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SvennoJ on 28 April 2024

Day 11 of the pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia University







Qatar ambassador to US rejects claims of links with campus protests

Meshal Hamad Al Thani has said that Qatar is not financially backing protests on US college campuses, despite accusations to the contrary.

“Qatar is not a large donor to U.S. universities. The Qatar Foundation pays the costs for six U.S. universities to maintain faculty and operate campuses in Qatar, educating and awarding degrees to women and men from Qatar and others who wish to study there,” he wrote in a post on X.

“These are not donations,” he said. “Qatar does not influence these universities, and we have nothing to do with anything that happens on their home campuses in the U.S.”



Israel routinely accuses Qatar of funding anti-semitism

Qatar funds US universities and growing antisemitic violence in them
Tuition of terror: Qatari money flowed into U.S. universities - and now it's fueling violence
Michael Oren: FBI must investigate money trail behind campus antisemitic protests

In the last article the Jerusalem Post actually claims the protests are pro-war

Oren drew parallels between the 1968 anti-war riots and today's campus movements, which he views as pro-war due to their exclusion of Israel.

This shift has notably affected disciplines like American Studies, which have become distinctly anti-American, Oren continued. He also pointed out that even some Jewish academics have joined the anti-Israel chorus, failing to recognize the potential negative consequences for themselves. “They fail to see that this path also ends badly for them.”

The amount of drivel in that article is insane.

Jewish voices divided at City University of New York protest encampment

I will say that this movement has divided not just the nation but also the Jewish community.

There was a group of Orthodox Jews who were supporting the protest. One of them burned his Israeli passport.

I also spoke to a man who said he was a former Israeli soldier, he had been in Gaza, and he disagreed with the protests and was critical of Hamas. He tried to get into this protest but was ejected and police had to escort him to their car. They didn’t arrest him but said it was for his own safety.

Inside this protest, you don’t see division at all. Everybody here is very supportive of this student movement. You can see all the tents, which are increasing, as are the protests. It is a Sunday afternoon  and there are a lot of people here.

It was divided before the student protests grew and got in the news (they were there before Columbia got in the spotlight). Plenty articles already months ago about the growing division between younger and older generations of Jews.




And the war goes on

Israeli strikes kills 7, including children, in Gaza City

Seven people, including women and children, have been killed as Israeli warplanes bombed two homes in Gaza City tonight, the Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting.

A Wafa correspondent and medical sources reported that five people, including children and women, were killed and dozens more injured in an Israeli bombing of a home in the west of Gaza City.

Two women were also killed in an Israeli bombing of a home in the al-Sabra neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, Wafa reports, with a number of people still missing under the rubble.

Palestinians who fled Israel’s siege of Gaza City, in the north of the Gaza Strip, have been returning home in recent weeks, as Israel continues to bombard areas it previously told people to evacuate to.

More than a dozen Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Rafah: Medical officials

We are getting reports that Israeli air strikes on three houses in Rafah have killed 13 people and wounded many others.

Hamas media outlets have put the death toll at 15 people.

More to follow…



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SvennoJ on 28 April 2024

Israel Arrests RENOWNED Palestinian Feminist Academic Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian

I'm joined by Sherene Razack, Distinguished Professor and the Penny Kanner Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies in the Department of Gender Studies at UCLA, and Saree Makdisi, literary critic and Professor of English Literature at UCLA

Jill Stein released from St. Louis County Jail after Washington University arrest

Jill Stein was released from jail in the early hours of Sunday, April 28th, after locking arms with Pro-Palestine student protesters at Washington University in St Louis and getting arrested for peacefully protesting and exercising their First Amendment Rights.


It is not antisemitic to demand an end to the humanitarian disaster in Gaza






SvennoJ on 28 April 2024

Imprisoned Palestinian writer wins top fiction prize

Palestinian author Basim Khandaqji, who has been imprisoned by Israel since 2004, has been named as the winner of the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) for his novel A Mask, the Colour of the Sky.

Khandaqji’s publisher Rana Idriss, of the Lebanon-based Dar al-Adab publishing house, accepted the award on his behalf at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi.

The book tells the story of Nur, an archaeologist living in a Palestinian refugee camp in Ramallah, who adopts a “mask” when he finds a blue identity card belonging to an Israeli in the pocket of an old coat.

