Two key points the discussion has mostly missed:
1) It has been a bipartisan Justice Department policy for years to attempt to establish that the First Amendment does not apply to non-US citizens
2) Why has the Trump administration chosen Mahmoud Khalil out of thousands of potential victims; about as problematic a test case as can be imagined?
First Amendment Protection
The outrageous arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil by Immigration Control Enforcement is a new front in the widespread attack on free speech on Palestine in the USA. Indeed free speech on Palestine is under severe attack throughout almost the entire western world.
There is no shortage of excellent commentary and analysis on the Khalil case and its multiple ramifications. The characterisation of criticism of Israel as anti-semitism, the fake narrative of a threat to Jewish students, the denial of the right to protest, the attack on academic freedom, these are all aspects of the case which shed a horrifying light on the devastating effect on civil liberties of explicit Zionist control of the political system.
The same can be said of the arbitrary detention, the lack of access to lawyers and the characterisation of dissent as “terrorism”.
But it has not been much discussed that the central legal issue in the case – whether non-US citizens have First Amendment rights or whether free speech only applies to US citizens – is not an innovation by the Trump administration.
That non-US citizens are not protected by the First Amendment was the key issue pursued by Biden’s Justice Department in the extradition hearings of Julian Assange.
Indeed it was the insistence of English Court of Appeal judge Dame Victoria Sharp that the US must confirm that Assange did have First Amendment protection, that led directly to the Biden administration dropping the case and agreeing a plea deal, rather than give the assurance which Sharp requested.
Key paragraphs of the relevant judgment are here
…
…
The British judges took the view that not to apply the First Amendment to non-citizens would breach the principle of non-discrimination (as guaranteed in the European Convention of Human Rights), and I am sure they were right.
This is a very worrying doctrine which the US Executive is attempting to enforce. But Trump did not initiate it – Biden tried it too, on Assange.
Why Mahmoud Khalil?
Thousands of foreign students in the USA have spoken out and demonstrated against the genocide in Gaza. I am sure that amongst them there will be one or two individuals who can plausibly be depicted as jihadist, who may indeed have actual anti-semitic tendencies and who are only in the US on a student visa.
So why pick on Mahmoud Khalil, who is none of these things?
He has a pregnant American wife and is in possession of a Green Card residency. Those factors may conceivably play into the First Amendment argument in his favour, if judges are looking to fudge the issue.
In addition to which, while he undoubtedly was in the leadership group of protestors at Columbia University, he appears to have played a responsible role in liaising with authorities. The cherry on the cake is that he is a former British Government employee, having worked in the British Embassy in Lebanon, on Syrian affairs.
This is where the story starts to become very murky. I was told by Resistance-linked contacts in Lebanon that not only was Khalil not viewed as pro-Resistance to Israel while there, he was believed to be involved in UK government attempts to undermine the Assad regime by promotion of jihadist groups.
Free Palestine TV, which is Lebanon-based, has the same information.
It is important to understand how deeply the UK has been involved in anti-Syrian activity in Lebanon. Training and equipping of al-Nusra/ISIS/HTS units was carried out by British special forces based at Rayak airbase in the Bekaa Valley, who were certainly still there in January after HTS conquered Damascus.
Contrary to some reports, Mahmoud Khalil would not have worked for MI6 in the Embassy. MI6 stations do not employ foreign nationals. He would have worked for the Political and Information Sections, under diplomats who cooperated closely with MI6 or in some instances were active “undeclared” members of MI6.
Middle East Eye describes Khalil’s role in the Embassy as a “programme manager” running Chevening scholarships. I know this programme extremely well. While I have no reason to doubt Khalil did this, it would amount to no more than 10% of anybody’s time and would not require the UK security clearance which the article states that Khalil received.
The simple truth is that anybody working in good faith in the British Embassy in Lebanon can be no friend of the resistance to Israel. Everything the British Embassy do in Lebanon is intrinsically linked to the overriding goal of promoting the interests of Israel, particularly through weakening Hezbollah, and this is especially true when it comes to programmes into Syria running out of Beirut.
So how did Khalil move from British government operative to Palestinian student activist?
And then, why on earth did the Trump regime pick him for its first high-profile deportation?
I can see three plausible explanations for Khalil’s behaviour:
1) He was never pro-British but was infiltrating the Embassy for the Palestinians
2) He was never pro-Palestinian but was infiltrating the protest movement for the British government
3) He was not very political but was moved recently to activism by the genocide in Gaza
Of these, option 3) seems to me the most plausible, though all are certainly possible.
It would be a delicious irony if the Trump regime had arrested a British agent by accident, but this seems to me unlikely. I do not think MI6 would run a Palestinian agent in the USA without informing the CIA – although they may have done if there were a specific concern that the CIA would leak the identity.
If Khalil were a British agent he could have been arrested for protection if there were concerns he had been “made”, or he could have been arrested because the Americans found out and were furious at not being informed. But I do not think these are the likely scenarios.
It seems to me much more probable that a once-complacent Khalil changed his mind and became more – righteously – radical due to the genocide in Gaza.
In which case the motive for choosing him as the target for arrest is very plain. Both the US and UK will be worried about revelations Khalil might make about support to jihadists in Syria from his time working on this in Lebanon. Whisking him into incommunicado detention, whilst maximum pressure is applied to persuade him to keep silent, is then an obvious move.
It is important for freedom of speech and for the rights in general of immigrants in the USA that Mr Khalil is free. It is obviously profoundly important for him and his family. I do not want anything I have written to detract from that.
But the puzzle of why such an extremely complicated target for the test case was chosen, when there exist far lower-hanging fruit, is one that needs to be considered. I hope I have offered some possible lines of thought you find useful.
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“In which case the motive for choosing him as the target for arrest is very plain. Both the US and UK will be worried about revelations Khalil might make about support to jihadists in Syria from his time working on this in Lebanon. Whisking him into incommunicado detention, whilst maximum pressure is applied to persuade him to keep silent, is then an obvious move.”
I’d agree with the above – and the US security services have one big bar of leverage over him – and that’s his pregnant American wife – I’d imagine he’ll co-operate to keep her safe.
Trump’s new National Sec advisor has long claimed US support for Al-Qaeda and other head choppers in Syria, most of this history is well documented in ‘Timber Sycamore’ here..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
Tulsi Gabbard reveals this during her Congressional hearing, she also blew the whistle on US involvement on this ‘Dirty war’.
