House chairman Brad Sherman calls on UC Irvine to throw out Muslim Student Union for raising money for Gaza
By Philip Weiss – December 11, 2009
Your Israel lobby at work. Brad Sherman is a liberal Democratic congressman from California and populist on Wall Street issues. He is also chairman of a House subcommittee on terrorism. With the applause (and likely the urging) of the Zionist Organization of America, he has sent out three letters to federal officials, urging investigations directed at Viva Palestina, the George Galloway group that is devoted to bringing aid to besieged people of Gaza– for allegedly supporting a terrorist organization, Hamas. The letters are to the IRS, to the Justice Department, and to Hillary Clinton.
In a fourth letter, written last week to the chancellor of the University of California at Irvine, Sherman accuses the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine of soliciting funds for a terrorist organization because it hosted Galloway last May. Once you have determined these facts in your internal investigation, Sherman says, you should bar the Muslim Student Union from the campus.
The ZOA, a right-wing pro-settlers group, says that it brought the Galloway event to Sherman’s attention earlier this fall and pressed for an investigation. Here, the Muslim Student Union at Irvine describes how it has been harassed by the ZOA:
The truth of the matter is that ZOA has been attempting to defame, censor and essentially eradicate the MSU for years now. This is only the most recent attempt to silence the MSU and restrict its constitutional right to freedom of speech, religion and association. Although this is not the first time the organization has made such claims against the MSU, the complaints continue to receive attention. This is surprising, considering all previous claims the organization made against MSU have been proven to be groundless. In 2004, ZOA claimed that the green stoles MSU members wear during graduation were a symbol of support for Hamas.
New York City Erases Bike Lanes to Appease Hasidic Men Who Object to Seeing Women in Bike Shorts
By JEREMY OLSHAN and JAMIE SCHRAM
New York Post
December 8, 2009
Groups of bicycle-riding vigilantes have been repainting 14 blocks of Williamsburg roadways ever since the city sandblasted their bike lanes away last week at the request of the Hasidic community.
The Hasids, who have long had a huge enclave in the now-artist-haven neighborhood, had complained that the Bedford Avenue bike paths posed both a safety and religious hazard.
Scantily clad hipster cyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These riders also were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained.
Brian Branch Price
Two cycling advocates were apprehended by the Shomrim Patrol, a Hasidic neighborhood watch group, as they repainted a section of bike lane at 3:30 a.m. yesterday, but when cops arrived, no one was arrested and no summonses were issued, police said.
“These people should apply for a job at the DOT,” neighborhood activist Isaac Abraham said of the repainting. “You put it on, they take it off — and they will probably do this again.”
A Department of Transportation spokesman said: “We will continue to work with any community on ways we can make changes to our streets without compromising safety.”
A source close to Mayor Bloomberg said removing the lanes was an effort to appease the Hasidic community just before last month’s election.
Abraham contends the bike lanes put children at risk of getting hit by cars or bicycles as they exited school buses.
But Baruch Herzfeld, who has tried to bridge the gap between hipsters and Hasids with a bike-rental program, said safety is not the issue so much as xenophobia.
“They don’t want the hipsters in their neighborhood,” he said. “It’s like in Howard Beach back in the day when they didn’t want black people in the neighborhood.”
The cycling advocacy group Transportation Alternatives has not taken sides in the dispute.
But bike lane or not, “cyclists have a right to be on Bedford Avenue,” said Wiley Norvell, a group spokesman.
Additional reporting by Maggie
Video: Afghans’ anger at Obama’s Nobel peace prize win
Al-Jazeera English
December 9, 2009
From Kabul, Steve Chao reports
Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo – days after he ordered an escalation of US involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
In making Obama the third sitting US President to win the award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama’s co-operative approach to global issues.
But for many Afghans, Obama’s strategy of even more troops does not fit into their vision of what will bring peace.
President Obama ‘creating torture impunity’
Press TV– December 11, 2009 06:20:21 GMT
A US civil rights group says that President Barack Obama by creating impunity is following his predecessor into allowing torture policies to continue in the country.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said on Thursday that the US president has failed to provide accountability on torture.
Director of ACLU’s National Security Project Jameel Jaffer said “the Bush administration constructed a legal framework for torture and now the Obama administration is constructing a legal framework for impunity.”
“We’re frustrated by the growing gap between (the) Obama administration’s rhetoric on accountability and the reality,” Jaffer added.
In April, Obama said that CIA interrogators who had used waterboarding on suspected militants would not face prosecution. He also released Bush-era memos specifying that the practice did not constitute torture.
