Paul Rudnick.
After Stormy Daniels mentioned Trump wearing satin pajamas, Lindsey gasped, "That's just the way I've always pictured him, emerging from my boudoir with a rose, champagne and a Big Mac, and calling me honeybunch as I bring him his slippers and the newspaper" pic.twitter.com/La08c8QcNR
— Paul Rudnick (@PaulRudnickNY) May 8, 2024
That flamer Lindey Graham. He's going to burn down Atlanta yet.
Susan Del Percio, a GOP strategist who has been critical of the former president and his influence over the Republican Party, wrote an opinion article published by MSNBC Wednesday morning that said Trump does not appear to be supportive of Greene's efforts to oust Johnson.
After two days of meetings with Johnson, the Georgia Republican, along with Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, told reporters outside the Capitol on Tuesday that the ball's now in the speaker's court to satisfy her demands. She did not specify a timeline for him to do so.
Those demands — which vary from the obvious to the outlandish — include the following:
- Don't give Ukraine more aid for the rest of the year. It was already unlikely that Ukraine aid would come up again this year after Congress approved another $60 billion last month.
- Don't hold votes on bills that most Republicans don't support. House Republicans already have a rule requiring this, though it's been violated a number of times, including on Ukraine aid.
- Defund the Justice Department's special-counsel investigation into former President Donald Trump. It goes without saying that this won't happen — President Joe Biden and the Democratic-controlled Senate won't accept it, and it's far from clear that every House Republican would either.
- Pass a stopgap government-funding bill before the election that cuts spending by 1%. This one is feasible, though a relatively small demand over which to threaten a speaker's ouster.
Since Greene arrived in Congress in 2021, her power has come from her relationship with Trump, as well as the notion that — whatever her GOP colleagues might think of her — she has a closeness to the party's activist base that many of them do not.
That's why former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy worked hard to elevate her and bring her into the fold when Republicans retook the majority.
Yet in this latest crusade, which has seemingly consumed Greene for the past 1 ½ months, she largely stands alone. Trump, according to several reports, opposes Greene's bid to hold her vote. And if her Republican colleagues are facing pressure at home to join her, they sure aren't acting like it: Just two other House Republicans have sided with her effort to throw out Johnson.
This was supposed to be the week in which Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had pledged to hold a snap vote on Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership, the culmination of a threat months in the making. She wouldn’t have succeeded in ousting him, after Democrats had announced they’d provide the votes to save Johnson. But, at least in her head, she would have made some sort of point.
But Greene and her army of two other people have backed off for now, having secured a few hours of chit-chat time with Johnson as an acceptable alternative to a botched execution. Following her second meeting with Johnson in as many days on Tuesday, Greene told reporters that “the ball is in Mike Johnson’s court” to act on her several “suggestions” she proposed to him. She offered no timeline on when she expected a response.
This was supposed to be the week in which Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had pledged to hold a snap vote on Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership, the culmination of a threat months in the making. She wouldn’t have succeeded in ousting him, after Democrats had announced they’d provide the votes to save Johnson. But, at least in her head, she would have made some sort of point.
But Greene and her army of two other people have backed off for now, having secured a few hours of chit-chat time with Johnson as an acceptable alternative to a botched execution. Following her second meeting with Johnson in as many days on Tuesday, Greene told reporters that “the ball is in Mike Johnson’s court” to act on her several “suggestions” she proposed to him. She offered no timeline on when she expected a response.
When the Israeli government murders seven aid workers -- from all over the world including Gaza -- this is a teachable moment, this is a moment that can be used to address the actual facts of the occupation.
The same with the students.
Reality: Without that and other events, Gaza wouldn't be in the news. The assault is entering its seven month and the US press can't be bothered with paying attention. They left Iraq, after all.
Some are too stupid to remember that. US outlets announced their departure from Iraq after Barack Obama was elected US president in November 2008. ABC NEWS, for example, infamously announced in December 2008, that if anything happened in Iraq, they'd just rely on BBC reporting. US troops remained on the ground in Iraq (they're still there today, in fact) but the US media bailed on the story. That is what they do. Throw a ball across the room and, like a well trained puppy, they'll forget everything else and go running after it.
