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      Democratic voters want Kamala Harris to stand up for Palestinians. Will she? | Judith Levine

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      Palestinians are used to being unheard. The 1917 Balfour Declaration committed Great Britain to creating a Jewish state in Palestine without mentioning the people who comprised the majority of the people living there. At least four United Nations resolutions of monumental consequence to Palestine – including the ones that established the borders of Israel in 1948 and expanded those borders after the 1967 war – were passed by a body that still does not recognize a sovereign Palestinian entity, much less a state, with voting-member status.Numerous bilateral agreements between Israel and its neighbors spelled out the Palestinians’ fate but did not include them in the negotiations. Donald Trump’s 2020 “deal of the century” was a Hanukah gift to Benjamin Netanyahu that, among other things, opened the way for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and canceled the Palestinians’ right of return.Since the assault on Gaza began, Joe Biden has been unable to acknowledge the horrors on the ground without asserting his administration’s “rock-solid and unwavering” support of Israel. The US president’s rare expressions of sympathy for the people under the bombs elide cause or solution. A short passage about civilian death and displacement in his 2024 State of the Union address ended with: “It’s heartbreaking.” To the UN general assembly in September he declared: “Innocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell … Too many families displaced, crowding in tents, facing a dire humanitarian situation.” He named only one agent of the devastation. The Gazans, he said, “didn’t ask for this war that Hamas started”. Meanwhile, he evinces impotence to deliver what Gaza is asking for, in the voices of wailing mothers and the images of flattened cities: an end to it.So the 2024 Democratic national convention was neither the first nor the worst time Palestinians had been erased by somebody claiming to be on their side. After months of negotiations with the people who organized 700,000 primary voters to withhold their endorsements of Biden until he vowed to force an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza by stopping arms shipments, the convention denied a five-minute speaking slot to one Palestinian. After welcoming such deplorables as Georgia’s mercilessly anti-abortion former Republican lieutenant and the chief legal officer of the union-busting Uber to the stage, there was no more room under the big tent.When a definitive “no” reached the demonstrators camping in wait outside the arena, they were deflated if not surprised. For some, enough was enough. Muslim Women for Harris immediately disbanded. “Something kind of snapped,” said Georgia state representative Ruwa Romman, the slated speaker. Romman was not in Chicago for the convention, by the way. She was at a conference scheduled to coincide with it, on a panel called Voices You Will Not Hear at the Convention.After Chicago, uncommitted movement activists huddled over what to do next. Despite the rebuff, the convention was hardly a bust. The movement sent 30 uncommitted delegates; 300 Harris delegates declared themselves ceasefire delegates. The panel on Palestinian human rights was among the best attended events. Some of the biggest applause followed condemnations of Israel’s assaults and support for Palestinian liberation. People were milling around in anti-war T-shirts and keffiyehs.These activists may have been uncommitted primary voters and delegates, but they were committed enough Democrats to stump before the primary and run as delegates. The movement had “mobilized people of [conscience] previously apathetic to the democratic process to civically engage in this election”, the uncommitted website states. “We cannot afford to have this base permanently disillusioned or alienated in November.” They’re as scared shitless as every other sentient human about a second Trump presidency. The struggle continues.Intense debate produced a plan. Uncommitted primary voters had sent a loud message through what they did not say. The strategy continues: turn around a history of being silenced by deploying the power of silence. To pressure the Harris-Walz campaign to signal that a new Democratic administration would assume a new stance toward Israel, uncommitted declined to endorse the ticket. Instead, it is urging people to vote “against Trump” and fascism, and not for a third party, a de facto vote for Trump. This will not be easy; canvassers on the streets are encountering reliable Democratic voters, especially the young, brown or Black, waffling about going to the polls at all. But any experienced anti-war activist knows how hard it is to end a war.For the Democrats, the decision to censor the Palestinian voice was not just morally wrong. It was politically stupid. The Harris campaign must know that of those three-quarters of a million uncommitted ballots, 100,000 came from Michigan, the state that is home to the country’s largest Arab American community and that Biden won by 154,000 votes in 2020. Critical to Harris’s victory, Michigan is considered a toss-up.Aside from stupid, it was unnecessary. In May, Data for Progress found that seven in 10 likely voters, including 83% of Democrats, supported a permanent ceasefire. A majority of Democrats believed Israel is committing genocide. More recently, a poll by the Arab American Institute showed “significant gain and very little risk for Harris” in demanding Israel agree to an immediate ceasefire or calling for a suspension of US arms shipments. Either stand would increase her support by at least five percentage points, pulling in reluctant and undecided voters, including a plurality of Jewish Democrats, AAI says.As the Israel Defense Forces pummel Beirut and bulldoze shops, schools and sewer pipes in the West Bank – punishing unnumbered civilians in pursuit of unnamed terrorists – the US is shocked and confused when the Israeli prime minister raises a middle finger to another temporary truce, this one with Hezbollah. On the front page of Sunday’s New York Times, Paris bureau chief Roger Cohen rehearses the tautology behind this passivity. “The United States does have enduring leverage over Israel,” he explained. “But an ironclad alliance … built around strategic and domestic political considerations … means Washington will almost certainly never threaten to cut – let alone cut off – the flow of arms.” The world’s most powerful nation cannot use its leverage because it won’t use its leverage.A President Kamala Harris could use it. But first she needs to get elected. And to get elected, she’d better open her ears to the silent din – and speak up fast.

      Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept, and the author of five books More

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      Calls grow for US investigation into Israeli killing of Turkish American activist

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      The family of a Turkish American woman shot by the Israeli military while attending a protest in the West Bank have been joined by a growing chorus of US lawmakers demanding that their government launch its own investigation into the killing.Autopsies conducted in the West Bank town of Nablus and Turkey found that Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head. Shortly after the incident, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it was “highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her”.The White House has called for Israel to investigate Eygi’s death but friends and family has expressed skepticism that such an inquiry will lead to any accountability.“We are not putting our faith or trust in a military that deliberately shot and killed an individual to investigate themselves of their own crime,” said Juliette Majid, who graduated alongside Eygi from the university of Washington in Seattle.“What I want is justice and accountability, which to me looks like a US-led criminal investigation … I want the US to hold [the Israeli military] accountable. At the end of the day, we shouldn’t be in this situation, Ayşenur should be coming home alive,” she said.Eygi’s family’s call for a US-led inquiry has been echoed by senator Patty Murray and congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state who wrote to Joe Biden and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, demanding that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launch an investigation.“We fear that if this pattern of impunity does not end with Ms Eygi, it will only continue to escalate,” they said, pointing to the killing of activist Rachel Corrie – also from Washington state – in 2003 at a protest in Gaza, and calling on the US government to better protect American citizens overseas.Murray and Jayapal demanded a written response from the Biden administration by 24 September addressing their calls for an independent investigation, what the US government knew about her killing and how it would protect US citizens overseas.With no apparent response from the administration, more than 100 members of congress – including leading Democratic party officials Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Eric Swalwell as well as senator Bernie Sanders – have sent a second letter to Biden, Blinken, and the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, demanding a US-led investigation .“Given the evidence, we believe the United States must independently investigate whether this was a homicide. To walk away without asking further questions gives Israeli forces unacceptable license to act with impunity,” they wrote. “There must be accountability for Ms Eygi’s death.”The lawmakers demanded a written report to Eygi’s family, delivered by 4 October, including details of whether the US government will investigate her killing and a timeline for the inquiry, as well as how the US government would respond should the Israeli government refuses to cooperate with their investigation.“I hope the US government is listening not just to their own officials who represent their constituents, but also the general public who want to see justice for a US citizen murdered abroad,” said Majid.She added that promises by Turkey to launch an investigation through the public prosecution in Ankara provided “a little bit of hope”, but that she and Eygi’s family want to see the US government wield its influence.“I want to see my own government step up,” she said.Eygi was born in Turkey but she and her parents moved to Washington state when she was a child. The 26-year-old was buried in her family’s hometown on the Turkish coast earlier this month.The US president, meanwhile, has yet to contact Eygi’s family. “I think it’s incredibly shameful that president Biden in particular hasn’t reached out to the family to offer his condolences at the very least, and at most promise justice and accountability for an American citizen,” said Majid. “He was supposed to be providing protection.” More

