Labor strike in 10 California universities demands the right to protest for Palestine
Palestinian Information Center – May 18, 2024
Around 48,000 workers at 10 universities affiliated with the University of California system and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the state of California, USA, voted to begin a strike in defense of the right to protest for Palestine.
This follows campaigns of arrests and attacks on students in tents, who are demanding an end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza, following the university administration’s failure to address complaints regarding the handling of pro-Palestinian protests.
Activists promised that the union vote on starting the strike next Monday represents a historic decision that may push unions in other universities and labor unions to strike in defense of students’ right to protest for the Palestinian cause.
The announcement of the strike comes two days after the vote of the academic workers at the University of California, where the union considered it a result of changes to the university system’s policies regarding freedom of expression and discrimination in pro-Palestinian speeches, and allowing attacks on protesters during their sit-ins.
In this context, high schools in the state of Wisconsin joined schools in the state of Illinois in student protests at American universities, by walking out of classrooms after the second or third period, and organizing marches inside schools to demand an end to the aggression on Gaza.
Over 600 mosques destroyed in Israeli onslaught on Gaza since Oct. 7
Press TV – May 18, 2024
The Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in the Gaza Strip says Israeli military forces have fully destroyed or damaged hundreds of mosques in the besieged coastal territory ever since the Tel Aviv regime started its bloody onslaught in early October last year.
The ministry announced in a statement that the total number of mosques completely destroyed in the current conflict stands at 604, while another 200 have been partially destroyed.
The statement said Israeli troops have also desecrated at least 60 cemeteries during their ground invasion of Gaza, and used bulldozers to dig up graves and steal the bodies of more than 1,000 people.
It said 15 buildings belonging to the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs were destroyed during the Israeli aggression, among them the headquarters of the ministry, the main office of the Holy Quran Radio in Gaza City, the Endowment Management office in Khan Younis, and a repository for documents and manuscripts.
The statement said that 91 employees of the ministry have been killed in the Israeli attacks.
Israel launched its onslaught against the Gaza Strip, targeting hospitals, residences, and houses of worship, after Palestinian resistance movements launched a surprise attack, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm, against the usurping entity on October 7 last year.
At least 35,386 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to the latest health ministry update in Gaza on Saturday. More than 1.7 million people have been internally displaced during the war as well.
Pro-Israeli billionaires fuel NYC Mayor crackdown on Columbia students
Al Mayadeen | May 17, 2024
A coalition of billionaires and influential business figures, aiming to influence American public opinion regarding the Israeli war on Gaza, urged New York City’s Mayor in private last month to deploy police to quell pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, The Washington Post reported, citing communications obtained and individuals familiar with the group.
Business leaders, including Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind Snack company, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik, and real estate investor Joseph Sitt, convened for a Zoom video conference with Mayor Eric Adams on April 26. This meeting took place about a week following the Mayor’s initial dispatch of New York police to Columbia’s campus, as indicated in a log of chat messages.
During the call, some participants discussed the possibility of making political contributions to Adams, as well as strategies for exerting pressure on Columbia’s President and trustees to authorize the Mayor’s deployment of police to address protesters on campus, according to summaries of the chat messages as reported by The Post.
A member of the WhatsApp chat group said, as quoted by The Post, that he “contributed” $2,100, the maximum allowable amount, to Adams during that month.
Additionally, some members expressed willingness to fund private investigators to aid the New York police in managing the protests, as indicated in the chat log. A member reported in the chat that Adams accepted this offer. However, a spokesperson for City Hall claimed that the New York Police Department has not utilized private investigators for managing protests.
Business leaders, Mayor Adams navigate crackdown on US students
The messages detailing the conversation with Adams were part of a vast collection of WhatsApp exchanges involving several prominent business leaders and financiers across the US. This group includes individuals such as former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, and Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and brother of Jared Kushner, who is the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump.
Individuals with direct access to the chat log provided its contents to The Post under the condition of anonymity, as the chat was intended to remain private. Members of the group confirmed the existence of the chat and their contributions.