One of us spent years writing every day about Iraq. And she would hector various mainstream journalists and 'independent' journalists for their refusal to cover various topics in the Iraq War. With mainstream media, it was a case of them not thinking it was a story. With independent media, it was a case of 'journalists' being ignorant (Lila Garrett was asked repeatedly to cover the attacks on the LGBTQ+ community in Iraq and refused saying she hadn't hear anything about it and then a friend went on her show and she was aghast as he outlined what was taking place). But with the mainstream it was an attitude of "We've covered it before. It's the same story" and blah blah blah.
So without the murders of the World Kitchen aid workers or the student activists, Gaza would have already fallen off the radar. If you were paying attention, you saw the media run from it when they thought a war on Iran was possible. They presented that as "Gaza coverage." They ignored the daily death toll in Gaza, they ignored pretty much all the stories out of Gaza.
To those of you who have attempted to play more-Palestinian-than-thou by dismissing the students (who have ignited a global movement, by the way) or the murders of the World Central Kitchen workers, you really need to sit your tired asses down. You are deeply, deeply ignorant. In both cases, Americans were seeing realities that they had ignored in the past and been sheltered from.
That's why there is no going back to ignoring Gaza by Americans.
And that's a good thing.
But instead of celebrating that we're supposed to all be pretending that Chris Hedges is a reporter and that his firing was wrong and and he's a martyr for Gaza. That lie could galvanize people and maybe that's why they're supporting it or maybe they just don't want to end the circle jerk.
After his firing, Chris climbed the cross to write a SUBSTACK column which included:
I
did not endorse Dennis Kucinich in the last show I did on The Real
News, but he is running for Congress in Ohio as an independent, and is
critical of the two ruling parties. I did not violate guidelines for
nonprofits. Nevertheless, the episode with Kucinich was removed from the
site, and immediately afterwards my program was terminated.
Did he endorse him? We watched the interview today and ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT does harder hitting interviews. Chris never challenged or corrected Dennis once -- not even when Dennis mangled Shelley or called A.J. Liebling "H.A. Liebling." It wasn't an interview, it was an infomercial. And it was an infomercial for a man who has worked for FOX "NEWS" as a pundit off-and-on since 2013 -- pausing only when running for public office. It was an infomercial for a man who said in the 'interview' that he'd be working with whomever was elected -- Joe Biden or Donald Trump. The two are not the same. Vote for whomever you want but do not mistake Donald Trump for anyone the left needs to be working with. Chris Hedges and Dennis Kucinich used THE REAL NEWS NETWORK to normalize Donald Trump and that's only a shocker if you're unaware how many FOX "NEWS" hours Dennis has spent praising and defending Donald.
There was no reason for Dennis to be on -- other than Chris doing a favor for his friend. He's not a news maker and his comments and examples? The same one Dennis has been making since 2008. If he wants to talk about TV media consolidation, he could have used last week's NEXSTAR 'report' that 'journalists' around the country added their voice to and pretended was their own reporting -- the one that put two Columbia students on air -- two Columbia students applauding the police attack on students and insisting that the protests were disruptive. Not noted on air was the reality that both students were attacking the protesters not just on Twitter but in 'reporting' that they were doing for fright-wing monster Bari Weiss' outlet. That's who NEXSTAR put on the air -- on their stations, their 197 stations that they own around the country. But, hey, who needs up to date examples of media consolidation and how it misinforms, right?
Chris got fired. Once again, he's out at another outlet and he got fired for just cause. That wasn't an interview, it was a commercial for Dennis Kucinich's latest political campaign. Chris set himself up for speculation that he was actually part of Dennis' campaign by lying and refusing to disclose his role in Cornel West's presidential campaign as a People's Party candidate and his involvement in Cornel's campaign for the Green Party's presidential nomination.
I mentioned last time that I wasn't sure what to excerpt from Ava and C.I.'s latest. Roger e-mailed suggesting the above be excerpted.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
A ground attack on Rafah must be prevented, Jordan’s King Abdullah II told senior US politicians in Washington on Tuesday, after Israel captured the area’s crossing with Egypt and stopped aid going through.
“His majesty affirmed the need to prevent the Israeli military land operation against Rafah,” the official Jordanian news agency reported.
The king met House Speaker Mike Johnson and other senior members of Congress in the US Capitol, as part of a trip to Washington to discuss the Gaza war.
The agency quoted the king as saying that the Israeli takeover of the crossing, and the resulting halt in aid flows, will “compound the humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.