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      Rashida Tlaib was unfairly smeared by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Here’s a handy tip: before you comment on an article, read the whole damn thing. Don’t just read the headline, don’t just read a paragraph someone screenshot and put on social media – read the whole thing. This one weird trick is very helpful when it comes to ensuring you’re not taking something dangerously out of context or just making up facts entirely.This advice isn’t addressed to you, dear reader. I’m sure that you don’t need to be told something so basic. Rather it is addressed to everyone – including some very prominent cable news anchors – who has spent the last few days spreading inflammatory misinformation about the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. It’s addressed to everyone who has falsely and dangerously claimed that Tlaib said that the Michigan attorney general, Dana Nessel, only filed charges against pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Michigan because she is Jewish. Which, if this is what Tlaib actually said, would obviously be an outrageous statement.But here’s what actually happened: on 13 September Tlaib had an interview with Steve Neavling from the Detroit Metro Times where she talked about crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests. In this interview Tlaib criticized Nessel for filing charges against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan when her office hadn’t done the same in relation to other protests. Tlaib said the following:“We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest … We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”Nowhere in the interview did Tlaib mention anything about Nessel’s personal identity, but Neavling’s article frames Tlaib’s quote with a sentence explaining “Nessel is the first Jewish person to be elected Attorney General of Michigan.”Neavling has since made clear that sentence was not meant to insinuate Tlaib was talking about Nessel being Jewish when she talked about biases; rather Tlaib was referring to anti-Palestinian attitudes that are pervasive in US institutions. Further on in the original interview, Tlaib also explains what she thinks influenced Nessel’s decision to charge pro-Palestinian protestors, suggesting the attorney general was being pressured by university authorities.Neavling quotes Tlaib as saying the following: “I think people at the University of Michigan put pressure on [Nessel] to do this, and she fell for it … I think President Ono and Board of Regent members were very much heavy-handed in this. It had to come from somewhere.”To recap: absolutely nowhere in the original interview did Tlaib say Nessel charged pro-Palestinian protesters because she’s Jewish. And yet that inflammatory claim has spread dangerously far and wide. On Friday, Nessel herself addressed it in a tweet also referencing a cartoon implying Tlaib was a member of Hezbollah.“Rashida’s religion should not be used in a cartoon to imply that she’s a terrorist. It’s Islamophobic and wrong. Just as Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as Attorney General. It’s anti-Semitic and wrong,” wrote Nessel on X.From there, the CNN anchor Jake Tapper picked up the smear. In an interview with Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, on Sunday, Tapper said the following:“Congresswoman Tlaib is suggesting that she shouldn’t be prosecuting these individuals that Nessel says broke the law and that she’s only doing it because she’s Jewish.”Again, that’s not what Tlaib suggested; it’s a very dangerous contortion of what she said.Still, on Monday, CNN’s Dana Bash continued to advance this narrative. And then, on Tuesday, 21 House Democrats released a statement accusing Nessel’s critics of antisemitism. It didn’t specifically name Tlaib but it was very clear who this statement was directed to.While all this was going on, by the way, Neavling – the guy who interviewed Tlaib in the first place – was desperately trying to correct the narrative. Neavling repeatedly tweeted at Tapper and Bash that they were lying. “Now Dana Bash from CNN is lying about what happened,” Neavling wrote in a tweet on Monday. “US Representative @RashidaTlaib did not say Nessel filed the charges because she’s Jewish. She said there is an anti-Palestinian attitude among many institutions, and most of them are not run by Jewish people.” Neavling has also published a comprehensive factcheck of what happened.Despite this factcheck and repeated requests by Neavling for people to stop “spreading lies”, the people responsible for advancing this false narrative have not adequately walked it back or apologized.Nessel’s office has declined my request to clarify whether or not the attorney general believes Tlaib is antisemitic and what evidence Nessel has for spreading this claim. Instead it provided a statement saying: “Our department is staffed with many experienced, professional prosecutors and any allegation of bias within our agency is baseless and unfortunate.”CNN has also declined to speak on the record about the matter but has emphasized that Tapper said on Monday that he “misspoke” when characterizing Tlaib’s comments. Bash has also clarified that “Tlaib did not reference Nessel’s Jewish identity” but continued to say that “Nessel still says she believes it’s antisemitic.”Admitting to misspeaking just isn’t good enough. CNN has spent days amplifying a news story centered around a fabricated quote. And these smears aren’t just insulting, they put Tlaib in danger. The congresswoman, let me remind you, is the only Palestinian American federal lawmaker and has been the subject of death threats, smears and conspiracies since the start of her political career. She has suffered an immense amount of hate for speaking up about Palestinians and her words have routinely been twisted and taken out of context to paint her in the worst possible light. This latest misinformation campaign is yet more of the same.Of course, what’s happening to Tlaib isn’t unique. Advocating for basic Palestinian human rights has always been billed as somehow “controversial” in the US. Since 7 October, however, speaking up about what many human right experts have termed a “genocide” in Gaza puts you at the risk of losing your job and becoming the subject of smear campaigns. Calling out or protesting against a genocide now seems to be considered a worse crime than committing one.For almost a year now, being a Palestinian in the US has meant waking up every morning to images of children in Gaza who have been dismembered by US-made bombs. It means watching helplessly as Gaza is made completely uninhabitable. It means reading letters from doctors who have been in Gaza talking about treating “pre-teen children who were shot in the head” by Israeli soldiers. It means hearing violent and dehumanizing comments from elected officials like the US House representative Tim Walberg of Michigan, who said Gaza should “be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima”.Palestinians are being starved, displaced and bombed off the face of the earth. And as US politicians and pundits mock our pain and cheerlead our slaughter, they have the temerity to tell Palestinians and our supporters that we’re the hateful ones. As 2,000-pound bombs keep dropping on tent encampments full of starving children, Israel’s apologists have the audacity to tell us that we’re the violent ones.

