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tony blinken
The Amsterdam 'Pogrom' That Wasn't: Corporate Media Fails To Tell the Whole Story
'The Israeli fans instigated the violence after arriving in the city and attacking Palestinian supporters before the match'
Nov 09, 2024
Thursday night, Israeli soccer fans clashed with Amsterdam residents before and after a Europa League soccer match between their team Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam.
Clashes occurred outside the Johan Cruyff Arena and across the city on Thursday night. Police on Friday said five people had been taken to hospital, and 62 arrests had been made.
The violence reportedly started when the far-right Israeli soccer hooligans began chanting racist and violent anti-Arab slogans, attacked Arab and Muslim residents, and vandalized houses and businesses with Palestinian flags.
Al Jazeera reported:
In one video, Israeli supporters were heard singing: “Let the IDF win, and f*** the Arabs!” referring to the Israeli army’s offensive on Gaza. Another video captured a fan screaming: “F*** you terrorists, Sinwar die, everybody die,” in reference to the Hamas leader who was killed last month.
The Israeli fans instigated the violence after arriving in the city and attacking Palestinian supporters before the match, an Amsterdam city council member said.
“They began attacking houses of people in Amsterdam with Palestinian flags, so that’s actually where the violence started,” Councilman Jazie Veldhuyzen told Al Jazeera on Friday.
“As a reaction, Amsterdammers mobilised themselves and countered the attacks that started on Wednesday by the Maccabi hooligans.”
Yet the corporate media - both in the US and abroad - portrayed the events as one-sided "anti-semitic" attacks on helpless soccer fans:
US President Joe Biden, his Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were quick to echo Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that the events in Amsterdam were unprovoked anti-semitic attacks reminiscent of pogroms or the Kristallnacht.
However many social media posts reported the context of the violence that was missing from corporate media reporting:
@martydoesnotplay On request: a recap of what has been happening in Amsterdam the past few days in which Zionist hooliguns from Tel Aviv attacked people on our streets and sang songs about burning Gaza down. But where only the response from clashes with them were caught up by the media. Placed within a narrative by the devil himself that this was anti-semitism 🍉
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Citing 'Unprecedented Crisis,' House Dems Push Biden to Protect Haitians From Deportation
Warning of "mortal danger," one advocacy group argues extending and redesignating Temporary Protected Status for Haitians "is a matter of life and death."
Dec 01, 2022
The Biden administration faced fresh pressure Thursday to protect Haitians who are in the United States from being deported to a country that has endured increasing economic and political turmoil since a presidential assassination and devastating extreme weather last year.
"Given the deteriorating situation in Haiti, this administration should prioritize humanitarian relief."
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), along with 14 other House Democrats, urged a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) extension for Haitians not affected by Ramos v. Mayorkas, and redesignation for people who arrived in the United States after July 29, 2021.
"Haiti is currently experiencing one of its worst outbreaks of violence in decades," the letter states. "The rule of law has effectively collapsed. Powerful gangs rule with impunity, and in some cases with government complicity."
"For months, a gang blockade at Haiti's principal fuel terminal crippled day-to-day operations, severely restricting the movement of medicine, food, and supplies," the letter continues. "The situation paralyzed an already crippled economy in the country, where the inflation rate reached a staggering 30%."
The letter adds that "this has all occurred amid a resurgence of cholera in the country, particularly in Haiti's National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince. Since October, the disease has killed at least 100 people and sickened 8,000 more, though experts say the numbers are likely higher."
\u201cWe have a moral obligation to protect Haitians fleeing violence, persecution, & poverty.\n\n@RepPressley, @RepMondaire & I are urging @DHSgov to extend and redesignate Haiti for Temporary Protective Status.\u201d— Congresswoman Cori Bush (@Congresswoman Cori Bush) 1669912375
"Given the deteriorating situation in Haiti, this administration should prioritize humanitarian relief, especially given the positive impact that extending and redesignating Haiti for TPS will have for our nation," the lawmakers argued, also highlighting how Haitians positively contribute to the American workforce.
House Democrats' letter calling on the Biden administration to refrain from sending Haitians to "face an unprecedented crisis in their home country" was also sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and echoes recent demands from civil society.
More than 400 groups--including the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC)--sent Biden, Blinken, and Mayorkas a letter last month, stressing the need for urgent action given that "the TPS designation for Haiti will expire on February 3, 2023."
FLIC renewed its call for action in a statement Thursday, warning that "Haitians are in mortal danger" and asserting that extending and redesignating TRS "is a matter of life and death!"
Last month, a Florida-bound vessel overloaded with almost 200 Haitians--including 46 children--struck a sandbar. After the rescue effort, the U.S. Coast Guard returned nearly all of them "to a Haiti plagued by a rapidly spreading cholera," noted FLIC's co-executive director, Tessa Petit.
Petit, who immigrated to Florida from Haiti, stressed that "you do not have to be Haitian to be outraged by the blatant human rights violations currently perpetrated by both the United States and the Dominican Republic on Haitian nationals."
Along with FLIC's TPS demands, the group is calling on the Biden administration to "provide all possible support required and needed to stop the abuse of Haitians in the Dominican Republic."
In the Dominican Republic, which shares an island with Haiti, "the violent attacks against Haitians have intensified, to include hateful bodily harm using whips and wooden sticks," Petit pointed out. "All this added to the mass deportation of Haitians regardless of their immigration status, their safety, and in a discriminatory manner, using the color of their skin as a crime."
