Giraldi: Students Are Taking the Lead in Denouncing Gaza Atrocities

Mike Johnson at Columbia University (photo)

Israel and its friends malign them as “antisemites”

By Philip Giraldi, reposted from The Unz Review, April 25, 2024

If you were wondering why or how the mainstream media coverage of what is taking place in Gaza is so slanted as to make it look like a real war between two well-armed and competitive adversaries instead of a massacre of civilians, wonder no longer!

A leak has exposed a New York Times internal document that provides editorial guidance about words that should not be used in any article relating to Gaza or to Palestine. They include “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “occupied territory,” and even “Palestine” itself. The intent is clearly to eliminate any words with negative connotations what might be applied in some fashion to Israel and to what Israel is doing, even going so far as to not include any suggestion that Palestine itself might be considered a legitimate political entity. At the same time the media is letting be heard arguments that Israelis killing Palestinians is justified as they are all “terrorists,” even the little ones who will grow up to become enemies of Israel and Jews worldwide.

To a large extent, it is the Zionists themselves that created the need to censor the language being used to describe developments between Israel and its neighbors and that is because Israel, which de facto and illegally occupies all of historic

Palestine, made itself de jure “the nation state of the Jewish people” back in 2018 in spite of its Christian and Muslim citizens which, at the time, amounted to something like 20% of the population. To put it simply, a Jewish state cannot also be a democracy for all of its citizens any more that the US can be a Christian state, so it is necessary to divert attention away from that paradox.

And there are other degrees of unpleasantness that spring from that necessity, including the fact that devout Jewish believers actually do follow the ten commandments, including “Thou shall not kill!” while Israel has been doing nothing but killing since its foundation as well as plenty of violations of “Thou shall not steal” and “Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor!”

So instead of behaving better and trying to live peaceably with its neighbors, the “Jewish state” opted instead to cultivate a partly mythical saga of victimhood referred to as the “Holocaust” and to label all of its lethal overreactions as legitimate “right to defend itself” responses.

Antisemitism strategy

This in turn has spawned another line of defense, what has become the virtual industry which might be referred as the pursuit of “antisemitism.” And to make it really dangerous for the average American citizens who still believe that it is possible to criticize the behavior of foreign countries, the chant of “antisemitism” has been picked up wholeheartedly by the politicians and it is being turned into laws particularly at state levels to punish people who attempt to criticize Israel. National level politicians in Congress are also submitting draft laws that would apply similar restraints throughout the country so it will inevitably be goodbye the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.

The current unrest of pro-Palestinian “encampments” and “liberated zones” at 33 college campuses in the US are protesting against what is clearly a genocide taking place in Gaza by calling for a ceasefire and a halt to institutional investment in Israel as well as a suspension of ties to Israeli government educational bodies.

The movement is, as a consequence, being assiduously labeled a manifestation of “antisemitism” by Congress, by Joe Biden in the White House and by nearly all of the mainstream media. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responding to the unrest, is saying, inevitably, that “antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities” similar to Nazi rallies in the 1930s and he called for a major security crackdown on the demonstrators.

And it should be observed how the reaction by the universities has been fairly consistent, i.e. to shut down Palestinians groups or speakers on campus while leaving Jewish groups supporting Israel’s actions alone, indicating clearly that this has not been an even-handed response to political unrest.

The House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has made his pro-Israel sentiments very clear, spoke at Columbia University, where the movement began, on Wednesday and dismissed suggestions that the protests were legally protected free speech. He was addressing what he thought were “Jewish students” but was nevertheless heckled by demonstrators as he said the university must restore order on campus and had “failed to protect Jewish students amid concerns about antisemitism on and around campus. This is dangerous. We respect free speech, we respect diversity of ideas, but there is a way to do that in a lawful manner and that’s not what this is.”

Speaking of the Columbia University administration, Johnson asked plaintively whether “They cannot even guarantee the safety of Jewish students? They’re expected to run for their lives and stay home from class? It’s just, it’s maddening.”

