Israeli teachers who criticize the war have been yanked from the classroom — and thrown in jail

 (The only 'democracy' in the Middle East, or so they say)

from Forward

Sabreen Msarwi lost her job teaching Arabic at a middle school in Ganei Tikva last week after marching, as she does every year, to commemorate the Nakba, the displacement of some 700,000 Palestinians around Israel’s 1948 founding.

She is one of dozens of Israeli educators, some Palestinian and some Jewish, to be suspended or fired from local schools and universities since Oct. 7 for voicing critical opinions of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, support for Palestinian resistance, and other views the government finds objectionable. Civil rights groups and defense lawyers count at least 46 indictments over the past seven months of people in academic settings who have expressed dissent, and said that at least 28 of them spent time in jail.

“There is no freedom of speech for teachers just now,” Msarwi, who is 46 and has been teaching for 23 years, told me at her home here in Tayibe, an Arab city of 45,000 in central Israel. “We’re being persecuted for expressing our views.”...

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Critical Thought Theory or the Objectivity of Truth

Why are people having such a hard time with reality? Because the Truth movement failed. It's time for a reboot. 

New bill seeks to extend U.S. military benefits to Americans serving in the Israeli army

from Mondoweiss

On May 17, legislation was introduced and referred to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Cosponsored by Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and U.S. Representative Max Miller (R-OH), H.R. 8445 went largely under the radar, a strange outcome given the real effect it will have on furthering U.S. support for the Zionist project – in this case through direct support for those wishing to serve in the Israeli occupation army.

What H.R. 8445 aims to do is make a series of amendments to programs that are ordinarily only available to members of the U.S. military — the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). These amendments would do something unprecedented: extend these programs to American citizens serving in the Israel Occupation Forces. 

The SCRA, the result of the Bush administration’s efforts to update the 1940 Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act (SSCRA), was passed in 2003. Its primary focus is granting active duty U.S. servicemembers legal and financial protections so that they can do the bidding of U.S. empire a little more worry-free. This act’s benefits include protections against default judgments in civil legal cases, reduced interest rates on any pre-service loans to a maximum of 6 percent, protections against home foreclosure, and more...

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Georgian PM accuses EU of ‘blackmailing’ him with assassination threat

from RT

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has claimed that a European commissioner told him he could end up suffering the same fate as Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who survived an assassination attempt last week.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, Kobakhidze said that the unnamed commissioner warned him during a recent phone call that the West would take “a number of measures” against him if his government pressed ahead with a law requiring foreign NGOs in Georgia to disclose their funding.

“While listing these measures, he mentioned: ‘you see what happened to Fico, and you should be very careful’,” he wrote.

Fico was shot multiple times as he met with supporters outside a government meeting in the town of Handlova on May 15. He was rushed to hospital, underwent emergency surgery, and is currently recuperating from his injuries. His would-be assassin – a 71-year-old poet who allegedly disagreed with Fico’s suspension of military aid to Ukraine – has been charged with attempted murder.

Georgia’s parliament passed the ‘Transparency of Foreign Influence Act’ last week. The law requires NGOs, media outlets, and individuals receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as entities “promoting the interests of a foreign power” and disclose their donors...

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Nothing too see here, move along

 hmmmmm.....

 

Blinken lobbying for strikes on Russia – NYT

from RT

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is pushing the administration of President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to attack targets deep inside Russia with American weapons, the New York Times reported on Thursday, referring to unnamed US officials.

The ban, according to the White House, was imposed out of concern that if US arms were used inside what Washington acknowledges as Russian territory it would trigger an escalation and potentially World War III. Blinken has been advocating for scrapping the restriction after making a “sobering” visit to Kiev earlier this month, the newspaper said, citing insider sources.

Ukrainian officials have claimed that being unable to target Russian forces across the border with American weapons led to the failure of its troops to prevent the recent Russian advances in Kharkov Region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the offensive is a response to months of Ukrainian artillery and drone attacks in Russia’s Belgorod Region and that a buffer zone is required to deprive Kiev of the capability to make such strikes. The Times said that Ukrainian weapons “don’t pack the power and speed of the American weapons.”...

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Israel committing biggest genocide of century in Gaza: Erdoğan

from Daily Sabah

 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized Israel for committing what he said the "biggest genocide of the century" in Gaza with weapons and diplomatic support of countries that have been lecturing others about human rights and international law.

Speaking at the International Benevolence Awards ceremony in the capital Ankara, Erdoğan said countries that have been providing logistics and military support to Israel are complicit in the blood shed by Israel.

"Israeli forces have turned Gaza, which was already an open-air prison due to the blockade, into a children's cemetery in the past 229 days," Erdoğan said.

He also said that as long as Western powers continue to stand behind Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu despite all "his arrogance and recklessness," massacres in Palestine cannot be prevented.

The Turkish leader warned that if Zionist expansionism continues like this the world is "prone to new conflicts."

"Israel has lost this war and been condemned in the eyes of humanity," he further added...

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Israeli opposition calls on Netanyahu to recognize Palestine

from Daily Sabah

The leader of Israel's opposition party, Yair Lapid, called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognize Palestinian sovereignty under certain conditions, as three more European countries announced their recognition on Wednesday.

Lapid, a centrist Yesh Atid party leader, made his comments after Norway, Ireland, and Spain announced early Wednesday that they would recognize Palestine as a state effective on May 28.

Lapid, however, blamed National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for preventing Netanyahu from adopting such a position, the local Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported.

"Netanyahu should declare that under certain conditions and specific guarantees, he is willing to accept a future Palestinian state that joins in fighting terrorism,” he said. However, he did not go into detail during a press conference about these conditions and guarantees, or the nature of the cooperation from the proposed Palestinian state.

Criticizing extremist Ben-Gvir, the opposition leader said he "does not allow” Netanyahu to announce his readiness to recognize Palestine as a state, describing the current situation as "the madness we are living in.”

"This will not happen with this government. We need to send (Netanyahu government) it home and form an effective one,” Lapid asserted...

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Israel’s war on Gaza live news: Ahead of ICJ ruling, Israel attacks Rafah

from al Jazeera

• The Israeli army intensify its assault on Rafah as the International Court of Justice says it will rule on Friday on a request by South Africa to order Israel to implement a ceasefire in Gaza, including in the southern city.
• Israeli forces kill 12 Palestinians in two-day raid on Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.
• UN says displaced “families living among the rubble” after more than 800,000 Palestinians flee Rafah as Israeli forces attack.
• At least 35,800 people killed and 80,011 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attack is 1,139 with dozens still held captive

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Israel kills 62 Palestinians, injures 138 others in Gaza in 24 hours: Medical sources

from PressTV

 

Israeli forces have launched fresh massacres in separate regions in the blockaded Gaza Strip, killing at least 62 Palestinians in a single day.

According to medical sources, at least 138 others were also injured who were taken to hospital.

They said the figure is the number of Palestinian fatalities and casualties who were rushed to hospitals, adding that hundreds of victims still lie under the rubble and in the streets, while rescue and civil defense teams remain unable to reach them.

Among the fatalities were at least six Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a residential house in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. Six others were also wounded and taken to hospital.

Israeli forces also shot dead a mother and her daughter as they were fleeing Gaza's Sabra neighborhood in the center of the Gaza Strip.

Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, which has killed at least 35,709 Palestinians and injured over 79,990 others. The war began following a retaliatory operation by the Palestinian territory’s resistance movements.

Over seven months into the Israeli genocidal onslaught against the Gaza Strip, the regime keeps hitting the devastated territory, killing more innocent women and children...

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