After a year of corporate media bias, now the Times has shown its true colours with a front page which amounted to nothing more than racism and spin for Israel over its assault on Lebanon.
The Times: spinning for Israel
The headline stated:
Eight Israeli soldiers die in battle with Hezbollah
This comes after Israeli strikes on Lebanon which have killed over 1,400 people and displaced 900,000. That is 20% of the population. Conveniently, the Times failed to mention that part:
Astonishing front page
8 Israeli soldiers’ deaths is a headline, whilst an Israeli strike on a school for orphans in Gaza City and Israel’s recent killing of 1400 in Lebanon are ignored
As the Canary previously reported, Israel’s colonial government has consistently rejected or undermined peace efforts (as it has historically). This has only escalated the conflict further afield. It has assassinated people in the Iranian consulate in Syria, in Iran, and in Lebanon.
Whitewashing crimes in Lebanon
Over the last year, the corporate media – including the Times – have whitewashed Israel’s crimes against humanity. Proving once again, that western corporate media outlets do not value Palestinian – and now Lebanese – lives. In other words, brown (as with Black) lives don’t matter to the rancidly racist establishment propagandists for the capitalist, colonial status quo:
The main character in @farah_nabulsi‘s new film ‘The Teacher’ says one Israeli life seems to be worth 1,000 Palestinian lives in the eyes of the western world and media.
When we say Israel is a white supremacist project, this is what we mean. Their dead taking priority among a white middle class audience to be mourned https://t.co/8c1sP4pR6g
As the Canary has previously reported, western media outlets have continuously published coverage dripping in bias – and by extension, complicity in Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Palestine:
Simply astonishing. And people still have the temerity to say that the Western media are biased against Israel. https://t.co/KV57QFCZZM
Back in March, the New Arabconducted an analysis on UK mainstream media coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In particular, it looked at articles by the Times, the Telegraph, the Sun, and the Daily Mail. Notably, it identified that:
in their headlines, all four sources exhibit bias against Palestinians in the following three ways: uniquely deploying a vast amount of emotive language when describing Israeli suffering, amplifying Israeli justifications for violence, and qualifying Palestinian deaths.\
Echoing these findings, researchers at the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), an arm of the Muslim Council of Britain, produced a report on UK media coverage of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. This research looked more comprehensively at the UK press, assessing 28 outlets.
One noticeable feature of this coverage has been the use of imagery which has shown Israeli aggression or Palestinian suffering and headlines which have favoured an Israeli position or narrative. The dehumanisation of Palestinians in this respect starts with the minimisation of their suffering, effectively rendering them invisible despite the huge numbers of those killed whilst focusing solely on the deaths of Israelis.
The Times is sitting comfortably among a Zionist propaganda ecosystem – and they are culpable for Israel’s war crimes:
When eight Israeli soldiers die whilst literally in the middle of committing an act of war – invading a sovereign country – they get a whole front page.
Where’s the front page for the over 1,400 people Israel has murdered in Lebanon, so far?
Or the 42,334 Palestinians Israel have ethnically cleansed?
Every single media article that ignores those numbers in favour of reporting on the deaths of murderers, is responsible for the genocide continuing as long as it has:
In terms of grievability organised on entirely racist grounds this is a disgrace – an entirely predictable one, but still a disgrace. https://t.co/ZdRhY5sAbb
It’s like watching a reel of Reddit AITA rebranded, ‘Am I The Bad Guy’? If you’re ignoring an occupying state committing genocide and constant war crimes, then yes, you’re the ‘bad guy’:
When the media and politicians in your country are happy to accept a school of orphans as a legitimate military target but not soldiers invading another country, it’s hard to conclude anything but we are the evil empire. https://t.co/BDjajKQHjr
— HiCo, The Nun of the Above (@High_Command) October 3, 2024
It has been nearly a year of shitrags like the Times getting away with this unconscionably biased reporting on Israel’s beyond awful genocide. Yet, after it has murdered tens of thousands in plain sight – it continues to make itself out as the victim.
No matter how many times people point out its second-rate reporting, it’s never going to sink in for establishment mouthpieces like the Times. Because it has spent this time dehumanising Palestinians to such an extent, it’s genuinely believable that to them, Arab, brown, Muslim lives really don’t matter.
Unless of course, they’re rich dictators and ‘friends’ of the US, UK, and Western imperial project in the Middle East.
As Israel’s military escalates its attacks on Lebanon, it has continued its relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, where almost a year of war has now wiped 902 entire Palestinian families off the civil registry. There are another 1,300 families where only one family member has survived. The official death toll in Gaza has reached nearly 41,800, but that is believed to be a vast undercount. Gaza-based journalist Akram al-Satarri says one year into Israel’s war, the medical and humanitarian crisis remains unchanged. He describes some of the horrific injuries suffered by Palestinians, including many children, that have resulted in mass amputation of limbs, and says people are in a constant struggle for shelter and safety. “The suffering is continuous, and now the war in Lebanon is adding further burdens on the Palestinians and is giving more space for the Israeli forces to continue the bombardment in different areas,” says al-Satarri.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that Israeli forces killed dozens of health care workers over the course of just 24 hours in Lebanon, as Israel expands its tactic of targeting health care workers and facilities. Israeli forces killed 28 health care workers in Lebanon in just the past day, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press briefing on Thursday. So far…
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has charmed the political class across the United States with his folksy affect. Back in home in Minnesota, Walz’s constituents in liberal strongholds are wondering whether they can support his bid to serve as Kamala Harris’s vice president while Israel uses U.S. weapons to escalate a brutal war in the Middle East. Leaders of the large Muslim community in Minneapolis…
The Israeli military killed American citizen Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad in a bombing on Lebanon on Tuesday, in the latest instance of Israel killing an American amid its U.S.-sponsored massacres. Jawad hailed from Dearborn, Michigan, and was visiting his hometown of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon when he was killed by an Israeli airstrike, according to his family. Jawad was there taking care of his…
A deliberate, man-made famine is underway in Gaza, according to many human rights experts. Starving Gaza is a new documentary by Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines investigating how Israel has killed civilians seeking aid and attacked humanitarian networks. The harrowing film is based on the work of Palestinian reporters in Gaza who are suffering the same conditions as their subjects.
The leader of Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire proposal just hours before Israel assassinated him, a top Lebanese official has said. According to Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, Hezbollah head Hasan Nasrallah had informed Lebanese officials that the armed political group agreed to a ceasefire less than 24 hours before Israel targeted Nasrallah in a strike on a residential…
The student encampment movement last school year turned institutions of higher education into flashpoints of struggle over Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, US support for it, and the right to speak out against it. This year, college and university campuses have become laboratories of repression where different administrative efforts to silence Palestine solidarity and antiwar demonstrators are being deployed. And that is playing out right now at Cornell University.
As Aaron Fernando writes at The Nation, “Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, has taken disciplinary action against an international student that will likely force him to leave the country, and could have a chilling effect on other international students participating in political protests.
Momodou Taal is a PhD candidate in Africana studies and a graduate student worker, attending Cornell under the F-1 visa program. In the last academic year, Taal joined student-led actions demanding that Cornell divest from industries complicit in Israel’s attacks on civilians in Gaza.”
The Cornell grad worker union, Cornell Graduate Students United-UE, released a statement condemning the university’s disciplinary actions against Taal, and is demanding the administration bargain with the union “over the effects of the discipline administered to Taal.” “CGSU-UE condemns Taal’s suspension, which represents a disturbing pattern of discriminatory discipline against marginalized graduate workers. The union is still fighting for just cause protections in discipline and discharge, due process for academic evaluations, strong academic freedom, and nondiscrimination protections inclusive of political affiliation and action, religious practice, and caste.” In this urgent episode, Max speaks about Cornell’s actions against Taal with two members of the CGSU-UE bargaining committee: Jenna Marvin, a third-year PhD student in the History of Art & Visual Studies at Cornell; and Jawuanna McAllister, a sixth-year PhD candidate in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell.
Featured Music: Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Jawuanna McAllister:
Hi, my name’s Jawuanna. I’m a sixth year PhD candidate in molecular biology and genetics at Cornell. So I do a lot of stuff with cancer cells and I’m also a member of the C-G-S-U-U-E bargaining committee.
