Protesters demonstrated outside several major US media outlets in Washington this week condemning their coverage of the genocide in Gaza, claiming they were to blame over misinformation and the worsening catastrophe.

Banging pots and pans to spotlight the starvation crisis, they accused the media of “complicity in genocide”.

Banners and placards proclaimed “Stop media complicity in genocide” and “US media manufactures consent for Israel’s crimes”, as the protesters demonstrated outside media offices that included NBC News and Fox News.

• READ MORE: With the UK and France moving toward recognising Palestine, will Australia now follow suit?
• ‘Battle for the truth’: Pro-Israel bias inside UK newsrooms revealed
• Israeli social media campaign denies there is starvation in Gaza as death toll mounts
• More Israeli war on Gaza reports

But the irony was that while the protests appeared to have been ignored or overlooked by national media in the US – and certainly in New Zealand, they were strongly reported by at least one global news agency, Turkey’s Anadolu Agensi.

The protests echoed a series of statements by various news media organisations, such as Agence France-Presse concerned about the safety of their journalists from both under fire and the risk of starvation, and media freedom advocacy groups.

The Doha-based global television news network Al Jazeera, that has been producing arguably the best and most honest news coverage of Gaza and the occupied West Bank – which earned it being banned last year by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority from reporting inside their territory — called for global action to protect Gaza’s journalists.

It said in a statement that Isael’s forced starvation of the besieged enclave that threatened Gaza’s entire population, including those “risking their lives to shed light on Israel’s atrocities”.

Death toll passes 60,000
On Tuesday this week, the world noted a grim milestone in Gaza, with the Health Ministry announcing that the death toll had surpassed 60,000 (this does not include the tens of thousands of people buried under the rubble and missing, presumed dead).

Put in perspective, that is one in every 36 people in Gaza killed, and more than 90 people on average slaughtered every day.

Also, 1157 people have been killed near the notorious Israel and US-backed Gaza “Humanitarian” Foundation food depots condemned as “death traps”, while 154 people have died from starvation, 89 of them children with the numbers rising.

Israel’s genocide – ‘Everyone in Gaza is starving’       Video: Al Jazeera

An episode of the weekly media watch programme, The Listening Post, took up the theme as well, criticising the failure of many high profile Western news services from adequately reporting the horror of Israel’s devastating and cruel policies.

“When trying to stave off starvation becomes part of the job. What it means to be a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. The stories they are determined to tell, the incredible risks they are prepared to take,” said host Richard Gizbert when introducing the programme. He wasted no time firing a few caustic shots.

“What is unfolding in Gaza now has the appearance of a final solution, orchestrated by Israel and the United States, Israel’s other ally: The transformation of parts of the Gaza strip into starvation and concentration camps, a place where famine has been turned into a weapon of war,” he said.

“Reporting on the reality of this genocide can amount to a death sentence. Palestinian journalists can easily identify with the suffering they are documenting since they too are going hungry.

“They have been targeted because for [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, like other genocidal leaders before him, starving a population is much easier to do when no one is watching.

Perpetrator ‘left out’
“Across Western mainstream media, news outlets have been unable to ignore this story of mass starvation in Gaza. But in report after report, they have made a habit of leaving out a key detail – naming the perpetrators of the famine, Israel.

“The missing actors, the sanitised language, the use of the passive grammatical voice, it is all part of the playbook for far too many international news outlets and that is exactly what the few Palestinian journalists still standing are out to tell the world.”

Gizbert explained that “journalists in Gaza already have the world’s toughest assignment”:
“Job one for almost 22 months now has been survival; job two, telling heartbreaking stories; documenting a genocide while under fire.”

Like, for example, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Anas al-Sharif who was reporting live from outside Al Shifa medical complex when a woman behind him collapsed at the hospital’s gate.

Al-Sharif, who had reported on the genocide of his own people for more than 650 days without rest or complaint, through Israeli occupation airstrikes, drone attacks, and countless “scenes resembling hell”, suddenly could not take it anymore.

He broke down: “People are falling to the ground from the severity of hunger,” al-Sharif said through his tears. “They need one sip of water. They need one loaf of bread.”

Al-Sharif has also been threatened by the Israeli military, accusing him of being a “Hamas militant”, an accusation strongly denied by Al Jazeera, denouncing what it called Tel Aviv’s “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in the Gaza Strip.

Discredited for bias
Many Western mainstream media – including BBC, CNN, Sky, ITN, and Australia’s public broadcaster ABC — have been repeatedly discredited for their “pro-Israel bias” by scores of journalists who have acted as whistleblowers about the actions of their own news organisations.

According to a Declassified UK report, for example, the journalists working for a range of outlets from across the political spectrum have “painted a consistent picture of the obstacles faced by reporters who want to humanise Palestinians or scrutinise Israeli government narratives”. The US media is also under attack and has been putting up a lame defence.

Last week, more than 100 aid groups warned of “mass starvation” throughout Gaza — predictably denied by Israeli government in the face of overwhelming evidence — with their staff severely impacted by shortages and serious implications for journalists already being threatened with targeting by the Israeli military.

Israel faces growing global pressure over the enclave’s dire humanitarian crisis, where more than two million people have endured 22 months of war. UN Security Council member France has led a group of countries announcing that they plan to recognise the Palestinian state at the UN in September, with United Kingdom, Canada, Malta and Finland among those following with the total number now almost 150 of the 193 UN member states.

A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away”. The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh reported from Amman that the Israeli government had accused the UK of supporting the establishment of a “jihadi” state and of derailing efforts to reach a ceasefire.

“But really,” she said, “the Israeli media, for example, is describing this as a political tsunami, a realisation of how significant the tide is, and how improbable it is to turn it back to countries withholding recognition because Israel said it doesn’t want it.”

Calling for sanctions
She also noted how 31 high-profile Israelis, including the former speaker of the Knesset, a former attorney general, and several recipients of Israel’s highest cultural award, were calling on world governments to impose crippling sanctions on Israel to stop the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and their expulsion

“This was taboo just a few days ago and has never really been done before, certainly not at this level of prominence of the signatories,” Odeh added.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) added its voice to the appeal by aid agencies to call for an end to Israel’s starvation of journalists and other civilians in Gaza, backing the plea for states to “save lives before there are none left to save.”

In a statement on its website, the CPJ accused Israel of “starving journalists into silence”.

“Israel is starving Gazan journalists into silence. They are not just reporters, they are frontline witnesses, abandoned as international media were pulled out and denied entry,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.

“The world must act now: protect them, feed them, and allow them to recover while other journalists step in to help report. Our response to their courageous 650 plus-days of war reporting cannot simply be to let them starve to death.”

‘Bearing witness’ videos
Also, last week the CPJ launched a “bearing witness” series of videos from Gaza giving voice to the challenges the journalists have been facing. In the first video, Moath al Kahlout described how his cousin had been shot dead while awaiting humanitarian aid.

As Israel partially eased its 11-week total blockade of Gaza that began in May, CPJ published the testimony of six journalists who described how “starvation, dizziness, brain fog, and sickness” had threatened their ability to report.

Among highlights cited by the CPJ:
• On June 20, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al Sharif — the journalist cited earlier in this article — posted online: “I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion, and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment . . .  Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”
• Sally Thabet, correspondent for Al-Kofiya satellite channel, told CPJ that she fainted consciousness after doing a live broadcast on July 20 because she had not eaten all day. She regained consciousness in Al-Shifa hospital, where doctors gave her an intravenous drip for rehydration and nutrition. In an online video, she described how she and her three daughters were starving.
• Another Palestinian journalist, Shuruq As’ad said Thabet had been the third journalist to collapse on air from starvation that week, and posted a photograph of Thabet with the drip in her hand.
• During a live broadcast on July 20, Al-Araby TV correspondent Saleh Al-Natour said: “We have no choice but to write and speak; otherwise, we will all die.”

Little of this horrendous state of affairs has made it onto the pages of newspapers, websites of the television screens in the New Zealand mainstream media which seems to have a pro-Israel slant and rarely interviews Palestinian journalists or analysts for balance.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 22, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

In what has been described as a “barrage of attacks on workers,” the U.S. Department of Labor under President Donald Trump is planning to overhaul dozens of rules that protect workers from exploitation and wage theft.

The administration announced this month that it planned to change over 60 regulations it deems “unecessary” burdens to businesses and economic growth.

According to an analysis released Tuesday by labor policy experts at the Century Foundation—senior fellows Julie Su and Rachel West and director of economy and jobs Andrew Stettner—most of the changes “reverse critical standards that ensure workers get a just day’s pay and come home healthy and safe.”

In one of the most sweeping changes, the department plans to reverse a 2013 rule that extended minimum wage and overtime protections to home healthcare workers.

These workers, who care for elderly and other medically frail individuals, already make less than $17 an hour on average.

Stettner told Common Dreams that the changes will “suppress wages” and allow agencies to “put the screws on workers to work 50- or 60-hour weeks.”

The Trump administration is also rolling back a Biden-era rule that banned bosses from paying subminimum wages to disabled employees.

This discriminatory practice has been on the wane due to state-level bans in 15 states. But in the absence of a federal ban, nearly 40,000 employees—most of whom have intellectual disabilities—still received less than the federal minimum wage as of 2024.

The Century Foundation report says that by ending the rule, the Trump administration would be once again “relegating workers with disabilities to jobs that pay as little as pennies per hour.”

The department is also taking a hatchet to workers’ rights and safety. Another major change it proposed would do away with protections for seasonal migrant farmworkers under the H-2A visa program who raise complaints about wage and hour violations.

It was commonplace for farm owners to take advantage of these seasonal employees, whose legal status was tied to their work, and who therefore risked deportation if they lost their jobs.

Cases of exploitation, however, declined to an all-time low after the Biden administration introduced the rule, which banned employers from firing, disciplining, or otherwise retaliating against workers who attempted to participate in collective bargaining.

“These reforms protected the rights of farmworkers in the H-2A program to speak out individually and collectively against mistreatment and prevented employers from arbitrarily firing them from their jobs,” the report says.

The department also proposed weakening the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) general duty clause, which allows businesses to be punished for putting their employees in dangerous situations. The proposed change would exempt many jobs that are deemed “inherently risky” from protection.

The administration described it as a way to prevent OSHA from cracking down on workplace injuries among athletes and stuntmen.

However, Stettner suggested that the broad language could allow the administration to go much further in defining what is considered “inherently risky.” The report notes that the administration is “crowdsourcing” suggestions from employers about what other occupations to exempt.

“The employer community, they’re jumping onto this,” Stettner said. “They’re telling their members to write in to the Department of Labor about other inherently dangerous occupations they should except from the general duty clause.”

The authors pointed out that the administration has previously rolled back restrictions meant to protect workers from heat-related stress on the job, which results in more than 600 deaths and over 25,000 injuries each year.

As the administration pushes to expand coal mining, it is also weakening protections for the miners themselves. After laying off most of the employees at OSHA’s research arm—which monitors cases of black lung disease—earlier this year, it is now weakening safety requirements to prevent roof falls, mine explosions, and exposure to toxic silica.

“The DOL’s role should be to protect the most vulnerable workers: farmworkers, people with disabilities, people that have suffered discrimination,” Stettner said. “They’re showing their true colors as an anti-worker administration.”

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Stephen Prager.

The letter notes the persistence of serious issues in Greece, including surveillance, threats, harassment, physical attacks, and murders of journalists. It also cites government pressure on editorial and media independence, including Greece’s public broadcaster, as well as legal threats, such as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and criminal defamation.

The organizations asked national authorities to provide, in writing, an overview of the steps being considered to address the concerns, and to establish a national action plan.

Read the full letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Barwe, the founder of the Samarth Bharat Pariwar YouTube-based news channel, was brutally beaten July 4 while reporting on claims of  illegal construction activity on disputed land in the Manchar region of Maharashtra’s Pune district, according to several news reports. A widely circulated video of the attack, reviewed by CPJ, shows a man striking Barwe with a wooden rod before the journalist  loses consciousness. She was hospitalized for three days with serious head and spinal injuries, and is currently recovering at home.

Police arrested five men over two days in connection with the attack who were granted bail and released,  Indian Express reported. The suspect wielding the stick has yet to be taken into custody.

“It is unacceptable that journalist Sneha Barwe’s attackers still walk free two weeks after her violent assault. This sends a troubling message that attacking the press will be met with impunity,” said Kunāl Majumder, CPJ’s India representative. “Maharashtra authorities must act decisively to ensure accountability and send a clear signal that violence against journalists will not be tolerated.”

The arrested suspects were accused of violating six sections of the Indian Penal Code, including provisions related to voluntarily causing hurt and causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons, according to Indian media watchdog Free Speech Collective. Three other people were also hurt in the attack with Barwe, who had been targeted on at least two previous occasions in connection with her reporting on local governance issues.

Srikant Kankal, the police officer supervising Barwe’s case, did not respond to CPJ’s texted request for an update on finding the journalist’s main attacker.

In February 2023, journalist Sashikant Warishe was murdered for reporting on a land dispute in Maharashtra.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“This budget proposal shows yet again the extremes to which anti-wildlife members of Congress will go to sacrifice endangered species,” said Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife. “The bill is loaded with riders that attack the Endangered Species Act and would put some of America’s most iconic species, including the grizzly bear and wolverine, at serious risk of extinction. By blocking protections for public lands while also providing short-sighted lease sales for the benefit of oil and gas corporations, the bill and all who support it are compromising the crucial habitats, outdoor recreation areas and natural resources that Americans and wildlife rely on.”

Of its most egregious provisions, the bill slashes funding for listing threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act by two-thirds and includes poison-pill riders that would:

• Block all funding for listing the greater sage-grouse and for implementing the new range wide plans to conserve the species.
• Delist the gray wolf.
• Delist the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear population.
• Block funding for protecting the wolverine.
• Block funding for protecting the northern long-eared bat.
• Block funding for protecting the lesser prairie-chicken.
• Block funding for protecting captive fish listed under the ESA, like sturgeon.
• Block funding for reintroducing grizzly bears to the North Cascades Ecosystem.
• Block funding for reintroducing grizzly bears to the Bitterroot ecosystem.
• Block Biden-era ESA rules.
• Block funding for the protection of seven freshwater mussel species in Texas.
• Reissue a harmful rule overturning legal precedent set by the “Cottonwood” court case.
• Block the BLM Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, which puts conserving wildlife and ecosystems on par with other uses of public lands.
• Block funding for reintroduction of American bison on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge.
• Block funding for the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge land protection plan.
• Promote continued expansion of offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.
• Mandate issuing at least four onshore oil and gas lease sales in any state where there is land available, including Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nevada and Alaska.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A prominent academic has criticised the New Zealand coalition government for compromising the country’s traditional commitment to upholding an international rules-based order due to a “desire not to offend” the Trump administration.

Professor Robert Patman, an inaugural sesquicentennial distinguished chair and a specialist in international relations at the University of Otago, has argued in a contributed article to The Spinoff that while distant in geographic terms, “brutal violence in Gaza, the West Bank and Iran marks the latest stage in the unravelling of an international rules-based order on which New Zealand depends for its prosperity and security”.

Dr Patman wrote that New Zealand’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, emphasised partnership and cooperation at home, and, after 1945, helped inspire a New Zealand worldview enshrined in institutions such as the United Nations and norms such as multilateralism.

• READ MORE: New Zealand and Gaza: Confronting and not confronting the unspeakable
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

“In the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, the National-led coalition government has in principle emphasised its support for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza and the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the occupied territories of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank,” he wrote.

However, Dr Patman said, in practice this New Zealand stance had not translated into firm diplomatic opposition to the Netanyahu government’s quest to control Gaza and annex the West Bank.

“Nor has it been a condemnation of the Trump administration for prioritising its support for Israel’s security goals over international law,” he said.

Foreign minister Winston Peters had described the situation in Gaza as “simply intolerable” but the National-led coalition had little specific to say as the Netanyahu government “resumed its cruel blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza in March and restarted military operations there”.

Silence on Trump’s ‘Gaza ownership’
“Even more striking was the government’s silence on President Trump’s proposal to own Gaza with a view to evicting two million Palestinian residents from the territory and the US-Israeli venture to start the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in late May in a move which sidelined the UN in aid distribution and has led to the killing of more than 600 Palestinians while seeking food aid,” Dr Patman said.

While New Zealand, along with the UK, Australia, Canada and Norway, had imposed sanctions on two far-right Israeli government ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar ben Gvir, in June for “inciting extremist violence” against Palestinians — a move that was criticised by the Trump administration — it was arguably a case of very little very late.

“The Hamas terror attacks on October 7 killed around 1200 Israelis, but the Netanyahu government’s retaliation by the Israel Defence Force (IDF) against Hamas has resulted in the deaths of more than 56,000 Palestinians — nearly 70 percent of whom were women or children — in Gaza.

Over the same period, more than 1000 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank as Israel accelerated its programme of illegal settlements there.

‘Strangely ambivalent’
In addition, the responses of the New Zealand government to “pre-emptive attacks” by Israel (13-25 June) and Trump’s United States (June 22) against Iran to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities were strangely ambivalent.

Despite indications from US intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran had not produced nuclear weapons, Foreign Minister Peters had said New Zealand was not prepared to take a position on that issue.

Confronted with Trump’s “might is right” approach, the National-led coalition faced stark choices, Dr Patman said.

The New Zealand government could continue to fudge fundamental moral and legal issues in the Middle East and risk complicity in the further weakening of an international rules-based order it purportedly supports, “or it can get off the fence, stand up for the country’s values, and insist that respect for international law must be observed in the region and elsewhere without exception”.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House on Monday to discuss a possible new ceasefire in Gaza, we speak with Dr. Feroze Sidhwa about the humanitarian disaster in the Palestinian territory, where Israel has damaged or destroyed much of the health infrastructure since the start of the war in October 2023. Sidhwa is a trauma surgeon in California who volunteered at Nasser Hospital in Gaza. He says Israel’s impunity in attacking hospitals across Gaza is “outrageous behavior” that blatantly violates the rules of war. “Literally every attack on a healthcare facility in Gaza has been justified by … a willful misunderstanding of international law or just outright lies.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The account, with her image, identified her as a journalist and the “Iranian voice for truth,” “sharing real stories from the ground”. Created in October 2023, the account gathered nearly 200,000 followers after the video of her TV appearance amid the bombing in Tehran went viral. Below is a screenshot of her account when her follower count was steadily increasing. 

However, Alt News found that this account, which appears authentic, impersonates the Iranian state TV anchor.

After an Alt News journalist called this out on X on June 22, the account changed its bio to a “commentary account” that was “not affiliated with Sahar Emami”.

Note that on June 21, IRIB news shared a video on X and Instagram in which Sahar Emami clarifies that she has no X account. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by خبرگزاری صداوسيما (@iribnews.ir1)

But even before Emami’s video statement, several things about the user made us suspect that this was an impostor. Here’s how we identified it.

Identifying an Impersonator

Below are some pointers that raised doubts:

1. Old posts deleted: The account was created in October 2023, yet the first post by this account visible right now is as recent as June 18, 2025. This seemed highly unlikely. Since we had tracked the user for some time, we knew that there were older posts that were deleted. Fortunately, we took screenshots of the deleted posts with their original publication dates.
   Click to view slideshow.
2. Abusive language: We found some posts in which abusive language was used, that too in Hindi.
   
    
3. Posts: The first post from this account, available now, is from June 18. Here, the user draws parallels between Israel and the Nazi regime. Again, it seemed like content shared by troll accounts, not journalists.
   

Israel is a Nazi style regime. pic.twitter.com/rtSBbaT5x3

— Sahar Emami (@iamSaharEmami) June 18, 2025

4. Location: Before the account had as many followers, we noticed that the location was mentioned as Georgia, USA. It was later changed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

5. Misinformation: In several posts, the user had shared and amplified false, AI-generated, and misleading information, unlikely to be done by a journalist. We have embedded some examples below. (Archives 1, 2, 3)

Wait for it pic.twitter.com/KW2cn0srxs

— Sahar Emami (@iamSaharEmami) June 19, 2025

Israel pic.twitter.com/yxTF9Ycb9n

— Sahar Emami (@iamSaharEmami) June 20, 2025

Iran ➝ Jordan ➝ Israel
The route is open.
The message is clear.
This is just the beginning. pic.twitter.com/PUrPHEhXhQ

— Sahar Emami (@iamSaharEmami) June 20, 2025 

On June 22, 2025, the account had also amplified misinformation that the US used Indian airspace to strike Iran during operation Midnight Hammer. (Archive)

CONFIRMED: Indian airspace was used by U.S. forces to strike Iran.
New Delhi’s quiet complicity now places it on the wrong side of history.
Iran will not forget. pic.twitter.com/cuuIeKKjXw

— Sahar Emami (@iamSaharEmami) June 22, 2025

The account had shared posts quoting Pakistani media channels, which had also alleged that the US used Indian airspace to strike down Iranian nuclear plants.

One of the posts claiming the US used India’s airspace to strike was further amplified by Hamid Mir, a journalist from Pakistan who has also shared misinformation in the past. 

The joint chief of staff for the US military, General Dan Caine, said during a press briefing on June 22 that the jets used in the operation, which included B-2 Spirit bombers, required refueling as they crossed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The below map shows the route used and nowhere includes the Indian airspace.

The same day, India’s Press Information Bureau (PIB) also refuted claims that India’s airspace was used by the US for operation Midnight Hammer.

Several social media accounts have claimed that Indian Airspace was used by the United States to launch aircrafts against Iran during Operation #MidnightHammer #PIBFactCheck

This claim is FAKE

Indian Airspace was NOT used by the United States during Operation… pic.twitter.com/x28NSkUzEh

— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) June 22, 2025

Watch | Were Indian or Pakistani airspace used for Op Midnight Hammer?

6. Attempt at establishing credibility with the same image: We noticed that the user shared images of Sahar Emami from her viral video with compelling captions to establish credibility. No other images or videos from other broadcasts were used. (Archive)

We’re not afraid of death.
We’re afraid of dishonor.
You can’t break us —
We’ll stand tall till the end. pic.twitter.com/JYF07lA09X

— Sahar Emami (@iamSaharEmami) June 20, 2025 

7. Pakistan-related posts: The account had also amplified some pro-Pakistan posts, especially those in favour of jailed leader Imran Khan. For instance, in one post dated June 18, 2025, the account advocates for former Pakistan PM Khan’s release. “A great leader is unjustly in jail, the caption of the post says. The video in the post has a woman lauding Iran for standing up to Israel and urging fellow Pakistani citizens bring back Imran Khan. Referring to Khan as a “charismatic leader,” she calls his leadership “the need of the hour”  and condemns Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir.

ایک عظیم لیڈر ناحق جیل میں ہے، جبکہ ایک نااہل اور کمزور شخص 24 کروڑ عوام پر مسلط ہے۔ ہم ہر روز نئے بہانے تلاش کرتے ہیں۔

اگر آپ گھروں سے باہر نہ آئے تو نہ خان کی جدوجہد کامیاب ہوگی، نہ پاکستان حقیقی آزادی پائے گا۔ pic.twitter.com/u6Up0tLQzj

— Sahar Emami (@iamSaharEmami) June 18, 2025

The account also shared a video by Pakistani senator Allama Raja Nasir Abbas Jafri.

آج دنیا میں جو جنگ چھڑی ہے، وہ صرف زمین، وسائل یا اقتدار کی لڑائی نہیں، بلکہ یہ حق اور باطل کے دو متضاد نظاموں کا تصادم ہے۔ مغرب اور سامراجی قوتیں اس نظام سے لرزہ براندام ہیں جو ظلم کے آگے جھکنے سے انکار کرتا ہے، جو مظلوم کا ساتھ دیتا ہے، اور جو استعماری غلبے کو للکارتا ہے۔ حقیقت… pic.twitter.com/Pf0V1543zj

— Sahar Emami (@iamSaharEmami) June 18, 2025

These indicators helped us identify this as an impersonator account. However, to a lay social media user, these clues may not occur immediately. To make matters worse, the profile also has a blue tick or a verified badge. The badge, was once a marker of authenticity, now offers little assurance that an account truly represents a public figure or credible source, since it can be paid for.

Such “verified” impersonator and troll accounts also signal a larger problem with X’s policy, which states that a verified badge serves as an indicator that an account is in “public interest” and is “authentic.” In practice, however, it has helped dubious accounts amplify misinformation and blurred the line between credible and non-credible sources of information.

The post Identifying an impostor: ‘Verified’ X account not of Iranian journalist whose show was interrupted by Israeli attacks appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.

The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilise, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the US-Israeli dyad.

The good news for my region is that Iran’s resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the US pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China.

• READ MORE: Ramzy Baroud: The fallout — winners and losers from the Israeli war on Iran
• Caitlin Johnstone: The fictional mental illness that only affects enemies of the Western empire
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth.  Iran is the weakest.  If Iran falls, war in our region — intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely.

Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs.

“Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.

That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here’s why.

US chooses war to re-shape Middle East
Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn’t supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries.

In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi’s Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all — the Islamic Republic of Iran.

One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success — if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of.

With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years.  A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft.

Now — with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered (“We came, we saw, he died”, Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine — the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns — or, rather, bombs — on the great prize: Iran.

Iran’s missiles have checked US-Israel for time being
Things did not go to plan. Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours.

Iran’s missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the US will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over — a serious pivot to Asia.

Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into powderkeg?
For us in Asia-Pacific a major US pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric — all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg.

Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world — bellum Americanum — as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask?

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.

The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilise, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the US-Israeli dyad.

The good news for my region is that Iran’s resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the US pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China.

• READ MORE: Ramzy Baroud: The fallout — winners and losers from the Israeli war on Iran
• Caitlin Johnstone: The fictional mental illness that only affects enemies of the Western empire
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth.  Iran is the weakest.  If Iran falls, war in our region — intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely.

Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs.

“Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.

That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here’s why.

US chooses war to re-shape Middle East
Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn’t supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries.

In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi’s Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all — the Islamic Republic of Iran.

One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success — if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of.

With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years.  A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft.

Now — with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered (“We came, we saw, he died”, Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine — the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns — or, rather, bombs — on the great prize: Iran.

Iran’s missiles have checked US-Israel for time being
Things did not go to plan. Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours.

Iran’s missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the US will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over — a serious pivot to Asia.

Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into powderkeg?
For us in Asia-Pacific a major US pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric — all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg.

Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world — bellum Americanum — as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask?

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The conflict between Israel and Iran over the past 12 days has redefined the regional chessboard. Here is a look at their key takeaways:

Israel:
Pulled in the US: Israel successfully drew the United States into a direct military confrontation with Iran, setting a significant precedent for future direct (not just indirect) intervention.

Boosted political capital: This move generated substantial political leverage, allowing Israel to frame US intervention as a major strategic success.

• READ MORE: Israel orders attack on Iran after claiming Tehran violated ceasefire
• Israel’s attack on Iran — the violent new world being born is going to horrify you — Jonathan Cook
• Other Middle East crisis reports

Iran:
Forged a new deterrence: Iran has firmly established a new equation of deterrence, emerging as a powerful regional force capable of directly challenging Israel, the US, and their Western allies.

Demonstrated independence: Crucially, Iran achieved this without relying on its traditional regional allies, showcasing its self-reliance and strategic depth.

Defeated regime change efforts: This confrontation effectively thwarted any perceived Israeli strategy aimed at regime change, solidifying the current Iranian government’s position.

Achieved national unity: In the face of external pressure, Iran saw a notable surge in domestic unity, bridging the gap between reformers and conservatives in a new social and political contract.

Asserted direct regional role: Iran has definitively cemented its status as a direct and undeniable player in the ongoing regional struggle against Israeli hegemony.

Sent a global message: It delivered a strong message to non-Western global powers like China and Russia, proving itself a reliable regional force capable of challenging and reshaping the existing balance of power.

Exposed regional dynamics: The events sharply exposed Arab and Muslim countries that openly or tacitly support the US-Israeli regional project of dominance, highlighting underlying regional alignments.

Dr Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London). He has a PhD in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter (2015) and was a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara. This commentary is republished from his Facebook page.

In the final strike before the ceasefire, Iranian missiles caused extensive destruction, killing and injuring several Israelis in the city of Beersheba. pic.twitter.com/b25fHPw2yD

— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) June 24, 2025

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The US-Israeli attack against Iran will intensify the forces that are already destroying international law legacies and the UN system in the Middle East and most of the world, writes Rami Khouri.

Israel’s attacks on military, civilian, and infrastructural sites throughout Iran and the repeated Iranian retaliatory attacks against targets across Israel have rattled the existing power balance across the Middle East — but the grave consequences of this new war for the region and the world’s energy supplies and economies will only be clarified in the weeks ahead.

It is already clear that Israel’s surprise attack did not achieve a knock-out blow to Iran’s nuclear sector, its military assets, or its ruling regime, while Iran’s consecutive days of rocket and drone attacks suggest that this war could go on for weeks or longer.

The media and public political sphere are overloaded now with propaganda and wishful thinking from both sides, which makes it difficult to discern the war’s outcomes and impacts.

• READ MORE: Trump says US has bombed Iran’s Fordow, Isfahan, Natanz nuclear sites – and warns against retaliation
• Other Middle East reports

For now, we can only expect the fighting to persist for weeks or more, and for key installations in both countries to be attacked, like Israel’s Defence Ministry and Weitzman Institute were a few days ago, along with nuclear facilities, airports, military assets, and oil production facilities in Iran.

So, interested observers should remain humble and patient, as unfolding events factually clarify critical dimensions of this conflict that have long been dominated by propaganda, wishful thinking, muscle-flexing, strategic deception, and supra-nationalist ideological fantasies.

This is especially relevant because of the nature of the war that has already been revealed by the attacks of the past week, alongside military and political actions for and against the US-Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing aims in Palestine.

This round of US-Israel and Iran fighting has triggered global reactions that show this to be yet another battle between Western imperial/colonial powers and those in the Middle East and the Global South that resist this centuries-old onslaught of control, subjugation, and mayhem.

Identifying critical dimensions
We cannot know today what this war will lead to, but we can identify some critical dimensions that we should closely monitor as the battles unfold. Here are the ones that strike me as the most significant.

First off, the ongoing attacks by Iran and Israel will clarify their respective offensive and defensive capabilities, especially in terms of missiles, drones, and the available defences against them.

Iran has anticipated such an Israeli attack for at least a decade, so we should assume it has also planned many counterattacks, while fortifying its key military and nuclear research facilities and duplicating the most important ones that might be destroyed or damaged.

Second, we will quickly discover the real US role in this war, though it is fair already to see Israel’s attack as a joint US-Israeli effort.

This is because of Washington’s almost total responsibility to fund, equip, maintain, resupply, and protect the Israeli armed forces; how it protects Israel at the UN, ICC, and other fora; and both countries’ shared political goals to bring down the Islamic Republic and replace it with a puppet regime that is subservient to Israeli-US priorities.

Trump claims this is not his war, but Israel’s attacks against Iran, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon can only happen because of the US commitment by law to Israeli military superiority in the Middle East. The entire Middle East and much of the world see this as a war between the US, Israel, and Iran.

And then today the US strikes on the three Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

Unconventional warfare attacks
We will also soon learn what non-military weapons each side can use to weaken the other. Missiles and drones are a start, but we should expect unconventional warfare attacks against civilian, infrastructural, digital, and financial sector targets that make life difficult for all.

An important factor that will only become clear with time is how this conflict impacts domestic politics in both countries; Iran and Israel each suffer deep internal fissures and some discontent with their regimes. How the war evolves could fragment and weaken either country, or unite their home citizenries.

Also important will be how Arab leaders react to events, especially those who chose to develop much closer financial, commercial, and defence ties with the US, as we saw during Trump’s Gulf visit last month. Some Arab leaders have also sought closer, good neighbourly relations with Iran in the last three years, while a few moved closer to Israel at the same time.

Arab leaders and governments that choose the US and Israel as their primary allies, especially in the security realm, while the attacks on Gaza and Iran go on, will generate anger and opposition by many of their people; this will require the governments to become more autocratic, which will only worsen the legacy of modern Arab autocrats who ignore their people’s rights and wellbeing.

Arab governments mostly rolled over and played dead during the US-Israeli Gaza genocide, but in this case, they might not have the same opportunity to remain fickle in the face of another aggressive moral depravity and emerge unscathed when it is over.

If Washington gets more directly involved in defending Israel, we are likely to see a response from voters in the US, especially among Trump supporters who don’t want the US to get into more forever wars.

Support for Israel is already steadily declining in the US, and might drop even faster with Washington now engaging directly in fighting Iran, because the Israeli-US attack is already based on a lie about Iran’s nuclear weapons, and American popular opinion is increasingly critical of Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Iran’s allies tested
The extent and capabilities of Iran’s allies across the Middle East will, too, be tested in the coming weeks, especially Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah in Yemen, and Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq. They have all been weakened recently by Israeli-American attacks, and both their will and ability to support Iran are unclear.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees this attack as the last step in his strategy to reorganise and re-engineer the Middle East, to make all states dependent on Israeli approval of their strategic policies. A few already are.

Netanyahu has been planning this regional project for over a decade, including removing Saddam Hussein, weakening Hezbollah and Hamas, hitting Yemen, and controlling trends inside Syria now that Bashar al-Assad is gone.

We will find out in due course if this strategy will rearrange Arab-Middle East dynamics, or internal Israeli-American ones.

The cost of this war to Israeli citizens is a big unknown, but a critical one. Israelis now know what it feels like in Southern Lebanon or Gaza. Millions of Israelis have been displaced, emigrated, or are sheltering in bunkers and safe rooms.

This is not why the State of Israel was created, according to Zionist views, which sought a place where Jews could escape the racism and pogroms they suffered in Europe and North America from the 19th Century onwards.

Most dangerous place
Instead, Israel is the most dangerous place for Jews in the world today.

This follows two decades in which all the Arabs, including Palestinians and Hamas, have expressed their willingness to coexist in peace with Israel, if Israel accepts the Palestinians’ right to national self-determination and pertinent UN resolutions that seek to guarantee the security and legitimacy of both Israeli and Palestinian states.

The US-Israeli attack against Iran will intensify the forces that are already destroying international law legacies and the UN system in the Middle East and most of the world. The US-Israel pursue this centuries-old Western colonial-imperial action to deny indigenous people their national rights at a time when they have already ignored the global anti-genocide convention by destroying life and systems that allow life to exist in Gaza.

Rami G Khouri is a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut and a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington. He is a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East. Dr Khouri can be followed on Twitter @ramikhouri This article was first published by The New Arab before the US strikes on Iran.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The US-Israeli attack against Iran will intensify the forces that are already destroying international law legacies and the UN system in the Middle East and most of the world, writes Rami Khouri.

Israel’s attacks on military, civilian, and infrastructural sites throughout Iran and the repeated Iranian retaliatory attacks against targets across Israel have rattled the existing power balance across the Middle East — but the grave consequences of this new war for the region and the world’s energy supplies and economies will only be clarified in the weeks ahead.

It is already clear that Israel’s surprise attack did not achieve a knock-out blow to Iran’s nuclear sector, its military assets, or its ruling regime, while Iran’s consecutive days of rocket and drone attacks suggest that this war could go on for weeks or longer.

The media and public political sphere are overloaded now with propaganda and wishful thinking from both sides, which makes it difficult to discern the war’s outcomes and impacts.

• READ MORE: Trump says US has bombed Iran’s Fordow, Isfahan, Natanz nuclear sites – and warns against retaliation
• Other Middle East reports

For now, we can only expect the fighting to persist for weeks or more, and for key installations in both countries to be attacked, like Israel’s Defence Ministry and Weitzman Institute were a few days ago, along with nuclear facilities, airports, military assets, and oil production facilities in Iran.

So, interested observers should remain humble and patient, as unfolding events factually clarify critical dimensions of this conflict that have long been dominated by propaganda, wishful thinking, muscle-flexing, strategic deception, and supra-nationalist ideological fantasies.

This is especially relevant because of the nature of the war that has already been revealed by the attacks of the past week, alongside military and political actions for and against the US-Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing aims in Palestine.

This round of US-Israel and Iran fighting has triggered global reactions that show this to be yet another battle between Western imperial/colonial powers and those in the Middle East and the Global South that resist this centuries-old onslaught of control, subjugation, and mayhem.

