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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Norman Finkelstein: Trump plan has no connection to reality in Gaza

Norman Finkelstein: Trump plan has no connection to reality in Gaza

  President Trump has released a Gaza “peace” plan that would put Gaza under a Trump-chaired “Board of Peace”. While some in the international community have welcomed the move, some question the fact that it bypasses Palestinians and offers no path to statehood. So, with Netanyahu pledging not to fully withdraw from Gaza, will this deal bring genuine peace or cement the status quo? This week on an UpFront special, Marc Lamont Hill speaks with one of the world’s foremost…

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‘We have to move fast’: Jane Fonda relaunches father’s free speech group to counter Trump censorship

‘We have to move fast’: Jane Fonda relaunches father’s free speech group to counter Trump censorship

  The Oscar-winning actress and activist Jane Fonda is relaunching her father Henry Fonda’s free speech organization, the Committee for the First Amendment. First established in 1947 to combat the rise of McCarthyism, the organization brings together members of the film and television industry to push back against and refuse government censorship. Fonda’s announcement comes after the television network ABC brought back late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show following widespread protest. Kimmel’s show had been pulled from the air after he…

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Can the Trump regime ban apps that track ICE agents?

Can the Trump regime ban apps that track ICE agents?

BBC News reports: The US government and law enforcement agencies have hit out at developers and users of apps which track Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), arguing they threaten the lives of agents. The FBI says the man who targeted an ICE facility in Dallas – killing two detainees – had used these types of apps to track the movements of agents and their vehicles. A tracking app downloaded more than a million times that shows the movements of immigration…

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University of Southern California sold dead human bodies to the U.S. military to train IDF medical personnel

University of Southern California sold dead human bodies to the U.S. military to train IDF medical personnel

USC Annenberg Media reports: Near the end of 2017, the United States Navy filed a notice of intent to begin purchasing human cadavers from the University of Southern California. The purpose: Use dead bodies in trauma surgery training for the Israeli Defense Forces. Since that notice, the Navy has paid USC more than $860,000 for at least 89 “fresh cadaver bodies,” 32 of which were used specifically for IDF training at Los Angeles General Medical Center. One contract is still…

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The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history

The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history

Baker Zoubi writes: Palestinians in Gaza City are facing an impossible choice, as the Israeli army works to annihilate what remains of northern Gaza’s last bastion from the air and the ground. Hundreds of thousands of residents have already fled in recent days amid the intensification of Israel’s assault, forced to pay up to $5,000 to relocate in the knowledge that they will likely never see their homes again. Others are staying put, unable or unwilling to flee to areas…

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State terrorism: Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling

State terrorism: Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling

In a ruling he issued this week, William G. Young, a senior U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, wrote: “ICE goes masked for a single reason — to terrorize Americans into quiescence.” Terrorize — not my word, but that of a federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1985. In U.S. law (22 U.S.C. 2656f(d)(2)) terrorism is defined as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine…

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An entire generation of Americans is turning against Israel

An entire generation of Americans is turning against Israel

Felicia Schwartz writes: President Donald Trump is often at his most frank when he plays pundit, and so it went with his recent musings about Israel’s war with Hamas and the political fallout. “They had total control over Congress, and now they don’t,” Trump told the Daily Caller in an interview published earlier this month, referring to Israel. “They’re gonna have to get that war over with. … They may be winning the war, but they’re not winning the world…

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Majority of American voters oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel, poll finds

Majority of American voters oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel, poll finds

The New York Times reports: Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, American support for Israel has undergone a seismic reversal, with large shares of voters expressing starkly negative views about the Israeli government’s management of the conflict, a new poll from The New York Times and Siena University found. Disapproval of the war appears to have prompted a striking reassessment by American voters of their broader sympathies in the decades-old conflict in the region, with slightly more voters…

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Democrats in Congress are breaking with Israel like never before