On Monday, the king met US President Joe Biden in the White House, as Israel was carrying out air strikes in Rafah in preparation for a ground assault.
He told Mr Biden that an Israeli ground offensive on the area would lead to a “new massacre”, according to a royal palace statement.
As Israel embarked on the first steps of its long-promised invasion of Rafah, Biden delivered a chilling speech scapegoating Hamas militants and pro-Palestine protesters for antisemitism in the U.S. on Tuesday, vowing a crackdown on demonstrators seeking to end Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.
During remarks at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, Biden interweaved discussion of the Holocaust with condemnation of Hamas militants’ attack on Israelis on October 7, 2023. Invoking racist tropes, Biden claimed that Hamas militants harbor the same “ancient hatred” of Jewish people that spurred the Holocaust — an equivalence that has been drawn by Israeli officials time and time again to justify Israel’s brutality against Palestinians.
Antisemitic “hatred was brought to life on October 7 of 2023,” Biden said, by Hamas militants “driven by an ancient desire to wipe out the Jewish people off the face of the earth.” At one point, he equated the attack on October 7 to the Holocaust. “Too many people denying, downplaying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust on October 7, including Hamas’s appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews.”
This statement is incorrect and dangerous for many reasons, as human rights advocates have pointed out. As a group, Hamas is far from “ancient” — Hamas was established 37 years ago by revolutionaries seeking to liberate Palestine from decades of violent Israeli occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, with an opposition to Zionism, not the Jewish people, as the group established in their 2017 charter.
Saying that there is an “ancient desire” to kill Jewish people within the Palestinian resistance, then, implies that Biden believes that Palestinians have an innate desire to oppose Jewish people — an implication that many advocates for Palestinian rights have pointed out is deeply racist, and an accusation that has long been levied against Palestinians in order to justify their slaughter.
One of the three 20-year-old Palestinian college students who were shot Saturday night in Vermont has been released from a hospital, a source close to the families of the victims told CNN on Monday night.
The identity of the released student is not being shared at this time because of concerns for the young man’s safety, the source said.
The two other students remain hospitalized, one with a spinal injury that will require long-term care, officials said.
The news comes hours after the suspected shooter pleaded not guilty to attempted second-degree murder charges in a Burlington court and authorities said at a news conference they’re still working to determine a motive for the shooting.
This reunion comes at an auspicious time, with college campuses erupting all over the country in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Once again, 55 years later, Stanford students are rising up for peace and justice. They have established a “People’s University” encampment and they are demanding https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9prvDaRIipofvPgxzpMB3M3F3RZRG_946hnyaSMM5CwmnWg/viewform that Stanford: (1) explicitly condemn Israel’s genocide and apartheid; (2) call for an immediate ceasefire, and for Israel and Egypt to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza; and (3) immediately divest from the consumer brands identified by the Palestinian BDS National Committee and all firms in Stanford’s investment portfolio that are complicit Israeli war crimes, apartheid and genocide.
At this moment in history, there are two related military occupations occurring simultaneously – 5,675 miles apart. One is Israel’s ongoing 57-year occupation of Palestinian territory, which is now taking the form of a full-fledged genocide that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians. The other is at Columbia University, where the administration has asked the New York Police Department to occupy the school until May 17. Both occupations are fueled by the Zionist power structure. Both have weaponized antisemitism to rationalize their brutality.
The students at Columbia are demanding that the university end its investments in companies and funds that are profiting from Israel’s war against the Palestinians. They want financial transparency and amnesty for students and faculty involved in the demonstration. Most protesters throughout the country are demanding an immediate ceasefire and divestment from companies with interests in Israel. More than 2,300 people have been arrested or detained on U.S. college campuses.
Israel has damaged or destroyed every university in Gaza. But no university president has denounced Israel’s genocide or supported the call for divestment.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was launched in 2005 by 170 Palestinian civil society organizationswho described BDS as “non-violent punitive measures” to last until Israel fully complies with international law. That means Israel must (1) end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantle its barrier wall; (2) recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and (3) respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their land as mandated by UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
Boycotts are the withdrawal of support for Israel, and Israeli and international companies that are violating Palestinian human rights, including Israeli academic, cultural and sporting institutions. Divestment occurs when universities, churches, banks, pension funds and local councils withdraw their investments from all Israeli and international companies complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights. Sanctions campaigns pressure governments to stop military trade and free-trade agreements and urge them to expel Israel from international fora.