Jenna Marvin:
Hi, my name is Jenna Marvin. I am a third year PhD student in the department of the History of Art at Cornell University. I actually work on the history of American photography and like Joanna, I’m also a member of CGS U E’s bargaining committee.
Maximillian Alvarez:
All right, welcome everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership within in these Times magazine and the Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like You Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast network. If you’re hungry for more worker and labor focus shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network and please support the work that we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, your friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for folks you’d like us to talk to or subjects you’d like us to investigate and please support the work that we do at The Real News by going to the real news.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world.
My name is Maximillian Alvarez and we’ve got an urgent episode for y’all today. We are recording this on Tuesday, October 1st, and so I just want to say up top that circumstances may change by the time you hear this, but we are going to do our best to turn this episode around and get it published as soon as we can after we finish this recording. But today on Tuesday, October 1st, as we prepare to commemorate a year of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in the West Bank as Israel with the United States is full backing, drags the Middle East into an all-out war. The war here at home is ramping up on working people and people of conscience everywhere who are speaking out and taking action to try to stop the slaughter, or at least to pressure those in power to do so. Just as the student encampment movement last school year turned institutions of higher education into a flashpoint of struggle over Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, US support for it and the right to speak out against it, college and university campuses this year are at the bleeding edge of institutional efforts to silence and repress Gaza solidarity and anti-war demonstrators.
And that is playing out right now as we speak at Cornell University. As Aaron Fernando writes at the nation, and I’m going to quote this piece at length, quote, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York has taken disciplinary action against an international student that will likely force him to leave the country and could have a chilling effect on other international students participating in political protests. Mama Dal is a PhD candidate in Africana studies and a graduate student worker attending Cornell under the F1 Visa program. In the last academic year, Taal joins student-led actions demanding that Cornell divest from industries complicit in Israel’s attacks on civilians in Gaza. Cornell student activists were not alone in launching public demonstrations across their college encampments took hold across the country. In response, some universities called in police to clear, often forcefully pro-Palestinian student protestors. But Cornell took a different approach during a year when it ostensibly prioritized free expression.
The university created a new policy to crack down on these types of protest first issued on January 24th, 2024. The interim expressive activities, policy limits when amplified sound can be used, delineates which objects are prohibited at collective campus actions like candles and sticks and subjects, some protestors to increased disciplinary action. By the end of the spring semester, six Cornell students including TAL face suspension for their pro-Palestinian activities. I’m trying to fight this to at least have an investigation and due process said tal, I’m not asking for anything special. I’m asking for Cornell to follow their own procedure. The Cornell Graduate Student Union, which is attempting to help Tall said no investigation was conducted before the discipline of temporary suspension was issued to Mama de. The Union issued a press release on Tuesday explaining that it is demanding to bargain with Cornell over the effects of the suspension.
The union said last spring. Cornell University signed a memorandum of agreement or MOA with C-G-S-U-E or Cornell graduate students United ue that gives the union the right to bargain over the effects of discipline of graduate workers on their working conditions effective immediately pursuant to the M-O-A-C-G-U-E issued a demand to bargain with Cornell administration over the effects of the discipline administered to tall C-G-S-U-U-E condemns tall suspension, which represents a disturbing pattern of discriminatory discipline against marginalized graduate workers. The union is still fighting for just cause protections and discipline and discharge due process for academic evaluations, strong academic freedom and non-discrimination protections, inclusive of political affiliation and action, religious practice and caste. So that is a lot of the context that we wanted to sort of provide for you guys up top. And we will of course link to Aaron Fernando’s piece in the nation so you could read more about it.
And I wouldn’t have to burden our guests today with explaining the whole context here because as I said at the top time is of the essence. And we do want to focus the second half of this conversation on where things stand right now as we record at Cornell and what folks can do right now to help and get involved. And so Joanna and Jenna from the Cornell Graduate Students Union are here to join us and help us unpack this important story. And thank you both so much for taking time to do this. I really appreciate it and I promise that that’s the most that folks are going to hear me talk at the top of the episode up here. I really wanted to turn things over to both of y’all and ask if, yeah, first if you could sort of take us back to last year, right when the student Antifa movement was really spreading to campuses, not just across the US but around the world, it felt like this was a really big step in the protest movement, and now we are facing a lot of the more sinister institutional backlash beyond just the immediate police led backlash that we saw on campuses like Columbia and more.
So can you both talk to us a little bit about how we got from there to here, and then we’ll talk about where things currently stand with Talls case and what the union is doing to fight it?
Jawuanna McAllister:
Yeah. Well first thank you again for having us. We’re really happy to be able to have a platform to share some of what’s going on at Cornell. Wish it was under different circumstances, but I think I speak for myself and Jenna when I say we’re both grateful that you made time for us, especially with the situation is evolving as quickly as it has been. So what I can say about last year is it’s actually interesting that you bring up some of the more overt forms of discipline and policing that were taking place across campuses. It’s actually one way that I think Cornell was different. So we are at Cornell’s main campus, which is in central New York in Ithaca, it’s college town. It’s pretty small, it’s rural for the most part. So a lot of what was taking place across the country we didn’t really have here in terms of overpolicing, especially with the student encampment in the spring. There were some flareups, but it never really got to the point where it was violent. Everything was entirely peaceful, at least from the side of the prop protestors.
But what was always present and I think now is sort of bubbling over and coming to the surface is some of these more insidious forms of repression and discipline and targeting of specific individuals who are perceived as leaders in this type of movement. And the censorship that we’re really seeing. It was taking place last semester, but now we’re just, it’s a continuation of what we had last semester. And I think one of the other shifts with Cornell is that we had a change in leadership. So our former provost is now the president of the university, our former president retired, take from that what you will. But so yeah, now we have a new president, Koff who has taken the helm and is really spearheading a lot of these more repressive tactics that he was able to get away with without as much attention I think in the past.
Jenna Marvin:
Yeah, I’ll jump in. And second Joanna, and of course, thank you for having us. We’re delighted to be here even under the difficult circumstances, but I really do want to highlight that change in leadership at Cornell. There was, I think a sense from all of us, either union members or activists that caught lakoff’s change of role from the provost to the president was going to lead to a real change intact or maybe even an intensification of what had been happening in the spring. And I think that our fears are being validated right now given what’s happening on campus. So that change of leadership I think is really key. You have a new president who will be an interim president, but is new nonetheless, who is trying to prove himself to higher up board of trustees, et cetera.
Maximillian Alvarez:
So let’s talk about, I guess how things have been moving in the new school year because it feels like I, and this is something that we’ve talked to students, graduate students and faculty who were involved with the different encampments last year with the coverage that we were doing here at the Real News. We spoke with folks at UCLA, university of Michigan, Columbia, Indiana, so on and so forth. And we were seeing that there were different kind of approaches that different administrations were taking. One university had snipers on the roof, the other university trying to make itself seem a little more like open students at Stanford won critical gains and concessions from the university. So this is definitely an intense and protracted struggle that has not had one single outcome. But what we have seen, especially heading into the new year, is that university administrations and the powers to which they answer be they on the donor side or the political side, have taken that time over the summer to really revamp their strategies for how to deal with, and when I say deal with that term’s carrying a lot of weight here, deal with these protests.
Some universities we’ve already seen are taking action, even disciplining or firing faculty. And now we have the case here at Cornell. So I wanted to ask if you could just sort of please tell us how things have gone this year. Did it feel markedly different walking onto campus at the beginning of this school year? And what has been the course of events that have led us to where we are right now and where do things currently stand right now?
Jawuanna McAllister:
Yeah, I think there was a sense from everyone on campus who’s been paying attention to events on campus that this year was going to be a little bit different and a little bit more intense. I believe it was the very first day of classes, I think it was on August 26th, the provost and new interim provost and new interim President Koff sent out an email to the entire student body and I believe the entire Cornell community outlining new guidelines for how discipline would be handled this semester for student activists. And it’s essentially this three tier system that’s more or less, as we’ve seen over the past week, just completely gone out the window where it is kind of like a three strike thing out. So first offense is, I guess I probably need to pull up the email, but the first offense is like a warning.