      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More

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      Is this week Netanyahu goes from pariah to fugitive? | Andrew Roth

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      One year ago, Benjamin Netanyahu came to the UN with a vision of a “new Middle East” anchored by Israel’s growing ties with its Arab partners in the region. Now he is on the brink of launching a major escalation against Hezbollah, ignoring calls for restraint from his allies over the Gaza war and defying criticism that he is prevaricating in negotiations over a temporary ceasefire.The Israeli PM remains scheduled to speak on Friday at the UN general assembly in an appearance that is sure to lead to walkouts and protests on the streets of midtown Manhattan.He has delayed his arrival in the US by at least a day as tensions rise with Lebanon, after an elaborate operation to detonate thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah that may signal the beginning of a broader war in the region.The trip to New York may offer him a chance to evaluate support for an escalation in Lebanon, or to let Joe Biden and other allies know that he had made his decision and would not be talked down from a broader war.Netanyahu’s trip to the UN comes after a year of bloodshed in Gaza that has left more than 41,000 people dead and led the international criminal court (ICC) to consider issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. The ICC judges are regularly rumoured to be close to approving a warrant that could accuse Netanyahu of war crimes.Among those killed during the Gaza conflict have been 200 UN humanitarian aid workers. Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces have made claims that staff from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had taken part in the 7 October Hamas-led attacks, and nine members of the organisation had their contracts terminated after an internal UN review.António Guterres, the UN secretary general, has said that he and Netanyahu have not spoken since the beginning of the war, but that he was ready to meet him on the sidelines of the summit if the Israeli PM asked.“I have not talked to him because he didn’t pick up my phone calls, but I have no reason not to speak with him,” Guterres said. He blasted the “lack of accountability” for the deaths of the humanitarian aid workers, most of whom have been killed in strikes that the UN has slammed as indiscriminate.Asked earlier this month if Netanyahu would meet Guterres, Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said that the Israeli PM’s schedule had not been finalised yet.Netanyahu’s most recent trip to the US came in July, when he addressed a raucous joint session Congress, promising “total victory” in his war against Hamas and mocking demonstrators against his appearance in the US Capitol as “idiots”. On the streets outside near Union Station, protesters clashed with police and defaced marble statues with paint.It remains to be seen whether Netanyahu is ready to take a step further towards the abyss. Following an airstrike in Beirut on Friday that killed a senior Hezbollah commander and at least 13 others in Beirut’s Dahiyeh area, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said that “even in Dahiyeh in Beirut – we will continue to pursue our enemy in order to protect our citizens”.The new “series of operations in the new phase of the war will continue until we achieve our goal: ensuring the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes,” he said.Guterres had said that he viewed the booby-trapped pager attack against Hezbollah as a potential prelude to a military escalation by Israel in Lebanon and warned that the region was on the “brink of catastrophe”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhether Netanyahu is ready to escalate, including by launching a ground operation, remains unclear, and both Hezbollah and its benefactor Iran have promised retribution for recent strikes. But Netanyahu’s office on Friday announced that he would delay his arrival by a day due to the situation, and Danon later told reporters that Netanyahu’s arrival date would depend on events in Israel.Netanyahu addressed the UN last year riding high on the recently concluded Abraham accords. The landmark agreement normalised relations between Israel and two Arab states, Bahrain and UAE, with expectations that Saudi Arabia may soon sign the accords as well.“When the Palestinians see that most of the Arab world has reconciled itself to the Jewish state, they too will be more likely to abandon the fantasy of destroying Israel and finally embrace a path of genuine peace with it,” Netanyahu said, holding a crude map with the words “The New Middle East”.But the bloodletting in Gaza following the attacks by Hamas have sent tensions soaring, and most recently Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said his country would not recognise Israel without a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.And, if the ICC panel of judges makes a surprise decision this week to accuse Netanyahu of war crimes in Gaza, it will mark a further embarrassment as he goes from pariah to international fugitive. More

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      Uncommitted movement declines to endorse Harris – but warns against Trump presidency