“I hate that our leaders cozy up to Islamist extremists, calling them ‘rebels,” as Jake Sullivan said to Hillary Clinton, ‘al Qaeda is on our side in Syria.’
https://www.frontpagemag.com/tulsi-gabbard-warned-about-what-was-happening-in-syria/
Indeed Harry…10.000 Possibly 20.000 Massacred in Just One Week.. Sickening
Mahmoud Khalil‘s arrest is obviously a disgrace. I heartily hope he will soon be released, and can move on with his life.
Meanwhile, I think his case shouldn’t seem curious at all, but on the contrary rather predictable.
Why was he chosen, out of thousands others? Simply because he clearly stood out. The primary drive behind most of the Donald’s decisions is to show the whole world that he, POTUS and again, can do whatever he wants to whoever, whenever. Mahmoud Khalil was a perfect example. Green card, married to a citizen, soon father of an American child. If HE can be deported, anybody else can…
Don’t forget the Donald used to pretend Obama wasn’t American!
As we discuss this case, the Donald is also practicing blackmail with Vladimir. “An offer you just can’t refuse” about the ceasefire in Ukraine, with 50 percent of the rare earths profits as a payback!
The art of the deal implies a lot of bluffing. Presumably Mahmoud Khalil will be released sooner or later, but his much publicized example can deter many others from following his example.
Don’t forget Hillary used to pretend Obama wasn’t American!
In fact, don’t forget Obama used to pretend Obama wasn’t American (in the blurb for one of his autobiographies).
@Madison, that also occurred to me:
I’d heard reports that the USAmerican administration hasn’t the resources in ICE to do mass deportations, so is trying to terrorise as many people as possible, to drive them into isolation and make them less visible and less protected by neighbours etc. If you can smear people by ‘underground’ associations, part of your work is done, cheaply. And it makes collective action more difficult. And the problem looks more like it has been resolved. And they can maybe pick off a few individuals more easily.
But there are interesting aspects to this case. Maybe somebody inside the administration wants it to fail bigly, of course. According to Ronald Syme, there was so much infighting and betrayal in the Roman oligarchy LOLs. Then Emperor, not-LOLs.
The leader of HTS in Syria was formally a leader of Al Qaeda. When Syria’s vicious civil war erupted in 2011, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), sent Jolani to Syria to establish the Al-Nusra Front, a branch of Al Qaeda. He and his group are still on the terrorist lists in the US and UK. But because he has provided a useful service by toppling Assad he will never face justice, in fact whilst his goons chop the heads of minority groups in Syria, he is lauded by the UK/US. Anyone who merely offered verbal support for Hamas/Hezbollah could receive 14 years in prison. Offer support to a group responsible for 9/11 and mass murder in Syria and who are still on the terrorism list, then the UK/US will support you. You could not make it up.
Harry Law,
Let’s not tease the readers with a show of an ankle!
Let’s rip the bodice and let the goodies smack them in their faces!
Ready?
I heard a ‘strange’ tale, what do you make of it?
It goes like this:
‘ Mossad’s Syrian Imposter Yonatan Zvi-David aka Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani
by chloe » Mon May 18, 2020 10:03 am
“Mossad successfully embedded their mole Yonatan Zvi-David into top echelons of Al Qaeda, where he goes by nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani (al-Julani/al-Jolani).
The cover story Zvi-David used to infiltrate the terror group was that his name was Ahmed Hussein al-Shara, from the occupied Golan Heights in Syria.
Since that part of Syria is currently occupied by Israel, there was no way anyone could contradict the story about his origins.
In 2011, Abu Mohammed al-Julani was allowed by Abu Bakral-Baghdadi – later Islamic State (IS) Caliph – to establish al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Jabhat al-Nusra
2 years later, Yonatan Zvi David and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi tell out, after the former refused to merge his Al-Nusra into ISI under the new name Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
On 28 January 2017. Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani announced the creation of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, HTS (Assembly for the Liberation of the Levant).
He also claimed to have severed all ties to Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Israel then used its influence in the West, to have Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) labelled as “moderate Syrian rebels” by USA and Western media, thus allowing for HTS to receive funds, weapons and training from governments in the West.
Currently, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani is considered by some intelligence agencies in the West as a welcome alternative to President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.” ‘
I only have that one source at the moment ( note the year ) and await more – maybe Tulsi will spill these beans (no of course she wouldn’t) , maybe a whistleblower from within (pretty unlikely – they’d soon be suicided), so maybe we have to wait for some wikileaks revelation …
It would be easy to dismiss if ‘Julani’ could produce his birth certificate, parents and relatives and childhood school friends and photos etc.
It does seem that the current person of interest in CM’s article could well be part of such a subterfuge. Someone who needs a bigger ‘legend’ – for his future role as something or other, reservoir rat style.
I do know that shapeshifters through history change their names and backgrounds and often end up as the ‘aristos’ in the lands they conquer, with local names and titles to hide behind – such as the Maxwell clan (Hoch I believe!), and as every illegal apartheid entity’s PM as Richard Medhurst has broadcast in recent days.
There’s nothing to make of it. It’s just pure bullshit with zero evidence behind it.
Phew thanks that you cleared that up so quickly ‘Aule’.
“It would be easy to dismiss if ‘Julani’ could produce his birth certificate, parents and relatives and childhood school friends and photos etc.”
Which one of these are you?
Shame really another great Zionist supporting leader with Z in his name would be a darling for the CW media. Johnathan Z David. JayZeeDee?
Waves crest blossoms
Across the path and road,
Held by the Moonlight.
Chill Spring night, breath
Like smoke. Moon full,
Thoughts of Gaza.
Beutiful Thank You .
A Haiku I did the Other day –
Wests Mass Media
Fomenting Two Genocides
Heart Breaking Evil
Thanks for reposting Brian. All can say in response to yours is Yes. Have just got back from London Palestine march. Hope all well. Kind regards, JohnnyOh45
Well Done Johnny…Good on you….
I almost came to Blows with a Zionist in George Sqare ( It wouln’t Be a Fight Beacuse I would End It Fast ) .Because it was the third Protest that Same Individual aproached Me ..Had to tell him hard to Fuck off.
Yes the counter protesters are all up for genocide and the bombing/ starving of civilians.
Best wishes.
@Brianfujisan – Did you photograph the guy?
