#Terrorism of the Zionist 🐷 🐖 🐗 🐖

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Students at top-tier Universities across the United States have been staging large-scale demonstrations against “The Terrorist, Fascist, Apartheid, Illegal Occupier of the ‘Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’, The Bastard Child of the United States and It’s Puppet West, Zionist 🐗 of Isra-hell’s” bloody war on Palestine's Gaza, and Washington's support for “The Terrorist, Fascist, Apartheid, Illegal Occupier of the ‘Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’, The Bastard Child of the United States and It’s Puppet West, Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Isra-helli Military.” What started with a sit-in protest at Columbia University has morphed into a nationwide movement in recent days, after Columbia University's disastrous decision to call in the police to disperse protesting students.

Students at Yale, Harvard, NYU, MIT, Princeton, UC Berkeley, USC, and Several Other Universities are staging similar demonstrations asking their Universities to Divest From Companies that are Complicit in “The Terrorist, Fascist, Apartheid, Illegal Occupier of the ‘Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’, The Bastard Child of the United States and It’s Puppet West, Zionist 🐗 of Isra-hell’s” brutal war on Gaza, Forever Palestine 🇵🇸 which has Killed more than 34,000 Palestinians so far. Here are five things to know about the protests.

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Criticizing The Illegal Regime of Zionist Terrorist 🐖 Isra-hell? Nonprofit Media Could Lose Tax-Exempt Status Without Due Process

A New Anti-Terrorism Bill Would Allow The Government To Take Away Vital Tax Exemptions From Nonprofit News Outlets.

— Seth Stern | May 10, 2024 | The Intercept

“Scrotums Licker of the Illegal Regime of The Terrorist Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas,” speaks during a news conference in the U.S. Capitol on March 21, 2024. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

It Doesn’t Take much to be accused of supporting terrorism these days. And that doesn’t just go for student activists. In recent months, dozens of lawmakers and public officials have, without evidence, insinuated that U.S. news outlets provide material support for Hamas. Some even issued thinly veiled threats to prosecute news organizations over those bogus allegations.

Their letters were political stunts. Prosecutors would never have been able to carry their burden of proof under anti-terrorism laws, and all the pandering politicians who signed the letters knew that. But next time might be different, especially if nonprofit news outlets, such as The Intercept, manage to offend the government.

That’s because a bill that passed the House with broad bipartisan support in April — after which a companion bill was immediately introduced in the Senate — would empower the secretary of the Treasury to revoke the nonprofit status of any organization deemed “terrorist supporting.” This week, the bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced it as an amendment to must-pass legislation to renew the Federal Aviation Administration’s authorities. While it didn’t make the cut (the Senate didn’t vote on any of the dozens of proposed amendments), it’s likely to make its way to the Senate floor in another form soon.

Funding terrorism is already illegal, but the new bill would let the government avoid the red tape required for criminal prosecutions or official terrorist designations.

You might think actionable support of terrorism is limited to intentional, direct contributions to terror groups. You’d be mistaken. Existing laws on material support for terrorism have long been criticized for their overbreadth and potential for abuse, not only against free speech but also against humanitarian aid providers. A recent letter from 135 rights organizations opposing the bill highlighted efforts to revoke the tax-exempt status of, or otherwise retaliate against, pro-Palestine student groups.

There’s No Reason to believe the press is exempt from overreach. In their recent letters, elected officials called for terrorism investigations of the New York Times, Reuters, CNN, and the Associated Press, relying on allegations that those outlets bought photographs from Palestinian freelancers who covered Hamas’s October 7 attacks.

The feigned outrage originated with a spurious accusation, from an organization ironically calling itself HonestReporting, that those pictures evidenced that the photographers who took them had advance knowledge of the massacre. Otherwise how (other than, say, TV or the internet) would they have known where to go?

HonestReporting then reasoned that the news outlets that bought the pictures may have been in on it as well — because, of course, when an international news giant buys a picture from someone on its vast roster of freelancers, it’s reasonable to impute the freelancer’s alleged sins all the way up the chain.

HonestReporting eventually walked back that convoluted theory, admitting it had no evidence and was merely asking questions. After forcing the news outlets to publicly deny having ties to Hamas, HonestReporting said it believed them.

But that didn’t stop U.S. officials from surmising that the fact some Palestinian freelancers in Gaza had contacts with Hamas officials — which should not be surprising, given that Hamas is the governing authority in the besieged enclave — made anyone who hired them terrorism financiers.

