“People Could Have Died”: Police Raid UCLA Gaza Protest, Waited as Pro-Israel Mob Attacked Encampment
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
MAY 02, 2024
Transcript
We get an update from the University of California, Los Angeles, where police in riot gear began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday, using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas, and arresting dozens of students. The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods and fireworks attacked students at the encampment. The Real News Network reporter Mel Buer was on the scene during the attack. She describes seeing counterprotesters provoke students, yelling slurs and bludgeoning them with parts of the encampment’s barricade, and says the attack lasted several hours without police or security intervention. ”UCLA is complicit in violence inflicted upon protesters,” wrote the editorial board of UCLA’s campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin, the next day. Four of the paper’s student journalists were targeted and assaulted by counterprotesters while covering the protests. We speak with Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri, one of the student journalists, who says one of their colleagues was hospitalized over the assault, while campus security officers “were nowhere to be found.” Meanwhile, UCLA’s chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine has called on faculty to refuse university labor Thursday in protest of the administration’s failure to protect students from what it termed “Zionist mobs.” Professor Gaye Theresa Johnson, a member of UCLA Faculty for Justice in Palestine, denounces the administration’s response to nonviolent protest and says she sees the events as part of a major sea change in the politicization of American youth. “This is a movement. It cannot be unseen. It cannot be put back in the box.”
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we broadcast this morning, Los Angeles police in riot gear are dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment on UCLA’s campus, after hundreds of police used flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas in a faceoff with protesters who chanted, “We are not leaving. You don’t scare us.”
PROTESTERS: You don’t scare us! We’re not leaving!
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The police raid at UCLA came a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters attacked the encampment with fireworks, metal rods and tear gas for hours late Tuesday night and into early Wednesday morning. At least 15 people were injured.
This is how UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, described the violence instigated by counterprotesters in an editorial: quote, “It began with ear-piercing screams of wailing babies loudly emitting from speakers. Counter-protesters tearing down the barricades. Laser pointers flashing into the encampment. People in masks waving strobe lights. Tear gas. Pepper spray. Violent beatings. Fireworks sparked at the border of the encampment, raining down on tents and the individuals inside,” the Daily Bruin wrote.
The editorial noted Los Angeles police did not arrive until slightly after 1 a.m. Meanwhile, around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, four UCLA student journalists were attacked by the pro-Israel counterprotesters on campus. One of the journalists was treated for injuries at the hospital and has since been released. There were no arrests after Tuesday night’s attack. Wednesday’s classes were canceled.
The Daily Bruin’s editorial ended with a question: quote, “Will someone have to die on our campus tonight for you to intervene, Gene Block? The blood would be on your hands.”
AMY GOODMAN: University of California President Michael Drake and the UCLA Chancellor Gene Block have launched an investigation into what California Governor Gavin Newsom condemned as the, quote, “limited and delayed campus law enforcement response,” unquote. Meanwhile, the campus police union issued a statement that, quote, “the decisions regarding the response of the UC Police rest firmly in the hands of campus leadership.”
For more, we’re joined by three guests. Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri is a senior staff writer for the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper. They are one of the four reporters who were attacked. Mel Buer is a staff reporter for The Real News Network. She was at the Gaza solidarity encampment Tuesday night when counterprotesters violently attacked it for several hours. And Gaye Theresa Johnson is an associate professor of African American studies and Chicana/Chicano studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA. She writes and teaches on race and racism, cultural history, spatial politics and political economy, a member of UCLA’s chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine, which has called on UCLA faculty to refuse university labor today, the day after May Day, quote, “in protest of the university administration’s egregious failure to protect the student protest encampment from attacks by self-professed and proudly Zionist mobs coming to campus every night to enact violence,” unquote.
Welcome to all of you. We want to begin with Dr. Gaye Theresa Johnson. Before we get into the horrifying details of the attack on the Gaza encampment, if you can explain why you are withholding work today and the overall context of how UCLA is dealing with this protest encampment, and why the issue, so often not talked about in the corporate media, of why the Gaza encampment exists?
GAYE THERESA JOHNSON: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on.
We are so inspired by our students today. We are refusing our labor to the University of California, Los Angeles because we know that the conditions under which they were arrested, the conditions upon — the conditions that they were subjected to night before last with the counterprotesters, the violence that they have endured night after night after night, the complaints that they have lodged and that have been ignored by the university administration, all of the ways in which they were failed by the university administration, those are also our work conditions. And until our students are supported, we will also be stopping work.