Fascinating deconstruction. Thank you.
Or rather than being non political previously might he be idealistic about working for democracy in the Middle East via British embassy?
Most refugees from Siria IME are anti Assad whether you like it or not, can’t blame them, that doesn’t mean they’re pro Islamist
It was a while ago now but I read a book called Rojava – I think – by two friends from the north of Syria who had faced terrible oppression from government cruelty, who were surprised when they moved to the south of the country and found people contented and welcoming and happy with the government. The difference was hard to explain and made it even harder when they returned home after realising that this was all supposedly the same country.
Craig,
You wrote:-
“The British judges took the view that not to apply the First Amendment to non-citizens would breach the principle of non-discrimination (as guaranteed in the European Convention of Human Rights), and I am sure they were right.”
Indeed, and so we can all now sensibly observe the double-standards and duplicity which is the Western world and its consistently professed upholding of values of freedom and equality.
P.S, The theory in and of itself is not necessarily flawed – but – the practice?
” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.*
Then again, perhaps not.
22 years after that, Aliens Acts.
USA adversarial democracy.
“Then again, perhaps not.”
As Orwell put it, “Some are more equal than others”
Skwawkbox posted this earlier:
Lawyers release video of Mahmoud Khalil abduction as 2nd protester kidnapped
Khalil’s illegal detention on show as Leqaa Kordia becomes second victim of fascist purge
https://skwawkbox.org/2025/03/15/lawyers-release-video-of-mahmoud-khalil-abduction-as-2nd-protester-kidnapped/
I have posted a machine translation of a German JACOBIN-interview with state official Melanie Schweizer here in the Gaza Forum:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/breaking-news-gaza-only/page/33/#post-103315
She was a probatory civil servant and lawyer working for the German Ministry of Labour until she got fired due to calling Israel a state of Apartheid and guilty of genocide. (I think I briefly mentioned it a couple of weeks ago.)
The case is of course not as peculiar and extreme as Khalil´s but the intent by power is the same.
The forces pushing for her dismissal were not originating with the Ministry but German right-wing tabloid BILD ZEITUNG. Which as we have discussed here in the past – obliges its employees to sign a paper which demands them to support among other things the German-US partnership and defend Israel.
I would assume that some of BILD´s staff attacking and smearing public personae in Germany are Israeli intelligence one way or the other.
The details of her case are shocking because obviously all predictability of legal decisions and protection thereof are null and void even for her working within government structures once Israel´s “reputation” is put into question.
That´s why Schwarz is planning on going to court. After all whenever she asked for council she was encouraged or at least confirmed in her actions to be concurring with interior regulations. When BILD came and started a social media campaign against her this however turned out to be meaningless.
Important detail: she was running in the national elections for a party critical of Israel, MERA 25. This was the framework for the clash with BILD. However she had every right, naturally, to participate in the election.
“the fake narrative of a threat to Jewish students, the denial of the right to protest, the attack on academic freedom, these are all aspects of the case which shed a horrifying light on the devastating effect on civil liberties of explicit Zionist control of the political system.”
Zionists aren’t in control, they are the tools of the boss class doing their dirty work.
Squeeth – You can do better than that. A tool has no agency. Is that what you mean?
The boss class are, by and large, Zionists.
The boss class exists all around the world.
The best way to view Zionism in this context is as an organisation.
Similarly the Wo Shing Wo triads are an organisation, the British state is an organisation, so are Cosa Nostra, etc.
I’m not sure those who own mainland China give a toss about Zionism one way or the other, except that when gangsters send a tentacle to a patch they prefer to talk to who’s in control or at least working for them. So in Britain and where the British state has a presence they talk to the poshboy regime boys.
It’s interesting that Zionist control over the western tip of Eurasia and the northern part of America is becoming ever more open. It could become even more so, e.g. before and during a major global cull. This is indicated by all the “AI” sh*t, which effectively means “Reserve army of labour? We don’t need a stinking reserve army of labour, not during this rationalisation we don’t!” Pretty obvious that the Zionists, shall we put it like this, won’t put their heads in the sand.
President Trump has had many ludicrous and politically impossible ideas, notably the annexation of Greenland and the incorporation of Canada into the US state etc. Similarly his threat to ethnically cleanse Gaza to other states in the world is similar to ideas the Nazis had for European Jews in the 1940’s.
“The Madagascar Plan (German: Madagaskarplan) was a plan proposed by the Nazi German government to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar. Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office, proposed the idea in June 1940, shortly before the Fall of France. The proposal called for the handing over of control of Madagascar, then a French colony, to Germany as part of the eventual peace terms”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan
But a broken clock is right twice a day, hence Mark Rutte has rolled over to Trumps plans (marching orders) i.e., no admission of NATO for Ukraine, I hope Rutte can convince the other UK and European lapdogs to cease the war talk (Starmer…boots on the ground and planes in the air) and Ursula’s 800 billion Euro war chest. Will they see common sense after one million Ukrainian dead? Or will they realize that Trump will make a deal with Putin not only on Russian Natural resources but also on those Ukrainian Natural minerals the UK thought they had tied up in their 100 year deal. As a US Neocon State department employee once said “F–k the EU”.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/rutte-confirms-nato-membership-ukraine-table-hints-future-normalization-russia
Regardless of outcome the 800B will remain. Simply because the elites have no other serious plan. It´s the only way to steal which is left. And as long as our media are in lockstep people will not take to the streets to protest. And even that would be fruitless. Either militant resistance, use of force, or no resistance at all.There is no other way.
I did hold hopes for a few years after 9/11 and due to the short rise of a “left”. But those have entirely been shattered. Either armed mass resistance or the demise of European society.That´s my sad conclusion of what has been happening here since 2021.
Agreed but it won’t start off as mass.
No, of course it won´t.
But looking into how “democracy” is being handled in a way that a certain outcome is always being secured I figure the only method to actually enforce change would be force applied/threatened by a mass. It´s however merely theoretical.
Armed resistance in the kind of conditions that prevail in Britain etc. can only start with a small minority and it may stay that way for quite a while to put it mildly. It’s not like in Algiers in the 1950s where much of the population supported armed resistance, or West Germany plus West Berlin in the 1970s where quite a lot of people were positive about the Red Army Faction, or in Gaza [*] or Jenin now in the 2020s where practically the entire population support it.