Identifying critical dimensions
We cannot know today what this war will lead to, but we can identify some critical dimensions that we should closely monitor as the battles unfold. Here are the ones that strike me as the most significant.

First off, the ongoing attacks by Iran and Israel will clarify their respective offensive and defensive capabilities, especially in terms of missiles, drones, and the available defences against them.

Iran has anticipated such an Israeli attack for at least a decade, so we should assume it has also planned many counterattacks, while fortifying its key military and nuclear research facilities and duplicating the most important ones that might be destroyed or damaged.

Second, we will quickly discover the real US role in this war, though it is fair already to see Israel’s attack as a joint US-Israeli effort.

This is because of Washington’s almost total responsibility to fund, equip, maintain, resupply, and protect the Israeli armed forces; how it protects Israel at the UN, ICC, and other fora; and both countries’ shared political goals to bring down the Islamic Republic and replace it with a puppet regime that is subservient to Israeli-US priorities.

Trump claims this is not his war, but Israel’s attacks against Iran, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon can only happen because of the US commitment by law to Israeli military superiority in the Middle East. The entire Middle East and much of the world see this as a war between the US, Israel, and Iran.

And then today the US strikes on the three Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

Unconventional warfare attacks
We will also soon learn what non-military weapons each side can use to weaken the other. Missiles and drones are a start, but we should expect unconventional warfare attacks against civilian, infrastructural, digital, and financial sector targets that make life difficult for all.

An important factor that will only become clear with time is how this conflict impacts domestic politics in both countries; Iran and Israel each suffer deep internal fissures and some discontent with their regimes. How the war evolves could fragment and weaken either country, or unite their home citizenries.

Also important will be how Arab leaders react to events, especially those who chose to develop much closer financial, commercial, and defence ties with the US, as we saw during Trump’s Gulf visit last month. Some Arab leaders have also sought closer, good neighbourly relations with Iran in the last three years, while a few moved closer to Israel at the same time.

Arab leaders and governments that choose the US and Israel as their primary allies, especially in the security realm, while the attacks on Gaza and Iran go on, will generate anger and opposition by many of their people; this will require the governments to become more autocratic, which will only worsen the legacy of modern Arab autocrats who ignore their people’s rights and wellbeing.

Arab governments mostly rolled over and played dead during the US-Israeli Gaza genocide, but in this case, they might not have the same opportunity to remain fickle in the face of another aggressive moral depravity and emerge unscathed when it is over.

If Washington gets more directly involved in defending Israel, we are likely to see a response from voters in the US, especially among Trump supporters who don’t want the US to get into more forever wars.

Support for Israel is already steadily declining in the US, and might drop even faster with Washington now engaging directly in fighting Iran, because the Israeli-US attack is already based on a lie about Iran’s nuclear weapons, and American popular opinion is increasingly critical of Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Iran’s allies tested
The extent and capabilities of Iran’s allies across the Middle East will, too, be tested in the coming weeks, especially Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah in Yemen, and Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq. They have all been weakened recently by Israeli-American attacks, and both their will and ability to support Iran are unclear.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees this attack as the last step in his strategy to reorganise and re-engineer the Middle East, to make all states dependent on Israeli approval of their strategic policies. A few already are.

Netanyahu has been planning this regional project for over a decade, including removing Saddam Hussein, weakening Hezbollah and Hamas, hitting Yemen, and controlling trends inside Syria now that Bashar al-Assad is gone.

We will find out in due course if this strategy will rearrange Arab-Middle East dynamics, or internal Israeli-American ones.

The cost of this war to Israeli citizens is a big unknown, but a critical one. Israelis now know what it feels like in Southern Lebanon or Gaza. Millions of Israelis have been displaced, emigrated, or are sheltering in bunkers and safe rooms.

This is not why the State of Israel was created, according to Zionist views, which sought a place where Jews could escape the racism and pogroms they suffered in Europe and North America from the 19th Century onwards.

Most dangerous place
Instead, Israel is the most dangerous place for Jews in the world today.

This follows two decades in which all the Arabs, including Palestinians and Hamas, have expressed their willingness to coexist in peace with Israel, if Israel accepts the Palestinians’ right to national self-determination and pertinent UN resolutions that seek to guarantee the security and legitimacy of both Israeli and Palestinian states.

The US-Israeli attack against Iran will intensify the forces that are already destroying international law legacies and the UN system in the Middle East and most of the world. The US-Israel pursue this centuries-old Western colonial-imperial action to deny indigenous people their national rights at a time when they have already ignored the global anti-genocide convention by destroying life and systems that allow life to exist in Gaza.

Rami G Khouri is a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut and a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington. He is a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East. Dr Khouri can be followed on Twitter @ramikhouri This article was first published by The New Arab before the US strikes on Iran.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

BEARING WITNESS: By Cole Martin in occupied Bethlehem

Kia ora koutou,

I’m a Kiwi journo in occupied Bethlehem, here’s a brief summary of today’s events across the Palestinian and Israeli territories from on the ground.

Israeli forces killed over 200 Palestinians in Gaza over the last 48 hours, injuring over 1037. Countless more remain under the rubble and in unreachable zones. 450 killed seeking aid, 39 missing, and around 3500 injured at the joint US-Israeli humanitarian foundation “death traps”.

Forty one  killed by Israeli forces since dawn today, including three children in an attack east of Gaza City. Gaza’s Al-Quds brigades destroyed a military bulldozer in southern Gaza.

*

Settlers, protected by soldiers, violently attacked Palestinian residents near the southern village of Susiya last night, including children. The West Bank siege continues with Israeli occupation forces severely restricting movement between Palestinian towns and cities. Continued military/settler assaults across the occupied territories.

*

Iranian strikes targeted Ben Gurion airport and several military sites in the Israeli territories. Israeli regime discuss a 3.6 billion shekel defence budget increase.

*

400 killed and 3000 injured by Israel’s attacks on Iran, in the nine days since Israel’s aggression began. Iranian authorities have arrested dozens more linked to Israeli intelligence, and cut internet for the last three days to prevent internal drone attacks from agents within their territories.

Israeli strikes have targeted a wide range of sites; missile depots, nuclear facilities, residential areas, and reportedly six ambulances today.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, held talks with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom yesterday in Geneva as Israel’s attacks on Iran entered a second week.

A US-based Iranian human rights group reports the Israeli attacks have killed at least 639 people. Israeli war planes have repeatedly pummeled Tehran and other parts of Iran. Iran is responded by continuing to launch missile strikes into Israel.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have protested in Iran against Israel. Meanwhile, President Trump continues to give mixed messages on whether the US will join Israel’s attack on Iran.

On Wednesday, Trump told reporters, “I may do it, I may not do it”. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered a new statement from the President.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: “Regarding the ongoing situation in Iran, I know there has been a lot of speculation among all of you in the media regarding the president’s decision-making and whether or not the United States will be directly involved.

“In light of that news, I have a message directly from the president. And I quote, ‘Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.’”

AMY GOODMAN, The War and Peace Report: President Trump has repeatedly used that term, “two weeks,” when being questioned about decisions in this term and his first term as president. Leavitt delivered the message shortly after President Trump met with his former adviser, Steve Bannon, who has publicly warned against war with Iran.

Bannon recently said, “We can’t do this again. We’ll tear the country apart. We can’t have another Iraq,” Bannon said.

This comes as Trump’s reportedly sidelined National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard from key discussions on Iran. In March, Gabbard told lawmakers the intelligence community, “Continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”

But on Tuesday, Trump dismissed her statement, saying, “I don’t care what she said.”

Earlier Thursday, an Iranian missile hit the main hospital in Southern Israel in Beersheba. After the strike, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened to assassinate Ayatollah Khamenei, saying Iran’s supreme leader, “Cannot continue to exist.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the hospital and likened Iran’s attack to the London Blitz. Netanyahu stunned many in Israel by saying, “Each of us bears a personal cost. My family has not been exempt. This is the second time my son Avner has cancelled a wedding due to missile threats.”

We’re joined now by William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His new article for The National Interest is headlined, “Don’t Get Dragged Into a War with Iran.”

Can you talk about what’s going on right now, Bill, the whole question of whether the U.S. is going to use a bunker-buster bomb that has to be delivered by a B-2 bomber, which only the US has?

Another Iraq: Military expert warns US has no real plan    Video: Democracy Now!

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yeah. This is a case of undue trust in technology. The US is always getting in trouble when they think there’s this miracle solution. A lot of experts aren’t sure this would even work, or if it did, it would take multiple bombings.

And of course, Iran’s not going to sit on its hands. They’ll respond possibly by killing US troops in the region, then we’ll have escalation from there. It’s reminiscent of the beginning of the Iraq War, when they said, “It’s going to be a cakewalk. It’s not going to cost anything.”

Couple of trillion dollars, hundreds of thousands of casualties, many US veterans coming home with PTSD, a regime that was sectarian that paved the way for ISIS, it couldn’t have gone worse.

And so, this is a different beginning, but the end is uncertain, and I don’t think we want to go there.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about the GBU-57, the bunker-buster bomb, and how is it that this discussion going on within the White House about the use of the bomb — and of course, the US has gone back and forth — I should say President Trump has gone back and forth whether he’s fully involved with this war.

At first he was saying they knew about it, but Israel was doing it, then saying, “We have total control of the skies over Tehran,” saying we, not Israel, and what exactly it would mean if the US dropped this bomb and the fleet that the US is moving in?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yes, well, the notion is, it’s heavy steel, it’s more explosive power than any conventional bomb. But it only goes so deep, and they don’t actually know how deep this facility is buried. And if it’s going in a straight line, and it’s to one side, it’s just not clear that it’s going to work.

And of course, if it does, Iran is going to rebuild, they’re going to go straight for a nuclear weapon. They’re not going to trust negotiations anymore.

So, apparently, the two weeks is partly because Trump’s getting conflicting reports from his own people about this. Now, if he had actual independent military folks, like Mark Milley in the first term, I think we’d be less likely to go in.

But they made sure to have loyalists. Pete Hegseth is not a profile in courage. He’s not going to stand up to Trump on this. He might not even know the consequences. So, a lot of the press coverage is about this bomb, not about the consequences of an active war.

AMY GOODMAN: Right, about using it. In your recent piece, you wrote, “Israeli officials suggested their attacks may result in regime change in Iran, despite the devastating destabilising impact such efforts in the region would have.”

Can you talk about the significance of Israel putting forward and then Trump going back and forth on whether or not Ali Khamenei will be targeted?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yeah, I think my colleague Trita Parsi put it well. There’s been no example of regime change in the region that has come out with a better result. They don’t know what kind of regime would come in.

Could be to the right of the current one. Could just be chaos that would fuel terrorism, who knows what else.

So, they’re just talking — they’re winging it. They have no idea what they’re getting into. And I think Trump, he doesn’t want to seem like Netanyahu’s pulling him by the nose, so when he gets out in front of Trump, Trump says, “Oh, that was my idea.”

But it’s almost as if Benjamin Netanyahu is running US foreign policy, and Trump is kind of following along.

AMY GOODMAN: You have Netanyahu back in 2002 saying, “Iran is imminently going to have a nuclear bomb.” That was more than two decades ago.

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Exactly. That’s just a cover for wanting to take out the regime. And he spoke to the US Congress, he’s made presentations all over the world, and his intelligence has been proven wrong over, and over, and over.

And when we had the Iran deal, he had European allies, he had China, he had Russia. There hadn’t been a deal like that where all these countries were on the same page in living memory, and it was working.

And Trump trashed it and now has to start over.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the War Powers Act. The Virginia Senator Kaine has said that — has just put forward a bill around saying it must be — Congress that must vote on this. Where is [Senator] Chuck Schumer [Senate minority leader]? Where is [Hakeem] Jeffries [Congress minoroity leader] on this, the Democratic House and Senate leaders?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Well, a lot of the so-called leaders are not leading. When is the moment that you should step forward if we’re possibly going to get into another disastrous war? But I think they’re concerned about being viewed as critical of Israel.

They don’t want to go out on a limb. So, you’ve got a progressive group that’s saying, “This has to be authorised by Congress.” You’ve got Republicans who are doubtful, but they don’t want to stand up to Trump because they don’t want to lose their jobs.

“Risk your job. This is a huge thing. Don’t just sort of be a time-server.

AMY GOODMAN: So, according to a report from IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, released in May, Iran has accumulated roughly 120 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, which is 30 percent away from weapons-grade level of 90 percent. You have Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, saying this week that they do not have evidence that Iran has the system for a nuclear bomb.

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yes, well, a lot of the discussion points out — they don’t talk about, when you’ve got the uranium, you have to build the weapon, you have to make it work on a missile.

It’s not you get the uranium, you have a weapon overnight, so there’s time to deal with that should they go forward through negotiations. And we had a deal that was working, which Trump threw aside in his first term.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the foreign minister of Iran, Araghchi, in Geneva now speaking with his counterparts from Britain, France, the EU.

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Well, I don’t think US allies in Europe want to go along with this, and I think he’s looking for some leverage over Trump. And of course, Trump is very hard to read, but even his own base, the majority of Trump supporters, don’t want to go to war.

You’ve got people like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon saying it would be a disaster. But ultimately, it comes down to Trump. He’s unpredictable, he’s transactional, he’ll calculate what he thinks it’ll mean for him.

AMY GOODMAN: And what impact does protests have around the country, as we wrap up?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Well, I think taking the stand is infectious. So many institutions were caving in to Trump. And the more people stand up, 2000 demonstrations around the country, the more the folks sitting on the fence, the millions of people who, they’re against Trump, but they don’t know what to do, the more of us that get involved, the better chance we have of turning this thing around.

So, we should not let them discourage us. We need to build power to push back against all these horrible things.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, if the US were to bomb the nuclear site that it would require the bunker-buster bomb to hit below ground, underground. Are we talking about nuclear fallout here?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: I think there would certainly be radiation that would of course affect the Iranian people. They’ve already had many civilian deaths. It’s not this kind of precise thing that’s only hitting military targets.

And that, too, has to affect Iran’s view of this. They were shortly away from another negotiation, and now their country’s being devastated, so can they trust us?

AMY GOODMAN: Bill Hartung is senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His new piece for The National Interest is headlined, “Don’t Get Dragged Into a War with Iran.”

Republished from Democracy Now! under Creative Commons.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

It all started in the early morning hours of 13 June 2025, with what Israel calls “Operation Rising Lion”. Israel’s Air Force launched dozens of air strikes against Iran, targeting its nuclear [energy] program. According to BBC, in Iran’s own words, this is the biggest assault on Iran’s territory since the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.

Iran has no nuclear weapons program, as confirmed multiple times by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), belonging to the UN system. However, after a 2024 inspection, the IAEA apparently reported enrichment to about 60%. This is not enough to make an atomic bomb, requiring at least 90%.

But for Israel which has a nuclear warheads arsenal of several hundred, this justified an unprecedented attack on Iran – a clear declaration of war. Israel’s nuclear bomb stockpile is outside of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement, all quietly tolerated by the west led by the United States.

Only with the explicit backing of the White House, Israel would dare such an assault on a country with a military power that could by far exceed that of Israel.

As these lines are written, the situation on the Israel-Iran war is constantly changing.

The latest state of affairs is that within the last 48 hours the tables have turned by 180 degrees.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ – 13 June 2025), on Monday, 9 June 2025, Prime Minister Netanyahu raised the possibility of strikes against Iran in a phone conversation with President Trump, confirmed by two U.S. officials. Trump responded that he would like to see diplomacy run its course before turning to military options. In an alert to the world, and short-circuiting diplomacy, on Wednesday 11 June, the U.S. pulled some non-essential personnel out of the region in case of an attack.

On Thursday, before the Israeli strike, Trump said he would not describe an attack as imminent, “but it is something that could very well happen.” Clearly, Trump has given Israel green light for an assault, before diplomacy could run its course. Thereby he was betraying not only Iran, but the entire Middle East, or better called Western Asia, but also the entire world, since by doing so he gave Israel carte blanche to potentially start WWIII.

Since Israel’s “surprise” air raid in the darkest early morning hours of Thursday, 13 June, the situation has changed dramatically. Iran has launched hundreds of high-speed warheads most of which penetrated unharmed Israel’s Anti-Ballistic Missile systems. The Iranian missiles could not be stopped by the US THAAD missile defense. See this.

Watch on X.

See also this from Fox News – 14 June 2025:

Watch on X.

Other dramatic headlines point to “All of Israel is under fire!” Blasts and smoke as Iran launches hundreds of missiles | ITV NEWS, as “Iran launched hundreds of missiles towards Israel; only few were intercepted.” Question: Does Iran have enough missiles and rockets to overwhelm and outlast Israel? The next 72 hours will be crucial.

Iranian missiles have hit key locations in Tel Aviv and other major cities in Israel, also targeting Israeli nuclear arsenal and military sites, leaving untold casualties and massive destruction of infrastructure. To what extent Israel’s nuclear stockpiles were affected, may never be known.

President Putin, while supporting Iran’s defense, has called on both parties to instantly stop aggressions.

He offered Russia’s good services for mediation. Once upon a time, when Switzerland was still neutral, Bern could have offered Switzerland’s diplomacy to mediate for Peace. No longer, as Switzerland drifts towards NATO, an enemy of Iran – and everything not considered the west.

Mr. Putin most likely warned President Trump to make sure Israel does not retaliate Iran’s response with nuclear weapons. If not Trump, then his Pentagon advisors, must know and understand what this means.

At the behest of Israel, Trump had started negotiations with Iran to reduce their enrichment program to zero, i.e. destroy their enriched uranium which Iran planned to use for civilian purposes. He warned or blackmailed Iran – you agree, or else – which meant you will be assaulted. He gave Iran five days to respond, but Israel launched her attack after day three, certainly not without Trump’s agreement, which meant a flagrant betrayal by the US on Iran and the world.

President Trump entered his second term on 20 January 2025 as a so-called “Peace President,” but resulted instead as a war-President; as one of the biggest deceptions not only for US citizens, but for the world at large.

Instead of making good on his promise, stopping the horrendous bloodshed and genocide caused by Israel in Gaza and now also in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, Trump supports Netanyahu with more weapons to continue his ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and in all of Palestine.

In the proxy war Ukraine-Russia, Trump is far from reaching an agreement. After this unprecedented US-supported assault by Israel on Iran – a Peace Agreement with Russia has slipped away farther than ever.

Israel also targeted military facilities in Teheran, as well as throughout Iran, killing what is reported dozens high-ranking military officers, including Iran’s top two commanders.

Iran confirmed that the attacks killed Major General Hossein Salami, commander of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Major General Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, along with several nuclear scientists. Iran’s envoy to the UN, Amir-Saeid Iravani, stated that 78 people were killed and 320 others injured.

This totally illegal, devastating large-scale attack pushed the Middle East into a new war, if not into a deep abyss. Images on Iranian state television said the Natanz site in central Iran, one of the country’s two main nuclear [energy] plants, was struck around 4.15 AM on Thursday, 13 June.

Trump hails Israel’s airstrike (RT 13 June 2025), as “excellent” and warned that there is “more to come.” He warns Iran, “either make the nuclear deal (zero uranium enrichment) or face slaughter” – see this US President Donald Trump has called Israel’s strike on Iran “excellent” and warned that there is “more to come”.

On the other hand, President Putin (RT – 13 June 25) holds phone conversations with Israeli’s PM and the Iranian President. Mr. Putin condemned the Israeli attack and extended his condolences to Iran, according to the Kremlin press service.

Some of Iran’s nuclear facilities are 800-plus meters below the ground and cannot be reached by Israel’s missiles. It is not clear how much of Iran’s nuclear energy program has been destroyed. It may never be known.

Trump’s green-lighting Israel’s attack, makes him complicit in this new Israel-initiated Middle East conflict, that might possibly degenerate into a WWIII scenario.

The Financial Times (FT – 13 June 2025) reports that President Trump warned Teheran on his Truth Social Platform, that the next “already planned attacks” on Iran would be “even more brutal,” adding that “Iran must make a deal [on its nuclear program], before there is nothing left.” “No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” he wrote. Yes, the deal-maker has spoken again.

Trump added that the US “makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come — and they know how to use it.” The usual megalo-ego-centric rhetoric which is typically not substantiated, and ever less believable, but ever more provoking a sad smile.

Mr. Trump’s notion of negotiations refers to the recent US-imposed reduction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program to zero, when in earlier accords – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated in 2013 to 2015 with the US Obama Administration and their western allies plus China and Russia, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium to no more than 5%. For 15 years, Iran agreed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67% and not to build heavy water facilities. They complied with the 15-year condition.

Nevertheless, the Israeli Air Force barrage on Iran follows a months-long stand-off over Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran insists and has always done so, its nuclear program is for peaceful civilian purposes, mostly nuclear energy. The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is closely following Iran’s nuclear program and has never found any evidence that Iran was attempting to build an atomic bomb.

Please NOTE and be reminded that Israel has hundreds of nuclear warheads, outside of the Non-Proliferation Agreement, tolerated by the west, led by the US of A.

The IAEA, like most UN agencies, is following politically the “mandate” of the west. So, it does perhaps not come as a surprise that on Thursday, 12 June, the day before the Israeli attack on Iran, the agency declared that Iran was in breach of its non-proliferation obligations, the first such censure in two decades. It may have been the ultimate justification for Israel’s devastating air raid.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said,

Israel “Should expect a severe punishment. The Zionist regime, through this crime, has created a bitter and painful fate for itself — one it will certainly face,” he said. “With God’s permission, the powerful hands of the Islamic republic’s armed forces will not leave it unpunished.”

For more details see FT 13 June 2025

This new Middle Eastern war is in a constant state of change, possibly escalating and putting the world in danger, once more the works of the Zionist elite, attempting to control the globe, and achieving Greater Israel which would ideally expand their current map to also include Iran.

Peace in the Middle East or better Western Asia would be a great step towards world Peace – an engine for socioeconomic prosperity.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Peter Koenig.

In the late 1960s, the prevailing opinion among Israeli Shin Bet intelligence officers was that the key to defeating the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was to assassinate its then-leader Yasser Arafat.

The elimination of Arafat, the Shin Bet commander Yehuda Arbel wrote in his diary, was “a precondition to finding a solution to the Palestinian problem.”

For other, even more radical Israelis — such as the ultra-nationalist assassin Yigal Amir — the answer lay elsewhere. They sought the assassination of Israeli leaders such as Yitzak Rabin who wanted peace with the Palestinians.

• READ MORE: Iran fires missiles at Israel; Trump claims ‘total control of Iran skies’
• Attack on Iran’s state media – Israel bombs IRIB building in new war crime
• Why Israel’s ‘humane’ propaganda is such a sinister facade
• Other Israeli war on Iran reports

Despite Rabin’s long personal history as a famed and often ruthless military commander in the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli Wars, Amir stalked and shot Rabin dead in 1995. He believed Rabin had betrayed Israel by signing the Oslo Accords peace deal with Arafat.

Nothing has changed. Listen to how Yasser Arafat described the media and how they refused to comdemn Israeli war crimes. pic.twitter.com/BNbjp6ZEww

— Unfiltered Muslim (@muslimbants) November 9, 2023

It has been 20 years since Arafat died as possibly the victim of polonium poisoning, and 30 years after the shooting of Rabin. Peace between Israelis and the Palestinians has never been further away.

What Amnesty International and a United Nations Special Committee have called genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza have spilled over into Israeli attacks on the prominent leaders of its enemies in Lebanon and, most recently, Iran.

Since its attacks on Iran began on Friday, Israel has killed numerous military and intelligence leaders, including Iran’s intelligence chief, Mohammad Kazemi; the chief of the armed forces, Mohammad Bagheri; and the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami. At least nine Iranian nuclear scientists have also been killed.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said:

We got their chief intelligence officer and his deputy in Tehran.

Iran, predictably, has responded with deadly missile attacks on Israel.

Far from having solved the issue of Middle East peace, assassinations continue to pour oil on the flames.

A long history of extrajudicial killings
Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman’s book Rise and Kill First argues assassinations have long sat at the heart of Israeli politics.

In the past 75 years, there have been more than 2700 assassination operations undertaken by Israel. These have, in Bergman’s words, attempted to “stop history” and bypass “statesmanship and political discourse”.

This normalisation of assassinations has been codified in the Israeli expression of “mowing the grass”. This is, as historian Nadim Rouhana has shown, a metaphor for a politics of constant assassination.

Enemy “leadership and military facilities must regularly be hit in order to keep them weak”.

The point is not to solve the underlying political questions at issue. Instead, this approach aims to sow fear, dissent and confusion among enemies.

Thousands of assassination operations have not, however, proved sufficient to resolve the long-running conflict between Israel, its neighbours and the Palestinians. The tactic itself is surely overdue for retirement.

Targeted assassinations elsewhere
Israel has been far from alone in this strategy of assassination and killing.

Former US President Barack Obama oversaw the extrajudicial killing of Osama Bin Laden, for instance.

After what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch denounced as a flawed trial, former US President George W. Bush welcomed the hanging of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as “an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy”.

Current US President Donald Trump oversaw the assassination of Iran’s leader of clandestine military operations, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020.

Martyr General Qassem Soleimani : No scholar or authority in Shiite history has been able to do what Imam Khomeini did#Baghdad0120#Soleimani pic.twitter.com/FgieLy1Rsu

— Soleimani TV (@Soleimani_TV) February 10, 2021

More recently, however, Trump appears to have baulked at granting Netanyahu permission to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

And it’s worth noting the US Department of Justice last year brought charges against an Iranian man who said he had been tasked with killing Trump.

Elsewhere, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it’s common for senior political and media opponents to be shot in the streets. Frequently they also “fall” out of high windows, are killed in plane crashes or succumb to mystery “illnesses”.

A poor record
Extrajudicial killings, however, have a poor record as a mechanism for solving political problems.

Cutting off the hydra’s head has generally led to its often immediate replacement by another equally or more ideologically committed person, as has already happened in Iran. Perhaps they too await the next round of “mowing the grass”.

But as the latest Israeli strikes in Iran and elsewhere show, solving the underlying issue is rarely the point.

In situations where finding a lasting negotiated settlement would mean painful concessions or strategic risks, assassinations prove simply too tempting. They circumvent the difficulties and complexities of diplomacy while avoiding the need to concede power or territory.

As many have concluded, however, assassinations have never killed resistance. They have never killed the ideas and experiences that give birth to resistance in the first place.

Nor have they offered lasting security to those who have ordered the lethal strike.

Enduring security requires that, at some point, someone grasp the nettle and look to the underlying issues.

The alternative is the continuation of the brutal pattern of strike and counter-strike for generations to come.

Dr Matt Fitzpatrick is professor in international history, Flinders University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

ICAN's Executive Director, Melissa Parke, said: “The escalation in the conflict following nuclear-armed Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has to stop before it is too late. Attacking nuclear facilities is illegal and threatens to release radiation, causing a long term threat to people’s health and the environment. The conflict is also a threat to international peace and security.

ICAN calls on the international community, including Israel’s allies, to clearly condemn Israel’s action and to put pressure on both parties to end hostilities. International treaties such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons are essential tools to bring peace and security to the region and globally. The two countries should take immediate action - Israel should join both treaties and Iran should join the TPNW and reiterate its commitment to the NPT. ”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

UPDATES: By Cole Martin in Occupied Bethlehem

Fifty six Palestinians were killed by Israel in Gaza today, 38 of them while seeking aid, while five were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli attack on aid workers northwest of Gaza City.

Al-Qassam Brigades reportedly blew up a house in southern Gaza where a number of Israeli soldiers were operating from.

Israel’s forced starvation and indiscriminate targeting of civilians continues.

• READ MORE: Attack on Iran’s state media – Israel bombs IRIB building in new war crime
• Why Israel’s ‘humane’ propaganda is such a sinister facade
• Other Israeli war on Iran reports

Israeli media report that Iranian missile strikes on Haifa oil refinery yesterday killed 3 people and closed down the installation.

The Israeli death toll has risen to 24, with 400 injured and more than 2700 people displaced.

Israeli authorities report 370 missiles fired by Iran in total, 30 reaching their targets. Iranian military report they have carried out 550 drone operations.

224 killed in Iran
Two hundred and twenty four people have been killed by Israeli attacks on Iran, with 1277 hospitalised.

The state radio and television building was targeted by Israeli strikes twice — while broadcasting live — with the broadcast back online within 5 minutes despite the attack.

In response, Iran has issued a warning to evacuate the central offices of Israeli television channels 12 and 14.

An Israeli attack on a Red Crescent ambulance in Tehran resulted in the deaths of two relief workers.

Israel’s Finance Minister Belazel Smotrich, who is accused of being a war criminal and the target of sanctions by five countries including New Zealand, claims they have hit 800 targets in Iran, with aircraft flying freely in the nation’s airspace.

In the West Bank, the tension continues, with business continuing at a subdued level, everyone waiting to see how the situation will unfold.

Israel’s illegal siege continues, cutting off cities and villages from one another, while blocking ambulances and urgent medical access in several locations today.

Israeli and Iranian strikes are expected to continue, and potentially escalate, over the coming days.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Israel targeted one of the buildings of the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) in Tehran on the fourth day of attacks on Iran, interrupting a live news broadcast, reports Press TV.

The attack, involving at least four bombs, struck the central building housing IRIB’s news department, while a live news broadcast was underway.

The transmission was briefly interrupted before Hassan Abedini, IRIB’s news director and deputy for political affairs, appeared on air to condemn the “terrorist crime”.

• READ MORE: Blasts rock Tehran, Tel Aviv; Iran warns Israel of ‘devastating’ attacks
• Other Israeli war on Iran reports

At the time of the attack, news anchor Sahar Emami was presenting the news. Despite the building trembling under the first strike, she stood her ground and continued the broadcast.

“Allah o Akbar” (God is Great), she proclaimed, drawing global attention to the war crime committed by Israel against Iran’s national broadcaster.

Moments later, another blast filled the studio with smoke and dust, forcing her to evacuate. She returned shortly after to join Abedini and share her harrowing experience.

“If I die, others will take my place and expose your crimes to the world,” she declared, looking straight into the camera with courage and composure.

Casualties unconfirmed
While the number of casualties remains unconfirmed, insiders reported that several journalists inside the building had been injured in the bombing.

Israel’s war ministry promptly claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the aggression on the state broadcaster as a “war crime” and called on the United Nations to take immediate action against the regime.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei denounced the attack and urged the international community to hold the regime accountable for its assault on the media.

“The world is watching: targeting Iran’s news agency #IRIB’s office during a live broadcast is a wicked act of war crime,” Baghaei wrote on X.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) also condemned the bombing of the IRIB news building, labeling it an “inhuman, criminal, and a terrorist act.”

CPJ ‘appalled’ by Israeli attack
The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was “appalled by Israel’s bombing of Iran’s state TV channel while live on air.”

“Israel’s killing, with impunity, of almost 200 journalists in Gaza has emboldened it to target media elsewhere in the region,” Sara Qudah, the West Asia representative for CPJ, said in a statement after the attack on an IRIB building.

The Israeli regime has a documented history of targeting journalists globally. Since October 2023, it has killed more than 250 Palestinian journalists in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The regime launched its aggression against the Islamic Republic, including Tehran, early on Friday, leading to the assassination of several high-ranking military officials, nuclear scientists, and civilians, including women and children.

In response, Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones late Friday night, followed by more retaliatory operations on Saturday and Sunday as part of Operation True Promise III.

In Israel, 24 people have been killed and hundreds wounded since hostilities began. In Iran, 224 people have been killed.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

A Paris-based military and political analyst, Elijah Magnier, says he believes the hostilities between Israel and Iran will only get worse, but that Israeli support for the war may wane if the destruction continues.

“I think it’s going to continue escalating because we are just in the first days of the war that Israel declared on Iran,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview.

“And also the Israeli officials, the prime minister and the army, have all warned Israeli society that this war is going to be heavy and . . .  the price is going to be extremely high.

• READ MORE: Eight killed, dozens wounded in Israel after Iran fires new missile barrage

“But the society that stands behind [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and supports the war on Iran did not expect this level of destruction because, since 1973, Israel has not waged a war on a country and never been attacked on this scale, right in the heart of Tel Aviv,” Magnier said.

“So now they are realising what the Palestinians have been suffering, what the Lebanese have been suffering, and they see the destruction in front of them — buildings in Tel Aviv, in Haifa destroyed, fire everywhere.

“The properties no longer exist. Eight people killed, 250 wounded in one day.

“That’s unheard of since a very long time in Israel. So, all that is not something that the Israeli society has been ready for,” added Magnier, veteran war correspondent and political analyst with more than 35 years of experience covering decades of war in the Middle East and North Africa.

Peters criticised over ‘craven’ statement
Meanwhile, in Auckland, the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) criticised New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters for “refusing to condemn Israel for its egregious war crimes of industrial-scale killing and mass starvation of civilians in Gaza”.

It also said that Peters had “outdone himself with the most craven of tweets on Israel’s massive attack on Iran”.

Iran missiles strikes on Israel for third day in retaliation to the surprise attack. Video: Al Jazeera

Co-chair Maher Nazzal said in a statement that minister Peters had said he was “gravely concerned by the escalation in tensions between Israel and Iran” and that “all actors” must “prioritise de-escalation”.

But there was no mention of Israel as the aggressor and no condemnation of Israel’s attack launched in the middle of negotiations between Iran and the US on Iran’s nuclear programme, said Maher.

“It’s Mr Peters’ most obsequious tweet yet which leaves a cloud of shame hanging over the country.

“Appeasement of this rogue state, as our government and other Western countries have done over 20 months, have led Israel to believe it can attack any country it likes with absolute impunity.”

New Zealand is gravely concerned by the escalation in tensions between Israel and Iran. Any further retaliatory action significantly increases the risk of a regional war. This would have catastrophic consequences in the Middle East.

It is critical that all actors prioritise…

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) June 13, 2025

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Islamic Council of New Zealand (ICONZ) has protested over Israel’s “unprovoked military strikes” against Iran, killing at least 80 people — 20 of them children, and called on the NZ government to publicly condemn Israeli’s actions.

An open letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, read out to a Palestine rally in Henderson yesterday by advocate Dr Adnan Ali, said the attacks — targeting residential areas as well as military and nuclear facilities — represented a “grave escalation in regional tensions and pose a serious threat to global peace and stability”.

“This act of aggression undermines international diplomatic efforts and risks igniting a broader conflict that could engulf the Middle East and beyond,” the letter said.

• READ MORE: Iran, Israel trade missiles; blasts, air raid sirens rock Tehran, Tel Aviv
• Twyford condemns weak action by NZ over Israel’s ‘ruthless’ apartheid
• Other Israeli war on Iran reports

The council’s letter, signed by ICONZ president Dr Muhammad Sajjad Haider Naqvi, said it was “particularly alarmed by the timing of the strikes, which come amid ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme”.

It said the Israeli attack set a “dangerous precedent” and violated international law and sovereignty.

The council urged the NZ government to:

• Publicly condemn the Israeli government’s actions and call for an immediate cessation of hostilities;
• Engage diplomatically with international partners to de-escalate tensions and promote peaceful resolution;
• Support humanitarian efforts to assist affected civilians in Iran; and
• Reaffirm NZ’s commitment to international law, peace and justice.

The council said New Zealand had “long been a voice of reason and compassion on the global stage” and it hoped that this would guide Luxon’s leadership.

In retaliatory missile attacks by Iran, at least four people have been killed and 200 wounded in Israel.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith, reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Israel has banned Al Jazeera from reporting on its territory, said attacking Iran allowed Israel to deflect attention away from Gaza.

“Israel says the focus of its military activities is now on Iran and not on Gaza. But it also conveniently allows . . . the focus of attention on what’s happening in Israel to move from Gaza to Iran,” he said.

“Until Israel hit those targets in Iran, it was coming under increasing international scrutiny over the conduct of the war in Gaza.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Islamic Council of New Zealand (ICONZ) has protested over Israel’s “unprovoked military strikes” against Iran, killing at least 80 people — 20 of them children, and called on the NZ government to publicly condemn Israeli’s actions.

An open letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, read out to a Palestine rally in Henderson yesterday by advocate Dr Adnan Ali, said the attacks — targeting residential areas as well as military and nuclear facilities — represented a “grave escalation in regional tensions and pose a serious threat to global peace and stability”.