The chat was initiated by an associate of billionaire and real estate magnate Barry Sternlicht, who opted not to directly participate but communicated through the associate, as indicated in the chat messages and confirmed by a person familiar with Sternlicht, as per the report.
In an October 12 message, one of the initial messages in the group, the associate, posting on behalf of Sternlicht, informed others that the group’s objective was to “change the narrative” in support of “Israel”.
Stretching beyond New York
Formed shortly after October 7, the chat group’s influence has extended far beyond New York, reaching the highest echelons of the Israeli government, the American business sphere, and prestigious universities, The Washington Post reported.
EU Big Brother is Watching News of Fico Assassination Attempt
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse™ | May 17, 2024
According to a report this morning in BNN Bloomberg :
The European Commission said it’s “actively monitoring” the spread of fake news about Wednesday’s shooting Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and warned it can slap Big Tech platforms with fines for failing to tackle disinformation.
The regulator “is equipped with wide-ranging investigatory and supervisory powers, including the power to impose sanctions and remedies,” it said in an emailed statement.
Violations could be punished under the European Union’s tough new Digital Services Act, which forces online platforms to put into place measures to tackle illegal content and disinformation, uphold user rights, and protect user’s health and wellbeing.
In other words, the European Commission has already decided the orthodox narrative of this crime—even before a full and transparent investigation has been performed—and will censor any theory or narrative of the crime that diverges from the orthodoxy.
UK Army Unit Labeled Accurate COVID Reporting as “Malinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 16, 2024
More details are coming out about the Covid-era activity of the UK army unit, the 77th Brigade, which the country’s government used to spy on citizens, suppress dissent around issues related to the pandemic, and flag content for social media sites to label or remove.
The unit, said to be of the psyops (“psychological operations”) variety, carried out a series of controversial and even suspected unlawful activities over this period of time, although in early 2021, the UK government flat-out denied it was involved in “any kind of action against British citizens.”
But a batch of subsequent responses to freedom of information requests, including those filed a year later by the Big Brother privacy-promoting NGO, tell a different story.
Perhaps it’s hardly the fault of the 77th Brigade that it spread disinformation while saying it was fighting it, or that it was among agencies that came up with the idea to get government censors to infiltrate social platforms – after all, the unit was set up in 2015 for the purpose of conducting “covert (online) warfare and subversion campaigns.”
The more pertinent question may be why the UK government decided to rely so heavily on the military (the country’s air force, RAF, was also involved) in order to monitor and censor people’s discussions about things like masks, lockdowns, vaccines – and why these soldiers were instructed to turn on their fellow citizens.
Either way, it did, and it was: In one example early in the pandemic – March 2020 – Guardian reporter Jennifer Rankin tweeted that both UK and EU sources had confirmed the former was not a part of the EU’s PPE procurement project.
The military was quick to label this as “malinformation” – apparently the “code word” for making sure the government is perceived positively regardless of whether reporting/content is accurate. In Rankin’s case, it was.
Big Brother Watch researcher Jake Hurfurt writes about this and cites a whistleblower who revealed how the 77th Brigade managed to bypass legal rules around using the army to monitor dissent at home.
“The leading view was that unless a profile explicitly stated their real name and nationality, which is, of course, vanishingly rare, they could be a foreign agent and were fair game to flag up,” the whistleblower is quoted as saying.
But there’s another way the authorities worked around “the problem,” Hurfurt explains: “As in the United States, UK government officials insist that the flagging of social media content by officials was legal because the officials were just making suggestions, not demanding censorship.”
US: Ilan Pappe interrogated by FBI at Detroit Airport
MEMO | May 16, 2024
Prominent Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, known for his strongly anti-Zionist views, has revealed that he was subjected to a two-hour interrogation by the FBI upon his arrival at Detroit Airport on Monday. During the ordeal, US security officials recorded everything on his phone. The 70-year-old professor, who has long been a vocal critic of Israel in his speeches and books, took to social media to share his experience.