And it gets even worse. One of the letters — signed by over a dozen state attorneys general — floated the theory that the outlets’ reporting could itself evidence support for Hamas. As the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker (another nonprofit news site, operated by Freedom of the Press Foundation, where I work) put it:

The letter also highlighted that “material support” for terrorist groups — both a federal and state crime — can include “writing and distributing publications supporting the organization.” It did not elaborate on what would be considered support, potentially chilling any reporting that does not unequivocally condemn Hamas or unilaterally support Israel.

The attorneys general then warned the outlets that they would “continue to follow your reporting to ensure that your organizations do not violate any federal or State laws by giving material support to terrorists abroad.” The writers continued: “Now your organizations are on notice. Follow the law.”

Many of those same attorneys general recently argued that “First Amendment speech and associational freedoms do not protect persons who provide material support” to terrorism. They failed to mention the Supreme Court’s skepticism that “applications of the material-support statute to speech or advocacy will survive First Amendment scrutiny … even if the Government were to show that such speech benefits foreign terrorist organizations.”

Members Of Congress have set their eyes on news outlets as well. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., parroted HonestReporting’s disinformation in multiple letters, while 15 congressional representatives demanded that the news outlets provide information — potentially including source identities and communications — regarding the freelancers, threatening to issue subpoenas.

If there is any doubt about the nonprofit bill’s backers’ intentions, consider that five of its House sponsors also signed onto a letter to the Internal Revenue Service asking how it defines antisemitism and insinuating that the IRS should deny tax-exempt status to nonprofits that “promote conduct that is counter to public policy,” even if they’re not accused of supporting terrorism at all.

Nonprofit news outlets are already struggling even without government harassment, but revocation of their tax-exempt status would be a death knell for outlets doing the kind of in-depth investigative journalism that is hardly ever profitable these days. The mere prospect would chill reporting, not only on Israel but also on U.S. foreign policy generally. And that’s not to mention the threat to nonprofit press freedom organizations that journalists depend on to protect their rights (including to not get killed in Gaza).

Unfortunately, this is just the latest piece of reckless, unnecessary “national security” legislation that puts the press at risk. Last month, President Joe Biden ignored civil liberties advocates and signed into law a bill that would allow intelligence agencies to enlist any “service provider” to help the U.S. spy on foreigners.

As Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., explained, the law could “forc[e] an employee to insert a USB thumb drive into a server at an office they clean or guard at night.” And that office could easily be a newsroom, where journalists often talk to foreigners whose communications might interest U.S. intelligence agencies.

Is the government going to immediately start conscripting reporters to surveil their sources, or shutting down nonprofit news outlets that stray from the Israeli military’s narrative? Probably not. But history teaches that once officials are given the power to retaliate against journalists they don’t like, they inevitably will. The prospect of the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act being weaponized against journalism was also once merely hypothetical — until it wasn’t.

And let’s not forget that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee publicly fantasizes about jailing and otherwise retaliating against journalists.

Those who claim a second Donald Trump term would mark the end of democracy need to stop passing overbroad and unnecessary new laws handing him, and future authoritarians, brand new ways to harass and silence journalists who don’t toe the line.

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How The ADL’S Anti-Palestinian Advocacy Helped Shape U.S. Terror Laws

Long Before 9/11, “Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗 Groups” Like the “Anti-Defamation League 🐖 🐷 🐗 ” Lobbied For Counterterror Legislation That Singled Out Palestinians, A New Report Reveals.

— By Alice Speri | February 21 2024 | The Intercept

Students from Hunter College chant and hold up signs during a Pro-Palestinian demonstration at the entrance of their campus in New York on Oct. 12, 2023. The organization Students for Justice in Palestine held protests in colleges across the nation to show solidarity with Palestine. Photo: Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket Via Getty Images

Last October, as protests against Israel’s war on Gaza swept U.S. campuses, two prominent pro-Israel groups wrote to nearly 200 university and college administrators urging them to investigate their students for possibly violating federal law by promoting pro-Hamas, anti-Israel messaging.

The Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law suggested that members of Students for Justice in Palestine, the largest Palestine solidarity campus organization in the country, may have been violating a law that prohibits people from providing “material support” — a broad category that includes money as well as services or other assistance — to U.S.-designated terror groups. “We certainly cannot sit idly by as a student organization provides vocal and potentially material support to Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” the ADL and the Brandeis Center wrote.

There is no evidence SJP has ever provided material support to Hamas, and the letter prompted widespread condemnation. The American Civil Liberties Union called on leaders in higher education to “reject baseless calls to investigate or punish student groups for exercising their free speech rights.”

