed by any host or guest on the Sunday shows. On the other hand, 20 of the 36 conversations named antisemitism as an issue.
There were two questions asked about the safety of Jewish students (CNN, 4/28/24, 5/5/24)—by which CNN meant pro-Israel Jewish students, as many Jewish students took part in the encampments. (Forty-two percent of young Jewish Americans say Israel’s response to October 7 is “unacceptable,” according to Pew Research Center polling.) Only one question was asked about the safety of Muslim students (CNN, 5/5/24), even though both groups reported feeling almost equally unsafe.
All questions on violence related to the protesters, and not to counter-protesters or law enforcement. The interview with Bass (CNN, 4/28/24) made no mention of the violent counter-protests at UCLA that sent 25 protesters to the emergency room, but instead focused on hypothetical dangers to pro-Israel students.
In the same period as the study on Sunday shows, FAIR analyzed every episode of CNN’s Lead With Jake Tapper, MSNBC’s ReidOut, Fox News’ Hannity and PBS’s NewsHour. These daily programs were chosen as representative, highly rated daily news shows that have a focus on political discussion. Although the evening shows, unlike the Sunday shows, included occasional student voices, they were far outnumbered by government officials, journalists and educators—and only two student guests were protesters.
Of the 79 guests who appeared on these shows, 23 (29%) were current or former government officials and politicians, 19 (24%) were university-level educators and administrators, 18 (23%) were journalists, six (8%) were students and 13 (16%) had other jobs.
These shows showed more variation across the networks than the Sunday shows. Sixty-five percent of PBS NewsHour‘s guests were university-affiliated, for instance, and none were government officials, while almost two-thirds of Hannity‘s guests on Fox News (64%) were government officials and politicians, with no educators or students appearing.
The three student journalists found on daily news shows all appeared together on one episode of the PBS NewsHour (4/30/24).
There were a total of six students invited among the 79 guests, accounting for fewer than 8% of all interviewees. Two of these were pro-Palestine protesters, both appearing on MSNBC‘s ReidOut (4/22/24, 4/30/34). Three were nonaligned student journalists, all appearing together on PBS (4/30/24), and one, a student government leader at Columbia, was an Israeli who supported her government (CNN, 4/30/24).
One of the students on ReidOut (4/30/24), identified only by his first name, Andrew, described the police brutality at Washington University in St. Louis: “I was held in custody for six hours. I wasn’t provided food or water, and I have since been suspended and banned from my campus.”
Andrew was one of just two guests who mentioned police brutality. The other student protester, Marium Alwan, told host Joy Reid (4/22/24) that the Columbia encampment, and all encampments, “stand for liberation and human rights and equality for Jewish people, Palestinians.” When asked about antisemitism, she said they “stand against hateful rhetoric.”
Maya Platek, the only student featured on CNN‘s Lead (4/30/24), was president elect of the Columbia School of General Studies (and former head content writer for the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit). She said that at Columbia, she “would not say that I have been feeling the most comfortable.” She called the idea of divesting from Israel, and suspending Columbia’s dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University, “completely atrocious.”
Completely shutting out student voices, Fox News prioritized right-wing politicians like former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to speak on the protests. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (Hannity, 4/30/24) compared the encampments to “Poland pre–World War II” and “Kristallnacht.”
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft (CNN, 4/22/24) was brought on to talk about student protests more often than all student protesters put together.
CNN‘s Lead, the show with the second-highest number of government official guests (35%), featured more centrists than did Hannity. Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz (5/1/24) said that while “it’s their First Amendment right” to protest, for students to say such as “go back to Poland or bomb Tel Aviv or kill all the Zionists” was not acceptable, a message similar to those frequently heard on the Sunday shows.
Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and a major donor to Columbia University, was invited to speak about encampments three times (Fox, 4/22/24, 5/1/24; CNN, 4/22/24)—more times than student protesters spoke across all four shows.
Although a slight improvement over the Sunday shows’ complete shut-out of student voices, these daily news shows still had relatively few references to divestment, which came up in 16 interviews (20%), or police violence, mentioned in seven interviews. This compares to 33 interviews (42%) that discussed antisemitism.
Free-speech celebrant John McWhorter wrote a column for the New York Times (4/23/24) that wondered why students were allowed to protest against Israel.
The opinion columns of corporate newspapers did no better at including student protesters’ voices than the TV shows. FAIR analyzed every op-ed primarily about the campus encampments in the same time span (April 21–May 12), from the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
In the observed period, the Times published 11 op-eds about the campus encampments, all written by Times columnists. The paper failed to include any students or activists in its opinion section.
Out of nine different Times columnists, only one mentioned visiting an encampment: John McWhorter (4/23/24), a Columbia professor who writes regularly for the paper, was critical of the protests happening at his university. The self-styled free-speech advocate demanded to know, “Why do so many people think that weekslong campus protests against not just the war in Gaza but Israel’s very existence are nevertheless permissible?”
During the same period, the Washington Post also ran 11 encampment-related op-eds. Ten were written by regular columnists, and two mentioned having visited an encampment. Those two—Karen Attiah (5/2/24) and Eugene Robinson (4/29/24)—wrote positively of the protests. Attiah wrote of her visit:
Around me, students were reading, studying and chatting. Some were making art and painting. I saw an environment rich with learning, but I did not see disruption.
The paper’s only guest column on the encampments was penned by Paul Berman (4/26/24), a Columbia graduate and writer for the center-right Jewish magazine Tablet, who opined that the student protesters had “gone out of their minds,” and that professors were to blame for “intellectual degeneration.” Like the Times, the Post failed to include any students or activists in their opinion section.
In the only op-ed the study found written by a student protester (USA Today, 5/8/24), Columbia’s Allie Wong was able to succinctly state the objective of the encampments: “We are calling to end the violence and genocide against our Palestinian brothers and sisters.”
USA Today published fewer encampment-related opinion pieces, but invited more outside perspectives. Of its seven columns during the study period, four were written by regular columnists, one by Columbia student protester Allie Wong (5/8/24), one by pro-Israel advocate Nathan J. Diament (4/22/24) and one by the son of Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel (5/2/24).
In her op-ed, Wong described the police brutality exhibited during her and other protesters’ arrests:
We clung tighter to one another as they approached us, and seized us like rag dolls and slammed us into the hallowed ground of brick and concrete. But unlike rag dolls, we bleed, we crack, we bruise, we feel.
Wong’s piece was also the only one in USA Today to mention divestment, and one of only three pieces to mention divestment among all op-eds in the study. (The other two, from the Wall Street Journal, called the divestment demands “useless”—4/30/24—and “a breach of fiduciary obligation”—5/5/24.)
The Wall Street Journal (5/9/24) ran an editorial calling fraternities the antidote to encampments, written by someone who sells insurance to fraternities.
The Wall Street Journal had the most op-eds of the four papers. Its 22 pieces on the encampments included four by educators and one by a student. Unlike most other student and educator voices across our study, however, the student and educator guests on the Journal were highly critical of the protests.
Dawn Watkins Wiese (5/9/24) wrote a column titled “Fraternities Are a Cure for What Ails Higher Education,” asserting that the counter-protesters instigating violence at UNC “acted bravely.” Wiese is the chief operating officer of FRMT Ltd., an insurer of fraternities.
Ben Sasse (5/3/24), president of the University of Florida (and a former Republican senator), charged that the students were uneducated: “‘From the river to the sea.’ Which river? Which sea?” he wrote, suggesting that students didn’t know what they were protesting about.
The one student on the Journal‘s op-ed pages, Yale’s Gabriel Diamond (4/21/24), called for the expulsion of his protesting classmates for being “violent.” According to Yale Daily News president Anika Seth (4/30/24), no violence had been documented at the school’s encampment.
Across corporate media, the lack of student and protester voices in discussions of student protests is striking. Virtually every university has student journalists, yet only four of them were found in the study, compared to the more than 50 non-student journalists and columnists, the vast majority of whom gave no sign of ever having been to an encampment.
Despite polling that found Jewish and Muslim students feeling almost equally unsafe, antisemitism was mentioned in 88 different interviews and editorials, while Islamophobia was mentioned in only six interviews and one op-ed (Washington Post, 5/2/24). Divestment was only mentioned 26 times, despite it being the principal goal of the encampments.
The Palestine campus protests were not the first time corporate media avoided the demands of protesters. A 2020 FAIR study (8/12/20) of coverage of Black Lives Matter protests showed a “heavy focus on whether the protests were violent or nonviolent, rather than on the demands of the protesters,” a description that applies equally well to the coverage and commentary examined in this study.
Research assistance: Owen Schacht
This post was originally published on FAIR.
A right-wing pro-Israel lobby group is going after a left-leaning Labour Party MP. Specifically, Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) has called for Norwich South MP Clive Lewis’s expulsion from the party. Unsurprisingly, the group has lodged a complaint to the party against Lewis for alleged antisemitism.
Of course, we’ve been here before – as it wouldn’t be the first time LAAS smeared the Labour left with baseless allegations of antisemitism.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is of course the most prominent casualty of this long-standing stitch up. Now, LAAS has turned its sights on Lewis for speaking out against Israel.
Specifically, Clive Lewis made the connection between the West’s dehumanisation and Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and the far-right Islamophobic pogroms in the UK.
The link between the daily inhumanity being metted out to Palestinians and rising Islamophobia in the UK, are not unconnected.
The inhumanity being shown to one is giving ‘permission’ for the other.
These actions diminish us all. pic.twitter.com/ZETc1guaVS
— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) August 10, 2024
Of course, Lewis was right to drive this home. The UK’s Islamophobia cannot be extricated from this – because racism doesn’t manifest in a vacuum. It’s perfectly evident to anyone remotely paying attention that after ten months of corporate media and political establishment genocide apologism, white supremacy and Zionism runs through the very core of the UK right.
Plus, as the Canary’s Steve Topple previously wrote:
Allowing Black and brown people to be demonised over here helps with the West’s global agenda of making them subhuman. How else do you think Israel could get away with killing 40,000 Palestinians without the UN sending in peacekeepers or the US invading?
Ergo, it’s easy to imagine even on a surface level how devaluing Palestinian lives – largely Muslim – would lead to the same thing here. In fact, it has been plain to see. In February, Middle East Monitor (MEM) reported that Islamophobic attacks had risen by 235% since 7 October. Some on X poignantly summed this up:
Clive Lewis rightly highlights that the dehumanisation of people in Palestine goes hand in hand with the dehumanisation of Muslims in the UK.
