Oppression
Breaking: Columbia University ‘will not divest from Israel’
University president continues capitulation to Israeli pressure
The student protest camp for Gaza at Columbia has been assaulted several times by police
Columbia University in New York will not divest its investments in Israeli firms and firms that supply weaponry to Israel, according to the university’s president Minouche Shafik, despite demands from thousands of its students who are protesting in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against Israel’s genocide. Shafik, echoing the narrative of Israel lobbyists, has even claimed that the protests have made the university unsafe for Jewish students, even though Jewish students and faculty members are playing a leading role in the protests, as if the feelings of some students, who don’t like to be confronted with the reality that a country they support is engaged in genocide, are more important than stopping mass murder of women and children.
The announcement continues Shafik’s shame after she failed to challenge a narrative spouted by pro-Israel lawmakers during her questioning by politicians – and claimed a pro-Palestine professor at the university had been sacked and would never teach at Columbia again, a claim denied by Professor Mohamed Abdou.
Columbia is one of a string of universities across the US that have shamed themselves by calling in armed police to arrest and disperse protests against the genocide in Gaza. Some, parroting the pro-Israel lobby, have even accused the students of ‘siding with terrorists’.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to slaughter hundreds of Palestinians daily, mostly women and children – and the US is trying to block a planned warrant by the International Criminal Court for the arrest of Israel’s war criminal prime minister and other ministers for Israel’s war crimes.
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US unis even arresting TEACHERS as Israel lobby group demands anti-Palestine crackdown
Students and teachers targeted by police as ADL demands government breaks student anti-genocide protest movement
At least one US university has called in police to arrest faculty members as well as students, as the so-called ‘Anti-defamation League’ (ADL) demanded a crackdown on the spreading anti-genocide protest movement among US students.
NYPD officers took NYU teachers as well as students away from a demo against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as demonstrations spread to universities around the country. Columbia University, also in New York, has seen further student arrests as a sit-in demo by students against Israel’s slaughter of innocents continues undeterred.
In a tactic reminiscent of the recent rigged stunt in the UK by the Israel-linked, so-called ‘Campaign against Antisemitism’ (CAA), the ADL has claimed Jewish students are unsafe and demanded the immediate suspension of anyone who dares protest against mass murder:
Innocent women and children in Gaza are being slaughtered by the tens of thousands by Israel – and Palestinian students have been attacked, leaving at least one paralysed, by morons whipped up by the Islamophobic speech of politicians and pro-Israel lobbyists – but it seems we are meant to treat the feelings of the friends of genocide and apartheid as more important, on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Students occupy Bristol uni building in protest at ‘profits from genocide’
Students demand divestment and an end to academic ties
Bristol University students have taken control of one of the university’s Wills Memorial Building in a protest to demand an end to its ‘complicity with arms companies’ and to call for a series of actions on its part to ‘support Palestine and Palestinians’:
The demanded actions include:
- an end to cooperation with weapons manufacturers
- protection for Palestinian students and special consideration for those taking exams who have been affected by Israel’s slaughter in Gaza
- protection for anti-Zionist beliefs among staff and students – an issue on which Bristol university has a shameful record and has been the scene of intense pressure campaigns by pro-Israel groups claiming that anti-Zionism, opposition to the settler-colonial state that has displaced Palestinians and treats them as inferior
- recognition of the existence of Palestine – an existence denied by hardcore supporters of Israel
- scholarships for Palestinian refugees
Israel has killed over forty thousand Palestinian civilians, more than two thirds of them women and children, and injured twice as many, in its genocidal assault on Gaza and has ignored orders from the International Court of Justice to cease its slaughter and allow food, fuel and medicines into Gaza immediately. Gaza is now in famine, with experts predicting that more will die in the coming months from hunger and disease than from Israel’s bombs, missiles and bullets, with children again worst affected.
Palestinian flags can be seen through the Wills building’s doors. The figures in the second image have been blurred to protect identities.
