Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills): 5/19/24

Saturday, May 25, 2024

Morgan Wallen article leads to an attack on SAVING COUNTRY MUSIC

First up, who knew so many Miss Marples and Easy Rawlins(es?) stopped by to read here. A number of you e-mailed to note last week's "P Diddy" and Thursday's "Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, disgusting Diddy." Yes, it was Chaka Khan that I wrote about in the first. I've noted here before that I met her some time ago because she and C.I. are friends. I think I wrote about an album she was trying to do a few years back and noted the recording playback I'd heard of it.

I left her nameless in the first post because it wasn't my story to tell. But on Thursday, her daughter posted on Instagram about how evil P Diddy had been to Chaka. So I wrote the second post. But, yes, for all my Ellery Queens out there, Chaka was the friend C.I. was having lunch with when P Diddy walked up to the table and tried to talk to them and the two women iced him out and dismissed him. And that's because he's garbage and trash who thinks he can get away with mistreating women.

Next up, I almost linked to an article in the last post. I thought it was a reasoned assessment. I didn't link to it. I can't now. The site that published it was under attack and the article is not currently available.

Kyle “Trigger” Coroneos explains at SAVING COUNTRY MUSIC:

At 8:00 am Friday morning (5-24), Saving Country Music suffered a coordinated, targeted, malicious, and catastrophic cyberattack that made the website inaccessible for over six hours. In sixteen years of operation, and over 8,500 articles published, an attack of this size and scope has never been experienced by Saving Country Music, and the website has never been unavailable for as long of a period.

Cyberattacks and hacking attempts happen all of the time on websites, especially ones the size of Saving Country Music that sit in a Goldilocks zone of being big enough to be an enticing target, but small enough to not have a massive IT team to deal with such attacks. Luckily, Saving Country Music has never been a victim of such things previously, aside for passing and sporadic intermittent outages most users wouldn’t even notice.

What was the target of this cyberattack? It was an article published on May 22nd called “Country Music Has a Morgan Wallen Problem. It Is a Complex One.” The article was targeted in a large scale DDoS attack of a scale the individuals pressed into duty to help fight it claim they have rarely seen. Without getting too technical, DDoS attacks work to take down websites by sending them so many requests from so many different IP addresses, all the requests can’t be fulfilled, making the website inaccessible.

Even after blocking a total of 24,062 separate malicious IP addresses, the cyberattack continued. Eventually, it was brought under control by blocking access to the Morgan Wallen article being targeted. This had to be done through a 3rd party, since myself and my IT team had lost access to Saving Country Music ourselves. The article still remains unavailable as the cyberattack could very well be ongoing as we speak.

I'm not a big country music fan -- you can see my reviews and see that. Not big on 'bro' country and the silencing of women, for example. I've reviewed Dolly and Tanya and some other strong country artists including Chase Rice and Luke Bryan. But SAVING COUNTRY MUSIC is site worth visiting for any music lover. It's a little too even-handed at times, yes. But they love music over there and they love writing about it.

So I'm sorry that they got attacked.

You know my memory's awful but as I remember the article it was talking about how some were complaining that Morgan Wallen wasn't getting due recognition for his talent. And the article was noting that his peers had been kind and recognized him but there was a line you walk up to and everybody's going to stop and pause. Are you going to pull yourself back from that line or are you going to be an embarrassment to country music? And that's why the industry is not inviting him on currently to the various award shows to perform -- like the one that was on AMAZON live a few days ago.

The chair throwing is not a minor thing. He's very lucky that it didn't hit a person. That was -- what, three stories that he threw it from?

If he wants to sit in his living room and shoot up a TV like Elvis, go for it. But to be tossing a chair from three stories above? No, get a grip on your impulse control.

And it's not his first problem or even his second problem.

Some are wanting to anoint him the savior of country music. Maybe he will be some day but he's not that yet and what he's becoming is a threat to country music's image. And that's why the industry's keeping him at arms length currently.

It was not an attack on Morgan. I felt they went out of their way to bend over backwards and make sure that was not the case and were a little too generous with the praise.

And if that attack was done by Morgan's fans?

You're idiots.

Morgan's doing fine sales wise. He doesn't need you attacking websites on his behalf. All that does it turn people off. It's like the Bey-hive. Beyonce's over devoted fan base is another reason that she hasn't won the prestigious Album of the Year Grammy. Hopefully, she will for COWBOY CARTER and she deserves it for that album.

But the Hive? They turn more people off of Beyonce. They can do good -- and did with that concert goer who was disabled and would have missed Beyonce live if the Hive hadn't gone into action.

But they have an image of being this testy and angry mob and that hurts Beyonce, it hurts how she's seen. It turns people off.

Morgan is probably the best selling country artist in 2024. These attack tactics will not help him but they will hurt him. If that came from his fans, they need to back the hell off because their actions are the artist that they claim to love.

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, May 24, 2024. As the assault on Gaza continues, the healthcare crisis worsens, the Israeli government sweats the soon to be released ruling from the International Court of Justice, students continue their activism calling for an end to the slaughter, and much more.

Mike Corder (AP) reports, "The top United Nations court is ruling Friday on an urgent plea by South Africa to order Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza and withdraw from the enclave. Israel is unlikely to comply with any such order. Even so, a cease-fire order by judges of the International Court of Justice would heap more pressure on an increasingly isolated Israel as it continues its military assault on Gaza following the deadly Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas-led militants." Peter Beaumont and Robert Tait (GuARDIAN) add, "The latest legal moves come as Israeli media reported that Israel Defense Forces had concluded that troops had “breached regulations” when they killed a UN staff member and wounded a second one last week in Gaza when a marked UN vehicle was shelled and hit with a drone-dropped grenade."

This is the International Court of Justice -- the ICJ. The Israeli government's actions have landed them in almost as much legal trouble as Donald Trump -- give them time. The body weighing arrest warrants against War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu (among others) is the International Criminal Court.

Again, give the government of Israel time for more charges to be filed against it. There is also the ongoing abuse of prisoners. Lorenzo Tondo and Quique Kierszenbaum (GUARDIAN) note:

Prisoners held at an Israeli detention camp in the Negev desert are being subjected to widespread physical and mental abuses, with at least one reported case of a man having his limb amputated as a result of injuries sustained from constant handcuffing, according to two whistleblowers who worked at the site.

The sources described harrowing treatment of detainees at the Israeli Sde Teiman camp, which holds Palestinians from Gaza and suspected Hamas militants, including inmates regularly being kept shackled to hospital beds, blindfolded and forced to wear nappies.