In both situations people have been racialised as ‘other’, categorised as lesser, to justify killings.
Violence normalises violence. https://t.co/foTryMjds8
— Minesh (@min_esh) August 12, 2024
Clive Lewis rightly highlights that the dehumanisation of people in Palestine goes hand in hand with the dehumanisation of Muslims in the UK.
In both situations people have been racialised as ‘other’, categorised as lesser, to justify killings.
Violence normalises violence. https://t.co/foTryMjds8
— Minesh (@min_esh) August 12, 2024
The fact actually is that it’s worse than Lewis’s relatively mild post actually suggested:
This is right but it goes further, too.
Ever since the assault on Gaza began & the regular ceasefire marches, the (always underlying) racism & Islamophobia in anti-migrant movements I work against has been ramped up, extremely obviously emboldened & come to the surface. https://t.co/EJDtcMz52f
— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) August 10, 2024
And this only really scratches the surface. Key race riot inciter Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – Tommy Robinson – has multifarious links to the Zionist movement. Lowkey has detailed these:
Tommy Robinson has previously stated he would “fight for Israel in a war.”
This thread examines Robinson and EDL’s very clear material relationship with the Zionist Movement and considers the possibility that the racist attacks and pogroms in Britain are part of that fight.
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) August 4, 2024
For one, he was co-founder of the English Defence League (EDL) with Israeli intelligence employee Paul Ray:
Tommy Robinson’s co-founder of the EDL was an individual called Paul Ray.
Paul Ray worked for Israeli intelligence, infiltrating and spying on the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) of which Rachel Corrie was a member.
The information he gathered was… pic.twitter.com/9Ve5D6HAX3
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) August 4, 2024
And there were more relationships:
Tommy Robinson’s co-founder of the EDL was an individual called Paul Ray.
Paul Ray worked for Israeli intelligence, infiltrating and spying on the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) of which Rachel Corrie was a member.
The information he gathered was… pic.twitter.com/9Ve5D6HAX3
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) August 4, 2024
Naturally, his ties don’t end there. As the Times of Israel reported, Philadelphia-based think tank Middle East Forum has been bankrolling Robinson:
Daniel Pipes, MEF’s president, confirmed to The Times of Israel that his group has spent roughly $60,000 on three demonstrations defending Robinson’s legal trial.
Pipes said that he first met Robinson in December 2017 and was “impressed” by him. He described Robinson as part of a group of people who are “trying to sustain their civilization, trying to keep Europe Europe, trying to keep the West the West. Overall, I think that their effort is sound and needed.”
In fact, it noted that multiple right-wing pro-Israel organisations have been sponsoring Robinson.
So, right-wingers can hardly argue there’s no connection between the recent race riot attacks against Muslim, Black, brown, and migrant communities in the UK, and Israel’s ongoing war crimes and genocide. Or so you would think.
Enter, LAAS, who not only denied this tie altogether, but held it up as an example of antisemitism.
Director of the right-wing pro-Israel group Alex Hearn told Sky News that:
It is very concerning that people across the political spectrum, from “anti-racists” to the far right, have fantasised that ‘Zionists’ and Israel are to blame for unrest across Britain,” he said.
A recent report by the Community Security Trust showed antisemitism in the last six months has gone up 105%, and that the pretext for these 1,978 incidents are often Palestine. This includes synagogues targeted 76 times and 121 assaults.
For a Labour MP to blame a conflict thousands of miles away for the recent racism in far-right riots in Britain is highly irresponsible.
When attacks against British Jews exploded following the Hamas 7 October massacre, no such link was made by Mr Lewis.
However, as SKWAWKBOX underscored:
The Community Security Trust (CST) is a UK charity deeply committed to promoting Israel and combating the pro-Palestinian ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions’ (BDS) campaign against goods and services from illegally-occupied Palestinian territory. It has equated opposition to Israel’s genocide with antisemitism, naming anti-genocide campaigners as the main source of antisemitic incidents.
Notably, the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) unpacked the CST’s claims of a “huge rise” in antisemitism since Israel began its abhorrent genocide. Unsurprisingly, CST had conflated antisemitism with anti-Zionism.
This has been glaringly obvious as the Western corporate media and right-wing politicians have branded pro-Palestine protest demonstrations as antisemitic on multiple occasions.
It was almost as if LAAS had an agenda. Of course, as some on X pointed out, this is precisely the case:
Official?
LAAS?
It’s a gang of SELF APPOINTED witch hunters,using filthy false accusations of antisemitism to protect a genocidal foreign power, with the aim of getting rid of every one of its critics in politics and the mediaWhat’s ‘official’ about this poisonous Mafia? https://t.co/L3SZ4fXxuk
— MsAlfieB
#StopThe Genocide#BDS#ItWasAScam (@duduschka) August 13, 2024
Much like AIPAC in the US, Labour Against Antisemitism need to register as an agent for a foreign government. Because not only was @labourlewis‘ post not anywhere near the realms of ‘antisemitism’, the only way to oppose what he said is if you were parroting Isreali govt spin. https://t.co/6AIZEXvqTT
— Dave Robinson (@daviddotrobbo) August 12, 2024
One poster noted that the right-wing genocide-apologist organisation had stark double-standards:
Alex Hearn LAAS director raised the complaint, stating; “For a Labour MP to blame a conflict thousands of miles away for the recent racism in far-right riots in Britain is highly irresponsible.” Yet here
LAAS connect British Jews to the conflict re possible arms embargo.
https://t.co/Ydz1KBaHaD pic.twitter.com/N0HJ9LYaM1
— Teri
(@mettlesome_teri) August 12, 2024
In other words, the UK mulling an arms embargo to stop Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians: connected to UK antisemitism. Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza: unconnected with the recent assaults on UK Muslims. Got it.
CAGE International wondered why other politicians in parliament hadn’t yet had the courage to say it:
Is Clive Lewis the only Member of Parliament who has had the courage to make a connection between dehumanisation required for a genocide in Palestine and anti Muslim pogroms in the UK?#FarageRiots https://t.co/gL14yePMFy
— CAGE International (@CAGEintl) August 11, 2024
Right on cue, socialist and committed anti-racist John McDonnell backed Clive Lewis’s statement:
It’s a bizarre warped logic that accuses Clive Lewis of antisemitism when he comments on how the visible inhumanity towards Muslims in Gaza displayed daily on our screens feeds into the inhumanity of some in our own country towards Muslims here. @labourlewis https://t.co/B32nKKLEWy
— John McDonnell (@johnmcdonnellMP) August 12, 2024
Other politicians like deputy Green Party leader Zack Polanski, and Jewish Labour Party councillor Martin Abrams voiced their support:
What Clive is saying here makes sense.
Much of the outrage is from people conflating the actions of the Israeli government with Jewish people.
That’s dangerous and they should stop.
An injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere. https://t.co/DfdZfawVPs
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) August 12, 2024
As a Jewish Labour Party Member I would like somebody, anybody, to explain to me how this tweet by Clive Lewis is in any way Antisemitic?
Honestly this is so tiresome. You’ve literally got gangs of neo-Nazis & fascists rampaging on our streets and this is what LAAS is busy doing pic.twitter.com/LBZ5vHsfdv
— Cllr Martin Abrams
(@Martin_Abrams) August 12, 2024
Another Jewish Labour member standing for the party’s National Executive Committee pointed out the attacks showed more about the embedded Islamophobia of Zionists than anything antisemitic:
The attacks on Clive Lewis for his humane and nuanced post reflect the entrenched Islamophobia of those who defend Netanyahu’s racist state. https://t.co/Ue22arNtk2
— Naomi4LabNEC (@Naomi4LabNEC) August 12, 2024
In reality, it was actually the right-wing lobby group perpetuating antisemitism:
Claiming that this tweet is antisemitic is to conflate ‘the state of Israel’ (and the governments supporting them) with ‘all Jews’.
Which is a fairly obvious example of antisemitism in itself. https://t.co/pcG0FLTHrr
— Stella Cast
(they/she) (@SpillerOfTea) August 12, 2024
One person pointed out that LAAS’s racism was hardly anything new:
If we’re talking about LAAS – A reminder that E*ma Pickens Husband is a massive fucking racist. https://t.co/z9xmn969pC pic.twitter.com/hm3uXrMTd9
— Tobias T (@TobiasTaylor) August 12, 2024
Therefore going after a sitting Black MP is entirely on brand as well, as climate and social justice campaigner Asad Rehman noted:
The hounding by bad faith actors of black/brown politicians for speaking out about the pernicious role dehumanising people has in normalising racism is itself racist. Solidarity to @labourlewis
— asad rehman (@chilledasad100) August 12, 2024
Thankfully, for once, the Labour Party doesn’t seem to be pandering to Zionists. Astonishingly out of character, we know. According to Independent, the party isn’t planning disciplinary action against Lewis over his post.
Though, lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. Starmer quickly threw Lewis under the bus regardless. According to the outlet:
The prime minister quickly distanced himself from the remarks, with his spokesperson on Monday saying Sir Keir would “completely disagree” with the suggestion that events in Gaza are to blame for the unrest in Britain, which saw mosques attacked and more than 900 people arrested.
She added that he would “never seek to conflate those two issues
At the end of the day, LAAS didn’t expose a left-wing Labour politician as antisemitic. It was quite the opposite in fact. Its petty, motivated complaint only bared the right-wing’s deeply entrenched Islamophobia as part and parcel of its pro-Israel and colonial racism en masse. In other words, it proved that Lewis’s point was correct all along. And that until Palestine is free, this Islamophobic violence in the UK will not end.
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
Haven’t you heard? Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s decision to pick Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate was based in antisemitism. At least, that’s what the New York Times wants us to believe.
While Democrats of many stripes seemed thrilled with Walz, a Midwestern progressive with military service and a down-home attitude, the Times has kept up the fiction that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who made the short list of vice presidential hopefuls, didn’t get the nod because of left-wing antisemitism. The claim is a thinly veiled insinuation that Democrats who oppose the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Gaza—and Shapiro’s aggressive backing of Israel—are motivated by bigotry against Jews.
By failing to choose Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, the New York Times‘ Jonathan Weisman (8/6/24) wrote, she passed up a chance to “mollify many Jewish voters and other centrists over a subject that has bedeviled the Biden-Harris administration for nearly a year, Israel’s war in Gaza.”