Born in Nablus, Khandaqji has been imprisoned by Israel since he was 21 years old. He studied political science at Al-Quds University from prison with a thesis on Israeli studies and has published several poetry collections and novels.

In an interview in January, Khandaqji’s brother said his family had not been able to speak with him for four months, a problem many Palestinians held in Israeli prisons have faced since October 2023.

Khandaqji wrote the award-winning book in prison in 2021, when he would manage to write about two pages each day between 5am and 7am, although “very often, the papers are taken from him and destroyed by the guard”, his brother said.



Not available on Amazon



Being anti-Zionist is not same as being anti-Semitic, says Jill Stein

The Green Party’s presidential candidate in the US, who was briefly detained at a student-led protest at Washington University in Missouri, said legitimate criticism of Israel is often incorrectly deemed as anti-Semitism.

“Zionism is not Judaism,” Stein, who is Jewish, told Al Jazeera. “And Zionism has been controversial within the Jewish community. In fact since its origins in the 1800s, and that controversy continues today. And the consequences of Zionism is that Jews came in as refugees and said, ‘This land is ours, and we are ethnically cleansing this land.’ And that’s not OK.”

Stein said the current crisis did not start with the Hamas attacks in southern Israel.

“October 7 was just the latest phase of violence that has been mostly perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians, starting from the Nakba, some 75 years ago. And unfortunately, Jews – and I know myself because I was raised as part of this – have been taught a certain version of history which is not quite accurate. As more and more historical documents come to light, it’s very clear there has been an outrageous tradition of violence against Palestinians from the get-go.”

She added, “So Zionism is something that needs to be debated and being anti-Zionist is not the same as being anti-Semitic.”


US presidential hopeful Jill Stein was arrested at a student-led protest at Washington University in Missouri on Sunday



SvennoJ on 28 April 2024

Neighbour recounts rescuing girl after Israeli strike kills her family in Rafah

A neighbour has described the attack on the Abu Taha family that killed at least five people.

“The owner of the house is a perfume salesman. He has nothing to do with any political or armed groups. All of a sudden, a barrel bomb dropped and destroyed four homes facing the house that was targeted. The residential tower is full of displaced people. A large number of those killed and wounded were from the targeted house as well as the residential building. It is a scene of massive destruction. Unarmed civilians that have nothing to do with any political groups,” the neighbour said.

He added that he rescued a girl following the attack. “I rescued her from their balcony. She was literally hanging there,” the neighbour said. “So far, it seems she is the only survivor from her family. The only survivor from the targeted home.”

Al Jazeera has also obtained footage of rescue operations at the al-Khatib home in Rafah’s Janina neighbourhood. The video shows workers lowering a man on a stretcher after he was wounded in the attack. Two women and a child were among the four people killed in the bombing there.

What role do US tech giants play in powering Israeli war crimes?

After Amazon and Google signed a $1.2bn contract to launch Project Nimbus, providing cloud technology to the Israeli government and the military, tech workers have started to notice more Israeli use of artificial intelligence against the Palestinian people.

Many of those engineers have become activists for “No Tech for Genocide”, including Zelda Montes, who was among the dozens of Google staff who were fired recently for protesting against their company’s involvement with Israel.

In this episode of The Bottom Line, Montes and tech entrepreneur Paul Biggar, who founded Tech for Palestine, tell host Steve Clemons why they refuse to build technology used for oppression, surveillance, warfare and apartheid.

US senator questions if State Department is properly assessing Israeli conduct

Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, has questioned whether the Biden administration is properly assessing Israel’s compliance with international law, following a report from the Reuters news agency that some senior US officials did not find the country’s assurances credible.

“This reporting casts serious doubt on the integrity of the process in the Biden administration for reviewing whether the Netanyahu government is complying with international law in Gaza,” he said in a statement.

The Reuters report found that some senior State Department officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find “credible or reliable” Israel’s assurances that it is using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Blinken must tell Congress by May 8 whether he finds Israel’s assurances credible. According to an internal State Department memo, several bureaus within the agency did not find Israel’s statements credible, citing military actions that raised questions about potential violations of international humanitarian law.

Van Hollen said the Reuters report had found that the recommendations of those bureaus “were swept aside for political convenience”.

“The determination regarding compliance with international law is one of fact and law. The facts and law should not be ignored to achieve a pre-determined policy outcome. Our credibility is on the line,” he said.