The group is also demanding an end to the use of a ‘check-in’ system that tracks the location of students.
Wednesday’s action is not the first by Bristol students demanding justice for Palestinians and an end to discrimination against them and their supporters. Four months ago, students protested in the university’s ‘profits from genocide’:
And earlier this month, a group occupied Bristol University’s Victoria Rooms in a pro-Gaza protest.
The British government has mounted a pressure campaign against universities, threatening to defund them if they allow ‘extremism’ or ‘antisemitism’ in the form of pro-Palestinian speech and activism. Shamefully, a number of universities have capitulated to pressure from the UK state and from pro-Israel groups claiming that speech against Israel’s crimes and occupation of Palestinian land infringe on their rights and constitutes ‘hate’ toward Jews, even though many UK Jews oppose Israel’s actions and oppression of Palestinians.
Last month, former Bristol professor David Miller won a landmark employment tribunal case against the university, which had sacked him after pressure from pro-Israel groups, despite lawyers it appointed to run two investigations finding that he had said nothing antisemitic. The win set a precedent that anti-Zionist political beliefs are a protected characteristic under equalities law and cannot be used as grounds for dismissal. Skwawkbox understands that Prof Miller is not involved in the students’ protest.
Solidarity with students in Bristol and elsewhere who are demanding an end to complicity in war crimes.
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Met confirms arrest of Gaza protester at Thornberry’s office
Outrage among activists at anti-genocide protest
The Metropolitan Police Service has confirmed the arrest of a protester on Monday night at what outraged other protesters have said was a lively but entirely peaceful protest, outside the Islington office of Shadow Attorney Emily Thornberry, against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the Labour regime’s support for it.
A Met spokesperson told Skwawkbox that a woman had been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred and bailed ‘pending further investigations’:
A small demonstration was held in Islington High Street during the evening of Monday, 26 February. A woman was arrested at the scene on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. She was taken into custody and later released on bail pending further enquiries. Next due on a date in April.
Protesters against genocide and for the human rights of Palestinians have been demonised by politicians and supporters of Israel for supposed ‘hate speech’ since Israel’s slaughter of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank accelerated after the Hamas raid and the Israel military’s well-known – but ignored by the UK ‘mainstream’ media and politicians – killing of ‘immense’ numbers of its own citizens. The Tory government, aided by ‘opposition leader’ Keir Starmer, have continued to attack the civil rights of the UK people to protest.
Right-wing MPs, along with pro-Israel campaigners, continue to call for tougher police action against demonstrators, despite the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of protests.
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New ‘Lab’ MP Egan married to former 8200 Unit Israeli ‘spy’ recruiter
Right-wing MP’s partner spoke of his ‘great experience’ on pro-Israel propaganda programme, to which he recruited former spies from unit that marks its headsets for every Palestinian it kills
New right-wing Labour MP Damien Egan is married to a former IDF soldier who recruited former members of the IDF’s ‘Unit 8200’ spy unit to the ‘Excel’ propaganda programme run by the ultra-Zionist ‘Birthright Israel’ group (BI).
In a 2017 Facebook post, BI boasted of Felberbaum’s ‘important role’ in recruiting ex-8200 supervisors for ‘Excel’ interns, which Felberbaum said was ‘a great experience for me’, before talking of the ‘technological world I come from’. The article does not say that Felberbaum was a Unit 8200 member during his service, although his role recruiting former members raises the question:
Unit 8200 is the IDF’s ‘cyber-spy’ unit. Whistleblowers from the unit have revealed that members sometimes wear ‘X’s on their headsets to mark assassinations their information has facilitated – and that it targeted Palestinians for extortion and blackmail to further the government’s aims.