According to the two sources, the facility, located approximately 18 miles from the Gaza border, consists of two distinct sections: an enclosure where up to 200 Palestinian detainees from Gaza are confined under severe physical restrictions inside cages, and a field hospital where dozens of patients with war injuries are handcuffed to their beds and often deprived of pain relief.

One whistleblower, who has worked in the facility as a prison guard, said detainees were forced to stand up for hours, or to sit on their knees. The source, who spoke out at risk of reprisals, said several detainees were beaten with truncheons and not able to move their heads or to speak at the facility.

In addition, there may be charges for their failures of the government to protect its own citizens. CNN notes, "The Israeli military has admitted it failed to defend its personnel on October 7 after a graphic video was released showing female soldiers from Israel's Nahal Oz military base being abducted during the Hamas attack." Regardless of charges or verdicts, the Israeli government expresses defiance. Chris Walker (TRUTHOUT) observes:

Israeli leaders are publicly stating that an impending ruling on Friday from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will not have any impact on their plans to continue the government’s genocidal war on Gaza.

But in private, officials are worried that a ruling against Israel will come with immense political costs on the international stage.

The ICJ is set to rule in a decision regarding a request from South Africa last week to limit Israel’s imminent military offensive in Rafah, which technically already began earlier this month. The request from South Africa is part of its ongoing case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

The ICJ has so far refused to rule that Israel has engaged in genocide or that it must halt its military operations. It did rule in January, however, that Israel must ensure its troops do not commit genocidal acts, and allow for more humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza — something Israel has refused to do.

South African officials claim the offensive in Rafah and other actions by Israel since the January verdict are destroying the “essential foundations of Palestinian life.” Indeed, in the months since the initial ICJ ruling, thousands more have been killed in Gaza, with aid groups expressing grave concern over famine taking over many parts of the region. Some health workers in Gaza are even reporting that many patients, lacking proper medical care and access to treatments, have maggot-infested wounds.

A genocide is taking place and eyes around the world are opening despite outright lies about what is taking place and despite big money being spent to promote lies. Ari Paul (FAIR) reports:

An exposé by the Washington Post (5/16/24) showed the degree to which wealthy pro-Israel businesspeople coordinated with each other to pressure New York City Mayor Eric Adams to take drastic action against college campus protests against the genocide of Palestinians.

It’s a remarkable piece of reporting, by Hannah Natanson and Emmanuel Felton, that points to a pervasive problem in American politics: that the wealthy enjoy outsized influence with the political class, while the rest of us drift in the wind.

The story is based on transcripts of a WhatsApp groupchat called “Israel Current Events,” whose participants included “billionaires and business titans.” One message by a billionaire’s staffer “told the others the goal of the group was to ‘change the narrative’ in favor of Israel,” the Post reported. A person identified only as “a staffer” told the group, “While Israel worked to ‘win the physical war,’ the chat group’s members would ‘help win the war’ of US public opinion by funding an information campaign against Hamas.”

he article reported that the chats revealed collaboration with Adams:

“He’s open to any ideas we have,” chat member [Joseph] Sitt, founder of the retail chain Ashley Stewart and the global real estate company Thor Equities, wrote April 27, the day after the group’s Zoom call with Adams. “As you saw he’s OK if we hire private investigators to then have his police force intel team work with them.”

The piece revealed that groupchat members, aware that “Columbia had to grant Adams permission before he could send city police to the campus,” strategized about how to apply the group’s “leverage” to Columbia president Minouche Shafik, including contacting the university’s board of trustees.

Needless to say, City Hall wasn’t too happy about the piece. One of the mayor’s deputies, Fabien Levy, quickly responded on Twitter (5/16/24) that “the insinuation that Jewish donors secretly plotted to influence government operations is an all-too-familiar antisemitic trope.”

His multi-post thread concluded:

@WashingtonPost & others can make editorial decisions to disagree with the decisions by universities to ask the NYPD to clear unlawful encampments on campuses, but saying Jews “wielded their money and power in an effort to shape American views” is offensive on so many levels.

The Washington Post, of course, did not report that “Jews” had “wielded their money and power”—but that “some prominent individuals” had, distinguished not by religion or ethnicity, but by their politics.

The mayor himself called the story “antisemitic in its core” (Good Day New York, 5/20/24) and doubled down on this point when speaking to reporters (New York Post, 5/21/24). The Anti-Defamation League (Twitter, 5/20/24) said that the Washington Post should be

ashamed of publishing an article that unabashedly (and almost entirely on anonymous sources) plays into antisemitic tropes by inferring a secret cabal of Jews is using wealth & power to influence governments, the media, the business world & academia.

The Adams administration’s effort to redirect scrutiny away from the latest credible charge of coziness with wealthy donors found a friendly audience in right-wing media. Fox News (5/17/24) gave Levy’s claims headline status, and the New York Post editorial board (5/17/24) said that the Adams administration “smells a whiff of antisemitism in the WaPo report,” because “intimating that a mainly Jewish bunch of wealthy power-players were quietly pulling a politician’s strings is a classic trope of Jew-hate.”

Yes, that’s the same New York Post that obsessively ties every political cause to the left of Emperor Palpatine to the Jewish philanthropist George Soros (e.g., 8/1/22, 1/22/23, 1/25/23, 7/24/23, 12/9/23, 4/26/24, 4/26/24). It is also interesting to note that two Rupert Murdoch outlets, thought to be Republican stalwarts, are once again acting as in-kind public relations agents for a Democratic mayor, a testament to Adams’ right-wing agenda—the New York Post endorsed him (5/20/21) and continues to cheerlead for him (1/27/24) as he approaches the end of his first term. For the Murdoch empire, politics (including shielding Israel) sometimes comes before party.

The accusation that the student protest movement against the genocide of Palestinians is “antisemitic” has become more and more tired. Many Jews are mobilizing in these protests (ABC, 4/24/24). As a result, many Jewish protesters face state violence (Al Jazeera, 5/3/24) and censorship (FAIR.org, 12/15/23) for speaking out against the Israeli military. Yet the Adams administration, Fox and the New York Post continue to hurl the insult, this time at the Washington Post, signaling that they have no more honest way to defend the behavior exposed by the Post.

Despite such smears and lies, students around the world have stood up. Ethan Gudge and Phil Mercer-Kelly (BBC NEWS) report:

Sixteen protesters have been arrested after a University of Oxford building was locked down due to an occupation by a pro-Palestinian group.

Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) started a sit-in at university offices on Wellington Square at 08:00 BST, demanding a meeting over its policies relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict

Tomas Foster (UK SOCIALIST WORKER) notes:

Activists began the occupation and hung Palestinians flags outside of the university administration building as well as a banner of their demands for the university to divest.

A local activist told Socialist Worker, “Police then went to arrest all 16 of the students involved in the occupation, but students rallied outside the building. Around 350 students outside blocked all exits to the building, preventing police vans from leaving with the arrested students. It’s an incredible show of solidarity. It’s very militant.”

Students chanted, “Let them out,” and, “40,000 people dead and you’re arresting kids instead,”outside main entrance to Oxford university offices.

The police then tried to bring another van down the main road, but students sat down in front of the van, blocking it from moving. “Students are sitting in front and behind the van, it has been completely stopped,” the local activist said.

The police forced their way through the crowd to the van with one arrested student just before 1pm. But protesters were undeterred. “Students have been here for over four hours and the chants and numbers are continuing,” said the local activist.

A police van eventually got through the student blockade and police took all of the activists who began the occupation into police custody. “The students outside have now moved to picket the head of colleges conference that is happening nearby,” a local activist said.

“The students went in at 8am and the police got them out at 2:30pm. We didn’t get them released and it’s worth noting that the college authorities initiated the calling of the police.”

The rage of students across Britain shows no sign of fading. In Edinburgh, students have set up an encampment against the £55 million of investments the university has in companies that support the Israeli military or apartheid system.

Shea, an Edinburgh university student involved in the encampment, told Socialist Worker the encampment is trying to draw more people in. “The shift began on Monday,” he said. “On Tuesday, we had a stall and mass leafleting for a staff-student rally.

“There is a desire to grow the encampment. By being more outward facing we can get more students involved who haven’t yet been. And there has been discussion with staff about how to unite with them.”

And in the US, Edward Carver (COMMON DREAMS) reports:

Hundreds of graduates walked out in protest at Harvard University's commencement ceremony on Thursday in protest of the war in Gaza and the college's decision not to confer degrees on 13 pro-Palestine seniors.

Harvard's controversial decision to block the 13 seniors from graduating strengthened the intensity of Thursday's demonstration, which was "far larger, louder, and more extensive than graduation protests at any other university in the region thus far this spring," according toThe Boston Globe.

Many of the protesting graduates wore keffiyehs, waved Palestinian flags, and carried placards with messages such as "For Gaza." They chanted "Let them walk!" in support of the 13 students during the ceremony before marching out to a nearby church for what one organizer called the "peoples' commencement," the Globe reported.

Earlier:

Harvard University's board on Wednesday rejected a faculty vote to allow 13 seniors who had participated in a pro-Palestine encampment to graduate, provoking outrage from educators and students, some of whom protested outside the commencement ceremony Thursday morning.

The Wednesday announcement followed competing decisions by Harvard institutions in the days leading up to graduation. On May 18, the college's administrative board announced disciplinary actions against students—suspending five and placing more than 20 on probation—for their involvement in the on-campus encampment, which ended last week. This left the 13 seniors ineligible to graduate.

Professors in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences responded on Monday by voting to amend the list of students receiving degrees to include the 13 students—effectively rejecting the administrative board's decision. Harvard's main governing board, known as the Corporation, had to make the final decision, which they announced in a statement on Wednesday:

Because the [13] students included as the result of Monday's amendment are not in good standing, we cannot responsibly vote to award them degrees at this time. In coming to this determination, we note that the express provisions of the Harvard College Student Handbook state that students who are not in good standing are not eligible for degrees. We also considered the inequity of exempting a particular group of students who are not in good standing from established rules, while other seniors with similar status for matters unrelated to Monday's faculty amendment would be unable to graduate.

Both faculty and students condemned the decision, which The Harvard Crimson called an "unprecedented veto" of the faculty.

"I would expect a faculty rebellion, possibly a faculty rebellion against the entire governance structure, because there's already a fair amount of mistrust toward the Corporation to begin with," government professor Steven Levitsky told the Crimson.

Patrick Martin (WSWS) also covers the walkout:

Interim President Alan Garber was loudly booed as he opened the commencement, and he conceded that “some among us may choose to take the liberty of expressing themselves to draw attention to events unfolding in the wider world.”

The signal for the walkout was given by one of the three student speakers at the commencement, Shruthi Kumar, who deviated from the text of her address to pull a prepared statement out of the sleeves of her gown and read it. Kumar attacked the administration for its treatment of the anti-genocide protests, saying, “This semester our freedom of speech and our expressions of solidarity became punishable,” as students erupted in applause.

She said she wanted to honor “the 13 undergraduates in the class of 2024 who will not graduate today,” adding, “I am deeply disappointed by the intolerance for freedom of speech and the right to civil disobedience on campus … this is about civil rights and upholding democratic principles,” she said.

Referring to the widespread support for the victimized students, she continued, “The students had spoken. The faculty had spoken. Harvard, do you hear us?” She then said she was walking in support of those denied their degrees. “These are my peers and friends, and I can’t in good conscience celebrate when their families are in pain,” she said. “This is beyond politics—it’s about civil rights and civil disobedience. We’re not intending to be disruptive or violent. But it’s making a statement, as a community, as the class of 2024.”

Some of the same democratic sentiments were voiced by the main commencement speaker, Maria Ressa, a Filipino journalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her exposures of corruption and state killings under the regime of President Rodrigo Duterte.

“The campus protests are testing everyone in America,” Ressa said. “Protests give voice; they shouldn’t be silenced.” She also noted that she herself had been falsely accused of antisemitism for her opposition to the Gaza genocide, saying she had been “called antisemitic by power and money because they want power and money.”

The commencement protest came despite a heavy presence of police on the campus. This was a manifestation at Harvard of the crackdown being carried out on virtually every college campus where students have demonstrated, set up encampments or occupied buildings to declare their opposition to the Israeli genocide in Gaza and demand their universities break all ties with the Zionist regime and divest any holdings in companies that supply Israel with war materiel.

The harshest such crackdown Thursday came at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where hundreds of police were mobilized in response to students who set up a new encampment at the school after the previous encampment was broken up by police earlier this month. While police broke up the new protest site, smashing through improvised barricades, students staged a second protest, taking over a building.