Democrats in Congress are breaking with Israel like never before

Axios reports: Some of Israel’s staunchest Democratic supporters on Capitol Hill are wavering like never before as progressives grow more emboldened in their defense of the Palestinian cause. Why it matters: The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza has soured U.S. public opinion on Israel, and while members of Congress have been something of a lagging indicator, they are now shifting as well. Centrist Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told Axios’ Barak Ravid at an Axios event on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on…

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These countries recognized Palestine, but are still sending arms to Israel

These countries recognized Palestine, but are still sending arms to Israel

The Intercept reports: The day before global leaders convened this week in New York City for the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia joined the vast majority of the world’s nations in recognizing Palestine as a state. At the start of the U.N. session on Monday, France and Luxembourg added their nations to the list. Both the French and British heads of state said that they decided to recognize…

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Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of some of its AI and data services in mass surveillance of Palestinians

Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of some of its AI and data services in mass surveillance of Palestinians

The Guardian reports: Microsoft has terminated the Israeli military’s access to technology it used to operate a powerful surveillance system that collected millions of Palestinian civilian phone calls made each day in Gaza and the West Bank, the Guardian can reveal. Microsoft told Israeli officials late last week that Unit 8200, the military’s elite spy agency, had violated the company’s terms of service by storing the vast trove of surveillance data in its Azure cloud platform, sources familiar with the…

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Trump’s most lethal policy: ‘People are dying every day and night’

Trump’s most lethal policy: ‘People are dying every day and night’

Nicholas Kristof writes: The Trump administration has claimed that no one has died because of its cuts to humanitarian aid, and it is now trying to cancel an additional $4.9 billion in aid that Congress already approved. Yet what I find here in desperate villages in southwestern Uganda is that not only are aid cuts killing children every day, but that the death toll is accelerating. Stockpiles of food and medicine are running out here. Village health workers who used…

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The cost for dumping Kimmel turned out to be more than ABC/Disney could afford

The cost for dumping Kimmel turned out to be more than ABC/Disney could afford

  Make no mistake about it, Disney/ABC’s decision to fold under intense public pressure lead by Hollywood Agents, Actors, Writers and producers, to “replatform” Jimmy Kimmel has nothing to do with protecting the First Amendment or flipping off Trump. Popok explains that Disney was effectively told that they would be blacklisted and made a pariah in Hollywood and no top flight talent would ever work for them again if they didn’t support Jimmy. In one sense, the “concept” of what…

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Israel is waging a holocaust in Gaza. Denazification is our only remedy

Israel is waging a holocaust in Gaza. Denazification is our only remedy

Orly Noy writes: Gaza City is engulfed in flames, as the Israeli army embarks on its long-threatened ground offensive after weeks of relentless bombardment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already facing an international arrest warrant on suspicion of crimes against humanity, described this latest assault as an “intensified operation.” I urge you to watch the footage streaming out of Gaza, and see what this euphemism really means. Look into the eyes of people gripped by a terror unmatched even in the…

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Israel massacred 31 journalists as it destroyed newspaper offices in Yemen

Israel massacred 31 journalists as it destroyed newspaper offices in Yemen

Committee to Protect Journalists: Israel’s targeted strikes on two newspaper offices in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, which killed 31 journalists and media support workers on September 10, signal that its deadly pattern of attacking reporters and newsrooms on the grounds that they publish “terrorist” propaganda has spread firmly across the Middle East. Yemen’s September 26 newspaper was the first to name the 31 killed by multiple strikes on its office and that of the Yemen newspaper, both in the government’s Moral…

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Immigration judge orders Mahmoud Khalil deported to Syria or Algeria

Immigration judge orders Mahmoud Khalil deported to Syria or Algeria

Politico reports: An immigration judge in Louisiana has ordered pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., deported to Syria or Algeria for failing to disclose certain information on his green card application, according to documents filed in federal court Wednesday by his lawyers. Khalil’s lawyers suggested in a filing that they intend to appeal the deportation order, but expressed concern that the appeal process will likely be swift and unfavorable. The order from the immigration judge,…

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