Detained at a US airport & asked about Israel & #Gaza for 2 hours. Why? Ilan Pappé
Border agents asked whether I believe #Israel is committing #genocide & what I think of popular #protest slogans shortly after landing in Detroit
My initial attempt to find out why I was stopped was disregarded. It was clear the agents were asking the questions & my role was to answer them. So until today I did not officially receive any explanation for detention
"Our society does not have an antisemitism crisis. It doesn’t have a crisis of far left radicalism, Islamist extremism, support for terrorism, or fomenting of dissent by foreign powers."
"... as Howard Zinn said, “Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.”"
"The problem is that the freaks who rule over us are not sufficiently afraid of us. The problem is that we have not yet come to the collective realization that there are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and that we don’t actually need to put up with them doing crazy and evil things right in front of our faces."
"Here in Australia, as in a number of other countries, a misleading campaign has been led by unelected and unrepresentative organisations claiming to represent the Jewish community. Most of these organisations are uncritical defenders of successive Israeli governments with close connections to Israeli intelligence agencies.
The key claim of these unrepresentative organisations has been that the opposition and protests against the Israeli army’s war in Gaza is led by ‘antisemites’, and that many of the students and other participants in the protests are ‘antisemitic’."
"I was ... deeply surprised and deeply disturbed when I heard that Australian vice-chancellors were going to follow in the footsteps of heads of American universities in calling the police to dismantle student encampments at Australian universities.
Demonstrators hold up cutouts of hostages during a protest demanding the immediate release of hostages, after the release of a video showing the capture of female Israeli soldiers before they were taken to Gaza during the deadly October 7 attack by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, near the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, Israel. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
"Clear majorities of respondents say they back peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrations and ‘an immediate ceasefire,’ but 61% feel the protests ‘crossed the line into antisemitism’"
"None of this is about keeping us safe. It’s about policing the boundaries of debate, suppressing attempts to challenge economic power and stifling protest against environmental destruction, the massacre of Palestinians and other great harms"
George Monbiot on the 'independent' report by sex pest John Woodcock (ennobled as Lord Walney for his part in removing Jeremy Corbyn). The report is horrifying in its clampdown on protest.
An estimated crowd of 30,000 people gathered outside Taiwan's Legislative Yuan to protest against the KMT's attempts to force through legislation that would grant sweeping powers to the legislature and undermine Taiwan's democracy
A poster was shared on social media to promote the protest. A description of the event said protesters were "delivering a message to #McGill administration that we refuse to stand by quietly while they remain complicit in #genocide."
The only 24-hour library on Vancouver Island, the #VIU university library is steps away from the pro-Palestinian #protest encampment that was set up at the VIU quad early Tuesday morning.
The statement did not give a reason for the increased #restrictions.
Die AfD will bei der Europawahl am 9. Juni Rekordwerte einfahren – um dann die EU von innen heraus zu zerstören. Mit einer Protestwelle in den Wochen vor der Wahl stellen wir uns dem entgegen. Wir haben im ganzen Land Demos geplant, auch in Essen. Bitte komm am Sonntag, dem 26. Mai um 14 Uhr vorbei.
Pro-Israel billionaires urged New York crackdown on Gaza protests
A handful of powerful businessmen pushed New York City Mayor Eric Adams to use police to crack down on pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University, donating to the politician and offering to pay for private investigators to help break up the demonstrations, the Washington Post has reported, based on leaked WhatsApp conversations.
I just read someone talking about how anarchists shouldn't wear masks to hide their identity at protests bc then govts will outlaw mask wearing for everyone and that will effect people masking bc of covid.
We've masked at protests for decades - the reason anti-masking laws are coming into play now is because of facial recognition software being used by governments, and because the chipping away at protest laws that have happened over the last 20 years (looking at you, Australia.. you started it and 5Eyes followed) have gotten to the point where they don't have to pretend it's for "the public good".
You all have to get some better critical analysis skills. I'm begging!
"The strategy utilised by the Zionist Establishment within Jewish communities and outside these communities, particularly, in the United States, England, France, Germany and Australia is to engage in an intentional falsification of history and contemporary reality when it comes to the supposedly intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians."
...
"As the world witnessed in the case of the destruction of the highly probable victory of Jeremy Corbyn becoming British Prime Minister, these campaigns of destroying opponents of Israeli ethnic cleansing have been extremely potent and successful.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott granted a full pardon to Daniel Perry, a man convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in downtown Austin in 2020, after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously recommended the move. Perry claimed during the trial that he shot Garrett Foster, who was carrying an AK-47 rifle, in self-defense. Prosecutors argued Perry was seeking out the confrontation. Read more from USA Today.
An arrested University of #California#Irvine professor makes the connection between paying for #police repression of #protest and starving public #education with austerity:
“These police officers out here today: that’s thousands of student scholarships. Thousands of students could’ve been able to go to school and have books and have housing”