Colombia University panel slams president for suppressing pro-Gaza protests
Al Mayadeen | April 27, 2024
The President of Columbia University faced increased pressure on Friday as a campus oversight committee strongly condemned her administration’s actions in suppressing a pro-Palestine demonstration in the school.
Universities across the United States have witnessed in the past few weeks a historic surge in student protests in support of Palestine and Gaza, calling for ending all agreements with “Israel” and divesting from the occupation entity. Students also demanded an end to US support to “Israel” and involvement in the genocidal war.
Cross-country protests in the US continue to grow as the Israeli genocide in Gaza reaches its 204th day. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Saturday that the number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Strip since October 7 has now reached 34,388, with 77,437 injured.
After Colombian students established their Gaza Solidarity Encampment on April 17, University President Nemat Minouche Shafik summoned the NYPD to the campus to disperse the demonstrations, resulting in the arrest of over 100 students. But shortly after, outraged by the footage of their fellow students being arrested, a new group of students arrived on campus and set up another encampment in protest.
Shafik: Decamp or ‘alternative options’
On Friday, Shafik issued an ultimatum to student protesters: either negotiate an agreement with the administration to disband the encampment or the school would pursue alternative measures to dismantle it. However, the demonstrators remained steadfast in their demands, with new supporters swelling their ranks.
The Columbia University Senate passed a resolution following a Friday meeting, stating that Shafik’s administration had eroded academic freedom and disregarded the privacy and due process rights of students and faculty members by involving the police and terminating the protest.
“The decision… has raised serious concerns about the administration’s respect for shared governance and transparency in the university decision-making process,” it said.
The Senate, predominantly comprising faculty members and other staff with a minority representation of students, refrained from explicitly mentioning Shafik in its resolution and opted for a less severe tone than a censure. The president, also a member of the senate, did not attend.
A task force was established in the resolution to monitor the “corrective actions” requested by the Senate concerning the handling of protests.
Columbia spokesperson Ben Chang stated that the administration shared the Senate’s objective of restoring calm to the campus and was dedicated to maintaining an ongoing dialogue.
According to a press release from the institution, on Friday, a minimum of 40 demonstrators were arrested at the Auraria Campus in Denver, which is jointly utilized by the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the Community College of Denver.
Near the White House, approximately 200 protesters at George Washington University continued to assemble for a second consecutive day on Friday. The university stated that students failed to comply with instructions to disperse, leading to the suspension and temporary prohibition from campus for several individuals.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden described the protests as “antisemitic” and stressed that campuses must remian safe, hinting that current anti-Israeli war protests are a destablizing factor.
Additonally, Congress Republicans said that Shafik and other college administrators are not being firm enough in cracking down on the encapments.
Right to free speech
The University of Texas at Austin’s president, Jay Hartzell, encountered comparable criticism from faculty members on Friday, following his collaboration with Republican Governor Greg Abbott in deploying police to disband a pro-Palestine demonstration two days earlier.
Dozens of protesters were arrested, but the Travis County Attorney’s office stated that charges were dismissed due to a lack of probable cause for the arrests.
Read more: MIT, Emerson, other US colleges students launch pro-Palestine protests
Close to 200 university faculty members penned a letter indicating a lack of confidence in Hartzell, citing his actions as “needlessly endangering” students, staff, and faculty when police, equipped with riot gear and mounted on horseback, intervened against the protesters.
Civil rights organizations have denounced the arrests and called on authorities to uphold the right to free speech.
US lawmakers want to deploy ‘anti-Semitism monitors’ at colleges
RT | April 27, 2024
Two US congressmen have introduced a bill that would appoint independent “anti-Semitism monitors” to federally funded college campuses across the country. The draft law comes amid a police crackdown on anti-Israel protests at dozens of US universities.
Introduced on Friday by New York Representatives Ritchie Torres, a Democrat, and Mike Lawler, a Republican, the COLUMBIA Act would task the Department of Education with sending a “third-party anti-Semitism monitor” to any college or university receiving federal money.
The inspector would release a quarterly report on “the progress that a college or university has made toward combating antisemitism.” Schools that fail to sufficiently crack down on alleged hatred against Jews would then have their funding stripped.
“Rising antisemitism on our college campuses is a major concern and we must act to ensure the safety of students,” Lawler said in a statement. “Jewish students have told my office that they feel completely abandoned by their university administrators and they view Congress as the only avenue for accountability and safety,” Torres added.
The bill’s title – an acronym for the College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability Act – refers to Columbia University, where pro-Palestinian rallies and protests have been taking place for nearly two weeks. Similar rallies have broken out at around 40 universities and colleges in the US and Canada, including Harvard, Yale and UC Berkeley.
Protesters are demanding that their universities “divest” from companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Lockheed Martin that have contracts with the Israeli government. They also want the US to stop giving money to Israel, citing its “genocide” of the Palestinians in Gaza.
Jewish organizations claim that some of the demonstrators have openly praised Hamas, and that the protests have stoked a climate of fear among Jewish students. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weighed in on Wednesday, claiming that “anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities” in scenes “reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.”
