#attacks on Ilhan Omar

[cavalierzee]

This Is A Revenge Resolution!

[jewish-sideblog]

Ilhan Omar tweeting “Follow the money” and “It’s all about the Benjamins” is so funny to me because. Obviously, it’s intended to weaponize leftist anticapitalist sentiments against the Scary Jews that supposedly control international banks.

But if you do actually go follow the money, you find out that the people who orchestrated the attack and rekindled all this violence are multi-billionaires living in Qatar. You find out that the reason Gaza’s infrastructure has been in shambles for twenty years despite receiving millions in financial aid is that Hamas funnels hundreds of millions of dollars into their military, and hundreds of millions more into investment portfolios and cryptocurrency for their leadership while ignoring the plight of the average Gazan. You find out that after Hamas leadership convinced impoverished Gazans to murder children living in farming communes, they sat back and watched from a thousand miles away.

Follow the money, and you’ll find class warfare disguised as an international conflict. Follow the money, and you’ll find what you always find: The richest among us, patting themselves on the back for once again managing to get a bunch of poor peasants to kill each other for profit.

[probablyasocialecologist]

“Israel has a right to defend itself.” This mindless cliché is the go-to posture for those who wish to wave away the mounting Palestinian body count and sirens going off about a potential genocide without the messiness of having to justify the specifics of what they’re defending. On its surface, it sounds both anodyne and sensible: Clearly a country has a “right to defend itself.” We are expected to accept this truism and move on. But wait a second. What is entailed by said country’s theory of “defense” and its political and legal relationship to the population with whom it is going to war? In the abstract, most people would agree that any county has “a right to defend itself.” But Israel is an occupying military power on land that, under international law, isn’t its land. What’s happening in Gaza right now is not a traditional war in any meaningful sense. Israel’s pummeling of a civilian population counts as “defending itself” only under the most Bronze Age moral logic of collective punishment. Even if one accepts this logic—which, to be clear, I obviously do not—or, if you believe some high but arbitrary number of Gazans must die as payback for the October 7 attack by Hamas, it would seem Israel has surpassed that number a long time ago. If one thinks killing civilians is okay as long as in doing so some Hamas fighters may be killed, then they should say what ratio of death is acceptable: 1-to-10? 1-to100? 1-to-1000? Even if a person thinks lobbing bombs into a caged population is justified because of the high Israeli body count—which to be clear, one should not think—surely 5,000 dead civilians and more than 2,000 dead children is recompense enough. No one realistically thinks Hamas—or violent resistance from Gaza—will be “wiped out” by this war. So what is the end game here? And those that do think this, what in Israel’s plan leads them to believe this is achievable without killing tens of thousands of civilians? This is a point Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) made to her pro-Israel congressional colleague Ritchie Torres (D-NY) last week, when she asked her critics, quite appropriately, how many dead Palestinian children will be sufficient. “How many more killings is enough for you? Is it a thousand more? Two thousand more? Three thousand more? How many more Palestinian [deaths] would make you happy?” It’s a genuine question: For liberals who say Israel has a “right” to kill as many civilians as it deems appropriate to “defeat Hamas,” clearly there has to be some upward limit, no? How many Palestinian children need to be snuffed out before the cure has become worse than the disease? Those defending the brutal bombing campaign should provide one, as this would reveal how fundamentally broken their moral logic is.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again on Sunday, saying that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “ethnic cleansing.”

Sanders reiterated his familiar call on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday to hold Netanyahu responsible for Israel’s actions in Gaza, pointing to the staggering death toll and the displacement of Palestinians in the region. He was asked to respond to the ongoing pro-Palestinian protests that have broken out on college campuses across the country and to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) remarks last week when visiting Columbia University.

“What I think the essential point that Ilhan made is that we do not want to see antisemitism in this country. And I think the word ‘genocide’ is something that is being determined by the International Court of Justice,” he said.