The federal material support law has been the most frequently cited law in prosecutions throughout the U.S-led war on terror. And its invocation by the ADL was a full-circle moment for the group, which helped pass it three decades ago largely to undermine support for Palestinians in the United States. Long before 9/11, U.S. terror laws were shaped by a distinctly anti-Palestinian agenda and often promoted by pro-Israel organizations, a new report published on Wednesday reveals.

“In the history of U.S. terrorism law, Palestine is the elephant in the room,” said Darryl Li, an anthropologist and legal scholar at the University of Chicago and author of the report.

The legal analysis, co-published by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal, a group that fights the legal harassment of pro-Palestine activists, draws on five decades of legislative history to trace how moments of upheaval in Israel and Palestine were exploited by Israel advocates in the U.S. to expand counterterrorism legislation and enshrine antidemocratic principles in a range of domestic laws.

“Many foundational antiterrorism laws arose during or were adapted to pivotal moments in the Palestinian liberation struggle, often pushed by Israel-aligned groups to reflexively cast the veil of ‘terrorism’ almost uniquely on Palestinians,” the report notes. “The same Zionist organizations that pushed for expanded antiterrorism laws — most notably the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) — now brazenly tar all advocacy of Palestinian liberation as support for terrorism.”

Todd Gutnick, a spokesperson for the ADL, disputed the characterization as “false and a complete distortion of our position.” In an email to The Intercept, he wrote that the group’s advocacy of antiterrorism legislation was aimed at different organizations it was monitoring at the time, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and Hamas. “This advocacy did not extend to the Palestinian movement or its supporters broadly — unless those supporters were providing material support to a terrorist organization in violation of federal law,” Gutnick added.

He also dismissed criticism of the ADL and Brandeis Center’s letter to campus leaders. “We fully recognize and support students’ First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, even odious speech, and have made that clear,” he wrote. “But at a time when some SJP leaders were echoing the position of Hamas so closely and with such intensity, and in a manner that was tinged with threats of violence, we strongly believe that an investigation is warranted.”

Emma Saltzberg, the U.S. strategic campaigns director for Diaspora Alliance, an organization that fights “antisemitism and its instrumentalization,” told The Intercept that the ADL’s call for terrorism investigations is contrary to its stated mission as a civil rights group.

“Advocating This Kind Of Investigation, Criminalization Against Activists For Palestinian Rights, Is Laying The Groundwork For Future Repressive State Activity.”

“It’s an active attempt to deny Palestinian students and students who are in solidarity with them — many of whom are Jewish — their civil rights to free expression and free speech,” Saltzberg said, “and to smear legitimate political activism as outside the bounds of acceptable discourse and to attach real material penalties to that.”

She added that the effort, while focused on advocacy for Palestinians, could have far-reaching implications. “Advocating this kind of investigation, criminalization against activists for Palestinian rights, is laying the groundwork for future repressive state activity,” Saltzberg said. “And that is something that should scare people.”

🐖 🐷 🐗 Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League 🐖 🐷 🐗, Speaks at the ADL’s “Never is Now” Conference in New York City at the Javits Center on Nov. 10, 2022. Sipa USA Via AP

An Anti-Palestinian History

U.S. counterterrorism legislation and policies since 9/11 have predominantly targeted Muslims abroad and at home, but earlier efforts to codify terrorism in U.S. law specifically singled out Palestinians, according to the new report.

The earliest reference to “terrorism” in federal legislation dates back to the 1969 Foreign Assistance Act and involves the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which is once again under attack amid Israel’s current war on Gaza. Congress stipulated at the time that no UNRWA funding should go to “any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army … or who has engaged in any act of terrorism,” the report notes. The main sponsor of the provision, late New York Rep. Leonard Farbstein, singled out U.N.-run refugee camps, claiming — not unlike some legislators today — that “these camps are being used for training purposes and the young children for whom the schools are being built and who are being fed and clothed are being trained as terrorists in these refugee camps.”

While the bill offered no definition of terrorism, the reference “set down a decades-long pattern that legally inscribed the Palestinian — and especially the refugee — as the default terrorist,” the report notes.

Throughout the 1970s, Congress passed a series of laws aimed at restricting assistance to states that were hosting or otherwise supporting members of the Palestinian resistance movement. Zionist groups advocated for those laws, according to the report, and pushed for creating a mechanism to trigger such sanctions. In 1979, those efforts culminated in legislation that endowed the secretary of state with the authority to designate foreign countries as “state sponsors of acts of international terrorism.” Since then, the U.S. has repeatedly applied the label to countries in the Middle East and North Africa, excluding them from aid and trade and isolating them from the broader international community.

