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Muslim Advocates Applauds New Bill Adding Reforms to Section 230
SAFE TECH Act Will Protect Safety of Marginalized Communities
WASHINGTON
Today, Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the Safeguarding Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism and Consumer Harms (SAFE TECH) Act. This bill will enact needed reforms to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that allow social media companies to finally be held accountable for the real world threats, harassment and discrimination that their platforms enable. The following is a quote from Muslim Advocates Special Counsel for Anti-Muslim Bigotry Madihha Ahussain:
"For too long, companies like Facebook and YouTube have undermined the rights and safety of Muslims and communities of color in the U.S. and around the world. We have urged them to take responsibility for the targeted hate and violence, including genocide, facilitated by their platforms but these companies have refused to act. Senators Warner, Hirono and Klobuchar's SAFE TECH Act makes essential adjustments to Section 230 that will allow these companies accountable to finally be held accountable for violating people's rights and jeopardizing their safety."
Additional Resources:
Muslim Advocates is a national civil rights organization working in the courts, in the halls of power and in communities to halt bigotry in its tracks. We ensure that American Muslims have a seat at the table with expert representation so that all Americans may live free from hate and discrimination.
(202) 897-2622LATEST NEWS
'Bonkers': US, Israel Reportedly Discuss US-Led Administration in Gaza
"Right, because the U.S. occupation of Iraq is certainly the best-case scenario for Gaza today," one critic quipped.
May 07, 2025
Reutersreported Wednesday that "the United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-war administration of Gaza, according to five people familiar with the matter," sparking widespread criticism across the globe.
Responses to the reporting on social media included: "Bonkers." "Madness." "Crazy and dangerous idea, besides being illegal."
Under both the Biden and Trump administrations, the U.S. government has provided armed and diplomatic support to Israel in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. The Israeli assault over the past 19 months has killed at least 52,653 Palestinians, with thousands more missing. Survivors have been repeatedly displaced and are struggling to find food thanks to an aid blockade.
According to Reuters, other unnamed nations "would be invited to take part" in the provisional U.S.-led administration, which "would draw on Palestinian technocrats but would exclude Islamist group Hamas and the Palestinian Authority."
As the news agency detailed:
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly, compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq that Washington established in 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The authority was perceived by many Iraqis as an occupying force and it transferred power to an interim Iraqi government in 2004 after failing to contain a growing insurgency.
Several critics of the reported "high-level" talks also cited the United States' misadventures in Iraq in the early 2000s.
"This would be a rerun of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, but in a war-ravaged territory that isn't even a sovereign state and in which no American official has been allowed to set foot for two decades," said Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent for The Economist. "So bonkers, in fact, that whoever is floating this idea for Gaza is literally comparing it to the CPA in Iraq, an entity which two decades later remains a byword for waste, corruption, and incompetence."
Alexander Langlois, a contributing fellow at the foreign policy think tank Defense Priorities, quipped: "Right, because the U.S. occupation of Iraq is certainly the best-case scenario for Gaza today. Because that went so well the first time. It's clear Washington has learned nothing, in no small part because it refuses to actually reflect on such failures."
Journalist Bobby Ghosh said, "I'm guessing Paul Bremer has pulled on his boots and is waiting by the phone," a reference to the American diplomat who led the CPA in Iraq.
The "peace president" considers occupying Gaza on the model of the US occupation of Iraq. I wonder how that turned out. www.reuters.com/world/middle...
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— Daniel Chomsky (@danielchomsky.bsky.social) May 7, 2025 at 12:49 PM
While the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive of the International Criminal Court whose government also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over conduct in Gaza—declined to comment, a spokesperson for U.S. State Department sent Reuters a statement that did not address the news agency's questions.
"We want peace, and the immediate release of the hostages," the U.S. spokesperson said, referring to captives taken by Palestinian militants in October 2023. "The pillars of our approach remain resolute: stand with Israel, stand for peace."
Earlier this week, Netanyahu's Security Cabinet unanimously approved Operation Gideon's Chariots, a plan that involves "conquering" Gaza, occupying the Palestinian territory, and forcibly expelling its residents to the southern part of the strip.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Ze'ev Elkin suggested Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump would not object to the plan, claiming, "I don't feel that there is pressure on us from Trump and his administration—they understand exactly what is happening here."
Trump in February proposed a U.S. takeover of Gaza. He said that "we'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings—level it out and create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area."
In response to Reuters' Wednesday reporting, University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald nodded to those remarks, saying, "One step closer to Trump's dream of bulldozing Gaza to build Trump resorts."