* I’m not suggesting everyone in Gaza is keen on the Hamas leadership or its decisions – doubtless many are critical – but I’m quite sure almost everyone a) has deep respect for the courageous guys in lower and middle ranks of Hamas etc. who have been risking their lives and who in many cases have lost their lives in the fight against the genocidal occupiers, and b) given a choice between Hamas etc. keeping their guns or being disarmed, people would prefer them to keep their guns. Which in less verbose words means almost everyone supports the existence of an armed resistance network.
Meanwhile in Britain, most of the sheeple will believe and do anything they’re told by someone who speaks with authority in a posh accent.
@Harry Law – I don’t understand why you think the idea of removing the Palestinians from Gaza is “ludicrous” or “politically impossible”. Other parts of the world and indeed of Palestine specifically have been “ethnically cleansed”.
Evil, certainly, and a crime against humanity, but by no means impossible, unless you mean that many of those deported or captured supposedly ready for deportation might not arrive where they are (to certain audiences) being described as being sent to, in which case I would agree.
Trump has kicked out the South African ambassador.
And now German papers say that SA has no one else to turn to than… ahem… Europe…
The SA response is so sad. Why don’t they kick the head of the US mission in Pretoria out. Instead, the SA foreign ministry links on its website to a message the SA president asked Elon Musk’s company X to circulate for them, and it links to a report of the same message that it issued on a CIA website (Facebook).
If they get any more obsequious, they’ll ask Trump to post their “We regret what happened” message on the side of Trump Tower.
https://dirco.gov.za/#
The following countries have banned both Facebook and X:
China
Russia
Iran
Turkmenistan
North Korea
So all SA has to do is to join the BRICS majority. (Brazil banned X but unfortunately lifted the ban.)
On the banning I must disagree. It is not a solution. Never was.
Who decides what is good what is bad?
What IS good, bad?
WHY are we afraid of bad?
And when does the definition change ordered by whom?
Trust me on this one. I live in Germany.
It´s a fucking mess.
Once the genie is out of the bottle your First Amendment is done with.
Of course CIA has been using this very path to infiltrate societies.
But if your society “functions” i.e. your elites “function” which eventually means there are NO elites you need not fear. Which is my main criticism of the Russian government. Next to the penal system which however has made major progress in contrast to the US prison industrial system. Or – as far as I know – France e.g.
“Who decides what is good what is bad?”
The prior question is what is good and what is bad.
The rulers are all in favour of “freedom” for the exploited to be exploited and distracted from their exploitation. How can that be criticised if you just say everyone should be able to do what they want? I don’t care about the first amendment which has always been bullsh*t. Quite aside from all regimes being illegitimate, including the USA one, the first amendment to that regime’ s constitution dates to a time (late 18th century) when in some parts of the USA it was illegal to teach a slave to read and write, or for a slave to be caught with a book – crimes punishment with whipping, having fingers chopped off, etc.
What respect can one possibly have for slaveowners who put “freedom of expression” into their “law” but whipped or mutilated any slave they caught reading?
There was and is freedom of expression if what you’re expressing doesn’t undermine the ruling class and specifically the local arrangement.
The armed stuggle when it comes simply can’t use Facebook etc.
Of course when I write First Amendment that is in lieu of the complex of laws defining unrestricted freedom of speech as of today.
The issue is this: if you abandon the divine, the human spirit is the only and last authority over anything happening.
That includes the decision over what can be expressed and what not.
If there is no God we must settle ourselves via discourse.
If all humans are equal all their individual opinions are equal.
From there you build up the process.
This of course must happen in conjunction with the control of capital.
You might argue this is pure theory.
That may be the case. But so is essentially all law.
So eventually we must try and circle back to the ideal layout of unhinged freedom of speech constantly after each new setback.
Or to quote – whether it was Voltaire or not I don´t know for sure – “I will die protecting your right to make public your opinion even if I hate what you have to say.”
I have all the sympathy for the Russian cause. But having defeated or pacified the billionaire class of the 1990s doesn´t mean there are no wealthy Russian groups trying to extort riches from the country e.g. by media leverage i.e. control of public opinion.
I do not care about J.D. Vance, he is like any opportunist in the empire. But if he tells Europe “your democracy is not strong if you cannot handle opposing views” this is true for any society Russian included.
What difference would it make if Russia had not banned any media? This is not a rhetorical question.
I am for the first time in my life unsure of how to judge antiwar movements in this case in Russia.
I do believe that Russia truly is under an existential threat by the West. So if true to my assessment I must agree that the country under threat has to go to war to defend the country´s integrity.
Do or do I not draw then the necessary consequences – that war is necessary to stop that existential threat?
For me this has become a huge issue since 2022 as I have learned more and more about the war.
So if I think the country can only survive if it repels and destroys the threat can I then oppose that same country doing just that, for instance as a protester against the war?
Is there a peaceful solution to end the threat? No there is not. (One has to establish some pillars here.) So what remains then?
That is an insoluble contradiction for me because I would not want to go to the front myself.
Andrei Martyanov had a fascinating story about a Russian war hero, an officer, who led his unit several times into most dangerous territory. This man was highly educated in the sciences and I assume other private interests too such as philosphy or literature.
But he became a soldier. Even if he most likely would have found a way to dodge the service.
But he did not.
Would I follow his example? Knowing to be true about the geopolitical conundrum of this war the way he does. So we would agree? No I would not. So I am what? An opportunis? A liar? A coward?
But within all this I would always uphold the unlimited freedom of speech.
Because I too could reach my personal conclusion only by turning to sources that are nowhere to be found in Germany – may be even banned.
Revenge of the Elon. He clearly could no longer see his birth country arguing against ethnic cleansing in Palestine. While Vladimir feigns to examine “nuances” about the Ukraine ceasefire, other issues are temporarily ignored, and this suits the ruling elite on both sides of the board. The SA ambassador is certainly a very good red herring…
Craig, from what you have said it seems most likely that his allegiance has shifted due to the genocide in Gaza. So, worst case scenario, he’s a likely candidate for Trumps extended prison in Cuba.
Thanks for providing information that the mainstream media chose to ignore.