Jonathan Weisman came out in force in a piece (New York Times, 8/6/24) with the headline “Walz Instead of Shapiro Excites Left, but May Alienate Jewish Voters,” and the subhead, “Many Jewish organizations backed Harris’s pick for running mate, but beneath that public sentiment is unease over antisemitism on both the left and the right.”
Weisman wrote:
Was her decision to sidestep Mr. Shapiro, some wonder, overly deferential to progressive activists who many Jews believe have veered past anti-Israel fervor into anti-Jewish bigotry?
The reporter acknowledged that there were “scores of reasons” why Harris might have chosen someone other than Shapiro “that had nothing to do with the campaign that the pro-Palestinian left had been waging against him.” But he added, without citing evidence, that “Jews face a surge of antisemitic sentiment on the left,” and see the Democrats as “harboring strongly anti-Israel sentiment on their left flank.”
After noting that the Republican Party under former President Donald Trump’s influence has been rife with antisemitism, Weisman quoted Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president for the Orthodox Union, saying “our greater worry right now is that antisemitism on the left seems to be far more influential on a major party than the antisemitism on the right.”
For anyone who needs a reminder, Weisman was demoted at the Times (8/13/19) when he suggested (“C’mon”) that congressmembers Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar are not really from the Midwest, despite representing Detroit and Minneapolis, respectively, any more than Atlanta’s Rep. John Lewis is from the Deep South, or Austin’s Rep. Lloyd Doggett is from Texas—Weisman’s apparent point being that being Muslim, Black or (in Doggett’s case) just liberal disqualifies you as being from such regions. It was just another example (FAIR.org, 8/14/19) of what the Atlantic (5/4/18) meant when it said of his book (((Semitism))), “His facts are wobbly and his prescriptions are thin.”
Before Harris made her choice, Weisman (New York Times (8/1/24) touted Shapiro as an “opportunity to stand up to her far-left flank in an appeal to the center of the party and to independents.”
This wasn’t Weisman’s only attempt to paint opposition to making Shapiro the Democratic running mate as a sign of Jew hatred. Before Harris’s choice was announced, Weisman wrote a piece (New York Times, 8/1/24) whose subhead said that Shapiro, “an observant Jew, is seen as bringing plenty of upsides to the Democratic ticket,” while “some worry about setting off opposition to the Democratic ticket from pro-Palestinian demonstrators.”
The false implication was that it was his religion that aroused concern from activists, rather than his record on Israel/Palestine. (The insinuation was even clearer in an online blurb the Times used to promote the piece: “Pro-Palestinian groups are seeking to block Gov. Josh Shapiro, an observant Jew, from becoming Kamala Harris’s running mate.”)
Shapiro has been strongly supportive of Israel throughout the Gaza crisis—“We’re praying for the Israelis and we stand firmly with them as they defend themselves as they have every right to do,” he announced early on (Harrisburg Patriot-News, 10/12/23), after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had declared a “full siege” of Gaza, with “no electricity, no food, no fuel” (Washington Post, 10/9/23).
“We are fighting animals, and we will act accordingly,” Gallant declared. As Israel followed through on that promise, Shapiro was criticized for not speaking out against the soaring Palestinian death toll (New Lines, 8/3/24).
Shapiro assisted in the McCarthyite ousting of University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, calling her congressional testimony about student protests a “failure of leadership,” and urging Penn’s trustees to hold her accountable (Wall Street Journal, 12/6/23). The governor later issued an order barring state employees from engaging in “scandalous or disgraceful” behavior—vague terms that were seen as a threat to free speech (Spotlight PA, 5/14/24).
Shapiro distinguished himself in his vituperation of pro-Palestine activists by comparing them to “people dressed up in KKK outfits” (Jacobin, 8/5/24). “I don’t know anybody who used the Ku Klux Klan when they talked about protesters,” Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin told FAIR. “That’s going pretty far.”
When Shapiro was Pennsylvania’s attorney general, he “went after Ben and Jerry’s when the ice cream company decided to stop selling to Israeli settlements in the West Bank” (NBC, 7/31/24). He is a strong supporter of divestment, however—when it comes to Muslim countries. “We must use our economic power to isolate our enemies and strengthen our allies,” he said as he introduced a bill mandating that Pennsylvania state pension funds boycott companies that did business with Iran or Sudan (Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, 4/22/09).
Shapiro was also forced to “distance himself from a recently uncovered op-ed he wrote in college, in which he identified as a former volunteer in the IDF” (Times of Israel, 8/3/24). The op-ed argued that “peace between Arabs and Israelis is virtually impossible,” since “battle-minded” Palestinians “will not coexist peacefully” and “do not have the capabilities to establish their own homeland” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/2/24).
Another pre-VP announcement piece in the New York Times (8/2/24), by Jess Bidgood, acknowledged some of this background, but still put Shapiro’s religion before his policy, describing him as “an observant Jew who speaks of his faith often” before noting that
his outspoken support of Israel’s right to self-defense and his denunciation of college students’ protest of the war in Gaza have also drawn opposition from the left.
Trump advisor Mark Penn (New York Times, 8/3/24) encouraged Harris to choose Shapiro not despite but because of the fact that he is “unpopular with many progressives over energy policy, school choice and other issues,” and therefore “would send a signal that Ms. Harris is not captive to the left and that she puts experience ahead of ideology.”
Weisman’s pre-announcement piece on Shapiro (8/1/24) contained this nugget:
The campaign to thwart his nomination is, by its own admission, not well organized. People working against Mr. Shapiro come from groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America; Uncommitted, which waged a campaign to convince Democratic primary voters to register protest votes against President Biden; the progressive Jewish group IfNotNow; and a group of anonymous pro-Palestinian aides on Capitol Hill known as Dear White Staffers. It does not include some of the largest Palestinian rights groups, nor have more prominent progressive groups joined, like Justice Democrats.
Which raises the question: If this coalition is so weak, why write about it? The Uncommitted campaign, which attracted nearly 1 million votes in the primaries, greatly worried Democrats who supported Biden (NBC, 3/6/24; Guardian, 7/3/24). Biden is now out of the race, and the influence of this coalition had enough impact to grab the concern of the Times.
In a New York Times op-ed (8/3/24) that pushed for Shapiro as the running mate, pollster Mark Penn—identified by his work with the Clintons from 1995 to 2008, not by his counseling Trump in 2019—said that Shapiro’s presence on the ticket
would also reassure Jewish voters—long a key part of winning Democratic voter coalitions—at a time when many of them see hostility and antisemitism coming from some in the far left of the party.
Penn’s op-ed made a flimsy case that concern for Palestinian life is “antisemitic.” But in hailing Shapiro as a moderate, Penn revealed it was his politics, not his identity, that gave the left pause. Shapiro is “unpopular with many progressives over energy policy, school choice and other issues,” Penn noted. This is a good thing, in Penn’s view; picking Shapiro as a running mate “would send a signal that Ms. Harris is not captive to the left and that she puts experience ahead of ideology.”
The New York Times Katie Glueck (8/6/24) depicted scrutiny of Shapiro’s Israel/Palestine positions as ” an ugly final phase of Ms. Harris’s search.”
Following Harris’s announcement of Walz as her running mate Times reporter Katie Glueck (8/6/24) wrote that
after the conclusion of a vice-presidential search process that prompted intense public scrutiny of his views on Israel, Mr. Shapiro’s familiar references to his religious background took on a raw new resonance.
“He seemed to sound a note of defiance” by saying “I am proud of my faith,” Glueck wrote.
Although his Mideast positions were “well within the Democratic mainstream, and were not markedly different from other vice-presidential candidates under consideration,” Glueck wrote, Shapiro “drew outsize attention on the subject, his supporters said, and some saw that focus as driven by antisemitism”—linking to Weisman’s piece about how the Walz choice might “alienate Jewish voters” as evidence.
In a particularly bewildering piece, Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn (8/6/24) chided that Walz “does relatively little to define or redefine Ms. Harris”: “He won’t assuage concerns that she’s too far to the left,” Cohn lamented; “his selection doesn’t signal that Ms. Harris intends to govern as a moderate”—which is, of course, the New York Times‘ constant concern about Democrats. No matter, wrote Cohn—”there will be many more opportunities” for Harris to move to the right, “like a policy platform rollout and the Democratic convention.”
The Wall Street Journal (8/1/24) came out and said what New York Times writers mostly insinuated: Shapiro was “vilified and maligned because he is Jewish.”
The Murdoch press has painted Shapiro as a victim of antisemitism as well, although as outlets that practically equate the DNC with the USSR, it’s hard to see why they would care about the Harris campaign’s internal debates. “The attack on Mr. Shapiro is part of a far-left campaign to portray Jews as perpetrators or enablers of genocide,” Daniel Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress, wrote in the Wall Street Journal (8/1/24). The New York Post editorial board (8/6/24) said that Shapiro was the “clear best choice” but Harris rejected him “plainly because she didn’t dare cross the left by tapping a Jew.”
At FAIR (6/6/18, 8/26/20, 12/12/23), we’ve grown used to establishment media like the New York Times conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism as a way to keep the struggle for Palestinian rights on the political margins. But with the paper’s laments for the unchosen Shapiro—so parallel to the Murdoch media’s crocodile tears—the reach feels so extreme one wonders if even the authors themselves believe it.
The Democratic Party boasts many Jewish lawmakers in both houses, including Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, a sort of mascot of New York Jewishness rivaling Mel Brooks. Shapiro wouldn’t have even been the first Jew on a Democratic presidential ticket; the late Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, similarly observant but far to Shapiro’s political right, has that distinction. The suggestion that without Shapiro on the presidential ticket, the Democrats remain some kind of goyish social club is comical. (If we accept that spouses are unofficial parts of presidential tickets, Harris if elected will also give the White House its first Jewish resident.)
Clearly, the Times does not believe that voters must simply accept Jewish candidates without looking at their records. It did not suggest that the party’s rejection of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist, as a presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020 was rooted in disdain for his unabashed Brooklyn Jewishness. When New York City Comptroller Brad Lander challenges Mayor Eric Adams from the left in the 2025 city primaries, the paper is unlikely to suggest that voters who stick with the incumbent are Jew haters.
It’s becoming clear that for the corporate media, it is OK to not support Jewish candidates if they support lifting wages, fighting climate change or addressing racial injustice. But at a time when concern for Palestinian lives has become so mainstream that being too pro-Israel can become a political liability, the New York Times wants Jewish politicians’ support for Israel to be a taboo topic.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
Since the onset of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023, there has been a dramatic rise in harassment, policing and discrimination against Palestinians and allies who publicly speak out in favor of a ceasefire. Louie Siegel, an anti-Zionist Jewish-American, experienced the suppression of anti-Zionist speech firsthand when, during a recent Delta Airlines flight from São Paulo to Chicago…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Reuters (6/27/24) noted that Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party “traces its roots to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), formed in 1946 as a direct heir of Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement that ruled Italy for more than 20 years.”