The necessity for the camp was, I mean, what is going on in Gaza, what is happening here in the United States is linked. And these students, who have done so much study and who have done so much organizing, are clear about the connections between U.S. racism and international imperialism, and they are so clear about their role and purpose in this movement. So many of them have now been politicized, and this will not stop just because of tonight.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Shaanth, if you could explain? You were one of four journalists who was attacked. Tell us what happened.
SHAANTH KODIALAM NANGUNERI: Walking back from that protest where a group of pro-Israel counterprotesters had stormed and seized upon the encampment on campus at Dickson Plaza and near Powell Library, and me and three other journalists —
AMY GOODMAN: Shaanth, if you could speak as loud as you possibly can? We’re hearing — and come closer, yes, to your computer. And also, you’re describing what happened. Tell us what night, about what time it was, you with your four Daily Bruin — the three other Daily Bruin reporters.
SHAANTH KODIALAM NANGUNERI: Yeah, it was about, I want to say, 2 or 3 a.m. It was really late. We had all spent hours being out there on the field reporting, sending messages to our editors, really scared about the scenes that we were seeing on campus towards the protesters in the encampment, the level of violence and vitriol that was in the air. We had documented reporters hearing things like racial epithets. I personally witnessed a counterprotester slam a wooden slab onto an individual who had her hands on the barricade of the encampment and smashing her fingers, and listening to her scream and watching how that changed the environment. And many more harrowing scenes have been discussed by students on this campus, but —
AMY GOODMAN: And who were these people?
SHAANTH KODIALAM NANGUNERI: Yeah, we have been trying our best to be accurate about that. And I think in a Los Angeles Times article, my colleague talks about being attacked by one of these pro-Israel counterprotesters and how they have known who we are on campus. And they know that we report on these issues, and sometimes they know our faces.
And when we were leaving and were vulnerable and were in a small group, we were encircled and attacked. And they started shining lights in our face, spraying us with very strong irritants, circling in particular one of my colleagues and physically harassing and assaulting her. And by the time I had finally managed to help get three of us out of there, we found one of us had turned back. And by the time we had looked back around, they were on the ground being violently assaulted. And we were trying our best, as we ran back screaming their name, to pull them out of that fight, pull them out of the ground, pull people off of them. And we were begging while they were flashing [inaudible] —
AMY GOODMAN: And this was Catherine Hamilton, who was hospitalized?
SHAANTH KODIALAM NANGUNERI: Yes, she was. And —
AMY GOODMAN: How were they beating her?
SHAANTH KODIALAM NANGUNERI: You know, it was a very, very quick scene. I know she got hurt in the stomach. And I know that initially we had been — we had had so much tear gas in our eyes already from the protest that by the end of it, it was just hard to walk back. It was hard to make it back.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Shaanth, could you explain? I know that you said people are being careful about trying to talk about who the counterprotesters are, but could you tell us what you know? Were most of them not students? Were they students? If you could explain what you know?
SHAANTH KODIALAM NANGUNERI: Yeah, I mean, we do see students on, you know, rallies supporting pro-Israel groups. We have a pro-Israel group for Jewish faculty. And they themselves have actually distanced themselves from this behavior. But we do see a lot of non-UCLA students coming onto campus and sparking a lot of these controversies that end up going viral online and on social media and that do require deep, thorough reporting that goes beyond the kind of outrage bait that unfortunately fuels a lot of the conversations.
AMY GOODMAN: Where were the police? Where was security as this attack went on?
SHAANTH KODIALAM NANGUNERI: They were nowhere to be found. We actually walked up to a few campus security afterwards asking for help, as one of my peers was crying and having a breakdown, and I was trying help the other two, as well. And they were not able to help us with anything. They didn’t know what to do. And, in fact, we had documented that campus security, when faced with threats — these are private security guards handled by the campus, before the actual police had even come on campus — they would run away when they — or hide in buildings, and deny reporters access to those buildings, when they were afraid of what they saw on the scene and on the site when they got too violent.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Mel, you were there reporting on what happened. Could you describe where you were and what you witnessed?
MEL BUER: Yeah. So, myself and another reporter showed up around 10 p.m. We found ourselves on a side barricade next to Royce Hall. And we had a pretty good vantage point of the two sets of barricades that were separated by a sidewalk, prior to the confrontation happening.
Around 10:30 or 10:45, there was some sort of altercation, some sort of argument between the private security and the pro-Israel counterprotesters. And they very quickly dismantled the barricades and began ripping flags down from the Gaza encampment, pulling barricades apart, trying to rip apart the wooden barricades behind the metal ones that were installed there. And that continued for about three, four hours. It was a chaos, very scary, very quickly.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s fascinating that the corporate media is describing this as just clashes between two different groups, the pro-Palestine groups and the pro-Israel groups. Mel, from your perspective — you’re a reporter with The Real News Network — what we’re hearing here is an assault by one group on the encampment.