“This act of aggression undermines international diplomatic efforts and risks igniting a broader conflict that could engulf the Middle East and beyond,” the letter said.

• READ MORE: Iran, Israel trade missiles; blasts, air raid sirens rock Tehran, Tel Aviv
• Twyford condemns weak action by NZ over Israel’s ‘ruthless’ apartheid
• Other Israeli war on Iran reports

The council’s letter, signed by ICONZ president Dr Muhammad Sajjad Haider Naqvi, said it was “particularly alarmed by the timing of the strikes, which come amid ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme”.

It said the Israeli attack set a “dangerous precedent” and violated international law and sovereignty.

The council urged the NZ government to:

• Publicly condemn the Israeli government’s actions and call for an immediate cessation of hostilities;
• Engage diplomatically with international partners to de-escalate tensions and promote peaceful resolution;
• Support humanitarian efforts to assist affected civilians in Iran; and
• Reaffirm NZ’s commitment to international law, peace and justice.

The council said New Zealand had “long been a voice of reason and compassion on the global stage” and it hoped that this would guide Luxon’s leadership.

In retaliatory missile attacks by Iran, at least four people have been killed and 200 wounded in Israel.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith, reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Israel has banned Al Jazeera from reporting on its territory, said attacking Iran allowed Israel to deflect attention away from Gaza.

“Israel says the focus of its military activities is now on Iran and not on Gaza. But it also conveniently allows . . . the focus of attention on what’s happening in Israel to move from Gaza to Iran,” he said.

“Until Israel hit those targets in Iran, it was coming under increasing international scrutiny over the conduct of the war in Gaza.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Reaching an assessment on that matter is almost impossible. Evidence of such a threat by the aggressor state is bound to be speculative, concealing other strategic objectives that make that action amount to illegal, preventive war. Israel’s ongoing attacks on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure are taking place in the absence of nuclear weapons, motivated by the hypothetical scenario that such weapons would be irretrievably developed and used against the Jewish state. Iran, in other words, was being punished for a thought crime.

The Israeli Defense Forces released a statement expressing the rationale: “Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the Iranian regime are a threat to the State of Israel and a significant threat to the entire world. The State of Israel will not allow a regime whose goal is the destruction of the State of Israel to possess weapons of mass destruction.”

There is even a concession on the part of IDF officials that triumphant success in the operation is not assured; Israelis needed to brace themselves before the inevitable reaction. “I can’t promise absolute success,” declared Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir. Tehran “will attempt to attack us in response, the expected toll will be different to what we are used to.”

The Defence Minister Israel Katz offers some wishful thinking in justifying the attack. “We are now at a critical juncture. If we miss it, we will have no way to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons that will endanger our very own existence.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu preferred lashings of hyperbole. “If we don’t attack, then it’s 100% that we will die,” he declared in a video statement to the nation.

This is the language of self-denial, both on the issue of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear option indefinitely – an unsustainable policy in the absence of peaceful dissuasion – and the belief that such operations will result in some form of contained, well-behaved retaliation. With typical perversity, these attacks are taking place in step with demands by US President Donald Trump that Tehran resort to meek diplomacy, an effort that is bound to have been extinguished by these attacks.

And what of the threat posed by Iran? In March this year, the US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the assessment was “that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” But Netanyahu had already given a directive in November 2024 to thwart alleged efforts by Tehran to build a nuclear device. “The directive,” he confirms, “came shortly after the assassination of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah”.

The broader Israeli logic here is less the coherence of the nuclear threat than one of settling scores and crippling a rival it has long accused of directing operations against its interests, if not directly than through its proxy militias.

As for the logic of non-acquisition, not much can be made of it. The advent of the Colt 45 revolver in the late 1800s arguably calmed the American West by granting those with less power and influence a means of asserting their will against the powerful and landed. It became “the Peacemaker”, sometimes described as “the Great Equalizer.” As part of that same logic, the late international relations theorist Kenneth N. Waltz proposed that nuclear weapons made war less likely, believing that “the gradual spread of nuclear weapons is to be more welcomed than feared.” He even went so far as to argue in 2012 that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would “most likely […] restore stability to the Middle East.” It was Israel’s durable nuclear monopoly in the Middle East that “long fueled instability” in the region.

The invention of nuclear weaponry was a statement of intent that possessing such a weapon would be akin to acquiring the shielding protection of a patron deity. This is a lesson the Israelis should know better than most, having themselves stealthily acquired an undeclared nuclear inventory. To not have it would weaken you, diminish international standing, making the non-possessor vulnerable to attack.

North Korea learned this salutary lesson, motivated by two supreme examples: the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US-led “Coalition of the Willing”, and the collective attack on Libya in 2011, ostensibly under the doctrine of responsibility to protect. The disarmament efforts made by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya rendered them vulnerable to attack. Lacking a terrifying deterrent, they were contemptuously rolled.

Attempts to control proliferation have been imperfect, largely because the nuclear option has never been entirely demystified. Despite the admirable strides made in international law to stigmatise nuclear weapons, best reflected in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, not to mention the tireless labours of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the nuclear weapons club remains a permanent provocation and incitement to non-nuclear weapons states. It is the red rag to the bull.

These attacks will do little to weaken the resolve of the mullahs in Tehran. They are roguish undertakings, murderous in their scope (the killing of scientists and their families stands out), and sneering of international law. Netanyahu’s absurd lecturing to the Iranian populace – we are bombing you to free you – will fall flat. Most consequential will be confirmation on the part of the Islamic State that acquiring a nuclear weapon is more imperative than ever.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Israel has launched a large-scale military attack on Iran, killing top military officials, nuclear scientists and civilians in the deadliest attack on the country in decades. Iran has launched drones at Israel in response. The unprovoked attack, which Israel described as a “preemptive strike,” comes just days before scheduled nuclear talks between Iran and the United States. Iranian-born analyst Trita Parsi says the Trump administration appears to have been coordinating with Israel for “negotiating leverage” in an attempt to force Iran to “capitulate” on nuclear disarmament. Whether this gambit will succeed remains to be seen, though Parsi and Israeli journalist Gideon Levy say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is betting it does not. Netanyahu has long indicated a willingness to wage war with Iran and likely hopes to draw the United States into a major regional conflict. “This was the project of his life,” says Levy.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Initial protests demanding accountability for the tragedy have turned into a widespread movement against corruption and President Aleksandar Vučić’s increasingly authoritarian rule, and as a result, journalists have faced a surge in physical attacks, threats, online harassment, smear campaigns, and even spyware — often driven by Vučić’s supporters, government officials, and pro-government media.

Since the beginning of November, the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia (IJAS) has recorded 23 physical assaults. There have been 18 assaults so far this year, already surpassing the 17 in all of 2024. The IJAS has tallied a total of 128 of various types of attacks and threats so far this year, suggesting the overall number may soon exceed last year’s 166 cases.

“In the political crisis Serbia is going through since November, we are witnessing a sort of open warfare against independent media,” Jelena L. Petković, a freelance journalist specializing in covering media safety in the Western Balkans, told CPJ. “2025 might turn out to be the worst year on record for journalist safety in the country.”

Petković said U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection, the rise of populist leaders like Viktor Orbán in neighboring EU states, and the crisis the USAID funding freeze has caused for Serbia’s independent media have emboldened Vučić to intensify his pressure on the press — frequently accusing journalists and civil society groups of being foreign agents and traitors. She noted that none of the attacks on journalists since last November have led to prosecutions, underscoring a broader pattern of impunity.

“This surge of attacks on independent journalists who hold the power to account in Serbia reflects a broader attempt to silence critical reporting amid a deepening political crisis,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Serbian authorities must end the impunity for these attacks, take urgent steps to protect journalists, and put a stop to the hostile climate that emboldens those who seek to intimidate journalists.”

CPJ emailed questions to the press office of the presidency and to the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the police, but did not receive any replies.

Below is a breakdown of the most serious attacks since November 1, 2024, based on CPJ’s review of cases documented by local press freedom groups:

Physical attacks

CPJ’s review of 15 physical attacks, affecting at least 23 journalists, found that the incidents mostly occurred during protests and ranged from attempts to snatch journalists’ phones to assaults that caused injuries. Some attackers were politicians or public officials, and several journalists reported that police failed to protect them.

• On May 17, 2025, an unidentified individual attempted to knock the phone of Južne Vesti journalist Tamara Radovanović from her hand while she was documenting a rally by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the southern city of Niš. Instead of protecting her, police removed her from the scene to “reduce tension,” without taking action against her attacker, according to the journalist.

• On May 16, while filming an SNS event attended by party officials in the eastern village of Makovište, N1 TV camera operator Marjan Vučetić was attacked from behind by unknown individuals, who struck his back and neck, causing light injuries. Others insulted him, calling him a “traitor” and “foreign mercenary.”

• On April 12,  during an SNS rally in the capital Belgrade, pro-government supporters attacked a five-member KTV crew. Milorad Malešev, a technician, had three teeth knocked out, while others sustained scrapes and bruises. Police intervened only after camera operator Siniša Nikšić was assaulted, at which point they surrounded the journalists and told them to stop reporting, saying they couldn’t guarantee their safety.

• On March 23, Saša Dragojlo, a journalist for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), was beaten while covering a protest by a man later identified by Serbian media as a former boxer and SNS activist in Belgrade. Despite Dragojlo identifying himself as press and requesting help, police intervened only to prevent further escalation, but failed to take action against the attacker. 

• On November 27, 2024, during a pro-government demonstration in Belgrade, supporters insulted an N1 news crew and attacked journalist Jelena Mirković, hitting her shoulder and knocking the microphone from her hand. Reporter Aleksandar Cvrkutić’s camera was also struck as he filmed the scene.

• On November 22, Nova TV reporter Ana Marković was lightly injured when demonstrators struck her phone from her hand while she was reporting in Belgrade.

• On November 6, while live streaming a municipal assembly session in the northerntown of Kovin, journalist Miloš Ljiljanić of Kovinske Info was physically attacked by an SNS councilor, who shoved him, tried to grab his phone, and twisted his arm.

• On November 5, in the northern city of Novi Sad, a group of masked individuals insulted an N1 TV crew and struck cameraperson Nikola Popović’s hand, causing him to drop and damage his camera. They also assaulted Euronews camera operator Mirko Todorović, knocking him to the ground. Police at the scene did not intervene.

Police violence, obstruction, detention

• On May 17, 2025, police in Niš detained Nikola Doderović, a correspondent for Australian radio broadcaster SBS, as well as a journalism student accompanying him, for over an hour during a pro-government rally. After demanding their IDs, officers questioned them about their presence and activities, which Doderović said was unnecessary and arbitrary. Local press freedom groups called the detention a “clear form of intimidation.”

• On May 16, police in Novi Sad briefly detained freelance photojournalist Gavrilo Andrić for “identification,” even though his helmet was marked as “press.” Earlier, officers had beaten him along with some protesters while he was documenting a blockade of the court and prosecutor’s office.

• On April 28, police pepper-sprayed and beat journalist Žarko Bogosavljević of Razglas News while he was covering a protest, despite his wearing a press vest.

• On April 10, prosecutors in Belgrade detained Dejan Ilić, a columnist for news site Peščanik, for a day on criminal charges of “causing panic and disorder.” The charges stem from comments he made during a March 29 Nova TV talk show, where he discussed political alternatives for Serbia, including a transitional government.

• On March 14, several journalist crews traveling from neighboring Croatia and Slovenia to cover anti-corruption protests in Belgrade were briefly detained at the border and denied entry, before being sent back.

• On February 25, police raided the premises of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, an NGO operating the fact-checking platform Istinomer, for 28 hours as part of a corruption probe tied to USAID funding — allegations that local press freedom groups have denounced as politically motivated.

• On January 17, police forcibly removed five journalists — with N1 TV, Nova TV, Radio 021, and the daily newspaper Danas — from Novi Sad City Hall, preventing them from covering an opposition-led protest.

Surveillance, spyware

• On March 27, BIRN reported that two of its journalists had been targeted with Pegasus spyware in February. The attempted “one-click” attack failed, as the journalists did not open the malicious link.

Other threats, smears

• In April 2025, a 60-minute video, produced by a pro-government NGO, aired on six national channels and circulated on social media, portraying journalists from N1 TV, Nova TV, and other outlets of publishing house United Group as foreign agents, extremists, and enemies of the state allegedly operating illegally in Serbia.

• In February and March 2025, National Assembly President Ana Brnabić accused N1, Nova S, and Danas of spreading hatred and lies. Facing critical questions, Vučić asked a reporter from investigative outlet KRiK how much money he had received from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. The president also blamed N1 TV and its Brussels correspondent Nikola Radišić of contributing to a “color revolution,” a reference to pro-democracy movements that have emerged in various Eastern European countries, which Vučić has portrayed as a Western attempt to undermine Serbia’s sovereignty. Radišić was excluded from a press conference in Brussels as well.

• Since November 2024, journalists working for independent media outlets N1 TV, Nova TV, and online platform Magločistač, as well as press freedom advocates, have received threats of physical violence and death.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Attila Mong/CPJ Europe Representative.

Caving to pressure from Zionist groups, Toronto’s City Council just passed a controversial new bylaw that will severely limit Canadians’ right to peacefully protest. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Toronto-based, award-winning journalist Samira Mohyeddin about the origins and effects of Toronto’s “bubble zone” bylaw and how it will provide a template for other jurisdictions across North America to undermine political dissent.

Guest(s):

• Samira Mohyeddin is an award winning producer and broadcaster based in Toronto. For nearly a decade she was a producer and host at Canada’s National Broadcaster, CBC Radio. She is the founder of On The Line Media and the 2024 / 2025 journalism fellow at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto

Additional resources:

• Samira Mohyeddin, From the Desk, “Toronto passes Zionist bylaw”
• Adam Carter, CBC, “Toronto city council passes controversial ‘bubble zone’ protest bylaw”

Studio Production: David Hebden
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner and it’s good to have you all with us. And we once again, go to Israel Palestine, to Palestine, Israel and talk about what’s going on and the horrendous war and slaughter taking place in Gaza at this moment. And we’re once again joined by Samira Mohyeddin, who hosts From the Desk, which is an incredible program and welcome. Good to have you with us.

Samira Mohyeddin:

Always a pleasure to speak with you, Marc.

Marc Steiner:

And Samira is an award-winning producer and broadcaster for nearly a decade. She was producer and host of Canada’s National Broadcaster, CPC Radio. She’s the founder of the online media and a 20 24, 20 25 Journalism Fellow at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. And Samir’s, always good to have you with us. And I really big sign. I mean, when we talked last, we focused on Palestine, Israel, but there’s something about this particular moment that is one of the worst in my 30, 40 years, 50 years. One of that’s been being involved in this from my time as a young Zionist to now. And one of the things I posited to a congregation, a synagogue a few weeks back was how can we be doing this after all that’s been done to us? And I just feel that we’re in a very dangerous moment worldwide because of all this. Well, let me let you jump in.

Samira Mohyeddin:

Yeah. The images that have been coming out, particularly in the last two weeks, children burned beyond recognition, sinned and charred bodies. We saw that young girl walking through a fiery inferno survival itself as a form of punishment. There’s 24,000 orphans now in Gaza, and it just keeps getting worse. And I’m sorry to have laughed at the start of the program, but when these images came out a couple of days ago of this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and you saw Palestinians lined up in these cages, I mean, it’s just horrendous what we’re seeing. And yet you have these governments, the US government, Canada, uk, Germany, just not acting. It just begs the question, where is the red line? Is there even a red line for Israel?

Marc Steiner:

That’s an important question. One of the things, I had a conversation the other day with some friends from Israel, one of whom lives in Canada, another one family who lives here in the states, old friends who were part of the world of maam, which was the Marx Zionist party back in the day in Israel, and the left in Israel itself has gone. They’re in Germany, they’re in Canada, they’re in the United States, they’re in Mexico, they’re in Argentina, they’re not there. And you’re seeing this kind of really brutal Neofascist government.

Samira Mohyeddin:

Well, they’re under attack. They’re under attack in Israel, right? I mean, they are being brutalized, they’re being imprisoned, they’re being silenced, they’re being censored. So a Netanyahu Smote Rich and Ben Gere talk about Israel being on a fight on eight different fronts. And one of those fronts is the enemy from within. And that enemy for them is anyone who is speaking out, anyone who’s even saying ceasefire is being seen as an enemy.

Marc Steiner:

So I’m just curious, in your analysis, you’ve been doing this for so long and it’s so deep in your consciousness and your work, as I alluded to earlier, what’s happening this moment in Gaza is different than I’ve seen in a long time. And I wonder where you think this is taking us.

Samira Mohyeddin:

I mean, there are a couple of things. I think one of them is that I don’t think people were paying attention when October 7th first happened, and then October 8th and ninth came, this government particularly, I’m speaking about the Netanyahu government, was very clear about what they intended to do, right? They said, we’re going to cut off all food, cut off all water, cut off all electricity, and get rid of the seed of Amalek so that there was this sort of invoking of biblical stories, biblical language. And to kill the seed of Amalek means to kill the women. And children just wipe out the entire group. And that’s what we’re seeing happen.

Norman Finkelstein refers to the mowing of the lawn that Israel says it does once in a while in Gaza. This is the entire burning of the entire fields happening. I was talking to a friend about this. There are no battlefields that you can really speak of in Gaza, the UN report that came out six months ago noted that more than 80% of people killed in Gaza were killed inside their homes. So what does that tell you? That means that people are just being targeted in the middle of the night while they’re sleeping. Entire families have been wiped off the registry. So yeah, you’re very right, mark, when you say that we’ve never seen anything like this. And I just feel like Israel is at a point where Netanyahu and its government, smote, rich, Ben Vere, they know that this is the moment that if they don’t wipe out Gaza now, they’ll never get another chance. And also, this is something else that I keep impressing upon people, and it also gives me a little bit of hope when I think about the history. So this isn’t the first time that Israel has wanted to get rid of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel first invaded Gaza back in 1956.

And in 1976, Israel wanted to remove all Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai and put them on basically reservations. They built all these homes and they wanted to move them in there. So I get a little bit of hope from that knowing that they’ve tried to do it before and it didn’t work. And I’m hoping that it won’t work this time either. But they have made the entire landscape uninhabitable. That’s the difference

Marc Steiner:

They have. I think that we’re seeing, I think to the last, as we started this conversation, I maybe even under not seeing the right number, but I was reading 56,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.

Samira Mohyeddin:

Those are the ones that are confirmed,

Marc Steiner:

Right?

Samira Mohyeddin:

And when I spoke with doctors, I realized what that means. That means that a doctor saw you in a hospital and that you died before their eyes. And so they mark that down. But you and I both know there are tens of thousands of people under the rubble that we actually have seen Israeli bulldozers going in and leveling entire towns. All of Rafa has been leveled. There are people under that rubble,

Marc Steiner:

Which you said earlier when you raise the name Amalek from the Old Testament, the heightened danger here for me is watching fundamentalists in Israel, religious fundamentalists, taking over the country, taking over the argument, taking over the language being used, and the imagery, which says a lot about the destruction of your enemy, whoever they are. That’s why I think this moment is so dangerous.

Samira Mohyeddin:

I mean, mark, just to pick up on what you’re saying, just look at the way the star of David has been used, the way it’s been desecrated, the way it’s been spray painted on people’s homes that have been destroyed and occupied in Gaza. It’s so dangerous for Judaism. Really, this Israeli government has ruined Judaism is causing antisemitism a very real scourge in our society. Not only have they hollowed out the definition of antisemitism, because anyone who’s criticizing Israel now is antisemitic, but they are also desecrating the very iconography of the religion for nefarious purposes.

Marc Steiner:

I agree. I think that when you look at how Judaism is being used at this moment, antisemitism has always been there. It lurks beneath the surface all the time. People have hated Jews forever. And what this does is unleash it. You can see it all across America. You can see it across Europe. You can see it across everywhere. I had this argument the other day where I said, no, I’m not saying that Jews are causing that. We’re causing antisemitism. I’m saying the actions of Israel are unleashing the forces of antisemitism and I that those contradictions are just abound. Let’s take it back home for a moment. I’m going to talk a bit about where you live in Canada,

Samira Mohyeddin:

Toronto. Yeah,

Marc Steiner:

Toronto. And many of our listeners here who don’t live in Canada, have no idea what this whole bubble thing’s about. So tell us exactly what’s happening in Toronto with quashing down any anti-ISIS Israeli protests at the moment.

Samira Mohyeddin:

Yeah, so we just recently, when I say we, I mean the Toronto City Council just passed what’s called a bubble zone bylaw. And in order to explain this to you, I need to take you back to March, 2024. So in March, 2024, there were real estate blitzes throughout North America, including in the us. One of them was in Teaneck, New Jersey. And so inside synagogues, they were selling stolen Palestinian land. These are settlements. So settlement properties were being sold in synagogues. And so inside those synagogues were real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and lawyers ready to sell you homes within illegally occupied.

Marc Steiner:

It happened here in Baltimore,

Samira Mohyeddin:

Palestine. Oh, it did? I didn’t know that. Everywhere.

Marc Steiner:

Everywhere.

Samira Mohyeddin:

Okay. Yeah. So here in Canada, we had one in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and I’m not sure if there was one in Vancouver. But anyways, as a result of this, people went and were protesting outside of that, of those synagogues. And as a result of this, a lot of the pro-Israeli organizations here in Toronto and in Canada, were calling for what they’re calling bubble zone bylaws, which means if you can classify your place as a vulnerable institution, which the city of Toronto has, so places of worship are considered vulnerable institutions, schools, recreational areas like art galleries and blah, blah, blah, these places can be excluded from people protesting in front of them. And so in March of 24, people had these real estate blitzers here in Toronto, people had gone and protested. And in December of 2024, after so much pressure being put on the Toronto City Council, the solicitor, so city solicitor was tasked with coming up for a plan for a bylaw, which would protect these institutions and create these areas. So that’s 3000 places where in Toronto, where you potentially cannot protest any

Marc Steiner:

3000 places, you can’t set up a pig line.

Samira Mohyeddin:

3000 places. Yes. So what ended up happening was that the city started public consultations about this bylaw. Now, they had three public consultations, and the report that came out of those public consultations was that 77% of the public were against this bylaw. They did not want it. However, they still went ahead with a vote in Toronto City Council. So last week they had a vote, 16 of the counselors passed, the bylaw nine were against it. So ultimately it passed. Now, what was interesting in the back and forth on this bylaw was that there were motions that were introduced. So 20 meters, 50 meters, 100 meters. How far away do you have to be from one of these institutions to be able to protest? And so initially the bylaw had said 20 meters, but they passed a motion so that now it’s 50 meters, you have to be 50 meters away from a synagogue or wherever else that something is going on that you want to protest about. And so I made this joke to my friend. I said, if a protest happens in the forest and no one is around to hear it, is that even a protest? The whole point of a protest is to be disruptive.

So this is what we’re seeing. We’re seeing this throughout North America, in particular, old laws being broken, new laws being enacted also that people who want to support Israel during this genocide can do so comfortably.

Marc Steiner:

I mean, people look at Canada in places like Toronto as being politically progressive. So what’s the political dynamic that allows us to happen in Toronto that allows us 16 people to vote for this line to oppose it on the city council? What is a dynamic politically in Canada that’s allowing this to happen?

Samira Mohyeddin:

I have to be honest, the Israeli lobby is very strong here. They put a lot of pressure on our lawmakers to act, and if they don’t, the accusations of antisemitism are sky high. And there is a real fear of being branded as antisemitic. And that’s really what it boils down to, because there is no reason why our lawmakers would sacrifice our charter of rights and freedoms, particularly the freedom of assembly, the freedom of expression, all of these freedoms in order to not allow people to protest in certain areas. Now, I will say for all the hoop law that this bylaw has caught, I was at a protest yesterday.

The former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations was being hosted here in Toronto by a pro-Israel organization inside one of Toronto’s landmarks. This is a public institution. And as you recall, GLA Adon, the former ambassador on his last day, said that he thinks the UN headquarters should be wiped off the face of the earth. So this is a man who was being hosted, and now people did go and protest and they didn’t care if there was a bylaw or no bylaw or so. People are really going to let bylaws be bylaws. I mean, no one’s going to care about this. They’re going to go protest. The only thing that this might do, and by the way, it’s cost taxpayers in this city, $2 million for this

Marc Steiner:

Bylaw. What do you mean cost $2 million?

Samira Mohyeddin:

It’s going to cost $2 million. The new bylaw officers, all the paperwork, all the bureaucracy that’s going to go into enforcing this thing, which is really unenforceable

Because what’s going to happen is it’s going to clog up our courts. People are going to bring so many charter rights infringements against this bylaw constitutional infringements. So it’s an absurd thing, but again, it’s an absurdity that goes to the times that we are living in right now, whereas it’s also a tragedy. There’s a lot of comedy involved in what you and I are seeing right now, mark, because we have the weight of history on our side. We’ve been here before, we’ve seen fascism before, and this is just another manifestation of it. And I really feel like people need to wake up and understand what’s happening around them.

Marc Steiner:

So I’m curious to pick up from the particular point about the growth of neo fascism all around us. We’re seeing in this country, in United States, Trump attacking Harvard and other universities threatening to take away their money, calling them Antisemites, which is just total bs. I mean, Harvard antisemitic. I mean, the percentage of Jewish kids at Harvard and the faculty. Give me a break. Anyway, so that’s happening and it’s also happening in Canada.

Samira Mohyeddin:

Yes.

Marc Steiner:

I’m curious about from your perspective, what is the political power and dynamic that’s pushing that it, it’s not just the Jewish community. I mean, it’s something beyond that. Something is happening here that’s pushing a very powerful Neofascist agenda across the globe.

Samira Mohyeddin:

I mean, it also has to do with money, right? It’s capitalism. Also, the University of Toronto, for instance, where I was a journalism fellow this year at the Women and Gender Studies Institute, you are seeing our professors at the University of Toronto being persecuted also, they’re being brought in to speak to the vice provost, the dean, et cetera, for things for, for social media posts, for literally just saying ceasefire or asking why their institutions aren’t divesting from Israeli genocide, asking why their pensions are going towards arms manufacturers. I mean, these are the basic things that people are being persecuted for, that they’re having their livelihoods put on the line. This is what we’re seeing. It’s not just in the us. I mean, it’s not to the extent that you’re seeing it in the United States, but there’s a lot of professors that are under a lot of threat here throughout Canada.

Marc Steiner:

So what is resistance to that? What’s the political dynamic taking place in Canada, let’s say, since we’re talking about your country at this moment, that resists that and builds a movement to stop it?

Samira Mohyeddin:

I mean, I can tell you one of the things that was a big victory at the University of Toronto is that the Professors Pension Federation Union voted to divest from weapons manufacturers. This was a big two.

Marc Steiner:

This is across Canada?

Samira Mohyeddin:

No, this is the University of Toronto.

Marc Steiner:

Toronto, okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Samira Mohyeddin:

So the University of Toronto did this, and then the week after Toronto Metropolitan University did the same. So you’re seeing this happen, and another big thing that happened was that yesterday the Toronto District School Board finally recognized that anti Palestinian racism is a thing because they had been denying it for years. And there are teachers now who are pushing to have the nakba taught in the school system. Now, there is a lot of pushback on this from pro-Israeli groups here, but they are slowly trying to get this within the curriculum. And I always say, if history, if you are afraid of history or history is not your friend, there’s something going on there. So they are saying that some of the students would feel uncomfortable with teaching about Palestinian history. Who would feel uncomfortable about that?

Marc Steiner:

Right. It’s like saying in Canada, United States, no, we are not going to teach you about what happened to indigenous people in America. It might make you uncomfortable that your ancestors wiped out entire people. Right,

Samira Mohyeddin:

Exactly. I mean, when I went to school here in Canada in the eighties, we never learned about what this government and what this country did to the indigenous population. It’s only in the last, oh, I would say decade or so that students are wearing orange shirts, that there’s the truth and reconciliation that people are learning.

Marc Steiner:

What’s an orange shirt mean?

Samira Mohyeddin:

Oh, sorry. Orange shirt day is for the marking, the indigenous indigenous day here, and what happened to young people that were stolen from their parents and taken to residential schools, and we know what happened inside those schools. So that’s only been happening in the last decade. So that’s really what teachers now here are pushing for, but there is a real pushback on it.

Marc Steiner:

So taking a step back to where we are with Israel Palestine and what’s happening, and we’re watching what’s happening in Gaza, I think that this is a very pivotal moment. It’s a piece I’m working on now that says it’s not since 1948 that the power of this moment, and we are in a very dangerous place. I think you’re seeing antisemitism rise up. You’re seeing Israel just mass murdering Palestinian children and families all across Kaza, more land being taken in what’s called the West Bank and New Israeli and the right winging just taking power there and across the globe. So I’m curious, you are in the midst of this all the time. You speak about this, you fight about it, you’re on the front line, and I’m curious where you think this takes the organizing and fight against both what’s happening in Israel at this moment with Palestinians and the larger question of the rise of this kind of neofascist movement and how you stop it.

Samira Mohyeddin:

One of the things I’ve noticed, and I’m sure you have also, is that within the last two weeks, there seems to be a bit of a shift, particularly in mainstream media. You’re seeing journalists start to do their jobs, which means when an IDF spokesperson comes on the air and says, there are no starving people in Gaza, there are no starving Palestinians. In Gaza, you’re seeing journalists actually say, well, wait a minute. We just saw this 9-year-old die. I saw the bodies. I’ve seen the bones. So there’s a lot of that happening right now. There’s a bit of a turn happening. Everyone is starting to do their jobs, what they’re supposed to do. There are also backtracks from institutions, writers, artists, people who did not feel comfortable speaking out a year ago are starting to speak out now. And I have to say to all those people, bless you. Try and encourage others to do it. I really think that having the courage to speak out right now is contagious. And so come out, come out wherever you are. That to me is the first thing. It’s not too late. Remember, the screenshots are not going to be kind. This stuff wasn’t around during apartheid South Africa. We know who spoke out

Now and who didn’t, and so it’s never too late to do that. The other thing that I’m seeing is that there are some murmurings within even governments like Germany’s saying, maybe our full support for Israel isn’t such a great thing. I mean, Canada, the UK and France put out a statement last week saying they might be moving towards sanctions or an arms embargo if Israel doesn’t curb its military activities. We didn’t see statements like this last year. So there is some movement happening, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough. And I really see Israel’s spiraling right now. I mean, there are a lot of people within Israel right now protesting on the streets too. Let’s not discount these people in Israel who are getting arrested. And I’m speaking about Israelis, Jewish Israelis,

Marc Steiner:

Right? Yes, right.

Samira Mohyeddin:

Who are being arrested. All of these people, they are on the streets and they’re calling it what it is. It’s a genocide. And that takes a lot of guts, and I think we need to encourage those people. Also,

Marc Steiner:

There’s stuff going on inside of Israel now among Jews and others, but among Jews in Israel at this moment who were protesting, it reminds me of what they’re facing, the danger they’re facing physically for saying, no, reminds me a great deal of what I experienced as a civil rights worker in the South. The absolute fear that you’re going to die from standing up to say, we have to end segregation. The same thing is happening, and I think it’s not being reported or talked about enough, which I’m going to try to do much more of, is getting those Jewish voices on from Israel, talking about why they’re standing up, and actually the huge numbers of people who are saying no. That’s really kind of an undercover story. I think.

Samira Mohyeddin:

I agree with you. I think we need to highlight the Jewish voices in particular who go to places like Mata and provide, put their bodies on the line that get in between these settlers, these rab settlers that are completely unhinged and have the support of the army at every turn. They’re putting their bodies on the line. There was actually a woman here in Canada, Anna Lipman, who just returned last week. She was doing what’s called protective presence within the occupied West Bank. She was there for months, has been arrested numerous times by the Israeli army. So I think it’s important to highlight those people also.

Marc Steiner:

So just as we wrap up, I’m going to come back to Canada here at the Bubble Law and talk a bit more about, so we can conclude with that, where this is going, who’s standing up to it, and where do you think what effect this is going to have?

Samira Mohyeddin:

The thing is that Toronto was one of the last areas to invoke this bubble legislation. So there was a suburb called Vaughn, which had it first. Then we have another sort of area called Brampton, which had it also, what was really interesting during the debates around this bubble legislation was that the counselors, the city counselors that were for it, were making comparisons to abortion clinics. So Canada had enacted bubble legislation for women’s reproductive health clinics so that women who were going in to have abortions wouldn’t need to look at fetuses torn up and all that stuff. And doctors who were performing these surgeries wouldn’t have people surround their homes and all this stuff. And so I think it’s a very churlish comparison because one act is against domestic and international law, the sale of occupied Palestinian lands. The other is about women’s reproductive health. But they sort of jumped on this and said, we’ve had bubble legislation before.

We need to have it for this. Now, there was a one particular counselor, her name was Diana Sacks, who was the only one that spoke the truth. Because what is really interesting about this mark is that no one ever talks about the root causes of why we even had this legislation come about. We had this legislation come about because people were selling stolen Palestinian land inside synagogues. People weren’t ever protesting in front of synagogues willy-nilly. There was no reason to. But when you make your synagogue into a place of crime, well then people are going to protest in front of it. So that is the real problem that I have, that the root causes are never talked about. But I really firmly believe that this bylaw is not going to stop anyone from protesting. It really won’t.

Marc Steiner:

So you’ll be out there.

Samira Mohyeddin:

I’ll be out there covering it. I mean, this was the 85th protest held in Toronto since October 8th.

Marc Steiner:

Around is Israel Palestine, you mean around boron? Gaza,

Samira Mohyeddin:

Yes. Toronto has had more protests than any other city in the whole of North America.

Marc Steiner:

Interesting.

Samira Mohyeddin:

And it really is, in a lot of ways, I think people need to pay more attention to this city. It is ground zero for what is going on in Israel Palestine.

Marc Steiner:

So what we’re going to do is pay more attention to you. So we can talk more about this since it’s ground zero and you’re in ground zero, so there’s so much more to talk about. But we’re going to link to your broadcast where you really, so people can hear what you have to say and what you’re saying. It’s called From the Desk, Samira Mohyeddin. It’s just an amazing, great program, very animated, very deep. You’ll enjoy it. And Samira, I want to thank you once again for joining us. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you despite the heaviness of what we have to face in our conversations. So we’ll keep up the fight and we’ll stay in touch.

Samira Mohyeddin:

Thank you so much, mark. It’s really great speaking with you all. Take care.

Marc Steiner:

And once again, I want to thank Samira Mohyeddin for joining us today. And we’ll be linking to her work so you can see it for yourself. It’s really intense and deeply intellectual and dives deep into subjects. Be a well worth a watch for you. And we’re going to bring you more updates from Samira, and we’re going to be talking to her again, as we said during the end of our conversation. And thanks to David Hebdon for running the program today, and Alina Nek for working her magic and editing and the titleless killer of our for making it all work behind the scenes. And everyone here at Real News for making this show possible. Please let me know what you thought about, what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you to our guests, mayor. So for the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved. Keep listening, and take care.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Marc Steiner.

The New York Times (5/28/25) gave the last word to a Trump official who framed trans participation in high school sports as “violating women’s civil rights.”

California public schools are the latest target of Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, which is ramping up an investigation into high school sports after a transgender girl qualified for three track and field events at the upcoming state championships.

The DoJ is alleging that the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports could violate Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex.

The New York Times (5/28/25) covered this latest right-wing attack on trans youth in a fashion all too common for the paper (FAIR.org, 5/11/23): devoid of any perspectives from trans individuals.

The article, by Soumya Karlamangla, quoted four government officials who are against the participation of trans girls in girls sports. After quoting Trump demanding that “local authorities” bar the trans athlete’s participation, the paper turned to Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who said in a statement, “It is perverse to allow males to compete against girls, invade their private spaces, and take their trophies.” The Times left this claim unchallenged, despite its inflammatory and misgendering language.

It quoted Gov. Gavin Newsom, speaking on his podcast (3/6/25) to far-right influencer Charlie Kirk, calling trans athletes’ participation in female sports “deeply unfair.” And it quoted Bill Essayli, US attorney for the Central District of California, asserting in a statement that “discrimination on the basis of sex is illegal and immoral”—by which he means that including trans female athletes discriminates against other women, and seeks to deny that discrimination against trans athletes is sex discrimination.

