March, 02 2023, 11:25am EDT
Israel’s Smotrich is calling for genocide — Biden must refuse to allow him entry and withdraw U.S. military funding
"If Biden fails to take action at this moment, the U.S. will be fully complicit in the violence that comes next."
Just days after Israeli settlers carried out massive, orchestrated attacks on the Palestinian town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich doubled down on his support for the settler violence, calling for the entire town to be “wiped out.” In the face of undeniable incitement to genocide by a sitting Israeli government official, the Biden administration must take action to immediately withdraw unconditional U.S. military funding and support for the Israeli government, and refuse to allow Smotrich entry to the U.S. on his upcoming planned trip.
Last Sunday, in the worst settler attack in decades, hundreds of Israeli settlers rampaged through the Palestinian villages of Huwara, Zatara, and Burin, burning homes to the ground, lighting vehicles on fire, and injuring 350 Palestinians. At least one Palestinian, 37-year-old Sameh al-Aqtash, was killed, just days after returning from volunteering with relief efforts in Turkey. Sameh was the father of three children. During the attacks, the Israeli military prevented ambulances and medics from treating the injured and stopped journalists from entering the towns.
On the day of the attacks, Smotrich, along with several other Israeli government officials, publicly supported the settlers’ attacks. Days later, he reiterated and clarified his stance, saying “The village of Hawara needs to be wiped out. I think that the State of Israel needs to do that.”
Smotrich’s call for state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing of Palestinians comes just days after the Israeli government gave him sweeping powers over the civil administration of the occupied West Bank, including control over settlement planning.
During its first two months in office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right extremist coalition government is behaving exactly as promised: launching an escalated phase of state violence against Palestinians. In the first six weeks of 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 65 Palestinians. Last year was already the deadliest for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2004, and 2023 is now set to out-pace it.
Smotrich is scheduled to travel to the U.S. on March 12 to speak at the Israel Bonds conference. In the face of Smotrich’s unabashed call for genocide against Palestinians, the Biden administration must go further than hollow words of condemnation. The U.S. should immediately end its unconditional U.S. military funding and support for the Israeli government, and refuse to allow Smotrich entry to the U.S. on his upcoming planned trip.
Beth Miller, Political Director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action:
"It is time for the Biden administration to end its hollow words of concern and condemnation and to start taking action. Bezalel Smotrich, an Israeli government official with sweeping power over the occupied West Bank, is publicly and unabashedly inciting genocide and supporting settler pogroms. If Biden fails to take action at this moment, the U.S. will be fully complicit in the violence that comes next."
Beth Miller is available to speak with the media.
Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVP Action) is a multiracial, intergenerational movement of Jews and allies working towards justice and equality for Palestinians and Israelis by transforming U.S. policy.
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'People Power Works': Shell Backs Down in Anti-Protest Lawsuit Against Greenpeace
"Shell thought suing us for millions over a peaceful protest would intimidate us, but this case became a PR millstone tied around its neck," said the co-executive director of Greenpeace U.K.
Dec 10, 2024
The United Kingdom-based oil giant Shell agreed Tuesday to settle a major lawsuit the company brought against Greenpeace after activists from the group boarded and occupied a company oil platform last year to protest fossil fuel expansion.
Greenpeace said in a statement that as part of the settlement, it agreed to donate £300,000—roughly $382,000—to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a charity that helps save lives at sea, but will pay nothing to Shell and accept no liability. The donation represents a fraction of the over $11 million in damages and legal costs defendants faced, the group said.
The Greenpeace defendants have also "agreed to avoid protesting for a period at four Shell sites in the northern North Sea."
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Shell brought the case, which Greenpeace characterized as a "textbook" strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), in February 2023 and sought $1 million in damages from activists who boarded a Shell-contracted ship carrying equipment to drill for oil in the North Sea.
"When the protest ended, the only damage Shell could find was a padlock which, they alleged, our activists broke. That's it," Greenpeace U.K. said Tuesday. "Yet they came after us with a million-dollar lawsuit, which they justified for their spending on safety."
The group, which warned that the case had dire implications for the right to protest, credited a "sustained, year-long campaign against the suit" for forcing the oil behemoth to back down. The campaign, according to Greenpeace, "turned the legal move into a PR embarrassment for Shell."