“But just as what I will say: I don’t think there’s any doubt that what Netanyahu is doing now — displacing 80% of the population in Gaza — is ethnic cleansing. That’s what it is. Pushing out huge numbers of people,” he added.

Omar visited Columbia’s campus last week, where the national spotlight has focused on the hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered there. CNN played a clip of her comments Sunday on the ongoing protests on “State of the Union.”

“I think it is really unfortunate that people don’t care about the fact that all Jewish kids should be kept safe and that we should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they are pro-genocide or anti-genocide,” she said.

Sanders has repeatedly criticized Netanyahu for the ongoing war in Gaza and has opposed more U.S. funding to Israel. He also reiterated his calls for an end to U.S. funding to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“And now we’re looking at the possibility of an attack on Rafah, where people have gone to as a so-called safety zone. So, what’s going on there, again, to my mind, is outrageous. And as you’ve indicated, I strongly oppose U.S. funding for Netanyahu’s war machine,” he added.

[socialjusticefail]

Went on a searching spree for articles about Jewish Voices for Peace. This article is long and explains some of the things that JVP has done. It also mentions some familiar names to anyone who followed the Women's March.

I found this piece criticizing JVP stances on Israel and how the JVP views Zionism as a form of white supremacy.

The ADL has a piece on them showing some of the stuff JVP has posted to the internet.

This piece for The Independent is talking about JVP's definition of Zionism and how they vilfy Jews who identify with Zionism.

This article on Forward is from a non-Jewish Latina who works at the ADL talking about what surprised her about JVP attacks on the ADL. This person is fairly senior in ADL, but JVP treated her like someone in a very junior role because of her race.

This piece is talking about Jewish organizations questioning whether JVP is really a Jewish organization. It was the claims that JVP is not Jewish that made me want to search for evidence that this is the case.

[schraubd]

Opposing Antisemitism is Hard When You Just Assume It's a Political Stunt

The Republican Party of Texas just voted down a resolution that would have barred the state GOP from associating with persons "known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial." The internet is having a field day over this, and understandably so. Meanwhile, one of the resolution's proponents is baffled: “I just don’t understand how people who routinely refer to others as leftists, liberals, communists, socialists and RINOs (‘Republicans in Name Only’) don’t have the discernment to define what a Nazi is,” committee member Morgan Cisneros Graham told the Tribune after the vote. Far from raising a question, Graham has in fact answered it. The litany listed here -- "leftists, liberals, communists, socialists, RINOs" -- none of these are, in their "routine" use by Republican officials, terms that are actually meant to carry some sort of principled semantic meaning. They're slurs -- bits of rhetorical seasoning, nothing more. And it's no surprise that Republicans treat antisemitism and Nazism, like all other "-isms", in the same fashion -- as a contentless slur one opportunistically hurls at political opponents. They have genuinely drunk their own kool-aid on this. They really don't think that, when people talk about antisemitism or neo-Nazis, they might be referring to something real and objective in the world. Of course it's meaningless theater.  And if one believes that, then it absolutely makes sense why one would be worried about vagueness and unclear boundaries. The article observes that some committee members "questioned how their colleagues could find words like 'antisemitism' too vague, despite frequently lobbing it and other terms at their political opponents." Again, this bafflement disappears once one realizes that for these Republicans, the vagueness and lack of definition is a service, not a barrier, to the frequent lobbing -- it is because they studiously avoid thinking that antisemitism means anything that they can toss it out to attack everything. This is why one can never trust Republicans to tackle antisemitism. I mean yes, for the obvious reason that they can't even reliably disavow Nazis. But also for the slightly less obvious but still important reason that their entire orientation towards "antisemitism" is that it is nothing more than a gambit in a political game.* They don't take it seriously as an actual, extant phenomenon, and so they'll never be able to respond to it as one. * Somewhere -- I can't find it -- I remarked on how Republicans, shortly after Ilhan Omar's "Benjamins" controversy, tried to gin up another controversy over Omar aggressively questioning conservative foreign policy maven Elliott Abrams. There was transparently nothing there on the Abrams thing, but many conservatives seemed baffled that their antisemitism claims weren't getting traction after so much attention was paid to the "Benjamins" tweet. What was the difference? The possibility that the difference could be explained by actual substance -- the "Benjamins" tweet was plausibly antisemitic, the Abrams questioning was not -- truly, genuinely didn't seem to occur to them. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/Yj9nldL