“A particularly important source of Palestinian hope is the growing impact of the Palestinian-led nonviolent BDS movement,” according to https://www.thenation.com/article/world/palestinian-resitance-hope/ Omar Barghouti, co-founder of BDS. It “aims at ending Israel’s regime of military occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid and defending the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the BDS movement an existential threat to Israel – an absurd claim in light of Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weapons.
The BDS movement is modeled largely on the boycott that helped end apartheid in South Africa. As confirmed by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, Israel also maintains a system of apartheid. Israel’s system is “an even more extreme form of the apartheid” than South Africa’s was, the South African ambassador told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the recent hearing on the legality of the Israeli occupation.
The U.S. has a long, proud history of boycotts – from the civil rights bus boycott to the United Farm Workers Union’s grape boycott. But at the behest of Zionists, anti-boycott legislation has been passed at the federal and state levels to prevent the American people from exercising their First Amendment right to boycott.
“The genocide underway in Gaza is the result of decades of impunity and inaction. Ending Israel’s impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative,” Palestine’s Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told the ICJ. “Successive Israeli governments have given the Palestinian people only three options: displacement, subjugation or death; these are the choices, ethnic cleansing, apartheid or genocide.”
“Israel restricts every aspect of Palestinian life, from birth to death, resulting in manifest human rights violations and an overt system of repression and persecution,” al-Maliki said. “Through indiscriminate killing, summary execution, mass arbitrary arrest, torture, forced displacement, settler violence, movement restrictions and blockades, Israel subjects Palestinians to inhumane life conditions and untold human indignities, affecting the fate of every man, woman and child under its control.”
The Israeli military is poised to compound its genocidal campaign by ethnically cleansing 1.4 million people sheltering in Rafah, who have nowhere to flee.The violence in Gaza did not start on October 7, 2023, with the killing of some 1,200 Israelis by Hamas. It is the continuation of Israel’s brutal Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) that began 75 years ago.
At Harvard, students and faculty members rallied Monday after the administration threatened mass expulsions for hundreds of arrested protesters. This is Issa, a Palestinian student at Harvard who’s lost over 120 family members in Gaza.
Issa: “Over the last six months, more than 124 people in my family have been brutally killed by the Israeli occupation forces.”
Protesters: “Shame!”
Issa: “For the last six months, I have had to wake up to messages of my cousin being shot on his bike, of my aunt going blind because she can’t get medication for her blood pressure, of my entire uncle’s house falling down on them. … There is nothing, nothing this country can do, nothing the police can do, nothing this administration can do to me, that will scare me from fighting for justice!”
Harvard professor Walter Johnson spoke to students in solidarity with their protest.
Walter Johnson: “There’s no room for reasoned discussion about this action, if Harvard will not disclose its investments in the Occupied Territories, in the Israeli military and in Gaza.”
Nearby, students from a dozen high schools in the Boston area joined the MIT protest Monday as students there also defied a deadline to clear their encampment.
Students at SUNY Purchase in New York state celebrated late Monday as Gaza solidarity activists announced the school had met protesters’ demands “to disclose and cut ties with war crimes and genocide.”
Here in New York City, Columbia has canceled its main, university-wide graduation ceremony on May 15 amid mounting fallout from its mishandling of the protests. Students across New York and other protesters marched through city streets Monday, culminating in a rally near the glitzy, celebrity-filled Met Gala ceremony, where they were met with a heavy police presence.
Students at various European universities, inspired by the continuing pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses in the United States, have been occupying halls and facilities, demanding an end to partnerships with Israeli institutions because of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Several hundred protesters resumed a demonstration around the University of Amsterdam campus in the Netherlands where police were filmed baton-charging them and smashing their tents after they refused to leave the grounds.
As the protests resumed on Tuesday night, the demonstrators erected barriers to access routes watched over by a heavy police deployment.
Also in the Netherlands, about 50 demonstrators were protesting on Tuesday outside the library at Utrecht University and a few dozen at the Technical University of Delft, according to the ANP news agency.
In the eastern German city of Leipzig, the university said in a statement that 50 to 60 people occupied a lecture hall on Tuesday, waving banners that read: “University occupation against genocide.”