"The case was dubbed the 'Cousin Greg' lawsuit by Forbes after a scene in the Emmy-awarded drama Succession, in which the hapless character threatens to sue Greenpeace to universal dismay," the environmental group noted Tuesday.
Greenpeace is currently facing several other SLAPP suits, including one brought by Energy Transfer, majority-owner of the Dakota Access pipeline. The group said Tuesday that the Energy Transfer suit "threatens the very existence of Greenpeace in the U.S."
"These aggressive legal tactics, the huge sums of money, and attempts to block the right to protest pose a massive threat. It could stop Greenpeace being able to make a real difference on the things that matter most," the organization said Tuesday. "It's part of a growing trend by powerful corporations and governments to crush peaceful protest—using draconian laws or intimidation lawsuits like this."
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The United Nations' special envoy to Syria said Tuesday that the Israeli military's rapid move to seize Syrian territory following the Assad government's collapse is a grave violation of a decades-old agreement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims is now dead.
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"The message to Israel is that this needs to stop, What we are seeing in the Golan is a violation of the 1974 agreement. This is a very serious issue."
The UN's Syria Special Envoy tells me on 'Mehdi Unfiltered' that Israel's unlawful actions in Syria need to stop. pic.twitter.com/G7jSWJ8oP0
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) December 9, 2024
Netanyahu, who took the stand for the first time Tuesday in his long-running corruption trial, made clear in the wake of Assad's fall that he views developments in Syria as advantageous for Israel, writing on social media that "the collapse of the Syrian regime is a direct result of the severe blows with which we have struck Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran."
The prime minister also thanked U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for "acceding to my request to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, in 2019," adding that the occupied territory "will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel forever."
The Washington Postreported late Monday that "within hours of rebels taking control of Syria's capital, Israel moved to seize military posts in that country’s south, sending its troops across the border for the first time since the official end of the Yom Kippur War in 1974."
"Israeli officials defended the move as limited in scope, aimed at preventing rebels or other local militias from using abandoned Syrian military equipment to target Israel or the Golan Heights, an area occupied by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war," the Post added. "On Monday, more troops could be seen outside this Druze village adjacent to the border, preparing to cross."
The United States, Israel's main ally and arms supplier, also defended the Israeli military's actions, with a State Department spokesman telling reporters Monday that "every country, I think, would be worried about a possible vacuum that could be filled by terrorist organizations on its border, especially in volatile times, as we obviously are in right now in Syria."
Watch StateSpox justify Israel’s invasion of Syria based on hypotheticals.@shauntandon: Israel has gone across the Golan Heights, the UN said it’s a violation, does the US agree
Miller: Every country would be worried about a possible vacuum that could be filled by terrorist… pic.twitter.com/AA7lNhfSt1
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Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday signed legislation protecting librarians and prohibiting public schools and libraries from banning books—a move that came as Republican state lawmakers are proscribing a record number of titles, many of them works addressing sexual orientation, gender identity, and racial injustice.
Flanked by educators, librarians, and other advocates, Murphy signed
A.3446/S.2421—known as the Freedom to Read Act—in the Princeton Public Library.
"The Freedom to Read Act cements New Jersey's role on the forefront of preventing book bans and protecting the intellectual freedom of our educators and students," said Murphy. "Across the nation, we have seen attempts to suppress and censor the stories and experiences of others. I'm proud to amplify the voices of our past and present, as there is no better way for our children to prepare for the future than to read freely."
According to a statement from Murphy's office:
Under the law, boards of education and governing boards of public libraries are barred from excluding books because of the origin, background, or views of the material or of its authors. Further, boards of education and governing boards of public libraries are prevented from censoring library material based on a disagreement with a viewpoint, idea, or concept, or solely because an individual finds certain content offensive, unless they are restricting access to developmentally inappropriate material for certain age groups.
The legislation "also provides protections for library staff members against civil and criminal lawsuits related to complying with this law."
New Jersey Association of School Librarians President Karen Grant said that "the Freedom to Read Act recognizes the professionalism, honor, work ethics, and performance of school and public library staff" and "promotes libraries as trusted sources of information and recognizes the many roles that libraries play in students' lives."
"The bill will protect the intellectual freedom of students as well as acknowledge that school libraries are centers for voluntary inquiry, fostering students' growth and development," Grant added. "Additionally, we are grateful for the broad coalition of support from so many organizations for this legislation."
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