If the Speaker had done a little more investigating he would have learned that nearly all alleged instances of “antisemitism” on campus have been greatly exaggerated by organizations like the Anti-Definition League (ADL), whose Director Jonathan Greenblatt has been a prime rabble rouser in calling for criminal charges against all those he accuses of “hating Jews.”

Neither Greenblatt nor Johnson, himself a Christian Zionist, is evidently troubled at all by the fact that Israel has slaughtered likely well upwards of 40,000 unarmed civilians, including many children. It is a death toll that includes the torture and killing of prisoners execution style, mass graves of victims and the deliberate destruction of hospitals, schools and churches. It even encompasses the removal of organs from captives and cadavers for transplant, for which product Israel has a well-known and highly developed international clientele. [see this and this]

But such details are regarded as unproven or even as an irrelevancy to Greenblatt and Johnson, as is the reality that many American Jews possessing consciences are participating in the demonstrations. They presumably will soon be labeled as “self-hating Jews” to make the approved narrative complete.

It is difficult to ignore what a monster Israel has become under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of thugs. When Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir responded to reports that Israel has run out of jail room for its circa 10,000 Palestinian prisoners by saying the solution was to take some of them out and kill them to make more room, there was no response from Washington.

Perhaps a better solution would be to free the majority of those prisoners, who are being detained without charges, since imprisoning people without due process is considered to be unacceptable in most “rule of law” civilized countries, which Israel and Joe Biden’s US consider themselves to be but manifestly are not.

So, I welcome the student rebellion against Israeli atrocities even though they have already been confronting a massive wave of oppression from the school authorities and even from alumni who are withholding donations and also forming groups that will advise prospective employers of the names of students who are regarded as anti-Israel, presumably denying them employment after graduation.

The universities themselves are engaging in suspension or expulsion of the protesters, including an email sent by Princeton University to all students on Wednesday threatening that students participating in Pro-Palestinian protests like those at Columbia, Yale and other universities would be subject to “arrest and being immediately barred” from campus followed by expulsion.

Meanwhile the civil authorities will be called upon to continue to arrest protesters, when necessary, using both police and the National Guard resources. It all recalls the shooting of nonviolent student demonstrators at Kent State University 54 years ago! Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a major recipient of Israel Lobby money, is advocating that demonstrators, whom he describes as “pro-Hamas criminals,” be confronted by angry citizens who ought to “take matters into [their] own hands” and directly punish the offenders.

And meanwhile the government of this fair country, which has become the full-time defender of Israel, will be bleating in unison that the demonstrators are “antisemites” and even Hamas-aligned “terrorists,” demeaning them to such an extent that anything done to them will be considered okay by the media and opinion makers. There will not be a critical word uttered about what Israel is doing apart from vague Biden-esque appeals to take some “humanitarian” steps to kill less, which are routinely ignored by Netanyahu.

On the contrary, Congress and Biden are rewarding Israel for its behavior with their recent foreign aid grant of $26 billion to rearm the Jewish state, which an in-debt Washington can no longer afford even though Biden claims that the gift will “make the world safer” and be remembered as a “good day for world peace.” Ironically, part of the money is intended for “humanitarian aid” which might suggest something for the Palestinians, but as the US refuses to deal with the UN assistance agency (UNRWA) and most certainly will not work with what remains of existing formerly Hamas government in Gaza, Israel will no doubt limit and control the aid, just as it is doing now, before pocketing all of the leftover cash.

How Israel treats the United States as a chattel, a source of money, weapons and unlimited political cover without providing anything at all in return apart from constant unrest and complicity in crimes against humanity is what the real tale should be all about. One can only hope that the courage of the students who have begun some pushback with their encampment at Columbia will produce some understanding among the American public of how uncritical deference to Israeli “needs” and interests has seriously corrupted the United States and might well lead to the brink of ruin for both countries.

Philip Giraldi is a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues. He is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served eighteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was Chief of Base in Barcelona from 1989 to 1992 designated as the Agency’s senior officer for Olympic Games support. He holds an MA and PhD from the University of London in European History and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the University of Chicago. He speaks Spanish, Italian, German, and Turkish. He is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, which seeks to promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests.

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