Some critics connected the potential plan for Gaza to the Trump administration's other international endeavors. U.K.-based Jewish Voice for Labour said: "First Canada, then Greenland, now Palestine. This is what 21st-century imperialism looks like."
Johns Hopkins University historian Eugene Finkel—who was born in Ukraine and grew up in Israel—sarcastically said, "Because the U.S. does state-building, governance of places destroyed by U.S. weapons, and reconstruction even more effectively than Israel does conflict resolution."
"I was skeptical it was possible to produce something more unhinged than Trump's peace plans for Ukraine," Finkel added, "but hey, I've underestimated them."
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Women, Children, and Journalists Among Nearly 100 Killed in Gaza Wednesday
"You haven't bombed any fighters or any weapons," said a restaurant owner in a neighborhood that was struck, addressing Israel. "You've only hit civilians."
May 07, 2025
"Death follows families in Gaza wherever they go," said the commissioner-general of a United Nations agency that has long provided aid and services to Palestinians in the enclave on Wednesday, as it was reported that nearly 100 people had been killed in numerous Israeli strikes across Gaza over the past day.
News outlets cataloged the latest deaths in attacks on restaurants, markets, and schools, with women, children, and two journalists who had covered Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza among those killed.
At least 33 people were killed in Gaza City when an Israeli reconnaissance drone fired two missiles—one inside a restaurant that had served as a gathering place for residents recently and one at a busy intersection.
Freelance journalist Yahya Sobeih was among those killed—shortly after he had posted on Instagram about the birth of his new baby.
The owner of Palmyra restaurant on al-Wehda Street, Abu Saleh Abdu, told the BBC that many children and elderly people had been killed in the blasts. He was seen in a video angrily addressing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
"What do [you] want to achieve?" he said. "You haven't bombed any fighters or any weapons. You've only hit civilians."
Israel and its allies including its top international military funder, the U.S., have persistently claimed the IDF is targeting Hamas and has inadvertently killed children, women, aid workers, and healthcare providers—but remarks from Israeli officials have pointed to an overall goal of targeting all Palestinians regardless of whether they are Hamas members or not.
"There is no reason to believe that doubling down on military strategies, which, for a year and eight months, have not led to a durable resolution, including the release of all hostages, will now succeed."
Other attacks over the past day include a strike at al-Karama school in the Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City, which killed at least 13 people; a strike on a home in Jabalia in which three people were killed; a bombing of a home in Khan Younis, which killed eight people including a father and his children; and a strike on a tent shelter in Deir el-Balah, which killed three people including a child.
At Al Jazeera, Hani Mahmoud reported that Palestinians—who are also facing increasing levels of acute malnutrition two months into a total humanitarian aid blockade—have been "scrambling for cover" across Gaza.
"We have confirmed that a farmer was killed in the eastern part of Khan Younis, in Abasan, as he was trying to harvest what he managed to plant in the past couple of months, making up for the lack of food," Mahmoud said. "This is one of the elements that we have been seeing quite visibly. Not only are they suffering on a daily basis because of the enforced starvation and dehydration, they [also] try to plant their own food, but they are deprived, and their abilities to do so are [thwarted] by the ongoing attacks."
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said that 19 months into Israel's bombardment of Gaza, "no place is safe. No one is spared."
"In Gaza, day after day, inaction and indifference are normalizing dehumanization and overlooking crimes livestreamed under our eyes: families bombed, children burned alive, children starved," said Lazzarini. "Enough. Humanity must prevail before losing all moral compass."
The bloodshed on Wednesday followed an attack on a school-turned-shelter in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Tuesday. The Palestinian Civil Defense released an updated death toll in that attack Tuesday night, saying at least 30 people had been killed and dozens had been wounded.
Israel is ramping up its attacks as officials have approved a plan to seize Gaza, forcibly displace Palestinians to the southern part of the enclave, and enlist private U.S. security companies to help it take control of aid distribution.
On Wednesday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the plan fuels concerns that Israel's true intention is to make life for Palestinians "increasingly incompatible with their continued existence in Gaza."
"There is no reason to believe that doubling down on military strategies, which, for a year and eight months, have not led to a durable resolution, including the release of all hostages, will now succeed," said Türk.
Expanding Israel's attacks on Gaza "will almost certainly cause further mass displacement, more deaths and injuries of innocent civilians, and the destruction of Gaza's little remaining infrastructure," he said.
Independent human rights experts appointed by the U.N. said countries including the U.S. face a "defining choice... to end the violence or bear witness to the annihilation of the Palestinian population in Gaza—an outcome with irreversible consequences for our shared humanity and multilateral order."