Police arrested hundreds of protesters on Wednesday in a crackdown targeting 21 universities across the country. In a raid at the University of Texas at Austin, Governor Greg Abbott ordered the deployment of heavily armed officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), who detained more than 30 people. Abbott – a Republican and professed free speech advocate – declared on social media that “these protesters belong in jail.” Hundreds more were arrested on Thursday and Friday.
While mainstream Democrats and Republicans have joined forces in condemning the protests and promising stiff penalties for those involved, members of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing have visited campuses to encourage the demonstrators. “Contrary to right-wing attacks, these students are joyfully protesting for peace and an end to the genocide taking place in Gaza,” Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar said after meeting protesters at Columbia on Thursday. “I’m in awe of their bravery and courage.”
Supporters of the racist ideology of Zionism operating inside the UK civil service
By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | April 27, 2024
The witch hunt against Muslims in the UK civil service is well underway, with the suspension of the Civil Service Muslim Network, in the aftermath of the UK government’s new supposed definition of ‘extremism’. But there are some ‘extremists’ and supporters of genocide in the civil service who are not being targeted by the government: Zionists.
Zionists appear to run, or at least to be very well represented, in the leadership of the Jewish equivalent of the Civil Service Muslim Network.
The Civil Service Jewish Network (JNet) is “a cross-government network of over 300 Jewish civil servants and other civil servants interested in Jewish culture.” According to official data, this amounts to around a quarter of all Jews in the civil service. Their Facebook group has 329 members, though on their X account they claim “over” 400 members, which would be around one third of Jewish civil servants as revealed in government statistics.
It may be the case that there are non-Zionists or anti-Zionists involved in the leadership of the network, but if so there is precious little public sign of this, as we shall see. One view expressed by Matthew Gould the first Jewish British Ambassador to “Israel” was that “I have never come across any anti-Zionism” in the Foreign Office.
Mathew Gould has been a senior sponsor of the Civil Service Jewish Network. Until 2015 Gould was the British Ambassador to “Israel”, where he set up the UK-“Israel” Tech Hub, a unit inside the British embassy which promotes Israeli tech start-ups invariably stuffed with former Israeli intelligence officers. He had previously served in Tehran and in Washington as the UK representative of the Joint Intelligence Committee. He thus has intelligence connections himself. He says he is a “passionate Zionist”.
Another former senior sponsor was Melinda Simmons, the British Ambassador to Ukraine between 2019 and 2023. She previously worked at the National Security Secretariat, part of the British intelligence apparatus. She had been recruited to the Foreign Office prior to this in 2013, so she likely joined MI6 then. Simmons is a member of the Finchley Reform Synagogue, part of the Movement for Reform Judaism, which says it is “unequivocally Zionist”. It is also, unsurprisingly affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation.
The current senior sponsor is Tamara Finkelstein, who became Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in April 2019. She has been referred to as the most senior “Jewish British civil servant”. Finkelstein hails from a Zionist family with connections to B’nai B’rith and to Reform Judaism which is formally Zionist, attended Haberdashers Girls’ school, something of a hothouse for young Zionists, and then studied Engineering at Balliol College Oxford. After studying economics at LSE, she became a civil servant when she joined the Treasury and later “was a private secretary and speechwriter to Gordon Brown in the early days of his time as Chancellor”.
She also “set up and lead a programme in building safety in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire”. Finkelstein is a member and former Chair of New North London Synagogue, part of the Zionist Masorti Judaism movement. She is also a trustee of Norwood, the Jewish children and families charity, which is affiliated to the pro-“Israel” Jewish Leadership Council. On her appointment as Permanent Secretary the Environment Secretary and hardline Zionist Michael Gove said: “She is an outstanding public servant I have very much enjoyed working with.” Tamara Finkelstein’s brother is militant Zionist Daniel Finkelstein, former chair of the Islamophobic think tank Policy Exchange from 2011-2014.
In addition to one or two senior sponsors, the network has a number of more junior civil servants who run the network. The leaders of the network include (or have included):
Joel Salmon
Joel Salmon at the Department for Levelling Up, where he states he “leads” on “international race and equalities policy.” He is one of two admins for the J-Net Facebook group. He is also a fully radicalised Zionist. His radicalisation appears to have started young, having attended a Zionist secondary School, JFS (2005-12) where he was Head Boy. Having been a member, he then became a “Youth Leader” with the Zionist youth group RSY-Netzer, in 2011, a role he still holds. He belongs to Finchley Reform Synagogue, part of the Movement for Reform Judaism, which is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation. He states he “went on trips with Aish and lived on a religious kibbutz for three months”.
Aish Hatorah is a Zionist organisation that has been implicated in working in illegal settlements especially south of Nablus. It is not clear if the Kibbutz that Salmon lived on was in the illegally occupied West Bank. Salmon interned at BICOM, the pro-“Israel” PR group in London in January 2013, and also at the hardline Neocon Hudson Institute in Washington DC in July and August 2013 while still at university.