Republicans, however, criticized Obama for leaving the door open for the prosecution of former Bush officials who authorized harsh CIA interrogations due to releasing the memos.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were among those accused of masterminding the Bush-era torture policy.
Jaffer noted that “on every front, the administration is actively obstructing accountability by shielding Bush officials from civil liability, criminal investigation and even public scrutiny for their role in authorizing torture.”
“It’s the last month of 2009, and not a single torture victim has had his day in court,” ACLU Attorney Ben Wizner said. “Not a single court in a torture case has ruled on the legality of the Bush administration’s torture policies.”
Israel seizes Bil’in anti-wall protest leader
File Photo – Maan Images
10/12/2009 21:49
Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israeli forces seized Abdullah Abu Rahmah, a member of the Popular Committee against the Wall ofthe village of Bil’in early on Thursday, according to Palestinian Authority police.
PA police said Abu Rahmah was seized from a house in the At-Tira neighborhood in Ramallah.
Iyad Burnat, the head of Bil’in’s Popular Committee confirmed that the arrest took place at around 2:30am. He said Abu Rahmah was likely taken to the military prison in the settlement of Ofer, on the outskirts of Ramallah.
Abu Rahmah is a high school teacher in the Latin Patriarchate school in Birzeit near Ramallah.
Last Thursday Palestinians in the village said the Israeli military seized Rani Najar, 23, from his house at 2am.
The villagers say the nighttime raids are an attempt to quash Bil’in’s weekly nonviolent demonstrations against the wall Israel is building across the town. Thirty-one people have been arrested from the village since June; 16 remain in prison.
“My client’s arrest is another blatant illustration of the Israeli authorities’ application of legal procedures for the political persecution of Bil’in residents,” said attorney Gaby Lasky, who represents many of the Bil’in detainees in a statement.
“The Bil’in demonstrators are being systemically targeted while it is the State [of Israel] that is in contempt of a High Court of Justice ruling; a ruling which affirmed that the protesters have justice on their side and instructed 2 years ago that the route of the Wall in the area be changed, which has not been implemented to date,” she added.
Three teenage boys were also detained by Israeli soldiers at the Huwwara checkpoint south of the city of Nablus on Wednesday night, the police said. The detainees were identified as Ayman Nehad Shaker Masheh, 16, Mussa Yousif Abu Abieh, 16, and Amir Abed Fawzi Sawalma, 16. The three are from Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus.
The Israeli military said it detained five “wanted” Palestinians in the West Bank overnight.
The military said a pistol and a homemade explosive device were found in the home of one of the people its forces detained, south of the city of Ramallah.
According to a report from the Palestinian Monitoring Group of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Israeli forces arrested 205 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in November alone.
The military carried out 677 raids the same month, the report said.
Israeli vandals attack West Bank mosque
 |
Israeli extremists have attacked a mosque in the occupied West Bank, vandalizing the property and desecrating the holy book of Islam, the Qur’an.
Suspected hardline Israeli settlers stormed the holy site in the northern West Bank village of Yasuf at night, set fire to the mosque’s library and sprayed hate messages on the building.
Israeli security authorities said they had failed to arrest the attackers, adding that a probe had been launched into the incident.
Following the overnight attack, Palestinians in the locality rallied in protest at the attack and clashed with Israeli forces, who fired tear gas to disperse the angry protesters.
The incident is the latest in a series of anti-Muslim violence, which has also seen the eviction of Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
In October, Israeli vandals attacked the Al-Aqsa Mosque — the Muslim world’s third-holiest site — in Jerusalem Al-Quds, which caused public outrage in the Muslim world and prompted condemnations from the international community.
The recent temporary freeze in construction of illegal settlements by Tel Aviv is believed to have stepped up the acts of violence by Israeli settlers.
The Israeli army had earlier voiced concerns that settlers may attempt to display their opposition to the 10-month settlement freeze by targeting the Palestinian population in the West Bank.
Palestinian officials in the region have expressed dismay over repeated settler attacks, saying Israeli security forces have done little to protect Palestinian civilians from the assailants.
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In 2014, Michael Parenti Wrote A Prophetic Article About Ukraine
The Dissident | January 28, 2026
This week, the influential left-wing scholar Michael Parenti passed away at the age of 92.
Parenti was well known for his sharp criticism of U.S. foreign policy and U.S. imperialism throughout his life, waking up many to the reality of it and the lies used to justify it.
This is best underscored in one of his last published articles, “Ukraine and Regime Change”, which was published in the book “Flashpoint In Ukraine: How the U.S. Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III”, where he predicted to a tee what the result of the 2014 U.S. backed coup in Ukraine would be. … continue
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