The Times made no effort to evaluate Essayli’s claim—for instance, by noting that courts have interpreted Title IX preventing discrimination “on the basis of sex” to also protect trans students.

Against these four anti–trans rights sources, the piece cited only one statement from a coalition of LGBTQ advocates, which pointed out that sports organizations were following “inclusive, evidence-based policies that ensure fairness for all athletes, regardless of their gender identity.” The coalition argued: “Undermining that now for political gain is a transparent attempt to scapegoat a child and distract from real national challenges Americans are facing.”

Physical and mental health benefits

“I’m still a child, you’re an adult, and for you to act like a child shows how you are as a person,” said AB Hernandez, the 16-year-old transgender athlete, referring to the people who “spent hours heckling and harassing Hernandez as she competed” (Defector, 5/28/25).

Including the voices of trans athletes and their families, or of more rights advocates, might have introduced readers to some of the many arguments and evidence that exist in support of allowing trans athletes to compete in alignment with their identities.

Gender nonconforming people are already at heightened risk for suicide, according to a 2020 study. Eighty-six percent of trans youth have considered killing themselves. School belonging, emotional neglect by family, and internalized self-stigma made statistically significant contributions to recent suicidality in this population. Furthermore, a study in the journal Nature (9/26/24) found that state-level anti-transgender laws increased suicide attempts by transgender and nonbinary youth.

Meanwhile, playing school sports confers physical and mental health benefits that should not be denied to trans children. The Human Rights Campaign’s analysis of the 2023 LGBTQ+ Youth survey, by HRC and the University of Connecticut, found that

high school-aged transgender and non-binary student athletes reported higher grades, lower levels of depression, and were less likely to feel unsafe at school than those who did not play sports.

Not biological men 

Ohio Capital Journal (6/3/22) noted that a proposed state ban on trans athletes was accompanied by intrusive verification requirements: “If someone is suspected to be transgender, she must go through evaluations of her external and internal genitalia, testosterone levels and genetic makeup.”

The idea that cisgender boys will “pretend” to be trans in order to participate in girls’ sports is preposterous. Not to mention, natural variations, both physical and otherwise, are common in all sports—especially in schools where children are growing rapidly at different paces (HRC). It’s a combination of factors—not just one—that determine athleticism.

In 2024, the Times (4/23/24) reported on a study by the International Olympic Committee that found that while trans women displayed an advantage in handgrip strength over their cisgender counterparts, they are actually weaker in other areas, like jumping ability, cardiovascular fitness and lung function. The main point of the study was that, when it comes to athletics, trans women are not biological men. 

Bans on transgender athletes participating in girls’ sports also put cisgender girls at risk. For example, in 2022, House Republicans in Ohio passed a bill banning trans girls from girls’ sports. It includes genital inspection for any girl who is “accused” of being trans (Ohio Capital Journal, 6/3/22). Cisgender athletes are frequently accused of being trans by transphobes claiming to “protect” women (FAIR.org, 8/21/09; Extra!, 10/12).

During the 2024 summer Olympics, Algerian boxing champion Imane Khelif, who is a cisgender woman, was accused of being male. Now World Boxing has announced all athletes must undergo mandatory genetic testing to determine their sex (CNN, 5/30/25).

The Times’ framing, which allowed adult politicians and attorneys to smear already vulnerable trans children as predatory, “perverse” and invasive, without any perspectives from actual transgender people, let alone any proper legal arguments in their favor, fell short of even “both-sidesing” the issue.

As journalist and activist Erin Reed said recently on CounterSpin (5/23/25):

“Both sides” coverage and “the truth is in the middle” coverage and “giving both sides a chance to make their point”—that would be an improvement over what we have right now…. This is not even “both sides” reporting. It’s not even “the truth is in the middle” reporting. These papers have taken a position on this, and it’s a position that’s not supported by the science.

FEATURED IMAGE: AB Hernandez, the 16-year-old Californian at the center of a debate about trans youth participation in sports (Capital & Main, 5/15/25).

ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com or via Bluesky: @NYTimes.com. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread here.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Olivia Riggio.

A court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to prevent Harvard University from enrolling international students. The move would cause over a quarter of Harvard’s student body to lose visas that allow them to study in the United States. One of the students affected is Francesco Anselmetti, a member of the graduate student union, who emphasizes that visa revocations would affect graduate researchers and teaching staff, constituting “one of the largest threats of vast deportation on a unionized workforce in American history.” It is the latest attack by the Trump administration against universities that receive federal funding.

When announcing the revocation order, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of “antisemitism” and “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party,” but Harvard professor Alison Frank Johnson warns that the prestigious university is only a test case for Trump’s wider crackdown on knowledge production and academic freedom. “Harvard is not really the target here. It’s the independent scholarship that’s being produced by universities.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

A West Papua independence leader says escalating violence is forcing indigenous Papuans to flee their ancestral lands.

It comes as the Indonesian military claims 18 members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) were killed in an hour-long operation in Intan Jaya on May 14.

In a statement, reported by Kompas, Indonesia’s military claimed its presence was “not to intimidate the people” but to protect them from violence.

• READ MORE: Fiji rights coalition slams ‘betrayal’ of West Papua for Indonesian benefits
• Other West Papua reports

“We will not allow the people of Papua to live in fear in their own land,” it said.

Indonesia’s military said it seized firearms, ammunition, bows and arrows. They also took Morning Star flags — used as a symbol for West Papuan independence — and communication equipment.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda, who lives in exile in the United Kingdom, told RNZ Pacific that seven villages in Ilaga, Puncak Regency in Central Papua were now being attacked.

“The current military escalation in West Papua has now been building for months. Initially targeting Intan Jaya, the Indonesian military have since broadened their attacks into other highlands regencies, including Puncak,” he said.

Women, children forced to leave
Wenda said women and children were being forced to leave their villages because of escalating conflict, often from drone attacks or airstrikes.

Earlier this month, ULMWP claimed one civilian and another was seriously injured after being shot at from a helicopter.

Last week, ULMWP shared a video of a group of indigenous Papuans walking through mountains holding an Indonesian flag, which Wenda said was a symbol of surrender.

“They look at us as primitive and they look at us as subhuman,” Wenda said.

He said the increased military presence was driven by resources.

President Prabowo Subianto’s administration has a goal to be able to feed Indonesia’s population without imports as early as 2028.

Video rejects Indnesian plan
A video statement from tribes in Mappi regency in South Papua from about a month ago, translated to English, said they rejected Indonesia’s food project and asked companies to leave.

In the video, about a dozen Papuans stood while one said the clans in the region had existed on customary land for generations and that companies had surveyed land without consent.

“We firmly ask the local government, the regent, Mappi Regency to immediately review the permits and revoke the company’s permits,” the speaker said.

Wenda said the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) had also grown.

But he said many of the TPNPB were using bow and arrows against modern weapons.

“I call them home guard because there’s nowhere to go.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Keeping his unenviable track record of sharing false information on the first day, first show intact, Chaudhary showed old, unrelated videos as footage of India’s air defence system destroying Pakistani jets, in his debut show for DD News on May 15, 2025. In his earlier avatar, as the host of the Aaj Tak programme ‘Black & White’, Chaudhary had misattributed a quote to Mark Twain in the very first episode aired on July 19, 2022.

In March this year, the Indian Express reported that Prasar Bharati had inked a Rs 15-crore annual deal with Chaudhary to host a one-hour segment on Doordarshan on weekdays starting mid-May. A teaser for the show, titled ‘Decode’, shared by DD News on X shows Chaudhary saying that the truth is often kept under lock and key; he would decode it for viewers.

Sudhir Chaudhary brings in-depth news analysis to #DDNews — DECODE

Coming SOON@sudhirchaudhary pic.twitter.com/zVwZQpqtB6

— DD News (@DDNewslive) May 13, 2025

Chaudhary’s show ‘Decode’ premiered on the state-run Hindi news channel at 9 pm on May 15.

pic.twitter.com/zucNsvyu4t

— Sudhir Chaudhary (@sudhirchaudhary) May 15, 2025

The first episode of ‘Decode’ focused on the India-Pakistan conflict. At the 15.25-minute mark in the show, Chaudhary showed some footage of missiles hitting targets on ground while observing that the three arms of the Indian armed forces, the Army, the Air Force and the Indian Navy, had already cornered Pakistan. Readers can watch the relevant part here:

Here is a screengrab from the moment:

The footage shows in this segment has no connection with the recent India-Pakistan conflict. Several social media users had shared the same video on May 7 with false claims. In a fact check published on the same day, Alt News explained that the footage was of Iranian missiles targeting the Nevatim airbase in Israel’s Negev desert in early October, 2024. In fact, the same video is available on the YouTube channel of DD India. It was uploaded on October 2, 2024. The caption says, “Iranian missiles targeting the Nevatim airbase in the Negev Desert.”

To sum up, Sudhir Chaudhary, on his first show on DD News, showed a video claiming it was from the India-Pakistan conflict. The same video is available on DD India’s YouTube channel since October 2024 as an Iranian attack on Israel. 

That’s not all.

Again, around the 26:48-minute mark of the show, Chaudhary said, “जब पाकिस्तान ने भारत के अलग-अलग शहरों पर और एयरबेसेज पर हमला किया, तब ये हमले एयर डिफेंस सिस्टम की मदद से हमने नाकाम कर दिए. इनमें दो एयर डिफेंस सिस्टम्स हमने रशिया से खरीदे थे और एक एयर डिफेंस सिस्टम मेड इन इंडिया है, और उसका नाम है आकाशतीर…” (When Pakistan attacked various Indian cities and airbases, we thwarted those attacks with the help of our air defence systems. Two of these air defence systems were bought from Russia while one, called Akashteer, was made in India.) Through the 20-second duration where he said this, visuals of an aerial combat against the night sky played on screen. Watch here:

This clip, too, has no connection with the India-Pakistan conflict.

At the height of the conflict, the same clip was aired by several channels, including, Aaj Tak, NDTV, Times Now, News18, Times Now Navbharat, ABP News, One India, News Nation, and India TV, as visuals of an aerial fight over Jaisalmer, in which Indian air defence systems foiled an attack by Pakistan.

In a Hindi fact-check report published on May 9 (published in English on May 12), a week before Chaudhary’s show, Alt News explained that the footage had no connection to the India-Pakistan conflict. The viral video has been on the internet since at least 2021. It was uploaded by NSFchannel on YouTube on May 11, 2021, with a caption saying that it showed Israel’s air defense system, the Iron Dome, in action.

Interestingly, viewers who watch the first episode of ‘Decode’ (dated May 15) on YouTube now will not find the above section. After careful viewing, it becomes clear that the problematic part has been removed. Chaudhary’s lines in that bit sound like this now: “जैसे-जैसे समय बढ़ रहा है, इस युद्ध की नई-नई डिटेल्स सामने आ रहा है… मेड इन इंडिया है, और इसका नाम है आकाशतीर” (As time goes on, more details about the conflict emerge. Is made in India and is called Akashteer). It is evident that the part before ‘मेड इन इंडिया’ has been clipped out.

Watch from the 26:40-minute mark here:

Clipping the video, however, did not close the chapter. As luck would have it, a follower of Chaudhary who wanted to express her pleasure at him joining her ‘favourite’ channel, posted a recording of ‘Decode’ playing on her television on X. This recording showed exactly the part that has now been removed—the three-year-old, unrelated visual from Israel linked to the India-Pakistan conflict. “… We missed the credible news during war,” she wrote.

#Decode Sudhir sir, thanks for coming back and that too on my old favourite DD news,

Kindly help on to remove continuous ‘beep beep sound’, this is very annoying, just a suggestion though.

Welcome back i love your shows so much and we missed the credible news during war. pic.twitter.com/7kdKCDHhoa

— Shoi Chakraborty (@ShoiChakraborty) May 15, 2025

Chaudhury shared her post and thanked her for watching his show.

‘A Lie can Travel Halfway Around the World while the Truth is Still Putting on its Shoes’

Sudhir Chaudhary joined the India Today group’s Hindi channel Aaj Tak as consulting editor in July 2022, after stepping down as the CEO of Zee Media.

On July 19, ‘Black & White’ premiered on Aaj Tak with Chaudhary as the host. In the first episode, while referring to a rumour that was circulated regarding the Indian Army’s Agnipath scheme, Chaudhary claimed that American author Mark Twain said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

Alt News had shown in a fact-check report that the quote is often wrongly attributed to Mark Twain. A 2017 New York Times article outlined how the misquotation likely began. “Commonly attributed to Mark Twain, that quotation instead appears to be a descendant of a line published centuries ago by the satirist Jonathan Swift. Variants emerged and mutated over time…,” the NYT article said.

The X (then Twitter) handle of BBC TV show QI, too, pointed out in 2019 that the line had been incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and Thomas Jefferson.

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” has been falsely attributed to Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and Thomas Jefferson. It’s most likely a twist on a Jonathan Swift line: “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.”

— Quite Interesting (@qikipedia) September 19, 2019

Decoding Sudhir Chaudhary’s Journalism: Problems Aplenty

Over the years, Alt News has fact-checked misreports by Sudhir Chaudhary several times. In June 2019, on his show Daily News and Analysis (DNA), Chaudhary misreported that Trinamool leader Mahua Moitra had plagiarized her maiden Parliament speech in which she spoke about 12 early warning signs of fascism.

In September 2018, Chaudhary broadcast a bulletin on DNA regarding the Kathua case. It was titled, “देखें, गैंगरेप पीड़ित के नाम पर लाखों का चंदा जमा करने का खेल| (Watch, the game of collecting Lakhs of funds in the name of a gang-rape victim).” On his show, he declared that “In the name of helping the parents of the child, lakhs were collected from across the nation. However, the family received no help.” The report was entirely false. Readers can access Alt News’s detailed fact-check report here.

Again, in May 2020, an FIR was filed against Chaudhary over controversial remarks made by him on DNA. On the March 11 episode of the show, he indulged in a five-minute discourse on “different types of jihad”. “Today we have a diagram about jihad which I want read out to you so that you can understand what the conspiracy is,” Chaudhary said and then went on to describe ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Jihad in detail. With the help of the diagram, he explained terms such as ‘History Jihad’, ‘Media Jihad’, ‘Love Jihad’, ‘Movie Jihad’, ‘Population Jihad’, ‘Land Jihad’, etc. An Alt News report showed that the channel had plagiarized the chart from a dodgy Facebook page.

In September 2021, then Zee News editor-in-chief Sudhir Chaudhary shared a 12-second video of farmer leader Rakesh Tikait on X and wrote, “Rakesh Tikait’s next target are media houses. Zee News showed the truth, so does that mean he can threaten us? Or else what?” An Alt News fact check proved that a small portion of a statement by Tikait was shared out of context with the false claim that he threatened the media. In reality, he had said that the government’s next target was the media.

In February this year, the News Broadcasters & Digital Association (NBDSA) asked Aaj Tak to remove an entire episode of its prime-time show ‘Black & White’ aired on April 19, 2023, anchored by Chaudhary, which it found, had violated the dignity of the LGBTQIA+ community by failing to maintain neutrality, impartiality, and adherence to guidelines on the prevention of hate speech. In what one might consider an act of dog-whistling against same-sex couples, Chaudhary asked his viewers to imagine their son marrying a man or their daughter marrying a woman, emphasizing the shock such a situation might cause. Sudhir Chaudhary described a same-sex marriage as a “big shock” (bada jhatka) and questioned how traditional wedding rituals in Hindu, Muslim, and Christian marriages would apply to such unions.

At one point in the show, the air of homophobia and stereotyping hit an unprecedented high (or low) when the screen displayed an image of a person half dressed as a man and the half as a woman. With a smirk on his face, Chaudhary quipped, “In this image, you would be able to see both your son-in-law and daughter-in-law”.

This was not the first time the Chaudhary was ticked off by NBDSA. In March 2024, the broadcast watchdog imposed a fine of Rs 75,000 on Aaj Tak for violating principles of objectivity and neutrality in a broadcast criticising a statement by former US President Barack Obama. Reporting on certain remarks by Barack Obama, Chaudhary, on his show Black & White, used phrases such as “tukde tukde gang”, “Khalistani” and “Pakistani supporters”. “There would have been no issue with the impugned had the anchor confined its analysis only to reporting the statement made by Mr Obama or criticising it. However, in the impugned broadcast, while doing so the anchor went totally stringent and overboard by bringing in a totally unconnected narrative,” the NBDSA order said, slamming Chaudhary.

The post On first day, first show for DD, Sudhir Chaudhary runs old, unrelated videos as Indian air defence foiling Pak attacks appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Indradeep Bhattacharyya.

The post Survey Documents “Alarming Tolerance” for Politicians’ Attacks on the Press appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

A damning new report reveals how Israel is systematically making Gaza unlivable. The independent news outlet +972 Magazine has spoken to Israeli soldiers who describe how they have been using bulldozers and explosives to intentionally flatten Gaza.

In the southern city of Rafah, 73% of buildings are completely destroyed, with only about 4% of the infrastructure remaining undamaged. “The real aim is to make it impossible for the Palestinians to return to these areas,” says Meron Rapoport, co-author of the +972 Magazine report.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

No one from the BJP camp or the Union government, including external affairs minister S Jaishankar, has so far publicly condemned the targeted attacks.

Since the launch of Operation Sindoor on May 7, Misri, a 1989-batch officer of the Indian foreign service, addressed four press conferences, some singularly, and some jointly with armed force officials. It is through these briefings that a nation on tenterhooks kept itself abreast of the latest updates about the escalating conflict. What stood out during these sessions were the composure and confidence with which he articulated India’s position on various military, diplomatic and strategic matters.

Misri’s diplomatic acumen and clarity of thought were on display when in the May 7 press briefing, for example, he used the words ‘measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible’, describing the nature of Operation Sindoor. Again, in the May 10 presser, he decimated Pakistan’s efforts to discredit the Indian government by noting that it might be a surprise to a Pakistani to see citizens criticising their own government. “That is the hallmark of an open and functioning democracy. Pakistan’s unfamiliarity with that should be unsurprising,” he observed, with a hint of a smile on his face.

One understands that such dignified professionalism in the face of adversities comes from experiences gathered during a long and distinguished career. Misri, who took charge as foreign secretary on July 15, 2024, had his early postings on the Pakistan desk of the Union ministry of external affairs and stints on the staff of two former foreign ministers, I K Gujral and Pranab Mukherjee. He has served as private secretary to three Prime Ministers, I K Gujral, Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi. His international assignments include postings in Brussels, Tunis, Islamabad and Washington D.C. He was the deputy high commissioner in Sri Lanka, consul general in Munich, ambassador to Spain, Myanmar and China. From January 2022 to June 2024, he served as deputy in the NSA for strategic affairs before becoming India’s 35th foreign secretary.

One also understands that such distinctions matter little to the Right-wing trolls. The aplomb and equanimity maintained throughout by Misri did not, perhaps, impress the zealots whose hyper-nationalism often finds expression in memes with leaders breathing fire from laser eyes. And then, on May 10, Misri appeared in a press briefing to announce that India and Pakistan had agreed to stop all firing and military action. This is when the gloves came off and they decided to target Misri, as the timeline analysis later in this article will show.

What’s more horrifying, though perhaps predictable, was that the trolls targeted and doxxed his daughter, Didon, a lawyer based in the UK, for her humanitarian work for Rohingya Muslims and her occasional involvement with The Wire as a columnist. Her contact information was leaked online, and the Misris were labeled as gaddars or traitors.

The trolling and the targeted harassment got so toxic that the foreign secretary had to lock his X handle, restricting public view.

Tracing the Timeline of the Harassment

Alt News traced the online harassment of Didon to two primary accounts, one of which has since been withheld. X user @JayRNair was the first to dox her, back in December 2024, after Misri stated that India did not endorse former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s criticism of the interim government in Bangladesh. The user shared a screenshot of the news report of the statement alongside Didon’s history of humanitarian work. The user also shared a screenshot of Didon’s profile on her company website that clearly showed her phone number. ‘What is most shocking is when you realize what his daughter does. She gave legal assistance to Rohingyas, now in London’, read the tweet.

This account has now been disabled.

The aforementioned tweet was reshared a few times since the launch of Operation Sindoor on May 7. There was one quote-tweet on May 8 and one more on May 9. However, we noticed that the tweet started getting more traction on the intervening night of May 10 and 11.

How did this happen? The second account that has consistently targeted Didon Misri is a user name Indian Kissinger (@kissingerspeaks). We also found two tweets from January and April 2025 that targeted Didon through subtle dog whistles.

The same user started viciously trolling the foreign secretary and his family after the ceasefire announcement was made. One of the earliest tweets targeting Didon Misri in the present context was shared on May 10 at 11:18 pm, which garnered half a million views. “Vikram Misri has to be made the next Sujatha Singh. No wonder his daughter supports Rohingya’s! Shameless Man and Family”, wrote the user.

This user also quote-tweeted user @JayRNair’s tweet doxxing Didon Misri in the comments, which is when more and more people started to interact with it. We noticed a significant increase in quote-tweets of the doxxing tweet within minutes of user @kissingerspeaks’ dog whistle.

Despite @JayRNair’s X handle being blocked, we were able to ascertain the URL of the tweet in which Vikram Misri’s daughter was doxxed. The ‘URL:’ syntax is a way of viewing all of the X users who quote-tweeted the withheld tweet while it was still live. The tweet ID, which is a unique numeric identifier of a certain tweet, often found at the end of the URL of a tweet, is fed into the syntax. We used Twitter’s advanced filters, ‘since:’ and ‘until:’, to set a time frame which makes it easier to track the activity. We used epoch time to set the exact time and date. Therefore, we analysed quote tweets posted between Wednesday, May 7, 2025, at 12:00 am (Epoch time: 1746556200) and Sunday, May 11, 2025, at 6:00 pm (Epoch time: 1746923400).

One quote-tweet read, “His daughter doesn’t care about this country but he comes out every now and then to inform us about ongoing affairs. India is f****d bcoz of these babus who can’t handle their families but try to convince entire nation. F*** u.”

What followed was a night of incessant trolling and harassment, especially targeted at Didon. While some people shared a picture of Misri’s family and labelled them traitors, some dug out a 2016 article that Didon had authored for The Wire, leaving many in the far-Right echo chamber displeased.

One influential far-Right X handle that also dog-whistled against Didon Misri was Squint Neon, run by Chandan Kumar. In a now-deleted tweet, Chandan shared the link to The Wire article authored by Didon, which was enough for his army of followers to rush in while spewing hate.

Since the tweet has been deleted, it’s difficult to determine exactly when Chandan Kumar posted it. However, based on the timestamps of the quote tweets, it can be estimated that it was live by at least 12:52 am on May 11, if not earlier. We observed that the first quote tweet appeared at that time, followed by several others within minutes. We are also estimating that the tweet was deleted sometime just before 10 am on the morning of May 11.

Alt News has consistently flagged Chandan Kumar’s online activities and the problematic content that he shares as ‘Squint Neon’ and ‘Hindutva Knight’, which has repeatedly violated social media guidelines. After the admin came under police scrutiny, nearly 19,000 tweets were deleted from @TheSquind’s account. Originally created as a parody of The Quint in 2017, Squint Neon has been suspended multiple times but continues to resurface with new usernames, including @squintneon and @squintnayan, and now @thesquind, where it remains popular among the far-Right ecosystem.

In November last year, Kumar came under scrutiny after he doxxed journalist Rana Ayyub. Her number was made public by Kumar in a tweet at 1:15 am on November 8, following which she was bombarded with phone calls, video calls and lewd messages throughout the rest of the night. Previously, Kumar had come under fire for morphing an obscene image over that of a Thanthai Periyar statue. Alt News also uncovered, in an elaborate report, a deeply disturbing vigilantism that Kumar engages in wherein he ‘exposes’ Hindu women, including minors, who are involved with Muslim men. Chandan Kumar has previously been on the radar of law enforcement authorities, but has evaded arrest.

No Condemnation yet from the BJP Camp

No one from the BJP or the Union government, including external affairs minister S Jaishankar, has so far publicly condemned the targeted attacks against foreign secretary.

Opposition leaders like Assaduddin Owaisi from the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen took to X to publicly back Misri. “…Our Civil Servants work under the Executive this must be remembered & they shouldn’t be blamed for the decisions taken by The Executive /or any Political leadership…”, he wrote.

Mr Vikram Misri is a decent and an Honest Hard working Diplomat working tirelessly for our Nation.
Our Civil Servants work under the Executive this must be remembered & they shouldn’t be blamed for the decisions taken by The Executive /or any Political leadership running Watan E… https://t.co/yfM3ygfiyt

— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) May 11, 2025

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav also tweeted his support for Vikram Misri, calling for an investigation into those who had trolled Misri.

निर्णय तो सरकार का होता है; किसी अधिकारी का नहीं।

ये बेहद संवेदनशील, निंदनीय, शर्मनाक, आपत्तिजनक और दुर्भाग्यपूर्ण बात है कि देश के एक बहुत बड़े अधिकारी और उसके परिवार के ख़िलाफ़ कुछ असामाजिक-आपराधिक तत्व सरेआम अपशब्दों की सारी सीमाएं तोड़ रहे हैं लेकिन उनके मान-सम्मान की रक्षा… pic.twitter.com/scIUETtX1e

— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) May 11, 2025

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha leader John Brittas wrote to Union home minister Amit Shah calling for an urgent intervention against the malicious attacks against Misri and his family.

Requested the Hon’ble Home Minister to investigate the malicious and coordinated cyber attacks targeting the Foreign Secretary @VikramMisri and his family in the aftermath of the Indo-Pak ceasefire. pic.twitter.com/guG0IpRVQs

— John Brittas (@JohnBrittas) May 12, 2025

The National Commission for Women has also condemned the targeted harassment that Vikram Misri and Didon Misri had to undergo. In a statement issued by NCW Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar, the panel denounced the sharing of the young woman’s personal contact details, calling it a “grossly irresponsible act” and a “serious breach of privacy” that endangers her safety. Former diplomat Nirupama Menon Rao also tweeted her condemnation of the harassment.

It’s utterly shameful to troll Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and his family over the India-Pakistan ceasefire announcement. A dedicated diplomat, Misri has served India with professionalism and resolve, and there is no ground whatsoever for his vilification . Doxxing his…

— Nirupama Menon Rao (@NMenonRao) May 11, 2025

Various IAS, IPS officers’ associations, too, have criticized the attacks on Misri and his family, describing them as ‘deplorable personal attacks’ and ‘unwarranted assaults on civil servants committed to their duties…”

The post Ceasefire announcement triggered attacks on foreign secretary Vikram Misri, daughter, shows timeline analysis appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

Israel’s military has admitted attacking the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing Palestinian journalist Hassan Eslaih and another person while claiming it was a “targeted attack”.

Gaza’s Government Media Office confirmed the killing of Eslaih yesterday and described it as an “assassination”.

The Gaza Health Ministry condemned the “heinous” attack on Nasser hospital.

• READ MORE: Famine will impact on ‘entire generation’ of Palestinians in Gaza, says UN
• Otago academics plan declaration on Palestine to ‘face daily horrors’
• Israeli attacks on Gaza killed at least 46 in last 24 hours

Esaih who receiving treatment at the hospital’s burn unit for severe injuries sustained during an April 7 Israeli strike on a media tent located next to the hospital.

He had survived that attack, but suffered severe injuries, including burns, and lost two fingers.

Esaih was the director of the Alam24 News Agency and a freelancer who contributed to international news organisations, including photos of the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, reports Al Jazeera.

Israel claims Eslaih was a Hamas fighter who participated in the October 7 attack, an allegation he vehemently denied.

‘False claims’ about journalists
At the time, he told Mondoweiss, a US-based news outlet, that Israel was “trying to obliterate the image of Palestinian journalists with these false claims that they belong to Hamas and other factions”.

He added that he did not belong to any party in Gaza.

Latest Israeli killing takes death toll among Gaza journalists to 215

The Government Media Office in Gaza said the killing of Eslaih took the death toll of Gaza journalists to 2015. It condemned “in the strongest terms the systematic targeting, killing and assassination of Palestinian journalists” by Israeli forces.

It said that Eslaih was “assassinated” while receiving treatment at the Nasser Medical Complex.

“We hold the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and the countries participating in the crime of genocide — such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France — fully responsible for committing this heinous, brutal crime,” it added.

According to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 178 journalists and media workers have been killed in Palestine, Israel, and Lebanon since the war began. Media freedom watchdogs in Europe and the US have often under counted the journalist death toll.

Israel’s military claimed in a post on Telegram that the strike targeted a Hamas “command and control complex” at the hospital — the largest in southern Gaza — without providing further evidence.

Repeated targeting of hospitals
The Health Ministry said the Israeli attack targeted the surgical building at Nasser Medical complex, killing at least two people and wounding patients and medical staff.

“The repeated targeting of hospitals and the pursuit and killing of wounded patients inside treatment rooms confirms the occupation forces’ deliberate intent to inflict greater damage to the health care system and threaten the treatment of the wounded and sick, even on hospital beds,” it added.

According to officials in Gaza, Israel has bombed and burned at least 35 hospitals across the Strip.

This is despite the fact that attacks on health facilities, medical personnel and patients are considered a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Convention.

Here are some of the worst attacks:

• Al-Ahli Hospital: Hundreds of people sheltering in the car park of al-Ahli Hospital were killed in an explosion in October 2023. In the days leading up to the incident, the hospital director reportedly received warnings from Israel.
• Al-Awda Hospital: An Israeli air raid in November 2023 killed Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Dr Ahmad al-Sahar of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and another doctor, Ziad al-Tatari. Israeli forces raided the hospital the following month and detained Dr Adnan Al Bursh, who died in Israeli custody later.
• Al-Shifa Medical Complex: Israeli forces raided the hospital in November 2023, killing at least 25 Palestinians, including three medical workers, and leaving it non-functional. They stormed the hospital a second time in March of last year, killing at least 22 people. After they withdrew, three mass graves were found and at least 80 corpses were retrieved.
• Kamal Adwan Hospital: The Israeli military arrested Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, in December of last year after he refused to follow orders to abandon one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza. His arrest came a day after the military killed approximately 20 Palestinians and detained about 240 in a raid inside the hospital, which was one of the “largest operations” conducted in the territory until that time.

Israeli claim rejected
Hamas has rejected the Israeli prime minister’s claim that military pressure helped secure the release of a captured US-Israeli soldier, 21-year-old Edan Alexander, from Gaza.

“The return of Edan Alexander is the result of serious communications with the US administration and the efforts of mediators, not a consequence of Israeli aggression or the illusion of military pressure,” Hamas said in a statement.

The group added that Netanyahu was “misleading his people”, Al Jazeera reports. Hamas said earlier it was a goodwill gesture to US President Donald Trump on the eve of his Middle East visit.

Officers call for war’s end
Meanwhile, a group of former Israeli military commanders have urged Trump to end Israel’s war on Gaza.

The group representing more than 550 former senior officers in the Israeli military and intelligence agencies has written to Trump, asking him to use his visit to the Middle East, which began today, to “bring all our hostages back” and “end the war” in Gaza.

The Commanders for Israel Security also urged the US leader to “end the death and suffering of innocents, launch a Hamas-free ‘morning after’ for the Strip, and pave the way for a regional security coalition that includes Israel”.

By all accounts, “our approach to you represents the view of the vast majority of Israelis”, the group wrote.

The letter also said the war in Gaza “no longer serves Israel’s national objectives”, and that to most Israelis, Israel’s “justified objectives” to “end Hamas brutality” after October 7 “have long been achieved”.

The letter added, “If continued, the war, as well as the aggressive annexation policy on the West Bank, challenges regional stability. Most important, as you have correctly noted, it risks the lives of our hostages.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Janine Jackson interviewed CODEPINK’s Danaka Katovich about attacks on activists for the May 2, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin

Janine Jackson: It is misleading to portray public protest simply in photos of people being dragged off the street by law enforcement, because protest and dissent take many forms, some less visible than others. Still, the people in those photos have meaning for us, about being vocal and visible in frightening times. If standing up and speaking out loud in oppressive times were easy, well, there’d be less oppressive times, wouldn’t there? Whatever one’s imaginings about what they woulda, coulda done, the reality is that it is not a walk in the park to protest in person, knowing that you may face a lethally armed officer, tasked with grabbing you and throwing you in a cell, with the weight of the state behind them.

The state also has many forms of attacks on protesters and protest, and those are not always so visible, either. All of that is in play right now, and here to talk about it is Danaka Katovich, national co-director of the group CODEPINK. She joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Danaka Katovich.

Danaka Katovich: Thank you so much for having me, Janine.

JJ: I know that you see what’s happening to CODEPINK as just a piece of a bigger issue, but maybe first tell us a little about what’s been happening to CODEPINK in the last few months.

Common Dreams (3/27/25)

DK: Yeah. I think this new wave started with Sen. Tom Cotton, who’s the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. When he was at a hearing, during a CODEPINK disruption of the hearing, he stated, like it was a fact, that CODEPINK is funded by the Chinese Communist Party. We’re not, but someone in such a high position of power saying that is difficult to navigate, scary; you wonder what they’re going to do next.

And the very next day or two days later, Sen. Jim Banks, in a different Senate hearing, repeated and regurgitated the same lies about us, and asked Pam Bondi to investigate CODEPINK for these fake and not real ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

And they’re doing that to—you know, we’re very in their face. We’re in Congress every single day, challenging them on the genocide in Gaza, and their support for the genocide in Gaza, and their constant willingness to ignore the American public. It’s their job to listen to the American public and represent us, but they don’t do that. And we’re very in their face, and they’re trying to intimidate us, and scare us into being quiet.

JJ: MAGA couldn’t hate CODEPINK any more than they do, to the extent that they know you exist. So is the hope to isolate CODEPINK, even among other pro-Palestinian groups?

DK: I don’t think so, to be honest. In my honest assessment, I think they are going after us because we’re a well-known group—online, at least—and we post everything that happens to us, and all the interactions that we have, to educate the public on what’s really going on in Congress. So I don’t think it’s to isolate us from the Palestine movement. If it is, it’s absolutely not working.

CODEPINK (4/30/25)

JJ: I sense that CODEPINK, along with other groups, understands that you have to talk around dominant media narratives. I just saw a message today talking about how simple it is to want a child born in Gaza to live. I think people can get explained away from that basic human understanding, told that politics is over your head and let smarter folks decide. But folks who don’t do organizing think maybe you just come up with a magic message, but it’s much more human to human than that, isn’t it?

DK: Oh, absolutely. And that’s what’s really rooted me in this work, is our position on this is not fringe. A poll came out last week that said 70% of Democratic voters do not support sending weapons to Israel. That is so vastly different than what that poll would’ve been two years ago, or was two years ago.

I’ve not had to read a million books—I mean, I have, but a lot of people haven’t read a million books—to have the opinion that Palestinians in Gaza, and children in Gaza, deserve every single right to dignity and life that any person on this Earth has.

Because we’re seeing their faces, we’re hearing their voices. We see what they’re going through on our phones every single day. There’s no shortage of content coming out of Gaza that Palestinians have demonstrated their humanity in the worst situations of their life. And I think people don’t have to be even politically aware to not support what’s going on in Palestine.

JJ: The expansive and transparently intimidating effort, the work that’s being applied against CODEPINK, to say you’re funded by Communist China, that’s meant to keep folks from listening to you, or thinking about what you have to say. But that intimidation could be applied to anyone that they designate they don’t want us to hear from. So it’s not like they’ve set themselves any guardrails. This is a bigger thing.

CNBC (4/29/25)

DK: Yeah. What’s funny is this morning, before we did this interview, the Trump administration was doing a press conference about Amazon. Amazon said that they were going to post the prices for how the tariffs are affecting consumers, and the Trump administration and the press secretary, I can’t remember her name, said Amazon is partnering with a Communist China propaganda arm.

JJ: Right. So it’s a go-to.

DK: It’s literally whoever they disagree with, which is probably great for us, because they’re completely making their propaganda seem so pathetic and deluded.

JJ: Right. But following from that, because it’s fascinating to me, in the way that MAGA and the right will just throw charges out there. And then when they’re disproven, they’ll say, Yeah, but they’re really still true.