[booasaur]

For months now, Columbia professor Shai Davidai has been harassing and doxxing his students, including those who've lost family in Palestine. He's recorded them, heckled their protests, mocked when they were attacked by chemical weapons by former IDF soldiers and had to go to the hospital. There have been 50 complaints about him, the Columbia president admitted.

Now, during the escalated Columbia protests, he's saying the National Guard should be brought in. Why? EVEN the NYPD admitted they've been completely peaceful. Seems odd when the biggest association with the National Guard and college war protests are the Kent State shootings.

Is there a single objection to this video that isn't rooted in Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia?

Share what? What's so inherently alarming about this? Why incite more hate and possible violence against people praying?

Please sign this petition to remove him from a position where can continue to target students.

ETA: I forgot to mention, he called the organizers of these peaceful protests--including Ilhan Omar's daughter--to stop a genocide the Hitler Youth.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

They have no party platform of issues to run on. They have no list of things they will do for the American people. All they have is Rump’s Project 2025 which will benefit billionaires, multimillionaires, and corporations while turning America into Nazi Germany 2.0.

Whe you have no platform of ideas and policies you spend all your time on the attack with vulgar and sophomoric insults and hatred for everyone.

[mariacallous]

A Nepalese historian once told me a story. On a plane to Kathmandu, he was sitting next to an American legal expert who had been called in to help design Nepal’s first-ever republican constitution. But after sparking a conversation about Nepal’s history and its diverse peoples, the historian was shocked at the expert’s lack of knowledge about the country. The American was quick to explain that this ignorance was deliberate, and that he had no desire to learn about Nepal. “You see, good constitutional law is good regardless of the context,” the expert said. “I make a point of not learning details about a country, because they are irrelevant to constitutional design.”

This case might be extreme, or perhaps embellished in the retelling, but something about it feels terribly familiar in regard to the Middle East. Americans debating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often resort to simple categories and narratives, seeking to impose them without regard to context. One such narrative ignores the history of nationalism and the national right to self-determination. Israel, by this account, is uniquely evil because it is an ethno-nationalist state, and thus the only acceptable solution is for all the land between the (Jordan) river and the (Mediterranean) sea to be part of “one secular democratic state,” presumably without an ethno-national reference, similar to the United States.

I’ll say at the outset that many reasonable debates can be had about the nature of both Israel as a Jewish state and any possible solution to its conflict with the Palestinians. Israelis, both Jewish and Arab, have long contested what exactly it means for a state to be Jewish, or for Israel to be “a state of all its citizens.” Many Israelis and Palestinians have made eloquent cases for various forms of a one-state solution, as is their prerogative.

My problem isn’t with raising these questions, but with having prepackaged answers to them based on facile categories. In a view common on the American left, ethno-nationalism is no different from racism, and for Israel to be a Jewish state is comparable to the United States wanting to be a white state. Many American proponents of the one-state solution use a similar logic. When he abandoned his long-held liberal Zionism in 2020, the journalist Peter Beinart claimed that he had embraced a vision of one state for all in the name of opposing “Jewish-Palestinian separation” and condoning “equality.” The strong implication is that a two-state solution would not bring genuine equality.