In 1987, weeks after the outbreak of the largely nonviolent First Intifada, Congress for the first and only time designated a nonstate group, the Palestine Liberation Organization, a “terrorist organization.” The move was part of an effort to oust the PLO from the U.S., including from the United Nations headquarters in New York City, where it had a mission as a nonstate “observer.” While the ouster endeavor failed, the congressional legislation also created the State Department’s “foreign terrorist organization” list, requiring the executive branch to make annual designations of terror groups. Within a year, the State Department added dozens of groups, many pro-Palestinian ones, to the list, which has since ballooned to include a wide range of primarily Muslim groups.

In the following years, U.S. lawmakers inscribed “terrorism” provisions in immigration and civil law, primarily in an effort to target members of the Palestinian resistance movement. In 1990, Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to list “terrorism” as a basis for deportation and the denial of entry into the United States. The legislation once again singled out the PLO, noting that any “officer, official, representative, or spokesman” for the group would be considered to be engaging in terrorist activity.

Two years later, Congress passed the Antiterrorism Act, incentivizing U.S. citizens to file civil suits over acts of international terrorism abroad. The law came on the heels of the 1985 killing by members of the Palestine Liberation Front of Leon Klinghoffer, a U.S. citizen who had been onboard the hijacked Achille Lauro cruise ship. A small conservative think tank drafted the bill, and several Zionist groups, including the ADL, advocated for it. The Klinghoffer family twice testified in favor of the bill on the behalf of the ADL, according to the new report. In the first decade after the law was passed in 1992, some 63 percent of the lawsuits citing it were related to Palestine, with the vast majority brought by dual Israeli American citizens in the aftermath of the Second Intifada, the report notes.

Material Support

The ban on material support to foreign terrorist organizations alone accounted for more than half of federal terrorism prosecutions brought in the aftermath of 9/11, according to an Intercept analysis.

Federal courts have interpreted the material support statute broadly, chilling efforts to provide humanitarian aid in areas, like Gaza, where groups that the U.S. government deems to be terrorist entities operate. But while the legislation exclusively applies to support for foreign groups, it originated domestically, in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by the white supremacists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

The bombing — the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil at that time — prompted calls for sweeping counterterrorism legislation that would give the government ample powers to target domestic and foreign actors. And it was shaped heavily by the ADL.

“Responding to a deadly mass-casualty attack perpetrated by two white men with radically scaled up repression of Black, Brown, and Muslim communities is an all-too-American response.”

The Clinton administration supported a version of the legislation that included several elements from the ADL’s “counterterrorism agenda,” including bans on entry and fundraising for “members and supporters” of terrorist groups, the report notes. Members of the ADL testified in Congress in favor of the legislation, and when Republicans concerned about government overreach struck many of the terrorism provisions in the draft legislation, the ADL condemned legislators for “gutting” it. As Democrats and Republicans disagreed over expanded federal law enforcement authorities, the ADL led a campaign by a dozen pro-Israel groups to fuel fears that Hamas would fundraise in the U.S. and convince legislators to reintroduce the terrorism provisions aimed at foreign groups. In the end, the Oklahoma City bombing led to no legislative action against domestic extremism, but it set the legal foundations upon which U.S. prosecutors have targeted hundreds of people since 9/11.

“Responding to a deadly mass-casualty attack perpetrated by two white men with radically scaled up repression of Black, Brown, and Muslim communities is an all-too-American response,” said Li.

Understanding that history, he added, is essential to keeping the current war in Gaza from engendering even more draconian legislation. Already, in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks, the Biden administration has stepped up surveillance of Palestine supporters, while state governments have cited their own terrorism statutes in crackdowns against critics of Israel’s war. At the federal level, legislators have floated extreme proposals like expelling Palestinians from the U.S. and setting up a committee to investigate antisemitism.

“Since October 7, members of Congress have been trying to out-grandstand each other by proposing racist anti-Palestinian bills,” said Li. “While we must push back against the most outrageous initiatives, the proposals that seem innocuous may end up doing the most harm.”

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US Senator Bernie Sanders Calls Satan-Yahu War Criminal

United States Senator Bernie Sanders

Washington (Sputnik) — US Senator Bernie Sanders has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal and should not be invited to address a joint meeting of Congress.

On Saturday, Satan-Yahu accepted an invitation from US congressional leaders to address a joint meeting of Congress in support of Israel in the fight against terrorism.

"Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. He should not be invited to address a joint meeting of Congress. I certainly will not attend," Sanders said on his social media.

The senator said that he agreed with the International Criminal Court's (ICC) arrest warrant for Satan-Yahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, adding that "these people are engaged in clear and outrageous violations of international law."