"The world is watching. Will member states live up to their obligations and intervene to stop the slaughter, hunger, and disease, and other war crimes and crimes against humanity that are perpetrated daily in complete impunity?" asked the experts. "International norms were established precisely to prevent such horrors. Yet, as millions protest globally for justice and humanity, their cries are muted. This situation conveys a deadly message: Palestinian lives are dispensable, and international law, if unenforced, is meaningless."
"States must act swiftly to end the unfolding genocide," they said, "dismantle apartheid, and secure a future in which Palestinians and Israelis coexist in freedom and dignity."
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Jewish Voices for Palestine and Free Speech Slam House GOP 'Kangaroo Hearing' on Antisemitism
"What we are seeing has nothing to do with keeping Jews safe and everything to do with crushing dissent," said one Barnard College student.
May 07, 2025
Jewish students and academics for Palestinian rights and free speech on Wednesday condemned a congressional hearing in which House Republicans repeatedly conflated opposition to Zionism and Israeli crimes against Palestine with antisemitism, while Democratic lawmakers warned against the weaponization of civil rights to suppress dissent.
The House Education and Workforce Committee held the hearing—titled "Beyond the Ivy League: Stopping the Spread of Antisemitism on American Campuses"—which followed last year's panel on antisemitism, both real and contrived, at Columbia University.
This time, the presidents of Haverford College, DePaul University, and California Polytechnic State University were grilled by lawmakers including committee Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), who said that Israel should deal with Gaza "m like Nagasaki and Hiroshima" and was a manager at the Moody Bible Institute, which according to a memo from a group of mostly Jewish Haverford professors, "trains students to convert Jewish people to Christianity."
The memo notes that committee member Rep. Mark Harris (R-N.C.) once said Jews and Muslims will never know "peace in their soul" until they renounce their religions and accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. Another committee member, Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), said that Nazi leader Adolf oHitler was "right" about political movements' need to capture youth support, before later apologizing.
Yet these and other Republican lawmakers on the panel pressured the three university presidents to crack down on constitutionally protected speech, while conflating support for Palestine and criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
"Haverford employs faculty members who engage in blatant antisemitism with no apparent consequences," said Walberg. "For example, one professor declared online that Zionism is Nazism."
Asked by Walberg if the phrase "long live the intifada"—an affirmation of Palestinians' legal right to armed resistance against Israeli oppression—is "protected speech at Haverford's campus," college president Wendy Raymond incorrectly said, "That is an antisemitic form of speech."
Walberg also falsely called the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel "unprovoked" and singled out students and faculty who praised Palestinians who resist Israel—which is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and whose prime minister and former defense minister are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, where they are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination and forced starvation, in Gaza.
DePaul University president Robert Manuel said he was "deeply sorry" for "mistakes" made at the Chicago school, where two Jewish students were brutally attacked last November in what prosecutors have charged as a hate crime, while touting the banning of pro-Palestine groups including Students for Justice in Palestine from campus.
While noting that the Constitution "doesn't protect antisemitic violence, true threats of violence, or certain kinds of speech that may properly be labeled 'harassment,'" Georgetown University Law Center professor and former ACLU national legal director David Cole told the committee that the First Amendment "protects speech many of us find wrongheaded or deeply offensive, including anti-Israel advocacy and even antisemitic advocacy."
Cole accused the committee of making "broad-based charges of antisemitism without any factual predicate."
"To be honest, and with all due respect, the hearings this committee held on this same subject last year are reminiscent not of a fair trial of any sort, but of the kind of hearings the House Committee on Un-American Activities used to hold," Cole contended. "And I think we can all agree that the HUAC hearings were both a big mistake and a major intrusion on the First Amendment rights of Americans."
Cole also took aim at U.S. President Donald Trump's weaponization of antisemitism to threaten and defund colleges and universities that don't crack down on Palestine defenders, stressing that "the government may not threaten funding cuts as a tool to pressure recipients into suppressing such viewpoints."
Dozens of Jewish Haverford students signed an open letter to members of the House Education Committee ahead of Wednesday's hearing stating that "we are all deeply concerned by how you are weaponizing our pain and anguish for your own purposes."
Letter to the Editor: Jewish Haverford Students Reject Congress’ Weaponization of Antisemitism haverfordclerk.com/letter-to-th...