Many in this crowd take support for what liberal proponents of Israel have long called a “Jewish and democratic state” to be a demand for ethno-supremacy. A recent letter that calls for “Palestinian liberation,” signed by a number of eminent scholars, such as Étienne Balibar, Judith Butler, and Angela Davis, condemns Israel for having been “an ethno-supremacist state” since its foundation in 1948. By this logic, anyone who supports a two-state solution, which stipulates that a state of Israel exist alongside a state of Palestine, must be racist and ethno-supremacist. For this reason, even Representative Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, was once attacked as defending “pure racism” due to her support for the two-state solution.

Progressives have many good reasons for treating nationalism with skepticism. But proponents of Palestine seem to miss the irony that, even as they disavow any idea of Jewish nationalism as verboten ethno-supremacy, they are asserting a rival form of nationalism—Palestinian nationalism, which comes with its own rich traditions and history. The Palestinian flag they wave at demonstrations isn’t a random symbol of liberal secular democracy but one based on pan-Arab national colors. In other words, it is very much an ethno-nationalist flag.

Does that mean the Palestinian flag is one of Arab supremacy? Of course not. Like other nationalisms, Palestinian nationalism can have many variants with different degrees of inclusivity. The Palestinian National Charter, written in the 1960s, called Palestine “an indivisible part of the Arab homeland,” entitled to all the land between the river and the sea, and asserted that the majority of Israeli Jews had no place in a liberated Palestine. The charter also asserted that Jews were not “one people with an independent personality” (in the 1964 version) or “a single nation with an identity of its own” (in the 1968 version). But many Palestinians have long contested this exclusionary version of nationalism. Palestinian thinkers and scholars, such as Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, and Mahmoud Darwish, came to recognize the reality of Israeli nationhood. So did the leadership of the Palestinian national movement, which, in 1996, amended the charter to make recognition of the state of Israel possible.

Jewish nationalism, or Zionism, also has many variants. Under its right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has become more and more discriminatory toward its non-Jewish citizens, as evidenced by the 2018 passage of the Nation-State Law, which demoted the status of the Arabic language. Things got much worse last year, when Netanyahu invited outright anti-Arab and Jewish-supremacist fascists into his government. But many in Israeli society and politics, including many Zionists in the political class, heavily oppose this government and its discriminatory legislation. Millions of citizens fight for a more equal vision of Israel even as they defend its existence as a national state.

These values are reconcilable because the core idea of nationalism is not the supremacy of one ethnic group over the other, but the right of a nation to self-determination. The right to self-determination has long been central to progressive politics, among both liberals and socialists. The world of empires crumbled in the First World War, and in its aftermath, postwar leaders, including Woodrow Wilson and Vladimir Lenin, championed this right (at least in rhetoric, if not always in practice), as did their ideological descendants. The world of empires was thus turned into a world of nations, with nationalism a cornerstone of the modern global order (it’s called the United Nations for a reason).

Of course, like all political movements, nationalism has its share of contradictions, not to mention a gory track record. The demographic and geographic boundaries of nations, and the status of minorities within them, have occasioned no end of contestation and conflict. Zionism, in fact, was born from this contestation, as Jews found themselves excluded from most forms of nationalism in the places where they lived. Additionally, as the political scientist Joseph Huddleston has argued, international law has long struggled to find a balance between the national right to self-determination and the right of states to their territorial integrity.

National boundaries are everywhere soaked in blood. Ultranationalist governments have helped kill millions of people, in atrocities such as the Holocaust in the 20th century, and in campaigns of ethnic cleansing in both the last century and the present one. The creation of Israel was followed by a war that displaced an estimated 750,000 Palestinians; Arab states subsequently drove out hundreds of thousands of their own Jewish citizens. India and Pakistan were co-created in an orgy of violence that killed up to 2 million people. Millions of ethnic Turks, Greeks, Germans, Poles, Hungarians, and Russians were driven out of their ancestral lands.