It reminds me of the way prosecutors will never accept a wrongful conviction: If he didn’t do what we sent him to prison for, he did something else. So we were still right to send him to prison.

FAIR.org (8/17/23)

And I think, at a certain point, an observer has to acknowledge that truth is not the point. It’s just us versus them. And I think a lot of folks lose the plot right there, because we don’t know how to operate in a system where truth doesn’t matter. So in the face of just blatantly false charges against you, how do you keep going forward, and help other folks go forward themselves?

DK: I think one way we’ve done it is help people realize just how ridiculous it is, because they can say whatever they want, and they will continue to say whatever they want. They’re saying it as if it’s a fact. Even though, if any of this were true, they would’ve shut us down years ago, when they started bringing up these allegations. I think that is one way we approach it, is just making it as ridiculous as it is, and unserious as it is.

JJ: Finally, we need a brave independent press corps right now, that could push back on these scurrilous attacks—scratch ’em, you can see their falsehood, but they’re part of attacks on democracy and on human rights. Corporate media—spotty, good things here and there. But in the main, I don’t see it.

But of course, corporate media are not the only media. I wonder what your thoughts are, overall, on the state of journalism and protest, and just what you would like to see from reporters in this moment.

DK: When Mahmoud was arrested by ICE agents, I think there was a different sort of pushback than there were on groups that are being attacked in such ways, like these vague and false claims about supporting terrorism, or supporting Hamas, or being funded by these foreign agencies or whatever. I think there was some pushback from even mainstream media. They were asking critical-thinking questions that I feel like they’ve been completely not doing for years and years.

But when it’s a group, when it’s CODEPINK or all these other Palestine organizations, they don’t ask these critical-thinking questions that they’ve asked when it happens to individuals. So, when someone accuses a feminist organization in the US of being funded by a foreign government, I would like to hear them challenge that, because it’s a direct attack on civil society. We are a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and they’re trying to take us down a peg, and even mainstream media who claim to support women’s rights and all of these things don’t even question it at all. So I’d love to hear them actually be critical of the Trump administration in a way that’s not just benefiting their specific neoliberal values.

Danaka Katovich: “Their goal here is to make people afraid of expressing a very normal human opinion.”

JJ: And then, any final thoughts for activists who might be kind of afraid to go out in the street or to join an organization, because they feel targeted and fearful? What do you have to say to folks?

DK: I would say the fear is the point of all of this. I fluctuated between being scared that they want to shut down CODEPINK… The thing that I come back to is, their goal here is to make people afraid of expressing a very normal human opinion. The point is fear. And I think if they’ve instilled fear, then they’re winning. And I think it’s OK to be afraid. I think it’s normal and human. But in this trajectory that we’re on, it will only get scarier to resist what is happening.

JJ: And we’ll do it in community, yeah?

DK: Absolutely.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Danaka Katovich. She’s national co-director at the group CODEPINK. Thank you so much, Danaka Katovich, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

DK: Thank you so much for having me on.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Ari Paul (FAIR.org, 4/25/25): “Going after public broadcasters is…part of the neo-fascist playbook authoritarian leaders around the world are using to clamp down on dissent and keep the public in the dark.”

The death of former 1960s radical turned right-wing provocateur David Horowitz brought to mind the time he called me “stupid” (Michigan Daily, 9/8/03) because he disliked a column (Michigan Daily, 9/2/03) I wrote about neoconservatism.

I was reminded of that again just days later when Matt Taibbi (Racket News, 5/4/25), a journalist who left Occupy Wall Street populism for ruling class sycophancy, attacked my recent article, “Cuts to PBS, NPR Part of Authoritarian Playbook” (FAIR.org, 4/25/25). In his response, titled, “No, State Media and Democracy Don’t Go ‘Hand in Hand.’ Just the Opposite,” Taibbi asked, “How nuts do you have to be to think ‘strong state media’ doesn’t have a dark side?”

It’s a straw man argument, with a heavy dose of McCarthyism thrown in to boot. I’d encourage everyone to read both pieces in full, but here I’ll break down the main problems with Taibbi’s piece.

Public vs. state media

Matt Taibbi (Racket News, 5/4/25): “The above is either satire or written by someone consciously ignoring the history of state media.”

Taibbi’s main trick is to pretend that “state media” and “public media” are interchangeable. They’re not. State media consists of government propaganda outlets that answer directly to executive authority, rather than independent editors. Public media are independent outlets that receive taxpayer subsidies. As I wrote in my piece, NPR “only gets 1% of its funding directly from the CPB,” the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Obviously, if NPR and PBS were “state media,” Trump wouldn’t need to try to shut them down; he would already control them editorially. That’s not to say that they’re perfectly independent. FAIR writers, including myself (11/26/20), have for decades been critical of NPR and PBS political coverage. FAIR (e.g., 6/1/99, 9/17/04, 5/11/24, 10/24/24) has pointed out again and again that right-wing complaints about supposed left-wing bias in public broadcasting have repeatedly resulted in compromised coverage. (I noted in the very piece Taibbi purports to critique that Republican critics of public broadcasting “use their leverage over CPB funding to push NPR and PBS political programming to the right.”)

FAIR’s Julie Hollar (FAIR.org, 5/2/25) wrote just days before Taibbi’s post that NPR had downplayed the Trump administration’s attack on free speech, taking a false “both sides” approach to the issue. So, yes, FAIR is outspoken about the “dark side” of NPR and PBS, and Taibbi surely knows it. But he doesn’t seem interested in an honest argument.

His words, not mine

White House Wire (4/30/25) is already the kind of state media Taibbi warns PBS could turn into.

Taibbi used quotation marks around “strong state media” twice, when those aren’t the words I used—they’re his. He claimed that I was “consciously ignoring the history of state media,” though much of my piece concerned state efforts to force conformity on public outlets. While failing to engage with the rest of my article, he took the reader to Russia in the 1990s, when independent journalists (like himself) were working:

That period, like the lives of many of those folks, didn’t last long. Vladimir Putin sent masked police into the last independent TV station on May 11, 2000, capping less than ten years of quasi-free speech. “Strong state media” remained, but actual journalism vanished.

I’m very open about my opposition to the tyranny of autocrats shutting down and raiding journalistic institutions (FAIR.org, 5/19/21, 6/8/23, 8/14/23, 10/22/24). And my article noted that other wannabe autocrats are attacking public broadcasters, notably in Italy, Israel and Argentina, a fact that does not undermine but rather supports the idea that there’s a correlation between public broadcasting and democracy.

If Taibbi were truly worried about “state media,” he wouldn’t be mad at a meager government subsidy to NPR or PBS, but instead would show more concern for something like the Trump administration’s White House Wire, “a news-style website that publishes exclusively positive coverage of the president on official White House servers” (Guardian, 5/1/25). And mentioning Putin’s attacks on “independent TV” is certainly a better argument against Trump’s FCC investigations into private US outlets like ABC and CBS than it is against the existence of NPR or PBS.

Taibbi’s invocation of “Putin” and “Russia” as a reason why we should not be concerned about Trump’s attacks on public broadcasting is such an illogical non sequitur, it makes more sense to interpret it as standard-issue McCarthyism. This is bolstered by Taibbi’s invocation of more paranoia about any state subsidy for media:

Yes, Car Talk and the MacNeil/Lehrer Report were cool, but outlets like Neues Deutschland, Télé Zaïre and Tung Padewat more often went “hand in hand” with fingernail factories or firing squads than democracy.

He seemed to be trying to scare the reader into thinking that we are just one episode of Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me! away from the Cambodian genocide.

The neo–Cold War trick is to just say “Putin” enough times in hopes that the reader will eventually realize that the US government funding anything is a sign of impending tyranny. It’s an old joke to accuse greying reactionaries of hating publicly funded snowplows because “that’s socialism,” but that appears to be where Taibbi is these days.

A sloppy attack

Timothy Neff and Victor Pickard (International Journal of Press/Politics, 7/24): “High levels of secure funding for public media systems and strong structural protections for the political and economic independence of those systems are consistently and positively correlated with healthy democracies.”

Taibbi pretended to refute my claim that “strong public media systems and open democracy go hand in hand,” but in his article’s large block quotation, he omitted two embedded citations to scholarly studies that support this assertion. One of those was from Political Quarterly (3/28/24), the other was an Annenberg School study (3/16/22) whose co-author, Annenberg’s Victor Pickard, has also written about the importance of public media for The Nation (4/15/25).

Taibbi could have challenged those studies if he wanted, and good-faith disagreement is welcome. Omitting them from the quotation, though, leaves out the critical part of my statement.

Taibbi continued:

People who grew up reading the BBC or AFP may imagine a correlation between a state media and democracy, but a more dependable indicator of a free society is whether or not obnoxious private journalism (like the Russian Top Secret, whose editor Artyom Borovik died in a mysterious plane crash) is allowed to proliferate.

I’ve written at length about that dangers that the Trump administration poses when it comes to censorship, intimidating journalists, lawfare against media and using the power of the state to chill speech (FAIR.org, 12/16/24, 1/23/25, 2/18/25, 2/26/25, 3/28/25, 4/29/25). Taibbi ignored this part of my record, which is referenced in part in the very article to which he’s responding. This is crucial, because my defense of PBS and NPR in this instance is part of a general belief that the government should not attack media organizations, public or private.

As someone who read Taibbi enthusiastically when he was a Rolling Stone and New York Press writer, it’s sad to see someone I once admired so sloppily attack FAIR’s defense of press freedom against anti-democratic state power. But on the bright side, his outburst acts as an inspiration for a place like FAIR to continue defending free speech and a free press, while mercilessly calling out state propagandists who disguise themselves as journalists.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Ari Paul.

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Ruby Bridges challenged US segregation in 1960.

This week on CounterSpin: You can say someone ‘supports the rights’ of people of color to vote, or to have our experience and history recognized—as though that were a passive descriptor; she ‘supports the rights’ of people of color to be seen and heard. The website of the Kairos Democracy Project has a quote from John Lewis, reminding us: “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.”

Tanya Clay House is board chair at Kairos and a longtime advocate for the multiracial democracy that the Trump White House seeks to denounce and derail—in part by erasing the history of Black people in this country. As part of that, she’s part of an ongoing project called Freedom to Learn and its present campaign, called #HandsOffOurHistory. We hear from Tanya Clay House about that work this week.

Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin

Also on the show:  Corporate news media evince lofty principles about the First Amendment, but when people actually use it, the response is more telling. When USA Today covered activism in Seattle around the WTO, it reported: “Little noticed by the public, the upcoming World Trade Organization summit has energized protesters around the world.” You see how that works: If you’re the little-noticing “public,” you’re cool; but if you band together with other people and speak out, well, now you’re a “protester,” and that’s different—and marginal. Whatever they say in their Martin Luther King Day editorials, elite media’s day-to-day message is: ‘Normal people don’t protest.’ In 2025, there’s an ominous addendum: ‘Or else.’

Danaka Katovich is co-director of the feminist grassroots anti-war organization CODEPINK, currently but not for the first time at the sharp end of state efforts to silence activists and activism. We hear from her this week.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

A human rights agency has called for an investigation into the drone attacks on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aid ship Conscience with Israel suspected of being responsible.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement that the deliberate targeting of a civilian aid ship in international waters was a “flagrant violation” of the United Nations Charter, the Law of the Sea, and the Rome Statute, which prohibits the targeting of humanitarian objects.

It added: “This attack falls within a recurring and documented pattern of force being used to prevent ships from reaching the Gaza Strip, even before they approach its shores.”

• READ MORE: Freedom Flotilla attacked in an apparent Israeli drone attack in international waters
• Kia Ora Gaza page on the Freedom Flotilla

The monitor is calling for an “independent and transparent investigation under Maltese jurisdiction, with the participation of the United Nations”.

It is also demanding “guarantees for safe sea passage for humanitarian aid bound for Gaza”.

“Any failure to act today will only encourage further attacks on humanitarian missions and deepen the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza,” said the monitor.

A spokesperson for the Gaza Freedom Flotilla said the group blamed Israel or one of its allies for the attack, adding it currently did not have proof of this claim.

Israeli TV confirms attack
However, Israel’s channel 12 television reported that Israeli forces were responsible for the attack.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from different parts of the world, working together to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza.

The organisation said its goals included:

• breaking Israel’s more than 17-year illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip;
• educating people around the world about the blockade of Gaza;
• condemning and publicising the complicity of other governments and global actors in enabling the blockade; and
• responding to the cry from Palestinians and Palestinian organisations in Gaza for solidarity to break the blockade.

The MV Conscience — with about 30 human rights and aid activists on board — came under direct attack in international waters off the coast of Malta at 00:23 local time.

The Maltese government said everyone on the ship was safe following the attack. Although several New Zealanders have been on board past flotilla ships, none were on board this time.

In May 2010, Israeli security forces attacked six vessels in a Freedom Flotilla mission carrying aid aid bound for Gaza.

Nine of the flotilla passengers were killed during the raid, with 30 wounded — one of whom later died of his wounds.

• More information about the Freedom Flotilla at Kia Ora Gaza.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon

On February 12 this year, former prime minister Scott Morrison’s principal private secretary Yaron Finkelstein, and former Labor NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal, met in the plush 50 Bridge St offices in the heart of Sydney’s CBD.

The powerbrokers were there to discuss election strategies for the astroturfing campaign group Better Australia 2025 Inc.

Finkelstein now runs his own discreet advisory firm Society Advisory, while also a director of the Liberal Party’s primary think-tank Menzies Research Centre. Previously, he worked as head of global campaigns for the conservative lobby firm Crosby Textor (CT), before working for Morrison and as Special Counsel to former NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.

• READ MORE: Albanese ignored Palestinian and Arabic background Australians in his own electorate – now they speak out
• Rightwing astroturfers infiltrate Australian local councils, fire up unrest over Israel
• Other Australian election reports

Roozendaal earned a reputation as a top fundraiser during his term as general secretary of NSW Labor and a later stint for the Yuhu property developer. He is now a co-convenor of Labor Friends of Israel.

The two strategists have previously served together on the executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, where Finkelstein was vice-president (2010-2019) and Roozendaal was later the chair of public affairs (2019-2020).

Better for whom?
Better Australia chairperson Sophie Calland, a software engineer and active member of the Alexandria Branch of the Labor party attended the meeting. She is a director of Better Australia and carries formal responsibility for electoral campaigns (and partner of Israel agitator Ofir Birenbaum).

Also present at the meeting was Better Australia 2025 member Alex Polson, a former staffer to retiring Senator Simon Birmingham and CEO of firm DBK Advisory. Other members present included another director, Charline Samuell, and her husband, psychiatrist Dr Doron Samuell.

Last week, Dr Samuell attracted negative publicity when Liberal campaigners in the electorate of Reid leaked Whatsapp messages where he insisted on referring to Greens as Nazis. “Nazis at Chiswick wharf,” Samuell wrote, alongside a photograph of two Greens volunteers.

The Better Australia group already have experience as astroturfers. Their “Put The Greens Last” campaign was previously directed by Calland and Polson under the entity Better Council Inc. in the NSW Local government elections in September 2024.

The Greens lost three councillors in Sydney’s East but maintained five seats on the Inner West Council.

But the group had developed bigger electoral plans. They also registered the name Better NSW in mid-2024. By the time the group met for the first time this year on January 8, their plans to play a role in the Federal election were already well advanced.

They voted to change the name Better NSW Inc. to Better Australia 2025 Inc.

Calland and Birenbaum
Group member Ofir Birenbaum joined the January meeting to discuss “potential campaign fundraising materials” and a “pool of national volunteers”. Birenbaum is Calland’s husband and member of the Rosebery Branch of the Labor Party.

But by the time the group met with Finkelstein and Roozendaal in February, Birenbaum was missing. The day before the meeting, Birenbaum’s role in the #UndercoverJew stunt at Cairo Takeaway cafe was sprung.

This incident focused attention on Birenbaum’s track record as an agitator at Pro-Palestine events and as a “close friend” of the extreme-right Australian Jewish Association. The former Instagram influencer has since closed his social media accounts and disappeared from public view.

The minutes of the February meeting lodged with NSW Fair Trading mention a “discussion of potential campaign management candidates; an in-depth presentation and discussion of strategy; a review and amendments of draft campaign fundraising materials”. All of this suggests that consultants had been hired and work was well underway.

The group also voted to change Better Council’s business address and register a national association with ASIC so they could legally campaign at a national level.

On March 4, Calland registered Better Australia as a “significant third party” with the Australian Electoral Commission. This is required for organisations that expect their campaign to cost more than $250,000.

Three weeks later, Prime Minister Albanese called the election, and Better Australia’s federal campaign was off to the races.

Labor or Liberal, it doesn’t matter…
According to its website, Better Australia’s stated goals are non-partisan: they want a majority government, “regardless of which major party is in office”.

“In Australia, past minority governments have seen stalled reforms, frequent leadership changes, and uncertainty that paralysed effective governance.”

No evidence has been provided by either Better Australia’s website or campaigning materials for these statements. In fact, in its short lifetime, the Gillard Labor minority government passed legislation at a record pace.

Instead, it is all about creating fear.  A stream of campaigning videos, posts, flyers and placards carrying simple messages tapping into fear, insecurity, distrust and disappointment have appeared on social media and the streets of Sydney in recent weeks.

Wentworth independent Allegra Spender wasted no time posting her own video telling voters she was unfazed, and for her electorate to make their own voting choices rather than fall for a crude scare campaign.

Spender is accused of supporting anti-Israel terrorism by voting to reinstate funding for the United Nations aid agency UNRWA. Better Australia warns that billionaires and dark money fund the Teal campaign, alleging average voters will lose their money if Teals are reelected.

It doesn’t matter that most Teal MPs have policies in favour of increasing accountability in government or that no information is provided about who is backing Better Australia.

Anti-Green, too
The anti-Greens angle of Better Australia’s campaign sends a broad message to all electorates to “Put the Greens Last”. It aims to starve the Greens of preferences. The campaign message is simple: the Greens are “antisemitic, support terrorism, and have abandoned their environmental roots”.

It does not matter that calls unite the peaceful Palestine protests for a ceasefire, or that the Greens have never stopped campaigning for the environment and against new fossil fuel projects.

Better Australia promotes itself as a grassroots organisation. In February, Sophie Calland told The Guardian that “Better Australia is led by a broad coalition of Australians who believe that political representation should be based on integrity and action, not extremist or elite activism”.

It has very few members and its operations are marked by secrecy, and voters will have to wait a full year before the AEC registry of political donations reveals Better Australia’s backers.

It fits into a patchwork of organisations aiming to influence voters towards a framework of right-wing values, including

“support for the Israel Defence Force, fossil fuel industries, nationalism and anti-immigration and anti-transgender issues.”

Advance Australia (not so fair)
Advance is the lead organisation in this space. It campaigns in its own right and also supports other organisations, including Minority Impact Coalition, Queensland Jewish Collective and J-United.

Advance claims to have raised $5 million to smash the Greens and a supporter base of more than 245,000. It has received donations up to $500,000 from the Victorian Liberal Party’s holding company, Cormack Foundation.

In Melbourne, ex-Labor member for Macnamara, Michael Danby, directs and authorises “Macnamara Voters Against Extremism”, which pushes voters to preference either Liberals or Labor first, and the Greens last. Danby has spoken alongside Birenbaum at Together With Israel rallies.

The message of Better Australia — and Better Council before it — mostly aligns with Advance. These campaigns target women aged 35 to 49, who Advance claims are twice as likely to vote for the Greens as men of the same age.

The scare campaign targets female voters with its fear-mongering and Greens MPS, including Australia’s first Muslim Senator Mehreen Faruqi, and independent female MPS with its loathing.

Meanwhile, Advance is funded by mining billionaires and advocates against renewable energy.

Labor standing by in silence
Better Australia is different from Advance, which is targeting Labor because it is an alliance of Zionist Labor and LIberal interests. Calland’s campaign may be effectively contributing to the election of a Dutton government. In the face of what would appear to be betrayal, the NSW Labor Party simply stands by.

The NSW Labor Rules Book (Section A.7c) states that a member may be suspended for “disloyal or unworthy conduct [or] action or conduct contrary to the principles and solidarity of the Party.”

Following MWM’s February exposé of Birenbaum, we sent questions to NSW Labor Head Office, and MPs Tanya Plibersek and Ron Hoenig, without reply. Hoenig is a member of the Parliamentary Friends of Israel and has attended Alexandria Branch meetings with Calland.

MWM asked Plibersek to comment on Birenbaum’s membership of her own Rosebery Branch, and on Birenbaum’s covert filming of Luc Velez, the Greens candidate in Plibersek’s seat of Sydney. Birenbaum shared the video and generated homophobic commentary, but we received no answers to any of our questions.

According to MWM sources, Calland’s involvement in Better Australia and Better Council before that is well known in Inner Sydney Labor circles. Last Tuesday night, she attended an Alexandria Branch meeting that discussed the Federal election. She also attended a meeting of Plibersek’s campaign.

No one raised or asked questions about Calland’s activities. MWM is not aware if NSW Labor has received complaints from any of its members alleging that Calland or Birenbaum has breached the party’s rules.

After all, when top Liberal and Labor strategists walk into a corporate boardroom, there is much to agree on.

It begins with a national campaign to keep the major parties in and independents and Greens out.

• MWM has sent questions to Calland, Finkelstein, and Roozendaal, regarding funding and the alliance between Liberal and Labor powerbrokers but we have yet to receive any replies.

Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at UTS. She has worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is not a member of any political party but is a Greens supporter and long-term supporter of peaceful BDS strategies.

Yaakov Aharon is a Jewish-Australian living in Wollongong. He enjoys long walks on Wollongong Beach, unimpeded by Port Kembla smoke fumes and AUKUS submarines. This article was first published by Michael West Media and is republished with permission of the authors.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Clashes between Myanmar’s junta and an ethnic army in central Myanmar have forced more than 4,000 people from their homes, according to a statement by the Karen National Union, or KNU.

The political wing of the Karen National Liberation Army has been feuding with junta forces in eastern Myanmar’s Kayin and Mon states since the military seized power in a 2021 coup. The conflict has now spread westwards into the Bago region.

In Shwegyin township, villagers from more than 850 households fled intensifying battles that started on Sunday, said one resident, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.

“Some ran toward Yangon and Bago and some ran to the edges of the village,” he said. “There was heavy weapons fire. Two days ago, shrapnel was flying. Residents still can’t re-enter the village.”

Fighting has been frequent in the area since before the Thingyan holiday began on April 13, he said. The KNU controls parts of Shwegyin township.

In Mone township, which borders Shwegyin, junta forces fired 14 rounds into Lay Ein Su village, killing 70-year-old Win Naing, the group said in their statement.

Ma Oo, 30 years old, and Ko Tun, 45 years old, were injured in the attack.

Despite a ceasefire declared on April 2 and extended to April 30 to aid recovery work after an earthquake killed over 3,700 people, junta troops have launched hundreds of attacks across the country, killing more than 240 people, according to the exiled civilian National Unity Government

Junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun did not respond to enquiries from Radio Free Asia regarding the attack.

In the original 20-day ceasefire declared by the junta, soldiers launched 107 attacks on KNU-controlled territory, killing 20 people and injuring 55, the group said in a statement.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

As the Trump administration goes after universities, law firms and more, some argue that the free press will eventually become a target. Trump’s attacks on the press have already begun, with the president filing a number of baseless lawsuits against organizations like ABC and CBS, including a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS over how the network edited an interview with Kamala Harris last year on 60 Minutes. The White House has also banned the Associated Press from covering some presidential events over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. “I didn’t want to be an activist, but when it’s a battle for facts, journalism is activism,” warns Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, whose new site Rappler faced attacks from former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. We also speak with The American Prospect editor Robert Kuttner, who has a new piece headlined “Is the Press Next?”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The attacks on Judge John Barberis in the fall of 2016 appeared on his personal Facebook page. They impugned his ethics, criticized a recent ruling and branded him as a “politician” with the “LOWEST rating for a judge in Illinois.”

Barberis, a state court judge in an Illinois county across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, was presiding over a nasty legal battle for control over the Eagle Forum, the vaunted grassroots group founded by Phyllis Schlafly, matriarch of the anti-feminist movement. The case pitted Schlafly’s youngest daughter against three of her sons, almost like a Midwest version of the HBO program “Succession” (without the obscenities).

At the heart of the dispute — and the lead defendant in the case — was Ed Martin, a lawyer by training and a political operative by trade. In Missouri, where he was based, Martin was widely known as an irrepressible gadfly who trafficked in incendiary claims and trailed controversy wherever he went. Today, he’s the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and one of the most prominent members of the Trump Justice Department.

In early 2015, Schlafly had selected Martin to succeed her as head of the Eagle Forum, a crowning moment in Martin’s career. Yet after just a year in charge, the group’s board fired Martin. Schlafly’s youngest daughter, Anne Schlafly Cori, and a majority of the Eagle Forum board filed a lawsuit to bar Martin from any association with the organization.

After Barberis dealt Martin a major setback in the case in October 2016, the attacks began. The Facebook user who posted them, Priscilla Gray, had worked in several roles for Schlafly but was not a party to the case, and her comments read like those of an aggrieved outsider.

Almost two years later, the truth emerged as Cori’s lawyers gathered evidence for her lawsuit: Behind the posts about the judge was none other than Martin.

ProPublica obtained previously unreported documents filed in the case that show Martin had bought a laptop for Gray and that she subsequently offered to “happily write something to attack this judge.” And when she did, Martin ghostwrote more posts for her to use and coached her on how to make her comments look more “organic.”

“That is not justice but a rigged system,” he urged her to write. “Shame on you and this broken legal system.”

“Call what he did unfair and rigged over and over,” Martin continued.

Martin even urged Gray to message the judge privately. “Go slow and steady,” he advised. “Make it organic.”

Gray appeared to take Martin’s advice. “Private messaging him that sweet line,” she wrote. It was not clear from the court record what, if anything, she wrote at that juncture.

Legal experts told ProPublica that Martin’s conduct in the Eagle Forum case was a clear violation of ethical norms and professional rules. Martin’s behavior, they said, was especially egregious because he was both a defendant in the case and a licensed attorney.

Martin appeared to be “deliberately interfering with a judicial proceeding with the intent to undermine the integrity of the outcome,” said Scott Cummings, a professor of legal ethics at UCLA School of Law. “That’s not OK.”

Martin did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Martin’s legal and political career is dotted with questions about his professional and ethical conduct. But for all his years in the spotlight, some of the most serious concerns about his conduct have remained in the shadows — buried in court filings, overlooked by the press or never reported at all.

His actions have led to more than $600,000 in legal settlements or judgments against Martin or his employers in a handful of cases. In the Eagle Forum lawsuit, another judge found him in civil contempt, citing his “willful disregard” of a court order, and a jury found him liable for defamation and false light against Cori.

Cori also tried to have Martin charged with criminal contempt for his role in orchestrating the posts about Barberis, but a judge declined to take up the request and said she could take the case to the county prosecutor. Cori said her attorney met with a detective; Martin was never charged.

Nonetheless, the emails unearthed by ProPublica were evidence that he had violated Missouri rules for lawyers, according to Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics expert and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. She said lawyers are prohibited from trying to contact a judge outside of court in a case they are involved in, and they are barred from using a proxy to do something they are barred from doing themselves.

Such a track record might have derailed another lawyer’s career. Not so for Martin.

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump vowed to use the Justice Department to reward his allies and seek retribution against his perceived enemies. Since taking office, Trump and his appointees have made good on those pledges, pardoning Jan. 6 rioters while targeting Democratic politicians, media critics and private law firms.

As one of its first personnel picks, the Trump administration chose Martin to be interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, one of the premier jobs for a federal prosecutor.

A wide array of former prosecutors, legal observers and others have raised questions about his qualifications for an office known for handling high-profile cases. Martin has no experience as a prosecutor. He has never taken a case to trial, according to his public disclosures. As the acting leader of the largest U.S. attorney’s office in the country, he directs the work of hundreds of lawyers who appear in court on a vast array of subjects, including legal disputes arising out of Congress, national security matters, public corruption and civil rights, as well as homicides, drug trafficking and many other local crimes.

Over the last four years, the office prosecuted more than 1,500 people as part of the massive investigation into the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. While Trump has pardoned the Jan. 6 defendants, Martin has taken action against the prosecutors who brought those cases. In just three months, he has overseen the dismissal of outstanding Jan. 6-related cases, fired more than a dozen prosecutors and opened an investigation into the charging decisions made in those riot cases.

Martin has also investigated Democratic lawmakers and members of the Biden family; forced out the chief of the criminal division after she refused to initiate an investigation desired by Trump appointees citing a lack of evidence, according to her resignation letter; threatened Georgetown University’s law school over its diversity, equity and inclusion policies; and vowed to investigate threats against Department of Government Efficiency employees or “chase” people in the federal government "discovered to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically.”

Martin “has butchered the position, effectively destroying it as a vehicle by which to pursue justice and turning it into a political arm of the current administration,” says an open letter signed by more than 100 former prosecutors who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia under Democratic and Republican presidents.

Already, Martin has been the subject of at least four disciplinary complaints with the D.C. and Missouri bars, of which one was dismissed and the other three appear to be pending. Two of the complaints came after he moved to dismiss charges against a Jan. 6 rioter whom he had previously represented and for whom he was still listed as counsel of record. (The first complaint was dismissed after the D.C. bar’s disciplinary panel concluded that Martin had dismissed the case as a result of Trump’s pardons and so did not violate any rules.) The third was filed in March by a group of Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. Senate. The fourth was submitted last week by a group of former Jan. 6 prosecutors and members of the conservative-leaning Society for the Rule of Law. It argues that Martin’s actions so far “threaten to undermine the integrity of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the legal profession in the District of Columbia.” If Martin has responded to any of the complaints, those responses have not been made public.

Trump has nominated Martin to run the office permanently. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have vowed to drag out Martin’s confirmation, demanding a hearing and setting up a fight over one of Trump’s most controversial nominees.

Martin stepped off the elevator into the newsroom of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper. He was angry at a reporter named Jo Mannies, one of the city’s top political journalists. At a conference table with Mannies and her senior editors, he accused Mannies of being unethical and pressed the paper’s leadership to spike her stories about him, according to interviews.

Mannies said later she believed he was trying to get her fired.

“He was attacking her,” said Pam Maples, who was managing editor at the time. “He was implying she had an ax to grind, that she wanted to get some big story and that she was not being ethical. And when that didn’t get traction, it was more like ‘this isn’t a story.’ It wasn’t that he said anything about a fact being inaccurate, or he wanted to retract a story; he wanted the reporting to stop.”

Mannies had been covering a scandal dubbed “Memogate” that started to unfold in 2007 while Martin was chief of staff to Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. In that role, Martin was using his government email to undermine Democratic rivals and rally anti-abortion groups. But when reporters requested emails from Blunt’s staff, the governor’s office denied they existed. Media organizations joined a lawsuit to preserve the messages and recover them from backup tapes.

An attorney for the governor, Scott Eckersley, later said in a deposition that Martin tried to block the release of government emails and told employees to delete their messages. After Eckersley warned that doing so might violate state law, he was fired. He sued the state for wrongful termination and defamation and settled for $500,000. Martin resigned as chief of staff in 2007 after just over a year on the job, and Blunt’s office would eventually hand over 22 boxes of internal emails.

In a 2008 email to the Associated Press, Martin dismissed Eckersley’s lawsuit as a “desperate attempt” to revise his story after he was fired, citing Eckersley’s own testimony that not all emails are public records.

The Memogate incident was telling — and Martin’s efforts to have Mannies fired were never reported. “His claim was we were misrepresenting what the law was and what he was doing,” she told ProPublica. “I mean, he can get very hyper. He can get very emotional.”

When Martin launched a bid for Congress in 2010, he acted as if Memogate was ancient history. He made himself available to Mannies, she recalled, always taking her calls. Years later, he even appeared, lighthearted and bantering, on a St. Louis Public Radio podcast Mannies co-hosted. She said Martin could be outlandish and aggressive, but he could also be disarmingly passionate about whatever cause he was pursuing at the moment, often speaking in a frenetic rush. “He just wore people down with his enthusiasm,” she said.

Martin allowed a different St. Louis reporter to shadow him during his 2010 run for Congress. The reporter asked about the St. Louis election board, a dysfunctional organization that, by all accounts, Martin had helped turn around in the mid-2000s. Martin had fired an employee there named Jeanne Bergfeld, and she later sued for wrongful termination. The board settled the lawsuit.

As part of the settlement, Martin agreed not to talk about the case and the board paid Bergfeld $55,000. Martin and two others issued a letter saying she had been a “conscientious and dedicated professional.”

But talking to the reporter covering his campaign, Martin said Bergfeld enjoyed “not having to do anything” and “wasn’t interested in changing.” The day after the story was published, Bergfeld sued Martin again, this time for violating the settlement agreement. Martin denied making the comments, but the Riverfront Times released audio that proved he had.

Martin agreed to pay Bergfeld another $15,000 but delayed signing the settlement for a few months. The judge then ordered Martin to pay some of her legal costs, citing his “obstinacy.”

Martin lost his 2010 congressional bid. He ran for Missouri attorney general two years later and lost again. After his stint as chair of the Missouri Republican Party, he went to work as Schlafly’s right-hand man. Martin grew so attached to Schlafly that a lawyer for the Eagle Forum jokingly called him “Ed Martin Schlafly.”

As the 2016 presidential campaign ramped up, Martin supported Trump even though Eagle Forum board members, including Cori, supported Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. At the time, Cori described Trump at the time as an “egomaniacal dictator.” (Today, she said she supports him.) Cori and other board members were stunned when Schlafly endorsed Trump, with Martin standing by her side.

A few weeks later, a majority of the Eagle Forum’s board voted to oust Martin as president; a lawsuit filed by the board cited mismanagement and poor leadership and described his tenure as “deplorable.” Martin has maintained that he was Schlafly’s “hand-picked successor” and has characterized his removal as a hostile takeover.

“Every day, they are diminishing the reputation and value of Phyllis,” he said in a 2017 statement. She died in September 2016.

Cori and the board’s lawsuit sought to enforce Martin’s removal and demand an accounting of the forum’s assets. That’s the case that wound up before Barberis.

On top of his efforts to direct Gray’s posts on Barberis’ Facebook page, Martin prepared a separate statement, according to previously unreported records from the case. The statement called Barberis’ ruling to remove him as Eagle Forum president “judicial activism at its worst” that “shows what happens when the law is undermined by judges who think they can do whatever they want.”

Martin emailed the statement, which said it was from “Bruce Schlafly, M.D.” — the name of one of Schlafly’s sons — to himself, then sent it to two of her other sons, John and Andy, court filings show. Martin said the statement was a “declaration of war” and urged the Schlaflys to “put something like this out to our biggest list.” (It’s unclear if the message was ever sent.) Bruce Schlafly did not respond to requests for comment.

In a 2019 sworn deposition, Cori’s lawyer asked Martin questions about the posts on Barberis’ Facebook page and the letter he drafted for Bruce Schlafly. Because of the possibility that he could be charged with criminal contempt of court, Martin declined to comment, on the advice of his own lawyer, though he acknowledged that lawyers are barred from communicating with judges outside of court or engaging in conduct meant to disrupt proceedings.

Andy Schlafly, a lawyer and former Eagle Forum board member who supported Martin in the leadership fight, said “no court has ever sanctioned Ed for his engagement of First Amendment advocacy” and likened the controversy to liberal attacks on conservative judges. He dismissed concerns about Martin directing Gray to contact the judge, saying she “speaks for herself” and had every right to voice her outrage. He compared Martin’s style — then and now — to Trump’s. He said he did not believe the email Martin drafted for his brother Bruce had ever been sent, but if it had been, it would have been no different from Trump posting on Truth Social, which he considered normal behavior in political battles.

“What would Trump do in that position?” Andy Schlafly said of Martin’s current role in Washington. “I would say Trump would be doing just what Ed’s doing. Elections do have consequences.”

Gray declined to comment. She was not part of the lawsuit.

When Cori’s lawyers uncovered the emails, they asked a new judge, David Dugan — who had taken over the case after Barberis was elected to a higher court — why Martin should not be held in criminal contempt for “an underhanded scheme” to “attack the integrity and authority” of the court with the Facebook comments about Barberis, according to court records.