While attending St Andrews University Salmon was the president of St Andrews Jewish Society, a Zionist affiliated group. In 2015, he was a candidate for the presidency of the Union of Jewish Students, the umbrella group for all university Jewish Societies, which is also formally Zionist. After university, he went straight into a job as a lobbyist at the Board of Deputies of British Jews (2016-2019). After that, Salmon was a lobbyist for ADS, an arms industry trade association. Amongst its members are the Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems. From there he joined the civil service. It beggars belief that someone with such a long history with racist Zionist organisations can be put in charge of any element of “race and equalities” policy in the Department for Levelling Up.
Joshua Nagli
Joshua Nagli who works at the Department for Transport, and has been a civil servant since 2017. He was previously an Intern at the Portland Trust (Jun 2016) run by the Zionist financier Sir Ronald Cohen. Later he worked for the Union of Jewish Students, rising to the position of Campaigns Director (2015-16). In that capacity he was part of the witch hunt against the Labour left adding his voice to the campaign against Oxford University Labour Club an entirely confected row. He was quoted in the JC as saying, “The events in Oxford, despite them being extremely bad, made people within the Labour Students group realise we need to deal with this issue.” Nagli is also a trustee and director of the London Jewish forum (since 2020) a group that is a member of the pro-Israel Jewish Leadership Council and which is funded by Zionist extremists such as via the family foundations of convicted fraudster Gerald Ronson and the Lewis family who control the clothing chain River Island. It’s not clear how this Zionist activity is compatible with his status as a civil servant.
In addition to this preponderance of Zionists as leaders and sponsors of the network, there has been a pattern of Zionist involvement in the events of the Network. In 2015 and after (such as in 2018) the network was involved with Mitzvah Day, a Zionist-led campaign to infiltrate and subvert Muslim communities, as I have shown elsewhere. Also, from 2015, the Board of Deputies of British Jews has been involved in the network’s Chanukah celebrations inside Whitehall. These have been repeated in 2017 and 2018. The Board has also sponsored Sukkah in the Treasury and Foreign Office, for example in 2018 and 2019, and a networking event in DEFRA in 2019. The Board is a strong supporter of the genocide in Gaza, and has been signed up to the racist ideology of Zionism since the 1940s. It is notable that no Jewish organisation critical of Zionism appears to have had any presence in the network.
If the government is serious about tackling extremism, then it should suspend the Jewish Network and take urgent steps to de-radicalize and de-zionise it.
David Miller is an investigative researcher, broadcaster, and academic. He is the founder and co-director of the lobbying watchdog Spinwatch and editor of Powerbase.info.
French Government Agents Likely Killed in Russia’s January Strike on Kharkov – Ex-Intel Officer
Sputnik – 27.04.2024
PARIS – French government agents were likely killed during the Russian armed forces’ strike on a temporary deployment point of foreign mercenaries in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kharkov on January 16, former French counter-terrorism intelligence officer Nicolas Cinquini told Sputnik.
On January 16, the Russian armed forces destroyed a temporary deployment point of foreign mercenaries in Kharkov, with about 60 foreign soldiers killed in the strike, Russian defense officials said. Following the developments, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the French ambassador to Moscow, saying that “several dozen French” had been among the mercenaries killed in the strike. Paris, for its part, rejected the information as “manipulation.”
“On January 16, 2024, Russia struck an abandoned maternity hospital in Kharkov that had been transformed into a base for foreign military personnel. The press release stated that their [military personnel’s] ‘core’ had been French and that a total of about 60 people had been killed. I have concluded that these personnel were classified as agents of the French government,” Cinquini said.
He explained his belief by the fact that no reports were published after the strike about the deceased French who had gone to the front privately, although such news is usually posted on social media.
“The first reason is that no casualties have been observed among the individual volunteers I know. Moreover, they are not accustomed to gathering in masses, but rather occupy private premises in small groups,” the former intelligence officer explained.
The second reason Cinquini believes the killed French had been government agents is that the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the French ambassador to Moscow following the strike, which he said suggests the presence of more serious personnel at the site, such as operators appointed by the French government, probably former legionnaires of Ukrainian origin.
Following a Paris-hosted conference on Ukraine held on February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said Western leaders had discussed the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine and, although no consensus had been reached in this regard, nothing could be ruled out. Some EU countries hastened to dismiss such plans.
UK blocked Ukraine peace deal – Moscow
RT | April 27, 2024
Ukraine abandoned a draft peace treaty with Russia in 2022 under British pressure, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
The deal, which could have ended the Ukraine conflict weeks after it started, was approved by negotiators in Istanbul, but Kiev later pulled out of the talks.
The German newspaper Welt reported on Friday that Moscow had issued additional demands after a deal had already been outlined, such as making Russian the second official language in Ukraine, implying that this had ended any hopes of an agreement.
Peskov denied those claims on Saturday, citing remarks made by Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia, who led Kiev’s delegation at the talks.
In an interview to domestic media last November, Arakhamia said then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had intervened in the peace process and had urged the Ukrainians to “just fight” Russia.