Yet, terrible as nationalist history is, national identities can’t be reduced to exclusion and bloodshed. These identities have endured precisely because they have demonstrated the power to connect millions of people together into meaningful communities. The historian Benedict Anderson is known for his critical take on nationalism. But he also appreciated its integrative qualities and noted that “regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.”

Both Israelis and Palestinians have shown deep attachments not just to their shared homeland but to their own nations, in precisely this form of “horizontal comradeship.” Edward Said, who remained devoted to his Palestinian identity through long years of exile, is known today for advocating a one-state solution. What’s often missed is that he believed in a binational version of such a state that would recognize the national rights of both communities in Israel/Palestine: Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. He also acknowledged the necessity of starting with a two-state solution before such state unity could take place.

This strong sense of national belonging explains why the idea of sharing one united and democratic state usually doesn’t poll very well among either Israelis or Palestinians. Not a single political force in either Israel or Palestine supports it. This despite the fact that Israel’s intransigent and brutal occupation of Palestinian territories and its expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank have made many lose hope in the feasibility of a Palestinian state. Whenever such feasibility improves, so too might enthusiasm for a two-state solution, which even now enjoys a plurality of support in both communities in most polls.

The idea that Palestinians and Israelis can simply give up their respective national identities and merge into one peaceful democratic nation-state doesn’t seem to have much basis in history. Nations in the modern era have almost never decided to willingly dissolve themselves into a single state, and even confederations are quite rare, although laudable when they do happen.

The hubris of outsiders in ignoring the national realities of Israel/Palestine resonates eerily with American attitudes of an earlier era. After 9/11, many liberals and neoconservatives seemed to bank on fantasy visions of the Middle East, thinking that the region could be forcibly rightsized to match such projections. Then as now, many didn’t take the Middle East and its actually existing nations seriously, even as they cheered on the disastrous invasion of Iraq.

Beinart was one such liberal. He realized his mistake, writing a few years later that he was wrong to be “willing to gamble,” because, as he wrote, “I wasn’t gambling with my own life.” Yet a similar attitude underlies his endorsement of turning Israel/Palestine into a federation like Belgium without following the lead of people who actually live there and have no lives to gamble with but their own. Last year, hundreds of thousands of Israelis came out to protest Netanyahu’s government, and Beinart dismissed them as offering merely “a polite brand of ethnonationalism.” They received a similarly cold shoulder from most of the American left. The attitude of Palestinian citizens of Israel could hardly be more different. Ayman Odeh, a popular left-wing member of the Knesset in Israel, greeted the demonstrators as “my future partners in creating a better life for this country.”

Today Odeh calls for a cease-fire in Gaza but remains clear-eyed about what will be necessary to secure a future of peace and coexistence: “The only way we can fulfill our responsibility to the nation of our youngest ones—and to ourselves—is to recognize the nation of Palestine and the nation of Israel, and to establish a state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel,” he wrote in The New York Times.

Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going anywhere, and neither will give up their national identity. Those who truly want peace and justice in the Holy Land should start by recognizing this reality. Israel can and must be pushed to end the occupation of the Palestinian territories and stop the obstruction of Palestinian sovereignty. But neither it nor Palestine can be pushed to commit ethno-national suicide.

[troythecatfish]

This is the tweet that Ilhan Omar STILL has pinned at the top of her profile on X/ Twitter after all this time. THIS is what she has pinned to her profile.... Not the genocide in Gaza, not her condemning Israel for their war crimes, not a statement against anti-Zionism, but rather a tweet condemning H@m@s and their attack in October.

I don't understand why some leftists think "The Squad" is revolutionary.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah for CNN:

“America may soon be subjected to the country’s first DEI president: Kamala Harris,” screamed the headline of an op-ed in The New York Post on Saturday penned by Fox Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino. The longtime media figure began his article by slamming Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs as “literally destroying businesses.” Gasparino then took aim at the vice president, writing that “the American public may soon be subjected to DEI writ large in the next president of the United States, if Kamala Harris finds her way to the top of the Democratic ticket.” Gasparino’s suggestion that Harris only got to where she is because of diversity programs — not because she earned it — is despicable. It reeks of the white supremacist myth that people of color are inherently inferior to white people and, therefore, we achieve success and positions of influence not on the merits, but only with the help of a diversity program. (I once was called a “quota hire” years ago on social media by a Fox News frequent guest because at the time I was the first Muslim hired to host a national radio show.)