The attack on student protesters and their supporters is being driven from Washington, where both the Biden administration and Republicans and Democrats in Congress have sought to criminalize opposition to the Gaza genocide, declaring all criticism of the actions of Israel to be “antisemitic,” even though many of the protesters are themselves Jewish. More than 3,000 have been arrested for participating in the protests since they began last month.

Meanwhile, FRANCE 24 reports of Gaza today:

The ministry said Thursday afternoon that Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah would have to stop operations within two hours. Later, after nightfall, the hospital appeared largely blacked out in Associated Press footage, although it was not clear if it had shut down.

The ministry said the hospital was currently treating more than 600 patients and wounded people and that some 650 other kidney dialysis patients rely on treatment there – warning that their lives could be threatened if the hospital closes.

Losing Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital would leave only two hospitals operating in Deir al-Balah, according to the U.N., at a time when the town has been flooded by Palestinians fleeing Rafah. Across Gaza, only about a third of its original 36 hospitals still function, and those only partially.

THE NATIONAL adds:

Al Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza has run out of fuel and its generators have stopped working, health authorities in the enclave warned.

Iyad Al Jabri, medical director at the hospital, said more than 4,000 litres of fuel was required each day to continue operations and care for patients.

“We have hundreds of patients, including the injured and those that are diagnosed with kidney failure and need electricity for their dialysis treatment,” Mr Al Jabri said.

“This will stop completely without any fuel."

The ongoing health crisis was discussed on yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to look more at Gaza and Israel’s continuing targeting of medical facilities. Israeli forces have stormed Al-Awda Hospital in the Jabaliya refugee camp, forcing medical staff to abandon the hospital. The World Health Organization has issued an urgent appeal for Israel to protect medical staff and patients at the hospital. On Tuesday, three Israeli missiles struck the emergency department at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

We’re joined now by Dr. Adam Hamawy. He’s a plastic surgeon, Army veteran from New Jersey, who just left Gaza, where he took part in a volunteer mission with the Palestinian American Medical Association. Dr. Hamawy and other volunteer doctors were trapped last week at European Hospital in Khan Younis due to Israel’s military offensive. Twenty years ago, in 2004, he saved the life of future Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois after she was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade while serving in the Iraq War, losing both her legs and partial use of her right arm. Dr. Hamawy is joining us now from Cairo, Egypt.

I’m glad we’re able to speak to you again, Dr. Hamawy. Can you talk about what happened in European Hospital, your response to what’s happening at Al-Awda Hospital, and how you made your way out?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Right now at the European Hospital, after we’ve left, people are afraid and are leaving. Even before we were preparing to go, in anticipation, staff members, people who lived inside the hospital for months now, doctors have been making their way out of the region and out from the hospital, after they’ve already evacuated other locations. Many of the physicians that I worked with and the staff had come here after working at places like Shifa and Nasser hospitals, and they expect the same to happen here, now that they’ve lost that sense of security of having an international presence there.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about your work there, the children and others who you saw, and why you decided to leave, and also Senator Duckworth’s help in this, and what you were demanding, because there was a time there that you were saying you would not leave Gaza unless you knew you could be replaced.

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: I think what we wanted, we were asking that we wanted a safe corridor for us to leave and for us to be replaced. That was an ask that we’ve always made. We came with the expectation that we would leave at some point and that other teams would come in. It was never a condition of our exit to have other people come in. It was an expectation. We did everything that we could do while we were there. We ran out of supplies. We ran out of support, as more and more people were leaving. And in the end, we could only do so much without having that replacement team come in.

Our team wanted to leave together, just like we came in together. When we were given the opportunity to leave as individual nations and only the Americans were given permission to leave, that was something that was unexpected. We never saw ourselves as coming in as individuals with certain passports. We came in as a team of humanitarian medical workers that are trying to help the people in Gaza. And when I stayed, I stayed because I would not leave my team behind, and the same with my colleagues who stayed with me. We would not leave until we were all guaranteed that safe exit. And so, when we were finally given that opportunity to go, we left.

And we still ask that the international community continue to, like, support the people. I’ve heard that President Biden has committed to the entry of humanitarian aid. And I would hope that, as a nation, we would stand by these commitments and that we would do everything that we can to replace us as soon as possible.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Dr. Hamawy, you wrote a letter to President Biden on May 19th, which Senator Tammy Duckworth delivered to the White House on the 20th, describing your experience and what you witnessed on the ground. In that letter, you wrote, “I have never in my career witnessed the level of atrocities and targeting of my medical colleagues as I have in Gaza.” Do you know who got that letter at the White House? Have you gotten a response from the president? And if you could describe in more detail what it was that you were referencing on the ground in Gaza?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: I know the letter was delivered. I don’t know who — I did not receive a direct response from the president. But I know that he did receive it, and I’ve heard about that commitment.

What I was referring to is the targeting of doctors and nurses. While I was there, one of the doctors and nurses who lived close to the hospital were killed when their house was struck, as well as their family members, who were injured, killed and wounded. I worked with doctors who had fled other hospitals, like I said. They were targeted. I’ve talked to doctors and nurses who were taken as prisoners, interrogated and tortured. I know — I’ve visited other hospitals. I personally went to Nasser Hospital and saw what had happened there. I walked through the halls of an empty hospital that was vandalized, that had bloodstains on the walls and on the chairs and on the desks. That is what I’m referring to.

AMY GOODMAN: A new report by The Washington Post documents at least 90 cases of Israeli forces attacking hospitals in Gaza since October 7th, including on Al-Shifa Hospital, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Of the 36 hospitals in Gaza attacked — tracked by the U.N. humanitarian office, only four have not been reported damaged by munitions. Can you talk about what it means to leave a hospital, what you were hearing from doctors who moved from other hospitals to where you were and then were moving on, and at the same time, this mass of humanity making their way away from Rafah, as they were told to leave, though they had — that was sometimes the third and fourth relocation of their families?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: I worked with a nurse that I first met when I arrived there, for several days, and then I did not see him for about a week. When I saw him, I asked him where he had been. And he was relocating his family. His family lived in Rafah. They were given an evacuation order. And they went to one of the designated zones of safety, which was along the shore — basically, a desert. It’s got sand everywhere. It has no water. It has no electricity. It has no food and no shelter. They basically had bags that they carried with them. So, they did not have tents to set up. His wife and his two children — he had two girls, one that is 2 years old and one that is 3 months old. He had to try to get water for them. He went to a water station, where he stood for approximately eight hours, he described to me, before he was able to fill a jug of nondrinkable water. But that is what they used to drink. And this is an example of just one family. He came back to the hospital. He looked exhausted. He looked dehydrated. He broke down and cried while I spoke to him. And he spent two days in the hospital, then went back to his family. And he’s caught between trying to give aid, because, you know, his services are essential — a hospital cannot run on just a few doctors alone; it also needs nurses, it needs staff, and he was one of those essential staff — but he also had a family that he had to take care of. This is what one person is going through.