Yep, it's going to look even worse when the ICC issues arrest warrents for Netanyahu and his cronies.



SvennoJ on 29 April 2024

Nine members of one family killed in Rafah

Our correspondents say nine members of the Abu Taha family were killed in the Israeli attacks. We brought you testimony earlier from a neighbour who said he rescued a little girl from the balcony of the Abu Taha home. He said she might be the only survivor from that family.

Our correspondents are also reporting an additional death from the attack on the al-Khawajat family home. This takes the death toll from Israeli attacks on Rafah in recent hours from 15 to 20.

As we reported earlier, another seven Palestinians were reported killed in attacks on Gaza City.

Watch scenes from the aftermath of the attack on the Abu Taha family home below.



Difficult night for civilians in Rafah

It was an extremely difficult night for civilians in Rafah, where the Israeli military targeted multiple areas with air strikes. At least 20 Palestinians were killed, including five children, after Israel bombed three separate houses in Rafah.

Hospitals in densely populated areas were flooded with people and bodies piled up in morgues before being taken for burial.

We have also been hearing about artillery attacks on other areas in the territory, including in the Bureij refugee camp.

Battles were also raging overnight between Hamas fighters and Israeli soldiers close to Nuseirat junction in central Gaza, where, according to Israeli media reports, at least two Israeli soldiers were killed while eight others were wounded. They were evacuated by Israeli helicopters for medical treatment.

The Israeli army also fired artillery shells on border towns, including Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya in the north, which suffered widespread destruction during the earlier phase of the war. Israeli forces also targeted houses in Gaza City, where people are still stuck under the rubble.


Video shows moment Israeli forces bombed a residential tower in Gaza

A Palestinian photographer has filmed the moment an Israeli aircraft bombed a residential building on Jalaa Street in Gaza City on Sunday.

The video, filmed from across the street and verified by Al Jazeera, shows an explosion that knocked out glass in windows in a nearby building and sent massive clouds of black and grey smoke into the air.

Gaza death toll climbs to 34,488 Palestinians killed

At least 34,488 Palestinians have been killed and 77,643 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, according to a statement by Gaza’s Health Ministry. At least 34 people were killed and another 68 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the statement added.



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SvennoJ on 29 April 2024

‘Nothing left’ at UNRWA school sheltering thousands in Khan Younis

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has shared a video showing damage to one of its shelters in Khan Younis after Israeli forces launched a ground offensive in the area.

Louise Wateridge, a UNRWA staff, said the roof of the shelter, located in a school, was directly affected in an attack, causing significant damage and prompting people to flee the area.

“This whole area used to shelter around 10,000 people,” Wateridge said in the video posted on X. “Now there’s nothing left.”

“There’s nobody here now. You can see how quickly people left. There’s shoes on the floor, there’s hairbrushes, toothbrushes, even bits of food, just left behind,” she added.



What it means to be a Palestinian reporter in Gaza

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum describes the challenges faced by Palestinian journalists in Gaza:

Israeli forces arrest Palestinians, destroy roads during raids on West Bank

Israeli forces continued raids across the occupied West Bank overnight, arresting several young Palestinian men and destroying roads and farmland, according to the Wafa news agency.

Those arrested included two young men taken from their homes in the town of Arraba, south of Jenin, five from the Old City of Hebron, and one from a military checkpoint east of the city of Tulkarem.

In Jalbun village, northeast of Jenin, Israeli forces bulldozed agricultural land, electricity poles and parts of the main road, Wafa reported.



SvennoJ on 29 April 2024

Hamas armed wing says it fires rockets from southern Lebanon

The Qassam Brigades says it has targeted an Israeli military position with a salvo of missiles from southern Lebanon, according to a post on its Telegram channel.

US official mediating Israel-Hezbollah tensions

The latest salvo of rockets to be fired into Israel from Lebanon are claimed to have been launched by the Lebanon wing of Hamas.

Hezbollah has repeatedly said it would halt the fighting once there is a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Israel has said it will not stop the fighting until Hezbollah withdraws from its border with Lebanon. And that is why US special envoy Amos Hochstein, who has been mediating in this conflict, is now in Israel. Every time there is some sort of progress in Gaza talks, he is in Israel … so that he can travel to Lebanon to try to broker a cessation of hostilities if and when a ceasefire is agreed in Gaza.