Gasparino’s use of “DEI hire” apparently to demean the achievements of a person of color is far from the first time we’ve seen this. In fact, just last week, GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado took a page from this same vile playbook in a social media post attacking White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Boebert — who in the past suggested that Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who is Muslim, was a terrorist — was apparently upset with Jean-Pierre’s comments about Biden’s workday being many hours longer than she believed to be true, so she smeared her as a “discredited DEI hire.” Earlier this year, the same DEI-as-insult line was used to attack the Black mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott, after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. Scott responded to the smears by stating, “We know what these folks really want to say when they say ‘DEI mayor’.” He added bluntly, “They really want to say the N-word.” The mayor later gloriously trolled the bigots, telling MSNBC that the acronym “DEI” actually stands for “duly-elected incumbent.”

[...] There’s no hiding what’s intended with these types of attacks. In fact, Gasparino was not shy on this point, writing Harris was only picked by Biden as his running mate in 2020 because as a Black woman she “checked all the boxes.” Never mind the fact that Harris had been a public servant for more than 16 years at the time: first as an elected district attorney of San Francisco, and later as the elected attorney general for the state of California, where she oversaw the largest state justice department in the country. In that office, she successfully secured billions of dollars in damages from unscrupulous businesses that had preyed on Californians. Nor does it matter to her detractors that Harris was then elected to the US Senate in 2016, where she made a name for herself with her service on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees. Nope, Gasparino apparently attributes her many achievements to her being given preferential treatment because of her race and gender. He predicted that if President Joe Biden ends up remaining on the 2024 ticket and wins, it’s unlikely he would physically be able to serve four years. The result, he says, is that “Harris becomes the nation’s first DEI president by default.” Of course, none of what Gasparino said was written in a vacuum. It’s in keeping with efforts by Republicans to try to discredit both the achievements by people of color as well as efforts to address our nation’s past acts of racism and racial discrimination. That’s been evident for months, as GOP-led legislatures rush to enact laws restricting and even outlawing DEI programs in education, state government, contracting, pension investments and other aspects of civic life.

Dean Obeidallah wrote on CNN’s website calling out the racist attack of labeling Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI hire” by Fox Business reporter and New York Post contributor Charles Gasparino. The “DEI hire” line said by right-wingers like Gasparino is nothing more than vile racism.

[bighermie]

Sunday in NYC: Democratic Socialists of America - The Party of Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, AOC and Jamaal Bowman - Hold Pro-Palestinian Rally After Historic Hamas Mass Murders | The Gateway Pundit | by Margaret Flavin

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Last Saturday, the Minnesota GOP voted overwhelmingly to endorse Royce White — an avowed conspiracy theorist, homophobe, and misogynist — for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Along with that considerable baggage, White carries a long list of probable campaign finance violations into his primary and the general election — if he’s the nominee — against popular, LGBTQ+ ally Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) in November.

White, 33, made a national name for himself by leveraging his fame as an NBA basketball player for the Houston Rockets and his leading role in the Black Lives Matter protests following the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, where White grew up.

But now, as a Black darling of the far-right MAGA crowd and a true believer of former President Donald Trump, Royce has broadened his political ambitions. His past missteps and a history of abusive attacks — including social media posts calling people “fag,” “cunt,” and “retard” among them — are catching up with the 6’8″, 260-pound athlete.

In 2022, White, with the backing of mentors like former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, made a bid for the U.S. House seat in Minnesota currently held by “squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D). He lost in the primary.