‘Excel’ is BI’s vehicle for taking US Jews on trips to Israel to reinforce their commitment to the occupying regime. In 2006, BI’s director of marketing said that:
[Israel] should be an integral part of every Jew’s identity
and criticised left-wing Jews who used the programme’s funding to go to help in Palestine, whom he said were weeded out if their ‘hidden agenda’ identified before going:
It is taking advantage of the Jewish money that sends people to Israel, exploiting this money to promote an agenda which is not the agenda of the people who funded Taglit
Felberbaum is not the only connection between Unit 8200 and Keir Starmer’s Labour. Starmer employs former member Assaf Kaplan as his ‘Social Listening and Organising Manager’, believed to be involved in monitoring members’ and others’ ‘online conversations’ about the party – and potentially finding information that can be used to expel anyone at odds with the regime. Kaplan removed mentions of the unit from his online profiles. He was also a ‘Facebook friend’ of disgraced Israeli embassy employee Shai Masot, who was sent home from the UK after being exposed organising campaigns against MPs Israel considered troublesome.
Egan himself is a member of the right-wing so-called ‘Jewish Labour Movement’. Unit 8200 has reportedly targeted gay Palestinians for blackmail and coercion.
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Afghanistan: Long War, Forgotten Peace – review
In Afghanistan: Long War, Forgotten Peace, Michael Cox brings together scholars to analyse the failure of Afghan state-building, the Taliban’s resurgence and the country’s future. Anil Kaan Yildirim finds the book a valuable resource for understanding challenges the country faces, including women’s rights, the drugs economies and human trafficking and exploitation. However, he objects to the inclusion of a chapter which makes a geographically deterministic appraisal of Afghanistan’s governance.
Afghanistan: Long War, Forgotten Peace. Michael Cox (ed.). LSE Press. 2022.
This book is available Open Access here.
In Afghanistan: Long War, Forgotten Peace, Michael Cox gathers scholars, policymakers, and public intellectuals to shed light on the factors contributing to the failure of Afghan state-building, the successful takeover by the Taliban, and to share some insights on the country’s future. The chapters in the collection impart valuable insights on international law, human trafficking, women’s rights, NATO, and the international drug trade, with the exception of one essay that uses a problematic framework in its analysis of Afghan statehood and seems out of place within the book.
One of the main tasks of any state-building process is to create a political sphere that includes all parties to decide on policies and strategies shaping the future of the country.
One of the main tasks of any state-building process is to create a political sphere that includes all parties to decide on policies and strategies shaping the future of the country. However, in the case of Afghanistan, as argued by Michael Callen and Shahim Kabuli in Chapter Three, the de facto power structure did not align with the de jure systems of institutions. Excluding the Taliban from political discussions, adopting a fundamentally flawed and exclusionary electoral system, and employing a centralised presidential system which did not correspond to Afghan “diversity and reality” have been the “three sins” of the Afghanistan project. Along with these mistakes, the authors also identify the issues that created a “dysfunctional” state-building, including the lack of complete Afghan sovereignty within regional power dynamics, the diversion of the US’s focus to Iraq, and other foreign influences such as Russia and China that tried to attract the power-holders of the country. This powerful essay points out the three sins in the creation of the structure and other dynamics that destabilised the country. Thus, the state-building project collapsed not because Afghanistan was unsuited to democracy, but because of a combination of many different mistakes.
The authors also identify the issues that created a “dysfunctional” state-building, including the lack of complete Afghan sovereignty within regional power dynamics, the diversion of the US’s focus to Iraq, and other foreign influences such as Russia and China
The role of women in the Afghan state-building effort is highly contested among different power holders, the international community, and the Taliban. Writing in this context in Chapter Six, Nargis Nehan explores the issue of women’s rights in Afghanistan before and after 9/11, positioning the matter within the spectrum of extremists, fundamentalists, and modernists. The highly masculinised country following many years of different wars created a challenging political and social area for women. Therefore, all changes in the political sphere resulted in a change in the lives of women.
Nargis Nehan explores the issue of women’s rights in Afghanistan before and after 9/11, positioning the matter within the spectrum of extremists, fundamentalists, and modernists.