An antisemitism scandal has rocked one of Europe’s major far-right political leaders: Giorgia Meloni, prime minister of Italy. It’s been major news in the European press. But the story is being mishandled by major US corporate media, and that fact says a lot about how poorly antisemitism is covered in the United States.
Reuters (6/27/24) reported:
A reporter from online newspaper Fanpage [6/14/24] infiltrated Gioventu Nazionale, Meloni’s rightist Brothers of Italy youth movement, and recorded videos in which members declared themselves fascists and shouted the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil.”… The investigation also showed a Gioventu Nazionale member mocking Brothers of Italy senator Ester Mieli for her Jewish origin, and revealed chats on messaging platforms where militants took aim at ethnic minorities.
Meloni’s political opponents used this footage against her (Guardian, 6/27/24). She eventually condemned the antisemites (Euronews, 6/29/24). Haaretz (6/30/24) said:
This 12-minute video showed National Youth activists, including two senior figures, singing a celebratory song in honor of the disgraced dictator Benito Mussolini, chanting “Sieg Heil!” and glorifying the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei)—a neofascist terrorist group that was active in Italy in the late 1970s and early ’80s, committing over 100 murders.
Fanpage (6/14/24) led off its report on Italy’s National Youth by noting that Meloni refers to them as “marvelous young people,” and they are defined as “the soul and the driving force” of her party.
This shouldn’t be a big surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to Italian politics. The nation’s small but vibrant Jewish population has been skeptical of Meloni’s ascendence and that of her party, Brothers of Italy. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (9/30/22) explained two years ago:
Meloni’s first stop in politics was in the youth movement of the Italian Social Movement, known as MSI, a neofascist party founded in 1946 by people who had worked with Hitler and Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist leader from 1922 to 1943. Brothers of Italy is closely tied to the group, even housing its office in the same building where MSI operated and using an identical logo, a tricolor flame.
With Meloni at the helm of one of Europe’s biggest economies, she is not a minor player; in fact, at the last G7 conference, she stood out as a confident leader (AP, 10/18/23; Wall Street Journal, 6/13/24) over a flock of feeble, vulnerable centrists and conservatives.
One of those was Rishi Sunak, who has since lost his job as British prime minister and Conservative Party leader (Guardian, 7/5/24). Another is President Joe Biden, who is being pressured to drop out of the US presidential race due to concerns regarding his cognitive health (New York Times, 6/28/24). And French President Emmanuel Macron has been weakened by the poor performance of his party in snap parliamentary elections (Reuters, 7/7/24).
The summit took place after Meloni’s party increased its share of the popular vote in the European Union election, and she is now “poised to play a critical role shaping the future direction of EU policy in Brussels” (Politico, 6/13/24).
The New York Times (7/2/24) led with Meloni “urg[ing] leaders of her political party on Tuesday to reject antisemitism, racism and nostalgia for totalitarian regimes.”
The New York Times (6/11/24) has positively portrayed Meloni as a “critical player” as the host of the G7 conference, and has been upbeat about her rising stature generally. (Her anti-Russian politicking “sealed her credibility as someone who could play an influential role in the top tier of European leaders”—2/7/24.) The Times (7/2/24) came late to the Brother of Italy story , leading with the news of her public relations drive to denounce the racist content. The Washington Post, which also had previously normalized her as a European politician (6/6/24), covered the story in a similar fashion with AP copy (7/3/24).
NPR missed the story. So did CNN. The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial board had said she was “governing with some success” (6/13/24), and whose news coverage has portrayed her as a pragmatist (6/13/24), wasn’t interested in the scandal either.
This lackluster coverage, which at best focused on Meloni’s self-interested damage control rather than the dark ideology at the center of her movement, is confounding. Western media have been rightfully fretting about the far right’s impressive showing in recent EU parliamentary elections (New York Times, 6/9/24). Meloni’s reputation as a strong leader among ailing centrist European leaders is bolstered by other far-right parties making impressive gains.
All of these parties, known for their anti-immigration and anti-multicultural positions, also have tinges of right-wing antisemitism, including Britain’s Reform Party (Haaretz, 6/23/24), Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland (Deutsche Welle, 8/5/23) and France’s National Rally (AP, 7/3/24). In the US, Donald Trump has been careful not to criticize the overt antisemites in the MAGA movement, including the “very fine people” who chanted “Jews will not replace us” at Charlottesville (Politico, 12/7/22). The Washington Post (10/17/22) noted that Trump has long employed antisemitic tropes in his rhetoric.
The New York Times (12/16/23) is more concerned about the “antisemitism” of protesters who assert “that the war in Gaza was a genocide.”
And so the Fanpage revelations should have been a blaring danger signal, as they were for the European press. The New York Times has been raising alarms (10/31/23, 12/16/23) about a rise of antisemitism since the October 7 attacks in Israel, painting the problem as one that plagues the left and the right. But as FAIR (12/12/23, 12/15/23) has talked about, corporate media are quick to cast legitimate criticism of Israel as antisemitism to discredit pro-Palestine points of view, wrongfully equating opposition to genocide with the racist antisemitism of the right.
Regardless of the reason for US corporate media’s oversight, the impact is clear. The press can talk about antisemitism more openly when they can attach it to human rights protesters, but are less eager to describe antisemitism as it actually is: a bigotry that is interwoven with the anti-Islamic and xenophobic platforms of the powerful far right.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
A white establishment centrist using racist tropes (City and State, 6/13/24) and backed by a whopping $14.5 million from the Israel lobby (Axios, 6/26/24) has ousted a Black progressive congressmember from New York. Establishment newspapers are very pleased.
Two-term congressmember Jamaal Bowman was the target of the most expensive House primary in history, with almost $25 million total spent on advertising, a 798% increase over Bowman’s 2020 and 2022 primary races combined (AdImpact, 6/24/24). Westchester, N.Y., county executive George Latimer and his dark money allies outspent Bowman’s campaign by more than 7-to-1 (CNN, 6/26/24).
Unsurprisingly, the Wall Street Journal editorial board (6/25/24) celebrated Bowman’s defeat in the June 25 Democratic primary. “Mr. Bowman is part of the Squad, an uberprogressive faction in Congress, and his defeat could prompt similar challenges,” the paper wrote hopefully. It called Bowman’s defeat “an act of political hygiene.”
Ignore for a moment the implicit racism that calls a monied white man ousting a Black man who supported other marginalized people a form of “hygiene.” Focus instead on the board dismissively quoting socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: “The defeat of Bowman…would be a message to every member of Congress that if you oppose corporate interests, the billionaire class will take you down.”
That is the problem here: Thanks to the Citizens United ruling, money rules politics and monied interests can essentially buy elections (FAIR.org, 6/11/24). The Wall Street Journal is a right-wing paper, so of course it would be fine with that. But it wants readers to think Bowman’s loss was about “voters reject[ing] his antagonistic progressive politics,” and the so-called guardians of democracy in the rest of the free press fell in line behind the Journal.
Dana Milbank’s evidence (Washington Post, 6/25/24) of Jamaal Bowman’s “bigotry” included doubting dubious reports of mass rape on October 7 and criticizing apartheid in Israel—as leading human rights groups do.
The Atlantic (6/25/24) said Bowman “veered too far left.” Lloyd Green at the Daily News (6/27/24) said Bowman’s defeat was “a stinging rejection of left-wing politics and a reaffirmation of suburban centrism.”
Then there’s Dana Milbank of the Washington Post (6/25/24), who all but ignored the outside spending and equated Bowman with former president Donald Trump under the headline, “Jamaal Bowman Was a Democratic Trump. Now He’s Gone.” Milbank wrote that both politicians were “scoundrels” and “extremists,” with “a history of bigotry, bullying, law-breaking, promoting bogus conspiracy theories, engaging in obscene public rants and playing the martyr.”
The impulse to brand anyone on the socialist left as a mirror image of Trump is both superficial and dangerous (FAIR.org, 1/24/20). Milbank’s parallels are either trivial—both men use swear words in public!—or anything but equivalent. For instance, Milbank likened Bowman’s misdemeanor guilty plea, for pulling a fire alarm, to Trump’s 34-count felony conviction, which is truly grasping at straws. (Will we next hear about Bowman’s parking tickets?) As for bullying, Bowman shouting “freaking cowards!” at Republican politicians is not in the same ballpark as evoking Hitler by calling your enemies “vermin,” or being found guilty of rape in court. Trump isn’t an outlier in US politics because he curses on camera, but because he is actively and openly seeking to undo basic democratic guardrails (MSNBC, 2/29/24).
For New York Times columnist Pamela Paul (6/25/24), if you’re critical of AIPAC dumping more than $14 million into a House primary race, you must hate “the Jews.”
At the New York Times, columnist Pamela Paul (6/25/24) dismissed criticism of the infusion of Israel lobby cash as little more than antisemitism:
We’ve heard plenty about the outsize funding for Latimer, particularly from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group. The question said aloud by Bowman supporters has been, “Why so much money from a foreign government for a local congressional candidate?” The unspoken question has been, “Why are the Jews funding this candidate?”
First, this blithely waves away the problem that monied organizations can simply buy an election, whether it’s AIPAC or any other lobby. But Paul (no relation) also invokes the antisemitic trope that the Israel lobby equals “the Jews,” when many Jews are critics of Israel and many non-Jews are a critical part of the Zionist coalition. Bowman had many Jewish supporters, including Bernie Sanders and the left-wing organization Jewish Vote (JFREJ, 1/24/24). Does that mean “the Jews” supported Bowman?
This is a continuation of a bad trend from a previous news piece (New York Times, 6/20/24) about AIPAC spending on the race, where reporter Nicholas Fandos wrote that Bowman had “prais[ed] a writer many Jews consider an antisemite.”
The writer in question—unnamed by Fandos—was Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish scholar and outspoken critic of Israel, whose father survived Auschwitz and whose mother escaped the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. “Apart from his parents, every member of Finkelstein’s family, on both sides, was exterminated in the Nazi Holocaust,” openDemocracy (5/3/16) noted. It is already journalistic malpractice to denounce criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitism, but it’s an extra twist of the knife to shove this insult onto Jewish victims of antisemitic terror.