Thirty-six states in the US have penalized anyone seeking to either boycott Israel or accept doing so, sometimes to include denial of government jobs or benefits. the Department of Justice has dispatched a Task Force to four American cities (New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles) to investigate the problem of antisemitism and Palestinian protests. The Zionists are running amok in the US and Europe, getting anyone who supports Palestinians doxed, excluded from debate, denied employment or arrested. It is all reminiscent of the McCarthy era, now they might say, “Are you now, or have you ever been, a critic of Israel and a supporter of Palestine?” then you must suffer all the above, whilst Zionists dance on their political graves. Just ask Jeremy Corbyn and Craig Murray.
News Just in…NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether Columbia University concealed “illegal aliens” on its campus, one of its top officials said Friday, as the Trump administration intensified its campaign to deport foreigners who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school last year.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/columbias-mahmoud-khalil-felt-being-062357590.html
Have they no sense of decency?
Did they ever?
I think your third option is probably closest to the truth, the other side of the coin being that he has been simply caught up in the maw of Trump’s war on dissent – of any kind – and the granting of power to all kinds of deeply unpleasant, vindictive individuals, who are easily manipulated by the zionist lobby and the rightwing diehards via the oligarchy of the social media overlords. In other words, a patsy in this war on truth and free speech. There are thousands of others who don’t make the news.
To gain further insight into the dystopia which the Trump/Musk axis are methodically building, this is a very good article on the systematic destruction of any checks and balances in the system, including the removal of any individuals who have sought to stem the tide of date theft and illegal access to nuclear oversights, climate research, medical research, economic and industrial data etc etc:
https://substack.com/inbox/post/157053828
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
And if I may, here is another passage from Arendt’s incredibly prescient book, which emphasises the issue at stake here and overwhelmingly in the Palestinian massacres – ie the innocent of the people arrested, tortured and killed:
“We are not concerned here with the ultimate consequence of rule by terror—namely, that nobody, not even the executors, can ever be free of fear; in our context we are dealing merely with the arbitrariness by which victims are chosen, and for this it is decisive that they are objectively innocent, that they are chosen regardless of what they may or may not have done.”
Arendt is pointing out that the innocence of people like Khalil, and in the wider context the population of Gaza and the West Bank, is the very reason they are so viciously attacked. The overall passage is about the use of terror and fear:
“A fundamental difference between modern dictatorships and all other tyrannies of the past is that terror is no longer used as a means to exterminate and frighten opponents, but as an instrument to rule masses of people who are perfectly obedient. Terror as we know it today strikes without any preliminary provocation, its victims are innocent even from the point of view of the persecutor.”
Arendt, of course, had witnessed it at first hand, and spent the rest of her life, thinking deeply what she had lived through. Gives you the chills.
Also it is well known that, while physical pain is very effective at breaking a tortured person’s will, a sense of injustice is also a very effective source of mental pain, e.g. telling the victim to stand completely still under threat of physical punishment, then nudging them so that they move and beating them for doing the forbidden thing.
“the tide of date theft” Agreed, date theft is a very serious crime, especially when the victim is still a bachelor. And on the rise, if I dare say so…
Otherwise, like a good old chestnut, Hannah Arendt is always available when one needs a very thoughtful quote about ethics and politics. Fortunately, Donald and Elon think Hannah Arendt is a chain of cookies stores…
Interesting article, I didn’t hear from anyone else about Khalil’s involvement with the British.
It seemed to me to be a case of the Trump administration testing the waters, seeing what they could get away with. Khalil was – they considered – a sufficiently unsympathetic figure, particularly after they and their stooges in the press had smeared him.
The habitually weak response from the Dems played right into their hands, with the useless Check Schumer, minority leader in the Senate, feeling obliged to pay homage to Israel, condemn Hamas etc. for the first 45 seconds of his statement against the disappearing of Khalil.
Once the story blows over, no doubt, Trump’s lot will start making moves against others making use of free speech that they don’t like. It certainly happens a lot in the UK – Vance was right about that – but then they go straight on to do the same and worse back home. People like Vance use the truth as some thief uses a stolen bicycle – hop on and peddle it while it’s useful to them, and quickly abandon it once it’s served its purpose.
And then there is this new at Scheerpost:
“Professor at Center of Columbia University Deportation Scandal Is Former Israeli Spy”
By Alan MacLeod / MintPress News
https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/15/professor-at-center-of-columbia-university-deportation-scandal-is-former-israeli-spy/
“Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, head of the School of International and Public Affairs, is a former Israeli military intelligence officer and official at Israel’s Mission to the United Nations. Yarhi-Milo played a significant role in drumming up public concern about a supposed wave of intolerable anti-Semitism sweeping over the campus, thereby laying the groundwork for the extensive crackdown on civil liberties that has followed the protests.
(…)
Before entering academia, Dr. Yarhi-Milo served as an officer and an intelligence analyst with the Israeli Defense Forces. Given that she was recruited into the intelligence services because of her ability to speak Arabic fluently, her job likely entailed surveilling the Arab population.
After leaving the world of intelligence, she worked for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. While there, she met and married her husband, Israel’s official United Nations spokesperson.
Although she is now an academic, she has never left the world of international security, making the subject her area of expertise.”
I’d add the 4th possibility: FBI tried to recruit Khalil as an informer or a provocateur to infiltrate the protest movement; he refused and got sacked. He may talk about this if he is deported, then he’s got nothing to lose.
Please don’t rule out a 5th possibility.
Khalil was successfully recruited a couple years ago as an informer for the FSB. He eventually got spotted as such by US intelligence, and the Donald agreed to his momentary detention, meanwhile telling Vladimir “no worries, we won’t charge him, just send him back“.
You do not understand how intelligence works. Informers are disposable assets, career agents do not protect them. If an informan is burned, FSB (CIA, FBI, MI6 etc) do not care what happens to him.
(yeah, I know, you are just trying to be funny)
Just gauging the dynamics of turbulence in our current political upheaval is challenging. Government by consent requires a level of trust, and non compliance needs clearly defined risk. All of this was clear before Trump. We may have regarded the immorality of war as a reason to seek a better way to devolve resources, and had established pathways to posit alternative positions, but there is a power grab happening which seems to be coming from left field. Press censorship and legal apprehension and imprisonment of ethical protestors, seem to be acting in support of global petrochemical power, as in the context of environmental issues, and Gaza’s gas, and Nordstream.