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      The Uncommitted National Movement announced that it will not endorse Kamala Harris for president, saying on Thursday she failed to respond to the movement’s requests that she meet with Palestinian families in Michigan and to discuss a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza by 15 September.“Vice-President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear statement in support of upholding existing US and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her,” Abbas Alawieh, an Uncommitted leader and delegate from Michigan, said during a press conference on Thursday.After the Democratic national convention last month, Uncommitted leaders sent a letter to Harris and her senior advisers voicing their dissatisfaction with the DNC’s refusal to allow a Palestinian American to speak, as well as reiterating their demands for a ceasefire and engagement with people who have been affected by Israel’s war on Gaza. In a response to movement leaders on Sunday, Harris’s team said “they don’t have particular engagements that they can point us to, but they can keep us updated as things develop”, Alawieh said. Harris’s campaign added that it would continue to be open to opportunities to engage with communities on vital issues.However, the movement’s leaders who helped mobilize more than 700,000 Americans to vote “uncommitted” or its equivalent in Democratic party primaries throughout the nation also acknowledged the danger of Donald Trump winning the election.“At this time, our movement opposes a Donald Trump presidency whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing,” said Alawieh. “And our movement is not recommending a third-party vote in the presidential election, especially as third-party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency, given our country’s broken electoral college system.”For months, the movement had urged Harris to demonstrate a shift in her policy on Gaza, where more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October, to no avail, said the Uncommitted leader and Palestinian American Lexis Zeidan.“We urge uncommitted voters to register anti-Trump votes and vote up and down the ballot. Our focus remains on building this anti-war coalition, both inside and outside the Democratic party,” said Layla Elabed, a leader of the Uncommitted National Movement and a Palestinian American.In a statement, a Harris campaign spokesperson said: “[T]he Vice President is committed to work to earn every vote, unite our country, and to be a President for all Americans. She will continue working to bring the war in Gaza to an end in a way where Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”The uncommitted movement originated in Michigan, where more than 100,000 people cast “uncommitted” ballots to signal to Biden their dissatisfaction with his Gaza policy, before spreading to Democratic primaries throughout the nation. A June CBS poll showed that a majority of Americans believe that the US should not send weapons to Israel, including 77% of Democrats.Arab American voters in Michigan and other swing states will play a critical role in the presidential election. Joe Biden won Michigan, where 278,000 Arab Americans live, by just 154,000 votes in 2020. Four years earlier, Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes.Several Arab and Muslim American leaders have endorsed Harris in recent months, including the Black Muslim Leadership Council Fund and the US representative Ilhan Omar. Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, which disbanded after the Democratic national convention because of its denial of a Palestinian American speaker, reaffirmed their support for Harris a week later.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe uncommitted leaders who spoke on Thursday were split on their voting plans for the top of the ticket. Alawieh said that he plans to vote for Harris so that he can continue with his anti-war efforts, despite her lack of alignment with his values on the issue. “But I am concerned with Donald Trump’s very specific plans to suppress pro Palestinian human rights organizing,” he said.As a Palestinian American with family in the occupied West Bank, Elabed said, whenever she’s questioned on her voting choice, she feels like she’s “being asked that question at a funeral”. While she said that she won’t vote for Harris, Trump or a third-party candidate for president, she continued: “I will be going out to vote and ensuring that I’m voting up and down the ballot for candidates that I have a shared value with.”Zeidan said that she also plans to abstain from voting at the top of the ticket. “Still, I’m open to having that very perspective change as it relates to what VP Harris and the administration and her campaign plan to do between now and November,” she said.Until the November election, the Uncommitted National Movement plans to continue applying pressure on the Biden administration to adopt an arms embargo on Israel and support a permanent ceasefire, as well as to block a Trump presidency. Over the next few months, Zeidan said, the movement will produce content “that is cutting through the noise and building coalitions that are going to continue to challenge both Trump’s extremism and also Harris’s status quo”. They will also continue to educate voters on the risk of a Trump presidency and will continue pushing Harris to stop sending arms to Israel.“The Democratic party, pro-war forces like [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] want to drive us out of the Democratic party, but we won’t concede,” said Elabed. “We’re here to stay.” More

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      Civil rights groups condemn senator’s questioning of Arab American witness