Paul also said that Bowman “voted against Biden’s infrastructure bill, one of the administration’s key bipartisan successes and fundamental to Biden’s re-election.” It’s a claim that was central to Latimer’s campaign (Slate, 6/24/24), but it’s also egregiously misleading, suggesting Bowman sided with the Republicans and against both Biden and the public interest.
In fact, Bowman and several other members of the Squad voted against the bill in an effort to stop Republicans and conservative Democrats from decoupling it from Biden’s original, more robust, Build Back Better plan that included social spending on things like childcare, paid family leave and healthcare (Spectrum News NY1, 11/9/21; see FAIR.org, 10/6/21). The progressives failed, but their vote “against” Biden’s bill was a symbolic vote for his more ambitious plan.
The New York Times (6/25/24) called Bowman’s defeat “an excruciating blow for the left.”
In its news coverage, the New York Times (6/25/24) said:
The movement once held up Mr. Bowman’s upset win in a Democratic primary in 2020, just two years after Ms. [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez’s, as proof of the left’s ascent. Now, with the pendulum swinging back toward the party’s center, he is the first member of the House’s “squad” of young, left-wing lawmakers of color to lose a seat—and may not be the last.
To the centrist corporate media, the pendulum is always swinging toward the center (see FAIR.org, 7/16/21; Jacobin, 2/16/24). Indeed, in an analysis article the next day (“What Jamaal Bowman’s Loss Means for the Left,” 6/26/24), the Times subhead argued that “in 2024, the center is regaining power.”
The original published version of the article closed by noting that Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf, hardly a friend of the left, “suggested that moderates would be well advised not to view [Bowman’s] loss as a major setback for progressives, who have proven that they can win races.”
Perhaps editors realized Sheinkopf was undermining their preferred takeaway, as this quote was later removed from the story in the online version (though it can still be found at DNYUZ—6/26/24–and it is also archived). The revised piece now concludes by quoting two conservative Democrats, who unsurprisingly said that the “pendulum swing has come back a bit” toward the center and that “the Squad politics are on the way out, not the way in. There’s a swing from extremism to a more common-sense Democratic lane.”
The center-swinging pendulum assessment ignores not just the role of the record-breaking dark money spending for the centrist candidate. It also ignores the broader context of the New York primary races, in which most socialist and progressive incumbents handily protected their seats, and socialists even grew their presence at New York state level (City and State, 6/26/24; Albany Times-Union, 6/26/24). Once again, Bowman’s race seems more of a lesson in the effects of money in politics than it does of any sort of rejection of progressive politics—but don’t expect to see that takeaway in corporate media.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
A video of an American legislator yelling in outrage emerged in social media posts that claim it shows the lawmaker was angry about the recent passage of the Antisemitism Awareness Act by the U.S. House of Representatives.
But the claim is false. The video, taken from 2012 footage, shows the-Illinois House of Representatives member and current Illinois Republican congressman Mike Bost criticizing a reform plan for social security.
The video was shared on X by Chinese diplomat Zhang Heqing on June 8, 2024.
“It looks like he is angry,” Zhang said in the post.
The 44-second video shows a man dressed in a suit shouting in outrage at what appears to be a meeting of the U.S. House.
“The U.S. putting out this act about the Jews is a shameful disgrace,” a superimposed caption in Chinese reads.
The House passed a bipartisan bill, Antisemitism Awareness Act, on May 1 to combat antisemitism as pro-Palestinian protests roil colleges across the U.S.
The bill would mandate that the Education Department adopt the broad definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group, to enforce anti-discrimination laws.
The group defines antisemitism as a “certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”
It adds that “rhetorical and physical manifestations” of antisemitism include such things as calling for the killing or harming of Jews or holding Jews collectively responsible for actions taken by Israel.
The video had previously been shared by other Chinese influencers on social media platforms such as Douyin, Weibo and X.
Some online users commented that even “U.S. lawmakers have grown fed up with U.S. support of Israel and the Jewish community” citing the video.
But the claim is false.
Old video
A reverse image search found the video published in a report by the American broadcaster CBS on May 30, 2012.
“IL Rep. Mike Bost Is Furious Over Pension Reforms by Steve Lehocky on YouTube,” the caption of the video reads.
The report details the Democrat-led plan to overhaul the state pension system.
“A downstate lawmaker screamed, yelled and threw papers Tuesday, as he expressed frustration about the Democrat-led plan to overhaul the state pension system,” the report reads in part.
“One of those lawmakers is Rep. Mike Bost (R-Murphysboro), who launched into a tirade Tuesday as he complained about the amount of power Madigan wields.”
Bost on the Antisemitism Awareness Act
Bost did not speak at all during the near hour long House deliberation on the Antisemitism Awareness Act broadcast by CSPAN on May 1.
The act eventually passed the House by a vote of 320 in favor, 91 against and 18 abstentions, with Bost officially recorded as voting for the act.
While legislators from both parties openly opposed the bill, none of them expressed their disagreement in emotional language or exaggerated movements during the proceedings.
The act awaits approval by the Senate before it can be sent to the president to be signed into law.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Rita Cheng for Asia Fact Check Lab.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Shalhevet school head David Block (Boiling Point, 6/2/24): “If our community can’t handle something, I do have to consider that.”
The staff of the Boiling Point don’t consider themselves student journalists. They consider themselves journalists.
The official paper of Shalhevet, a prestigious orthodox Jewish day school in Los Angeles, is not a mere extra-curricular activity for the college-bound, but a living record of the larger community. And so the fact that the school is censoring the paper’s coverage of pro-Palestine viewpoints is an illustration of the nation’s current crisis of free speech and the free press as Israel’s slaughter in Gaza rages on.
The Boiling Point (6/2/24) reported that the school administration had censored an article about Muslim perspectives on Gaza because it quoted a teenager who “said Israel was committing genocide and that she did not believe Hamas had committed atrocities.” The paper said:
Head of school Rabbi David Block told faculty advisor Mrs. Joelle Keene to take down the story from all Boiling Point postings later that day.
It was the first time the administration had ordered the paper to remove an active story. The story is also not published in today’s print edition.
“Shalhevet’s principal ordered that the entire paper be taken out of circulation in what advisor Joelle Keene said was a striking change of pace,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (6/11/24) reported. She told the wire service, “There have been difficult stories and difficult moments and conflicts and that sort of thing. We’ve always been able to work them out.”
The administration’s justification for the censorship was twofold. The first reason for the censorship was that the pro-Palestine viewpoints were simply too hurtful for a community that was still in shock over the October 7 attacks against Israel by Hamas.
This is, to be quite blunt, demeaning to the students and the community. I was not much older than these students during the 9/11 attacks, but I spent that day and days after that at my student newspaper, the Michigan Daily. While our reporters piled into a car to drive to New York City, I joined my fellow editorial board members—Jews, Arabs and many others—in navigating a future of war, attacks on civil liberties and anti-Islamic hate.
And today, student journalists are no less important in this historical moment where students are standing up against the genocide in Gaza (USA Today, 5/2/24; AP, 5/2/24).
The Boiling Point is hardly pro-Hamas. As one of its editors, Tali Liebenthal, said in response to this point, it was indeed painful for the community to hear anti-Israel opinions, but “I don’t think that the Boiling Point has any responsibility to shield our readers from that pain.” The Shalhevet students, in the tradition of Jewish inquiry, do certainly appear able to explore the tough and difficult subjects of their moment.
But there’s a second, more banal reason for the censorship. Block told the Boiling Point, “My feeling is that this article would both give people the wrong impression about Shalhevet.” He added:
It would have very serious implications for whether they’re going to consider sending the next generation of people who should be Shalhevet students to Shalhevet.
Block is placing prospective parents’ sensitivities before truth and debate. He’s worried that families will see a quote in the paper they disagree with, decide the school is a Hamas hot house, and send their child for an education elsewhere. The suggestion is that the school’s enrollment numbers are more important, not just than freedom of the press, but than a central aspect of Jewishness: the pursuit of knowledge.
Would Block block articles exploring why ultra-religious Jews like Satmars (Shtetl, 11/22/23) and Neturei Karta (Haaretz, 3/27/24) oppose Zionism for theological reasons? We should hope a school for Jewish scholarship would be wise to value discussions of deep ideas over fear of offending potential enrollees.
Intercept (6/3/24): “After the editors [of the Columbia Law Review] declined a board of directors request to take down the articles, the board pulled the plug on the entire website.”
The Boiling Point affair is indicative of a larger problem with a censorship that exploits the term “antisemitism” and a sensitivity to Jewish suffering to silence anything remotely critical of Israel’s far-right government. Raz Segal, a Jewish Israeli scholar of genocide, had his position as director at the Center of Genocide and Holocaust students at the University of Minnesota rescinded (MPR, 6/11/24) because he wrote that Israel’s intentions for its campaign in Gaza were genocidal (Jewish Currents, 10/13/23). The board of directors of the Columbia Law Review briefly took down the journal’s website in response to an article (5/24) published about the Nakba, the expulsion of Palestinians—after the piece had already been spiked by the Harvard Law Review (Intercept, 6/3/24). The chair of the Jewish studies department at Dartmouth College was violently arrested during an anti-genocide protest (Jerusalem Post, 5/3/24).
The 92nd Street Y, a kind of secular Jewish temple of arts and culture in New York City, encountered massive staff resignations (NPR, 10/24/23) after it canceled a talk by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen because he had signed a letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza (London Review of Books, 10/18/23). The author of the American Jewish Committee’s definition of antisemitism admits that his work is being used to crush free speech (Guardian, 12/13/19; Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/27/24).
These are prominent institutions that are meant to be pillars of openness and discourse in a free society, yet that are perverting themselves in order not to offend donors, government officials and sycophantic newspaper columnists. And the victims of this kind of censorship are Jews and non-Jews alike.
From the highest universities down to high schools like Shalhevet, administrators are cloaking their worlds in darkness. The journalists at the Boiling Point are part of a resistance keeping free speech and expression alive in the United States.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
On the BBC‘s Politics North West show, the Labour Party’s shadow minister for international development Lisa Nandy said:
We make absolutely no apology for expelling antisemites from the Labour Party
She was talking to Jo Bird, the Green Party candidate for Birkenhead. Bird replied:
Are you calling me an antisemite?
Nandy did not clarify.
Bird is Jewish and Keir Starmer’s party expelled her in November 2021 for speaking at a Labour Against the Witchhunt (LAW) meeting in 2018.