In his statement, Pappe described the questioning as “out of this world,” with the two FBI agents asking him about his alleged support for Hamas and whether he considered Israel’s actions in Gaza to be genocidal. “They asked me what I believe is the solution to the ‘conflict’ (seriously, this is what they asked!),” wrote Pappe, expressing his disbelief at the nature of the questions.
The professor said that he was interrogated about his personal connections, with the agents inquiring about his Arab and Muslim friends in America, the length of their relationships, and the nature of their interactions. Pappe responded by directing the agents to his published works in some instances, while providing brief “yes” or “no” answers in others, citing exhaustion after an eight-hour flight.
He also mentioned that the FBI agents engaged in a lengthy phone conversation with an unidentified party, which he speculated could have been an Israeli official. Following the conversation, the agents copied the contents of his phone before allowing him to enter the country.
Despite the troubling nature of the interrogation, Pappe believes that such actions by the US and European countries, taken under pressure from pro-Israeli lobbies or Israel itself, are indicative of “sheer panic and desperation” on their part. He believes that these reactions are a response to Israel’s increasingly tarnished reputation, which he predicts will soon lead to the country becoming a “pariah state”.
Prof. Pappe’s experience comes after recent incidents where Palestinian academics, including the Rector of Glasgow University, Ghassan Abu Sitta, were denied entry to France and Germany. These events have raised concerns about the treatment of individuals critical of Israel’s policies and the influence of pro-Israel lobbies on foreign governments.
Palestinian journalist killed in Israeli air strike in northern Gaza
Palestinian Information Center – May 16, 2024
GAZA – An Israeli air strike on Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday night killed the journalist Ha’el al-Najjar and a number of his family members.
Local sources said that at least one missile was fired at the journalist’s house.
Thus, the number of journalists killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza, ongoing since October 7 last year, rose to 144, according to data provided by the Government Media Office.
The Office had also documented the arrest of at least 20 journalists in Gaza by the Israeli occupation forces in the same period.
UK Disinformation Unit Minutes Reveal Consideration of Placing Government Employees Inside Social Media Companies
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 15, 2024
Recently released minutes from the UK government’s Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) governing board, the Disinformation Board, provide further evidence of the authorities’ direct involvement in monitoring online speech during the pandemic but also flagging it for removal.
But even this wasn’t enough for CDU, which in 2023, after several years of criticism and scrutiny by some media and privacy groups, got rebranded as the National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT).
One of the moves considered by top UK officials was to “embed” civil servants in companies running social platforms, and it remains unclear if this was in fact done, writes Big Brother Watch’s Jake Hurfurt for Public.
CDU was only one building block in the UK’s Covid-era censorship effort; several military units were enlisted to participate as well, most notably and controversially the 77th Brigade, whose job is supposed to be spreading misinformation, and in general, finding its “psyops” targets abroad, not at home.
NSOIT (CDU) also states that it is “countering disinformation and hostile state narratives.” But these and several other outfits, as well as private contractors hired by the government, were tasked with surveillance of British citizens and suppression of those seen as “Covid measures dissenters.”
And so, what scores of freedom of information requests have since revealed is that they went not after disinformation-spreading “foreign adversary” – but ordinary British citizens, medical professionals, journalists, and even politicians who were engaging in legitimate, albeit critical of the government, speech.
Regarding the lengths to which the UK was prepared to go – specifically if officials actually got “embedded” in social media companies – this is unclear to this day thanks to the government’s refusal to provide access to reports compiled by Logically, a private company.
Logically made millions from contracts with the British military, Hurfurt notes. Completing the picture of the web of sometimes loosely, other times tightly inter-connected entities that work hard to censor online speech, he adds:
“(Logically) has a large US presence and is headed by US ex-intelligence officer Brian Murphy, who worked at the Department for Homeland Security (DHS).”
Meanwhile, the UK government explains its refusal to shed light on the question of whether or not its officials were directly involved with social media companies as fears those reports “would reveal its capabilities to hostile actors.”