On May 20, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan filed requests for arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Satan-Yahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas political bureau head Ismail Haniyeh and the leader of Hamas' military wing, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Masri, over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed since October 2023 based on evidence collected and examined by his office.

Chile Joins South African ICJ Case Against Israel

Chile 🇨🇱 is the latest in a growing list of countries that have joined South Africa in their case against Israel for genocide in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

President Gabriel Boric announced his country’s intention to join the case during a speech, accusing the Isra-helli 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Defense Force (IDF) of using “Indiscriminate and Disproportional” force.

“These acts demand a firm and permanent response of the international community,” he added.

South Africa brought the case against Israel last year, accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, a charge that Israel denied. Chile is the latest in a growing list of countries that have joined the case. Earlier this week, Mexico announced that it would support South Africa. Nicaragua 🇳🇮, Colombia, Libya, Maldives, Namibia, Venezuela, Egypt, Bolivia, Türkiye, Ireland, Belgium, Indonesia and the Organization of Islamic Countries which has 57 members, have all either formally joined the case, announced their intention to, or expressed support for it.

Fascist, War Criminal, Complicit in Genocide in Gaza Germany is the only country that has said it will intervene on behalf of “The Illegal Regime of the War Criminal, Fascist, Zionist 🐗 Isra-hell” and The United States declared its opposition to it.

Chile hosts the world largest community of Palestinians outside of the Middle East.

In January, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling saying that it was “Plausible” that Israel was committing genocide and ordered it to take action to prevent genocide from happening in Gaza while allowing aid to reach needy Palestinians.

Last week, the ICJ issued another ruling, ordering Israel to stop its campaign on Rafah, the southern Gazan city where more than a million Palestinians were sheltering after “The Illegal Regime of the War Criminal, Fascist Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell” declared it the last safe zone in the enclave. Three days later, Israel bombed a tent camp of refugees in Gaza, sparking a fire and killing more than 50 people, many of whom were burned alive.

Israel initially said was carefully targeted to hit Hamas leaders, but after hellish images and videos of the attack spread across social media, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “tragic mistake.” The attack received widespread international condemnation.

At least 35,984 Palestinians have been Killed since “The Illegal Regime of the War Criminal, Fascist Zionist 🐷 Isra-hell” began its campaign against Gaza in October, including more than 15,000 Innocent Children, according to the local authorities. More than 80,634 Palestinians have been Seriously Injured and at least another 10,000 Are Missing. Including Hamas’ October 7 attack and subsequent deaths during the fighting, at least 1,139 Isra-hellis have been Departed to the Hell Fire 🔥 Forever and more than 8,730 have been Injured.

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The Terrorism By the God’s Cursed, Illegal Occupiers, Fucked-up, War Criminals, Genociders and Terrorist Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗!

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“Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Liar, Conspirator, Apartheid and the Illegal Regime of the Zionist Isra-helli 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Forces” will distribute more machine guns to illegal Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Channel 7 reported on May 30. The additional long guns or machine guns would also be distributed "to residents who are not members of the reserve unit to enhance security," an occupation forces representative said.

At the end of last year, “Far-Right, Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Liar, Conspirator, Apartheid and the Illegal Regime of the Zionist Isra-helli 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir” kicked off a campaign to arm Israelis, including settlers in the occupied West Bank, under the guise of providing protection against Palestinian attacks.

Weapons were distributed among illegal settlers and reserve soldiers in the Israeli occupation forces without specifying the quantity of weapons distributed. Tzvi Sukkot, Chairman of the Judea and Samaria Committee and Member of Knesset From the Far-Right Religious Zionism Party, welcomed the decision to increase the distribution of weapons in settlements in Judea and Samaria - the biblical terms for the occupied West Bank - and called on interested Jewish settlers to apply to carry weapons in a statement to Israel's Channel 7. It is estimated that there are approximately 720,000 Illegal Israeli Settlers living in the occupied West Bank, Including East Jerusalem.

“Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Liar, Conspirator, Apartheid and the Illegal Regime of the Zionist Isra-helli 🐖 Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich” threatened to destroy cities, neighbourhoods and camps in the northern occupied West Bank similar to what Israel has done in Gaza, in a video post on X on May 30.

"Our message to the neighbours beyond the fence in Tulkarem, Nur Shams, Shuweika and Qalqilya: We will turn you into ruined cities like in the Gaza Strip if the terror you are exerting on the settlements continues." He threatened to "continue to control Judea and Samaria," the biblical terms for the occupied West Bank.