LAW was founded in October 2017 to oppose the weaponisation of antisemitism against supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. Its sponsors include Jewish academic and author Noam Chomsky.
In 2018, research from the Media Reform Coalition found that mainstream media coverage of Labour and antisemitism to be a “disinformation paradigm”.
Bird is one of many Jewish people to face expulsion for supporting left-wing groups that Starmer arbitrarily banned. Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) has found that the party is almost 13 times more likely to expel a Jewish person for backing a proscribed group than other members.
JVL also said that Labour is six times more likely to investigate Jewish members for antisemitism than other members. In a letter JVL sent to Labour’s general secretary, the group wrote:
We invite you to acknowledge that the Party is in breach of the Equality Act 2010 by discriminating unlawfully against its Jewish members and unlawfully harassing them
When Labour expelled Bird in November 2021, she condemned the “retrospective punishment” because Starmer didn’t ban the group until July 2021. Many people faced similar treatment. Martin Forde KC, who investigated racism in Labour, said:
It just seemed to us to be concerning that if you’d attended such a meeting or expressed support in social media prior to the organisation being proscribed, that your historical interaction could be used as a current basis for expulsion.
On the BBC, Lisa Nandy also claimed:
I have stood up for the Palestinian cause for over a decade
But in October 2023, Victoria Derbyshire questioned Nandy on Israel cutting off electricity and water supplies for Palestinian people in Gaza. Nandy said that “Israel has the right to self defence”. She then said it’s a “very complex, difficult situation”.
International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan stated Israel cutting off water and electricity is a war crime.
In Khan’s statement requesting arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, he said the intensified siege was part of the “collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza”.
So it’s clear Nandy’s apparent weaponisation of antisemitism is to divert attention from her support of war crimes. We must end UK complicity in the genocide.
Featured image via Liverpool Riverside Left – X
By James Wright
This post was originally published on Canary.
Across corporate media, journalists and pundits introduced conspiracy theories to discredit the pro-Palestine student protest movement, particularly that they are funded by foreign countries or “outside agitators.”
Joe Scarborough and Hillary Clinton on MSNBC‘s Morning Joe (5/9/24) to talk about “misinformation,” agreeing that student protesters are “extremists…funded by Qatar.”
MSNBC‘s Joe Scarborough (5/9/24) went on a rant about the college students who have been staging the protests, suggesting to guest Hillary Clinton that they were influenced by China or Qatar:
I’m going to talk about radicalism on college campuses. The sort of radicalism that has mainstream students getting propaganda, whether it’s from their professors or whether it’s from Communist Chinese government through TikTok, calling the president of the United States “Genocide Joe.” Calling you and President Clinton war criminals.
Eventually, he called the students “extremists—I’m sorry—funded by Qatar.”
Clinton responded: “You raised things that need to be vented about.”
Scarborough’s claim that Qatar funds the students likely comes from a Jerusalem Post article (4/30/24), which called the protests “despicable.” The story reported, “Qatar has invested $5.6 billion in 81 American universities since 2007, including the most prestigious ones: Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Stanford.” Of course, funding universities is not the same as funding student protests; the university administrations that actually received the Qatari funding have often been quite hostile to the protesters.
Nancy Pelosi, interviewed by Dana Bash on CNN (1/28/24), accused protesters of being “connected to Russia” because “to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message.”
House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) suggested on CNN’s State of the Union (1/28/24) that Russia has played a role in the protests:
And what we have to do is try to stop the suffering and gossip….. But for them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message…. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some I think are connected to Russia.
CNN’s Dana Bash asked, “you think some of these protests are Russian plants?” Pelosi responded: “I don’t think they’re plants; I think some financing should be investigated.”
Like MSNBC, Fox News (5/2/24) has also pushed the narrative suggesting that China is behind the protests: “China may be playing a significant role in the anti-Israel protests by using TikTok to foment division on college campuses,” Alicia Warren wrote.
Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the far-right, anti-Muslim Gatestone Institute, told Fox that “China is using the curation algorithm of TikTok to instigate protests.”
The presence of pro-Palestinian advocacy on TikTok has been cited by lawmakers as a justification for censoring the social media platform (FAIR.org, 5/8/24). But the messages on TikTok, which is popular among younger people, may simply reflect public opinion among that demographic. According to the Pew Research Center, “Younger adults are much less supportive of the US providing military aid to Israel than are older people.”
In a story headlined, “Campus Protests Give Russia, China and Iran Fuel to Exploit US Divide,” the New York Times (5/2/24) described “overt and covert efforts by the countries to amplify the protests.” The story included some speculation about foreign influence: “There is little evidence—at least so far—that the countries have provided material or organizational support to the protests,” Steven Lee Myers and Tiffany Hsu wrote. If there was any evidence, they did not present it.
The journalists blamed the protests for having “allowed” these “foreign influence campaigns…to shift their propaganda to focus on the Biden administration’s strong support for Israel.”
ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt on CNN (4/29/24): “There’s no rule that says the school needs to tolerate students or, again, outside activists dressing like they’re in Al Qaeda.”
Beyond foreign influence, another conspiracy theory pushed by corporate media about student protesters is that they are influenced by “outside agitators.” While people who are not students have joined the protests, the term has long been used to delegitimize movements and portray them as led by nefarious actors.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams was an early source of this claim, announcing at a press conference (4/30/24) that Columbia students have “been co-opted by professional outside agitators.” He made a similar statement in mid-April as well (4/21/24).
On MSNBC (5/1/24), NYPD deputy police commissioner Kaz Daughtry defended the claim, holding up a bicycle lock with a substantial metal chain that police had found at Columbia. “This is not what students bring to school,” he said. In fact, Columbia sells the bike lock at a discount to students (FAIR.org, 5/9/24).
CNN‘s Anderson Cooper (4/29/24) asked the Anti Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt about the outside agitators, “How many of them are actually students?” “A lot of them are not students,” Greenblatt replied, adding unironically: “You can’t even tell who’s an outside agitator and who’s an actual student.”
CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod tweeted (4/30/24): “It will be interesting to learn how many of those arrested in Hamilton Hall at Columbia are actually students.”
“I really believe they are brainwashed,” Donald Trump (Fox News, 4/30/24) said of student protesters.
Former president Donald Trump made a similar claim on Fox (4/30/24). “I really think you have a lot of paid agitators, professional agitators in here too, and I see it all over. And you know, when you see signs and they’re all identical, that means they’re being paid by a source,” he told Fox host Sean Hannity. He continued: “These are all signs that are identical. They’re made by the same printer.”
It’s worth noting that a political movement is not like an intercollegiate athletic competition, where it’s cheating for non-students to play on a college team; it’s not illegitimate for members of the broader community to join an on-campus protest, any more than it’s unethical for students to take part in demonstrations in their neighborhoods.
“If you’re a protester who’s planned it, you want all outsiders to join you,” Justin Hansford of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center told PolitiFact (5/6/24). “That’s why this is such a silly concept.”
That didn’t stop the New York Post (5/7/24) from publishing an op-ed by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey headlined “Pursue Anti-Israel ‘Outside Agitators’ Disrupting Colleges—and End the Nonsense for Good.” McCaughey wrote, “Ray Kelly, former NYPD commissioner, nailed it Sunday when he said the nationwide turmoil ‘looks like a conspiracy.’” It looks like a conspiracy theory, anyway.
NYPD deputy police commissioner Kaz Daughtry (Fox 5 New York, 4/23/24): “Look at the tents. They all were the same color. They all were the same type of tents.”
One key piece of evidence offered for the “outside agitators” claim was the uniformity of many of the encampments’ tents. When Fox 5 New York (4/23/24) invited two NYPD representatives to discuss the protests, NYPD’s Daughtry said: “Look at the tents. They all were the same color. They all were the same type of tents.” He continued: “To me, I think somebody’s funding this. Also, there are professional agitators in there that are just looking for something to be agitated about, which are the protests.”
“Somebody’s behind this, and we’re going to find out who it is,” Daughtry said.
That students might be observing the world and their role in it, and acting accordingly, was not considered.
Newsweek (4/23/24) quoted Daughtry’s claim with no rebuttal or attempt to evaluate its veracity, under the headline, “Police Investigating People ‘Behind’ Pro-Palestinian Protests.” Fox News anchor Bret Baier (4/23/24) also cited the tents as a smoking gun: “We do see, it is pretty organized. The tents all look the same. And it’s expanding.”
The problem with this conspiracy theory is that the look-alike tents at most encampments were not expensive at all. As HellGateNYC (4/24/24) pointed out, the two-person tents seen at Columbia cost $28 on Amazon (where they’re the first listing that comes up when you search “cheap camping tent”), and the ones at NYU were even cheaper, at $15. While many Columbia students receive financial aid, the basic cost of tuition, fees, room and board at the school is $85,000 a year. What’s another $15?
Fox News (4/26/24): “Progressive anti-Israel agitators across the country…are associated with groups tied to far-left groups with radical associations backed by dark money and liberal mega-donor George Soros.”
And finally, some news outlets alleged that the student protesters are funded by financier George Soros. For example, Fox (4/26/24) reported that a group that funds National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) received a donation from an unnamed nonprofit that is funded by Soros. Fox was apparently referring to the Tides Foundation, a philanthropy that Soros has given money to; Tides gave $132,000 to WESPAC, a Westchester, N.Y., peace group that serves as a financial sponsor to NSJP in Palestine (PolitiFact, 5/2/24; Washington Post, 4/26/24). In standard conspiratorial reasoning, this three-times-removed connection means that, as Fox put it, protests attended by SJP members are “backed by dark money and liberal mega-donor George Soros.”
The New York Post (4/26/24) published a similar piece, headlined “George Soros Is Paying Student Radicals Who Are Fueling Nationwide Explosion of Israel-Hating Protests.”
On NewsNation (5/1/24), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also suggested Soros may be connected, saying that the FBI should investigate:
I think the FBI needs to be all over this. I think they need to look at the root causes and find out if some of this was funded by—I don’t know—George Soros or overseas entities. There’s sort of a common theme and a common strategy that seems to be pursued on many of these campuses.
“It looked pretty orchestrated to me,” NewsNation host Blake Burman agreed.
Soros is a billionaire philanthropist who survived the Holocaust. He has come to represent an antisemitic trope among right wingers of a puppet master controlling events behind the scenes (see FAIR.org, 3/7/22). To put it simply, these supposedly antisemitic protesters are now on the receiving end of antisemitism.