MEL BUER: Right. You know, I’ve been to the UCLA encampment on the first day, when they were setting up. And from the jump, there have been individuals who have tried to agitate these demonstrators, these students. They’ve tried to get a rise out of them. They’ve tried to provoke some sort of violent reaction. And, you know, to their serious credit, these disciplined students have spent a lot of time and energy and effort not responding to that, or trying to deescalate situations, trying to keep each other safe, trying to keep the integrity of the encampment safe, because the point is not to get into an argument with counterprotesters, right? The point is to continue to pressure UCLA to divest from the various relationships that they have with Israel and to boycott these programs that are funding an occupation and a genocide.
So, to see what happened the other night was, essentially, these counterprotesters, many of them riled up and angry and throwing slurs over the fences, getting a chance to try and rip their way into the encampment. And this had been — tensions had been growing for multiple days, right? This was not the first instance of violence where pro-Israel counterprotesters were knocking over students, were trying to provoke fights. Some fights broke out even two nights before. So, from my assessment, as I was there, these groups, this giant group, probably 150, 200 or so counterprotesters — some of the were university age, some of them were much older and did not appear to be UCLA students — launching assaults on this barricade. And, you know, this was consistent for many hours. The bear mace was in the air. I mean, you know, I witnessed a lot of folks getting bludgeoned by parts of the barricades, by wooden sticks, batons, whatever they could bring. And that was a constant for the four-and-a-half, five hours that I was there.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Professor Gaye Theresa Johnson, if you could describe what you know is happening right now on campus at UCLA, and what the response of the administration has been to the encampment since it went up?
GAYE THERESA JOHNSON: This is something that so many of us feel disgusted by. We are — many of the faculty who I spoke to, as late as just about 45 minutes ago, were feeling shocked. They were feeling so disillusioned by the response of the university. This is a university administration that has for weeks, for months equivocated the experience of people who are proclaimed Zionists to those Muslim students who have been doxxed and harassed every day, and faculty, as well.
And so, this is a situation in which students have been subjected by the university to a complete negation of their experience, not only here at UCLA, but across the world, the idea that there are, as Amy said earlier, clashes between protesters or that there are fights that are breaking out between these two people. We’re talking about a nonviolent protest. We’re talking about students who have been organizing for months, who are trained, have taken it upon themselves to educate themselves on tactics of nonviolence, and the incredible and brave way in which they defended themselves all of these nights. But, of course, in the culminating violence of night before last, and then, of course, of the violence of this night, as well, as they’ve been gassed, flashbangs that have been set off by the LAPD, and it’s just been incredible, the way that they have responded in the face of the gaslighting that the university has done against them. They are just — they have just done such an incredible and brave job.
And many of us, while we are shocked, we are also understanding, as faculty, that thousands and thousands of students across the nation, across the world have been politicized today, and there is no way, just because the LAPD and UCLA have mandated the dispersal of these students, that this is the end. It is only the beginning, because there are so many people now who understand that this is a movement. And it cannot be unseen. It cannot be put back in the box.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And finally, if you could explain: Where do negotiations stand? Has the administration been speaking with students about their demands that UCLA divest from Israel?
GAYE THERESA JOHNSON: The other day, the university offered the students three options. One was negotiations, which we saw yesterday there was no negotiation. There was an offer of absolutely nothing. Students had demands that were completely ignored, that wasn’t even in the discussion once administrators came to the camp. They were offered absolutely nothing.
The second option was to continue in a sort of long-term action with encampment. But it wasn’t a real, legitimate choice that the university was giving these students, because they were going to make them adhere to policies that they call time, place and manner that would have evicted them from the encampment and forced them into other places that would have been completely ineffective as far as protest and visibility.
And the third action that administrators — third choice that they gave students was police action. And they said, you know, “If you don’t take the first two,” — which were, in effect, completely false — “then we will assume that you want the police action.”
And in the end, they didn’t care. They didn’t ask what students wanted yesterday. They just simply went into what was already scheduled, what was already planned, which, one, I will say, many of us think that it’s almost as if, like, we’ve seen this many times over history — in Katrina, for example, in New Orleans, where politicians said, “Let the hurricane do for New Orleans what we couldn’t do.” This was the same thing that was echoing for us as we watched these counterprotesters so violently attack our students, is the “We’ll just sit back and let that happen instead.”