As an internationalised state-building project, Afghanistan has challenged international institutions and norms. Devika Hovell and Michelle Hughes examine the US and its allies’ interpretation and application of international law in military intervention in Afghanistan. With discussion of several steps and actors of the intervention, they demonstrate how this operation stretched the definitions of self-defence, credibility, legal justification, and authority within international realm.
The book explores several other key problems in the country. These include Thi Hoang’s chapter on human trafficking problems such as forced labour, organ trafficking and sexual exploitation; John Collins, Shehryar Fazli and Ian Tennant’s chapter on the past and future of the international drug trade in Afghanistan; Leslie Vinjamuri on the future of the US’s global politics after its withdrawal from the state; and Feng Zhang on the Chinese government’s policy on Afghanistan.
The essays mentioned above demonstrate what happened, what could have been evaded and what the future holds for Afghanistan. However, the essay, “Afghanistan: Learning from History?” by Rodric Braithwaite is a questionable inclusion in the volume. By emphasising geographical determinism, this piece a problematic perspective on Afghanistan. The essay argues that the failure of the West’s state-building project was down to the “wild” character of Afghan governance historically, which he deems “… a combination of bribery, ruthlessness towards the weak, compromise with the powerful, keeping the key factions in balance and leaving well alone … (17)” or “… nepotism, compromise, bribery, and occasional threat” (26-27). This perspective paints a false image of how Afghan history is characterised by unethical, even brutal methods of governance. Also in this essay are many problematic cultural claims such as “… Afghans are good at dying for their country … (18).”
The limitation of the entire Afghan agency, history and political culture to a ruthless character and geography that always produces “terrible results” for state-building is a false narrative
The limitation of the entire Afghan agency, history and political culture to a ruthless character and geography that always produces “terrible results” for state-building is a false narrative, which is reflected in and supported by the postcolonial term for Afghanistan: the “graveyard of empires”. While many different tribes, states, and empires have successfully existed in the country, Western colonial armies’ defeats and recent state-building failures should not misrepresent the country as a savage place in need of taming. Rather, as the other essays in the book argue, research on these failures should examine the West’s role in precipitating them.
Not only does this piece disrespect the scholarship (including other authors of the book) by asserting the ontological ungovernability of the country, but its deterministic stance also disregards the thousands of lives lost in the struggle to contribute to Afghan life those who believed that the future is not destined by the past but can be built today. Additionally, using only three references (with one being the author’s own book), referring to the US as “America”, random usage of different terms and not providing the source of a quotation are all quite problematic for a lessons-learned-from-history essay.
Beyond the limitations of the essay in terms of how it frames the past, what is more damaging is the creation of a false image of Afghanistan for future researchers and policymakers. For the points mentioned above, including the false narrative of ‘graveyard of empires’, Nivi Manchanda’s Imagining Afghanistan: The History and Politics of Imperial Knowledge (2020) is worth consulting for in-depth insight into the colonial knowledge production system and its problematic portrayal of Afghanistan.
Braithwaite’s essay excepted, this book, exploring different political and historical issues from various perspectives, provides significant insights into what happened in Afghanistan and what the future holds for the nation
Braithwaite’s essay excepted, this book, exploring different political and historical issues from various perspectives, provides significant insights into what happened in Afghanistan and what the future holds for the nation. For practitioners, policymakers, and scholars seeking a broad perspective on state-building problems, policy limitations and relevant research areas in Afghanistan, this collection is a useful resource.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image Credit: Trent Inness on Shutterstock.
Event: ‘Never Again Must Never Again Be Used to Justify Genocide’
Register for this webinar here. An organiser wrote:
The slogan Never Again symbolised the determination of anti-fascists and the labour movement that after the Holocaust, genocide must never happen again – that no one should be annihilated because of an accident of birth and who they are.
Six million Jews, a million Gypsy Roma, half a million mentally and physically disabled, to say nothing of the millions of prisoners of war, Poles, Russians and other people who were exterminated by the nazis between 1939 and 1945.