Russia in Syria was primarily protecting its pipeline, but secondarily, was keeping the status quo largely unchanged. Kissinger created the original agreement with Putin that Russia would protect Israel and Iran from each other. After Kissinger relinquished the negotiating position, Netanyahu was the one who would go to Moscow to meet with Putin and renegotiate to allow the taking of the Golan Heights, for example. This was a tense time as Russian planes closely monitored the action as it took place. The massive shift from this stability, which Biden achieved in his final days as president, has completely removed that peacekeeping function which Russia was providing for the protection of Israel and prevention of an invasion of Iran. The fate of Russia’s Syria pipeline is unknown but the Saudi backed head choppers will have the necessary expertise to manage the resources of Syria, under the benign influence of the US.
So, taking into consideration the thirty years ago Kissinger plan for Russia, and any other nations or blocs that might compete successfully with the US for global resources, the tables, as one might say, seem to have turned. Russia’s peace keeping role has ended. Europe is abandoned by its former NATO leadership and is scrambling for a foothold in the new power dynamics – which have been fed propaganda from the Far Right and its Zionist component, Trump is finalising the extraction of Ukrainian resources for American business interests, and Ukraine has served its purpose. Starmer is an idiot if he thinks that stealing Russian oligarchs’ money is a good idea, but no doubt the bankers who control him, and control putting us all into debt, have greedily advised him in this stupidity. Where is Britain’s reputation as the global money laundering centre of the world if countries can lose their money on a political whim?
Europe is in turmoil as countries re-examine where their own national interests must lie. Brexit has wrecked our national economy, as planned by the global monetary interests which have hoovered up our national resources and will soon get the bulk of the Crown Estate to further dispossess Britain of its resources. Eastern Europe views Putin more favourably than France and Germany do, and Scandinavia fears a Russian invasion and is keen to join NATO now, though Greenland and Denmark may be part of that deal. This instability is in the abrupt cessation of Biden’s successful reordering of the Middle East and the borders of Europe and Russia by events in Ukraine. So where do we go from here? Assuming my analysis here holds up to evidence…
“Just gauging the dynamics of turbulence in our current political upheaval is challenging.”
You have very clearly developed what seems unquestionable as of today. Whether it can still hold water tomorrow is still unclear. The Donald’s administration is possibly good-looking but certainly not very dependable…
If it’s true that the arresting officers told him his visa would be revoked, not knowing that he doesn’t have a visa, then maybe he was chosen more or less at random by incompetent morons, and not carefully selected by cunning fiends.
Greenland has been mentioned here a few times. Does this blog have a take on the Greenland independence movement?
Unlike Scotland, Greenland really is a colony.
And the Danish colonial masters’ oppression of Greenlandic people isn’t limited to when they are in Greenland itself. See the “parenting competency” tests that are applied to Greenlandic families in Denmark as “justification” for stealing their children in forced adoptions.
Of course forced adoptions are also carried out in Britain on a large scale. See for example the ongoing persecution of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon by the British state. It is sad that opposition isn’t much stronger. Here too, as in Denmark, official child thefts have a racist bias.
I would be all in favour of Greenland independence, were it not for the concern that the island would be open to being taken over by the USA, militarised, or turned into a plaything for a multi-billionaire, making for a fire even worse than the frying-pan. To paraphrase Ho Chi Minh, it may be preferable to sniff a little more Danish sh*t now than to eat USA sh*t for a lifetime.[*] But this type of consideration shouldn’t obscure the very real fact of colonial oppression.
Note
* Vietnamese anti-colonialist Ho Chi Minh said he’d rather sniff French sh*t for five years than eat Chinese sh*t for a lifetime. A parallel may be drawable with the emancipation of India and the Indo-Pakistani war, by those more knowledgeable than I am about that region.
Just checked out Al Jazeera to see what the latest is re Gaza and came across the following, posted yesterday (Sunday):
Netanyahu moves to dismiss head of Shin Bet over lack of ‘trust’
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says he no longer has ‘trust’ in the head of the domestic security agency.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will bring a vote to the government to dismiss the director of the Shin Bet domestic security service.
In a statement from Netanyahu’s office on Sunday, the prime minister said he has had an “ongoing distrust” for Ronen Bar and that trust in the head of the domestic security service is crucial at a time of war….
“The dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet is a desperate attempt by a criminal defendant to get rid of someone who is loyal to Israel and who is investigating Netanyahu and his close circle for serious and dark offences and is not willing to whitewash them,” Golan said.
“The dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet will not pass as if nothing happened. There will be tremendous resistance, we will fight with force and will not allow Netanyahu to turn the State of Israel into a dictatorship of a corrupt man,” he added.
The decision to dismiss Bar comes after an angry dispute between the two, which focused on who bears responsibility for October 7….
The tensions boiled over this weekend when Bar’s predecessor, Nadav Argaman, said he would release sensitive information about Netanyahu if it is found that the prime minister had broken the law.
Netanyahu accused Argaman of blackmail and filed a police complaint.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/16/netanyahu-moves-to-dismiss-head-of-shin-bet-over-lack-of-trust
And also this, posted yesterday as well:
‘I was a human shield’: What Israeli soldiers did to a Gaza father
Yousef al-Masri spent several terrifying days forced to clear rooms for heavily armed Israeli soldiers.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/16/i-was-a-human-shield-what-israeli-soldiers-did-to-a-gaza-father
Choosing Mahmoud Khalil in order to stop him from possibly revealing to the pro-Palestinian resistance the British connections to both the anti-Assad forces in Syria and to the Israeli government (with the possibility also that the takfiris and the Israeli security structures were in contact and even sharing information during the West’s war against Syria) seems very plausible, thanks to CM’s exposition here.
But the choice of Khalil over other, apparently easier “low-hanging fruit” targets might not require much explanation. The British may simply be afraid that Khalil could spill the beans on their support for overthrowing Assad and installing the jihadis in his place, and their support for Israel’s genocide, and any consequences that might result once the general public realises that the same people in the British government and its agencies were likely involved in both Syria and Israel. And Khalil can easily be blackmailed into silence – all the British have to do to silence him is threaten his wife and unborn child through the CIA or any other organisation or group in the US they have infiltrated. If anything can be considered “low-hanging fruit”, ripe for manipulation and blackmail, Khalil qualifies easily.
If it was easy for British Labour to infiltrate the US Democrats in the US Presidential elections in 2024, how easy might it be for MI6 or any other British organisation to infiltrate any other significant US agency?