And the irony of these counterprotesters attacking these vulnerable students, who are also incredibly strong and brave and organized, in an enclosed space, the analogy that we can make to what’s happening in Gaza is obviously lost on all of these counterprotesters. They have no regard for the lives, just as the UCLA administration. People could have died the night before last and this night, as well. And these are the conditions under which students are trying to enact free speech.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Gaye Theresa Johnson, I want to thank you for being with us, UCLA professor of African American studies and Chicana/Chicano studies. We also want to thank Mel Buer of The Real News Network and Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri. Shaanth is one of four reporters, a senior reporter, with the Daily Bruin, the UCLA paper, who was attacked by the counterprotesters.
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Former Brandeis President on Gaza Protests: Schools Must Protect Free Expression on Campus
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
MAY 02, 2024
Transcript
We look at how university administrators have responded to Palestine solidarity protests by students with Frederick Lawrence, former president of Brandeis University and now the CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and a lecturer at Georgetown Law School. Brandeis was founded in 1948 by the American Jewish community in the wake of the Holocaust and named after the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, the celebrated free speech advocate Louis Brandeis. Lawrence says the nationwide university crackdown on student protesters is a worrying violation of the principles of academic freedom. “Provoking people, challenging people, asking difficult questions, making people uncomfortable, that’s part of the price of living in a democracy,” he says. He also notes that what constitutes a threat to campus safety should be narrowly defined. “You are not entitled to be intellectually safe. You are entitled to be physically safe.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at the widening police crackdown on pro-Palestinian student protests, we’re joined now in Washington, D.C., by Frederick Lawrence, the former president of Brandeis University, which was founded in 1948 by the American Jewish community in the wake of the Holocaust. Frederick Lawrence is also the former dean of the George Washington University Law School and a former visiting professor and senior research scholar at Yale Law School.
AMY GOODMAN: Frederick Lawrence, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. You just heard our first segment, what’s happening right now, police raiding UCLA campus, dismantling the Gaza encampment and arresting students. You heard about the counterprotesters attacking the journalists and those in the encampment. And then, of course, we just came out of the police doing the very same thing at Columbia University, dismantling the encampment and going into Hamilton Hall, that the students had occupied. Can you respond to what’s happening right now, and what you think should be the path and the response of universities around this country as students rise up in horror about what’s happening in Gaza?
FREDERICK LAWRENCE: I think when students rise up on any issues around the world or on their local communities, as well, universities have to begin with first principles. We exist for the purposes of creating and discovering knowledge. That requires free expression and protection for free expression. We talk about balancing free expression on the one hand, safety on the other. And although I understand that, it somewhat misses the point, which is to say safety is essential for campuses, but safety is instrumental to protect the fundamental goal, and that’s free expression.
So, in a case like what happened at UCLA, there’s an interesting example there of sometimes universities can do too much, but sometimes they can do too little. And clearly, one of the things that came across was the need for intervention sooner to protect the violence that was going on at UCLA. But I think I would even take the camera back a long way further and say that the real answer here is work that takes place a long time before these events happen. You have to build relationships on campus. You have to know who these student leaders and student groups are, so that the kinds of conflicts that we’re seeing now don’t happen the way that they’re being presented, but happen in a much more productive way for all concerned.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you explain whether protocols — what are the ordinary, conventional protocols in place at universities dealing with protest, and whether those have changed in the last months since we’ve seen the Gaza protests begin?
FREDERICK LAWRENCE: I think different universities obviously approach this in different ways. But if you look at the ones that are the most productive, the most functional right now, they really cover a range of outcomes and a range of approaches.
Look at University of Chicago, where the president just put out a statement that said, “Here are the rules of engagement,” and that “You can stay out on the quad and encamp for certain lengths of time, but here are the guard rules. Anti-harassment rules still apply. You can’t threaten people. You can’t interrupt the functioning of the university. But you can have an encampment.” President of Williams College put out a statement roughly along the same lines. The president of Brown was involved in negotiations with students where I think they reached what appears to be a pretty good result. Did the students get everything they wanted? Of course not. And did the university get everything they wanted? Of course not.