Zionism however drew different conclusions from the Holocaust. As Professor Yehuda Elkana, a child survivor of Auschwitz and the Rector of the Central European University wrote in Ha’aretz, in ‘The Need to Forget’ in 1988:
a profound existential “Angst” fed by a particular interpretation of the lessons of the holocaust … that we are the eternal victim (arose). In this ancient belief… I see the tragic and paradoxical victory of Hitler. Two nations, metaphorically speaking, emerged from the ashes of Auschwitz: a minority who assert, “this must never happen again,” and a frightened and haunted majority who assert, “this must never happen to us again.”
The Holocaust played an important part in the establishment of the State of Israel yet it was because of the Nakba, the expulsion of three-quarters of a million Palestinians from their homeland, that a Jewish State was formed. A series of massacres accompanied the Nakba which were aimed at ‘encouraging’ the flight of the Palestinian refugees.
In our Public Meeting we not only have Professor Ilan Pappe, the foremost historian of the Nakba, who has written The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine but Ghada Kharmi, a British Palestinian doctor who was expelled by the Zionist militias in 1948 from her home in Jerusalem.
Also speaking are Stephen Kapos and Suzanna Weiss, two child survivors of the Holocaust who were hidden from the fascists in Budapest and France, along with Tony Greenstein who has written Zionism During the Holocaust .
Holocaust Memorial Day Meeting
Saturday 27 January 7 pm
Never Again Must Never Again Be Used to Justify Genocide
Register in advance for this webinar here. Event details are here.
Palestine Action activist remanded to prison after Stock Exchange arrests
Anti-war activist Sean Middleborough
Palestine Action activist Sean Middleborough was remanded to prison yesterday following his arrest on Sunday morning over an alleged plan to disrupt business at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), charged with ‘conspiracy to commit public nuisance’ under the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, after appearing at Wirral Magistrates Court. Five other activists were released from police custody without charges pending further investigation.
On his way into the custody van, Middlebrough was heard to shout “Free Palestine”. Lawyers will be submitting an application for immediate granting of bail.
Middleborough and five other activists are accused of having planned to blockade the LSE, which through its trading in bonds and shares plays a significant role in facilitating the occupation of Palestine. The LSE has raised over over £4.73 billion in bond sales for the apartheid state of Israel in the past six years. The exchange describes itself as “a key partner to Israeli businesses, by enabling them to raise capital internationally” and trades shares in weapons manufacturers arming Israel’s regime.
A meeting on 8 February 2022 between UK government and Israeli investors, which included representatives from Israeli weapons companies Elbit Systems and Rafael, noted that “The London Stock Exchange has a strong and important relationship with Israel”. This includes the LSE holding capital market conferences in Israel and hosting Israeli business on the exchange with a combined market capital of $14.7 billion.
The arrests came after a Daily Express ‘journalist’ spied on the group in order to report on activities and hand information on alleged plans to the police. Most of the UK press and broadcast media have ignored Israel’s crimes and worked to manufacture consent for its ongoing genocide of Palestinians, which so far has killed almost 32,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the latest Euro-Med Monitor report. If failing to report even the basic facts of Israel’s crimes – including against its own people on 7 October – wasn’t bad enough, ‘reporters’ have now gone as far as acting on behalf of the state to criminalise direct action movement opposing Israel’s war crimes.
The UK state has been taking ever more draconian measures to try to punish and deter activists who stand on the side of humanity and against genocide. Numerous activists seeking an end to bloodshed have found themselves detained by the British state and often charged, with varying levels of state success. Palestine Action has stated repeatedly that it will not be diverted from the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the ending of all UK arms production and shipments to apartheid Israel.