Dugan declined to take up the criminal contempt motion. But he later found Martin and John Schlafly in civil contempt of court for having interfered with Eagle Forum after Barberis had removed them from the group. John Schlafly appealed the contempt finding and mostly lost. He did not respond to requests for comment. It’s unclear if Martin appealed.

Cori told ProPublica she also filed an ethics complaint against Martin with the Missouri Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates ethics complaints against lawyers. She said she was told her complaint would have to wait until her lawsuit concluded. The office said it could neither confirm nor deny it had received a complaint.

In 2022, when part of Cori’s lawsuit went to trial, a jury found Martin liable for defaming her and casting her in a false light — including by sharing a Facebook post suggesting that she should be charged with manslaughter for her mother’s death. It awarded her $57,000 in damages and also found Martin liable for $25,500 against another Eagle Forum board member.

Martin argued that the statute of limitations had expired on the defamation claims and that many of his statements were either true or vague hyperbole not subject to proof. He also claimed he could not be held liable because he didn’t write the offending post — he had merely shared something written by someone else.

In a post-trial motion, he also leaned into protections that make it harder for public figures to win defamation cases. Under that higher legal standard, it’s not enough for a plaintiff to show that a statement was false. Cori also had to prove that Martin knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, and he said she didn’t prove it.

But while he’s wrapped himself in First Amendment protections when defending his own speech, he’s taken the opposite stance since being named interim U.S. attorney by Trump, threatening legal action against people when they criticize the administration.

For instance, after Rep. Robert Garcia called DOGE leader Elon Musk a “dick” and urged Democrats to “bring weapons” to a political fight, Martin sent Garcia a letter warning his comments could be seen as threats and demanding an explanation.

With the start of Trump’s first presidency, Martin and his family moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs near Washington, D.C. Martin had no formal role in the new administration, but he turned himself into one of the president’s most prolific and unfiltered surrogates.

CNN hired him in September 2017 to be a pro-Trump on-air commentator, only to fire him five months later after a string of controversial on-air remarks. He attacked a woman who had accused Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of molesting her as a child, praised Trump for denigrating Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas,” and described some of his CNN co-panelists as “rabid feminists” and “Black racists.”

Unbowed, Martin went on to make more than 150 appearances on the Russia Today TV channel and Sputnik radio, both Russian state-owned media outlets, first reported by The Washington Post. On RT and Sputnik, Martin railed against the “Russia hoax,” criticized the DOJ investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller and questioned American support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion by saying the U.S. was “wasting money in Kiev for Zelensky and his corrupt guys.” The State Department would later say RT and Sputnik were “critical elements in Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.” The Treasury Department sanctioned RT employees in 2024. The DOJ indicted two RT employees for conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to fail to register as foreign agents.

Martin’s flair for fealty set him apart even from fellow Trump supporters. He cheered the Maine Republican Party for considering whether to censure Sen. Susan Collins for her vote to convict Trump during the second impeachment trial. He singled out Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in a radio segment titled “America Needs to Go on a RINO Hunt.” He accused Sen. John Cornyn of going “soft” on gun rights after Cornyn endorsed a bipartisan gun-safety law after the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Martin joined the throngs of Trump supporters who marched in protest of the 2020 election outcome. He compared the scene that day to a Mardi Gras celebration and later said the prosecution of Jan. 6 defendants was “an op” orchestrated by former Rep. Liz Cheney and law enforcement agencies to “damage Trump and Trumpism.”

During an appearance on Russia Today, Martin said then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “weaponized” Congress’ response to the Jan. 6 riots by ramping up security on Capitol Hill, comparing her to the Nazis. “Not since the Reichstag fire that was engineered by the Nazis have we seen behavior like what Nancy Pelosi did,” he said.

As an attorney, he represented Jan. 6 defendants, helped raise money for their families and championed their cause. Last summer, Martin gave an award to a convicted Jan. 6 rioter named Timothy Hale-Cusanelli. According to court records, Hale-Cusanelli held “long-standing white supremacist and Nazi beliefs,” wore a “Hitler mustache” and allegedly told his co-workers that “Hitler should have finished the job.” (In court, Hale’s attorney said his client “makes no excuses for his derogatory language,” but the government’s description of him was “simply misleading.”)

After hugging and thanking Hale-Cusanelli at the ceremony, Martin told the audience that one of his goals was “to make sure that the world — and especially America — hears more from Tim Hale, because he’s extraordinary.”

In his three months as interim U.S. attorney for D.C., Martin has used his position to issue a series of threats. He’s vowed not to hire anyone affiliated with Georgetown Law unless the school drops any DEI policies. He vowed to Musk that he would “pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.” He publicly told former special counsel Jack Smith and Smith’s lawyers to “[s]ave your receipts.” And in another open letter addressed to Musk and Musk’s deputy, Martin wrote that “if people are discovered to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically, we will investigate them and we will chase them to the end of the Earth to hold them accountable.”

More often than not, Martin’s threats have gone nowhere.

A month into the job, he announced “Operation Whirlwind,” an initiative to “hold accountable those who threaten” public officials, whether they’re DOGE workers or judges. One of the “most abhorrent examples” of such threats, he said, were Sen. Chuck Schumer’s 2020 remarks that conservative Supreme Court justices had “released the whirlwind” and would “pay the price” if they weakened abortion rights.

Even though Schumer walked back his incendiary comments the next day, Martin said he was investigating Schumer’s nearly 5-year-old remarks as part of Operation Whirlwind. Despite Martin’s bravado, the investigation went nowhere. No grand jury investigation was opened. No charges were filed. That the probe fizzled out came as little surprise. Legal experts said Schumer’s remarks, while ill advised, fell well short of criminal conduct.

In another instance, when one of Martin’s top deputies refused to open a criminal investigation into clean-energy grants issued by the Biden administration, Martin demanded the deputy’s resignation and advanced the investigation himself. When a subpoena arrived at one of the targeted environmental groups, Martin’s was the only name on it, according to documents obtained by ProPublica.

Kevin Flynn, a former federal prosecutor who served in the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office for 35 years, told ProPublica that he did not know of a single case in which the U.S. attorney was the sole authorizing official on a grand jury subpoena. Flynn said he could think of only two reasons why this could happen: The matter was of “such extraordinary sensitivity” that the office’s leader took exclusive control over it, or no other supervisor or line prosecutor was willing to sign off on the subpoena “out of concern that it wasn’t legally or ethically appropriate.”

And when the dispute between the environmental groups and the Justice Department reached a courtroom, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan asked a DOJ lawyer defending the administration’s actions for any evidence of possible crimes or violations — evidence, in other words, that could have justified the probe initiated by Martin. The DOJ lawyer said he had none. “You can’t even tell me what the evidence of malfeasance is,” Chutkan said. “There are still rules that even the government has to follow, last I checked.”

Martin’s tenure has caused so much consternation that in early April, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., put a hold on Martin’s nomination. Typically, the Senate Judiciary Committee approves U.S. attorney picks by voice vote without a hearing. But in Martin’s case, all 10 Democrats on the committee have asked for a public hearing to debate the nomination, calling Martin “a nominee whose objectionable record merits heightened scrutiny by this Committee.”

Even the process of submitting the requisite paperwork for Senate confirmation has tripped him up. According to documents obtained by ProPublica, he has sent the Judiciary Committee three supplemental letters that correct omissions about his background. In an earlier submission, Martin did not disclose any of his appearances on Russian state-owned media. But just before The Washington Post reported that Martin had, in fact, made more than 150 such appearances, he sent yet another letter correcting his previous statements.

“I regret the errors and apologize for any inconvenience,” he wrote.

Sharon Lerner contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Jeremy Kohler and Andy Kroll.

“The Pact: A Civil Rights Coalition Unity Commitment” states clearly why this commitment is necessary. “Today we face a campaign by the government to interrupt and intimidate the ability of those who represent the vulnerable, ensure people know their rights, have a voice to make demands of their government, organize unions and speak freely and have their rights protected. We will not be silent, divided or stop serving the public or allow the people we serve to be harmed. The administration has made clear it will attack organizations that speak truth to power, defend the vulnerable, petition and sue the government, preserve and share knowledge, and fight for our freedoms. They want us to fight alone, hoping we’ll stay silent as others are targeted. Not us.”

For 75 years, The Leadership Conference coalition has fought for passage of every major piece of federal civil rights legislation signed into law. The coalition has created this pact because of its deep and long-standing relationships and its commitment to ensuring that the laws it’s spent 75 years passing, strengthening, and defending are not misused as tools of authoritarianism.

The Pact outlines specific commitments the signatories have made, including:

1. “When any of our organizations are unjustly targeted, we will stand as a unified coalition. An attack on one is an attack on all.”
2. “We will share knowledge, resources, and support with any organization threatened by abuses of power.”
3. “We will not abandon our missions or self-censor out of fear. The people we serve depend on us now more than ever.”

As it affirms: “We will not be silenced. We will continue to do the work that puts people over power.”

The full text of “The Pact: A Civil Rights Coalition Unity Commitment” is available here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

One year ago, Columbia University became ground zero for the student-led Gaza solidarity encampment movement that spread to campuses across the country and around the world. Now, Columbia has become ground zero for the Trump administration’s authoritarian assault on higher education, academic freedom, and the right to free speech and free assembly—all under the McCarthyist guise of rooting out “anti-semitism.” From Trump’s threats to cancel $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia to the abduction of international students like Mahmoud Khalil by ICE agents, to the university’s firing and expulsion of Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers union president Grant Miner, “a tremendous chilling effect” has gripped Columbia’s campus community. In this urgent episode of Working People, we speak with: Caitlin Liss, a PhD candidate in history at Columbia University and a member of Student Workers of Columbia-UAW (SWC); and Allie Wong, a PhD student at the Columbia Journalism School and a SWC member who was arrested and beaten by police during the second raid on the Gaza solidarity protests at Columbia on April 30, 2024.

Additional links/info:

• Student Workers of Columbia-UAW Local 2710 website
• April 17: Day of Action to Defend Higher Ed website
• Mahmoud Khalil statement from ICE detention: “My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner”
• Allie Wong, The Intercept, “This is not about antisemitism, Palestine, or Columbia. It’s Trump dismantling the American dream“
• Grant Miner, The Nation, “Columbia expelled me for my palestine activism, but I won’t be silenced”
• Jonah E. Bromwich & Hamed Aleaziz, The New York Times, “Columbia student hunted by ICE sues to prevent deportation”
• AAUP letter to college and university legal offices: “Institutions Should Not Provide Student and Faculty Info To Enable Deportations”
• Alan Blinder, The New York Times, “Trump Has Targeted These Universities. Why?”
• Oliver Laughland, The Guardian, “‘Detention Alley’: inside the Ice centres in the US south where foreign students and undocumented migrants languish”
• Alice Speri, The Guardian, “‘A huge cudgel’: alarm as Trump’s war on universities could target accreditors”
• Annie Ma, Makiya Seminera, & Christopher L. Keller, Associated Press, “Visa cancellations sow panic for international students, with hundreds fearing deportation”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “‘People are hiding in their apartments’: Inside Trump’s assault on universities”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “‘Kill these cuts before they kill us’: Federally funded researchers warn DOGE cuts will be fatal”

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Alright. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Maximillian Alvarez and today we are continuing our urgent coverage of the Trump Administration’s all out assault on our institutions of higher education and the people who live, learn and work there. Today we are going deeper into the heart of authoritarian darkness that has gripped colleges and universities across the country and we’re talking with two graduate student workers at Columbia University. Columbia has become ground zero for the administration’s gangster government style moves to hold billions of dollars of federal funding hostage in order to bend universities to Donald Trump’s will to reshape the curricula culture and research infrastructure of American higher ed as such and to squash our constitutionally protected rights to free speech and free assembly, all under the McCarthy’s guise of rooting out supposed antisemitism, which the administration has recategorized to mean virtually any criticism of an opposition to the state of Israel.

The political ideology of Zionism and Israel’s US backed genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians just one year ago. Columbia University was also ground zero for the student-led Palestine solidarity protests and encampments that spread to campuses across the country and even around the world. It was exactly one year ago that the first Gaza solidarity encampment began at Columbia on April 17th, 2024 and that same month on more than one occasion, Columbia’s own president at the time minutia authorized the NYPD to descend on campus like an occupying force, beat an arrest protestors and dismantle the camps. Now fast forward to March of this year. On Friday, March 7th, the Trump administration announced that it was canceling $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia claiming that the move was due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students. The very next day, March 8th Mahmud, Khalil was abducted by ICE agents at his New York City apartment building in front of his pregnant wife and disappeared to a Louisiana immigration jail.

Khalil, a Palestinian born legal resident with a green card had just completed his master’s program and was set to graduate in May. He had served as a key negotiator with the university administration and spokesperson for the student encampment last year. He’s not accused of breaking any laws during that time, but the Trump administration has weaponized a rarely used section of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, invoking the Secretary of States power to deport non-citizens if they supposedly believed their presence in the country could negatively affect US foreign policy. Just days after Khalil’s abduction, the university also expelled grant minor president of the Student Workers of Columbia Union, a local of the United Auto Workers, and that was just one day before contract negotiations were set to open between the union and the university. On March 13th, I was expelled from Columbia University for participating in the protest movement against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, minor rights in an op-ed for the nation.

I was not the only one. He continues, 22 students, all of whom like me had been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, were either expelled, suspended for years or had their hard earned degrees revoked on the same day all for allegedly occupying a building that has been occupied at least four times throughout Columbia’s history. And then there’s Y Sao Chung, a 21-year-old undergraduate and legal permanent resident who is suing the government after ICE moved to deport her, following her arrest on March 5th while protesting Columbia’s disciplinary actions against student protestors. I mean, this is just a small, terrifying snapshot of the broader Orwellian nightmare that has become all too real, all too quickly at Columbia University and it is increasingly becoming reality around the country and things got even darker last week with the latest development in Mahmood Khalil’s case as the American Civil Liberties Union stated on Friday in a decision that appeared to be pre-written, an immigration judge ruled immediately after a hearing today that Mahmud Khalil is removable under US immigration law. This comes less than 48 hours after the US government handed over the evidence they have on Mr. Khalil, which included nothing more than a letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that made clear Mr. Khalil had not committed a crime and was being targeted solely based on his speech. He’s not yet scheduled for deportation.

Listen, this isn’t just a redux of McCarthyism and the red scare. It has elements of that absolutely, but it is also monstrously terrifyingly new. I don’t know how far down this road we’re going to go. All I know is that whatever comes next will depend on what people of conscience do now or what they don’t do. Will other universities cave and capitulate to Trump as quickly as Columbia has? Will we see instead faculty, staff, students, grad students, parents, community members and others coming together on campuses across the country to fight this or will fear submission silence and self-censorship went out? What is it even like to be living, working and studying at Columbia University right now? Well, today you’ll hear all about that firsthand from our two guests. With all of this going on, I got to speak with Caitlin Liss, a PhD candidate in history at Columbia University and a member of Student workers of Columbia, and I also spoke with Alie Wong, a PhD student at the Columbia Journalism School, and a student workers of Columbia member who was arrested and beaten by police during the second raid on the Gaza solidarity protests at Columbia on April 30th, 2024.

Here’s my conversation with Caitlin and Allie recorded on Saturday April 12th. Well, Caitlin, Allie, thank you both so much for joining us today on the show. I really appreciate it, especially in the midst of everything going on right now. And I basically wanted to start there and ask if you could tell us from your own firsthand experience as student workers at Columbia, like what is the mood on campus and in your life right now, especially in light of the latest ruling on Mahmud Khalil’s case?

Caitlin Liss:

Okay. Yeah, so thank you for having us. I’m happy to be here. The mood on campus has been, you probably won’t be surprised to hear pretty bleak, pretty bad. We found out yesterday that Mahmood Kalila is not going to be released from jail in Louisiana. I think a lot of us were hoping that this ruling that was coming up was going to be in his favor and he would be released and be back home in time to be there for the birth of his baby. And it didn’t happen. And I think it’s just another horrible thing that has happened in a month, two months of just unrelenting bad news on campus. So stuff is feeling pretty bad. People are afraid, especially international students are afraid to leave their house. They’re afraid to speak up in class. I hear from people who are afraid to go to a union meeting and even those of us who are citizens feel afraid as well.

I mean, I wake up every day and I look at my phone to see if I’ve gotten a text message telling me that one of my friends has been abducted. It’s really scary. And on top of the sort of personal relationships with our friends and comrades who are at risk, there’s the sense that also our careers are industry are at risk. So, and many other members of student workers of Columbia have spent many years dedicated to getting a PhD and being in academia and it’s increasingly starting to feel like academia might not exist for that much longer. So it’s feeling pretty bleak.

Allie Wong:

Yeah, I would definitely agree. And again, thank you so much Max for having us here. It’s a real pleasure to be able to share our stories and have a platform to do that. Yeah, I would agree. I think that there is a tremendous chilling effect that’s sunk in across the campus. And on one hand it’s not terribly surprising considering that’s the strategy of the Trump administration on the other. It is really a defeating feeling to see the momentum that we had last year, the ways that we were not only telling the story but telling it across the world that all eyes were on Columbia and we had this really incredible momentum. And so to see not just that lack of momentum, but the actual fear that has saturated the entire campus that has indiscriminately permeated people’s attitudes, whether you’re an American citizen or not, whether you’re light-skinned or not, has been something that’s been incredibly harrowing.

I know that after Mahmood, I at least had the anticipation of quite a bit of activity, but between that ranjani the other students and Columbia’s capitulation, it actually has gone the opposite way in that while I expected there to be tons of masks on campus after Columbia agreed to have a total mask ban, there was no one when I expected to see different vigils or protests or the breakdown of silos that have emerged across the campus of different groups, whether they’re student groups or faculty groups, I’m just hoping to see some kind of solidarity there. It hasn’t, and I think it’s largely because of the chilling effect because that this is the strategy of the Trump administration and unfortunately it’s such a dire situation that I think it’s really squashed a lot of the fervor and a lot of the fearlessness that many of us had prior to this moment.

Maximillian Alvarez:

It feels like a ice pick to the heart to hear that, especially knowing not just what we saw on campuses across the country just a year ago, but also the long tradition of campus protests and universities and higher education being a place of free speech, free thought free debate and the right to protest and lead with a moral consciousness like movements that help direct the whole of society to see that this is what is happening here now in front of all of us. And since I have so much more, I want to ask about the past month for you both on campus, but while we’re on that subject that Allie just brought up about the expectation right now, which I have heard echoed a lot of places online and offline of why aren’t there mass protests across higher ed in every state in the country right now, you would think that the generation of the sixties would do just that if Nixon had tried such a thing. And a lot of folks have been asking us why aren’t we seeing that right now? And so I wanted to ask if y’all had any thoughts on that and also if that would in your mind change things like if you saw other campuses that weren’t being targeted as intently as Columbia is, if you saw students and faculty and others protesting on behalf of what’s happening to you, would that change the mood on campus you think?

Caitlin Liss:

I mean that there’s a few things going on. Part of it is, like Allie said, the chilling effect of what’s been happening is making a really large percentage of our members and people in our community afraid to publicly take action. International student workers make up a really big percentage of our membership, and a lot of those people are afraid to even sign their name to a petition. In my departments. We sent a joint letter to the departments about what was going on, and a bunch of students didn’t want their names appearing on this letter that was just being sent the chair of the departments. So the chilling effect is real and very strong, and I think that that’s preventing a lot of people from showing up in ways that they might have done otherwise. I think that another part of it is just the kind of unrelenting nature of what’s been happening.

It has been one horrible thing after another and trying to react to everything as it comes in is difficult, but I don’t think it’s the case that we’re not doing anything. We are doing quite a bit and really trying through many different avenues to use our power as a union to fight back against what’s happening. We are talking with other unions on campus, we talk to other higher ed unions across the country, and so I think that there is quite a lot going on, but it does sometimes feel like we can’t keep up with the pace of the things that are happening just because they are happening so quickly and accumulating so fast.

Allie Wong:

Yeah, I mean I would definitely agree. I think that it’s the fire hose strategy, which has proven to be effective not just on Columbia but across the nation with the dismantling of the federal government attack on institutions, the arts, the legal processes and legal entities. And so I think that again, that that’s part of the strategy is to just overwhelm people with the number of issues that would require attention. And I think that’s happening on Columbia’s campus as well. If we take even divestment as an example where it was a pretty straightforward ask last year, but now we’re seeing an issue on campus where it’s no longer about Palestine, Israel divestment, it’s about immigration reform and law enforcement. It’s about the American dream class consciousness. So many of these different things that are happening not just to the student body, but to faculty and the administration.

And so I think that in terms of trying to galvanize people, it’s a really difficult ask when you have so many different things that are coming apart at the seams. And that’s not to say it’s an insurmountable task. As Caitlin mentioned, we are moving forward, we are putting infrastructure in place and asks in place, but I think it’s difficult to mobilize people around so many different issues when everyone already feels not only powerless but cynical about the ability to change things when again, that momentum that we had last year has waned and the issues have broadened.

Caitlin Liss:

Just in terms of your question about support or solidarity from other campuses, I think that one of the things that has been most dispiriting about being at Columbia right now is that it’s clear that Columbia is essentially a test case for the Trump administration. We were the first school to be and are still in many ways kind of the center of attention, but it’s not just us, but it feels like the way that Columbia is reacting is kind of setting the tone for what other universities and colleges can do across the country. And what Columbia is doing is folding, so they are setting an example that is just rolling over and giving up in terms of what other colleges can do. I think we’re seeing other universities are reacting to these kinds of attacks in ways that are much better than Columbia has done. We just saw that Tufts, I think filed some legal documents in support of Ru Mesa Ozturk because she is a student there.

Columbia has done no such thing for Ranjani, for Uno, for Mahmood. They haven’t even mentioned them. And so we can see other universities are reacting in ways that are better. And I think that that gives us hope and not only gives us hope, but it gives us also something to point to when people at Columbia say, well, Columbia can’t do things any differently. It’s like, well, clearly it can because these other universities are doing something. Columbia doesn’t have to be doing this. It is making a choice to completely give in to everything that Trump is demanding.

Allie Wong:

And I would also add to that point, and going back to your question about Mahmood and sort of how either us individually or collectively are feeling about that, to Caitlin’s point, I think there’s so much that’s symbolic about Columbia, whether it has to do with Trump’s personal pettiness or the fact that it was kind of the epicenter of the encampments list last year. I think what happened with Mahmood is incredibly symbolic. If you look at particularly him and Ranjani, the first two that were targeted by the university, so much of their situations are almost comical in how they planned the ambiguity of policy and antisemitism where you look at Mahmud and he, it’s almost funny that he was the person who was targeted because he’s an incredibly calm, gentle person. He provided a sense of peace during the chaos of last year. He’s unequivocally condemned, Hamas, very publicly condemned terrorism, condemned antisemitism.

So if you were looking for someone who would be a great example, he’s not really one considering they don’t have any evidence on him. And the same thing for Ranjani who literally wasn’t even in the country when October 7th happened in that entire year, had never participated in the protests at most, had kind of engaged with social media by liking things, but two really good examples of people who don’t actually quite fit the bill in terms of trying to root out antisemitism. But in my mind it’s really strategic because it really communicates that nobody is safe. Whether you’ve participated in protests or not, you’re not safe, whether you’ve condemned antisemitism or not, you’re not safe. And I think that plays into the symbolic nature of Columbia as well, where Trump is trying to make an example out of Columbia and out of Columbia students. And we see that very clearly in the ruling yesterday with Mahmud.

Again, that’s not to say that it’s not an insurmountable thing, but it’s disappointing and it’s frankly embarrassing to be a part of an institution that brags about its long history of protests, its long history of social change through student movements. When you look at 1968 and Columbia called the NYPD on students arrested 700 students, and yet it kind of enshrines that moment in history as a place of pride, and I see that happening right now as well where 20, 30, 50 years from now, we’ll be looking at this moment and Columbia will be proud of it when really they’re the perpetrators of violence and hatred and bigotry and kind of turning the gun on their own students. So yeah, it’s a really precarious time to be a Columbia student and to be advocating for ourselves and our friends, our brothers and sisters who are experiencing this kind of oppression and persecution from our own country.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Allie, Caitlin, I want to ask if we could again take that step back to the beginning of March where things were this terrifying new reality was really ramping up with the Trump administration’s freezing and threatening of completely withholding $400 million in federal funds and grants to Columbia just one day before Mahmood Khalil was abducted by ice agents and disappeared to a jail in Louisiana thousands of miles away. So from that point to now, I wanted to ask, as self-identified student workers at Columbia University, how have you and others been feeling throughout all of this as it’s been unfolding and trying to get through your day-to-day work? What does that even look like? Teaching and researching under these terrifying circumstances?

Allie Wong:

For me, it has been incredibly scary. As you mentioned, I was someone who was arrested and beaten last year after the second Gaza solidarity encampment raid and have spoken quite publicly about it. I authored a number of pieces around that time and since then and have been pretty open about my involvement being okay serving as a lightning rod for a lot of that PR stuff. And so for me, coming into this iteration of students battles with the university, it’s been really scary to kind see how many of the students that I was arrested with, many of my friends and colleagues are now either being targeted because of their involvement or living in the fear of being targeted because there is an opacity around what those policies are and how they’re being enforced and implemented. So it really does feel quite McCarthys in the sense that you don’t really know what the dangers are, but you know that they’re there, you’re looking over your shoulder all the time.

I don’t leave my house without wearing a mask just because through this whole process, many students have been doxed. Both Caitlin and myself have been doxed quite heavily through Canary mission and other groups online, and many folks have experienced offline behavior that has been threatening or scary to their own physical emotional security. And so that’s been a big piece for me is just being aware of my surroundings, being mindful of when I leave the house. In many respects, it does feel like I am growing in paranoia, but at the same time I consider it a moral obligation to be on the front lines as a light-skinned US citizen to be serving as a literal and figurative shield for my international brothers and sisters. And so it’s an interesting place as particularly a US citizen to say, what is my responsibility to the people around me?

What’s my responsibility to myself and keeping myself and my home safe? What’s my responsibility for sticking up for those who are targeted as someone who has the privilege of being able to be a citizen? And so I think it’s kind of a confusing time for those of us on the ground wanting to do more, wanting to help, wanting to offer our assistance with the privileges that we have and everyone’s level of comfort is different, and so my expectation is not that other people would take the kinds of risks I’m taking, but everyone has a part to play and whether that’s a visual part or a non-visual part, being in the public, it doesn’t really matter. We all have a part to play. And so given what we talked about just about the strategy of the Trump administration and the objectives to make us fearful and make us not speak out, I think it’s more important now than ever for those of us who are able to have the covering of US citizenship, to be doing everything in our power with the resources we’ve been given to take those risks because it’s much more important now in this administration than it’s ever been.

Caitlin Liss:

And I think on top of the stuff allie’s talking about, we do still have to continue doing our jobs. So for me, that is teaching. I’m teaching a class this semester and that has been very challenging to do, having to continue going in and talking about the subject matter, which is stuff that is very interesting to me personally and that I’m very excited to be teaching about in the classroom, but at the same time, there’s so much going on campus, it just feels impossible to be turning our attention to Ana and I hear from my students are scared, so part of my job has become having to help my students through that. I have heard lots of people who are trying to move their classes off campus because students don’t want to be on campus right now.

ICE is crawling all over campus. The NYPD is all over the place. I don’t know if you saw this, but Columbia has agreed to hire these 36 quote peace officers who are going to be on campus and have arresting power. So now essentially we have cops on campus full time and then on top of all of that, you have to wait in these horrible security lines to even get onto campus so the environment on campus doesn’t feel safe, so my students don’t feel safe. I don’t think anyone’s students feel safe right now. My colleagues who are international students don’t feel safe. I had a friend ask me what to do because she was TAing for a class and she wasn’t allowed to move it off campus or onto Zoom, and she said, I don’t feel safe on campus because I’m an international student and what am I going to do if ice comes to the door?

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do in that situation. And so the students are scared, my colleagues are scared. I’ve even heard from a lot of professors who are feeling like they have to watch their words in the classroom because they don’t want to end up on Canary mission for having said something. So that’s quite difficult. Teaching in this environment is very difficult and I think that the students are having a really hard time. And then on top of that, I am in the sixth year of my PhD, so I’m supposed to be writing a dissertation right now, and that is also quite difficult to be keeping up with my research, which is supposed to be a big part of the PhD is producing research and it’s really hard to do right now because it feels like we have, my friends and my colleagues are at risk right now, so that’s quite difficult to maintain your attention in all those different places.

Allie Wong:

Just one more piece to add because I know that we’ve been pretty negative and it is a pretty negative situation, so I don’t want to silver line things. That being said, I do feel as though it’s been really beautiful to see people step up and really beautiful to see this kind of symbiotic relationship happening between US students and international students. I’m at the journalism school, which is overwhelmingly international, and I was really discouraged when there was a report that came out from the New York Times a couple of weeks ago about a closed town hall that we had where our dean, Jelani Cobb more or less said to students, we can’t protect you as much as I would love to be able to say here are the processes and protocols and the ways to keep yourself safe and the ways that we’re here to support you, but he just said we can’t.

And he got a lot of flack for that because that’s a pretty horrible thing for a dean to say. But I actually really appreciated it because it was the most honest and direct thing he could have said to students when the university itself was just sending us barrages of emails with these empty platitudes about values and a 270 year history of freethinking and all this nonsense. That being said, I think that it was a really difficult story to read, but at the same time it’s been really beautiful to see community gather around and clinging together when there are unknowns, people taking notes for each other when students don’t feel comfortable going to campus, students starting to host off campus happy hour groups and sit-ins together and things of that nature that have been really, again, amazing to see happen under such terrible circumstances and people just wanting to help each other out in the ways that they can.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Caitlyn, Allie, you were just giving us a pretty harrowing view of your day-to-day reality there as student workers of Columbia PhD working on your PhDs and dealing with all of this Orwellian madness that we’ve been talking about today. When I was listening to you both, I was hearing so many kind of resonances from my own experience, just one sort of decade back, right? I mean, because I remember being a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan during the first Trump administration and co-founding for full disclosure, I was a member of the grad union there. I was a co-founder of the campus anti-fascist network. I was doing a lot of public writing. I started this podcast in that sort of era, and there were so many things that y’all were talking about that sounded similar from the fear of websites like Canary Mission, putting people’s names out there and encouraging them to be doxed and disciplined and even deported.

That resonated with me because it just ate nine years ago. That was groups like Turning Point USA, they were the ones trying to film professors in class and then send it to Breitbart and hopefully get it into the Fox News outrage cycle. And I experienced some of that. But what I’m hearing also is just that the things we were dealing with during the first Trump administration are not what y’all are dealing with now. There is first and foremost a fully, the state is now part of it. The state is now sort of leading that. It’s not just the sort of far right groups and people online and that kind of thing, but also it feels like the mechanisms of surveillance and punishment are entirely different as well. I wanted to ask if y’all could speak a little more to that side of things. It’s not just the university administration that you’re contending with, you’re contending with a lot of different forces here that are converging on you and your rights at this very moment.

Caitlin Liss:

Yeah, I mean I think the one thing that has been coming up a lot for us, we’re used to fighting Columbia, the institution for our rights in the workplace for fair pay. And Columbia has always been a very stubborn adversary, very difficult to get anything out of them. Our first contract fight lasted for years, and now we’re looking at not just Columbia as someone to be fighting with, but at the federal government as a whole. And it’s quite scary. I think we talked about this a little bit, about international students being afraid to participate in protests, being afraid to go to union meetings. We’re hearing a lot of fear from people who aren’t citizens about to what extent participating in the union is safe for them right now. And on the one hand you want to say participating in a union is a protected activity.

There’s nothing illegal about it. You can’t get in trouble. In fact, it’s illegal to retaliate against you for being in a union. But on the other hand, it doesn’t necessarily feel like the law is being that protective right now. So it’s a very scary place to be in. And I think that from our point of view, the main tool we have in this moment is just our solidarity with one another and labor power as a union because the federal governments does not seem that interested in protecting our rights as a union. And so we have to rely on each other in order to fight for what we need and what will make our workplace safe.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, and I was wondering, Allie, if I could also toss it to you there, because this makes me think of something you said earlier about how the conditions at Columbia, the structure of Columbia, how Columbia’s run, have sort of made it vulnerable to what’s happening now or the ways that Columbia talks about itself versus what Columbia actually is, are quite stark here. And connecting that to what Caitlin just said, I think it should also be understood as someone who has covered grad student campaigns, contract campaigns at Columbia and elsewhere, that when these sorts of strikes are happening when graduate student workers are taking action against the administration, the first ones that are threatened by the administration with punitive measures including potentially the revocation of their visas are international students. They have always been the most vulnerable members of grad student unions that administrations have actually used as leverage to compel unions to bend to their demand. So I make that point speaking only for myself here as a journalist who has observed this in many other times, that this precedent of going after international students in the way the Trump administration is like didn’t just come out of nowhere.

Allie Wong:

Exactly. Yeah. So I mean I think if you even look at how Trump campaigned, he really doubled down on immigration policy. I mean, it’s the most obvious statement I can say, but the high hyperbole, the hatred, the racism, you see that as a direct map onto what’s happening right now. And I think that’s part of what maybe isn’t unique about Columbia, but as we’re starting to see other universities take a stand, Caitlin mentioned Tufts. I know Princeton also recently kind said that they would not capitulate. So there is precedent for something different from how Columbia has behaved, and I think you see them just playing exactly into Trump’s hands folding to his kind of proxy policy of wanting to make Colombian example. And it’s a really disappointing thing from a university that prides itself on its liberal values, prides itself on its diversity on protecting students.

When you actually see quite the opposite, not only is Columbia not just doing anything, it’s actively participating in what’s happening on campus, the fact that they have yet to even name the students who have very publicly been abducted or chased out of the country because of their complicity, the fact that they will send emails or make these statements about values, but actually not tell us anything that’s going to be helpful, like how policies will be implemented when they’re going to be implemented, what these ice agents look like, things of that nature that could be done to protect students. And also obviously not negotiating in good faith. The fact that Grant was expelled and fired the day before we had a collective bargaining meeting right before we were about to talk about protections for international students, just communicates that the university is not operating in good faith, they’re not interested in the wellbeing of their students or doing anything within their power, which is quite a tremendous power to say to the Trump administration, our students come first. Our students are an entity of us and we’re going to do whatever we can in our power to block you from demonizing and targeting international students who, as you said, are the most vulnerable people on our campus, but also those who bring so much diversity and brilliance and life to our university and our country.

Caitlin Liss:

And I think on the subject of international students, you, you’re right that they have always been in a more precarious position in higher ed unions. But on the other hand, I think that that shows us what power we do have as a union. I’m thinking. So we’ve been talking a lot about to what extent it’s safe for international workers to stay involved in the union, and our contract is expiring in June, which is why we’re having these bargaining sessions and we’re talking about going on strike next fall potentially. And there’s a lot of questions about to what extent can international students participate now because who knows what kind of protections they’re going to have? And I’ve been thinking about the last time we went on strike, it was a 10 week strike and we were striking through the end of the semester. It was the fall semester and we were still on strike when the semester ended.

And Columbia said that if we didn’t come off strike that they weren’t going to rehire the workers who were striking for the next semester. So anyone who was on strike wouldn’t get hired for a position in the spring semester and for international students that was going to affect their visa status. So it was very scary for them. And we of course said, that’s illegal. You can, that’s retaliation for us for going on strike. You can’t do that. And they said, it’s not illegal because we’re just not rehiring you. And it was this real moment of risk even though we felt much more confident in the legal protection because it felt like they could still do it and our recourse would have to be going to court and winning the case that this was illegal. So it was still very scary for international students, but we voted together to stay on strike and we held the line and Columbia did not in fact want to fire all of us who were on strike, and we won a contract anyway, even though there was this scary moment for international students even back then. And I have been telling people this story when we are thinking about protections for international students now, because I think that the moral of the story is that even under a situation where there’s a lot more legal security and legal protection, it’s still scary. And the way that you get over it being scary is by trusting that everyone coming together and standing together is what’s going to win and rather than whatever the legal protection might be.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Caitlin and Allie, I have so many more thoughts and questions, but I know that we only have about 10 minutes left here and I want to use the time that we have left with y’all to sort of tug on the thread that you were just pulling there. Caitlin, looking at this through the union’s perspective or through a labor perspective, can you frame these attacks on higher ed and the people who live, learn and work there through a labor and working workers’ rights perspective, and talk about what your message is to other union members and other people who listen to this show who are working people, union and non-union, why this is important, why they need to care and what people can do about it.