You know, one of the biggest mistakes here is when you start to think about the students as “they” as opposed to “we.” There’s only one constituency here, and that’s the university. The faculty, the students, the staff, the administration, the trustees all have to think of themselves as “we” working together. As soon as it splinters into “they,” that’s when you start getting problems, and sometimes tragedies.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what about your response, Professor Lawrence, to what the university professors say, namely — sorry, the university administrations say, across the board, which is that they’re acting in the interest of students, Jewish students on campus, who feel they’re being threatened on campus? And as the crackdown on the student uprising has intensified, the House now has passed a bill to widen the federal definition of antisemitism. Critics of the bill included Jerry Nadler, the most senior Jewish member of Congress and a strong supporter of Israel. Nadler said, quote, “This bill threatens to chill constitutionally protected speech. Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute discrimination. The bill sweeps too broadly,” Nadler said. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are vowing to launch new investigations into elite universities. Earlier this week, House Republican Whip Tom Emmer claimed, quote, “pro-terrorist antisemites taking over our college campuses.” So, if you could respond to that, what you think is actually going on, and how the Biden administration is responding, what’s happened in the House?
FREDERICK LAWRENCE: The most important thing is to focus on the limits on expression, which are pretty far out on the horizon. Free expression, free inquiry, academic freedom all have to be given broad range for protection. Where there’s actual threatening behavior, that can be restricted. That can be precluded. So, when you hear about talk of actual threatening behavior, I think there is a reason for the university to clamp down. But provoking people, challenging people, asking difficult questions, making people uncomfortable, that’s part of the price of living in a democracy, if you will. That’s what it means to live in a self-governing society.
Interrupting the actual functioning of the university, that can be precluded. You can’t block off buildings. You can’t keep students from getting into a library or into a classroom. But you can certainly create an encampment that might make it less comfortable for some students to get to class. Again, discomfort is not something that you should avoid in all cases in a university. Safety certainly should be provided. So I think that’s the balance that universities have to strike. And on some campuses, they have to do a better job of striking that balance.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is particularly interesting coming from you, Frederick Lawrence. If you can talk about the history of the founding of Brandeis University, and also your concern? I mean, it’s the issue you’re talking about right now, when Jewish students say they’re made to feel uncomfortable, and so you have the House acting and calling just — you’ll even have of the networks, when they say they feel threatened, just showing a Palestinian flag or a person wearing a keffiyeh. What that means?
FREDERICK LAWRENCE: We have been far too loose with what we mean by threatened, and not just in the past few months, but in the past few years. Many people feel that when they hear views that they deeply disagree with, that’s threatening to them. That’s not how universities operate. You are not entitled to be intellectually safe. You are entitled to be physically safe. So, where there are actual threats, certainly people are entitled to be protected, hopefully by university procedures, and by university security only as a last resort, with public officials and with police in riot gear. Hopefully, that’s always a last resort. But anything short of that, which is to say that which challenges one’s ideas, on any of the sides of these issues, that has to be part of an open conversation. Of course these are difficult conversations. Of course these issues are fraught.
Look, let me give you an example of one that worked recently that I was involved in. I was what was called a free expression resident at Skidmore College, upstate New York, for several days, met with a number of groups, but in particular had about an hour with a group of Jewish students and a group of Muslim students talking about Israel-Palestine, talking about what’s going on in Gaza. It was not an easy conversation. It was a hard conversation. But at the same time, we made some progress. I heard from the president of the college last night that he has continued to meet with these students, and he feels as if, in his words, it’s an air of cooperation, not antagonism. That’s the model that we’re looking for, that I think we should see on more campuses.
AMY GOODMAN: And the point of the founding of Brandeis University, why your voice is particularly important right now?
FREDERICK LAWRENCE: It’s Brandeis University, named for Justice Louis Brandeis, Justice Louis Brandeis who famously said, “In the absence of incitement of lawless activity, of imminent lawless activity, the answer to speech you disagree with is more speech, not enforced silence.” And Brandeis would have said that on any side of any issue. You cannot permit incitement of imminent lawless activity, but you have to protect the ability to express a wide range of views. Brandeis University has always been dedicated to that. That’s one of the reasons that, as its president, I was proud to advocate for free expression on a wide level. At the same time, the limits come, as I say, where safety is involved or where the orderly operation of the university is involved. Those things have to be protected.
AMY GOODMAN: Frederick Lawrence, we want to thank you for being with us, former president of Brandeis University, also the former dean of the George Washington University Law School and former visiting professor and senior research scholar at Yale Law School. He’s currently the CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and distinguished lecturer at Georgetown Law School.