You get called into a conduct meeting with the student code of conduct office, and it’s a warning, the second offense, and it could just be an offense, could be, I don’t know, attending a protest, right? Attending a rally that’s going on a little too long per CUPD, Cornell University police’s discretion. Second defense is a non-academic suspension, which essentially bars people from participating in clubs and extracurriculars. And then the third would be more permanent or interim temporary suspension and academic suspension. So what’s happening to MOMU right now? The other change is that in response to some of the discipline that graduate workers in particular face in the spring where we had a number of international and just grads of various marginalized identities targeted for their participation in our encampment at Cornell were issued, they were suspended in response to that, graduate workers here organized a picket outside of a bargaining session, and that resulted in really demanding that the university bargain with us over that discipline.
And as a result of that, we got this memorandum of agreement, which we signed with the university in July. And this agreement essentially states that the university is obligated to bargain with us, bargain with our union over the effects of grad work or discipline. So you have this three tier system that the university is saying they’re going to abide by because there’s been a lot of questions about how disciplines made it out up until now because it’s been completely arbitrary. And our union has this MOA that we’ve signed with the university saying, you have to bargain with us. And as I think general can tell you more about things are not playing out how they should.
Jenna Marvin:
Yeah, I can talk a little bit more about the enforcement of the memorandum of agreement. It does feel like Cornell administration, like the head and the hand, are not talking on purpose. More than likely Cornell’s bargaining committee is composed of general counsel, faculty, and of course an outside negotiator as well. And so they are bargaining this memorandum of agreement with us beginning in May, which was a huge industry setting victory to win something that actually says your employer has to come to the bargaining table around really any kind of discipline that affects working conditions. So from the time we started bargaining that until July when we actually signed it, Cornell’s bargaining committee was working with C-G-S-U-U-E to hammer this out and it’s become final. And it’s a document that we are really proud of, not only for a victory for us, but for other graduate shops around the country.
So to see, I think we were all sort of waiting on bated breath to see how the university would handle the enforcement of the memorandum. And of course, the answer that we received is they are blatantly disregarding it. They have an obligation to bargain with us over any sort of discipline needed out that affects the terms and conditions of employment. And of course, in MoMA AL’S case, that is absolutely happening. Deen enrollment and the revoking of his visa alone constitutes a huge disruption to his terms and conditions of his work. So to have your bargaining committee actually bargain with the union to create this really, really clear, really, really, really clear guidelines for how discipline is to be handed down and how the union is to be involved in that process and then to completely disregard it, especially after sending out this three strikes email where due process is supposed to be a guarantee. It does feel like the president’s office is not communicating properly with the offices that actually are in charge of meeting out discipline. And it’s been very disappointing, to say the least from the union’s perspective.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Can I just ask a little more on that? I mean, I can’t imagine how they’re feeling right now, but what can you tell us about how Mama DE’s doing and how this is affecting them? For anyone out there listening who maybe is still asking those questions of like, well, why is this a labor issue? What are unions and grad workers have to do with Palestine? I guess what would you say to folks out there about why this is a labor issue and how this is affecting one of your members right now and their livelihood?
Jawuanna McAllister:
It’s very much a labor issue with the type of work that graduate workers do. We teach, we research, OU is a student in Africana studies, a grad worker in Africana studies. He can’t teach his classes right now because he’s been suspended. His students are missing out on all that he has to offer as an instructor because he can’t set foot on campus, he can’t do his job. So it’s very much a labor issue from a service level. And then you think about the types of things that graduate workers are being disciplined for, not only by participating in protest activity, but also just by teaching their subject matter in the classroom. I think Momu and a number of other graduate workers, just who I personally am aware of and have close friendships with, have reported some really troubling things about the response of the administration to the subject matter in their courses.
So this is really an issue of academic freedom as well, where you have people not only not having the freedom to express themselves really just on campus in general and oppose what’s happening in Palestine and the atrocities that they’re seeing, they can’t even teach about it as it relates to their courses, as it relates to their subject matter. That’s really scary at an institution that prides itself on Cornell. Being in an Ivy League institution, people pay a lot of money to come here, are really proud when they get in with an institution like Cornell with this type of reputation and really any institution, any, it just runs completely contrary to any institution of higher educations like educational and academic mission to be doing this. So it’s an issue of academic freedom, it’s an issue of worker autonomy and workers’ rights. And because we are workers, it’s very much a labor issue. Yeah,
Jenna Marvin:
Yeah. I’ve thought about this a lot in the last couple of days, and I don’t think there are many union members across industries in this country who would ever stand for the level of unilateral discipline from their employer that Cornell is meeting out to al right now. It is a fundamental union issue that your boss cannot exercise unilateral power over you. You get a say in your working conditions being hired and fired as part of your working condition. So this is an absolutely fundamental fight that unions, labor unions have been fighting for over 150 years in the United States. It’s absolutely crucial to our fight. And a union needs to be able to protect its workers from that complete unilateral bring down of power. And absolutely it is an academic freedom issue as well. To echo Joanna there, I work in the humanities. This is speaking of fundamental, it’s fundamental to what we do in the humanities is to teach about the horrors of history, to be frank, and to talk about what happens in the world today.
And that includes politics in all of its forms and it includes genocide. And to have students in the humanities anywhere across the university, but particularly right now in the humanities, I thinking maybe I shouldn’t teach this. I’m not really sure how that will be received by my students or I’m not sure who will find out about this. I hear that from my coworkers and that’s very scary. So what is happening to mom Al is absolutely a disgrace, but there are also many effects that trickle down from this. It’s about creating a culture of fear and when you workers are fearful, that is a union issue always.
Jawuanna McAllister:
There’s maybe one other thing that I just wanted to add to this that we haven’t, we’ve sort of talked around but haven’t actually spoken to directly, is a lot of people don’t understand what a grad worker union is because we are grad students and we also do work that makes the university run. So as Jenna has already highlighted, I think really eloquently, we teach, we do research on behalf of the university, but we’re also here taking classes. So we have these dual roles, and when the university disciplines workers under a as quote students or under the guise of academics, that is inextricable from our employment and our role as workers. So in mom’s case for example, when you are suspended as a student, you were also suspended and effectively fired from your employment. When you’re de enrolled as a student, you’re terminated. And to Jenna’s point earlier, there’s no other industry where that would be acceptable, where lack of due process or lack of just cause for termination because of something that is independent in the university’s eyes at least of your employment, is acceptable. And that’s also not a distinction that we really exist in practice. We’re one and the same. So I think that’s just maybe an important point to clarify for students. And we’re also workers and those things are inextricably linked.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Oh yeah. I mean, speaking as a former grad worker and member of University of Michigan, GEO, shout out to GEO. Yeah, we’re getting a lot of the education and practice in our coursework that we are then able to apply in our teaching work and be better educators. And lo and behold, we’re one and the same person learning and teaching at the same time. Holy shit. People can do more than one thing at once. And that I wanted to just kind of ask a quick question there because on the question of grad unions and grad labor struggles, I mean there is something sinister and kind of harrowingly that echoes one of the weapons of first resort that we tend to see during grad unionization efforts or grad strikes at universities is something that I’ve seen reporting on grad strikes and union efforts like across the country.
And I remember seeing myself as a tactic that the University of Michigan employed when I was a member of our graduate union there, international students have a sort of special place in the university’s calculus for how to instill fear and impose discipline and impose division within a bargaining unit. And I just wanted to ask if y’all could speak as union members about the fact that Amadou being an international student here is also a really important detail of the story, both in terms of what this discipline is going to mean for him personally, but also what him being an international student is allowing the university to do in perpetuating the chilling effect that y’all were talking about here. This is something that comes up all the time when grad students go on strike because universities will almost always like clockwork when a strike happens, they will send out an email notifying international students that if they’re not working, they could lose their visas and thus their immigration status. So could you please just speak to that for a second and then we’ll wrap up by asking what folks can do now to help?