Featured image: New York Post graphic (4/26/24) alleging that Jewish billionaire George Soros is bankrolling “Israel hate camps.”
This post was originally published on FAIR.
On Thursday 6 June, Taj Ali broke the news on X that the Labour Party is discontinuing its legal claims against Jeremy Corbyn’s ex-staffers.
In April 2020, a document was leaked which exposed thousands of racist messages, emails, and internal documents. It also revealed how right-wing senior staffers ran a coup against Corbyn, the leader of the party at the time. Party officials then silenced, excluded, and expelled its own left-wing members in an attempt to undermine Corbyn’s attempt at becoming prime minister.
As the Canary’s Ed Sykes wrote back in 2020, the report was:
a particularly significant revelation in light of the years-long smear campaign which sought to convince British voters that Corbyn and his supporters were somehow raving antisemites.
Nine people then started legal action against Labour, claiming they had breached their data after reporting antisemitism.
Labour didn’t want to take responsibility or presumably pay damages. So, they named five ex-Corbyn staffers who had put the report together. In September last year, the nine dropped the legal case. However, Labour did not drop its case, perhaps aiming to get back some of the costs:
It is hard to sum up the Labour Party’s hierarchy of racism better than paying out cash to some racism whistleblowers, while wasting £1.4M trying to identify and sue people who you suspect blew the whistle about a different kind of racism https://t.co/GWcVeb2vfp pic.twitter.com/JUKPuZOHKI
— Peter MᶜNamara (@Zedcalmo) June 6, 2024
All five had condemned the leaking of the report. Funnily enough, three separate reports took place to try and find the person responsible, but no one was able.
Finally on 6 June, Labour dropped the legal case:
NEW: Labour is discontinuing its legal claims against Corbyn’s ex-staffers.
The Party had accused them of leaking a controversial document exposing racist messages and factional hostility to the previous leadership.
By October, the party’s legal pursuit had cost almost £1.4m.
— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) June 6, 2024
According to reports from the BBC, the party had already spent £1.5m by October last year, and planned to spend nearly £900k more.
Since the election was announced, the Labour Party has been desperately emailing members and ex-members, begging for general election donations. Anyone would think it was strapped for cash:
The pre tv debate fundraising drive didn’t go so well pic.twitter.com/lug1M68vxU
— Patricia
Labour Party is sending begging letters to members every day desperate for money for the General Election.
A party that prioritises spending on factional and spiteful bullying.
Don’t vote Labour. https://t.co/qYuXVkBiv4
— Juliet Brown
So far on the campaign trail, Starmer wants us to believe we should trust him more than Sunak with our money. Should we be taking this legal case as an example of what is to come?
The Labour Party: we can be trusted with the country’s finances.
Also the Labour Party: https://t.co/xywtlRT4mp
— Everton are a social experiment (@fertile_shire) June 6, 2024
Members and ex-members are understandably angry at the apparent misuse of membership fees. Other people pointed out how Labour could have used that money on the campaign trail. It could have benefitted candidates such as Faiza Shaheen or Diane Abbott.
Recently, Labour has made it obvious that it isn’t the party for minorities. That is ironic when in the background they were still battling the fallout of the leak which exposed thousands of racist messages. Some of which staffers had aimed at Diane Abbott:
As an ex-party member can I sue Labour for misuse of my (& every other party members) subs?
— Agggghhhhh….
(@catkibb) June 6, 2024
1.4 mln spent on bogus charges – imagine those money being used to support Diane Abbott and Faiza Shaheen on campaign trail. But no. https://t.co/mEcF8299yF
— Malicia Dabrowicz (Vanadian Avenue) (@cocamidemea) June 6, 2024
Using the machinery of a large organisation to go after your factional rivals who exposed the toxic racism and bullying at heart of labour is fascistic and authoritarian aswell as an abuse of power and members funds.
This what they’ll continue to do in govt you’ve been warned https://t.co/Sa2bCEFENe
— free parking (@smerkinkones) June 6, 2024
Labour has consistently weaponised racism against Abbott and other potential election candidates. It is clear that Starmer – supposedly one of our leading legal minds – only follows up on racism allegations when those on the political right stand to benefit from it.
The whole legal case was a colossal waste of time. It clearly hasn’t addressed racism within the party and if anything, has only served to cement it. Moreover, it was clearly an attempt to the Labour right to further smear Corbyn and his team’s legacy.
But it seems that now an election is around the corner, Labour wanted to bury this hatchet. Had it not gone the party’s way, it really could have really messed up its chances.
Feature image via Jeremy Corbyn/Wikimedia
By HG
This post was originally published on Canary.
As U.S. House Republicans held yet another hearing about antisemitism and higher education on Thursday, Jewish students and advocacy groups aimed to set the record straight on the threats they face and the largely peaceful protests against genocide. “This hearing has nothing to do with keeping Jewish students on campus safe, and is solely designed as part of a broader campaign to silence anti-war…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
After pro-Israel billionaires and millionaires met with Eric Adams, one attendee summarized “items ‘discussed today,’ including donating to Adams, using group members’ ‘leverage’ to help persuade Columbia’s president to let New York police back on campus, and paying for ‘investigative efforts’ to assist the city.” (Washington Post, 5/16/24)
An exposé by the Washington Post (5/16/24) showed the degree to which wealthy pro-Israel businesspeople coordinated with each other to pressure New York City Mayor Eric Adams to take drastic action against college campus protests against the genocide of Palestinians.
It’s a remarkable piece of reporting, by Hannah Natanson and Emmanuel Felton, that points to a pervasive problem in American politics: that the wealthy enjoy outsized influence with the political class, while the rest of us drift in the wind.
The story is based on transcripts of a WhatsApp groupchat called “Israel Current Events,” whose participants included “billionaires and business titans.” One message by a billionaire’s staffer “told the others the goal of the group was to ‘change the narrative’ in favor of Israel,” the Post reported. A person identified only as “a staffer” told the group, “While Israel worked to ‘win the physical war,’ the chat group’s members would ‘help win the war’ of US public opinion by funding an information campaign against Hamas.”
The article reported that the chats revealed collaboration with Adams:
“He’s open to any ideas we have,” chat member [Joseph] Sitt, founder of the retail chain Ashley Stewart and the global real estate company Thor Equities, wrote April 27, the day after the group’s Zoom call with Adams. “As you saw he’s OK if we hire private investigators to then have his police force intel team work with them.”
The piece revealed that groupchat members, aware that “Columbia had to grant Adams permission before he could send city police to the campus,” strategized about how to apply the group’s “leverage” to Columbia president Minouche Shafik, including contacting the university’s board of trustees.
The New York Post (5/17/24)—which regularly accuses George Soros of being the puppet master behind all progressive causes—attacked the Washington Post: “Intimating that a mainly Jewish bunch of wealthy power-players were quietly pulling a politician’s strings is a classic trope of Jew-hate.”
Needless to say, City Hall wasn’t too happy about the piece. One of the mayor’s deputies, Fabien Levy, quickly responded on Twitter (5/16/24) that “the insinuation that Jewish donors secretly plotted to influence government operations is an all-too-familiar antisemitic trope.”
His multi-post thread concluded:
@WashingtonPost & others can make editorial decisions to disagree with the decisions by universities to ask the NYPD to clear unlawful encampments on campuses, but saying Jews “wielded their money and power in an effort to shape American views” is offensive on so many levels.
The Washington Post, of course, did not report that “Jews” had “wielded their money and power”—but that “some prominent individuals” had, distinguished not by religion or ethnicity, but by their politics.
The mayor himself called the story “antisemitic in its core” (Good Day New York, 5/20/24) and doubled down on this point when speaking to reporters (New York Post, 5/21/24). The Anti-Defamation League (Twitter, 5/20/24) said that the Washington Post should be
ashamed of publishing an article that unabashedly (and almost entirely on anonymous sources) plays into antisemitic tropes by inferring a secret cabal of Jews is using wealth & power to influence governments, the media, the business world & academia.
The Adams administration’s effort to redirect scrutiny away from the latest credible charge of coziness with wealthy donors found a friendly audience in right-wing media. Fox News (5/17/24) gave Levy’s claims headline status, and the New York Post editorial board (5/17/24) said that the Adams administration “smells a whiff of antisemitism in the WaPo report,” because “intimating that a mainly Jewish bunch of wealthy power-players were quietly pulling a politician’s strings is a classic trope of Jew-hate.”
Yes, that’s the same New York Post that obsessively ties every political cause to the left of Emperor Palpatine to the Jewish philanthropist George Soros (e.g., 8/1/22, 1/22/23, 1/25/23, 7/24/23, 12/9/23, 4/26/24, 4/26/24). It is also interesting to note that two Rupert Murdoch outlets, thought to be Republican stalwarts, are once again acting as in-kind public relations agents for a Democratic mayor, a testament to Adams’ right-wing agenda—the New York Post endorsed him (5/20/21) and continues to cheerlead for him (1/27/24) as he approaches the end of his first term. For the Murdoch empire, politics (including shielding Israel) sometimes comes before party.
ABC (4/24/24) reported that at Passover Seders celebrated in campus antiwar encampments, “some set aside an empty seat at the Seder table for hostages abducted from Israel on October 7, when Hamas launched a surprise terror attack. Others put an olive on the Seder plate to recognize solidarity with Palestinians.”
The accusation that the student protest movement against the genocide of Palestinians is “antisemitic” has become more and more tired. Many Jews are mobilizing in these protests (ABC, 4/24/24). As a result, many Jewish protesters face state violence (Al Jazeera, 5/3/24) and censorship (FAIR.org, 12/15/23) for speaking out against the Israeli military. Yet the Adams administration, Fox and the New York Post continue to hurl the insult, this time at the Washington Post, signaling that they have no more honest way to defend the behavior exposed by the Post.
It would be just as ridiculous to claim that Jeff Sharlet’s reporting (Washington Post, 8/16/19) on the influence of Christian lobbying in Washington is anti-Christian, or investigations into the millions of dollars Saudi Arabia spends in the US to sanitize its image (Guardian, 12/22/22) are anti-Muslim. Federal investigators are probing Adams’ financial relationship with Turkey (Politico, 12/22/23; New York Times, 5/20/24), and there’s been no serious discourse that the scrutiny is somehow anti-Muslim. Is reporting on the growing influence of the Indian BJP and the Indian nationalist government in Washington (Intercept, 3/16/20; Jacobin, 3/4/23) anti-Hindu?