Jen
Regards Khalil spilling the beans (potentially), I ‘m sure the PTB know that they can depend on the MSM to omit to mention it (if he were to do so), just as the MSM have done on many other occasions, as with the fact that only one (Israeli) baby was killed on October 7th. I wouldn’t expect them to explicitly call out the 40 beheaded babies story for the falsehood and atrocity propaganda it is/was of course, but they could mention the figures and a breakdown of age groups, as the Times of Israel did in an article on Decenber 4th, 2023:
Partial data by Hebrew media covering the civilians… reveals that they include two infants, 12 other children under the age of 10, 36 civilians aged 10-19, and 25 elderly people over the age of 80, accounting for 75 of the 764 civilians.
The ToI piece refers to ‘partial data’, but that was in fact just about it. And despite what they said – so as to muddy the waters – it would surely be obvious to anyone who gave it a teeny-weeny bit of thought, that if there WERE forty beheaded babies, they would have been identified long before December 4th.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/14-kids-under-10-25-people-over-80-up-to-date-breakdown-of-oct-7-victims-we-know-about/
This France 24 (AFP) article published on December 15th, 2023, didn’t make a headline issue of it, but about half-way into the article it says the following, albeit under the following headline and sub-headline:
Israel social security data reveals true picture of Oct 7 deaths
Jerusalem (AFP) – A more precise picture of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel has emerged from social security data, confirming the unprecedented scale of the violence but also challenging some initial testimonies.
The identities and ages of civilian victims are available via Bituah Leumi, Israel’s social security agency.
Its website lists 695 people killed during the attack, with names and the circumstances of their deaths.
Among them are 36 children, including 20 under 15 years old and 10 killed by rockets.
The youngest victim was 10-month-old Mila Cohen, shot and killed at Kibbutz Beeri….
The data gives a clear picture of the scale of the atrocities at the Supernova music festival in Reim where 364 people were killed.
But it also invalidates some statements by Israeli authorities in the days following the attack.
In particular, a claim made on October 10 on the government’s official X (formerly Twitter) account spoke of “40 babies murdered” at Kfar Aza kibbutz, based on a report by i24NEWS channel.
Questioned by AFP the following day, Israel’s foreign ministry, which runs the X account, said it could not “confirm any number at this stage”.
According to Bituah Leumi, 46 civilians were killed in Kfar Aza, the youngest 14 years old.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths
As for the ‘Trauma and ‘misinterpretation” stuff that follows on from the above, it is of course complete and utter B/S (as I’m sure France 24 and the AFP knew), and a feeble and pathetic excuse to try and cover their atrocity propaganda in relation to Hamas.
Khalil may have been treated as low-hanging fruit because he did not have the protection of citizenship. A judge has blocked his deportation, but, particularly if his green card cannot be restored by a judge’s decision, people in a similar position might do well to become citizens before engaging in public activity in the US disliked by the administration or by Israel.
Also came across the following on Al Jazeera earlier, posted on the 14th (and my apologies if one or more people posted about it in this thread at the time):
Columbia expels, suspends students after government threats: What we know
Move comes after Columbia was targeted in federal funding cuts last week.
Columbia University has expelled, suspended or revoked degrees of students who occupied a campus hall during pro-Palestinian demonstrations in April 2024, the university said on Thursday….
The move is the university’s response to a crackdown on student activists in the United States who led pro-Palestine demonstrations last year amid Israel’s war on Gaza, and called for their schools to cut financial ties with Israel.
It also comes after the government cut $400m in federal funding for Columbia on March 7. The university was one of 60 institutions threatened with further cuts in a letter from US authorities this week.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/14/columbia-expels-suspends-students-after-government-threats-what-we-know
Federal agents raid Columbia dorm rooms as university expels students
Columbia University and the US Department of Homeland Security are continuing their crackdowns on pro-Palestinian student protesters. The university suspended or expelled multiple students, and the Justice Department says it’s now examining if protests violated terrorism laws.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2025/3/14/federal-agents-raid-columbia-dorm-rooms-as-university-expels-students#flips-6370047222112:0
And there was also this, from three days ago (which I don’t think anyone has mentioned):
US, Israel want to displace Palestinians from Gaza to East Africa: Report
Officials from US and Israel say governments of Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland have been asked to take in people of Gaza.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/14/us-and-israel-look-to-africa-for-resettling-palestinians-uprooted-from-gaza
WSWS also posted about it, and they point out the following:
Somalia has one of the lowest Human Development Index rankings in the world, with widespread poverty, food insecurity and lack of access to healthcare and education. Sudan has experienced decades of civil war, triggering ethnic killings, sexual violence and mass displacement affecting millions of people.
Echoing Nazi “Madagascar plan,” US and Israel seek to displace Palestinians to East Africa
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/03/15/bjgu-m15.html
The US and Israel are too scared to try deporting Palestinians to Afghanistan and Yemen.
Apologies (for so many posts and links to articles), but I’ve only just got round to reading this one (saved to a new tab earlier, as with about eight or nine other articles on Al Jazeera), and HAVING read it now, I just have to post it…. It didn’t occur to me what the headline was alluding to, but now I know:
Gaza’s silent epidemic
Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita and has been rendered incapable of taking care of them.
Hadeel Awad
A writer and a nurse based in Gaza.
Published On 15 Mar 2025
It has been two months since the ceasefire started in Gaza. Palestinians are still being killed by the Israeli army, but the relentless bombardment has stopped – at least for now. Much-needed aid that was allowed into the Strip was cut off two weeks ago.
What entered in the previous month and a half could hardly resuscitate the collapsed healthcare system in Gaza. So many hospitals and clinics have been destroyed, especially in the north, that humanitarian organisations have had to set up tents to provide basic care for hundreds of thousands of survivors. The medical supplies that came in are already running out.
Amid this continuing torment, the healthcare system in Gaza cannot even begin to recover, much less address the multiple health crises plaguing the civilian population. One of the worst among them is the shocking number of amputees that Israel’s indiscriminate use of explosive weapons for 15 months has left behind.
According to the World Health Organization, as of September 2024, 22,500 people in Gaza had sustained life-altering injuries since October 7, 2023, including severe limb injuries, amputations, spinal cord trauma, traumatic brain injuries and major burns.
At the height of the genocidal war, aid agencies and medical organisations were reporting that more than 10 children were losing one or two limbs every day in Gaza. Many were undergoing the operation without anaesthesia and many of these limbs could have been saved had the healthcare system not been completely decimated. In December, the UN said Gaza has the “highest number of child amputees per capita in the world”.