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      A congressional hearing on hate crimes drew charges of the bigotry it was meant to address after a Republican senator told the female Muslim head of a thinktank to “hide your head in a bag” and accused her of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.John Kennedy, the GOP senator for Louisiana, drew condemnation from Democrats as well as Muslim, Jewish and civil liberties groups for the remark, aimed at Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, at a hearing staged by the Senate judiciary committee.The proceedings witnessed further disruption when Ted Cruz, the Republican senator for Texas, was interrupted by a spectator protesting the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza. “You talk about the fucking Jews and the Israelis. Talk about the 40,000. Talk about all these people. Why is it about antisemitism?” the protester shouted, before being ejected from the chamber.Cruz responded: “We now have a demonstration of antisemitism. We have a demonstration of the hate.”Republicans criticised the theme of Tuesday’s hearing – set by the committee’s Democratic chair, Dick Durbin – for conflating antisemitism with bigotry against Muslims, Arabs and other groups.“The goal was to have a hearing about why it’s so hard to go to school if you’re Jewish,” said Lindsey Graham, the Republican ranking member of the committee and the senator for South Carolina. “If you’re Jewish, you’re being knocked down. You’re being spat on. It is just completely out of control. This is not the hearing we’re getting, so we’ll work with what we’ve got.”A Republican-led subcommittee in the House of Representatives has already staged a series of highly charged hearings focused on the rise of antisemitism on university campuses following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel last October, which saw around 1,200 people killed and 250 taken hostage, and which triggered a devastating ongoing Israeli military retaliation.The House hearings prompted the resignations of two university heads after they gave responses to questions about their institutions’ policies on calls for genocide against Jews that were deemed insufficiently condemnatory.Graham tried to enter similar territory when he asked Berry whether she believed that it was goal of Hamas, the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah or Iran to destroy the only Jewish state. Berry answered that “these are complicated questions”.That eventually led to Berry’s hostile exchange with Kennedy, who asked her: “You support Hamas, do you not?”“Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization that I do not support,” Berry replied. “But you asking the executive director of the Arab American Institute that question very much puts the focus on the issue of hate in our country.”When Kennedy followed up by asking whether she supported Hezbollah or Iran, Berry answered: “Again, I find this line of questioning extraordinarily disappointing.”Finishing his interrogation by expressing “disappointment” at Berry’s unwillingness to declare outright opposition to the three named entities, Kennedy declared: “You should hide your head in a bag.”Invited by Durbin to respond to the outburst, Berry said: “It’s regrettable that I, as I sit here, have experienced the very issue that we’re attempting to deal with today. This has been, regrettably, a real disappointment, but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions that we’re in now. And I deeply regret that.”The judiciary committee – with Durbin’s approval – later endorsed Berry’s response by posting it on X, with accompanying commentary reading: “A Senate Republican told an Arab American civil rights leader that ‘you should hide your head in a bag.’ We will not amplify that horrible clip. But we WILL amplify the witness’s powerful response calling it out.”The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) accused Kennedy and other Republicans of treating Berry with hostility.“Maya Berry went before the committee to discuss hate crimes. Both Ms. Berry and the topic should have been treated with the respect and seriousness they deserve,” said Robert McCaw, Cair’s government affairs director. “Instead, Sen Kennedy and others chose to be an example of the bigotry Arabs, Palestinians and Muslims have faced in recent months and years.”Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, condemned what he called a “discriminatory and vitriolic attack” on Kennedy.“To use a hearing about the disturbing rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and antisemitic hate crimes to launch personal and discriminatory attacks on an expert witness they’ve invited to testify is both outrageous and inappropriate,” he said.Sheila Katz, chief executive officer of the National Council of Jewish Women, called Berry’s treatment “heartbreaking”.“[T]he only Muslim witness faced biased questions about supporting Hamas & Hezbollah despite her clear condemnations,” she wrote on X. “This hearing should combat hate, not perpetuate it. The Senate must do better.” More

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      Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal

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      Britain and the US have raised fears that Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine.During their summit in Washington DC on Friday, Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden acknowledged that the two countries were tightening military cooperation at a time when Iran is in the process of enriching enough uranium to complete its long-held goal to build a nuclear bomb.British sources indicated that concerns were aired about Iran’s trade for nuclear technology, part of a deepening alliance between Tehran and Moscow.On Tuesday last week, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, made a similar warning on a visit to London for a summit with his British counterpart, David Lammy, though it received little attention, as the focus then was the US announcement of Iran’s missile supply to Moscow.“For its part, Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks – this is a two-way street – including on nuclear issues as well as some space information,” Blinken said, accusing the two countries of engaging in destabilising activities that sow “even greater insecurity” around the world.Britain, France and Germany jointly warned last week that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium had “continued to grow significantly, without any credible civilian justification” and that it had accumulated four “significant quantities” that each could be used to make a nuclear bomb.But it is not clear how much technical knowhow Tehran has to build a nuclear weapon at this stage, or how quickly it could do so. Working with experienced Russian specialists or using Russian knowledge would help speed up the manufacturing process, however – though Iran denies that it is trying to make a nuclear bomb.Iran had struck a deal in 2015 to halt making nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief with the US and other western nations – only for the agreement to be abandoned in 2018 by then US president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump.Iran responded by breaching agreed limits on the quantity of enriched uranium it could hold.Western concern that Iran is close to being able to make a nuclear weapon has been circulating for months, contributing to tensions in the Middle East, already at a high pitch because of Israel’s continuing assault on Hamas and Gaza.Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are supporters of Hamas – and Tehran’s nuclear development is therefore viewed as a direct threat by Jerusalem.Soon after Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iran began supplying Shahed delta winged drones to Moscow and helped Russia build a factory to make more to bomb targets across Ukraine. In April this year, Iran launched a Russian-style missile and drone attack aimed at Israel, though it was essentially prevented and stopped with the help of the US and UK.Russia and Iran, though not historically allies, have become increasingly united in their opposition to the west, part of a wider “axis of upheaval” that also includes to varying degrees China and North Korea, reflecting a return to an era of state competition reminiscent of the cold war.Last week in London, Blinken said that US intelligence had concluded that the first batch of high-speed Iranian Fath-360 ballistic missiles, with a range of up to 75 miles (120km), had been delivered to Russia.Able to strike already bombarded frontline Ukrainian cities, the missiles prompted a dramatic reassessment in western thinking as well as fresh economic sanctions.Starmer flew to Washington late on Thursday to hold a special foreign policy summit with Biden at the White House on Friday, beginning with a short one on one in the outgoing president’s Oval Office followed by a 70-minute-long meeting with both sides’ top foreign policy teams in the residence’s Blue Room.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThe leaders and their aides discussed the war in Ukraine, the crisis in the Middle East, Iran and the emerging competition with China.Starmer brought along with him Lammy, Downing Street’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, and the UK’s national security adviser, Tim Barrow, , while Biden was accompanied by Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, among others.Prior to the meeting, UK sources indicated that the two countries had agreed in principle to allow Ukraine to fire long-range Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time. But Biden appeared to suggest the topic was one of the reasons for the face-to-face, saying to reporters: “We’re going to discuss that now,” as the meeting began.There was no update after the meeting, partly to keep the Kremlin guessing. Any use of the missiles is expected to be part of a wider war plan on the part of Ukraine aimed at using them to target airbases, missile launch sites and other locations used by Russia to bomb Ukraine.Britain needs the White House’s permission to allow Ukraine to use the missiles in Russia because they use components manufactured in the US.Protocol dictated that Biden and Starmer – the only two present without printed-out name cards – did most of the talking, while the other politicians and officials present only spoke when introduced by the president or the prime minister.Lammy was asked by Starmer to update those present on his and Blinken’s trip to Kyiv on Thursday to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Shortly after the meeting, Starmer said the two sides had had “a wide ranging discussion about strategy”. More

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      ‘I know the dangers of a Trump presidency’: Palestinian solidarity groups pressure Harris as election looms