When we talk about the Israel lobby, we don’t even necessarily mean Jewish advocates; that lobby consists heavily of right-wing evangelical Christians (Jerusalem Post, 1/27/24). Ken Griffin, the hedge fund billionaire who announced he wouldn’t hire Harvard grads who signed a letter critical of Israel (New York Post, 10/16/23), is Presbyterian. The arms industry supports Israel as well, strictly from the profit potential of protracted violence in the Middle East (Reuters, 10/16/23).
Establishment attacks on outlets that expose corruption are evidence of good journalism (FAIR.org, 6/17/21, 1/12/24, 2/2/24). Such attacks are meant to stifle the press, and keep them from being a check on power. In this case, they are meant to shut down dissent against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
False charges of antisemitism have been an effective tool for the right in the past (FAIR.org, 8/26/20). The good news is that this may be starting to change.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
Over seven months since the start of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, Israel’s defenders are increasingly desperate to delegitimize the growing movement for justice in Palestine, especially on college campuses. When anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jews are targeted by their rhetoric, we often notice something surprising — much of the slander directed at us is deeply antisemitic. MAGA politicians…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
As Israel embarked on the first steps of its long-promised invasion of Rafah, Biden delivered a chilling speech scapegoating Hamas militants and pro-Palestine protesters for antisemitism in the U.S. on Tuesday, vowing a crackdown on demonstrators seeking to end Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. During remarks at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Gaza solidarity protests continue at college campuses across the nation — as does the police crackdown. This comes as more than 50 chapters of the American Association of University Professors have issued a statement condemning the violent arrests by police at campus protests. At Dartmouth College last week, police body-slammed professor and former chair of Jewish studies Annelise Orleck to the…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Shaima Dallali, ousted as NUS president in 2022, said to have accepted ‘substantial’ settlement before tribunal
A former president of the National Union of Students is said to have accepted a “substantial” settlement to end her legal action against the union following her dismissal over allegations of antisemitism.
Shaima Dallali was ousted as NUS UK president in November 2022 after an investigation claimed she had made “significant breaches” of the union’s antisemitism policies. But shortly before Dallali’s legal challenge was to be heard by an employment tribunal, the NUS and Dallali’s lawyers said a settlement had been agreed.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Gaza solidarity protests continue at college campuses across the nation — as does the police crackdown. This comes as more than 50 chapters of the American Association of University Professors have issued a statement condemning the violent arrests by police at campus protests. At Dartmouth College last week, police body-slammed professor and former chair of Jewish studies Annelise Orleck to the ground as she tried to protect her students. She was charged with criminal trespass and temporarily banned from portions of Dartmouth’s campus. She joins us to describe her ordeal and respond to claims conflating the protests’ anti-Zionist message with antisemitism. “People have to be able to talk about Palestine without being attacked by police,” says Orleck, who commends the students leading protests around the country. “Their bravery is tremendous and is inspiring. And they really feel like this is the moral issue of their time, that there’s a genocide going on and that they can’t ignore it.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
In a satirical Instagram post, musical theater composer Daniel Maté lamented that Jewish dissenters’ efforts to “increase antisemitism” by denouncing Israel’s abuses of Palestinians were “not really working.” Rather, he joked, they were sparking favorable impressions of Jews from the broader pro-Palestine solidarity movement. He then facetiously suggested a new tactic — to find Jewish billionaires…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve legislation directing the U.S. Department of Education to consider a dubious definition of antisemitism, despite warnings from Jewish-led groups that the measure speciously conflates legitimate criticism of the Israeli government with bigotry against Jewish people. House members approved the Antisemitism Awareness Act — bipartisan…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Janine Jackson interviewed Sam, representative from National Students for Justice in Palestine, for the April 26, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: There is a long and growing list of US college campuses where encampments and other forms of protests are going on, in efforts to get college administrations to divest their deep and powerful resources from weapons manufacturers, and other ways and means of enabling Israel’s war on Palestinians, assaults that have killed some 34,000 people just since the Hamas attack of October 7.
One key group on campuses has been SJP, Students for Justice in Palestine. It’s not a new, hastily formed group; they’ve been around and on the ground for decades.
We’re joined now by Sam, a representative of National Students for Justice in Palestine. Welcome to CounterSpin.
Sam: Thank you for having me.
Middle East Eye (4/8/24)
JJ: I can only imagine what a time this is for you, but certainly a time when the need for your group is crystal clear. Individuals who want to speak up about the genocide in Palestine are helped by the knowledge that there are other people with them, behind them, but also that there are organizations that exist to support them and their right to speak out. I wonder, is that maybe especially true for students, whose rights exist on paper, but are not always acknowledged in reality?
S: Yes and no. I think a lot of people definitely want to support students, because what we’re doing is very visible, and also I think people are more willing to assume good faith from 20-year-olds. At the same time, also, free speech on college campuses, especially private campuses, the First Amendment doesn’t apply. So if you’re on a campus, that means that it is sometimes harder to speak out, especially because we’re seeing students getting suspended, and when they get suspended, they get banned from campus, they get evicted from their student housing, sometimes they lose access to healthcare. And, basically, the schools control a lot more of students’ lives than any institution does for adults in the workforce, for example.
JJ: Right. So what are you doing day to day? You’re at National SJP, and folks should know that there are hundreds of entities on campuses, but what are you doing? How do you see your job right now?
S: SJP is a network of chapters that work together. It’s not like they’re branches, where we are giving them orders; they have full autonomy to do what they want within this network.
So what we’re doing is what we’ve been trying to do for our entire existence, which is act as a hub, act as a resource center, provide resources to students, connect them with each other, offer advice, offer financial support when we can. One thing we’re really trying to do is pull everything together, basically present a consistent narrative to the public around this movement.
New York Times (4/29/24)
JJ: Speaking of narrative, the claim that anyone voicing anti-genocide or pro-Palestinian ideas is antisemitic is apparently convincing for some people whose view of the world comes through the TV or the newspaper. But it’s an idea that is blown apart by any visit to a student protest. It’s just not a true thing to say. And I wonder what you would say about narratives. It’s obviously about work, supporting people, but on the narrative space, what are you trying to shift?
S: I mean, I’m Jewish. I’m fairly observant. I was at a Seder last night. When people say the pro-Palestinian movement is antisemitic, they’re lying. I’m just flat-out saying I think a lot of people, on some level, know that this isn’t about Jews. This isn’t about Judaism. It’s about the fact that Israel is committing a genocide in our people’s name. And if you support it, that is going to lead people to make a bunch of bad inferences about you, because you’re vocally supporting a genocide.
This weaponization is meant to shift focus away from Gaza, away from Palestine, the people who are being massacred, the people whose bodies they found in a mass grave at a hospital yesterday. The point is to distract from the fact that there is no moral case to defend what Israel was doing. So the only thing that Zionists have going for them is just smears, attacking the movement, tone-policing, demanding we take stances that they’re never asked to take. No one ever asks pro-Israel protestors, “Do you condemn the Israeli government,” because Israel is seen as a legitimate entity.
First of all, I want to clarify, this is about Palestine. I don’t want to get too far into talking about how the genocide, the Zionist backlash to the movement, affects me as a Jewish person, because I have a roof over my head. There’s not going to be a bomb dropping into my home.
The narrative that we’re really trying to put out is this, what we’re calling the Popular University for Gaza, and it’s an overarching campaign narrative over this. Basically, the idea is that everything that’s happening is laying bare the fact that universities do not care about their students, or their staff, or their faculty, who are the people who make the university a university, and not just an investment firm. They care about their investments and profit and their reputation and, essentially, managing social change.
Columbia University Press Blog (2/27/19)
So what we’re doing is, as students, making encampments, taking up space on their campuses. And a crucial part of these encampments is the programming in them. It’s drawing on the traditions of Freedom Schools in the ’60s and in the South, and also the Popular University for Palestine, which was a movement, I think it’s still ongoing, in Palestine, basically educators teaching for liberation, teaching about the history of Palestinian figures, about resistance, about colonialism.
But the idea is that students are inserting themselves, forcibly disrupting the university’s normal business; and threatening the university’s reputation is a big part of it, and just rejecting their legitimacy, establishing the Popular University for teaching, where scholarship is done for the benefit of the people, not for preserving hegemony.
With this whole thing, we’re trying to emphasize, basically, that our universities, they have built all these reputations and all these super great things about them, but they don’t care about the people in them. So we’re going to take the structures that make up them, which are the people within them, and essentially turn them toward liberation, and against imperialism, against the ruling class.
Reuters (4/29/24)
JJ: Well, thank you very much. I want to say it’s very refreshing, and refreshing is not enough. A lot of folks are drawing inspiration from hearing people say, “The New York Times is saying I’m antisemitic. Maybe I should shut up, you know? Media are saying I’m disruptive. Oh, maybe I should quiet down.” I don’t see any evidence of shutting up or quieting down, despite, really, the full narrative power, along with other kinds of power, being brought against protesters. It doesn’t seem to be shutting people up.
S: No, because that’s the thing, is students have had enough, students are perfectly willing now to risk suspension, risk expulsion, because they know that, essentially, the university’s prestige has been shattered. Even me, I’m currently in school, I’m a grad student. I’ve realized, so far I’ve been OK, but even if I did get expelled, or forced to drop out of my program, that’s a risk I’m willing to take. That’s a tiny sacrifice compared to what people in Palestine are going through. We are willing to sacrifice our futures in a system that increasingly doesn’t give us a future anyway. I think that’s another big part of it, is the feeling that, basically, even if you get a degree, you’re still going to be living precariously for a decade.
And another thing is, also, that today’s college seniors graduated from high school in the spring of 2020. They never really had a normal college experience. Their freshman year was online, so they never developed the bonds with that university, traditional attachment to the university. And also, the universities, the way they handled Covid generally has been terrible, and just seeing them completely disregard their students during the pandemic, I think, has really radicalized a lot of students. Basically, they’re willing to defy the institution.
This is first and foremost about Gaza. It’s about the genocide, it’s about Palestine. It’s not about standing with Columbia students. They have repeatedly asked: Don’t center them; center Gaza. And, basically, we reject the university system as the arbiter of our futures, the arbiter of right and wrong. And we’re going to make our own learning spaces until they listen to us and stop investing our tuition dollars in genocide.
So yeah, free Palestine.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Sam from Students for Justice in Palestine, NationalSJP.org. Thank you so much, Sam, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
S: Yeah, thanks for having me.
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