British Palestinian surgeon wins legal battle against Germany’s travel ban
MEMO | May 15, 2024
In a significant legal victory, Professor Ghassan Abu Sitta, a renowned British-Palestinian war surgeon, has successfully overturned a Schengen-wide travel ban imposed on him by the German government. Abu Sitta’s legal team — lawyer Alexander Gorski of the International Centre of Justice for Palestine (ICJP), and the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC) — challenged the ban, which they argued had deprived the surgeon of his freedom of expression and freedom to travel.
His lawyers described how he had faced hostile media and a travel ban after returning from Gaza, where he worked in hospitals and witnessed war crimes during Israel’s ongoing military offensive. The ban prevented him from entering France, the Netherlands and Germany, where he had been invited to speak about his experiences.
The ban also extended to joining a German conference online, with the German authorities warning Abu Sitta that if he took part it would “constitute a breach of German law” and could result in fines or imprisonment. Most recently, he was prevented from entering the Netherlands, where he was due to speak later this week to civil society organisations and Dutch MPs at the University of Amsterdam.
“These efforts by the German authorities constitute a serious breach of freedom of movement and expression in Europe and now a judge has ruled that the travel ban should be overturned,” said the ICJP. “This is a significant victory for freedom of speech and a significant turning point in challenging the chilling environment that many Palestinian human rights advocates have to operate in.”
ICJP lawyer Gorski emphasised that the victory ensures that Abu Sitta’s freedom of expression and movement are no longer under threat, allowing him to speak out about what he witnessed in Gaza.
Since leaving the Palestinian enclave in late November, Abu Sitta has been raising awareness about the impact of Israel’s war, which has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. During his time in Gaza, he became the unofficial English-language representative of Palestinian doctors and surgeons treating the wounded, accusing Israel’s military of using illegal white phosphorus and deliberately targeting children.
Meta’s Oversight Board Adopts International “Norms” Instead of US Free Speech Principles
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 14, 2024
In a world where international law (a set of ratified documents) is being rapidly replaced with narratives about a “rules-based system,” it is no wonder that US tech giants like Meta choose to set their free speech “baseline” not on their country’s Constitution, but on “international human rights norms.”
The less clarity there is, the more space for abuse and biased interpretation, critics might say. But Meta Oversight Board member Kenji Yoshino is satisfied that this is the right approach, and even spelled it out.
“Our baseline here is not the US Constitution and free speech, but rather international human rights norms,” Yoshino recently told the National Constitution Center, a private nonprofit.
Such bold statements require bold justification, and so this Oversight Board member noted that in terms of free speech “values” the US is “an outlier,” while Meta’s global reach means it must adjust its policies accordingly.
There are plenty of openly authoritarian regimes out there, with their own “free speech values,” but when Yoshino – from the William J. Brennan Center for Justice – spoke about “striking a balance” between US law and international “norms” – he chose to mention the palatable to his audience example of Europe.
What’s striking in this context, however, is that in many, if not all European countries, “hate speech” is criminalized, unlike in the US. It isn’t clear from Yoshino’s statements how a balance between such different approaches to speech can even be achieved in a social platform’s guidelines, particularly around elections.
But, that is the explanation for why the giant chooses not to make the First Amendment its “baseline.”
And if the baseline is international human rights norms, Yoshino admitted, “often times that calculus comes out differently than it would if the baseline were First Amendment norms.”
Such statements will do little to reassure those in the US already wary of Meta’s handling of content, censorship, and free speech, especially ahead of yet another high-stakes election coming up.
The fact that after a brief “pause” the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are now officially back in the business of “communicating” (opponents of the policy would say, “colluding”) with social media platforms, doesn’t help matters.
If anything, it raises fears of a concerted censorship push, driven both from the outside by government pressure, and from within Meta itself.
RFK Jr. Files Lawsuit Against Meta, Alleging Censorship of Presidential Campaign Video
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 14, 2024
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent candidate in the upcoming US presidential election, has announced that he filed a lawsuit against Meta (Facebook and Instagram) in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
Kennedy alleges that the two platforms censored a video, the documentary “Who is Bobby Kennedy,” that is part of his presidential campaign.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
The filing, submitted by Kennedy and his political action committee (PAC), accuses Meta of using its platforms to prevent users from watching, sharing, or posting links to the video, a short time after it was first released.