Addressing Israeli citizens, he asserted that "if a Palestinian state is allowed to be established, settlements in the West Bank could be subjected to a similar attack," referring to the cross-border attack carried out by Palestinian resistance Hamas on Israeli military bases and settlements on October 7. The extremist minister insisted on his rejection of the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying that "it will not happen."

Tensions have been running high across the West Bank since Israel launched a deadly military offensive against Gaza on October 7. According to the Ministry of Health, Israeli forces have killed at least 509 Palestinians and injured thousands more in the occupied territory in 2023, more than double the number recorded in any previous year.

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October 7 “Zionist Survivor 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗” Sue Campus Protestors, Say Students Are “HAMAS’s Propaganda Division!” “The Goal Is To Isolate Palestinians.”

Four Lawsuits Alleging Hamas Ties Against Students for Justice in Palestine 🇵🇸, the AP, UNRWA, and a Cryptocurrency Exchange Share Many of The Same Plaintiffs. They are Definitely Backed By the “Asshole Isra-helli 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Against Civilization (AIPAC)”

— Akela Lacy | May 10 2024 | The Intercept

New York, New York — November 20: People gather to protest the banning of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) at Columbia University on November 20, 2023 in New York City. Students, alumni of both schools, some dressed in caps and gowns, and supporters held a "Denouncement Ceremony" and pledged not to donate money to the schools after the banning of the student groups for holding a nonviolent but unsanctioned protest demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. More than 20 progressive elected officials have sent a letter to the university calling for the reinstatement of the groups. Calls for a ceasefire in Gaza continue as the death toll from Terrorist Israel’s invasion of Gaza has increased in the weeks since the October 7 Hamas attack. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Survivors Of The October 7 Attacks filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court last week alleging links between Hamas and the pro-Palestinian student groups leading nationwide protests against Israel’s war on Gaza. The survivors claim the student groups are liable for monetary damages because of the purported terrorism links.

“When someone tells you they are aiding and abetting terrorists — believe them.” That’s the opening line the suit filed Wednesday against the Palestinian advocacy groups American Muslims for Palestine and National Students for Justice in Palestine, the umbrella group supporting student organizers for Palestine, which supports more than 350 Palestine solidarity groups, including more than 200 campus organizations across the country.

The lawsuit is part of a nationwide crackdown on pro-Palestine activism, especially on campus. It was filed a day after police in New York City deployed militarized forces to remove students from campus encampments protesting the war on Gaza and arrested hundreds.

Some or all of the nine plaintiffs in the suit are involved in a raft of other civil suits related to the October 7 attacks. Among the defendants they’ve pursued in court are major media organizations and United Nations agencies.

The survivors of the October 7 attack alleged that American Muslims for Palestine “serves as Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States.”

“Through NSJP, AMP uses propaganda to intimidate, convince, and recruit uninformed, misguided, and impressionable college students to serve as foot soldiers for Hamas on campus and beyond,” the October 7 survivors wrote in their suit.

The lawsuits rely on anti-terrorism laws that made it possible to bring civil cases for acts of international terrorism, including provisions around bans on material support to terrorism that have long been controversially applied. At the time of their passage, members of Congress who pushed the anti-terror laws linked them directly to crackdowns on pro-Palestine activities, according to a recent white paper from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal.

“The Goal Is To Isolate Palestinians.”

“For years, CCR and others have been warning of the abuse of broad ‘material support’ laws to shrink the space for Palestinian rights,” said Diala Shamas, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The group represented another Palestinian rights organization in what Shamas said was “years-long, meritless litigation” brought by the Jewish National Fund, a group that funds Israeli settlements.

“The law’s provision of civil damages means that private actors — including those with seemingly endless resources — can bog you down in costly and distracting litigation,” Shamas said. “This means that Palestinians and those who support their rights become ‘high risk’ — and those who they rely on — charities, funders, banks or social media companies — are chilled from further engagement. The goal is to isolate Palestinians.”

The nine plaintiffs include six survivors of the October 7 Hamas attacks. Five people attended the Supernova music festival, and another was attacked at Zikim Beach, where 19 civilians were killed as Hamas militants tried to overrun nearby military outposts.

Two other plaintiffs who were not home on October 7 had homes in Kibbutz Holit, the site of additional Hamas attacks. Another plaintiff’s brother was killed at the festival. (Lawyers for the plaintiffs, AMP, and SJP did not respond to requests for comment.)

The AMP suit is the fourth federal suit filed this year by members of the group.