Protesters barricaded the lecture hall doors from the inside and erected tents in the courtyard, according to the university, which called in the police and filed a criminal complaint.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We look now at how Gaza solidarity encampments are continuing on college campuses across the U.S. despite brutal police crackdowns. In the latest roundup, at least 43 students were arrested Monday at UCLA. The Intercept reports after New York police raided Columbia University encampment last week, some of the arrested students were denied water and food for about 16 hours. Two protesters were held in solitary confinement. On Monday, Columbia canceled its main university-wide graduation ceremony May 15th amidst mounting fallout from its mishandling of the peaceful protests.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner visited the University of Pennsylvania Gaza solidarity encampment last week to speak with organizers and legal observers.
LARRY KRASNER: The First Amendment comes from here. This is Philadelphia. We don’t have to do stupid, like they did at Columbia. We don’t have to do stupid. What we should be doing here is upholding our tradition of being a welcoming, inviting city where people say things, even if other people don’t like them, because they have a right to say it in the United States, and where protesters also have an obligation to remain nonviolent and to engage in speech activity and in activity that does not become illegal.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner at the encampment at UPenn.
This comes as more than 50 chapters of the American Association of University Professors, the AAUP, have issued a statement condemning the violent arrests by police at campus protests. This includes our next guest, Dartmouth professor, from former chair of Jewish studies, Annelise Orleck, who says police body-slammed her to the ground as she tried to protect her students when officers in riot gear cleared the peaceful encampment on Dartmouth’s campus. Annelise Orleck is a professor of history, women’s, gender and sexuality studies, former chair of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, where she’s taught for more than 30 years. Professor Orleck was among dozens of students, faculty and community members arrested at the Dartmouth encampment last week. She’s been charged with criminal trespass and temporarily banned from portions of Dartmouth’s campus. She’s joining us now from Thetford, Vermont.
Professor Orleck, thanks so much for being with us. Can you take us through what happened that day? Where were you? Why did you decide to go to this encampment? And then what happened?
ANNELISE ORLECK: We were concerned that the students might be subject to some kind of violence, to — I didn’t really think there was going to be arrests, but I didn’t know for sure. The institution had sent out a very strict list of dos and don’ts earlier in the day, and it was clear that they were going to try to break up the encampment as quickly as possible. So, there were a whole bunch of us. There were dozens of faculty out there to try to support them.
And I was in a line of mostly older women, most of us Jewish, and the riot police came at us and started trying to literally physically push people off the Green. We were standing in front of our students, between the students and the riot police, in the hope of preventing violence. That didn’t happen. My students and I were subject to really violent handling in the course of our arrests. And it’s possible that I was subject to the most violent handling.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened to you?
ANNELISE ORLECK: I was videoing my students’ arrests. I was telling the police, “They’re just students. They’re not criminals. Leave them alone.” And suddenly, I was body-slammed from behind by these very large men in body armor, and hard enough that my feet left the ground for a few seconds. I landed on the ground in front of the protesters. They had taken my phone. And so I got up to try to demand my phone, and then they grabbed me under the arms, slammed me to the ground, dragged me facedown on the grass. You know, one guy had his knee on me. And honestly, Amy, I heard myself saying what I’d seen in videos so many times: “You’re hurting me. I can’t breathe. Stop.” And they said to me what they’ve said to so many victims of police brutality: “You’re talking. You can breathe.” They then put on the zip-tie cuffs on me, on a colleague, my colleague Christopher MacEvitt, and on many of our students so tightly that people have nerve damage, compressed nerves, severe pain. So, that’s what happened to us that night.
And the university has not dropped charges for criminal trespass or even asked the DA to drop the charges. So, we are all banned from the Green, which is the center of campus, from the administration building, where we would go to protest, and from the street on which the president’s house stands.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Orleck, the faculty met with the Dartmouth president yesterday, Monday. Could you talk about what was discussed and what was the message of the faculty to the administration?
ANNELISE ORLECK: The message of the faculty was: Drop all the charges now, apologize for the harm and trauma you’ve inflicted on the campus, promise that there will be no riot police called to campus again, change your policies on protest to be less restrictive, and, you know, to acknowledge constitutional protections on free speech, and get rid of the Palestine exception to free speech. People have to be able to talk about Palestine without being attacked by police with clubs, gas and God knows what else.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you, Professor Orleck — you’re professor of history, of women’s, gender and sexuality studies, former chair of Jewish studies. President Biden is going to be giving an address on antisemitism today, issuing what they say is a clarion call to fight a swiftly rising tide of antisemitism across the United States and especially on college campuses. I put this question to the Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, as well, but if you can talk about whether you see this rise, and also the equating of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and the number of Jewish professors and students who are part of these protests?