The hospital is emptying out, because many of them have done this several times. And the fear that they have is that as they leave — they’re taking care of people because they see themselves as the patients. They see their families. And many of them, almost all of them, have lost someone. So, when they’re taking care of the patients, they’re taking care of their families, they’re taking care of their neighbors, and they expect to be taken care of the same way when they get hurt, as well. And so, they are faced with this choice that, you know, is undescribable. How do you make that decision? And when we had to leave, we were faced with this choice, that is only a small — you know, it’s very small compared to what they’re facing. We had to leave our patients, just like they’re leaving their patients. And the hope is that this would end and they could all come back, resume a life that is a small semblance of normal, be able to take care of people, because that’s what they do, and to be able to take care of their families, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Adam Hamawy, we thank you for spending this time with us. We have 10 seconds. What final message do you have as you’ve left Gaza and head back to New Jersey, where you work as a plastic surgeon and are an Army veteran?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Us leaving the hospital is not the end. We have to continue to try to help. There’s many people left behind, and we can’t leave them alone.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Adam Hamawy, we thank you so much for being with us. He has just evacuated from Gaza on Tuesday, where he had been volunteering with the Palestinian American Medical Association at European Hospital in Khan Younis, had been trapped on site along with other international medical workers, after Israel seized the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt two weeks ago.

Next up, we speak with filmmaker Yance Ford about his new documentary, Power, about American policing. Back in 20 seconds.

Gaza remains under assault. Day 231 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 35,800, with 80,011 wounded." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

On bodies trapped under rubble, ALJAZEERA notes this morning:

We’re talking about a three-storey building that housed not only residents but also dozens of other displaced Palestinians in Rafah that made it to Nuseirat three days ago.

I met the neighbours. I met the family. I met one of the relatives of people still trapped under the rubble earlier today. They were telling me heartbreaking things.

Imagine escaping the air strikes in Rafah, looking for a safe space but being killed after three days of evacuating – not only being killed but being trapped where the Civil Defence teams do not have any equipment to remove or pull these people from under the rubble.

I saw Civil Defence teams doing their best to pull people from under the rubble. They were digging with their bare hands, with very basic tools. This was not the first time we have seen this scene. We have been seeing this for more than seven months now.

Unfortunately, it may come to a point where the Civil Defence teams will give up on this house because there are more people being targeted every single hour across the Gaza Strip.

April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons. In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."

As for the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."

The following sites updated:

Thursday, May 23, 2024

Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, disgusting Diddy

I think it really is the end of Puffy, P-Diddy, whatever name he's using currently. Maria Butt (INDEPENDENT) reports:

Chaka Khan’s daughter has called out rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs for “yelling and screaming” at her mother just days after he apologised for beating ex-girlfriend Cassie in a 2016 video.

The 54-year-old who has been the subject of numerous allegations and lawsuits, shared an apology video on Instagram in which he called his behaviour “inexcusable”.

In the comments section of the video, Khan’s daughter Indira Milini Khan, slammed the rapper for his treatment of the “I’m Every Woman” singer and celebrated his downfall.

“I’m glad this is happening to you, you got in my mothers face and publicly disrespected her yelling and screaming like a lunatic,” she wrote.

She further alleged that Combs ordered his security team to attack her brother as he tried to protect the music legend.

“When my little brother tried to get you out of my mothers face your security jumped my 19 year old brother,” she continued.

That's a story I already knew -- about him being rude to Chaka. Good for her daughter for calling him out. Chaka is a legendary singer, yes, but she's also a very kind person. I was surprised by her kindness and her height. Onstage, she seems 10 feet tall. It's stage presence and charisma that makes her seem tall and towering.

P Diddy seems like the tiny little man he is. He also seems to think that after lying that he beat Cassie Ventura, after denying that it happened, he can just offer some mealy mouthed words now that we've all seen the video. Cassie has made a statement, by the way. Maria Butt (INDEPENDENT) reports:

The former rapper posted an apology video on Sunday (19 May) in which he called his behaviour “inexcusable” and said he “takes full responsibility for his actions in the video”.

An attorney for Ventura called the apology “disingenuous”.

However, the 37-year-old, mother-of-two has now released a statement in her own words, speaking out on the incident.

“Thank you for all the love and support from my family, friends, strangers and those I have yet to meet,” she wrote via Instagram on Thursday (22 May).

“The outpouring of love has created a place for my younger self to settle and feel safe now, but this is only the beginning.

“Domestic violence is THE issue. It broke me down to someone I never thought I would become. With a lot of hard work, I am better today but I will always be recovering from my past.”

THE DAILY MAIL adds, "Sean 'Diddy' Combs is being sued by a former model who claims he drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2003. Crystal McKinney (pictured right) filed a lawsuit against the rapper, 54 -- who is currently facing a [sexual intercourse] trafficking probe and multiple other sexual misconduct lawsuits -- alleging that she was assaulted at his studio, as per TMZ."

Let's move over to Patti LaBelle. My top five favorite Patti songs:

5) "I Met Him On A Sunday"

4) "If You Asked Me To"

3) "On My Own"

2) "New Attitude"

1) "Yo Mister"

"I Met Him On A Sunday" is a song she did with LaBelle and Laura Nyro on Laura's GONNA TAKE A MIRACLE album. I think the other four are widely known hits. I will note that Prince wrote and produced "Yo Mister" and you can hear him singing on the chorus.

Simon Hattenstone (GUARDIAN) reports:

Patti LaBelle is approaching a big birthday. “Eighty good ones, right? Eighty!” she says incredulously. “And it’s still getting better.” How are you going to celebrate on Friday? “It’s a surprise. My son’s not telling me anything, but I have my beautiful gown and my beautiful jewels ready. And I have another hairstyle for my outfit. I’m prepared!”

I ask her if she is still performing. She looks at me, shocked. Is she performing? Is she ever not performing? “Last week I got back from Kentucky, Detroit, Saint Louis and Atlanta. I spend at least seven months of the year touring.”