Kiev effectively discarded the deal under “direct pressure by London,” Peskov stressed. “The rest is speculation. I suggest we learn from the source.”
Asked whether the draft treaty could serve as a basis for further peace talks, Peskov said Kiev’s public position was to reject talks with Russia. The idea of reviving the failed agreement was floated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko when he met Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin earlier this month.
Johnson has denied derailing the peace talks, but has also bragged on multiple occasions about his policy of nudging Kiev into continuing hostilities with Russia, which the British politician claims to be a fight for global democracy.
“There could be no more effective way of investing in Western security than investing in Ukraine, because those guys without a single pair of American boots on the ground are fighting for the West,” Johnson told students at Georgetown University during a visit to the US this month. The Ukrainians “are effectively fighting our own fight, fighting for our own interests,” he added.
Russian officials have described the Ukraine conflict as a Western proxy war against Moscow, which the US and its allies allegedly intend to wage “to the last Ukrainian.” Their goal, according to Moscow, is to contain Russia and stall its development, rather than protect the interests of the Ukrainian people.
The Anglo-American War on Russia – Part XV (Russia Defeats NATO)
Tales of the American Empire | April 25, 2024
Russia has won the war in Ukraine, but is in no hurry to end it as much of its army remains in reserve. It enjoys the friction in NATO whose members suffer from the resulting high energy costs and mass Ukrainian immigration. Russia prefers to slowly destroy Ukraine’s army in the open farmland of the Donbas rather than chase it into major cities where fighting would prove horrible. At some point, Ukraine’s army will collapse and the Russians will roll forth and take all of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed four peace agreements to end this conflict. Each time Ukraine never complied after pressure from NATO leaders to fight on. Russia will not agree to yet another ceasefire so NATO can rebuild Ukraine’s army and restart the war.
Europeans know the United States caused the conflict in Ukraine, profits from banning Russian oil and gas, and remain uneasy about the mysterious destruction of the Nordstream pipelines. The Americans promoted a mindless NATO expansion strategy that caused a disastrous war in Ukraine and weakened NATO nations, who were pressured to donate billions of dollars and much of their military equipment to Ukraine, even though it isn’t a member of this “defensive” alliance. An American refusal to make peace after Russia conquers Ukraine to reestablish trade will further agitate some NATO members, who may leave the EU and possibly NATO to join the winning side for a huge discount in Russian energy imports.
For anyone surprised that Russia may take all of Ukraine, note this April 12, 2024 news item: Russia Expects ‘Unconditional Capitulation’ Of Kiev Regime
During yesterday’s UN Security Council meeting Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, said:
“This is how it will go down in history – as an inhuman and hateful regime of terrorists and Nazis who betrayed the interest of their people and sacrificed it for Western money and for Zelensky and his closest circle. In these conditions, attempts by the head of the Kiev regime to promote his formula and convene summits in support of the Kiev regime cause only confusion. Very soon the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional capitulation of the Kiev regime. I advise you all to prepare for this in advance.”
__________________________________________
“UKRAINE WILL WIN” | No Amount of Propaganda Can Hide the Fact that Ukraine is Winning this War”; Matt Orfalea; February 22, 2024; a series of short clips of pundits, experts, and political leaders saying Ukraine will win; 
• “UKRAINE WILL WIN” | No Amount of Pro…
“Orwellian Morning Joe ‘Redefines Success’ in Ukraine—Erasing Their Warmongering”; System Update; Glenn Greenwald; November 22, 2023; • Orwellian Morning Joe “Redefines Succ…
“The Duran and Brian Berletic: Russia is DESTROYING NATO as Putin Rejects Europe for Global South”; Danny Haiphong; November 28, 2023; • The Duran and Brian Berletic: Russia …
“Neocons Still Can’t Believe Russia Defeated Them”; Nicolai Petro; Neutrality Studies; November 27, 2023; • Neocons Still Can’t Believe Russia De…
Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”; • The Anglo-American War on Russia
Suicidal Society
By Mattias Desmet | April 25, 2024
I guess you remember how a few years ago, the media called everyone who refused to wear a mask or get vaccinated a ‘grandma killer’. To protect the elderly, to save every minute of their lives – that was all what mattered.
Here is something to think about: Last week, I stumbled upon an article in a Dutch mainstream newspaper which declared in a technical and deliberate way that the ‘mysteriously persisting excess death’ has certain advantages: it saves the state hundreds of millions of costs of taking care for old people. I checked my calendar. An April fools’ joke maybe? No – it was no joke.
One could argue, of course, that this is just one article. What am I making a fuss about? Let me give you another example. A few weeks ago, the director of a government health insurance fund stated in an article published on the website of Belgian national television that euthanasia should be considered as a solution for the rapid ageing of the population. Exactly. Old people cost too much money. Let’s kill them.
These too are the words of only one man. Yet such words are not printed in the newspapers in such a guileless way if there is not a certain tolerance for such messages in society.