Western nations are talking about the full implementation of UN Resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 after the last war between Hezbollah and Israel. That resolution calls for a zone close to the border, free of arms and fighters outside the state’s control as well as Lebanon’s army, which operates alongside UN peacekeepers, to ensure some sort of demilitarised zone.

Now what will Hezbollah agree? It is still unclear. It repeatedly has said it understands UN Resolution 1701 to mean that no arms and fighters will be visible along the border – so tough negotiations ahead.

But it is clear that the US has been trying to prevent this from escalating into a full-blown conflict.



UK maritime body receives report of incident near Yemen’s Mokha

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency says it has received a report of an incident 54 nautical miles (100km) northwest of Yemen’s Red Sea port of Mokha.

It said authorities are investigating and vessels are advised to transit cautiously and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO.




Equity firms pause funding after boycott campaigns over Gaza war

The Financial Times reports that equity firms General Atlantic and CVC are pausing a multimillion-dollar stake in sales in US fast food brands in Indonesia and Malaysia due to boycotts over Israel’s war on Gaza.

In Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia, consumers have boycotted US brands, including Starbucks, KFC and Pizza Hut, over Washington’s support for Israel and as part of a wider campaign of boycotts over brands that support Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

In December, General Atlantic, a US equity investor, paused the sale of its 20 percent stake in Starbucks operator Map Boga Adiperkasa, according to two people familiar with the situation.

According to two other people with knowledge of the decision, CVC Capital Partners, one of Europe’s biggest private equity firms, also cancelled the sale of its 21 percent stake in Malaysia’s QSR Brands, the operator of KFC and Pizza Hut, due to the boycotts.



SvennoJ on 29 April 2024

UN’s Sigrid Kaag – Is starvation an Israeli weapon in Gaza?

More than 200 days into Israel’s war on Gaza, the number of Palestinians killed has surpassed 34,000 while more than 77,000 others have been wounded.

Amid the destruction and ongoing violence, the UN has appointed Sigrid Kaag as its senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza. With her experience navigating the EU’s varied positions on the conflict, Kaag leads crucial relief efforts.

As the world waits for a ceasefire and an end to the violence, the question arises: “What will ‘the day after’ look like for Gaza, once the war is over?”



US Congress needs to look into State Department’s inaction on Israeli abuses, says lawmaker

Katie Porter, a congresswoman from the state of California, has questioned why Blinken has failed to take action against Israel despite State Department officials raising concerns over possible Israeli rights violations in Gaza.

Her comments to MSNBC came amid reports that officials at the State Department told Blinken they do not find Israeli assurances of using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international law to be “credible or reliable”.

Congress “needs to be asking what happened here”, said Porter.

“After all of this extended process, after Israel was given a chance to address violations, to hold people accountable, when it goes up to the secretary with the recommendation from all of these different departments at the State Department that aid must stop – the law is clear here – what is not clear, is what has happened at the State Department and who, if anyone, besides Secretary Blinken may be implicated in this decision.”

UN agency estimates 37 million tonnes of debris in Gaza

The UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimates that 37 million tonnes of debris litter the streets of Gaza, which will take more than a decade to clear up. The debris includes up to 10,000 unexploded ammunition, according to Federico Dessi, Humanity and Inclusion’s Middle East director.

Dessi said the NGO works on the assumption that there have been something between 50,000 and 100,000 bombs dropped on Gaza in the past six months.

“From 9 to 14 percent of these bombs did not go off – so potentially we are talking about up to 10,000 or a bit more of unexploded bombs, shells and mortars in Gaza,” Dessi told Al Jazeera.



SvennoJ on 29 April 2024

French top diplomat says Gaza ceasefire talks progressing

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne told Reuters that negotiations on a ceasefire are progressing, but he urged caution.

“Things are moving forward but you always have to be careful in these discussions and negotiations,” Sejourne said after arriving in Riyadh from Lebanon, where he held talks on Sunday amid rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

“The situation in Gaza is catastrophic and we need a ceasefire,” he added.

 

What’s the focus of today’s truce talks?

An Israeli delegation may join the Hamas representatives in Cairo, although there won’t be a face-to-face meeting.

The Egyptians are keen to get this moving. They have a vested interest because of the geographic position of Rafah on their border. So they are also putting pressure on Hamas, along with the Qataris, to get some form of deal.

What we understand is on the table at the moment is that Hamas would release 33 captives. These fall under the humanitarian branch. So you have women, the sick, the elderly and those over 50.