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Amnesty Int’l: Biden Must Halt Weapon Sales to Israel After U.S. Arms Used to Kill Civilians in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
MAY 02, 2024
A new report from Amnesty International finds the sale of U.S.weapons to Israel for use in its indiscriminate assault in Gaza is in violation of U.S. and international law. We speak to Budour Hassan, a Palestinian writer and contributing researcher to the report, who says the U.S. is “complicit in the commission of war crimes” and must “halt all arms transfer to Israel as long as Israel continues to fail to comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights law.” We also discuss Israel’s detention of thousands of Palestinians without charge, the inadequacy of U.S. human rights investigations into the Israeli military, and Israel’s threatened ground invasion of Rafah.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: A coalition of international NGOs are holding a global day of action today calling on all states to halt the transfer of weapons, parts and ammunitions to Israel as the death toll in Gaza tops 34,500.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by Budour Hassan, a Palestinian writer and Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, contributing researcher to a new Amnesty report titled “U.S.-Made Weapons Used by Government of Israel in Violation of International Law and U.S. Law.”
Budour, thank you so much for being with us. Why don’t you tell us the conclusions of the Amnesty International report?
BUDOUR HASSAN: [inaudible] U.S.A. and response to the National Security Memorandum on Accountability and Safeguards on the Transfer of Defense Items and Other Services to Israel is based on firsthand documentation by Amnesty International of how U.S.-made weapons and U.S.-supplied weapons have been used by Israel in unlawful attacks, not just during the current war, but also in an earlier military campaign in May, where they were used in disproportionate attacks, killing civilians and injuring civilians, and where they were used — where small-diameter bombs were also used in the wanton destruction of property in cases amounting to collective punishment.
Also we cite in our research two cases where U.S.-made JDAMs have been used to decimate entire families, two entire families — the Abu Mu’eileq family in the middle area in Deir al-Balah and the Najjar family in Deir al-Balah also, back in October. A total of 43 civilians were killed in just two attacks. Amnesty International’s research did not find any evidence that there were any military targets in the area, raising doubt that the attacks were direct attacks on civilians and, as such, should be investigated as war crimes. And as such, also there is a high risk that by continuing to supply arms to Israel, the United States was fully aware that it is also supporting the commission of war crimes and it’s complicit in the commission of war crimes.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And so, Budour, has the U.S. responded in any way to your report, which came out earlier this week?
BUDOUR HASSAN: We are still waiting for a response by the U.S. The call is clear. The call is on the U.S. to halt all arms transfer to Israel as long as Israel continues to fail to comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights law. And it’s not just about the weapons that Israel is using, U.S.-made weapons. Also, Israel continues to use torture and other ill-treatment and also arbitrary detention against Palestinians, which also violates international law.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And if you could talk, Budour, about this global day of action, May 2nd, today? What prompted this call? Who all is involved?
BUDOUR HASSAN: The collective includes a variety of humanitarian organizations and human rights organizations that call for an immediate ceasefire, recognizing a ceasefire is the only way to end the man-made humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but also calling for an arms embargo on Israel and all parties to the conflict, including freezing all arms transfer and ammunitions to Israel. And this group came together because it recognizes that it’s not just, of course, the United States. Of course, the United States is the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, but there are other countries supplying arms. There are strategic cases, litigation before numerous national courts, demanding that the courts demand that governments stop fueling this war and fueling human rights violations.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the number of Palestinians right now who are detained under what’s called the Unlawful Combatants Law. What cases have you been working on? What are the profile of those detained, the number of those detained, if there are charges against them?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Officially, Israel acknowledges that it’s currently holding 865 Palestinians from Gaza as unlawful combatants. Under Unlawful Combatants Law, Palestinians — and they are mainly from Gaza — do not know the evidence used against them, cannot challenge the legal grounds for their arrest, and they are not charged, and they cannot face a fair trial, of course. Under the amendment to the Unlawful Combatants Law, a person from Gaza can be detained for up to 45 days without even being issued an arrest order. They can spend for up to 75 days without seeing a judge.