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Parliament to reconvene to approve UK airstrikes on Yemen
As world unites in horror at Israel’s genocide, UK Establishment reaction is to protect Israel and billionaires by attacking country taking action for Palestinians
UDPATE: The UK is bombing Yemen tonight, without bothering to have Parliament approve it – and will recall MPs tomorrow to rubber stamp it. The UK is not at war with Yemen but is acting as a rogue state to protect Israel from the economic impact of the shipping interceptions.
The government is reconvening Parliament to push through a vote to approve airstrikes against Yemen, because of Yemen’s success in intercepting Israel-bound shipping to put pressure on Israel to end its genocide. The disruption to seaborne trade is said to be having a significant impact on the Israeli economy.
Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has been taken to a Whitehall briefing tonight and is expected to recall MPs from their usual Friday activities away from Westminster to vote through the attacks – of course, ‘opposition’ leader and ‘Zionist without qualification’ Keir Starmer is fully expected to vote with the Tories.
With most of the world united in horror at the ICJ evidence of Israel’s genocide and war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the UK Establishment reaction, always ready to side with the oppressor against the oppressed, is to protect Israel and billionaires by attacking a country to help Palestinians, regardless of the likely consequences of igniting a regional war.
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Exclusive: Dublin airport rebrands Starbucks cafe – but still selling Starbucks products
Airport says Starbucks sales are a ‘temporary’ measure as critics point to boycott over Gaza and firm’s conduct toward unions
A ‘new’ cafe in Dublin airport’s Terminal 1 is still selling Starbucks products under a different brand name, Skwawkbox can reveal.
The airport announced the opening of its new ‘Vista’ cafe on Thursday in what is said was a unit ‘previously occupied by Starbucks:
But critics were quick to link the announcement to the boycott of Starbucks by many in response to the firm’s links to Israel and its ongoing anti-union activities in the US, with hundreds of responses like the examples below:
I think this is still Starbucks they've just rebranded the name of the café to try and avoid the ongoing boycott. If you zoom in you can see the Starbucks menu, plus they're still using Starbucks cups! There's also zero online presence for "Vista Coffee" – it doesn't exist!
— James M (@MamesJolloy) January 4, 2024
Why is there what looks like a @Starbucks logo in the corner of the left hand screen?
Can you clarify whether this is a rebranding of the existing outlet or has the new one stolen Starbuck's property?
Hope you can clarify; I'm sure you don't want to be associated with theft. pic.twitter.com/xipWJA1eTm— Brian (@LifeOfBOS) January 5, 2024
Starbucks has seen its share price hit since the boycott on sales, despite the company CEO issuing a statement that Starbucks ‘condemns violence, hate, lies and weaponised speech – he did not mention Israel or Gaza in the statement – and that Starbucks ‘stand[s] for humanity’.
Starbucks in the US has been engaged in a long campaign against unionisation by workers that saw leaked video in 2022 show the firm’s founder begging store managers to step up their anti-union activities – and the firm suing the union for trademark infringement. Boycott calls grew after a post went out on the Starbucks Workers Union official Twitter account posted a message of solidarity with Palestine after the widely-misrepresented Hamas raid last October and Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza that has killed over 30,000 civilians, more than two thirds of them children and women. Starbucks share price has fallen by around seven percent since the boycott. It is not the only global brand to see profits fall – McDonalds’ CEO has admitted that the business has taken a ‘meaningful’ hit.
A spokesperson for Dublin airport confirmed that the Vista cafe is using Starbucks products, but told Skwawkbox that both the brand and the product usage were temporary and that the Starbucks cafe closed because its contract had run out:
Vista is a temporary brand. Starbucks closed at the end of December as their contract expired. An exciting new local coffee brand will be permanently moving into this location in March. Until then, the new operator (using Starbucks’ products) is running the unit temporarily as Vista, ensuring passengers get their caffeine fix.
This change is part of a major overhaul of the food and beverage offerings in T1 and T2 at Dublin Airport which will happen over the coming months. Passengers will see several units operate on a temporary basis in the short term – under generic brands – while the fit-out works are completed.
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