Jawuanna McAllister:
Yeah, it’s not a surprise to anyone that when the boss wants to intimidate and instill fear, they go after the most vulnerable workers first. And that is our international students who make up approximately 50% of our membership, 50% of our bargaining unit. It’s an intimidation tactic through and through. It is, yeah, I don’t really have much more to add to that other than we see it for exactly what it is. And I think what’s been really heartening is to see the outrage from our international workers as well as the broader Cornell community. I think the response from the community is really demonstrating, and by community I mean on campus and then also more broadly nationwide, demonstrating to our workers here that people are not just going to sit by and accept this. Our union will not just sit by and let one of our own be disciplined and effectively have this visa status revoked and then effectively be deported. We’re not just going to sit by and allow that to happen. And I think that’s an important thing for that 50% of our unit to really see that we stand behind them 100%.
Jenna Marvin:
Yeah. I will add that one of the things that makes this situation around intimidation of international students at Cornell International workers incredibly divisive is that one of Cornell’s founding principles is any person, any study all over this campus. I see posters of it when I walked on the hall on my workspace. And so to sort of rest on the prestige of having 50% of our bargaining unit members be international workers who are some of the best, the brightest and the most generous colleagues ever, but then turn that right around and make people feel scared and to make people more vulnerable and for Cornell’s administration to feel like they have leverage or kind of control over international workers is really, really disappointing, particularly given its sort of founding ethos.
And just to echo, Joanna, if we have 50% of our bargaining unit members here on Visas, you better be sure that we we’re going to fight for one of our members being disciplined and possibly fired and losing his visa. If we don’t fight for that, what are we for? Right? This has always been integral to our organizing. It has always been integral to the contract that we are currently negotiating with Cornell. So it’s perhaps even as far as the numbers, even more of an issue here at Cornell than it’s if maybe comparable institutions in the United States.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, Joanna, Jenna, I want to thank you both again so much for taking time to chat with me. I really appreciate it and I just wanted to give y all the final word here and ask if you could let our listeners know what happens now and what the union is trying to do, what the campus community is doing to stand against this, and what folks out there who are listening to this, what they can do to stay up to date on this and what they can do to get involved themselves.
Jawuanna McAllister:
Yeah, I can go ahead and plug a few things. So as you mentioned before we started recording, we have a rally for workplace justice tomorrow Wednesday, what is tomorrow, October 2nd at noon, we will be marching from one of the buildings near central campus down to the administrative building, demanding that the university bargain with us over the effects of Madu tile suspension, and also demanding that the university give us just cause and due process when it comes to these various forms of discipline, along with protections for academic freedom and non-discrimination when it comes to political speech and activity, caste, international workers rights. These are all things that are really, really integral to our union. So that’s tomorrow, and we’ll have members of the community there, faculty, some folks from our A UP chapter will be joining us, which is exciting. So it’s really, it’s going to be a great event if anyone is in the, well, I don’t think you’ll have this released by the time this goes out, so you can cut that part. I’m just going to say if anyone’s here, they can feel free to come up to campus, but I doubt anyone will be here. And then Jenna, do you want to take some of the other things that we have going on right now?
Jenna Marvin:
Sure. I mean, for those people who are not in Ithaca and want to stay up to date, we are keeping people up to date with our Instagram. That’s at Cornell gsu. We’re trying to be as on top of the developing situation as we can. So that’s one avenue to stay informed. We have a bargaining session. CGSU will sit across the table from Cornell’s bargaining committee on Wednesday, October the ninth. And so look out for news around that there may be some coordinated action as the situation develops. We’re still thinking about that, but more news to come as the bargaining committee that Joanna and I are part of, sort of goes to sit at the table again with Cornell’s representatives given what has unfolded since our last session about two weeks ago. So more news to come stay informed. Instagram’s a great way to do it. And if you happen to be around for a rally tomorrow, come on out, have a chant, it’ll be cathartic.
Jawuanna McAllister:
I have two more things to plug. We should have made a list ahead of this. So we have an action network petition that UE National has just helped us launch earlier today. So if you are a member of a local, any local doesn’t have to be ue, please, please, please check out our social media and the UE national socials and you should be able to find that petition. We can also send you the link max and you can share that. And then we also have different petitions for different groups depending on what your affiliation is. So we have one that’s specific to grad locals. So please reach out to us. You can either DM us on Instagram or Twitter, or you can follow up with us at bc@cornellgradunion.org with any questions. Or we should just have questions about how to support or want to get access to any of those resources. We can send them to you directly through that email as well. Cornell GSU on socials?
Jenna Marvin:
I think so. That’s the Instagram.
Jawuanna McAllister:
We need Cornell to bargain with us. We have this MOA, it’s time for Cornell to hold up their end of that signed agreement and bargain with us over, not just mom do suspension, but any grad worker discipline under these policies. Me to set the table.
Al Jazeera has released a damning new documentary called Investigating war crimes in Gaza. It outlines the horrors of the last 12 months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, using video footage and interviews with people on the ground, journalists, human rights workers, and other experts.
It is an essential watch. It will serve as a lasting and crushing indictment of the Israeli occupation forces and the Western governments that have supported them throughout their year-long genocide in occupied Gaza.
And it should be a rallying call for people who defend humanity to stand up against the impunity and rally to resist the order which has cemented this impunity into a new global reality.
The genocide exposed the Western order as “a big sham”
Palestinian writer Susan Abulhawa speaks concisely and clearly in the documentary about what the genocide represents. She says:
The West cannot hide. They cannot claim ignorance. Nobody can say they didn’t know. We live in an era of technology, and this has been described as the first live-streamed genocide in history…
They are conducting a genocide now with glee. They’re setting their atrocities to music and putting them on catchy reels on TikTok. Ordinary Israelis see what their military is doing and celebrate it. It’s not just fringe elements who see this and think it’s a good thing.
Abulhawa later talks about the children’s organisation she runs. And she reveals that, when she interviewed a lot of the displaced youngsters in Gaza:
some of them told me that they just want to die but they… want to die in one piece. They’re scared of being shredded.
And she concluded that:
Palestinians are aware that they have been abandoned, that the world that speaks of human rights and international law was lying, that those concepts are meant for white people or for Westerners, that accountability is not meant to hold their oppressors to account, that they have been really kind of discarded like rubbish…
The West has spent decades creating this rules-based order. And it’s finally laid been laid bare as a big sham… as just a way to further Western interests. This is the jungle. This is the new order, where it’s just out in the open that those with power can do whatever they want.
‘We thought the world would stand up, but it didn’t’
In the last year, Israel has killed around 16,500 children in Gaza. Al Jazeera correspondent Youmna Elsayed says “even if Israel wanted to cross these red lines, we thought for sure that the world would stand and say no”. But it didn’t.
Al Jazeera’s documentary “assembles evidence of war crimes committed during the year-long Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip and of complicity in those crimes”.
It looks at ‘those who ordered the assault, those who supported it, those who endured it, and those who inflicted it’. And it “has compiled a database of over 2,500 social media accounts containing photos and videos placed online by Israeli soldiers”.
Human rights worker Maha Hussaini insists:
There have been journalists and human rights workers who have been directly killed during the previous attacks. But this war, it was more like systematic attacks, systematic targeting of civilians, of journalists, of human rights workers.
For anyone who’s a parent, a highly distressing point of the whole genocide is that the Israeli military strategy paid so little interest in the safety of children. In fact, it attacked suspected fathers specifically when they were at home because “it’s easier to kill somebody when they’re at home”.
Israel’s dehumanisation on display for everyone to see
Israeli occupation forces have consistently dehumanised Palestinians. Elsayed, who evacuated from northern Gaza, explains:
We were asked to walk holding a white flag in one hand raising the ID on the other hand – everyone, including the children… They’d say ‘this person wearing this colour shirt, get out of the line’. And then, they would make them strip completely to their underwear in front of everyone.
She adds that the ‘safe passageway’ where refugees walked was full of corpses:
Those who were killed, everything was left on the ground for the people who were crossing to see. I made my children promise me that they would not look at the ground at all.
The documentary also exposes some of the disgustingly racist trivialisation of the genocide inside Israel, noting that:
The destruction in Gaza sparks a TikTok craze in Israel. Civilians dress up as caricatures of Palestinians and mime to an Israeli song called ‘this was my home’.