In many of the cases — in most of the cases we have documented, we interviewed doctors, we interviewed human rights defenders and also interviewed journalists, who said that they were told that they have a lawyer to represent them, but they never saw that lawyer. They said that they could not even ask why they are being held in jail. They did not know. Two of the doctors we interviewed spent 140 days in prison without ever knowing the charges against them, without being able to challenge the grounds based on which they are being detained. Israel never substantiated the very fact that they were taken, snatched, while treating wounded in hospital, only to spend 140 days in prison and later be released without ever knowing why they were detained in the first place.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, earlier this week — and this is, of course, something that happened before October 7th — but just earlier this week, the U.S. has found five units of Israel’s security forces responsible for human rights violations, most of them committed against Palestinians in the West Bank. The State Department said this is the first time the U.S. has come to such a conclusion about Israeli forces. And again, the violations occurred before October 7th and will not impact U.S. military aid to any of the units. If you could talk about the significance of this and whether you think this may lead to similar findings following October 7th for a far larger number of Israeli security forces units?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Of course, we think that these findings came a little bit too late in the first place. And in a sense, just implicating five military units serves to exceptionalize these five units and kind of absolves the Israeli army as a whole, the Israeli military as a whole, of its collective responsibility, because we cannot speak about individual units in the army and not recognize that the Israeli military as a whole has been committing grave human rights violations against Palestinians. And these human rights violations for decades have been fueled by impunity, not just from the military advocate general and from the investigative systems of the Israeli army, but also by Israel’s judiciary, judicial system, that has been incapable and unwilling to investigate these violations. So, it’s not just a few units here and there, exactly and precisely how it’s not just about one extremist or violent settler. It’s not the problem of one violent settler, but rather the whole settlement process.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Budour Hassan, about Gaza. You have the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that the invasion of Rafah is going to take place. Can you talk about the significance of this? And also talk about the famine that people in Gaza face, the opening of the Erez border. We just interviewed two people, a rabbi, American Rabbi Alissa Wise, and the Israeli-born writer Ayelet Waldman, who were arrested there as they tried to get in aid. But now Israel is saying it’s open. What level of aid is getting in?
BUDOUR HASSAN: To open, first of all, as Amnesty International, we have been calling for opening all land crossings and allowing the unfettered access of aid into Gaza, as per, of course, the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice. And it’s good that they are finally beginning to enter, although it’s not — nowhere near the quantity that should be entering.
But to allow meager amount of aid to enter while at the same time threatening to invade Rafah, which we know that Rafah is the main place where most humanitarian organizations are working at the moment, where more than 1.3 million Palestinians from Gaza, mostly displaced people, are staying — so, invading Rafah and threatening a ground invasion in Rafah would lead to the decimation of the whole aid system in Rafah itself. So, allowing humanitarian some or improving entry of humanitarian aid, on the one hand, but launching a ground attack on Rafah, which would increase and complicate the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, is absolutely not going to help the humanitarian situation there, of course.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And the number of prisoners who are being held, finally, Budour? I mean, on the West Bank, since October 7th, 8,000 Palestinians have been arrested?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Yeah, more than that. At the moment, there are 9,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, including 3,424 administrative detainees, people held without charges or trial, which is nearly 40% of all Palestinian detainees held in Israeli jails are held without charges or trial. In addition to those detained, many of them, of course, are being detained for organizing in support of Gaza, for trying and calling for an end to the war on Gaza.
But among those who were detained, and he’s now just under house arrest, is Palestinian human rights lawyer Ahmad Khalefa. And he was — ridiculously, he was arrested and indicted on inciting to terror because he chanted in support of Gaza and for an end to occupation. He chanted that Gaza will not surrender to the tank or to the gun. And based on that, he was indicted on charges of incitement to terrorism. He faces for up to two years in jail based on that law. And he is now under house arrest. He cannot work as a human rights lawyer. He faces the threat of being disbarred from Israel Lawyers’ Bar Association. He cannot work at the Umm al-Fahm municipality, where he has been elected as a member of municipality. And if Ahmad Khalefa ends up being convicted of incitement to terrorism for chanting, this will have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.
But it also kind of gives us echoes for what’s going in the U.S.A. You know, we see these attacks by and crackdown by Israeli authorities on anyone who dares to raise their voice against the war. And similarly, we’re seeing similar crackdowns in the United States against students organizing to put an end to the atrocity crimes happening in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Budour Hassan, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Palestinian writer, Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We’ll link to the Amnesty report titled “U.S.-Made Weapons Used by Government of Israel in Violation of International Law and U.S. Law.”
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“Workers Have Power”: Thousands Rally in NYC for May Day, Call for Solidarity with Palestine
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
MAY 02, 2024
Transcript
Workers around the world rallied Wednesday to mark May Day, with many calling on the labor movement to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. In New York, Democracy Now! spoke to demonstrators who demanded that U.S. unions apply political pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza and to stop their government’s arms trade with Israel. “Workers do have the power to shape the world,” said Palestinian researcher Riya Al’sanah, who was among thousands gathered at a May Day rally in Manhattan.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org.
We end today’s show on yesterday’s May Day activities in New York. Thousands of students, workers and others rallied in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan to mark May Day.
JAMIL MADBAK: Jamil Madbak. In this current moment, after seven months of Zionist aggression against Gaza, is to underscore that there is a popular movement in support of Palestine, not just the students that are mobilizing, but also organized labor across the United States. That’s really important. After the mass arrests yesterday, we saw faculty at CUNY announce a sickout for today. We saw NYU faculty announce a grade strike. And we’ve seen other actions being taken in support of the students.