In her most famous incarnation, as the leader of the trio Labelle (alongside Sarah Dash and the phenomenal Nona Hendryx) singing the soul-funk classic, 1974’s Lady Marmalade, she wore a silver space-suit and boots that would put Elton John to shame (he was her pianist before he was famous). Today, she’s equally stylish – black ski-slope hair, huge eyelashes, ferocious silver nails, white diamond hoop earrings and a ruby ring you could land a helicopter on. Her skin is fabulous. She looks a good 20 years younger.

LaBelle is at home in Philadelphia, where she grew up, when we speak on video call. Her house is part Charles Saatchi, part Liberace – abstract sculpture behind her, glitzy chandelier above, shih-tzu barking in the background. When Lady Marmalade was released 50 years ago, it was already her second coming. In the early 60s, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles had hits with songs such as I Sold My Heart to the Junkman and cover versions of You’ll Never Walk Alone and Over the Rainbow. They were a classic girl group of their time – dressed in identical gowns, tiaras and gloves.

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, May 23, 2024. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sports contempt for the American people, the Israeli government continues attacking hospitals and healthcare workers, students continue protesting around the world, and much more.

Friday morning Amy Goodman (DEMOCRACY NOW!) noted:

In other Supreme Court news, The New York Times is reporting an upside-down U.S. flag, which is a symbol used by Trump supporters and election deniers, hung outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in January 2021, just days before Biden’s inauguration. The revelations are expected to reignite calls for Alito to recuse himself from cases related to the January 6 insurrection, including Trump’s attempt to claim immunity from election subversion charges.

Alito is corrupt and not fit to serve. Ruth covered this topic on Saturday "Like Thomas, Alito must recuse himself from all Jan. 6th cases" and she asked me for a comment (I wrote about it Friday in the gina & krista round-robin):

There are a number of issues here and multiple red flags. Alito should recuse himself from any January 6th cases. Alito states that his wife hung the flag upside down. He states that it was done in relation to some other protest and has nothing to do with the January 6th attempted insurrection. He is asking the American people to believe him on that. That's too big of an ask. There is the appearance of a conflict of interest and he may very well be lying. I'm texting you a link to add to what I'm about to say. Lying? While attempting to be confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2006, he told Senator Ted Kennedy that ROE V WADE was settled law. Then came his voting to overturn ROE. That decision eroded confidence in the Court across the country. He really is in no place to beg the American people to believe him. Did his wife do the flag? He was a judge before he got on the Supreme Court. His wife knows the rules. And if she did do it, that actually raises more concerns. His work colleague is Clarence. Ginni Thomas was part of the January 6th attempted insurrection. Was Martha-Ann Alito also part of that insurrection attempt? Do we need to be concerned as a country over just how deep that insurrection attempt actually was? These and other questions immediately follow. So there is the appearance of a conflict of interest. That requires Alito to step aside on all January 6th cases. His job is not just to rule. His job is to rule and to ensure trust in the Court. Refusing to recuse himself would be failing at his job. And the integrity of the Court is as important as any ruling it issues. As a member of the Court, Alito has to maintain the integrity of the Court and he can't do that without recusing himself from all January 6th cases.

That was me to Ruth on Saturday. Alito's a liar. That's no longer opinion, there's a new story.

From the new NEW YORK TIMES report by Jodi Kantor, Aric Toler and Julie Tate:

Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs.
This time, it was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms.
Three photographs obtained by The New York Times, along with accounts from a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by, show that the Appeal to Heaven flag was aloft at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in July and September of 2023. A Google Street View image from late August also shows the flag.

I don't know where to start.

Caught last week, he insists that it was his wife and it was about some other issue. As I said last week,

"He is asking the American people to believe him. That is too big of an ask."

They shouldn't believe him, he's a liar.

That's what really gets me here. Last week, when he lied? He knew there was a chance he could be exposed as the liar he is. He knew a neighbor might have seen the flag just being reported now. In fact, that's why he did it. He put the flag out for it to be seen.

But his contempt for the American people was so great that he just lied without caring. Grasp that.

He's not fit for the Court.

And Chief Justice John Roberts is not leaving behind a legacy or building the trust of the American people.

Alito cannot sit on any January 6th cases. He is clearly part of that movement and he is clearly unable to be truthful. Neither of those flags should have flown. Alito is spitting on democracy and showing contempt for the American people. If he had any ethics at all, he would announce his immediate resignation.

I doubt he will. And if the Democrats are in power after the 2024 election, they better remove Alito or be prepared to be called out by everyone because there is nothing more corrupt than what Alito and Clarence Thomas have been doing.

It's time for an immediate end to lifetime Supreme Court appointments. It's time for Congress to put in term limits for Supreme Court justices.

Thomas and Alito's abuses demonstrate how little oversight and accountability the Supreme Court justices have had to face.

Turning to Gaza where the ongoing slaughter continues. The Israeli government has refused moves towards a pause in the fighting, let alone a cease-fire for months now. Today, THE WASHINGTON POST reports, "Israel’s war cabinet has instructed negotiators to resume talks on a deal to release hostages held in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said early Thursday. The statement came after the families of five female Israeli soldiers released footage of their capture by Hamas on Oct. 7, in hopes it would push authorities to restart stalled negotiations." Hamza Hendawi (THE NATIONAL) reports:

Egypt has threatened to withdraw from mediating a Gaza ceasefire, saying attempts to question its integrity in handling the negotiations reflected a desire to punish Cairo for standing by Palestinian rights.
Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s State Information Service, spoke late on Wednesday in response to a CNN report that Cairo's intelligence officials quietly changed the terms of a recent proposal and scuttled a deal for a Gaza truce and prisoner and hostage swap between Israel and Hamas.
“Attempts to cast doubt and offend Egypt's mediation efforts … will only lead to further complications of the situation in Gaza and the entire region and may push Egypt to completely withdraw from its mediation in the current conflict,” Mr Rashwan said.
In a thinly veiled reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government, he said “specific parties” were avoiding making decisions so as to protect personal interests or to deal with “massive domestic political crisis” they are facing.
Egypt, he said, was engaged in Gaza mediation at the insistence of Israel and the US.

The CNN report published on Tuesday, citing three sources, said Egyptian intelligence officials changed the terms of a ceasefire proposal that Israel had agreed to earlier in May, without consulting fellow mediators Qatar and the US.

