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council on american islamic relations
Mass Walkout as 'Global Pariah' Netanyahu Addresses UN General Assembly
The public rebuke of the Israeli prime minister, said one observer, "demonstrates the international community's rejection of genocide."
Sep 27, 2024
A large number of diplomats and other officials walked out of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Friday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to defend his nation's slaughter of more than 41,000 people in the Gaza Strip during the past year and over 700 in Lebanon this week.
Journalists and critics of the "global pariah" shared photos and videos of people filing out of the hall before Netanyahu's address—which came just a day after 25 anti-genocide protesters were arrested for blocking his motorcade in Manhattan.
While there was some audience applause from the sparsely populated room on Friday, Al Jazeera Arabic's Rami Ayari explained that "the people you hear cheering the PM during the speech are in the gallery who he brought for that purpose."
Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement that "as the far-right, openly racist Israeli government continues its genocide in Gaza and expands its campaign of state terrorism to civilians in Lebanon, this mass walkout during war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu's U.N. speech demonstrates the international community's rejection of genocide."
Awad added that U.S. President Joe Biden "should take note of our government's growing isolation on the international stage, change his policy, and support human rights and international law, without an exception for the Palestinian people."
Since Israeli forces launched their assault on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack, the United States government has stood by Israel, sending billions of dollars in weapons and opposing U.N. resolutions, while claiming to be pushing for a cease-fire. Addressing the General Assembly earlier this week, Biden called for "security for Israel, and Gaza free of Hamas' grip."
In response to diplomats' Friday walkout, Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said that "the impunity Biden has offered Israel has been used by Netanyahu to make Israel an international pariah. Neither good for the U.S. nor for Israel."
Parsi also highlighted a clip of Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob's speech to the U.N., in which he urged Netanyahu to "stop this war now!"
Netanyahu began his Friday address by taking aim at the world leaders who throughtout the week have condemned the recent escalation against Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as the past year of Israeli forces bombing and starving Palestinians in Gaza.
"I didn't intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life," Netanyahu said. "But, after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers standing at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight."
Armed with more of his infamous maps of the Middle East, the right-wing leader went on to claim that "Israel seeks peace," while also pledging to wage war on Hamas-governed Gaza until "total victory" and telling "the tyrants of Tehran" that "if you strike us, we will strike you."
Noting that Netanyahu also spoke of "savage enemies who seek to destroy our common civilization," James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, said: "Words spoken by the man who has been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. This is a disgrace. Abusing the General Assembly platform to lie and incite."
Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court prosecutor has sought arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—one of whom Israel recently assassinated in Iran. Israel also claims to have killed a second Hamas leader, which the group has denied.
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Calls for US Arms Embargo as Israel Kills Nearly 500 in Lebanon
One advocate said an embargo "is urgently needed to stop American weapons, paid for by our nation's taxpayers, from being used in the latest slaughter in Lebanon or in the ongoing genocide in Gaza."
Sep 23, 2024
The ongoing "bloodbath" in Lebanon fueled Monday calls for the United States to cut off weapons to Israel, a demand that people around the world have made for nearly a year, as the country has massacred tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
"An immediate arms embargo on the far-right Israeli government is urgently needed to stop American weapons, paid for by our nation's taxpayers, from being used in the latest slaughter in Lebanon or in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which apparently now includes an 'extermination zone' in which all living beings will be subject to killing," said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) national deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell in a statement.
Mitchell cited CNN, which reported Sunday that "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering a plan to force all Palestinian civilians out of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, in order to lay siege to Hamas and force the release of hostages."
Israel—which faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice—has killed at least 41,455 Palestinians in Gaza and injured another 95,878 in a nearly yearlong retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack. Most of the enclave's 2.3 million residents have been displaced and are struggling to access food, water, shelter, and medical care.
"Restoring the credibility of President Biden... rests on his willingness to act decisively to forge peace, especially in light of the latest escalations in Lebanon threatening to plunge millions more civilians across the region into crisis."
Throughout the assault on Gaza, Israel has exchanged strikes with the Lebanese political party and paramilitary group Hezbollah. In recent days, Israel has escalated fears of a regional war by detonating thousands of electronic devices across Lebanon and with a bombing campaign that has killed at least 492 people and wounded 1,645.
As Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain reported Monday for Drop Site News, people in southern Lebanon have received warnings to leave their homes via text messages, calls with audio recordings, and social media.
"People have seen what's happened in Gaza and they know that the Israelis are fully capable and they understand that basically the West has given up even pretending to do anything about it," Karim Makdisi, a professor of international politics at the American University in Beirut, told the pair. "There's no reason to believe that the Israelis will not go ahead and basically try to empty out a large section of the south and try to make the whole place totally uninhabitable for the foreseeable future."
Makdisi also said that Israel wouldn't have attacked Lebanon at this scale without a "green light" from the Biden administration, saying, "I think they've been given a kind of clear understanding that they have until the elections to do what they want."
Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of this year's content and passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris in July, after his disastrous debate performance against the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump. Harris continues to frustrate critics of the Israeli assault on Gaza with what the Uncommitted National Movement described as her "unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law."
However, regardless of who wins the November election, Biden is set to remain in the Oval Office until early next year, meaning anti-war voices continue to target him with calls to stop sending Israel weapons and do more to secure a lasting cease-fire in the region. The president is set to address United Nations members on Tuesday.