Let’s face it: some people want to get rid of the elderly. And these people look suspiciously a lot like those who blamed you for being a heartless criminal when you suggested that the corona measures would do the elderly more harm than good.
Upon a closer examination, the sentimental ‘protection of the elderly’ during the corona crisis was rather cruel and absurd. For instance: why were the elderly dying in hospitals not allowed to see their children and grandchildren? Because the virus could kill them while they were dying?
Beneath the surface of the state’s concern about the elderly lurks exactly the opposite: the state wants to get rid of the elderly. Soon there might be a consensus: everyone who wants to live beyond the age of seventy-five is irresponsible and egoistic – a grandson killer. At least these old bastards must pay a carbon tax.
And in the end, not only old people have to die. Humans cause climate change – they are a detrimental virus proliferating on the surface of the earth. The planet would be better off without humans.
How did we come to this point? Is there an elite who used propaganda to make us think like this? There is much more than that.
Jacques Ellul taught us that, for propaganda to be successful, it must always resonate with a deep desire in the population. Here is what I think: society is suicidal. That’s why it is more and more open to propaganda suggesting death is the best solution to our problems. That’s why so many people sleepwalk into war with Russia; that’s why so many people don’t really care about the ‘mysteriously persisting excess death’ or even think ‘it has certain advantages’.
And think about the corona measures: They wrecked the economy, destroyed the psychological well-being of people, ruined the health and wealth of children and adults, stripped us of our democratic rights. And all this without any reasonable degree of certainty that the measures would protect us from anything at all. Many people even participated in a quasi-ecstatic way in the corona measures.
That’s exactly what characterizes ritualistic behavior: it has no pragmatic meaning, it demands a sacrifice of the individual, and it leads to a certain ecstasy.
The ritualization of death manifests in its most pure form in the global advance of the practice of state-controlled euthanasia or ‘medically assisted dying’. More and more people wish to die, but they are not allowed to take the decision themselves or do it in their own way. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists are under increasing pressure to report every patient who expresses suicidal wishes. Subsequently, these patients can apply for euthanasia.
Should you want to die, you first have to go through a bureaucratic procedure which will determine whether they have the right to die; should this procedure decide you are eligible for dying, the state will kill you using the ‘right’ procedure.
The leaders of society, whether they know it or not, always have the function to orchestrate rituals. Man is a symbolic being, and society, in the first place, is a shared symbolic system and a shared symbolic-ritualistic practice.
Why do people participate in these state rituals of death? Through participating in rituals, an individual shows that its individual existence is less important than the collective existence. Rituals, in the end, are symbolic behaviors through which an individual transcends its individual existence.
Human beings need rituals. In particular when they feel disconnected and isolated. And that’s exactly what most people feel in this era of the mechanist worldview: disconnected and isolated. Here’s a quote of Aldous Huxley:
‘During the past century the successive advances in technology have been accompanied by corresponding advances in organization. Complicated machinery has had to be matched by complicated social arrangements, designed to work as smoothly and efficiently as the new instruments of production. In order to fit into these organizations, individuals have had to deindividualize themselves, have had to deny their native diversity and conform to a standard pattern, have had to do their best to become automata. […] People are related to one another, not as total personalities, but as the embodiments of economic functions or, when they are not at work, as irresponsible seekers of entertainment. Subjected to this kind of life, individuals tend to feel lonely and insignificant. Their existence ceases to have any point or meaning.’ – (Brave New World – Revisited).
The mechanist worldview pulverized society, it fragmented it into elementary particles, lonely like a reed that does no longer sing in the wind. Never before has humanity been so much in need of rituals. And never before has it ignored the importance of rituals as much as it does now. In a mechanist-materialist worldview, rituals are completely meaningless.
The entire madness of totalitarianism, with its limitless proliferation of bureaucratic rules, which in the end suffocates the entire society and proves extremely lethal, exactly boils down to this: it represents the return, in an excessive way, of a repressed Truth: the human being is a symbolic being, a being which needs rituals.
US campus crackdown: 500 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested
Press TV – April 26, 2024
US police have arrested more than 500 protesters during a crackdown against pro-Palestinian protesters on university campuses across the country on Thursday.
Anti-riot police used chemical irritants and tasers against protesters, who set up camps in defiance of police warnings from Massachusetts to California, to protest against Israel’s savage war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Protesters were arrested at schools including the Ohio State University, the University of Minnesota, Indiana University and Princeton University.
At Emory University in Atlanta, police clashed with protesters, including students from other Atlanta universities and area activists and arrested dozens of protesters, including faculty members.
Videos are shared on social media, showing officers using tear gas, tasers and handcuffs to detain protesters.
Emory’s vice president for public safety Cheryl Elliott said in a statement that law enforcement “released chemical irritants into the ground” to disperse the crowd after protesters ignored multiple warnings.
She said 28 protesters had been arrested, including 20 members of the Emory community, “some of whom have been released.”
“We are working with responding agencies to expedite the release of any Emory community members who remain in custody.”
At Emerson College in Boston, police also tore down an encampment there and arrested more than 100 demonstrators early Thursday morning.