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— Karen Masters ( @karenlmasters.bsky.social) May 7, 2025 at 12:15 PM
"It is clear to us that these hearings will not, and have no desire to, protect us or combat antisemitism," the letter says. "Instead, this congressional hearing weaponizes antisemitism to target freedom of speech on college campuses, silences political dissidents, and attacks students who speak out in solidarity with Palestine. It is a blatant assault on our Black, brown, transgender, queer, noncitizen, and Palestinian peers."
A day before the hearing, the group Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVPA)—which called the panel a "kangaroo hearing"— brought nine Columbia University and affiliated students to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress and "speak about their experiences as Jewish students who have been steadfastly committed to advocating for the safety and freedom of the Palestinian people."
Columbia junior Shay Orentlicher said that "I'm here asking my representatives to call for the release of my friend Mahmoud Khalil and to put real pressure on the Trump regime," referring to the permanent U.S. resident facing deportation after helping to lead pro-Palestine protests at the New York City university.
"I cannot stand to see the Trump administration smear Mahmoud as an antisemite when it could not be further than the truth," Orentlicher added.
Tali Beckwith-Cohen, a Jewish senior at Columbia-affiliated Barnard College, argued: "The Trump regime is using false allegations of antisemitism to disappear our friends, punish student protestors, and dismantle higher education. What we are seeing has nothing to do with keeping Jews safe, and everything to do with crushing dissent."
"Thousands of Jews on campuses across the country have spoken out in solidarity with the people of Gaza and we will not be silent," Beckwith-Cohen vowed.
JVPA political director Beth Miller contended that "the far-right does not care about Jewish safety."
"Trump and his allies in Congress are platforming neo-Nazis and Christian nationalists, all while pretending to care about antisemitism in order to take a hatchet to our communities and most basic freedoms," Miller added. "This is intended to silence the Palestinian rights movement, sow chaos, and sharpen authoritarian tools that will then be used to dismantle civil liberties and democracy itself."
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the ranking member of the House Education Committee, pushed back on Republicans' assertions during Wednesday's hearing, noting that "my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not held any hearings on other forms of discrimination and hate, such as racism, Title IX gender violations, Islamophobia, homophobia, or the challenges of meeting the needs of students with disabilities."
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) noted that Trump praised attendees of the deadly 2017 "United the Right" white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia as "very fine people," and that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "spread an antisemitic conspiracy theory that Covid was engineered to target white and Black people but spare Jewish people."
Casar asked committee Republicans to condemn these and other antisemitic incidents by raising their hands. None did.
Antisemitism is an assault on all of our values. So why would Republicans cut funding to address hate crimes or protect synagogues? Republicans are not trying to keep Jewish students safe. They're trying to keep the Israeli government safe from any form of criticism.
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— Congressman Greg Casar ( @repcasar.bsky.social) May 7, 2025 at 10:24 AM
"Not a single Republican today has been willing to condemn any of this antisemitism," Casar lamented. "Unfortunately, the party of 'very fine people on both sides' or ' Jewish space lasers' does not give a damn about stopping antisemitism. If my Republican colleagues want to stop the spread of antisemitism, maybe they should stop apologizing for and promoting antisemites."
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) argued that "it is abundantly clear that the cynical work of the majority party on this committee is now being expanded and weaponized by the [Trump] administration seeking to squash dissent."
"Political protest, anti-war protest, pro-Palestinian protest—this is all protected speech under the First Amendment, regardless of citizenship status," Omar said after listing a number of Palestine defenders, including green-card holders, targeted for deportation by the Trump administration.
"Using immigration authorities to target, abduct, and detain noncitizens for their activism is a clear violation of their rights and a hallmark of an authoritarian government," she added.
Asserting that "throughout history, college campuses have been the places where worldviews, politics, cultures meet," Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said thato "some of the most transformative movements for justice in this country were ignited by students on college campuses."
"We cannot allow them to use efforts to divide our marginalized communities against each other."
"Now, that tradition of protest, academic freedom, and the core principle of free speech is under attack," Lee noted. "Not genuinely in the name of safety and student well-being, but under the guise of control used to suppress the voices of marginalized groups."
Lee said that it's clear that committee Republicans don't care about tackling antisemitism and other forms of bigotry "because they've dismantled and closed regional offices for civil rights... tasked with investigating antisemitism, that they have not spoken out against the Nazi salutes of Elon Musk or the Great Replacement Theory that led to the largest antisemitic massacre in my district."
"They have done nothing about anti-Blackness—I won't hold my breath for a hearing on that," she continued.
"We haven't acknowledged that our safety and our liberation are tied together," Lee added. "We cannot allow them to use efforts to divide our marginalized communities against each other... We are the closest we have ever been—ever been—to losing our civil liberties. We have to fight against it."
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