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      In the days leading up to last month’s Democratic national convention (DNC), some pro-Palestinian groups and individuals expressed cautious excitement about Kamala Harris’s ascent to the candidacy. Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said that there was “a sense that there’s an opening” with the vice-president, referring to a possible shift in US policy on Israel’s war on Gaza, while others voiced more measured optimism.However, following the convention, during which party officials refused to allow a Palestinian to speak on the main stage, and where Harris hawkishly affirmed her support for arming Israel, many of those groups’ initial hope has turned into a belief that Harris will remain in line with Joe Biden’s Israel policies. The result has been a splintering of sorts: some organizations are still attempting to push Harris toward a more anti-war stance; others have decided to support Harris through the election regardless, citing the risk of a Donald Trump presidency.Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, a group that formed in early August in support of Harris, disbanded after the DNC, saying that it could not “in good conscience” continue to support the candidate. But a week later, the organization changed its position, writing in a statement: “With less than 70 days until the November election, we have to be honest with ourselves about what is at stake here for Muslim women.”In a statement to the Guardian, Muslim Women for Harris-Walz said that the group had received an outpouring of support from Muslim and Arab Americans who shared its desire for a change in Gaza policy, but who also urged the organization to not give up on the ticket.“As Muslims, it is our duty to advocate for what is right and against what is wrong, and that often requires nuance and pragmatism. We continue to try and do the best that we can with what we have. We believe that Muslim Women for Harris-Walz has, and will continue to, play a positive role in these elections, including in our ability to advocate for the causes that matter to Muslim Americans.”But some Palestinian solidarity groups have disagreed with this approach. Tarek Khalil, a board member for the Chicago chapter of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), said he didn’t understand Muslim Women for Harris-Walz’s decision to backtrack and support the Democratic nominee.“I don’t know the logic behind that,” Khalil said. “If the logic behind disbanding [initially] is ‘You’re part of this administration that’s enabling this genocide and you’re doing nothing about it,’ that still remains true today.”Khalil added that he and others involved in the Palestine solidarity movement remain critical of Harris and the Democratic party at large, especially as the vice-president has not provided any policy shifts away from the Biden administration.“We are against the policies of this administration,” he said. “With Kamala Harris being the head of the ticket, we believe that because she has not provided any new agenda, any new vision, any new policy prescription, it’s just a different person expressing the same views.”Khalil also condemned the Democratic party’s platform as “utter hypocrisy”, citing the various horrors that are taking place in Gaza with US support.“The Democratic party platform talks about ending poverty and homelessness, healthcare as a human right and [having] more affordable housing,” he said. “Those very values and policies are being destroyed in Gaza right now, with US taxpayer money and US-made weapons.”If Trump is re-elected, Khalil said that AMP had “nothing concrete” planned. “Our grassroots organizing, our advocacy work, our educational work, all of that would just have to stay at its pace and, if need be, intensify,” Khalil said. “We’d stay the course.”The Muslim American and Arab American vote will play a crucial role in swing states during the upcoming election. In 2020, Joe Biden won Michigan, where 278,000 Arab Americans live, by just 154,000 votes. And in Georgia, where the Arab American population is at least 57,000, Biden won by 11,800 votes.During this year’s Democratic primaries, more than 700,000 voters across the nation cast uncommitted ballots or the equivalent to signal to Biden their dissatisfaction with his Middle East policy. Following a Michigan campaign where more than 100,000 voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” in February, the Uncommitted National Movement has since spread to two dozen states. The movement sent 30 uncommitted delegates to the DNC and has demanded that the US adopt an arms embargo and support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza in recent months.Following the convention, a survey of nearly 1,200 Muslim American voters found that respondents were evenly split in their support of Harris and the Green party candidate, Jill Stein, at 29% each.‘A retrenchment of efforts’As a Muslim and Palestinian American organizer, Georgia-based Ghada Elnajjar said that two months away from election day she remains undecided on whether she’ll cast a vote for Harris or Stein. While Elnajjar hoped that Harris would chart a new course on US’s Gaza policy, she expressed disappointment that Harris’s plans mirror Biden’s. “Unless President-elect Harris distinguishes herself from the current administration’s policy on Israel and Gaza,” Elnajjar said, “then nothing really changes in terms of how I’m approaching my selection.”When DNC leaders didn’t allow Ruwa Romman, the first Muslim woman elected to the Georgia house of representatives, to speak during the convention, it was “soul-crushing” for Elnajjar.“It was a huge disappointment and a letdown for many voters,” she said. “This was an opportunity for them to show that they want our votes.”Romman said that following the DNC she has seen “a retrenchment of efforts”. People who had been ambivalent or even optimistic about Harris before the convention are now suggesting that they will not vote at the top of the ticket or that they will vote third party.“These elections are determined by such tight margins in swing states,” Romman said. “There’s definitely a lot of anger [in] the community about what is happening. I’m really worried we’re not going to be able to win Georgia.”On 10 September, the civil liberties organizations Cair-Georgia, Georgia Muslim Action Committee, Georgia Muslims and Allies for Peace, and Indian American Muslim Council launched a campaign called “No Votes for Genocide. No Peace, No Peach,” to signal an ultimatum to the Harris-Walz campaign.The groups say they will withhold support for the ticket in the coming election if the Biden-Harris administration does not adopt an arms embargo on Israel, halt arms shipments to Israel and publicly demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank by 10 October. “We are Georgia voters who oppose Donald Trump and his bigotry, and have a desire to fight far-right fascism at home and abroad,” the group said in a press release. “At the same time, we will not tolerate the funding and enabling of a genocide.”‘I know the dangers of a Trump presidency’Layla Elabed, an Uncommitted National Movement founder, sees the DNC’s refusal to allow a Palestinian American to speak as a glaring mistake for the Democratic party and the Harris campaign. The US is complicit in its continued support of Israel, she said, which is only able to continue its siege on Gaza with US backing. “[Harris] continues to contradict herself by saying that she supports Israel’s rights to defend themselves,” Elabed said, “but also is working really hard for a ceasefire, but has no plans to stop or condition the fire that our government sends to Israel.”Harris’s campaign told Uncommitted leaders that they met with Palestinian families in February. But Elabed said that another meeting is needed with Palestinian families and Uncommitted leaders now that more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October. The Harris campaign has not yet agreed to the request.“If Vice-President Harris wants to signal to voters, not just Arab Americans or Muslim Americans, but to anti-war voters that she plans to work in good faith [toward] Palestinians deserving freedom and liberty and the right to self-determination,” said Elabed, “then I think that it would be a misstep for her not to meet with Palestinian American families now or Uncommitted leaders.”As the Uncommitted National Movement continues to await a meeting with Harris, Elabed said that the group will continue to pressure the Biden administration and the Harris-Walz campaign to adopt an arms embargo and to support a permanent ceasefire. She said she didn’t want Donald Trump to win the presidential election, but she believed that the Democratic party must also change course on Gaza policy in order to win the election.“I 100% understand and know the dangers of a Donald Trump presidency,” said Elabed. “That is why the uncommitted movement has worked so diligently about showing the Democratic party that they were going to be in trouble because of this disastrous Gaza policy under Biden. They might not have the support from their Democratic base in order to beat Trump in November.” More