We know the United States manufactures bombs that are being dropped on the people in Gaza, the Palestinians, and the Arab population, more broadly. And in that sense, having an organized labor movement that is willing to advocate for the Palestinian struggle, to chip away at the strength of Western imperialism, more broadly, is essential. And for the Palestinians, the inverse is true. Like, it is our mandate to be part of a broader left in this country to help to struggle for worker rights here, understanding that a stronger labor movement means less of an ability to enact this destructive foreign policy.
PROTESTERS: Occupation no more! Occupation no more! Free, free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine!
RIYA AL’SANAH: My name is Riya Al’sanah. I’m a Palestinian researcher, an organizer with the Workers in Palestine initiative. We at Palestinian unions have been organizing and calling for the colleagues in the labor movement and unions internationally to stop arming Israel.
So, since the call in October, on the 16th of October, workers internationally have galvanized and organized in solidarity with the call. We have seen workers in Barcelona port declare that they will not be — they will be stopping arms shipments destined to Israel. Workers in Belgium and transport workers have blocked the supply of weapons to Israel. At the Port of Oakland, we also saw workers here in the U.S. take concrete solidarity and action. Internationally, workers have been organizing in their workplaces and in their unions in solidarity and to heed the call. We see this also with the UAW here in the U.S. and other unions who have been calling for ceasefire and picking up the call from Palestinian workers and Palestinian unions.
This year, May Day comes at a moment where we Palestinians are subjected to a kind of undescribable onslaught, an undescribable violence. And it’s an important moment in our history to remember that workers do have the power to shape the world. Workers do have the power to influence kind of what happens not only locally, but to influence processes of colonial violence and dispossession on a bigger scale.
The very brave students and faculty on campuses in the U.S. advocating for divestment of Israeli — of military industries is a prime example of the entrenchment of militarism and military industries to all aspects of our lives, including our educational institutions. These campaigns at the moment amplify how the campaign, the call from Palestinian workers to stop arming Israel is a transformative demand for all of us to be involved in on campuses, in our various workplaces, as well.
JULIA THERESE BANNON: As a UAW member and as the president of my local, UAW must use its political power to put teeth into their call for a ceasefire. I am done with the narrative that this is a right-wing attack on free speech. This is the Democratic Party attacking free speech. This is Joe Biden attacking free speech. This is Chuck Schumer attacking a local. These so-called Democrats are the ones threatening our democracy by silencing anyone who speaks against their genocide. UAW must revoke endorsements of these politicians, if they want to make good on their call for a ceasefire.
BHAIRAVI DESAI: I bring you message of solidarity from the 28,000 members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. We are here to say to Genocide Joe that as long as your bombs are there, we will remain here. How today, on International Workers’ Day, a day that is normally full of pride and celebration, but since October, we cannot have a day that feels like joy or celebration, because the level of death and destruction, it is crushing to our sense of being a human being.
HEALTHCARE WORKER: I stand here before you today as a member of Healthcare Workers for Palestine, New York City. This is a lot closer to them. So, I’m just going to forewarn that I’ll be speaking about the mass graves, that our media has so intentionally neglected. Last weekend —
PROTESTERS: Shame! Shame!
HEALTHCARE WORKER: Last weekend, at least 283 bodies were found in a mass grave in Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in Gaza. These bodies, our families’ bodies, were found three meters into the ground, covered in waste, headless, skinless, organless, some of them zip-tied, and some of our healthcare workers still in their scrubs.
PROTESTERS: Shame!
HEALTHCARE WORKER: Three days later on Democracy Now!, we find out it wasn’t 283 bodies. It was at least 300. Three days after that, we find out it’s at least 400. And, y’all, we’re tired of playing this game of numbers.
NYU STUDENT: I am speaking to you as a student from the NYU encampment in solidarity with encampments and workers across the globe. To our administrations, we’re not going away. We hold our ground. We say to our administrations, to be suspended for Gaza is the highest honor.
PROTESTERS: Free, free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine!
AMY GOODMAN: Special thanks to Hana Elias, Charina Nadura and Messiah Rhodes. Those voices from the Foley Square rally on May Day.
And that does it for our show. Democracy Now! is produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud and Hana Elias. Our executive director is Julie Crosby. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Jon Randolph, Paul Powell, Mike Di Filippo, Miguel Nogueira. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh, for another edition of Democracy Now!