But you’d never know it based on his campaign expenses, which continued to pile up even after White lost.

A week after his defeat, White’s campaign used donor funds to pay a bill topping $1,200 at the Gold Rush Cabaret in Miami, a “full liquor and full nude” strip club 1,800 miles from the congressional district he just lost in, according to reporting by The Daily Beast. The charge went through at five in the morning.

But the strip club outlay is just one questionable expense in a mountain of unexplained payments to vendors over the course of White’s campaign that would make even George Santos’ treasurer blush.

The questionable expenses include more than $100,000 in mysterious wire transfers and checks, reported as paid to the campaign; huge tabs at a long list of late-night hot spots; thousands paid to limo services and swank hotels in at least seven states; unexplained cash withdrawals; and purchases of shoes, clothing, and electronics that beg for an explanation that isn’t purely personal.

“Misusing campaign funds can be a serious criminal offense — many politicians have gone to jail for diverting donor funds to personal expenses,” Brendan Fischer, a specialist in campaign finance law and deputy executive director of Documented, explained. “A close read” of White’s spending “suggests an incredibly long list of illegal expenditures.”

Among the brands that the White campaign spent lavishly on: Heimie’s Haberdashery, K&G Fashion Superstore, New Balance (“shoe purchase for door knocking”), Nordstrom, Nike, Asos, Express, Crocs, and Lululemon.

White’s donors reportedly footed the bill for more than $3,200 in purchases at Guitar Center, more than $2,500 at Dick’s Sporting Goods, and more than $700 at Sally Beauty stores in two states.

When asked about his post-election strip club expenditure, White told The Daily Beast, “I like the food there.”

[melrosegolds-blog]

HAMAS JUST FIRED ROCKETS FROM RAFAH

Yes, you know that refugee camp filled with innocent civilians?

Yes, that place that Israel is being called ”the aggressor” and “war mongerers” for its plan to attack it?

Yes, that place which Israel is being pressured by the international community not to enter?

Well Hamas just fired ten rockets from that place - Rafah.

And they seriously injured ten Israelis.

Now, get this.

What were those Israelis doing? They were charged with securing the humanitarian aid for the civilian population in Gaza.

Yes, you got that right - Hamas fired rockets from the Rafah “refugee camp” at Israelis who are securing the humanitarian aid for Palestinian refugees in Gaza.

PLEASE SHARE

CODEPINK: Women For Peace Cenk Uygur Bernie Sanders Ilhan Omar Piers Morgan Uncensored Students for Justice in Palestine (CSUSM)

[eretzyisrael]

by Meghan Blonder

The head of the New York City public school system testified to Congress that he recognizes the "urgency of addressing" and "rooting out" anti-Semitism. Just weeks prior, he held an event alongside an anti-Semitic Democratic fundraiser who has promoted Holocaust denial and runs a pro-Hamas Facebook group.

Chancellor David Banks testified before the House Education and Workforce Committee on Wednesday to address the New York City public school system's response to rising anti-Semitism. He told the committee that his schools are "focused" on being a "candle in the darkness" in the fight against Jew hatred.

"At New York City Public Schools, we are focused on our charge to fight hate and foster inclusion through safety, engagement, and education," Banks said. "We’re working hard and we have a long way to go. There’s always more to do. I hope in New York we can be a candle in the darkness."

Less than a month before, on April 11, Banks and New York elected officials held an Arab American Heritage celebration which featured anti-Semitic Democratic fundraiser Maher Abdel-qader, who has promoted Holocaust denial and online content that describes Jews as "Satanic." Banks posed for a photo with Abdel-qader, who also is the founder and administrator of a Facebook group called "Palestinian American Congress" where members have posted anti-Semitic content and cheered Hamas terrorists.