\u201cThe current #TPS designation for Haiti will expire on February 3, 2023. It is becoming increasingly urgent for the Biden-Harris Administration @POTUS @SecMayorkas to extend and redesignate temporary protected status (TPS) for #Haiti.\n#TPSforHaiti \n#ImmigrationIsABlackIssue\u201d— UndocuBlack Network (@UndocuBlack Network) 1669923920
Like the lawmakers, in addition to the moral appeal, FLIC director of politics and policy David Metellus--the son of Haitian immigrants--made an economic case for federal action.
"Haitians living in the United States currently eligible for TPS contribute $2.6 billion annually to our economy, and 81% of them are part of the American labor force, providing essential services at a time of worker shortages and high inflation," said Metellus. "They have lived here for 15 years, on average, and have built families of almost 200,000 American citizens."
"Continuing to provide TPS protections for Haitian nationals would ensure families remain together and continue building meaningful lives in our society," he added. "Moreover, redesignating Haiti for TPS would allow more Haitians in the U.S. to enroll in the program, and contribute their skills and talents to the American workforce and communities around the country."
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Progressives Demand Biden Increase Pressure on Saudis to End Yemen Atrocities
"The United States should no longer prop up that regime's unconscionable war in Yemen that killed nearly 400,000 people, including untold children," said one human rights defender.
Nov 22, 2022
U.S. progressives in recent days have renewed efforts to push President Joe Biden and Congress to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for atrocities including war crimes in Yemen and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"Our foreign policy should not be based on a dependence on oil or the geopolitical whims of foreign despots."
Last week, the Biden administration angered human rights defenders by seeking sovereign immunity status for Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman--commonly called by his initials, MBS--in a lawsuit over the 2018 kidnapping and brutal murder of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist with permanent U.S. residency.
Activists were already infuriated with Biden for "letting MBS get away with the murder," as one writer put it, as well as for his summer summit and infamous fist-bump with the crown prince, and for continuing to support the Saudi-led war in Yemen after an initial temporary freeze on arms sales.
"President Biden vowed to hold accountable Saudi ruler MBS for Khashoggi's murder by making him a 'pariah,' and Congress should help Biden keep his word by passing a War Powers Resolution that cuts off U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen," David Segal, executive director of the online-intensive activist group Demand Progress, said in a statement Tuesday.
\u201cAs the @StateDept claims legal immunity for Mohammad bin Salman, we're calling on Congress for political accountability for the Saudis by ending U.S. support for Saudi military adventures in Yemen that have killed hundreds of thousands. #YemenCantWait\n\nOur full statement:\u201d— Demand Progress (@Demand Progress) 1669128323
"Saudi Arabia is controlled by an outlaw regime, as demonstrated by the murder of a U.S.-based journalist and by deliberately holding down oil production to support Russia's illegal war in Ukraine," Segal added. "The United States should no longer prop up that regime's unconscionable war in Yemen that killed nearly 400,000 people, including untold children."
Additionally, a Saudi-led blockade has exacerbated starvation and disease in Yemen. Of Yemen's approximately 30 million people, more than 23 million required some form of assistance in 2022, according to United Nations humanitarian officials.
In June, 48 bipartisan U.S. House lawmakers introduced a War Powers Resolution to end the nation's unauthorized involvement in the Saudi-led war. The following month, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed a similar measure in the upper chamber.
Interviewed for an Intercept article published on Monday, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)--one of the 48 co-sponsors of the House resolution--asserted that "our foreign policy should not be based on a dependence on oil or the geopolitical whims of foreign despots. It should be based on the rule of law and human rights."
Omar and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) led a letter signed last week by 13 House Democrats to Secretary of State Antony Blinken "to express our strong support for the United States to use its influence at the United Nations Human Rights Council to work towards the establishment of an independent, international investigative mechanism on Yemen at the earliest opportunity."
\u201cUS President Joe Biden said during his presidential campaign that he would make Saudi Arabia a \u201cpariah.\u201d But Biden has so far failed to seek accountability for Mohammed bin Salman\u2019s role in Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s murder and other serious abuses. https://t.co/VgCs0EzVRd\u201d— Human Rights Watch (@Human Rights Watch) 1669058896
"This new mechanism should have the authority to collect and preserve evidence of violations for future consideration, by competent judicial authorities, of possible crimes committed by all parties to the conflict," the lawmakers' letter added. "Having an international mechanism would play a crucial role in ensuring accountability for the atrocities that have taken place for more than a decade in Yemen."
Omar contended that "true peace demands justice" and that "international institutions have a responsibility to account for any and all atrocities that took place in Yemen, and the United States has a responsibility to advocate for them."
"Truly centering human rights and a rules-based order in our foreign policy," she added, "requires full accountability when those rights are violated."
Joey Shea, a researcher on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at Human Rights Watch, noted Monday that Biden's July meeting with bin Salman "was followed by an uptick in serious violations of human rights by Saudi authorities."
"In August, a Saudi appeals court dramatically increased the prison sentence of Saudi doctoral student Salma al-Shehab from six years to 34 years, based solely on her Twitter activity," she continued. "Other people--including at least one U.S. citizen--critical of the Saudi government on social media have received extreme prison sentences from Saudi courts."
"Biden's campaign promise to make Saudi authorities 'pay the price' for Khashoggi's heinous murder has not been met," Shea added. "Absent real sanctions against the Saudi government for its transnational repression, MBS will read U.S. policy as a 'green light' to continue committing abuses at home and abroad while enjoying generous U.S. military, diplomatic, and political support."
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