Influencers, meanwhile, tried to suggest Palestinian suffering was fake, or taunted them over the cutting off of water and electricity. Thousands of people shared their videos.
The ‘scorched earth’ policy of an undisciplined colonial army
As refugees left the north of Gaza, soldiers filled social media with videos of destruction. These showed them wantonly destroying civilian buildings and property, looting, and pillaging to their heart’s content. Human rights worker Bill Van Esveld insists:
There’s no justification for destroying a structure if the enemy isn’t in
Retired British army officer Charlie Herbert, meanwhile, says:
These videos don’t show a professional army. They show an army that, at times, appears to almost completely lack any self-discipline, to a point where one thinks it’s not just personal lack of discipline, it’s an Institutional lack of discipline.
And importantly, asserts legal expert Rodney Dixon, this behaviour goes against international law. He stresses:
it’s something of a scorched Earth policy where everything is destroyed. And it makes it very difficult to reconstruct civilian life there after.
Soldiers also seemed to have a particular obsession with the underwear or lingerie of female refugees.
Speaking about the destruction of one village near the Israeli border, Dixon highlights that:
The justification that is given is one of revenge. And under International humanitarian law, it is strictly prohibited to use reprisals against the civilian population of your enemy.
Van Esveld adds that:
The large-scale, unnecessary destruction of civilian property – it’s prohibited in the Geneva conventions, it’s prohibited under the Rome statute of the international criminal court…
It’s banned. And if you do enough of it, it’s a war crime.
As the documentary also points out:
Each of Gaza’s 36 hospitals has been attacked, with 19 closed down altogether. Medical equipment has been deliberately destroyed.
Human shields, torture, and humiliation by Israel
The invading forces also posted numerous videos of detainee humiliation, showing footage of naked men paraded around and mistreated. As Van Esveld stresses:
these are really blatant violations of international law
Herbert, meanwhile, points out that:
this footage breaks every norm of the treatment of detainees or the treatment of prisoners of war. It breaks every accepted standard practice and norm.
Torture has apparently been rife too, as some soldiers have admitted.
Regarding the Israeli assault on the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, the second biggest in Gaza, the documentary shows footage of Israel using a civilian as a messenger – a human shield – to tell people to evacuate the hospital. As Dixon insists, “that’s prohibited under international law”. Israeli snipers then killed him.
The documentary also challenges the claims that armed militias in Gaza have used civilians as human shields. In fact, Hussaini said:
in the case of Gaza, civilians here have been one of the main targets of the Israeli army since the beginning of the attack. So there wouldn’t be a purpose in using a civilian as a human shield because the civilian himself is a target.
It shows video evidence, however, of Israeli occupation forces using human shields. And it has interviewed civilians who say Israeli forces have used them as human shields.
It then shows the horrific conditions in which Israeli forces have kept detainees, whether civilians or fighters. This includes the rape of prisoners.
Starvation and assassination of civilians and aid workers
It also documents the starvation Israeli occupation forces brought to Gaza, and their assault on aid workers. As Van Esveld says:
Human Rights Watch documented another seven cases where very specifically humanitarian and aid workers were attacked after having given the Israeli military their precise coordinates and detailed information about their activities and their movements…
so our assessment is very clearly that the Israeli authorities are using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. It’s a double war crime. You have collective punishment of the civilian population, and you specifically have the use of starvation as a weapon of war
Herbert looks at a video where an Israeli unit assassinates an unarmed man. And he says the fact that soldiers shared it on YouTube should the “degree of impunity” they feel they have. There are other cases where the same thing happens.
Occupation snipers have also shot women and children, as medical practitioners have testified. In one letter, a group of professionals wrote that:
Every one of us, on a daily basis, treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest.
The documentary points out that:
it’s possible the final toll for dead and injured in the Gaza Strip will be more than 10% of the total population
Western complicity in Israel’s war crimes
The documentary insists:
The Assault on Gaza is facilitated by Western powers. 69% of Israel’s arms imports come from the US, 30% from Germany. Behind the scenes, another country plays a key role.
And that’s the UK, particularly via flights from the British base on Cyprus.
It adds:
With Israel under investigation by the international court of justice for genocide, the assistance given by the UK and other Western Powers has legal implications.
As Van Esveld stresses:
if you start acting in a conflict to a level that the people on the ground who are doing the fighting are using your information actively as they fight, you can’t just say the Israelis are doing things… but we’re not really involved. Actually, you may be a party to the conflict yourself.
He concludes that:
International law has been trashed by the actions of the Israeli military, by the actions of the parties to this conflict but also by the actions of their allies which look at what’s going on and continue to pour gasoline on the flames.
Despite all of this behaviour over the last year, the Israeli occupation forces have neither destroyed Hamas nor returned the Israeli hostages. Israel’s Western backers, meanwhile, still refuse to hold it to account for its crimes.
The documentary helps to make it as clear as ever that Israeli occupation forces have committed war crimes and have had no interest in respecting international law. This makes it an absolute moral duty – for all of us whose governments continue to support Israel’s genocidal regime – to stand up and resist.
Every year at Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, synagogues across the world sound the shofar, a ram’s horn that represents the signature moment of the holiday. Over the centuries, Jewish commentators have offered a variety of explanations for this ritual. Moses Maimonides famously called it a wake-up call to personal atonement; others view it as a call to action or a tribute to God’s power.
A deliberate, man-made famine is underway in Gaza, according to many human rights experts. Starving Gaza is a new documentary by Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines investigating how Israel has killed civilians seeking aid and attacked humanitarian networks. The harrowing film is based on the work of Palestinian reporters in Gaza who are suffering the same conditions as their subjects. “They’ve been displaced, they’ve been injured, they’ve watched their own children die in front of them, and yet they somehow conjure the professionalism to pick up a camera and record and tell other people’s trauma,” says journalist Hind Hassan. “They really will be remembered in history as the titans of journalists.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Israeli strikes continue to rain down on Lebanon, including a strike that killed rescue and health workers in Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced by the Israeli attacks. Israel announced eight of its soldiers were killed while invading southern Lebanon this week. Israel launched the ground invasion after assassinating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, despite Nasrallah reportedly agreeing to a 21-day ceasefire. “This overwhelming use of force cannot change people’s agency,” says Nadim Houry, Lebanese researcher and executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative. “The region does not want to be a satellite of Israel or a satellite of the U.S. And by the way, the region does not want to be a satellite of Iran either. The problem is the region is not really being given much of a choice.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
On Tuesday 1 October, JD Vance and Tim Walz debated for two painful hours in a bid to claim the spot for vice-president in the US presidential election. And like every US democratic charade, it was two white guys waving their dicks around with genocidal hard-ons. Or, as one person on X accurately put it regarding Israel:
The vice presidential debate started with the two candidates having a dick measuring contest on who loves Israel more.
No mention of the hurricane in the south, no condolences to the families of the dead, nothing. You’d think they’re running for president of Israel.
Israel’s ability to be able to defend itself is absolutely fundamental
Maybe Tim Walz skipped the international law lesson, or maybe he’s hoping we all forgot about it. Israel, as the occupying force in Palestine, does not have the right to self defence.
According to Analyst News, in October 2022 the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded that:
the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories was illegal under international law due to its permanence and the Israeli government’s de-facto annexation policies
Therefore, under international law – Israel does not have the right to self-defence. This is contrary to what they, and the majority of the west have been claiming for the last year.
Even more worrying though, was how Walz continued:
The expansion of Israel and it’s proxies is an absolute fundamental necessity for the United States to have the steady leadership there
Walz is effectively giving Israel permission to invade, kill and destroy whoever the fuck they want – at whatever cost. Because ultimately, it will further the US’s colonialist agenda, and make their friends rich:
We’re like 15 minutes into the Walz/Vance “debate” & already they’ve agreed that Israel can do whatever the fuck it wants including a preemptive strike on Iran & are competing for killing the planet faster through extracting more fossil fuels. Madness
Supporting a genocidal regime is characteristic of the US, given its consistent history of doing so. The US has long been a major destabilising force in the world. It’s litany of US-backed coups is a testament to this.