When Hamas announced on May 6 that it had accepted the truce agreement, it was not the proposal that the US and Qatar thought was submitted to Hamas for review, according to CNN.
The changes caused anger among US, Israeli and Qatari officials and led to an impasse in the talks, CNN said.
Sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations told The National on Thursday that Egypt's mediators worked closely with their Qatari and US partners throughout the process.
“Everything in the draft proposals was agreed upon in advance by all the mediators,” said one source.
Mr Rashwan said the CNN report amounted to an attempt to punish Egypt for its unwavering support for Palestinian rights and its decision last week to intervene in support of South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice that accuses Israel of genocide.

Genocide? The deniers continue to pretend otherwise but more and more people are commenting on reality. Shona Murray (EURONEWS) reports:

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris answered Euronews' questions in an exclusive interview, discussing the Israel-Hamas conflict and offering justification for Ireland's decision to recognise Palestine as a state.
Europe is on the wrong side of history for failing to do enough to stop the bloodshed in Gaza, according to Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris.
“There will be a moment in the future where your children and your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will ask, what did you do? What did you do? And did you do enough? And that should keep every single one of us awake at night, because there are children in Gaza, there are children in Rafah, who go to sleep at night not knowing if they'll wake," he told Euronews in an exclusive interview.
In coordinated announcements, the Irish government on Wednesday announced it will recognise Palestine alongside Spain and Norway, with Slovenia and potentially Belgium likely to follow suit.

The corrupt government of War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has killed as easily -- and repeatedly -- as it has lie. UNWRA is a terrorist organization! Remember that reckless charge that the Israeli government made in their efforts to starve the Palestinian people? ALJAZEERA reports:

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has lauded an initiative by the Slovenian Permanent Mission to the UN to support UNRWA‘s vital role in providing assistance to generations of Palestinian refugees.

In a post on X, he also stated that all EU donors have now resumed funding of the UN agency.
Earlier this year, Israel claimed that 12 UNRWA members participated in the Hamas-led October 7 attack on southern Israel.
The claims against UNRWA led to a massive funding deficit as several donor countries announced cuts.

A review headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna later revealed that Israel had failed to support its claims about the UNRWA staff.

Netanyahu and his corrupt government have lied repeatedly. Remember the claim that they didn't attack hospitals? ALZAZEERA notes:

A doctor forced out of northern Gaza’s al-Awda Hospital, which is currently besieged by Israeli forces, has given Al Jazeera an update on the situation inside the facility, where 14 patients and several staff remain.

“Today, the Israeli military forced nearly all of us from the hospital,” Dr Marwan Fwaihi told Al Jazeera. “The patients remained inside, with four medical staff and two paramedics to care for them.

“All of us have been ordered to leave the hospital and keep walking towards west [Gaza City]. We are walking until we reach a safe area and to find shelter.”

Fwaihi emphasised that he has repeatedly called on international organisations to help protect the patients and staff trapped in the besieged facility, but has so far seen no progress.
“I appeal to all international organisations and all medical-related officials, especially the [World Health Organization], to intervene to protect what remains of the hospitals, the patients in the hospital, and the medical staff who refuse to leave,” he said.

Yesterday, Amy Goodman (DEMOCRACY NOW!) noted, "In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces raided the northern city of Jenin early Tuesday morning, killing at least eight Palestinians, including a doctor shot dead on his way to work and a teenager riding his bicycle. About a dozen others were injured, including a journalist." There have been so many attacks on hospitals, so many murdered healthcare workers that the Israeli government doesn't even try to lie most of the time these days. At HAARETZ, Michael Sfard writes, "Let the reporters and editors explain how their professional ethics fit with the shameful decision to keep from Israelis what we're inflicting on the people of Gaza."

Meanwhile, students around the world continue protesting the ongoing genocide. From yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We now look at the ongoing crackdown on student-led protests in solidarity with Palestine across U.S. college campuses. An encampment at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is the latest to be violently dismantled by police, and President Santa Ono claimed the peaceful action had become a threat to public safety. Dozens of officers dressed in riot gear, wielding batons, raided the encampment before dawn Tuesday, pepper-spraying and pushing students to the ground as they tore down the camp.

PROTESTERS: [shouting] Move, cops! Get out the way! Move, cops! Get out the way! We know you’re Israel-trained! We know you’re Israel-trained! Move, cops! Get out the way! Go!

AMY GOODMAN: At least four people were arrested Tuesday, while two others were hospitalized after being pepper-sprayed by police. Student protesters set up the encampment about a month ago, demanding the University of Michigan’s endowment divest from companies with ties to Israel. This comes as the school’s president, Santa Ono, is slated to appear before Congress tomorrow alongside the presidents of UCLA and Yale to testify about their responses to the student-led protests and how they’re addressing reports of antisemitism on campus.

For more, we’re joined by Salma Hamamy, Palestinian American student at the University of Michigan, who just graduated earlier this month. Salma is the president of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of Michigan. On Tuesday morning, she was pepper-sprayed and beaten by police who raided the university pro-Palestine encampment, joining us from Southfield, Michigan.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Salma. Can you describe what happened yesterday? And just to be clear, this has all happened after graduation at Mich?

SALMA HAMAMY: Hi. Yes, it did all happen after graduation. Students at the encampment have been holding down the encampment long after, even after graduation.

And at approximately 5:40 a.m., police came in full riot gear, actually while we were having a church service on the Diag, moving them out and essentially giving us a 10-minute warning, saying that we must be cleared off of the encampment. However, that 10 minutes, surprisingly, turned into five minutes, and they immediately began to charge at the protesters and at the students with their batons and pepper spray. Nearly every step forward that they took, chemicals were being sprayed in every direction. As students were falling to the floor in agony and in pain, they continued to push forward, beating students with batons. And us, standing, we were trying to, you know, hold up onto the students who have fallen down and lift them and take them over to safety. Yet they even began to arrest students in that very moment. So, it was very difficult to keep track of who’s being arrested, because, you know, we unfortunately could not see in those moments due to the chemical attacks directly sprayed onto our eyes. And they constantly pushed us further and further back. It took them about half an hour to entirely remove us from the encampment, as we tried our absolute hardest to remain strong and remain standing at the encampment. However, as we were pushed further and further back, students, unfortunately, were unable to remain standing due to the pepper spray and due to the intense beating with the batons, as well. Students’ phones were even confiscated as we were recording them.