Police detained 93 people at the University of Southern California.
And at The University of Texas at Austin, 60 protesters were arrested.
In the event, faculty members gathered at a rally and called for the school’s president, Jay Hartzell, to resign after he praised law enforcement for exercising restraint against the protestors.
The latest arrests which followed others at Columbia, Yale, Brown and New York University, came as a growing number of students joined the protests after President Joe Biden approved $26 billion in war aid to Israel on Wednesday.
Across the United States, groups of students and activists are now demanding the leadership of their universities to cut financial ties with Israel, whose brutal war on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 34,300 people since early October.
US & UK Reduced Naval Presence in Red Sea – Houthi Leader
Sputnik – 26.04.2024
The United States and the United Kingdom have scaled down their naval presence in the Red Sea despite lack of abatement in the intensity of attacks carried out by Yemen’s Houthis rebels on Israeli-linked ships, the rebel movement’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said on Thursday.
“Our operations have not decreased, as the Americans claim, presenting this as their achievement, but rather the movement of their warships has decreased. There has been an 80% reduction in the movement of US Navy ships, not our operations,” al-Houthi was quoted by Iranian broadcaster Almasirah as saying on the occasion of 200 days of hostilities in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, al-Houthi said that since the beginning of hostilities in Gaza, they have attacked 102 Israeli-affiliated ships, an equivalent of one ship every two days.
“The American and British enemies have failed to ensure the movement of Israel-bound ships despite constant and intensive monitoring. As long as the blockade and aggression against the Gaza Strip continues, operations in the southern Red Sea will continue,” al-Houthi said.
Moreover, the leader of the movement also known as Ansar Allah said that there was an ongoing effort to expand and strengthen operations in the Indian Ocean in ways that “the Americans, the British, the Israelis, and perhaps the rest of the world cannot envision.”
His statements came a day after the movement announced attacks on a US ship and a destroyer in the Gulf of Aden and an Israeli ship MSC Veracruz in the Indian Ocean after a week-long standoff.
Houthis have been launching attacks on commercial and military vessels in the region for months, in response to Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. The attacks prompted the US to form a multinational coalition to protect shipping in the area, as well as to strike Houthi targets on the ground.
Daughter of martyr Al-Areer martyred along with husband, newborn baby in Israeli airstrike
Palestinian Information Center – April 26, 2024
GAZA – The daughter of martyr Refaat Al-Areer, Shaima, was martyred on Friday along with her husband, engineer Muhammad Siam, and their newborn baby in an Israeli airstrike that targeted their apartment near Al-Rimal Clinic in Gaza City.
Media sources said Israeli aircraft launched several attacks this morning targeting the headquarters of the International Red Cross, which houses displaced people, and a residential apartment near Al-Rimal Clinic, resulting in a number of martyrs and wounded.
The sources revealed that among the martyrs was Shaima, the eldest daughter of martyr Dr. Refaat Al-Areer, who was previously assassinated last December in a deliberate Israeli airstrike targeting his sister’s home in Gaza City.
Dr. Refaat Al-Areer was one of the pillars of the English Section at the PIC, and the supervisor of its Social Media Department. He was martyred along with his brother, sister, and her four children.
The martyr Al-Areer also worked as Professor of English Language at the Islamic University which was destroyed in the Israeli aggression. A number of its staff along with its President were martyred as well.
Al-Areer was one of the courageous voices who spoke and wrote in English about the Palestinian cause and refuted the Israeli narrative. He is the author of the book “Gaza Writes Back”.
He was also hosted in distinguished interviews with various Western media outlets.
UK APPROVED ARMS FOR ISRAEL DAYS AFTER IT KILLED BRITISH AID WORKERS
BY JOHN MCEVOY | DECLASSIFIED UK | APRIL 23, 2024
On 1 April, Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on a convoy of aid workers in Gaza, killing three Britons, a Polish national, a Palestinian, an American-Canadian dual citizen, and an Australian.
The Israeli Air Force carried out the bombing with a Hermes 450 drone. According to Campaign Against the Arms Trade, this drone may be powered by a R902(W) Wankel engine produced in Britain by UAV Engines Limited (UEL).
New court documents show that the UK government decided to continue arms exports to Israel on 8 April, one week after the strike on the aid workers who were employed by the charity World Central Kitchen (WCK).
The revelation will put additional pressure on the Foreign Office to justify its decision not to suspend arms sales to Israel.
‘Killed with British weapons’
Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq challenged the UK government today in court over arms sales to Israel.
Documents provided to the court show that the UK government has conducted five legal assessments of the situation in Gaza since 18 December.
One of those assessments, which covered the period 18 December to 29 February, was delivered to UK foreign secretary David Cameron on 28 March.
On 3 April, two days after the Israeli airstrike on the aid workers, Cameron used this assessment to recommend that the UK continue arms sales to Israel.
Five days later, UK trade secretary Kemi Badenoch authorised the continuation of extant licences and new licences to Israel, according to GLAN’s press statement.
The court documents further show that the UK government is capable of making “out of cycle assessments… where circumstances require” on Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law.