In 2018, Abdel-qader shared a video that said Ashkenazi Jews are "not true Jews," accused Israeli Jews of "identity theft," and cast doubt on the validity of the Holocaust. "The Jews in Israel are not true Jews, they are Khazars Ashkenazi Jews, identity theft," the video said alongside a photo of a Jewish man wearing a ski mask to cover his face. "Research the truth about the Holocaust, and you’ll definitely start to question what you thought you knew," the video’s narrator says. In another post, Abdel-qader compared Israel to ISIS and accused the Jewish state of running "concentration camps."

In a 2017 post that echoed an anti-Semitic trope of Jews controlling the government, Abdel-qader claimed Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.) was a "foreign agent."

"Our US Congress is full of ass-kissing Israeli defenders. A few of them are actually unregistered foreign agents. Ben Cardin is one of them. He is convincing the rest of the lowlifes in Congress to throw away our rights to free speech, and kowtow to the illegal so-called 'state' of 'Israel,'" Abdel-qader said.

In the days after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, members of Abdel-qader's Facebook group cheered the terrorist group's fighters.

An Oct. 12, 2024, post in Abdel-qader’s Facebook group read, "We don't want to throw you in the sea ... we want you to ride it back from where you came," accompanied by a photo of a Hamas terrorist with an elderly Israeli hostage. Another post commended the "achievements" of "resistance" fighters after they killed Israeli soldiers.

NYC Public Schools posted a photo online of Banks speaking at the event, with the caption: "Today we hosted our inaugural Arab American Heritage Month celebration!"

The revelation comes as other Democratic members of Congress also embraced Abdel-qader around the same time. "Squad" members Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.), Cori Bush (D., Mo.), Summer Lee (D., Pa.), Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.)—many of whom face a pro-Israel primary challenger—embraced Abdel-qader at an April 18 Washington, D.C., event.

Abdel-qader served as Tlaib’s finance committee chair during her first congressional bid in 2018 and has donated thousands of dollars to her campaign. Tlaib repeatedly thanked him for his help multiple times during her 2018 campaign. In November, he advertised a fundraiser for Lee and Tlaib, saying the "Squad" members "wholeheartedly" support the "just cause for Palestine."

In one photo from the event, Abdel-qader stands front and center displaying a special document, flanked by Banks and other leaders.

The celebration included a "showcase" of Arabic cuisine, music, handmade artistry, and cultural exhibits. The event also "honored" Abdel-qader and a Palestinian New York City police officer who spoke about the importance of the "Palestinian cause" for their "coordination and contributions to making the event both unique and enlightening," Arab America reported. Banks "commended their hard work and leadership,"according to the report. Abdel-qader was listed as a contributor to the article.

A New York City Department of Education spokesman distanced Banks from Abdel-qader.

"At our Arab American Heritage event we had only two honorary speakers: NYPD captain Filastine Srour and New York state assemblyman Nader Sayegh. We did not invite this individual to our event, nor was he honored, and the chancellor neither knows this man nor endorses his views," the spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon. Abdel-qader did not return a request for comment.

Banks during his testimony indicated that both Jewish and Muslim students have experienced hardship since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, and the school system is working to accommodate both groups.

"Our classrooms are not insulated from the global stage. Since October 7, our students and staff—Jewish and Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian—have suffered immensely," Banks said.

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Lobbyists are currently trying to remove the very few U.S lawmakers that support Palestine. Here are all the congressmen and senators that called for a ceasefire and are currently at risk from being attacked by AIPAC. A very powerful pro-zionist lobbying group that attacks and spends its money to try to remove congressmen and senators that support Palestine.

All these people are at risk of losing their positions for their support of Palestine. If you can donate to the campaigns of all the people listed above.

The one below me is a donation for The Squad which consists of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan all of which support Palestine and are at risk of losing their jobs and being attacked by AIPAC. Also included is a donation for Jamaal Bowman who is being challenged by anti-Palestine candidate paid for by AIPAC and of course a place to donate to for support in Gaza. Please reblogs