Caitlin Liss:

It’s very clear why it’s important and why other workers should care. The funding cuts to Columbia University and other universities really threaten not just the university, but the whole ecosystem of research. So these are people’s careers that are at risk and careers that not only they have an interest in having, but careers that benefit everyone in our society, people who do public health research, people who do medical research, people who do research about climate change. These are really important jobs that the opportunities to pursue them are vanishing. And so that obviously is important. And then when we’re looking at the attacks on international students, if m kil can be abducted for speaking out in support of Palestine and against the genocide and Gaza, then none of us are safe. No worker is safe if the governments can just abduct you and deport you for something like that.

On the one hand, even people who aren’t citizens are protected by the first amendments, but also it’s not clear that that’s where they’re going to stop. I think that this is a moment that we should all take very seriously. I mean, it’s very serious for the future of higher education as a whole. I feel like we are in sort of an existential fight here. And at the moment, Columbia is just completely welcoming this fascist takeover with open arms and it threatens higher ed as an institution. What kind of university is this? If the Middle Eastern studies department is being controlled by some outside force who says what they can and can’t teach, and now Trump is threatening to put all of Columbia under some consent decree, so we’re going to have to be beholden to whatever the Trump administration says we’re allowed to do on campus. So it is a major threat to higher education, but it’s also a threat I think, in a much larger sense to workers all over the country because it is sending the message that none of us are safe. No one is safe to express ourselves. We can’t expect to be safe in the workplace. And it’s really important that as a labor union that we take a stand here because it is not just destroying our workplaces, but sort of it’s threatening everyone’s workplace.

Allie Wong:

Exactly. That’s exactly what I was thinking too. I know it’s such an overused word at this point, but I think a huge aspect of this has to do with precedent and how, as we were mentioning, Columbia is so symbolic for a lot of reasons, including the fact that all eyes are on Columbia. And so when Columbia sets a precedent for what can and cannot not be done by University of Administration in caving to the federal government, I think that sets a precedent for not just academic institutions, but institutions writ large and the workers that work in those institutions. Because what happens here is happening across the federal government and will happen to institutions everywhere. And so I think it’s really critical that we bake trust back into our systems, both trust in administrations by having them prove that they do have our backs and they do care about student workers, but also that they trust student workers.

They trust us to do the really important research that keeps the heartbeat of this university alive. And I think that it’s going to crumble not just Columbia, but other academic institutions if really critical research gets defunded. Research that doesn’t just affect right now, but affects our country in perpetuity, in the kinds of opportunities that will be presented later in the future, the kinds of research that will be instrumental in making our society healthier and more equitable place in the future. And so this isn’t just a moment in time, but it’s one that absolutely will ripple out into history.

Caitlin Liss:

And we happen right now to be sort of fortunately bargaining a new contract as we speak. So like I said before, our contract is expiring in June. And so for us, obviously these kinds of issues are the top of mind when we’re thinking about what we can get in the contract. So in what way is this contract that we’re bargaining for going to be able to help us? So we’re fighting for Columbia to restore the funding cuts we’re fighting for them to instate a sanctuary campus and to reinstate grant minor, our president who was expelled, and Ronan who was enrolled, and everyone else who has been expelled or experienced sanctions because of their protests for Palestine. And so in a lot of ways, I think that the contract fight is a big part of what we’re concentrating on right now. But there’s also, there’s many unions on Columbia’s campus.

There’s the postdoc union, UAW 4,100, there’s the support staff and the Barnard contingent faculty who are UAW 2110. There’s building service employees, I think they’re 32 BJ and the maintenance staff is TW. So there’s many unions on campus. And I think about this a lot because I think what we’re seeing is we haven’t mentioned the trustees yet, I don’t think, but recently our interim president, Katrina Armstrong stepped down and was replaced by an acting president, was the former co-chair of the board of trustees Claire Shipman. And in many ways, I think what we’ve been seeing happening at Columbia is the result of the board of trustees not caving, but welcoming the things that Trump is demanding. I think that they’re complicit in this, but the board of trustees is like 21 people. There’s not very many of them. And there’s thousands of us at Columbia who actually are the people who make the university work, the students, the faculty, the staff, thousands of people in unions, thousands of non-unionized students and workers on campus as well.

And we outnumber the trustees by such a huge amount. And I think that thinking about the power we have when we all come together as the thousands of people who do the actual work of the university as opposed to these 21 people who are making decisions for us without consulting us that we don’t want, and that’s the way we have to think about reclaiming the university. I think we have to try and take back the power as workers, as students, as faculty from the board of trustees and start thinking about how we can make decisions that are in our interests.

Allie Wong:

One more thing that I wanted to call out, I’m not sure where this fits in. I think Caitlin talking about the board of trustees made me think of it is just the fact that I think that another big issue is the fact that there’s this very amorphous idea of antisemitism that all of this is being done under the banner of, and I think that it’s incredibly problematic because first of all, what is antisemitism? It’s this catchall phrase that is used to weaponize against dissent. And I think that when you look at the track record of these now three presidents that we’ve had in the past year, each of them has condemned antisemitism but has not condemned other forms of racism, including an especially Islamophobia that has permeated our campus. And because everything is done under the banner of antisemitism and you have folks like Claire Shipman who have been aligned with Zionist organizations, it also erodes the trust in of the student body, but then especially student workers, many of whom are Jewish and many of whom are having their research be threatened under the banner of antisemitism being done in their name. And yet it’s the thing that is stunting their ability to thrive at this university. And so I think that as we talk about the administration and board of trustees, just calling out the hypocrisy there of how they are behaving on campus, the ways that they’re capitulating and doing it under the guise of protecting Jewish students, but in the process of actually made Jewish students and faculty a target by not only withholding their funding but also saying that this is all to protect Jewish students but have created a more threatening environment than existed before.

Caitlin Liss:

Yeah, I mean, as a Jewish student personally, I’m about to go to my family’s Seder to talk about celebrating liberation from oppression while our friends and colleagues are sitting in jail. It’s quite depressing and quite horrific to see people saying that they’re doing this to protect Jews when it’s so clearly not the case.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, I wanted to ask in just this final two minutes that we got here, I want to bring it back down to that level to again remind folks listening that you both are student workers, you are working people just like everyone else that we talk to on this show. And I as a former graduate student worker can’t help but identify with the situation that y’all are in. But it makes me think about the conversations I had with my family when I was on the job market and I was trying to go from being a PhD student to a faculty member somewhere and hearing that maybe my political activism or my public writing would be like a mark against me in my quest to get that career that I had worked so many years for and just having that in the back of my mind. But that still seems so far away and so minuscule in comparison to what y’all are dealing with. And I just wanted to ask as act scholars, as people working on your careers as well, how are you talking to your families about this and what future in or outside of academia do you feel is still open to you and people, graduate student workers like yourselves in today’s higher ed?

Caitlin Liss:

I mean the job market for history, PhDs has been quite bad for a long time even before this. So I mean, when I started the PhD program, I think I knew that I might not get a job in academia. And it’s sad because I really love it. I love teaching especially, but at the end of the day, I don’t feel like it’s a choice to stop speaking up about what’s happening, to stop condemning what’s happening in Gaza, to stop condemning the fascist takeover of our government and the attacks on our colleagues. It’s just I can’t not say something about it. I can’t do nothing, and if it means I can’t get a job after this, that will be very sad. But I don’t think that that is a choice that I can or should make to do nothing or say nothing so that I can try and preserve my career if I have to. I’ll get another kind of job.

Allie Wong:

Yeah, I completely agree. How dare I try to protect some nice job that I could potentially have in the future when there are friends and students on campus who are running for their lives. It just is not something that’s even comparable. And so I just feel like it’s an argument a lot of folks have made that if in the future there’s a job that decides not to hire me based off of my advocacy, I don’t want that job. I want a job based off of my skills and qualifications and experience, not my opinions about a genocide that’s happening halfway across the world, that any person should feel strongly against the slaughtering of tens of thousands of children and innocent folks. If that’s an inhibitor of a potential job, then that’s not the kind of environment I want to work in anyway. And that’s a really privileged position to have. I recognize that. But I think it’s incredibly crucial to be able to couch that issue in the broader perspective of not just this horrific genocide that’s happening, but also the future of our democracy and how critical it is to be someone who is willing to take a risk for the future of this country and the future of our basic civil liberties and freedoms.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Alright, gang, that’s going to wrap things up for us this week. Once again, I want to thank our guests, Caitlin Liss and Allie Wong of Student Workers of Columbia, and I want to thank you for listening and I want to thank you for caring. We’ll see you Allall back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go explore all the great work we’re doing at the Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism that lifts up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. And we need to hear those voices now more than ever. Sign up for the real new newsletter so you never miss a story. And help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you it really makes a difference. I’m Maximilian Alvarez, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, solidarity forever.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Maximillian Alvarez.

Key groups responsible for the passage of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act including the Green New Deal Network and Sunrise Movement, Climate Power, Third Act, Center for Popular Democracy, the DNC Council on Environment and Climate, Climate Defenders, Unitarian Universalists, NAACP, Dayenu, Evergreen, the United to End Polluter Handouts Coalition, Climate Hawks Vote and the Center of Biological Adversity have all signed on to the mobilization. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to participate.

Three months into a Trump presidency and takeover in Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency has faced massive rollbacks, millions of dollars in federal dollars for critical programs have been frozen, and federal workers have been unjustly fired. In response, the “All Out On Earth Day” mobilization will be rallying to:

• Defend Workers. Defend Democracy.
• Lower Costs for Communities — Stop Handouts for Corporations
• Make Polluters Pay. End the Welfare for Big Oil and Billionaires.

(See event host toolkit for more detailed demands)

Local groups like 350 Montana, Sunrise Huntington, Pass the Federal Green New Deal Coalition, 350 Wisconsin, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, 50501hi, Long Island Progressive Coalition will be hosting local rallies, teach-ins, and other events.

“This Earth Day, we fight for everything: for our communities, our democracy, and the future our children deserve. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire allies are waging an all-out assault on the agencies that keep our air clean, our water safe, and our families healthy. They’re gutting the programs and projects we fought hard to win—programs that bring down energy costs and create good-paying jobs in towns across America, especially in red states. So, we need to make sure the pressure continues and our protests aren’t just a flash in the pan. When we stand together—workers, environmentalists, everyday folks—we can not only stop them, but we can build the world we deserve.”—Kaniela Ing, National Director of the Green New Deal Network

“The Americans who voted for Trump because of the price of eggs did not think they were choosing a future of fires, floods, hurricanes, and rising seas. The vast majority want a solar future, not a return to ‘beautiful’ coal. Earth Day will make that clear.”—Denis Hayes, Founder, Earth Day

“Fifty-five years ago, a massive turnout on the first Earth Day forced a corrupt Republican administration to pass the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and create the EPA; let’s do it again!”—Bill McKibben, Founder, Third Act

“Donald Trump is giving oil and gas billionaires the green light to wreck our planet and put millions of lives at risk, all so they can pad their bottom line. Just three months into the Trump presidency, the damage has already been catastrophic. Trump is dismantling critical environmental safeguards, putting lives at risk and leaving working people to suffer the devastating consequences. This Earth Day, we stand united in defiance of their greed and fight for a future that prioritizes people and the planet over profits.”—Aru Shiney-Ajay, Executive Director, Sunrise Movement

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Baptist Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East has condemned Israeli’s Palm Sunday attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital, the last functioning hospital in Gaza City.

It said in a statement the Israeli forces had destroyed the two-storey Genetic Laboratory, damaged the pharmacy and emergency department buildings, and caused damage to surrounding structures, including St Philip the Evangelist Chapel.

The hospital can no longer function with staff and patients being forced to flee in the dead of night after a military warning at 2am to evacuate the hospital.

• READ MORE: Israeli forces bomb al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, forcing patients to flee
• Health workers call for NZ government to join global demands for ambulance massacre inquiry
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

The bombing of the hospital began minutes later. It was hit by at least two missiles, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

At least three people were reported killed.

“The Diocese of Jerusalem is appalled,” the church statement said, adding that the Baptist hospital had been bombed “for the fifth time since the beginning of the war in 2023 — and this time was on the morning of Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week.”

It added: “We call upon all governments and people of goodwill to intervene to stop all kinds of attacks on medical and humanitarian institutions.”

Qatar says attack a ‘horrific massacre’
The Qatar government described the Israeli attack as a “horrific massacre and a heinous crime against civilians” that constituted a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry warned about the collapse of the health system in Gaza and the expansion of the cycle of violence across the region.

It said the international community must assume its responsibilities in protecting civilians.

It reaffirmed Qatar’s backing of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.

Israel has repeatedly attacked hospitals in the Palestinian enclave with impunity throughout its devastating war, said the Gaza Government Media Office.

Attacks on 36 hospitals
According to Al Jazeera, Israeli attacks on 36 hospitals since October 2023 include:

• In November 2023, Israeli tanks surrounded the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya and fired artillery at the complex, killing at least 12 Palestinians.
• Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was subjected to a prolonged Israeli siege starting in March 2024. By early April last year, the World Health Organisation reported that the facility, Gaza’s largest medical complex, was “in ruins” and no longer functional. Dozens of bodies were later recovered from the hospital grounds and surrounding areas, indicating that patients and medical staff had been killed and placed in mass graves.
• In March 2024, an Israeli nighttime attack on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed two Palestinians, including a 16-year-old boy who had undergone surgery two days earlier.
• At least 50 people were injured in the same month in an Israeli drone attack next to the entrance of the al-Helal al-Emirati Maternity Hospital in the Tal as-Sultan area of Rafah city.
• In May, Rafah’s Kuwaiti Speciality Hospital was forced to shut down after an Israeli attack just outside the gates of the hospital killed two of its medical staff.
• In December, Israeli soldiers stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, torching large sections, ordering hundreds of people to leave and kidnapping its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya — who is still detained by the Israeli military without charge — and other medical staff.
• In March 2025, Israel blew up the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, destroying Gaza’s specialised cancer treatment facility as well as an adjacent medical school.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

• Trump announces pause on tariffs except China, democrats say damage is done and uncertainty remains
• Federal worker unions fight back against Trump attacks on government workers and their unions, while Dems back pro-worker legislation
• UN World Food Programme says over half of South Sudan population faces food insecurity as nation on brink of civil war
• State senate committee advances bills to boost school funding in low-income districts, and boost financial aid for state college students who have been homeless
• California Women’s Legislative Caucus unveils priority bills on criminal justice, incarcerated women, immigrants, and emergency diapers

The post Trump announces 90-day pause on most tariffs; Federal worker unions fight back against Trump attacks on government workers and their unions- April 9, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

“There has been a systemic erasure of Black history.” Professor Christina Greer discusses the Trump administration’s crackdown on free speech and efforts to whitewash American history. The erasure of the history of racism and resistance is not only intellectually dishonest, says Greer, but will also cause the U.S. economic and social harm. “We can’t move forward as a nation collectively … if we don’t understand our collective past,” she says.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

An estimated 1 million protested across the United States and around the world Saturday to tell President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk “Hands Off!” They rallied in opposition to the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal agencies and programs, the war in Gaza and attacks on LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, education, healthcare and reproductive rights. We hear voices from the coordinated “Hands Off!” nationwide protests, described as the largest demonstrations to date since Trump returned to office.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

As federal unions lead the resistance to cuts by billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, President Trump has pushed to end collective bargaining rights for nearly half the federal workforce in a new executive order that calls them “hostile” to his agenda. Unions say the order is the biggest attack on the labor movement in U.S. history. “It’s designed to silence workers,” says Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union. He says they are also planning to join the April 5 mass rallies called by the group Indivisible.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Public Citizen Health Research Group Director Dr. Robert Steinbrook issued the following statement:

“The nation’s scientific enterprise is being annihilated and the silence of too many of our scientific leaders is only making the ongoing catastrophe worse.

“The ‘SOS’ signal from 1,900 scientists must be a wake-up call for our leading scientific and medical organizations to show courage and speak out at this critical moment.

“If scientists and scientific and medical organizations will not forcefully speak out in defense of science and public health, who will? There is no alternative.”

Additional context on the letter:

According to the statement: “The quest for truth—the mission of science—requires that scientists freely explore new questions and report their findings honestly, independent of special interests. The administration is engaging in censorship, destroying this independence. It is using executive orders and financial threats to manipulate which studies are funded or published, how results are reported, and which data and research findings the public can access. The administration is blocking research on topics it finds objectionable, such as climate change, or that yields results it does not like, on topics ranging from vaccine safety to economic trends. A climate of fear has descended on the research community.”

Established by Congress in 1863 as a private nongovernmental institution, the mission of the National Academies is to “provide independent, objective advice to inform policy with evidence, spark progress and innovation, and confront challenging issues for the benefit of society.” The organization itself, however, has been silent about the Trump Administration’s attacks on science and public health. The signatories to the letter represent about 23% of the full membership of the National Academies and 41% of the members who were reached by the members’ campaign. Although many of the National Academies’ activities are requested and funded by Congress and federal agencies, the organization does not receive direct federal appropriations.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

These attacks come as the Trump administration target students who’ve spoken out against the genocide in Gaza. Secretary Rubio and President Trump are extrajudicially revoking student visas and attempting to deport any student they wish, without any due process. Their crime? Disagreeing with the U.S. government’s support for genocide. Students are being kidnapped by masked officers in broad daylight – that should sound the alarm for every American who might openly disagree with President Trump.

These gestapo-like tactics and McCarthyist smears of peace organizations are leading the country down a dark path of unchecked fascism and dictatorship. Between the intimidation of peace groups and blatant attacks on students,every person in the U.S. should stand against this repression – or prepare to face it themselves down the line. Individuals may not like CODEPINK or our messaging around Palestine or China, but that doesn’t exclude them from repression if they let the Trump Administration set this precedent. If they disagree with him on anything at all, they may face the same smears and repression we have. After the groundwork is laid, it’s only a matter of time.

To be clear: CODEPINK is not funded by any foreign government. Protesting war and genocide is not supporting terrorism. Not only are they lying, they are defying the U.S. Constitution to muzzle the burgeoning student movement.

The slanderous statements made by elected officials can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those being lied about, as well as their friends and family. It appears that the United States government is not only committed to waging war abroad, but it is also intent on waging war domestically against U.S. citizens and non-citizens, both of which are also protected by the Constitution.

It is not a coincidence that both Senator Cotton and Secretary Rubio referred to peace activists and students as “lunatics” – they have clearly received their talking points. However, what is actual lunacy is how those elected to serve the American people are ignoring the fact that a majority of Americans do now want wars or war crimes being carried out in our name.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Codepink.

These attacks come as the Trump administration target students who’ve spoken out against the genocide in Gaza. Secretary Rubio and President Trump are extrajudicially revoking student visas and attempting to deport any student they wish, without any due process. Their crime? Disagreeing with the U.S. government’s support for genocide. Students are being kidnapped by masked officers in broad daylight – that should sound the alarm for every American who might openly disagree with President Trump.

These gestapo-like tactics and McCarthyist smears of peace organizations are leading the country down a dark path of unchecked fascism and dictatorship. Between the intimidation of peace groups and blatant attacks on students,every person in the U.S. should stand against this repression – or prepare to face it themselves down the line. Individuals may not like CODEPINK or our messaging around Palestine or China, but that doesn’t exclude them from repression if they let the Trump Administration set this precedent. If they disagree with him on anything at all, they may face the same smears and repression we have. After the groundwork is laid, it’s only a matter of time.

To be clear: CODEPINK is not funded by any foreign government. Protesting war and genocide is not supporting terrorism. Not only are they lying, they are defying the U.S. Constitution to muzzle the burgeoning student movement.

The slanderous statements made by elected officials can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those being lied about, as well as their friends and family. It appears that the United States government is not only committed to waging war abroad, but it is also intent on waging war domestically against U.S. citizens and non-citizens, both of which are also protected by the Constitution.

It is not a coincidence that both Senator Cotton and Secretary Rubio referred to peace activists and students as “lunatics” – they have clearly received their talking points. However, what is actual lunacy is how those elected to serve the American people are ignoring the fact that a majority of Americans do now want wars or war crimes being carried out in our name.

The post CODEPINK Statement Regarding The Recent Defamation of Peace Activists and Unconstitutional Attacks on Students appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by CounterPunch News Service.

Janine Jackson interviewed Social Security Works’ Nancy Altman about attacks on Social Security for the March 21, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Strong Arm Press (2018)

Janine Jackson: Social Security has been overwhelmingly popular, and under vehement attack from some quarters, since it began. And for decades, elite news media have generated a standard assessment: It’s the most popular program, hence the “third rail” of politicking, and also, based on willful misreading of how it works, it’s about to be insolvent any minute—the latter notion sitting alongside corporate media’s constant refrain that private is always better than public, just because, like, efficiency and all that.

Now, in this frankly wild, “Only losers care about caring for one another” and “Shouldn’t the richest just control everything?” moment, Social Security is on the chopping block for real. Still, as ever, the attack is rooted in disinformation, but with a truly critical press corps largely missing in action, myth-busting might not be enough.

We are joined now by veteran Social Security explainer and defender Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works and author of, among other titles, The Truth About Social Security: The Founder’s Words Refute Revisionist History, Zombie Lies and Common Misunderstandings. She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Nancy Altman.

Nancy Altman: Thank you so much for having me.

Truthout (3/16/25)

JJ: A lot of us are in a kind of blurry, “holy heck, is this really happening?” mode, but titrating out what is actually happening today is important—set aside from whether courts will eventually rule against it, or how it might play out. In “what is happening” news, I’m reading in Truthout via Bloomberg that three individuals representing private equity concerns have shown up at the Social Security Administration. How weird is that? What can that possibly mean?

NA: It’s horrible. And if you can believe it, it is even worse. As soon as Donald Trump was inaugurated on January 20, the DOGE guys—the DOGE boys, as young as 19—were swarming all over the Social Security Administration. As you said in your introduction, there has been a small group of people, completely out of touch, who wanted to do away with Social Security from the beginning. They’ve always been defeated, but unfortunately, they now are in control of the White House.

It’s Donald Trump. Despite all his lies in the campaign that he wouldn’t touch Social Security, he proposed cuts in every one of his budgets in his first term. It’s Elon Musk, who unbelievably called it “the biggest Ponzi scheme” in history, which is such a slander. And it’s Russell Vought, who is the director of the Office of Management and Budget, who’s architect of Project 2025. And what we’re seeing is Project 2025 on steroids. So you’ve got private venture people there, you have DOGE guys stealing our data, all in an effort to undermine our Social Security system.

AP (2/19/25)

JJ: The line is that, “Oh no, they’re not attacking Social Security itself, just fraud within it.” Now, the bad faith is palpable, but what is your response to that notion, that it’s really just the fraud that’s under attack?

NA: As you said, I wrote a book called The Truth About Social Security, and one of the zombie lies is one of the ones you mentioned. They all say, “Oh, this private sector is so much more efficient and so much better and blah, blah, blah.”

Actually, Social Security is extremely efficiently run. Less than about a half a penny of every dollar spent is spent on administration. The other more than 99 cents comes back in benefits. That’s so much more efficient than you find with 401k for private sector insurance, where you can get 15, 20% administrative costs and hidden fees and so forth.

And that’s also with improper payments— there are a lot of overpayments, underpayments, which were done because Congress has made it so difficult to administer, and some of it’s just impossible to avoid. But 99.7% of Social Security benefits are paid accurately to the right people, on time in full, and about 0.3%—and again, there’s much more improper payments in the private sector—but of that 0.3%, the overwhelming amount of what are called improper payments are overpayments and underpayments.

So, for example, Social Security requires, to get your benefit, you have to have been alive every day of the month before. Now I think that’s wrong, and I think you should get a proportion of payments, but that’s not how the law works. So if you die on the last day of the month, and you get your payment on the third day of the following month, and the money is put in your account, that’s an overpayment.

Now, it doesn’t just sit there. As soon as the federal government realizes that the person has died the last day, they go in immediately, usually within a day or two, and take that money back. But that is mainly overpayments, underpayments.

Fraud is vanishingly small, and the way that fraud is caught is, first we have an inspector general. Donald Trump fired the Social Security Administration inspector general as soon as he got into office. And front-line workers, and they’ve been firing and inducing all kinds of workers out who are the ones who would catch the fraud.

So although they say they’re going after fraud, waste and abuse, they are creating so much waste. They are abusing the workforce, and through that, the American people. And they are opening the door to fraud, unfortunately.

JJ: I have seen leftists take issue with the “It’s my money” idea on Social Security, because actually it’s an intergenerational program. Now choosing that as a point of emphasis in the current context is a choice that I have thoughts about. But do you see meaningful confusion about whose money is at stake here, and whether workers paying into it today are truly entitled to it?

New York Times (1/14/25)

NA: Here’s where the confusion is. I don’t think there’s confusion on that point. I think most Americans—which is why the program is so wildly popular—recognize that these are benefits they earned. It is deferred compensation. It is part of your earnings.

So you have your current cash compensation, you have deferred compensation in the form of pensions—whether it’s a pension sponsored by the employer or 401k or a defined benefit plan—and you have Social Security. You also have what are called contingent benefits, which are disability insurance, survivors benefits, and those are all earned.

What is the misunderstanding, and this is, again, people like Elon Musk and others who are just spreading lies about this program, are, “Oh, there are all these immigrants who are undocumented people stealing our money.” That is a lie. Those people who are undocumented are unable to receive Social Security, and even if they become documented, and can show that they had made contributions, they still don’t, and I think this is wrong, but they still don’t get the benefits they have earned.

But Americans who are here paying in, it is an earned benefit. And when Elon Musk and Donald Trump say, “Oh, there’s fraud, and we’re going to cut the benefits,” they are cutting your benefits, and people should keep hold of their wallets.

JJ: The fact that it’s just about fraud is one lie. And another one is that the things that are happening are just kind of tweaks. And now the latest, maybe not the latest when this airs, but we hear that people who file for benefits, or who want to change the banks that their benefits go to, now they can’t do it by phone. They have to do it online, through one of those easy-breezy government interfaces, or go into a field office. And that might sound like a minor thing, unless you actually think about it with human beings in mind.

AP (3/19/25)

NA: It is outrageous. And when you connect the dots, Donald Trump said he wasn’t going to cut our benefits. He said that before when he ran in 2016, and every one of his budgets in the first term cut our benefits.

He said it again in 2024. But now that he’s there, I think they’re trying to figure out ways to do it. And what they are doing is they are throwing the program in complete chaos.

People who receive benefits are disproportionately seniors, people with disabilities. Interestingly, it’s the largest children’s program, too, because it’s survivor’s benefits, but it often covers people who have difficulty with mobility.

The internet, as you said, is very hard to use. And, by the way, some of the people that got fired were the people who maintained the website. So I think it’s going to get harder to use, and that’s where the fraud tends to—there is vanishingly small amounts of fraud, but when it occurs, it tends to be online.

Phones are very secure. There’s been no evidence put forward that there’s any fraud that’s being committed through the phone service.

Requiring everybody to go into field offices, which Donald Trump and Elon Musk have told the General Services Administration to terminate all the leases, so they’re going to be fewer and fewer field offices. They are terribly understaffed, and the staff that’s there is very overworked.

NIRS (1/25)

So you’re asking millions of additional Americans to waste time, when they could have gotten on the phone and done what they had to do over the phone. Although they need to hire people for the phone, too, because that’s another place with long wait times, and they’re going to get longer, given what they’re doing.

Trump and DOGE and the others who Republican President Dwight Eisenhower called a “tiny splinter group” who hate Social Security, but they tried to privatize it. They were unsuccessful in that. And now what they’re doing is they’re trying to destroy it from within. And we will see pretty soon as it collapses, they’ll say, “Oh, the private sector should run it.” That will be horrible. It will undermine all of our economic security.

JJ: Consistent majorities support Social Security. As we’ve said, some recent polls find people saying we spend too little on it. And that’s why people, like Republican congressperson Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, are saying, “Nobody is touching Social Security” in town halls.

New Republic (2/17/25)

But it’s also why Liza Featherstone, for example, is reminding us that cutting popular programs isn’t a mistake, it’s a conscious effort, and this is what you’re just getting at, it’s a conscious effort to make the government actually useless, so that people will stop thinking of it as a source of anything good. And, one supposes, they will then look to beneficent billionaires. But this is not a mistake, this chaos that Social Security is being thrown into.

NA: Not at all. This is Project 2025 on steroids. The architects of Project 2025 really started this crusade back in the 1970s, actually when I started working on the program. It’s been 50 years. They’ve tried undermining confidence in the program, because it is too popular; even the most conservative-minded Republicans love Social Security, do not want to see it cut, and correctly think that it should be expanded. So they can’t directly confront Social Security, because they’ll all get voted out of office.

So the question is, how can they undermine it while looking like they’re protecting it? And the old standby is this vague “fraud, waste and abuse.” Nobody wants fraud, waste or abuse. But the reality is, they are creating waste and abuse. They are opening the door to possible fraudulent actors. And they’re all doing it, as you say, so that people just give up on government and give more and more money, upward redistribution of our earned benefits, into the pockets of Elon Musk and other billionaires.

JJ: Finally, I think the way that news media talk is meaningful. When they say, “They’re saying these things about Social Security, and they’re untrue,” to me, that lands different than, “They’re saying these things although they’re untrue.” One is narrating a nightmare, and the other is noting a disruption that calls for some intervention.

TheHill.com says that Elon Musk’s false rhetoric on Social Security is “confounding experts and worrying advocates.” Doesn’t say advocates of what. I just personally can’t forgive this demonstrative earnestness of elite media, when they can get emotional, you know, about welfare reform and “we need to cut food stamps.” But now they’re trying to be high and dry about cutting lifelines for seniors and disabled people.

And I’m not talking about all media. There are exceptions. But I want to ask you, finally, what would responsible, people-first journalism be doing right now, do you think?

Nancy Altman: “Social Security, and Medicare and Medicaid. In my 50 years working on the programs, this is the most severe threat I’ve ever seen to them.”

NA: You so put your finger on it. I mean, it is outrageous, when you think about it, that Donald Trump will be spewing lies about Social Security in a nationwide, televised joint session of Congress, went on for minutes and minutes, talking about all these dead people are getting benefits, and that is a complete lie. It has been debunked a zillion times, including by his own acting commissioner, and yet he went before the nation and said it.

So there is a method to the madness. This is not confounding at all. It’s an effort to convince everybody that the government is full of corruption and fraud, so when they destroy it, they have their cover.

So I think, first of all, what mainstream media should do is call a lie a lie when it happens, and they should try to call it out in real time, and there should be some solidarity. I still can’t believe that the AP was banned from the White House, and all the mainstream media just didn’t all walk out.

So this is a time our institutions, all our institutions, are under a threat. This is the Steve Bannon “Flood the Zone.” So there are so many outrages at once. All of our institutions are being attacked, including the media.

My concern is Social Security, and Medicare and Medicaid. In my 50 years working on the programs, this is the most severe threat I’ve ever seen to them. I think everybody’s got to be vigilant. I think they’ve got to make their voices heard, and I know there’s going to be protest on April 5. People should turn out for that. And the media should wake up and realize that everything is under assault, including them.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Nancy Altman from Social Security Works. They’re online at SocialSecurityWorks.org. Nancy Altman, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

NA: Again, thank you so much for having me.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

The first bill — the “ESA Amendments Act of 2025” — would gut the critical protections that the ESA provides for thousands of imperiled species, upend the scientific consultation process (which has been the cornerstone of American species protection for 50 years), slow listings to a crawl while fast-tracking delistings, and allow much more exploitation of threatened species and shift their management out of federal hands to the states, even while they are still nationally listed.

The second bill — the so-called “Pet and Livestock Protection Act of 2025″ — would reissue the first Trump administration’s delisting of the gray wolf across most of the U.S. and bar judicial review of that action. In 2022, a federal court reversed this delisting, after conservation groups challenged it.

In addition to the Republican-led Congressional attacks on the ESA and gray wolves, the Trump administration recently terminated hundreds of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees — nearly 5 percent of the agency’s workforce — which is already critically understaffed. Without those employees, it will be even harder for disappearing vulnerable species to receive crucial protections, and for vitally important ecosystems across the U.S. to remain intact.

In response to attempts to undermine the ESA and delist gray wolves, organizations from across the country sent a letter to HNR leadership outlining opposition to the bills. Additionally, groups from the Endangered Species Coalition issued the following statements:

“These attempts to weaken the Endangered Species Act, or to go around it by picking off species like the gray wolf, represent a fundamental disconnect between a small number of legislators and millions of Americans,” said Earthjustice legislative director for lands, wildlife, and oceans Addie Haughey. “The ESA — and the iconic species it protects — enjoys immense support across the political spectrum. If these bills move forward, Congress will be acting against popular will and ignoring science to sacrifice the wildlife we love and the ecosystems we rely on.”

“Congressman Westerman’s bill would eviscerate the Endangered Species Act and push imperiled species to extinction,” said Ellen Richmond, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “The Endangered Species Act is the backstop for our nation’s wildlife already at the brink of extinction and this bill would sanction their swift descent into nothingness. We urge our representatives in Congress to listen to the American public’s overwhelming support for the Endangered Species Act and reject this disastrous bill which does nothing to strengthen wildlife protections and instead reverses decades of conservation success.”

“We are in a biodiversity crisis, and Congress is playing with fire. These bills would accelerate extinction at a time when we can least afford it,” said Josh Osher, public policy director for Western Watersheds Project. “The Endangered Species Act isn’t just about saving wolves, grizzlies, or sea turtles—it’s about protecting the ecosystems that sustain us all. Weakening these protections pushes our planet further into collapse. Congress must open its eyes and reject these reckless attacks before it’s too late.”

“These extreme bills would gut protections for wildlife under the Endangered Species Act. They are being introduced against a backdrop of sudden and indiscriminate firings across the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, robbing these agencies of the experts who implement these crucial protections based on the best available science,” said Susan Millward, executive director and chief executive officer for the Animal Welfare Institute. “These assaults on wildlife protections come at a time of staggering biodiversity loss, and imperiled species don’t have the luxury of waiting out these political games.”

“Extinction is forever,” says Katherine Miller, Country Director for FOUR PAWS USA. ” If we allow the protections afforded by the ESA to be weakened and undermined by legislation like this, the consequences of these decisions will reverberate for generations. The ESA protects both iconic native species like Bald eagles and non-native species like Bengal tigers. It has also protected millions of acres of habitat, ensuring a livable planet for all of us.”

“The ESA Amendments Act of 2025, introduced by Representative Westerman, is severely out of step with how most Americans view and support wildlife protection. It prioritizes big industry and special interests ahead of decades-long, science-based protections that work,” said Chris Allieri, executive director and founder, NYC Plover Project. “Radicals in Congress are fast-tracking extinction and looking to severely weaken, if not entirely remove, bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act.”

“The Endangered Species Act is one of the country’s most popular and successful conservation laws, and Donald Trump wants to throw it in the garbage to pad the bottom lines of his corporate supporters,” said Bradley Williams, Sierra Club’s Deputy Legislative Director for Wildlife and Lands Protection. “Since Day One of his administration, Trump has shown again and again that he wants to hand over control of our public lands and waters to billionaires and corporations. Imperiled wildlife will suffer the consequences. For more than 50 years, the United States has made amazing progress bringing species back from the brink of extinction. It’s because of the ESA that species like the grizzly bear and bald eagle are living symbols of America and not just photos in a history book. If Trump and his allies in Congress get their way, that progress won’t just come to a screeching halt – it could be completely reversed.”

“For decades, the Endangered Species Act has been a critical lifeline in preventing the irreversible loss of our nation’s wildlife. Legislation like H.R. 845 and H.R. 1897 would undermine this powerful tool against extinction and jeopardize ongoing recovery efforts of our iconic native species, like the gray wolf.” said Jennifer Eskra, Director of Legislative Affairs at Humane World Action Fund “At a time of growing biodiversity loss, it is essential that legislators prioritize science over politics and stand with the millions of Americans who support the ESA.”