The platforms are accused of suppressing a video about the presidential candidate’s career and his criticism of vaccines as a result of the US government’s repeated demands that tech companies do so.
To bolster this argument, the filing refers to Murthy v. Missouri, currently in the Supreme Court, where the allegation is that the White House pressured and colluded with social media powerhouses to censor content it disfavors, including around vaccines.
Meta first blocked the documentary on May 3 – two days later formally reversing this decision, describing it as “a mistake” – but Kennedy maintains that the film is still demoted and shadow-banned, and otherwise sabotaged in terms of visibility.
He also made a point that the case is not only about free speech suppression, i.e., a First Amendment issue, but also, interference in the democratic process.
“Meta is censoring a biographical film about a major candidate in an election year,” Kennedy stressed – and one might add, this is happening on some of the major and most influential platforms.
This is not the politician and activist’s “first rodeo” trying to take Big Tech to task for, in his view, unjustifiably censoring his content.
A lawsuit he brought against Google (YouTube) for removing his videos critical of Covid vaccines’ efficacy is now being considered in a court of appeals. In that case, Kennedy also accused Google of making the decision to block his content in collusion with the current government.
15 nations have made their position on the WHO sovereignty grab public before the WHA meeting commences
How many other countries are entirely fed up with the World Stealth Organization’s misleading spin about “equity”?
BY MERYL NASS | MAY 12, 2024
The negotiations have been controlled by globalists, not nations, from day one.
Eleven nations informed the UN General Assembly they were not going along with the UN’s support for the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Agenda last September. In alphabetical order:
- Belarus
- Bolivia
- Cuba
- Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
- Eritrea
- Islamic Republic of Iran
- Nicaragua
- Russian Federation
- Syrian Arab Republic
- Venezuela
- Zimbabwe
The Netherlands’ government has been instructed to delay the WHO votes or vote No by the lower house of Parliament.
Slovakia said it will not sign current drafts of both documents.
Croatia’s new majority party is against the WHO’s pandemic preparedness plan
Italy’s Senator Borghi said Italy will vote No on the treaty and furthermore that there are 10 more months in which to reject the IHR Amendments.
It is very unusual to have this level of disagreement made public even before the start of the World Health Assembly meeting. And with “hybrid negotiations” aka backroom horse-trading, leading right up to the meeting, nobody will have time to consider the treaties before they are due to be voted on. It has been a corrupt process from start to finish. It could only succeed with stealth (no one knowing what is really in the treaties) and bribes.
Now that the US has announced that 100 countries are being paid off to develop their pandemic preparedness agenda, will the bribes be enough to get these treaties across the finish line? Will the unbribed be miffed? How much will it cost the US taxpayer for the world’s nations to agree to dictatorial control of pandemics and health information going forward?
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The Dirty Little Secret behind the “Global Terrorism Index”
The Omission of Israeli Terrorism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
By Karin Brothers | Global Research | December 6, 2014
… The Israeli settlements — all of which are illegal – have been identified as a major impediment to peace. The refusal of a major “global” terrorism report to name the Israeli settlers as one of the groups most responsible for terrorism not only misrepresents a major source of regional violence but exposes the Global Terrorism Index as a propaganda tool that supports a U.S. agenda.
In recent years, governments have been attempting to thwart terrorism by blocking supportive fund-raising. When it comes to Israeli settlements, however, the US and Canada actually encourage fund-raising by giving organizations (such as Christian Friends of Israeli Communities (CFOIC) and the Jewish National Fund) financial support in the form of donor tax-deductions.
Charities which provide funds for the Israeli settlements should be regarded as terror-financing organizations. They should not only lose their tax-deductible status, but they should be banned because they support the violation of international humanitarian law. The terror-financing laws that are being strictly enforced for Muslim charities should be applied to Christian and Jewish charities as well. … Read full article
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