Also entirely on brand, is the role the US is playing in wars in the middle east more generally. Whether its for oil and gas or just to further its capitalist goals – both VP candidates cheering this on is nothing new:
#israel is their colonial outpost, destabilising the middle east in order to bully Arabs into complacency. It’s their pet monster and it needs blood to grow. The US is the biggest terrorist organization in the world. https://t.co/S5mY9kXxtW
Right now, the US is partnering with Israel in a horrific genocide in Gaza, a genocide condemned by the overwhelming majority of nations, and not a WORD about it in the #VPDebate!!! #VPDebate2024
Where there are weapons to be sold, there is money to be made:
Why anyone regards this crime syndicate disguised as a democracy!!! with any respect is the craziest thing on this planet. It’s an Empire ruled by the power of the weapons… https://t.co/cyBjPuusdY
There’s a term for two vice-presidential candidates cheering on mass murder of civilians in foreign occupied territories – and it’s state-sponsored terrorism:
the biggest terrorist the world has seen last 100+ years.
always fighting cowardly; targeting civilians.
However, the media has normalised these genocidal maniacs so effectively, that many citizens in the US wouldn’t have bat an eye:
And people carried on watching like that was totally normal. Western citizens need to wake up to the evil their leaders are making them complicit it. Because it is not the leaders that will suffer the consequences. https://t.co/IkDaxrCQIg
— Marked safe from Western Propaganda (@b_tella) October 2, 2024
When it comes down to it, there’s not a fag paper between these Israel-abetting candidates of the United States of imperialism and terror:
Tim Walz and JD Vance got along so well because they both agree that we should plunge the world into World War 3 in order to protect Israel
American democracy is cooked. These frauds agree on most important shit so the entire debate is filled with irrelevant gotcha questions
— Revolutionary Blackout Network (@SocialistMMA) October 2, 2024
Can’t watch the debate. All I care about is the holocaust Israel and the US are carrying out around the clock against my people.
Both VP candidates supporting genocide – isn’t a good look, is it?
At the end of the day, the US election is a political farce at best. But at worst, it’s just another colonial chest-beating contest between two party’s perfectly content to give arms to war criminals brutally murdering people wherever their genocidal, annexing urge takes them next. To the US’s imperialistic establishment, money talks louder than the screams of over 16,000 dead children.
As Israeli officials were vowing to retaliate against Iran and plotting an invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli military was carrying out attacks across Gaza, killing dozens in 24 hours, Gaza officials said on Wednesday. Overnight on Wednesday, Israeli forces dropped bombs across the strip and undertook a ground incursion in Khan Yunis, killing at least 90 Palestinians and injuring dozens of…
Advocates are calling for the ousting of a top Biden administration official who has acted as the “shadow president” on Middle East policy, directing much of the administration’s decisions in the region as the U.S. has enabled Israel to plunge it into chaos and destruction. On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Middle East adviser Brett McGurk “must go” after…
Israel’s foreign minister said Wednesday that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is “persona non grata in Israel” and barred him from entering the country after the U.N. chief issued a brief statement condemning all escalatory military actions in the Middle East. In a social media post, Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz accused Guterres of failing to “unequivocally condemn”…
Israel has announced it is sending more troops into southern Lebanon as the Middle East moves closer to a full-scale regional war. On Tuesday, Iran fired at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel that Iran says targeted Israeli military and security sites, a response that comes after a series of escalating Israeli attacks in recent months against Hezbollah, Hamas and Iranian leaders.
One year into Israel’s genocide on Gaza, Netanyahu decided to launch a full on ground invasion in Lebanon. Iran finally retaliated against the mindless colonial power. Unsurprisingly, as usual, the BBC failed miserably in reporting on the realities of the situation.
As the Canary previously reported, Israel’s colonial government has consistently rejected or undermined peace efforts (as it has historically), and has only escalated the conflict further afield. It has assassinated people in the Iranian consulate in Syria, in Iran, and in Lebanon.
Iran has shown a lot of restraint, according to experts. But it has finally responded to Israel’s attempts to escalate hostilities in the region. Targeting military and intelligence facilities, it has reportedly killed one civilian – a Palestinian. And this is in spite of Israel placing some of those facilities in densely-populated civilian areas.
Blowback into Israel, Iran style
Israel’s own X account tweeted a video of Iran’s rockets with the caption
every single one of these is meant to kill
What the fuck do they think their carpet bombing in Gaza has been achieving? Wiping the memory of everyone who watches a child get blown to pieces?
I’ll tell you what really isn’t normal. The level of supremacist narcissism and hypocrisy it takes to post this with a straight face. INSANE.
Like what are the THOUSANDS of IOF bombs meant to do, heal children? https://t.co/QQWByADjH3
You’ve dropped more bombs on Gaza than London, Dresden and Hamburg combined during WW2. Killed tens of thousands of innocent people. Starved and displaced a majority of the population. Ending your genocide would have prevented this. https://t.co/jMvEsyrTzA
The BBC was shameless in its attempts to report on the escalation by Israel – if we can even call them attempts:
You can’t even tell in the first headline that Israel is the one bombing Lebanon. The contrast in headlines is unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/9b1UFeQluI
This isn’t journalism. It’s narrative engineering. From Gaza to Lebanon, it’s a crime scene cover-up. When the media chooses silence over truth, they’re no longer journalists—they’re accomplices.
— Anti-Fascist Free Palestine (@antifascist61) October 2, 2024
Cognitive dissonance
The racist double standards are clear for everyone to see. Blow up a majority Muslim country and you’re defending yourself. Blow up a military base that has been use as a command centre to commit genocide for a year, and it’s terrorism:
Embarrassing to see our nation’s pathetic media and politicians completely captured by the Israelis. What do ‘patriots’ have to say about this? https://t.co/ZZyn70Yfy5
What happened to the hostages? We’re presuming they have been secretly transferred to Lebanon via secret underground tunnels.
As the Canary has previously reported, western media outlets have continuously published coverage dripping in bias – and by extension, complicity in Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
When Israeli soldiers killed six-year-old Hind Rajab and her family, the appalling Western establishment media spin was plain for all to see:
Oh my goodness. This is terrible & irresponsible reporting from BBC News World. Innocent & defenceless 6 year old girl Hind Rajab was not ‘found dead’ in Gaza. She was brutally killed by the Israeli military. https://t.co/X0x3sCpBnv
Similarly, when the IDF brutally murdered an autistic man with Down’s syndrome – with a combat dog – the BBC, using all of their editorial wisdom, whitewashed it with the headline:
The lonely death of Gaza man with Down’s syndrome
Turning tables on Israel
Now that Iran have retaliated against a genocidal regime, the BBC appears to have rolled out training on how to use the active voice. Seeing as though it suddenly fits their corporate capitalist (and clearly Zionist) narrative:
curious how they understand how to write headlines all of a sudden
One person on X was baffled at the linguistic gymnastics the BBC had used to avoid pointing the finger at Israel:
These headlines are so striking. Throughout Israel’s invasion of Gaza and now its invasion of Lebanon, headline writers have been going to extraordinary language contorting lengths to avoid assigning it any responsibility.
It’s a bizarre and global thing. https://t.co/QOZC3RXAh3
It’s not bizarre – it’s intentional in order to paint Black and brown people as the aggressors. Something which we have seenacross the mainstream media for decades. It’s hard to see this as anything other than the BBC acting as a mouthpiece for Israel’s propaganda – because at this point, it quite literally is:
This is so intentional so those ignorant people can continue to believe that is**rl are the victims. Like i literally work with people who know nothing but believe the propaganda that they are victims and that the Arabs are aggressors. To live in a work like this is beyond me. https://t.co/Si4S5SXxzs
Astonishing bias from @BBCBreaking@BBCNews Once one of the most reliable news sources, which used to at least aim for a measure of objectivity, it has deteriorated into a sad, sorry mouthpiece for right-wing bias and propaganda. https://t.co/WeKyCc6cYd
For a year we have watched the west support, fund, and arm Israel. Finally, Iran took one for the team. It’s like watching the school bully finally gets what’s coming to him – without all the mass casualties.