Israel would release Palestinian prisoners, some of those, according to the Israeli media, “with blood on their hands”. So you are talking about senior Palestinian prisoners.

Also, there is some movement of Palestinians in Gaza to the north and a gradual, small withdrawal of Israeli troops from certain positions inside Gaza.

And then, after all that happens, you are going to have ongoing negotiations about a full cessation of hostilities, an end to the war, which is something that Israel says it is not going to do until its objectives have been achieved.

Blinken says Israel has made ‘measurable progress’ on Gaza humanitarian situation

But the US secretary of state also has urged Israel to do more.

Speaking in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, at the opening of a US-Gulf Cooperation Council meeting, Blinken said the most effective way to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the Strip was to achieve a ceasefire.

While Israel has allowed more aid trucks to enter the Gaza Strip amid great international pressure, the deliveries still fall far short of what the UN says is the minimum required to address the dire situation in the besieged territory.


The 7 day average went up to 202 from 189, a 7% increase.... Yeah it's 'measurable' all right.

Blinken urged Israel to do more in terms of allowing more humanitarian aid into the Strip while noting some progress.

He also told Gulf Arab allies that Iran’s confrontation with Israel showed the need for greater defence integration. “This attack highlights the acute and growing threat from Iran but also the imperative that we work together on integrated defence,” he said.

  • There must be a postwar plan for Gaza which looks at security, governance and humanitarian reconstructions.
  • Without a real political horizon for Palestinians, it is “going to be harder, if not impossible”, to have a coherent plan for Gaza.
  • The region has two paths forward, one where it is integrated, where ties between Israel and its neighbouring countries are normalised and Palestinians have their own state or a second one marred by endless violence and destruction.
  • The biggest rebuke to both Hamas and Iran would be Israel having normal ties with countries in the region and the realisation of a Palestinian state.

The US secretary of state also has spoken about the US-brokered normalisation process between Saudi Arabia and Israel. He stressed that American and Saudi officials have done “intense work in the past months” on the matter.

Qatar’s PM says region must be spared from war

Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has called for a major push to stop any further military escalation by Israel during his address at the World Economic Forum meeting in Riyadh.

Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the foreign minister, stressed the need to resolve all conflicts peacefully and spare the region from the dangers of war.


Blinken says US has ‘not yet seen’ Rafah invasion plan that protects civilians

The top US diplomat has renewed Washington’s opposition to an Israeli offensive on Gaza’s southernmost city ahead of his trip to Israel. “We have not yet seen a plan that gives us confidence that civilians can be effectively protected,” Blinken said at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh.



SvennoJ on 29 April 2024

Nearly 900 arrested at antiwar protests on US campuses since April 18


The Associated Press news agency says nearly 900 people have been arrested on US campuses since April 18, when New York police forcefully removed a pro-Palestinian protest camp at Columbia University.

Students at dozens universities have since set up encampments calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza and for their universities to cut ties with companies selling weapons to Israel.

On Saturday alone, about 275 people were arrested from protests at Northeastern University in Boston, Arizona State University in Phoenix, Indiana University at Bloomington, and Washington University in St Louis.

Faculty members at several universities have expressed their supports for students, including at universities in California, Georgia and Texas, where they adopted votes of no confidence in their leadership.


Students at Columbia University paint a banner in response to a message of thanks Palestinians wrote on tents in Rafah, on Sunday


Pro-Palestinian encampment continues at UCLA after counterprotests


Hundreds of protesters attended a demonstration in support of Palestinians in Gaza, at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), on Sunday


Pro-Israel counter-protesters also gathered near the pro-Palestinian protest at UCLA on Sunday, displaying Israeli flags and signs


Confrontations broke out as the counterprotest continued


The counterprotests have since dispersed, while a protest encampment calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza that students established on Friday remained


Arrests in New Orleans after activists try to set up protest camp

Police in the US city of New Orleans have arrested 10 people during a pro-Palestine protest in Jackson Square, according to local media.

The arrests came after some three dozen protesters attempted to set up a protest camp, by pitching tents in the square, located in the city’s French Quarter, an area popular with tourists, reported the NOLA news website.

The police were quoted as saying they tried to clear the square at 7pm, when it closes each night, but protesters resisted, “striking officers with various items”.

Videos posted on X show scuffles as police tried to break up the camp.