ANNELISE ORLECK: Yes. I think this protest movement has a large and disproportionate percentage of Jewish students and faculty involved, because we all feel very strongly that we don’t want — we don’t want this genocide in Gaza in our name. And I was really struck by the fact that there was some reporting, I think, by The Guardian and BBC that I heard today that the people stirring up a lot of trouble and saying things outside the gates at Columbia were tied to the Proud Boys, that there were people who attacked the protesters at UCLA so violently and who had ties to Trump rallies. And I think it’s deeply ironic — deeply, deeply ironic — that the House Republicans who supported the January 6th assault on the Capitol, in which people were wearing Camp Auschwitz shirts and shirts with a logo that says “6MWE” — “6 million wasn’t enough” — and that they have become the defenders against antisemitism.
I heard nothing. There were Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Jewish chaplains at our protest. The students were singing. They were chanting. Yes, there was some of the “river to the sea” chant that many Jews find so offensive and believe is a call to genocide. I accept the interpretation made by my Palestinian colleagues and students that this chant is about equality from the river to the sea and freedom. So, I don’t see any antisemitism. And you should know that the Jewish — many Jewish faculty at Dartmouth signed a letter insisting that the president not speak in our name and not use antisemitism to rationalize bringing these violent forces onto our campus.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor, your message to the students who’ve led and organized these peaceful protests for months despite all of this repression?
ANNELISE ORLECK: Well, my students are — our students are holding another rally today on one of the parts of the campus we’re not banned from, which is the grass in front of the library. And I think their bravery is tremendous and is inspiring. And they really feel like this is the moral issue of their time, that there’s a genocide going on and that they can’t ignore it.
And again, I have colleagues at Columbia, colleagues at UCLA and in many parts of the country who have been part of the — not part of the encampments, but have visited the encampments, have spoken to the students there, have not felt threatened, have not felt antisemitism. Certainly at Dartmouth, we didn’t. And there’s a very powerful open letter from a Christian pastor who was there who’s saying the same thing. So, stop weaponizing antisemitism. It’s offensive, and it’s wrong.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Professor Orleck, how are you right now, having been beaten to the ground? And also, you’re banned from your campus, where you’ve taught for over 30 years, parts of it?
ANNELISE ORLECK: Yes, I was initially, as a condition of my bail, banned from the entire campus, but the college insisted that was a clerical error and, you know, gave lie to their argument that they can’t get charges changed or dropped by calling the local police department and getting them to change my bail so that I can teach. So I can now teach, but my building is one of the — on one of the streets that I’m banned from. So, I was having to run up the street yesterday in sunglasses really quickly trying to get to my class, you know, and not get arrested. It’s ridiculous.
And the Green is the very center of our campus. We all cross it many times a day. My kids grew up playing on the Green. The idea that we can’t have access to the beating heart of our campus is offensive again and, you know, just gives a sense — the president makes this argument that she’s trying to ensure that the Green is open to people with all views and that, you know, the five tents and 10 students who were camped out there would make the Green a place that only people of one view could be. Honestly, I think that’s what they did by making us frightened.
I’m still hurting. I have nerve damage in my wrist. I have an injured shoulder. I have bruising and swelling. And it’s very scary. And I’m getting better, but it’s crazy that I should be in this position for trying to protect my students. And I say the same for other faculty who were out there, including Chris MacEvitt, my colleague on the faculty, who was also arrested and also harmed.
AMY GOODMAN: Annelise Orleck, we want to thank you for being with us, professor of history, women’s gender and sexuality studies, former chair of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, where she’s taught for more than 30 years, Professor Orleck among dozens of students, faculty, community members arrested at a Dartmouth encampment. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, for another edition of Democracy Now!
Gaza remains under assault. Day 215 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, "At least 34,844 Palestinians have been killed and 78,404 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, Gaza's Health Ministry has said. In the past 24 hours, 55 people were killed and 200 injured, the ministry said." 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:
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