Last month, eight of the same plaintiffs sued the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, claiming that it gave material support to Hamas by allowing the militant group to fundraise on the platform. In November, the Treasury Department said Hamas and “a range of illicit actors” had used Binance to funnel money to their groups. Binance lawyers asked for an extension to reply to the complaint and have until August to do so. In April, the company’s former chief executive was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering violations.

Five of the plaintiffs in the American Muslims for Palestine suit also sued the news agency The Associated Press in February. The plaintiffs alleged that the AP used photographs from “known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with the Hamas terrorists during the October 7th attacks.” Lawyers for the AP moved to dismiss the complaint for failing to state a claim and asked to stay discovery pending adjudication of the motion to dismiss.

In March, the same group of nine plus another October 7 survivor sued the U.S. committee of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNWRA, the largest humanitarian organization operating in Gaza. The suit against UNRWA claims that the group “financed and aided” Hamas, a frequent refrain from Israeli officials that has gone unsubstantiated, according to an independent review released in April. UNRWA lawyers were granted an extension and have until May 28 to respond to the complaint.

Following Israeli officials’ allegations, major donors initially cut funding to UNRWA, but later reversed the decisions — except for the United States, the group’s biggest donor, where Congress blocked funding as part of the budget package approved this spring.

The major corporate law firm Greenberg Traurig has taken on the latest case. The National Jewish Advocacy Center has taken on the three other cases. The group did not respond to a request for comment.

Pro-Palestinian students stand their ground after police breached their encampment the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, California, early on May 2, 2024. Police deployed a heavy presence on US university campuses on May 1 after forcibly clearing away some weeks-long protests against Israel's war with Hamas. Dozens of police cars patrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles campus in response to violent clashes overnight when counter-protesters attacked an encampment of pro-Palestinian students. Photo by Etienne Laurent/AFP) (Photo by Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images

Crackdown on Student Groups

Student advocates for Palestine have faced concerted and sometimes violent crackdowns by school administrators and police. Mainstream media outlets uncritically repeat unsubstantiated claims that they support Hamas.

Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, which are at the center of much campus organizing, have faced harsh censorship since October. The group was singled out in congressional hearings that have pressured university administrators to further crack down on Palestinian advocacy on campus.

Columbia University suspended its SJP chapter and its chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace in November. The New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal sued the university over the suspension in March in the New York Supreme Court. The case is pending.

American University placed its SJP chapter on probation in April after the group held a silent indoor demonstration; the school banned indoor protests in January. Rutgers University suspended the SJP chapter on its New Brunswick campus in December and claimed that the group had protested in “nonpublic forums” and caused disruption on campus; the suspension was lifted in January. (I am a co-teacher of a class at Rutgers.)

George Washington University suspended its SJP chapter in November after the group projected statements onto a library building calling for the university to divest from Israel. The projected images said GWU had blood on its hands and used the phrase “Glory to our martyrs,” a cultural reference to any Palestinian killed by Israel that was interpreted by outsiders as an endorsement of Hamas.

Brandeis was the first private university to ban its SJP chapter in November, claiming that the group “openly supports Hamas.”

State-level Republican officials have also taken steps to legalize the suppression of SJP. In March, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order targeting campus activism, calling on all the state’s higher education institutions to “review and update free speech policies” to address antisemitism. The order defined the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as antisemitic and linked the use of the widely adopted phrase to Hamas.

And in October, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered colleges to shut down all SJP chapters. The University of Florida SJP chapter sued DeSantis in November and said the governor’s order was a violation of free speech. A federal court denied the chapter’s request for a preliminary injunction in January and found that Florida officials did not intend to deactivate all SJP chapters after comments by the Florida University System chancellor walking back DeSantis’s order.

In October, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares opened an investigation into AMP and said his office had reason to believe that the organization was soliciting contributions without proper registration. Miyares, a Republican, had also called on state law enforcement agencies to donate tactical gear to Israeli citizens.

Last week, Congress adopted a resolution that would further chill speech from organizations like SJP. The resolution employs a controversial definition of antisemitism that includes any attempts to draw comparisons between the actions of the Israeli government and Nazis. The House voted 320 to 91 to adopt the working definition of antisemitism published in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The lead author of the definition has said it “was never intended to be a campus hate speech code.”

[xtruss]

“The Terrorist, Fascist, Apartheid, Illegal Occupier of the ‘Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’, The Bastard Child of the United States and It’s Puppet West, Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Isra-helli Military.” is preparing to invade the southern Gaza City of Rafah "Very Soon," Isra-helli Public Broadcaster KAN reported, adding that over a million people in Rafah will be asked to evacuate to shelters in the Southern and Central Parts of the Besieged Enclave.