“The Endangered Species Act is one of America’s most respected and successful conservation laws. Unfortunately, Representative Westerman’s ESA amendments are crafted for greedy billionaires clinging to a 19th-century vision of plundering the planet,” said Endangered Species Coalition National Policy Director Jewel Tomasula. “This bill would devastate the sea turtles people love to see at the beach, the bumblebees that pollinate our food crops, and the spotted owls that indicate healthy forests. This bill would destroy wildlife and wild places, not protect them.”

“These reckless attacks on the Endangered Species Act and gray wolves are nothing more than a giveaway to industry at the expense of our nation’s most imperiled wildlife,” said Joanna Zhang, endangered species advocate at WildEarth Guardians. “Gutting protections for species on the brink of extinction is not reform—it’s a death sentence. Americans overwhelmingly support the ESA because it works, and we urge our representatives in Congress not to stand by while Trump and his allies try to dismantle one of our most effective conservation laws.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“It’s a sort of powerlessness, that it doesn’t feel like there’s anything that I can do about it,” said Myers-Benner. “Like, can you count on these systems or not?” 

Myers-Benner owns a family-run six acre farm in Keezletown, Virginia. Last spring, the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded him a little more than $18,000 to support the farm’s work breeding winter peas that could increase soil’s ability to trap carbon. The grant is through the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, or SARE, which has supported farmer-led research initiatives nationwide for decades. The money represented an opportunity to expand work he and his family have been bootstrapping for years, growing crops that help feed lower-income, rural communities like his while preserving the planet.

Then, in late January, the Trump administration began freezing funds for programs across a broad swath of the government. Shortly after, his SARE representative at the University of Georgia fell silent. That’s when he started to worry: Without the grant, which reimburses expenses already incurred, he would need to line up part-time work to pay the bills. “There’s just a deflated feeling of ‘Okay. We were just about getting this rolling,’” he said. “And then … one change at the top has the potential to just completely wipe that out. And so we’ll have to pick up and hard-scrabble our way through it.” 

Myers-Benner finally got an answer on Monday, though one riddled in ambiguity. “You may continue your research or you are welcome to put your research on hold given the uncertainty of the situation, and once we learn more we can communicate that to you,” he was told by email, which he shared with Grist. “If this situation delays your research and outreach per your grant timeline we can offer a no-cost extension if you still have monies left in your budget. Feel free to reach out with any questions. If you decide to hold your project let us know so we can note that in your files. That’s about the best information we can provide at this time while we wait to receive further guidance from USDA.”

The USDA administers SARE through four regional offices hosted in universities. Daramonifah Cooper, a spokesperson for Southern SARE at the University of Georgia, which oversees Myers-Benner’s grant, told Grist it is holding all calls for proposals until it hears from its federal funding source. When asked, Cooper could not clarify the funding status for grants already awarded.

Read Next

Slim margins, climate disasters, and Trump’s funding freeze: Life or death for many US farms

Ayurella Horn-Muller & Naveena Sadasivam

Since late January, the USDA has frozen, rescinded, or cancelled funding supporting everything from donations to food banks to climate-smart agricultural practices. The move aligns with the administration’s goal of rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates and climate benchmarks. These steps prompted the termination of thousands of federal employees before courts intervened, pressuring the USDA to reinstate many of them, albeit temporarily, and federal judges have repeatedly ordered the administration to release gridlocked funds. Such abrupt and sweeping moves by the agency, and wider administration, have thrown the world of publicly-funded agricultural research into a tailspin. 

A USDA employee, whom Grist granted anonymity to protect them from retaliation, said “basically all” of the agency’s programs that fund agricultural research, including SARE grants, have been put on standstill due to the freeze. This person called the environment within the agency “a shitshow” and said, “It’s all really unknown right now. Even internally.” 

“We know that, yeah, things have been paused. Some political appointee at some level is reviewing our calls for proposals” this person added. “We know that DOGE is in the system, reviewing, doing searches of our databases, but we don’t know like … are they going to massively cut things right now? Things are on hold. But is the shoe gonna drop, and is lots of stuff getting canceled?” 

“Trump doesn’t really care about farmers or delivering services or efficiency or cost-savings. This is all politics. And we’re caught in the middle of it.”

At least 19 university labs have ceased agricultural research work because the Department of Government Efficiency dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development in February, a move one federal judge said may be unconstitutional. These decisions by the administration have impacted research programs nationwide. 

Kansas State University shut down two labs that were developing drought-resilient varieties of wheat and sorghum crops and pest-resistant plants. Johns Hopkins, the largest university recipient of federal research funding, cut roughly 2,200 jobs. USDA staffing cuts forced a federal project in Maryland investigating unprecedented managed honeybee losses to ask others to carry on its work. Seed and crop research being conducted across the nation’s network of gene banks have also been hobbled by layoffs and grant application suspensions, and grape breeding programs and work on crops affected by wildfire smoke in California have reported disruptions. The administration then announced an abrupt withdrawal of millions in federal funds for multiple universities, triggering a new round of layoffs, lab closures, and project suspensions across the country.

The federal government provides roughly 64 percent of the country’s public agricultural research and development funding. “With federal funding, especially research dollars, being on the chopping board for the current administration, the consequences of that, coupled with layoffs … means that at a time when we need innovation the most to deal with climate change, to make our food systems more resilient, that capacity is going to be lost,” said soil scientist Omanjana Goswami of the nonprofit the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

There will likely be economic fallout, too. A study published March 11 finds that the compounding effects of climate change and lagging investment in research and development has U.S. agriculture facing its first productivity slowdown in decades. 

The researchers modelled the eroding effects of climate change on American agriculture and the decades-long stagnation of spending for publicly funded research and development, using the estimates to quantify the research investment necessary to avoid agricultural productivity declining through 2050. To offset an imminent climate-induced productivity slowdown, federal agricultural research spending, which includes expenditures from every USDA agency except the U.S. Forest Service, and state agricultural experiment stations and schools, must replicate the unprecedented boom in public spending that followed both world wars. The government currently allocates approximately $5 billion annually to ag research and development, a figure that grew less than 1 percent annually from 1970 to 2000 before leveling off. Adding at least $2.2 billion per year to that tally would offset the climate-induced slowdown, the paper found.

If the current investment trend doesn’t change, the costly impacts of warming, including higher inputs, reduced yields, and supply chain shocks, will result in lower productivity, leading to more government bailouts and increased U.S. reliance on other countries for food, said Cornell University climate and agricultural economist Ariel Ortiz-Bobea. Without action, agricultural productivity is estimated to drop up to 12 percent with each passing year by 2050. This will cost the U.S. economy billions annually. American farms contributed roughly $222.3 billion to the economy in 2023 alone. 

“This is like a double whammy. They’re both human-caused, inflicted wounds. One because we’re failing to invest in R&D, the other because we’re emitting so much that it is actually slowing down productivity itself. So it’s like it’s being compressed from both sides,” said Ortiz-Bobea, who led the new study. 

Experts worry that the Trump administration is heading in the wrong direction with its layoffs, funding freezes, and efforts to roll back scientific initiatives. House Republicans, for example, have been pushing to cut some $230 billion in agriculture spending over 10 years. Millions of dollars in reductions to the USDA’s research, inspection, and natural resources arms were included in the funding stopgap bill Trump signed March 15. 

Most of the foundational agricultural research that happens in the United States is through some kind of USDA funding mechanism. The USDA is made up of multiple agencies and offices with their own research pipelines that support universities, nonprofits, businesses, farmers, ranchers, and foresters, among others. SARE grants are one of the ways the wider agency has funneled money into agricultural research conducted on farms nationwide, awarding nearly $406 million across 8,791 initiatives from its inception.

Jon Kasza runs an organic vegetable farm in New York’s Hudson Valley and relies on SARE funds to conduct his agricultural research. He doesn’t understand why the agency is still freezing that funding, given all of the administration’s promises to put farmers first. “I can’t say enough about how fragile it all looks to me,” said Kasza. He’s thinking about the excessively volatile bouts of rain that battered his fields in summer of 2023, followed by a smattering of dry periods last year that dried his soil so much he couldn’t plant his cover crops on-time in the fall. That’s where research grants like SARE, which he said allow farmers to bypass the typically “sluggish” timelines of conventional scientific trials to develop things like drought-resistant crop varieties, are critical. 

In November, he submitted his first SARE grant proposal of nearly $30,000 to grow multiple varieties of rice on hillsides in raised beds with biodegradable plastic mulch to conserve water and expand where the crop can be produced. Earlier this year, he was notified by a regional representative that the grant had been approved. “We’re moving forward as if some of the funding is going to be there, but we know that that’s uncertain,” said Kasza, who called the messaging surrounding the freeze a “rollercoaster” of confusion. A local land conservation group has promised to step in to save about 20 percent of the project if federal funding falls through. Still, that is “not nearly enough” to complete the work, he said.

“It’s already hard enough just to have an agricultural business, but then to have climate change as a factor on top of that, and then have this administration who’s wreaking havoc?” he said. “Cutting research, particularly our farmer-driven research, off at the knees, just seems like such a silly and short-sighted thing to do.”

Read Next

The Trump administration’s climate policies jeopardize research in disaster-prone Puerto Rico

Víctor Rodríguez Velázquez, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

On the Hawaiian island of Kauai, another SARE grant recipient has also been stuck in limbo. Rancher Don Heacock spent decades working as an aquatic biologist for the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources before retiring and launching his nearly 40-acre farm in the late 1980s. Ever since, he’s raised a herd of water buffalo, grown crops like taro, and cultivated ponds of tilapia. He does it all with local food systems, soil health, and water conservation at the forefront, maximizing crop diversity, maintaining living roots in the ground year round, and integrating livestock farming. 

Up until now, Heacock had heard nothing about his pending SARE grant, a $59,000 funding proposal submitted last year to expand his farm’s agrotourism education, buffalo raising, and soil conservation work. Then, suddenly, late last week, he was told the proposal was denied. He believes that rejection is linked to the federal funding freeze.

After reaching out to SARE representatives for all four regions and the national arm of the program, Grist has learned that the USDA-NIFA has frozen funding for all pending grant applications this fiscal year, which began in October. When asked, a national spokesperson confirmed those funds were still “under review” while regional representatives told Grist that all new calls for proposals have been paused as a result. None of the representatives specified a timeline for when those funds were disbursed nor whether already-awarded grant funding will be released. 

For farmers like Heacock, the stakes of the administration grounding agricultural research initiatives like his is far bigger than the work happening on one lone project or farm. “Trump has got it all wrong. Climate is a real issue and it’s hitting us right in the face,” he said. “If we don’t become sustainable real quick, we’re dead in the water.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Farmers are reeling from Trump’s attacks on agricultural research on Mar 25, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Ayurella Horn-Muller.

On the same day, protesters gathered outside Indonesia’s Press Council building and demanded it to take action against Tempo, accusing the outlet of acting in the interest of “foreign agent,” billionaire financier George Soros.

“This is a dangerous and deliberate act of intimidation,” said CPJ’s Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Tempo is well-known internationally for its fiercely independent reporting; using this playbook from autocrats elsewhere simply will not work. President Prabowo Subianto must uphold press freedom and condemn this highly provocative act if he wants Indonesia to be taken seriously as the world’s third-largest democracy.”

The pig’s head, sent in a cardboard box, was addressed to a female journalist at Tempo who covers politics and hosts a popular podcast program, said Wahyu Dhyatmika, chief executive of Tempo’s digital team. He called the incident an attempt to “scare and silence” the Indonesian press into self-censorship, and said Tempo lodged a police report on Friday.

Tempo has reported critically on the Prabowo government’s policies, including a newly launched multibillion-dollar free school meal program. Founded originally as a weekly magazine in 1971 by CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award winner and writer Goenawan Mohamad, the outlet had been banned twice, first for two months in 1982 and later in 1994. It was relaunched in 1998 after the fall of dictator Suharto, who Prabowo once served under and who was accused of using military figures to crack down on dissent.

The national police and presidential office did not immediately respond to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via messaging app.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).

Public Information (3/17/25)

This week on CounterSpin: News site Popular Information alerted us to new Social Security Administration policy effectively requiring tens of thousands of recipients, by the agency’s own estimation, to travel to a field office to verify their ID. An internal memo predicts the shift will create “service disruption,” “operational strain” and “budget shortfalls” – unsurprising, given concurrent staffing cuts and field office closures. The inevitable harms will no doubt be declared part of a necessary attempt to purge “fraud” from the system that has disbursed earned benefits to elderly and disabled people for generations.

Journalists have choices. They can, as did the Record-Journal of Meriden, Connecticut, report that the cuts derive from repeated claims of fraud from Elon Musk that are “without evidence,” that Trump echoes Musk’s “unfounded statements,” quote a retiree advocate noting that accusations of loads of dead folks collecting benefits are “baseless, ” and put the words “fact sheet” in appropriate irony quotes when describing a missive from the White House.

Or you can go the route of the Arizona Republic, and lead with the notion that the interference in Social Security is most importantly part of Musk’s “implementing…measures to trim costs throughout the government.” Mention that the actions have “stirred a range of emotions, from cautious hope that the federal government might finally bring its deficit spending under control, to frantic fears that benefit cuts could undermine the financial or health security of millions of Americans,” go on to ask earnestly, “Where does Trump stand on Social Security and other benefits?” and begin with a White House statement “reiterating that the president supports these programs.” In paragraph 19, you might throw in that public polling shows that “most Americans would favor revenue increases rather than benefit cuts to Social Security,” which would include “requiring high-income individuals to pay taxes on more of their earnings.”

In short, easily verified facts, along with “most Americans,” can be centered  or tangential in your reporting on the drastic, opaque changes aimed at the program that keeps the wolf from the door for millions of people, but for Musk/Trump represents yet another pile of money they feel belongs to them and theirs. All that’s in the balance are human lives and health, and the ability of working people to plan for our futures.

We’ll talk about the new, yet also old, attacks on Social Security with Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works.

Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent media coverage of Mahmoud Khalil, deportations and the FTC.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by CounterSpin.

An interim government took power in Bangladesh following the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August. The groups urged Bangladesh to unequivocally condemn and promptly investigate attacks on journalists and media workers and to ensure that perpetrators are held to account. The groups further called for members of the press to be protected from harassment, intimidation, and violence from state and non-state actors.

Read the full statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement Tuesday criticizing attacks by President Trump and his allies on federal judges. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” he said. Roberts’s statement came after Trump called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the Trump administration to stop using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants. On Saturday, the administration ignored Boasberg’s order to turn around three deportation flights bound for El Salvador. We speak with The Nation's justice correspondent Elie Mystal on the Trump-led breakdown of constitutional order. “There's not a coming constitutional crisis,” says Mystal. “We are in a constitutional crisis right now.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Peter Hegseth, Image via Wikipedia

Peter Hegseth is charging forward on the promise to De-Woke The Military, codified in Trump’s executive order to purge “DEI” from the ranks. Among their targets are Black soldiers, who have been a center–and many times a catalyst–of the broader anti-racist struggle for well over a century.

Some of Hegseth’s orders so far have left little doubt that “DEI” is a code word:

*Banning all Black History Month activities and recognitions the day before it began (while notably allowing military-wide St. Patrick’s Day celebrations)

*Firing African American “DEI General” CQ Brown from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, after lamenting how “our generals are hunting for racists in our ranks that they know do not exist” (they do)

*Banning Black student groups at military academies

*Bringing back the name “Fort Bragg” to the recently renamed Army post that had honored a Confederate general

*Ordering recruiters to stop attending the Black Engineer of the Year Awards, which one recruiter described as the “most talent-dense event we do”

It has gotten a bit more overt, deleting from the DoD website their only “Medal of Honor Monday” profile of a Black soldier given the award. A slip in the new URL code laid bare the new attitude: three letters were added so the web path would read “DEI Medal of Honor…”

DEI policies did not exist during the Vietnam War; in fact it was much harder for Black soldiers to get recognition. Charles Rogers–who won the award as he was wounded three different times leading a doomed defense of his outpost–was marked “DEI” simply because he was Black.

But the latest stuck out to me as the real shock.

On March 13, Hegseth ordered a review of military standards; and specifically, of beards.

This will likely elude non-veterans but every vet will know that this primarily impacts Black troops, who are commonly exempt from standard shaving requirements due to a skin condition (pseudofolliculitis barbae) which afflicts 45% of Black servicemen.

In other words, Hegseth has found a way to potentially purge thousands of Black servicemen. The Marine Corps has already announced they would do so. The other branches will decide soon.

Hegseth has a very public rationale for all these measures: it is actually about promoting unity! Increasing cohesion by emphasizing what we have in common!

The hallmark of this cohort has been “don’t believe your eyes.” But we all can see what this is.

We’re expected to ignore the context: that Hegseth is deep in a Christian nationalist community led by far-right theologian Doug Wilson, who wrote an entire book defending slavery in the American South. Hegseth bears tattoos associated with white supremacists. He has a long history of rhetoric clearly tapped into the far-right internet ecosphere, dominated by anti-Black content. Hegseth even took known neo-Nazi collaborator Jack Posobiec along with him on his first international trip as Secretary of Defense.

His reforms are not exactly popular in the armed forces, either, nor do they have a significant base among military leadership or academia. They stem primarily from white nationalist attitudes, obsessed with “Critical Race Theory” and now the updated term “DEI.” Their fantasies of purging Black soldiers trace back 160 years.

Black Troops Become the Nucleus of the Freedom Struggle

One of the earliest civil rights struggles in America revolved around Black soldiers.

First it was a struggle for African Americans to have the right to join the Union Army. Many died in those first units just to prove their worth, finally winning federal authorization of Black recruitment.

As predicted by Fredrick Douglass, their heroism in the Civil War would be key to advancing their cause for equality in the North. Once in the military, Black troops waged campaigns (and even mutinies) throughout the war against racist officers and unequal pay, which electrified the freedom struggle everywhere.

The Confederates, of course, would never allow Black men in the rebel uniform. But they could not accept Black men in any uniform. It drove them insane.

They instituted a policy of executing Black POWs, ignoring the decorum afforded to white POWs. Many massacres of Black troops line the war’s history; at Fort Pillow, around 200 Black soldiers who had surrendered were executed. “Remember Fort Pillow” became a rallying cry across the country, with many wearing the slogan pinned to their uniforms while they defeated their former enslavers in battle.

The Confederates would continue to be driven insane as those Black soldiers became their overseers. Black infantrymen occupied southern towns and cities after the war to keep the defeated in check and to carry out the project of Radical Reconstruction. Considering the way the world looked less than a decade prior, it was truly an unimaginable scenario.

Despite intense racism inside the armed forces, and it’s often totally unjustifiable missions, many in the Black Freedom movement saw military service as a way to challenge racist tropes about Black intelligence and humanity through unquestionable bravery.

Black soldiers also often put their training, guns, and the authority of their uniforms to use in challenging Jim Crow racism, including significant uprisings by garrisoned soldiers in cities like Tampa (1898), Houston (1917), and beyond.

Black infantry units in WWI also earned high prestige for bravery, such as the Harlem Hellfighters. More importantly, they returned to the racist US as skilled, battle-tested combatants. During the wave of white violence in Red Summer of 1919, Black WWI veterans were both the targets of mob violence, and the backbone of defense in battlegrounds like Tulsa. In Washington D.C., Black snipers atop the Howard Theater successfully held off the advance of lynch mobs.

White militiaman confronts Black soldier in Chicago

Preceding Red Summer was the lynching of WWI veteran Wilbur Little, murdered for refusing to take off his Army uniform. At least 16 veterans would be lynched that year.

They were targeted because Black men with guns was an outrage, even symbolically, since what they did with those weapons actually advanced the reputation and esteem of the Black community. And it was a practical barrier against white violence.

Their ability to achieve that status and expertise was gradually eroded. Increasingly kept out of combat arms and leadership roles, they were pushed into dirty work like shoveling coal, digging ditches and working the kitchens.

This rise of Jim Crow turned the military itself into an arena of struggle.

In 1940, 15 Black sailors aboard the USS Philadelphia publicly signed a letter detailing racial discrimination and abuse. After it was published in a newspaper, all were kicked out of the Navy and the struggle for the rights of “The Philadelphia 15” became a rallying cause for the NAACP, socialist parties and others.

Pamphlet distributed by the Socialist Workers Party, 1940

Through World War II, the Black struggle launched the Double V campaign (Victory Abroad, Victory At Home) which demanded: if Black men and women could fight for freedom abroad, they deserve freedom in the United States.

Black soldiers and sailors were known to carve the Double V symbol onto their chests. It is considered an opening salvo of the Civil Rights movement.

Mass rallies began demanding the desegregation of the military. Various organizations were formed: Committee to End Segregation in the Armed Forces; the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation and more. With the help of W.E.B. DuBois, they joined into coalition under the name Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service.

Inside the military, an even hotter struggle was waging. In 1942, 600 Black troops stationed in Australia mutinied, taking over the base and killing racist officers.

The 1944 Port Chicago disaster left around 300 Black sailors dead from loading ammunition under unsafe, overworked conditions by white officers. It led to the largest mutiny in US Navy history. The trial for 50 Black sailors who led the strike became a nationwide campaign for their exoneration.

The following year, over 1000 Black sailors went on hunger strike over the policy of only promoting whites.

The demands for equality within the ranks claimed victory with a 1948 Executive Order by Truman, officially desegregating the armed forces.

This became an important part of the framework for civil rights legislation more broadly–not just on paper, but in the movement, as the victory of the military desegregation movement pushed forward equality in all areas of life. On its heels was the Brown v. Board of Education victory, and later the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.

Into Our Era

Over the next 70 years, the military would remain relevant to the anti-racist struggle nationwide. From mutinies during Vietnam to police violence against Black service members in today’s era, it has remained a trigger point.

The new direction of the DoD, under the leadership of obvious racists, sets the stage for a revival.

The 2020 nationwide rebellion against racism was quelled with repression from Trump and lies from Democrats. Those tensions remain very real and unresolved, simmering beneath the surface.

The racist agenda of the Trump Administration, in all aspects of American life, are creating sparks that could catch at any moment. His military agenda is one of those sparks.

Their attitudes flow directly from that of the Confederacy. By that same measure we can reach back into history to draw on the lessons of Black service members, and how they gave momentum and strength to the broader anti-racist struggle.

This piece first appeared on Empire Files.

The post Hegseth’s Attacks on Black Troops Evoke Long History of Anti-Racist Struggle appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mike Prysner.

By Abubaker Abed in Deil Al-Balah, Gaza, and Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News

The US-backed Israeli government resumed its intense genocidal attacks on Gaza early yesterday morning, unleashing a massive wave of indiscriminate military strikes across the Strip and killing more than 410 people, including scores of children and women, according to local health officials.

The massacre resulted in one of the largest single-day death tolls of the past 17 months, and also killed several members of Gaza’s government and a member of Hamas’s political bureau.

The Trump administration said it was briefed ahead of the strikes, which began at approximately 2 am local time, and that the US fully supported Israel’s attacks.

• READ MORE: Israel says attacks on Gaza that killed hundreds are ‘only the beginning’
  
• PSNA calls on NZ govt to condemn renewed Israel air strikes on Gaza – NZ protests
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“The sky was filled with drones, quadcopters, helicopters, F-16 and F-35 warplanes. The firing from the tanks and vehicles didn’t stop,” said Abubaker Abed, a contributing journalist for Drop Site News who reports from Deir al-Balah, Gaza.

“I didn’t sleep last night. I had a pang in my heart that something awful would happen. At 2 am, I tried to close my eyes. Once it happened, four explosions shook my home. The sky turned red and became heavily shrouded with plumes of smoke.”

Abubaker said Israel’s attacks began with four strikes in Deir al-Balah.

“Mothers’ wails and children’s screams echoed painfully in my ears. They struck a house near us. I didn’t know who to call. I couldn’t feel my knees. I was shivering with fear, and my family were harshly awakened,” he said.

‘My mother couldn’t breathe’
“My mother couldn’t take a breath. My father searched around for me. We gathered in the middle of our home, knowing our end may be near. That’s the same feeling we have had for the 16 months of intense bombings and attacks.

“The nightmare has chased us again.”

The Israeli attacks pummeled cities across Gaza — from Rafah and Khan Younis in the south to Deir al-Balah in the center, and Gaza City in the north, where Israel carried out some of the heaviest bombing in areas already reduced to an apocalyptic landscape.

Since the “ceasefire” took effect in January, more than half a million Palestinians returned to the north and many of them have been living in makeshift shelters or on the rubble of their former homes.

Hospitals that already suffer from catastrophic damage from 16 months of relentless Israeli attacks and a dire lack of medical supplies struggled to handle the influx of wounded people, and local authorities issued an emergency call for blood donations.

Late Tuesday morning, Dr Abdul-Qader Weshah, a senior emergency doctor at Al-Awda Hospital in Al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, described the situation.

“We’ve just received another influx of injuries following a nearby strike. We’ve dealt with them. We are just preparing ourselves for more casualties as more bombings are expected to happen,” he told Drop Site News.

‘Horrified . . . awoke to screams’
“Since the morning, we were horrified and awoke to the screams and pain of people. We’ve been treating many people, children and women in particular.”

Weshah said they have had to transfer some of the wounded to other hospitals because of a lack of medical supplies.

“We don’t have the means. Gaza’s hospitals are devoid of everything. Here at the hospital, we lack everything, including basic necessities like disinfectants and gauze. We don’t have enough beds for the casualties.

We don’t have the capacity to treat the wounded. X-ray devices, magnetic resonance imaging, and simple things like stitches are not available. The hospital is in an unprecedented state of chaos.

“The number of medical crews is not enough. Overwhelmed with injuries, we’re horrified and we don’t know why we are speaking to the world.

“We’re working with less than the bare minimum in our hands. We need doctors, devices and supplies, and circumstances to do our job.”

Al-Shifa hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera Arabic: “Every minute, a wounded person dies due to a lack of resources.”

Rising death toll
Dr Zaher Al-Wahidi, the Director of the Information Unit at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Drop Site Tuesday afternoon that 174 children and 89 women were killed in the Israeli attacks. [Editors: Latest figures are 404 killed, including many children, and the toll is expected to rise as many are still buried beneath rubble.]

Local health officials and witnesses said that the death toll was expected to rise dramatically because dozens of people are believed to be buried under the rubble of the structures where they were sleeping when the bombing began.

“We can hear the voices of the victims under the rubble, but we can’t save them,” said a medical official at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Video posted on social media by Palestinians inside Gaza portrayed unspeakable scenes of the lifeless bodies of infants and small children killed in the bombings.

Zinh Dahdooh, a dental student from Gaza City, posted an audio recording she said was of her neighbours screaming as their shelter was bombed, trapping them in the destruction.

“Tonight, they bombed our neighbors,” she wrote on the social media site X. “They kept screaming until they died, and no ambulance came for them. How long are we supposed to live in this fear? How long!”

According to local health officials, many strikes hit buildings or homes housing multiple generations of families.

‘Wiped out six families’
“Israel in its strikes has wiped out at least six families. One in my hometown. The others are from Khan Younis, Rafah, and Gaza City. Some families have lost five or 10 members. Others have lost around 20,” Abubaker reported.

“We talk about families killed from the children to the old. The Gharghoon family was bombed today in Rafah. The strikes have killed the father and his two daughters. Their mom and grandparents along with their uncles and aunts were also murdered, erasing the entire family from the civil registry.

“We are talking about the erasure of entire families. Among Israel’s attacks in Deir al-Balah, Israel bombed the homes of the Mesmeh, Daher, and Sloot families.

“More than 10 people, including seven women, from the Sloot family were killed, wiping them out entirely. The same has happened to the Abu-Teer, Barhoom, and other families.

“This is extermination by design. This is genocide.”

On Tuesday, Palestinian Islamic Jihad confirmed that “Abu Hamza,” the spokesman of its military wing, Al Quds Brigades, had been killed along with his wife and other family members.

A hellish scene
Israeli officials said they had been given a “green light” by President Donald Trump to resume heavy bombing of Gaza because of Hamas’s refusal to obey Trump’s directive to release all Israeli captives immediately.

“All those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News.

“All hell will break loose.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement asserting that “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength”.

Israeli media reported that the decision to resume heavy strikes against Gaza was made a week ago and was not in response to any imminent threat posed by Hamas.

Israel, which has repeatedly violated the ceasefire that went into effect January 19, has sought to create new terms in a transparent effort to justify blowing up the deal entirely.

“This is unconscionable,” said Muhannad Hadi, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

“A cease-fire must be reinstated immediately. People in Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering.”

Compounding the crisis in Gaza’s hospitals, Israel recently began blocking the entry of international medical workers to the Strip at unprecedented rates as part of a sweeping new policy that severely limits the number of aid organisations Israel will permit to operate in Gaza.

Editor’s note: Due to the ongoing Israeli attacks, Abubaker Abed relayed his reporting and eyewitness account to Jeremy Scahill by phone and text messages. This article is republished from Drop Site News under Creative Commons.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“Today is a desperately dark day for humanity. Israel brazenly resumed its devastating bombing campaign in Gaza killing at least 414 people in their sleep, including at least 100 children, and again wiping out entire families in a matter of hours. Palestinians in Gaza – who have barely had a chance to start piecing together their lives and continue to grapple with the trauma of Israel’s past attacks – have woken up once more to the hellish nightmare of intense bombardment.

Palestinians in Gaza – who have barely had a chance to start piecing together their lives and continue to grapple with the trauma of Israel’s past attacks – have woken up once more to the hellish nightmare of intense bombardment. — Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard

“Israel’s genocide and its unlawful air strikes have already caused unprecedented humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Today, we are back to square one. Since 2 March, Israel has re-imposed a total siege on Gaza blocking the entry of all humanitarian aid, medicine, and commercial supplies, including fuel and food, in flagrant violation of international law. Israel has also cut off electricity to Gaza’s main operational desalination plant. And today the Israeli military has once again started issuing mass ‘evacuation’ orders displacing Palestinians.

“Amnesty International’s researchers spoke to medical staff working at three hospitals in Gaza City and North Gaza governorate who described scenes of unspeakable horror beginning in the early hours of the morning. Al-Shifa, once the largest medical complex in Gaza, now largely destroyed by past Israeli military raids, had only three beds to receive the wounded.

“Al-Ahli Arab Baptist hospital in Gaza City – the only hospital with a functioning intensive care unit – was forced to treat some of the 80 wounded it received in the corridors and in the hospital’s yard. The Indonesian hospital is the only hospital in north Gaza Governorate that is barely functioning. It is still in the process of being rebuilt, following Israel’s previous military campaign.

“The near-total decimation of the healthcare system in Gaza, particularly in the north, and the desperate shortages in medical equipment and supplies, exacerbated by Israel’s unlawful siege, effectively means a death sentence for many of those with serious injuries and illnesses, including those that in normal conditions would be easily curable. All the while, Israeli authorities continue to impose extremely tight restrictions on medical evacuations outside Gaza.

“The resumption of Israel’s attacks also puts the lives of 24 remaining Israeli hostages believed to be alive at risk. This is also a cruel blow for hostages and Palestinian detainees as well as for their families. We remind all parties that civilian hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinians must be released.

“The world cannot stand by and allow Israel to continue inflicting staggering levels of death and suffering on Palestinians in Gaza. We urge all states to uphold their obligations to prevent and punish genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law, by pressing Israel to end its attacks and to facilitate the unconditional and unhindered entry of humanitarian aid. “States must come together and demand an immediate resumption of an enduring ceasefire, an end to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and the dismantling of its system of apartheid and unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

President Donald Trump spoke at the Department of Justice Friday in an unprecedented speech in which he threatened to take revenge on his political enemies, from the press to the FBI itself. “It was a typical rambling and hate-filled diatribe,” says Maryland Congressmember Jamie Raskin. “Nobody has ever taken a sledgehammer to the traditional boundary between independent criminal law enforcement, on the one side, and presidential political will and power, on the other.” Raskin, who spoke at a press conference in response to Trump’s address outside of the Department of Justice, is a former constitutional law professor and served as the Democrats’ lead prosecutor for Trump’s second impeachment over the January 6 Capitol insurrection. He also responds to Trump’s “illegal” invocation of the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and his attempt to deport foreign-born university students and faculty. Trump’s sweeping efforts to make the United States hostile to immigrants “creates danger for everybody,” warns Raskin. Finally, Raskin responds to recent divisions within the Democratic Party over a GOP spending bill. He urges congressional Democrats to present a “unified plan” and “common strategy” for resisting a Republican supermajority loyal to Trump.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

A former US diplomat, Nabeel Khoury, says President Donald Trump’s decision to launch attacks against the Houthis is misguided, and this will not subdue them.

“For our president who came in wanting to avoid war and wanting to be a man of peace, he’s going about it the wrong way,” he said.

“There are many paths that can be used before you resort to war.” Khoury told Al Jazeera.

• READ MORE: US bombs Yemen, killing 31, after Houthis threaten Israel over Gaza
• Other Gaza genocide reports

The danger to shipping in the Red Sea was “a justifiable reason for concern”, Khoury told Al Jazeera in an interview, but added that it was a problem that could be resolved through diplomacy.

Ansar Allah (Houthi) media sources said that at least four areas had been razed by the US warplanes that targeted, in particular, a residential area north of the capital, Sanaa, killing 31 people.

The Houthis, who had been “bombed severely all over their territory” in the past, were not likely to be subdued through “a few weeks of bombing”, Khoury said.

“If you think that Hamas, living and fighting on a very small piece of land, totally surrounded by land, air and sea, and yet, 17 months of bombardment by the Israelis did not get rid of them.

‘More rugged space’
“The Houthis live in a much more rugged space, mountainous regions — it would be virtually impossible to eradicate them,” Khoury said.

“So there is no military logic to what’s happening, and there is no political logic either.”

Providing background, Patty Culhane reported from Washington that there were several factual errors in the justification President Trump had given for his order.

“It’s important to point out that the Houthi attacks have stopped since the ceasefire in Gaza [on January 19], although the Houthis were threatening to strike again,” she said.

“His other justification is saying that no US-flagged vessel has transited the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden safely in more than a year.

“And then he says another reason is because Houthis attacked a US military warship.

“That happened when Trump was not president.”

Down to 10,000 ships
She said the White House was now putting out more of a communique, “saying that before the attacks, there were 25,000 ships that transited the Red Sea annually. Now it’s down to 10,000 so, obviously, sort of shooting down the president’s concept that nobody is actually transiting the region.

“And it did list the number of attacks. The US commercial ships have been attacked 145 times since 2023 in their list.”

Meanwhile, at least nine people, including three journalists, have been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli drone attack on relief aid workers at Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, according to Palestinian media.

The attack reportedly targeted a relief team that was accompanied by journalists and photographers. At least three local journalists were among the dead.

The Palestinian Journalists’ Protection Centre said in a statement that Israel had killed “three journalists in an airstrike on a media team documenting relief efforts in northern Gaza”, reports

“The journalists were documenting humanitarian relief efforts for those affected by Israel’s genocidal war,” the statement added, according to Anadolu.

In a statement, the Israeli military claimed it struck “two terrorists . . .  operating a drone that posed a threat” to Israeli soldiers in the area of Beit Lahiya.

“Later, a number of additional terrorists collected the drone operating equipment and entered a vehicle. The [Israeli military] struck the terrorists,” it added, without providing any evidence about its claims.

‘Liberation’ poetry
In Auckland on Saturday, protesters at the Aotearoa New Zealand’s weekly “free Palestine” rallies gave a tribute to poet Mahmoud Darwish — the “liberation voice of Palestine” — by reciting peace and justice poetry and marked the sixth anniversary of the Christchurch mosque massacre when a lone white terrorist gunned down 51 people at Friday prayers.

This was one of more than 20 Palestinian solidarity events happening across the motu this weekend.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

More than 250,000 have signed a petition to support an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump, who was twice impeached during his first term. The Impeach Trump Again campaign is being led by the advocacy group Free Speech for People. “This president has already committed multiple abuses of power since assuming the presidency, and the framers designed the Constitution to ensure that we would not have a monarch or a tyrant govern this nation,” says the group’s president, John Bonifaz. “When we see these abuses of power, we have to invoke this impeachment clause.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.