However, such an assessment was apparently not conducted following Israel’s attack on the WCK staff.
Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer at GLAN, said: “The world has watched as 34,000 people have been killed, and more are being killed every day… Has the Government no regard for the immense loss of human life thus far, some of whom will have been killed with British weapons?”
Hermes 450 drone
The UK government is also refusing to rule out whether British machinery was used in the killing of the aid workers.
On 12 April, Kenny MacAskill MP asked in parliament whether the government had made an assessment of whether UEL engines or engine parts had been used in the strike. Trade minister Alan Mak said his department could not comment “on specific licences”.
On 17 April, Andy McDonald MP also asked whether the three British aid workers “were killed by weapons manufactured in Britain”. Foreign Office minister David Rutley responded simply that “we have strong export controls”.
UEL designs and manufactures engines for drones, specialising in Wankel technology which delivers an “outstanding power-to-size and weight ratio… ideal for tactical unmanned aircrafts”.
The company was established in Staffordshire in 1992, before being acquired by Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems.
Over recent decades, concerns have been raised that UEL produces engines and engine parts for Israel’s drone fleet, which is frequently used to support bombing campaigns over Gaza.
Made in Britain
In 2009, it was reported that the engines for Israel’s Hermes 450 drone had been manufactured by UEL. These claims were supported by information on Elbit’s own website.
British arms control officials subsequently admitted that they had licensed engines to Israel for onward export, but could not confirm that the engines had not instead been fitted to the Hermes 450 drone.
Since then, the UK government has continued to issue licences to UEL for exports to Israel. The most recent licence was seemingly granted in 2021, allowing UEL to export parts for military engines to Israel.
Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s Sam Perlo Freeman told Middle East Eye: “The evidence seems to stack up that it is a UK engine and, if it’s not, then Elbit need to clarify that… Definitely it seems to be based on a UK design at the very least”.
An Elbit Systems spokesperson told Declassified: “Elbit Systems UK, its subsidiaries and joint ventures, including UAV Engines Limited and U-Tacs, are not involved in the Hermes 450 programme”.
The company’s spokesperson, however, would not respond to a further question on whether Israel’s Hermes 450 drones use engines or engine parts produced by UEL in the UK. They said: “We have nothing further to add to the [previous] statement”.
A UK-based subsidiary of Elbit Systems and Thales also produces the Watchkeeper drone, which is modelled on Elbit’s Hermes 450 and used by the British army.
“The British government is, in effect, buying technology that has been ‘field tested’ on Palestinians”, noted campaign group War on Want.
‘A full, transparent explanation’
The day after the Israeli airstrikes on the aid convoy, UK foreign secretary David Cameron announced that he had “called on Israel to immediately investigate and provide a full, transparent explanation of what happened”.
On 5 April, the IDF published the conclusions of its investigation, claiming that Israeli forces had identified gunmen near the trucks and “mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists”.
The report continued: “Those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives and not WCK employees”. The IDF chief of the general staff subsequently dismissed the Israeli brigade’s commander and chief of staff.
Israel’s self-exonerating investigation was led by Yoav Har-Even, the former head of the IDF operations directorate, and now the president and CEO of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
Rafael is one of Israel’s biggest arms firms. It is owned and controlled by the Israeli state, and its largest client is the IDF. The investigation into the killing of the aid workers was therefore led by the CEO of a company which supplies many of the bombs that Israel is using to destroy Gaza.
The UK government has not commented on whether this satisfies its demand for a “full, transparent explanation”, and the extent to which the Foreign Office is pressing Israel on the matter remains unclear.
Mak recently told parliament: “We are carefully reviewing initial findings of Israel’s investigations into the killing”. He continued: “The findings of the inquiry must be published in full and followed up with a wholly independent review to ensure the utmost transparency and accountability”.
Prior to the attack on the WCK staff, at least 357 humanitarian-run sites in Gaza had reportedly been attacked.
John McEvoy is an independent journalist who has written for International History Review, The Canary, Tribune Magazine, Jacobin and Brasil Wire.
French Servicemen Promised Big Money for Fighting in Ukraine – Ex-Intel Officer
Sputnik – 26.04.2024
PARIS – French servicemen are being promised a golden parachute for participating in fictitious “resignations” to fight in Ukraine said Nicolas Cinquini, a veteran of France’s counter-terrorism intelligence service, to Sputnik.
Cinquini is currently searching for information about French nationals who fight in the conflict on the side of Kiev. According to his findings, French state agents may have been in Ukraine since the start of the special military operation in February 2022 along with ordinary French civilians who went to fight for the Kiev regime on their own.
“These are agents who remain very secretive and are difficult to identify,” the former intelligence officer noted.
“Sources told us that in the ranks of the French army, specialists were given attractive offers: a false resignation, a guarantee of reinstatement upon completion, and an income significantly higher than their usual earnings,” he said.