Obligation to prevent genocide (Article I) which, according to the ICJ, has an extraterritorial scope
Iran targeting Israeli military infrastructure being used to commit genocide was doing exactly this.
Do BBC journalists have no shame? Do they realise that in years to come students will be studying these headlines in horror, wondering how it was allowed to happen? How obvious they are in their racism and how stupid they think the country must be is insulting.
Genocidal Netanyahu reportedly “has long-standing relations” with Murdoch and his family. And on Piers Morgan’s show, Lowkey questioned the presenter over a leaked note believed to show Murdoch as a key funder of Netanyahu’s. Morgan says he “co-owns” his show with Murdoch’s News Corp.
This note was leaked from Netanyahu's political office to the Israeli media. It contains a list of individuals Netanyahu considered to be funders of his political campaign.
Piers Morgan’s colleague Murdoch: Israel’s most powerful supporter?
An excellent article by Alan Macleod over at Mint Press News earlier this year called Murdoch “Israel’s most powerful supporter”.
In the piece, Macleod said “no one is as important in manufacturing consent for Israel as Rupert Murdoch”. The billionaire media mogul, he added, “has close and extensive personal ties to the Israeli political elite and myriad business connections to the country”.
Murdoch has also “used his media empire to defend Israel and sing its praises” and to support a “group that builds illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank”. Overall, Macleod insisted, Murdoch and his media outlets function as “an unofficial arm of the Israeli propaganda machine”.
Another close Netanyahu ally on the leaked list is US billionaire Robert Kraft.
Another powerful figure with a close relationship with the Israeli establishment, Kraft reportedly “writes seven-digit checks to the right-wing Israeli lobbying machine AIPAC”, “attends fundraisers for the Israel Defense Forces”, backs his close friend Donald Trump, and routinely smears critics of Israel’s actions as antisemites. He even forked out $7m for an advert to further his efforts.
Murdoch, Israel, and Labour
As Macleod wrote:
Another ethically questionable connection is Murdoch’s reliance on lobbying firm LLM Communications. The billionaire hired the group, co-founded by Lord Jonathan Mendelsohn, to help them overturn British government laws that ensured trade unions could ballot for workplace recognition. Lord Mendelsohn was the chairman of the Israel lobbying group Labour Friends of Israel, which was crucial in smearing and defeating the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn
Regarding Morgan, meanwhile, he said:
Morgan has played a crucial role in informing the public about Israel and Palestine. Although he has claimed he is entirely neutral on the issue and does not support either side, Morgan has a number of close connections to Israel worth noting. Firstly, he has supported the Norwood Charity on a number of occasions, helping to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the group.
He added:
Norwood is headed by the aforementioned Israel lobbyist, Lord Mendelsohn, alongside his wife, Lady Nicola Mendelsohn.
Also, he stressed:
Norwood’s previous president was Sir Trevor Chinn.
Chinn is a key lobbyist for Israel who has financially backed Keir Starmer and other cronies in the deteriorating post-Corbyn Labour party.
Israel relies heavily on propagandists like Rupert Murdoch and Piers Morgan to manufacture consent for its war crimes and ongoing colonial occupation. And we must call them all out at every possible opportunity.
A year since the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza began, the Gaza Sunbirds para-cycling team encourages supporters to take to the streets on their bikes and ride for freedom. 15 cities are confirmed to join the Great Ride of Return solidarity cycle on 5 and 6 October.
The Gaza Sunbirds
Over the past year, the Sunbirds have been gaining global recognition for delivering life-saving food and supplies to people across Gaza.
Along with donations, fans have been supporting their efforts in a number of ways including joining the Great Ride of Return which will mark the tragic anniversary of the start of the genocide this week.
The synchronised solidarity cycle takes its name from the Great March of Return, a 2018 protest where Palestinians shut inside Gaza walked to the walls of the barricaded territory to demand their freedom.
Met with Israeli gunfire, hundreds of Palestinians were killed, and many more lost limbs to amputation caused by deliberate Israeli sniper fire targeting the lower body.
It was in Israel’s aggression against protesters that Gaza Sunbirds team captain and co-founder Alaa Al-Dali was shot, along with other riders who, after amputation, went on to join Palestine’s first paracycling team.
Al-Dali said:
I dreamt of becoming a champion with both legs. After my amputation, I became determined to be a champion for Palestine with one.
Competing despite Israel’s genocide
After being evacuated earlier this year, Al-Dali was recently able to fulfil the dream that came about since that attack on his life, competing in the UCI Road & Para-Cycling World Championships, held last week in Zurich, Switzerland.
Al-Dali’s presence in the competition has been a source of great pride for Palestinians worldwide, and particularly the cycling community in Gaza; it is the first time a Palestinian rider has ever competed in a major UCI race. His determination to compete has not just been for himself, but for the thousands of children in Gaza who have lost limbs and hope due to Israeli aggressions, particularly over the past year. Alaa’s story is one of perseverance, and his message to these children is to focus on the future and believe that better opportunities lie ahead.
While their captain has been striving to spread their message internationally, the Sunbirds who remain in Gaza have continued to deliver emergency supplies throughout Gaza.
Over the past year, thanks to donations from fans as well as support from our fundraising partners AMOS Trust and ACS Italia, we have distributed over $300,000 USD worth of aid. Often working under dangerous conditions, this distribution has included food, sanitary products, blankets, and toys to children.
Their work has captured the hearts of many including high profile figures like Florence Pugh and Sara Ramirez and is critical while life in Gaza is for many still a daily struggle for survival. The team plans to continue assisting the people of Gaza as long as sufficient aid is denied entry by Israel.
The Great Ride of Return with the Gaza Sunbirds
The Sunbirds said in a statement:
We will not lose hope in life. We will continue fighting for our community’s right to thrive. And where the world leaves us alone, we the amputated youth of the camps have risen on one leg to support our people.
Inspired by the Sunbirds’ efforts on the ground in Gaza and Alaa’s performance in Switzerland, Great Rides of Return are planned for 15 cities, including Dublin, Saint Etienne, Seattle, Toronto, and Minneapolis.
The series partners with the Sunbirds’ own sporting campaign Athletes for Palestine and is in coalition with Big Ride for Palestine, Native Women Ride, ACS Ong, and Amos Trust.
Taking their story directly to the UK parliament, the Sunbirds team in London met recently with prominent UK politician and lifelong cyclist, Jeremy Corbyn, to talk about the need for a permanent ceasefire in Palestine, significant UK Government sanctions, and an arms embargo, to pressure the Israeli Government to cease their attacks on Palestine – and since that meeting – Lebanon.
British cyclists up and down the UK will be amplifying this message across the country when they take to the streets for the Great Ride of Return this week.
Featured image via Big Ride For Palestine and additional images via the Gaza Sunbirds
Israel often seeks to justify its murder of civilians by claiming Hamas was using them as ‘human shields’. But apparently, Israel also uses human shields. And even so, Iran has managed not to kill any civilians in its retaliation against the colonial power’s escalation of hostilities in Lebanon.
The hypocrisy of Western reactions to Israel’s massive genocidal crimes and meek Iranian attacks, however, is off the scale. Their racist double standards are on full display more than ever.
Israel’s human shields
Civilians matter to Western leaders. But apparently, that’s only if they’re Israeli.
The apartheid state has committed genocide in Gaza. As Oxfam reported this week:
More women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the past year than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades.
In fact, Israeli occupation forces reportedly killed 4,104 children in Gaza in just the first month of its genocidal assault. A year on, the colonial government has consistently rejected or undermined peace efforts (as it has historically), and has only escalated the conflict further afield. It has assassinated people in the Iranian consulate in Syria, in Iran, and in Lebanon.
Iran has shown a lot of restraint, according to experts. But it has finally responded to Israel’s attempts to escalate hostilities in the region. Targeting military and intelligence facilities, it has reportedly killed no civilians. And this is in spite of Israel placing some of those facilities in densely-populated civilian areas:
I keep seeing people laughing that Iran “failed to kill any Israeli civilians.”
These are people are so enamoured by war crime they seem to think the entire purpose of retaliatory action is to kill civilians rather than target military infrastructure.