"In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly tomorrow, foremost we need to hear one thing from President Biden: how he will use his power to end Israel's atrocities in Gaza and ensure its compliance with international law in both Gaza and the West Bank," Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman said in a statement Monday. "To do so, he must commit to finally stopping lethal arms sales to Israel and applying the leverage necessary to stop a spiraling conflict with dire humanitarian consequences."
"Restoring the credibility of President Biden—and the United States—on the world stage rests on his willingness to act decisively to forge peace, especially in light of the latest escalations in Lebanon threatening to plunge millions more civilians across the region into crisis," Maxman argued, highlighting that the U.S. is in "a unique position" to sway Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The American leader "must use his influence to achieve a full and permanent cease-fire, the safe return of all Israeli hostages and illegally detained Palestinians, full access for humanitarian aid, and accountability for war crimes committed," she argued. "As long as President Biden continues to obscure Israel's flagrant violations of international law and provide the means for Israel's unrestrained bombardment in Gaza, his legacy and the U.S. credibility will be utterly squandered."
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Rights Group Sues US for Placing Palestinian American on 'Illegal, Racist Watchlist'
"Security agencies have no right to infringe on people's rights under flimsy pretext and without judicial permission and due process," said a plaintiff in the case.
Aug 12, 2024
The largest U.S. Muslim civil rights group on Monday announced it is suing Attorney General Merrick Garland and other federal officials for placing one Palestinian American on its "no-fly" list and for seizing another's electronic device and interrogating him about his constitutionally protected organizing for a free Palestine.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and its Los Angeles office (CAIR-LA) are suing Garland, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray, Terrorism Screening Center Director Michael Glasheen, and other national security officials on behalf of Mustafa Zeidan and Osama Abu Irshaid.
According to the lawsuit, the men "are both United States citizens of Palestinian descent" who have never "been charged or convicted of a violent crime."
"Yet, recently, the federal government has placed Dr. Abu Irshaid and Mr. Zeidan on a secret list, subjecting one to a humiliating process of detention, questioning, and phone seizure at the border and barring the other from flying altogether," the filing states. Irshaid is on the terrorism watchlist while Zeidan cannot fly.
"Only one thing has changed for Dr. Abu Irshaid in recent months: his constant and passionate advocacy for an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza and an end to the United States' complicity in that genocide."
"As a result of his status on the government's secret list now, Dr. Abu Irshaid is detained at the border by federal agents each time he crosses it," the document continues. "Federal agents ask... humiliating questions about his lawful associations and work leading a nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights of Palestinians."
As a board member and national director of Palos Hills, Illinois-based American Muslims for Palestine, Irshaid frequently appears as an expert on mainstream media outlets including NPR and Al Jazeera, where he warned last December of "dangerous smear campaigns that weaponize racism to silence the Palestinian freedom movement."
The lawsuit states that
federal agents "have successfully coerced" Irshaid into unlocking his phone, which they still held at the time the suit was filed.
"Only one thing has changed for Dr. Abu Irshaid in recent months: His constant and passionate advocacy for an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza and an end to the United States' complicity in that genocide," the complaint stresses.
The lawsuit continues:
Mr. Zeidan has fared even worse. [He] travels to Jordan several times a year to visit and take care of his ailing mother. After purchasing a ticket to see her in May of this year, he showed up to the airport, only for officials at the airport to tell him that he was forbidden from boarding his flight because of his status on the government's secret list. The government has given Mr. Zeidan no explanation for why he's been placed on the no-fly List after years of flying overseas without any issues. Only one thing has changed in the last several months for Mr. Zeidan: He organizes a weekly protest to call for an end to Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza and the United States' complicity in that genocide.
"When I first came to the United States almost three decades ago what appealed to me the most about it were the constitutional rights and civil liberties that guarantee humans dignity," Irshaid said Monday at a press conference in Washington, D.C. announcing the lawsuit, "and that security agencies have no right to infringe on people's rights under flimsy pretext and without judicial permission and due process."
"The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington turned things upside down in the United States," Irshaid continued. "Harsh laws were enacted that infringed on the civil and constitutional rights of American citizens including the right to privacy and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty."
"American Muslims in particular became suspects merely because of their religious and ethnic background and were treated as guilty until proven innocent," he noted. "I understand the need to maintain security, but it must be conducted consistent with American values, and constitutional legal values and protections."
Explaining that he was previously on the U.S. watchlist from 2010-17, Irshaid expressed his dismay at finding himself back on it. However, he said he would not stop advocating for Palestine.
"As a human being, I reject killing, maiming, displacement, starvation, displacement, and terrorization of tens of thousands of children, women, civilians, and innocents, regardless of their nationalities," he said. "Moreover, as an American, I reject the complicity of American decision-makers in supporting such crimes with weapons, money, and the diplomatic immunity they provide to Israel."
"The right to political dissent is protected by the First Amendment," Irshaid added. "This does not make me less patriotic, but rather makes me more in line with American values."
Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) urged her House colleagues to condemn a proposal by U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) to add pro-Palestine student protesters to the no-fly list.
"A sitting senator labels Americans protesting against a foreign country accused of carrying out a genocide funded with our tax dollars as terrorists and puts a target on their back to be attacked," said Omar, who is Muslim. "This is insanely dangerous and somehow no one will condemn it."
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