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SvennoJ 11 hours ago
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US politicians move to revoke tax-exempt status of rights groups criticising Israel

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a group of 100 rights and legal organisations have sent a letter to US House Speaker Mike Johnson and another official to condemn their pressure on the Internal Revenue Service.

They claim that the authorities have been pushing to illegally revoke the tax-exempt status of 15 US-based Muslim, Arab, Jewish and progressive groups “to punish criticism of the Israeli government”.

“We will continue to fight these politically motivated attacks, and we stand ready to defend any organisation targeted by their McCarthyistic tactics,” the group said.



Universities must respect peaceful pro-Palestine activism: UN expert

Universities must respect peaceful activism and revise repressive policies targeting the pro-Palestinian solidarity movement on their campuses, a UN independent human rights expert said.

Gina Romero, special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of assembly and association, warned (PDF) on Friday that “the brutal repression of the university-based protest movement is a profound threat to democratic systems and institutions”.

Romero, who issued a report about the often violent repression of the pro-Palestine solidarity movement in more than 30 countries, added that universities risked “alienating an entire generation, damaging their participation and perception of their role in democratic processes, in addition to failing the responsibility to prevent atrocity crimes and to contribute to peace”.

The international solidarity movement in support of Palestine has grown exponentially since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. Mass demonstrations and protests, as well as occupations, encampments and other types of peaceful assembly have taken place across the world, with many protests led by university students.

But universities have often responded harshly to the protests, with arrests, suspensions, and a host of measures aimed at restricting support of Palestine.

“Respecting and guaranteeing dissent is essential to ensure the universities remain spaces for free thought, speech and academic freedom,” Romero said.


US State Department staff gifted wine after sending more bombs to Israel: Report

Senior officials in the US State Department have dismissed internal evidence of Israelis misusing American-made bombs and have worked around the clock to send more weapons as Gaza’s death toll mounts, according to a report by ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism organisation.

Leaked cables and emails show how the State Department approved sales, saying “there was no potential” for the Israel military to misuse the weapons, the report said.

That was despite staff repeatedly highlighting attacks in which large numbers of civilians were killed, ProPublica reported, in what many experts consider to be war crimes.

The article, titled, Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel, draws from internal cables, email threads, memos, meeting minutes and other State Department records as well as interviews with current and former officials throughout the agency.

For example, it reveals how, in late December, staff in the arms transfers bureau in Washington, DC, received Christmas gifts – cases of wine from a winery in the Negev desert – along with personalized letters on each bottle, courtesy of the Israeli embassy.


Israeli wine sent to officials in the State Department’s arms transfers bureau in December

A State Department spokesperson told ProPublica that arms transfers to any country, including Israel, “are done so in a deliberative manner with appropriate input” from other agencies.

An Israeli government spokesperson told the news organisation: “The article is biased and seeks to portray legitimate and routine contacts between Israel and the Embassy in Washington with State Department officials as improper.”