Two Hundred Days!

— 23 April, 2024 | CodePink | By Moataz "Taz" Salim

For generations we have endured the oppressor that seeks to crush our spirits and steal our homeland. Yet still our resolve has not wavered, nor our song of liberation been stilled.

For too long Gaza has suffered, unwillingly, due to the settler-colonial entity. Our land has been watered, for over 75 years, with the innocent tears and blood of my people. For over 75 years, we have been carried by an unyielding spirit of resistance that courses through our veins.

In 200 days, 161 of my own blood have been taken from us, 161 of over 40,000 that we know of. 40k too many. While the fools over here debate “safety” on campus, every educational institution in my homeland has been destroyed.

"In 200 days, 161 of my own blood have been taken from us, 161 of over 40,000 that we know of. 40k too many. While the fools over here debate "safety" on campus, every educational institution in my homeland has been destroyed."

I recall vividly, in my childhood, being glued to the television in terror as our lands and people are massacred yet again. Thousands “mowed down” like stalks of wheat before the mechanical reaper’s blade. Yet still the nations and the people turned their eyes away. They slept while Gaza wept. No more will we accept this status quo of suffering in silent submission. Our time of waking has come — the fire in our souls will not be quenched.

Never again shall tyranny hold dominion over this sacred ground. Our song of liberation shall ring forth until we sing it in Jenin, in Tulkarem, in Ramallah, in Al-Quds, in Yaffa, in Al-Lydd, and in Gaza. Free Palestine. 🍉

— Moataz Salim, A Palestinian-American From Gaza Advocating for an end to the Genocide and a Free Palestine. He has been joining CODEPINK every day for 3 months to be a voice for my people heard in these halls of Congress. This post was originally posted to his Instagram account

[xtruss]

"The Final Years of All Settler-colonies Are Marked By More Protracted Colonial Savagery, Including Genocide.

In Kenya, the British are estimated to have killed 100,000 Kenyans during the war of national liberation that ended white supremacist colonial rule in 1963. The wars of liberation in Angola and Mozambique against their Portuguese colonists cost tens of thousands of lives between 1956 and 1976. But of all these precedents, Algeria is perhaps the most apposite example of what has been unfolding in Gaza.

In January 1955, former French minister of the colonies Jacques Soustelle was appointed governor-general of Algeria. He created the Sections Administratives Specialisees to undermine the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) and win over the Algerians.

The army began to depopulate Algerian villages, relocating whole villages away from FLN areas of activity. It further established Algerian anti-FLN militias, depicting the FLN fighters as "locusts" in a huge propaganda campaign while representing itself as saving the Algerians from the evils of communism and Arab nationalism. This is not unlike the American and Israeli attempts to "save" Palestinians from the evils of "terrorism".

If these imperialist justifications remind us of how Iran today is targeted as the force behind the Palestinian revolt in Gaza and the West Bank and is constantly being threatened by Israel, the US, and their Arab allies, it is because the rhetoric is the same.

There was also growing support for Algeria's independence at the UN. The US, however, abstained on a General Assembly resolution in December 1957 recognising Algerians' right to independence.

So far, The Terrorist, Fascist, Genocidal, Apartheid, Illegal Occupier and War Criminal Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗 Isra-hellis have killed over 33,000 Palestinians in the last six months. They have shown an appetite to kill many more to preserve their Jewish supremacist settler-colony. As to how many more Palestinians Israel will kill in its final years before it is dismantled is something only White House strategists know."

— ✍️ Joseph Massad

[xtruss]

UN legal experts said in a report that “Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗 Isra-helli Military” personnel and civilian officials responsible for the country's deadly strike on Iran's consulate in Syria may have "committed crimes under an international counter-terrorism treaty of 1971, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons."

"All countries are prohibited from arbitrarily depriving individuals of their right to life in military operations abroad, including when countering terrorism," they said. "Killings in foreign territory are arbitrary when they are not authorised under international law."

Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗 Isra-hell's attack consequently violated the prohibition on the use of armed force against another state under Article 2(4) of the Charter,' they added. "Illegal force was used not only against Iran's armed forces but also against Syrian territory. Israel's attack was partly launched from the Golan Heights, which is illegally annexed Syrian territory!"

The experts also said that Iran's retaliatory attack was "a prohibited use of force under international law." They argue that since Israel's attack ended on 1 April, Iran did not have the right to self-defence as the latter is "only lawful where is it necessary to stop a continuing armed attack."

"For the same reason, Israel's initial right of self-defence against the unlawful Iranian armed attack on 13 April no longer persists since the attack has been successfully repelled," they added.