Among the targets were Israeli airfields but also, and this is crucial, the headquarters of Mossad – the international intelligence service of Israel, which is inside Tel Aviv. It’s in the northern part of Tel Aviv. But it’s in the city. It’s in a densely-populated area. And of course, the concern is… it is in a densely-populated city with civilians around it.
Breaking: CNN’s @jimsciutto confirms Israel is using human shields, strategically positioning its command and control center in densely populated civilian areas pic.twitter.com/ApaA1KArau
Iran’s foreign minister clarified that its attack had finished, and that the ball is now in the court of Israel and its “enablers”:
we exercised self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, targeting solely military & security sites in charge of genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. We did so after exercising tremendous restraint for almost two months, to give room for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Our action is concluded unless the Israeli regime decides to invite further retaliation. In that scenario, our response will be stronger and more powerful. Israel’s enablers now have a heightened responsibility to rein in the warmongers in Tel Aviv instead of partaking in their folly.
The war machine of the West is responsible
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon was likely the final straw pushing Iran to act. And from recent months’ statistics, it’s as clear as it is in Gaza who the main aggressor is:
Incredible Bloomberg data visualization that clearly shows what’s actually going on between Israel and Lebanon.
First, despite all the talk of the threat of Hezbollah rockets hitting Israel, it’s actually Israel that’s consistently firing far more rockets over the border. pic.twitter.com/uSvPvMC61i
For most people not in the pockets of arms dealers and genocidal despots, it was obvious that Iran would have to act if Israel kept provoking it, and it was obvious that Western leaders were responsible for bringing us to the brink of a regional or global conflict. As Jeremy Corbyninsisted:
Governments have fuelled the machinery of war. Their indifference to human life has destroyed prospects for peace and endangered us all.
In fact, even the BBC had to platform someone who emphasised Iran’s restraint in the context of Israeli provocation and the West’s responsibility for the path Israel is taking:
Finally balance from the BBC:
•Israel have constantly crossed ‘red lines’ •Hezbollah & Iran have tried to ‘play it fairly rationally’ •The US has a ‘responsibility’ to control how Israel respond
Both wings of the corporate party in the US and the UK, meanwhile, almost seem to be salivating at the prospect of their ally advancing its power in the region. Britain, for example, was flying to Tel Aviv just as Israel invaded Lebanon – continuing its complicity in Israeli terror. The US, on the other hand, was allegedly egging Israel on to invade.
Nonetheless, it was Iran that Britain and the US treated as the ‘dangerous, destabilising force’ in the Middle East. And the Western corporate media seemed to care more about damage to inanimate objects in Israel than the civilians killed in Lebanon in recent days.
Ordinary people are increasingly seeing through the propaganda, though. So if Biden or Starmer try to pull us directly into Israel’s endless maniacal conflict, they may well get more resistance than they bargained for.
The Green Party’s deputy leader Zack Polanski has been a fierce but righteous critic of Israel’s far-right government during its genocide in Gaza and now expanding assaults across the Middle East. However, he came out against several organisations, not least the UK Board of Deputies, over their stance on the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s atrocities.
BBC: biased AGAINST Israel, apparently
The Guardian posted that:
Many British Jews see BBC as hostile to Israel, community leaders say https://t.co/OQEJkNNzEu
The organisations were responding to a report authored by the former BBC executive Danny Cohen and the former governor of the BBC Ruth Deech.
The report said: “Whenever the corporation is faced with the choice of whose account or narrative to believe, it seldom points in Israel’s direction. For Hamas in this war, proof is rarely necessary. For the IDF and Israel, proof is rarely enough.”
The authors cited several cases where its authors said the BBC had erred in its reporting or used language that demonstrated an anti-Israel bias.
They wrote: “We recognise that reporting complex stories in a war zone and verifying claims and counter-claims can be difficult, but it is clear there is systematic bias against Israel across all BBC platforms, with the vast majority of that bias pointing in the same direction.
So, who were these Jewish organisations that were conflating the state of Israel with all Jewish people? (Something we thought was antisemitic, by the way). Moreover, just who were these organisations that agrees the BBC has been anti-Israel?
Right-wing Israel lobbyists
Predictably, they were right-wing Israel lobbyists The Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council, and the Community Security Trust. They opined that:
Inaccurate media reporting on the conflict contributes to the delegitimisation of Israel in the public sphere, which in turn fuels anti-Jewish hatred, and has made British Jews and Jews around the world less safe and secure in their communities. As a global media leader, the BBC carries extra responsibility in these regards.
This ignores the many studies that have been carried out, such as the one produced by the Centre for Media Monitoring, that concluded that Palestinian deaths were reported using ‘passive language which omits the perpetrator (Israel)’.
The CMM Report found that more than 70% of the use of terms like ‘atrocities’, ‘slaughter’ and ‘massacre’ referred to Israeli victims while ‘emotive language’ was deployed when speaking about Israeli, rather than Palestinian, victims.
A reminder many Jewish people – including myself – are saying loud & clear these organisations have utterly failed to represent us as British Jews.
Their focus could be creating a space for Jewish communities to navigate differences rather than co-opting us to justify genocide. https://t.co/R314oLy5PD
In short, the report that the Board of Deputies et al have jumped onto is demonstrable nonsense. Yet, the Guardian didn’t have the bottle to call it out. So, it took Polanski to do it – risking a personal backlash himself in doing so. That says it all about the state of the corporate media – and not just the BBC.
Palestine Action has targeted a major weapons factory run by Teledyne, that supplies parts for F-35 jets. These are, of course, the same aircraft the UK refused to stop exporting parts for to Israel. And, they’re the same jets the genocidal state is currently using to bomb Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen – and potentially soon Iran.
Palestine Action: shutting down Teledyne’s F-35 ops
Activists from Palestine Action climbed onto the roof of an American owned weapons factory, Teledyne CML Composites, in Wirral, on Tuesday 2 October. From the rooftop, they cut holes into the roof and sprayed blood red paint into the factory:
BREAKING: Palestine Action are on the roof of Teledyne's weapons factory, disrupting the producers of crucial components for Israel's F-35 fighter jets.
In solidarity with the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Yemeni people subjected to Israel’s daily massacres, activists have once again successfully shut down the site known to supply crucial parts for the murderous F-35 fighter jet programme.
As Palestine Action said on X, the group contaminated Teledyne’s clean room. This will “will cause severe disruption to the production of Israel’s F-35 fighter jet components”:
Contamination of this clean room will cause severe disruption to the production of Israel's F-35 fighter jet components.
When our government fails to abide by their legal duty to end complicity in genocide, it's up to ordinary people to take action.
Teledyne CML’s parent company, Teledyne Technologies, is the single-largest exporter of weaponry from Britain to Israel, while ‘CML Composites’ specialises in ‘Aircraft Structural Components’ for the F-35 fighter jet programme.
The ties between Teledyne CML and Israel’s genocide in Gaza run deep, with the Wirral factory also acting as a supplier to numerous other ‘Tier 1’ F-35 partners – including BAE Systems, Marand, and Magellan. To BAE Systems alone, Teledyne CML provides at least ten different “Special processes” for their F-35 programme contributions.
By maintaining approval for F-35 component export licenses for end-use in Israel, the British government remains an activist participant in Israel’s genocidal, criminal attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.
The F-35 fighter jet has been responsible for the delivery of thousands of 2,000lb and 4,000lb bombs on targets including tented refugee encampments in Gaza, and healthcare workers in Lebanon. Today’s action serves to demonstrate that, while the British state might be comfortable in facilitating these acts – Palestine Action cannot permit them.
Not the first time Palestine Action has acted
This action is not the first time that Palestine Action have struck at the Bromborough site, driving a van through the factory gates in July 2024, before drenching the premises in red paint as a symbol of the Palestinian bloodshed it facilitates.
Its sister site, Teledyne Defence and Space, Shipley, was targeted by an occupation in April 2024, preventing the manufacture of military electronics bound for Israel. Earlier this month, a jury at Bradford Crown Court refused to convict the activists, who stood accused of ‘criminal damage’ for their action.
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have constantly crossed ‘red lines’
have tried to ‘play it fairly rationally’
has a ‘responsibility’ to control how Israel