I, personally, myself, was holding a megaphone, and kept a reasonable distance from the cops, as well, as I was chanting, specifically emphasizing why I was there and why I was protesting at the encampment. I repeatedly said that my family has been killed, and that is why I’m here. And as I was saying that through the megaphone, police officers snatched the megaphone out from my hand and threw it behind them.

So, not only was it an attack on the encampment, but it was an attack on us as students protesting entirely. And it was quite a traumatic experience, to say the least, but, unfortunately, not one that was surprising at all given the response that the university has taken against student protesters within the last eight months. This is not the first time that the university has unleashed violent police against students. And currently, as you mentioned, four are now facing felony charges. Three were actually hospitalized. And, you know, due to the inhaling of the pepper spray, several of us are unable to properly breathe at the moment due to the tactics that they deployed.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Salma, I wanted to ask you — you mentioned that this repression didn’t just start with the encampment. Many universities, for months now, have been cracking down on even the most minor protests occurring on their campuses. What’s been happening in Michigan over the past eight months?

SALMA HAMAMY: Over the past eight months, we have seen police brutally beat students to the floor, rip their hijabs off in the process, causing several students to have been hospitalized over the course of eight months. We currently now have eight total students facing felony charges and dozens more facing disciplinary repercussions by the university themselves. Even within the smallest protests of us marching into buildings during public, open hours, we have been met with police violence. Us protesting outside, we have been met with police violence.

It seems that as though wherever we stand, the university refuses to engage in dialogue with us to discuss divestment, as we have been demanding for the last eight months. And instead of meeting with us at the table and meeting with us at the encampment, they decided to meet us with violent force and chemical attacks.

AMY GOODMAN: Where do you go from here, Salma? You just graduated. You also helped to organize the protest at the University of Michigan graduation.

SALMA HAMAMY: Yeah. So, one of the reasons that the university decides to attack our encampment is because it is a physical display of our commitment, of our dedication and of our motivation entirely. So, by them thinking that they could take down the encampment, it is in no way ever going to take down our movement or our commitment, because that lies within the people and that lies within ourselves. And we are still standing. So, regardless if we happen to have the tents laid up or we have an encampment or we have various forms of protest, it is always going to remain strong, and it is going to remain stronger than ever, every single time the police try to oppress us, and especially when it is caused by our university.

So, graduates, alumni, staff members, faculty members, broader community members are all remaining united and are remaining united for the Palestinian cause and for the people of Gaza. And we are going to continue to fight back, and especially against these charges that have been placed against these students for protesting a genocide and for protesting our university’s funding of a genocide. So, we will remain strong, and we will remain wherever it is that the movement lies, because it lies within ourselves.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think part of the dismantling of the encampment had to do with President Ono, president of the University of Michigan, having to testify before Congress tomorrow?

SALMA HAMAMY: Absolutely. I think it is a tactic that they are trying to uphold to protect themselves. However, one thing that is going to be made evidently clear, as it has made evidently clear with every single other raid at the encampment, is that it is not a good look for the university to come in and send police in riot gear. Of course, it is a fear tactic that Congress is trying to put against these university presidents. However, again, it’s not going to deter students away. And it is not a coincidence that around this time President Ono is sending police officers to not only physically danger and harm students, but also having dozens of students be faced with disciplinary charges from the university themselves and also eight felony charges from the prosecutor’s office.

AMY GOODMAN: Salma Hamamy, we want to thank you for being with his, Palestinian American student at University of Michigan, who just graduated earlier this month, and one of the organizers of the protest at the graduation.

Amy Goodman also noted yesterday:

Meanwhile, academic workers at the University of California at Santa Cruz began a strike on Monday to protest the crackdown on pro-Palestinian student protesters. The strike comes days after the UAW local, which represents 48,000 workers in the UC system, voted to authorize a systemwide strike.
In other education news, the faculty at Dartmouth has voted to censure the school’s president, Sian Beilock, for calling in the police to shut down a peaceful student protest in solidarity with Palestine. Meanwhile, the Faculty Senate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has voted no confidence in the school’s chancellor, Javier Reyes, after police arrested more than 130 at a student encampment earlier this month.

Australia's 9 NEWS:

Pro-Palestine protesters occupying the University of Melbourne's Arts building have agreed to leave after a week-long sit-in.
UniMelb 4 Palestine representatives said they reached a deal with the university last night.
It comes just days after the university warned protesters would face expulsion if they didn't pack up and leave.

At COMMON DREAMS, Maura Stephens and Alessandra Pomarico write:

Like others around the world, we’ve been watching as neoliberal and corporate-controlled universities repress, silence, and violate peaceful protesters who are answering calls of conscience. As educators working in our various locales to break free from the structural chains of assembly-line school systems, we’re moved to unequivocally condemn those who order and undertake the beating and arresting of students, faculty, and supporters.

These are the very actions, as well as turning staff against the communities they serve and keeping students from reaching their beds, food, and medications—making campuses “unsafe” and not, as administrators claim, peaceful campus teach-ins and sit-ins.

We applaud and support students and others who are risking vilification, attacks by police and by right-wing extremists, arrest, and expulsion from their universities in defense of human rights and a swift end to the genocidal assault on Palestinians.

What kind of schooling violently subjugates those who lawfully express peace-oriented dissent?

We’re encouraged by this growing movement, which reveals an awakening among students of anti-colonial awareness and worldwide solidarity. On the other hand, the horrific repressive reactions of their institutions starkly reveal the oligarchic infrastructure on which Western formal education is built.

Let’s Reflect on the Purpose of Education

What is this modeling of violence in their own lives impressing on students? Such imperialist brutality is amplified to a much greater degree on the people whose lives and freedom they’re upholding.

What is education for, if it silences discourse on justice, freedom, and equity? What kind of schooling violently subjugates those who lawfully express peace-oriented dissent?

Universities should be spaces for intellectual and compassionate debate. Yet we are witnessing extensive censorship, abuse of power, the squelching of critical thinking, student suspensions, and arrests and firing of faculty members who support peaceful protest.

Gaza remains under assault. Day 230 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 35,709, with 79,990 wounded ." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

On bodies trapped under rubble, ALJAZEERA notes this morning:

We’re talking about a three-storey building that housed not only residents but also dozens of other displaced Palestinians in Rafah that made it to Nuseirat three days ago.

I met the neighbours. I met the family. I met one of the relatives of people still trapped under the rubble earlier today. They were telling me heartbreaking things.

Unfortunately, it may come to a point where the Civil Defence teams will give up on this house because there are more people being targeted every single hour across the Gaza Strip.