In February, French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris would do everything to prevent Russia “from winning this war.” At a conference on assistance to Ukraine, he raised the issue of transferring troops to the combat zone, but neither European leaders nor the opposition in his own country supported him. At the beginning of March, Macron also emphasized that France “has no limits or red lines” in matters of supporting Ukraine.
Later, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin, said France had already begun training a contingent to be sent to the conflict zone; at the first stage it would amount to about 2,000 military personnel. Later, the SVR, citing Naryshkin, said a French military unit, should it be in Ukraine, would become a priority legitimate target for the Russian military. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu by phone that sending French troops to Ukraine would create problems for France itself.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said in an interview with Dmitry Kiselev, the Director General of Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik’s parent media company, that the deployment of European troops to Ukraine will not change the situation on the battlefield but will lead to dire consequences for Kiev. In response to Macron’s words about the absence of red lines, the Russian leader said Moscow will not have restrictions in relation to states with such an approach either.
Featured Video
Israel’s diamond industry is dying. That’s a billion-dollar problem for the IDF.
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Mossad behind Italian ‘blackmail’ spying scandal
The Cradle | November 1, 2024
An Italian private intelligence firm that allegedly hacked government databases to collect information on thousands of prominent people, including politicians, entrepreneurs, and celebrities, is accused of working for Israeli intelligence and the Vatican, media reported on 30 October.
Police wiretaps leaked to Italian media show that Equalize, which employs former members of Italian intelligence, is accused of breaching the servers of government ministries and the police between 2019 and 2024 to collect information.
Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Equalize allegedly collected numerous classified files that contain sensitive information about prominent Italians to sell to clients – including major companies and law firms seeking information to gain an advantage over competitors, win court cases, or for blackmail and extortion.
Prime Minister Meloni described the alleged scheme as “unacceptable” and “a threat to democracy.” … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
Bill Francis on Victoria Moves to Force Online… papasha408 on The Empire of Lies: How the BB… loongtip on US Weighs Port Restrictions on… Bill Francis on Chris Minns Defends NSW “Hate… Sheree Sheree on I was canceled by three newspa… Richard Ong on Czech–Slovak alignment signals… John Edward Kendrick on Colonel Jacques Baud & Nat… eddieb on Villains of Judea: Ronald Laud… rezjiekc on Substack Imposes Digital ID Ch… loongtip on US strikes three vessels in Ea… eddieb on An Avoidable Disaster Steve Jones on For Israel, The Terrorist Atta…
Aletho News- Israel’s diamond industry is going extinct. That’s a billion-dollar problem for the IDF.
- Iran says no basis for inspection of bombed nuclear sites
- How reporting facts can now land you in jail for 14 years as a terrorist
- Bill Gates, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla Ordered to Testify in Dutch COVID Vaccine Injury Lawsuit
- The vindication (and brutal punishment) of Dr. Reiner Fuellmich
- US Department of State Discloses Names of 5 Europeans Sanctioned for Censorship Against US
- The Epstein Saga: Chapter 1, Mr. Clinton
- Bill Clinton is in the frame again, but this time it’s Trump who put him there
- US Navy effectively becomes a tool of modern piracy
- EU Morphing Into Its Own Worst Enemy – Viktor Orban
- If Americans Knew
- The Faces of AIPAC: the largest pro-Israel lobbying org in the US
- Gazan Christians mark 3rd Christmas under genocide – Not a Ceasefire Day 75
- Israeli scams children with cancer out of millions fundraised for their treatment, BBC finds
- Casey Kennedy Fired from AG Scientific Amid Zionist Troll Campaign Over Track AIPAC Work
- The Hasmoneans: The Jewish Dynasty That Gave Us Hanukkah Is a Symbol of Murder, Not Heroism and Hope
- Int’l NGOs may be blocked from Gaza starting Jan. 1 – Not a Ceasefire Day 74
- From Churches to ChatGPT: Israeli Contracts Worth Millions Aim to Influence U.S. Public Opinion
- Who is the Pro-Israel Clique behind TikTok’s US Takeover?
- Medical Crisis in UK Prisons – 800 Doctors Warn of ‘Imminent Deaths’ Among Palestine Action Strikers
- The New York Times ignores an essential part of the Jeffrey Epstein story — Israel
- No Tricks Zone
- Merry Christmas Everybody!
- Two More New Studies Show The Southern Ocean And Antarctica Were Warmer In The 1970s
- Der Spiegel Caught Making Up Reports About Conservative America (Again)
- New Study: 8000 Years Ago Relative Sea Level Was 30 Meters Higher Than Today Across East Antarctica
- The Wind Energy Paradox: “Why More Wind Turbines Don’t Always Mean More Power”
- New Study Reopens Questions About Our Ability To Meaningfully Assess Global Mean Temperature
- Dialing Back The Panic: German Physics Prof Sees No Evidence Of Climate Tipping Points!
- Astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon Challenges The Climate Consensus … It’s The Sun, Not CO2
- Regional Cooling Since The 1980s Has Driven Glacier Advance In The Karakoram Mountains
- Greenland Petermann Glacier Has Grown 30 Kilometers Since 2012!
Aletho News 