In July 2024, while on a field visit to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, I witnessed firsthand how one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza was struggling to help those who had sustained injuries from explosive weapons. When I arrived at the hospital, there were many people injured due to several bombings.
I rushed to help as there was a severe shortage of staff. The first patient I attended to was an injured girl named Tala who was four years old. She had lost one of her legs due to the bombing and was crying and screaming intensely….
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/3/15/gazas-silent-epidemic
Hadeel Awad is a writer and a nurse based in Gaza. She used to work at Al Shifa hospital until it was raided by the Israeli army in November 2023
PS Hadeel sounds just like a human animal, doesn’t she, just like the kids in the BBC documentary film!.
Adam Tooze has published a rebuttal by Columbia law experts as a reaction to the confrontation with the Trump Administration and in particular a list of demands the University is supposed to comply with.
As Tooze notes:
“(…)
Since the attacks on the Univesity began and particularly following the letter of March 13th, many of us have been craving a vigorous legal response to the Trump administration’s unprecedented campaign against our University. As far as the revocation of grants and the letter of March 13th is concerned, this has now come in the form of a memo by a powerful lineup of constitutional, administrative and antidiscrimination lawyers from the Columbia Law School originally posted to the Balkinization blog.
The rebuttal is devastating and comprehensive. It was a tonic to read. I reproduce it with permission below
(…)”
The attacking letter comes first. Then follows the rebuttal:
“(…)
Saturday, March 15, 2025
A Title VI Demand Letter That Itself Violates Title VI (and the Constitution)
David Pozen
By Kate Andrias, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Jamal Greene, Olatunde Johnson, Jeremy Kessler, Gillian Metzger, and David Pozen
(…)”
see:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-159183524
And on Khalil´s case, Ali Abunimah:
“Group claiming credit for Mahmoud Khalil arrest demanded “blood” of Gaza babies”
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/group-claiming-credit-mahmoud-khalil-arrest-demanded-blood-gaza-babies
“(…)A New York-based Zionist group that is taking credit for the Trump administration’s arrest of Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil may be raising funds without being registered as a charity, a violation of the law.(…)”
p.s. of course re: Columbia there is the question in how far they had been complicit in crimes promoted and carried out by the US State Department or the US empire as such. For instance in how far have they profitted of it.
And in how far does Columbia´s fate as an institution truly matter to the population at large. Is the freedom of academia and speech at stake in its highest most honorable form here?
This might also just be regarded as an inter-elite fight. Which by no means is intended as a justification of the Trump Admin´s actions.
But as was the case with MeeToo: The general exploitation of everyone not at the top in the entertainment industry – not just young *pretty* women – is part and parcel of the industry and has in essence not changed. The causes run much deeper. And neutering those would threaten the industry. The abuse is part of its function and its nature. Does such an analysis apply to Columbia too or not, at least in part?
Or as Americans like to say “the chickens come home to roost” – ?
Dennis Kucinich with his latest text on the history of Freedom of Speech in the U.S.
“American Spring? Uphold Freedom of Speech on American Campuses
Protect the First Amendment!”
Dennis Kucinich
Mar 16, 2025
https://kucinichreport.substack.com/p/american-spring-suppression-of-the?publication_id=1441588&post_id=159185413&isFreemail=true&r=6627&triedRedirect=true
p.s. Since he speaks about at least 46.000 dead Palestinians. There were fears of 400-500k in the summer. Then reduced. What is the real figure now?
Hamas had the known official figure at some 46,000 – which all western media, Zionist stooges, politicians etc. said was an exaggeration, lies, BS and so forth.
Then the health ministry arm of Hamas stopped counting some time back, because they weren’t able to do it any longer. This doesn’t even count those who were literally blown into red mist, died under rubble and so on.
But – lo and behold – western commentators are now taking that 46,000 figure as gospel, and that’s the figure to use. Because every honest observer knows it’s probably 10 times that number by now.
– which is exactly why I brought it up –
Chris Hedges puts the “war on education” by Trump into context:
“The U.S. president’s cuts to education under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism are an effort to enforce totalitarianism in the minds of future generations. Questions are not to be asked, myths are to be enforced.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/14/chris-hedges-trumps-war-on-education/
The introductory paragraphs:
“(…)
The attacks on colleges and universities — Donald Trump’s administration has warned some 60 colleges that they could lose federal money if they fail to make campuses safe for Jewish students and is already pulling $400 million from Columbia University — has nothing to do with fighting antisemitism.
Antisemitism is a smoke screen, a cover for a much broader and more insidious agenda. The goal, which includes plans to abolish the Department of Education and terminate all programs of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), is to turn the educational system, from kindergarten to graduate school, into an indoctrination machine.
Totalitarian regimes seek absolute control over the institutions that reproduce ideas, especially the media and education. Narratives that challenge the myths used to legitimize absolute power — in our case historical facts that blemish the sanctity of white male supremacy, capitalism and Christian fundamentalism — are erased.
There is to be no shared reality. There are to be no other legitimate perspectives. History is to be static. It is not to be open to reinterpretation or investigation. It is to be calcified into myth to buttress a ruling ideology and the reigning political and social hierarchy. Any other paradigm of power and social interaction is tantamount to treason.
“One of the most significant threats that a class hierarchy can face is a universally accessible and excellent public school system,” writes Jason Stanley in Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future:
(…)”
If “fascism” is always the appropriate and helpful term is a matter for itself. I find it overused by Hedges. Whose training in the seminary not always is only of help for his work and verdicts.
Albeit other topics, but on Ukraine he was predicting mass deaths of civilians on the scale of Vietnam and carpet bombing as we have seen it in Iraq. None of it happened.
Also – for whatever divine intervention – his doomsaying on Assange´s future did not – fortunately – materialize.
Norman Finkelstein might have his own views on the fate of Columbia. He did say that if anyone meant fascism as what it really is and that if the US are a fascist country by now they should go underground and hide from the fascists´ police forces. Because that´s what leftists do when their life is in danger.
Prove once again the power of the israel lobby in the US because this witchhunt all started last year when zionist groups like “Betar” put pro-palestinian students on list, a list that they then gave to the White House:
“US Jewish group targets anti-Israel protesters in hopes Trump will deport them
Right-wing Betar movement uses artificial intelligence tool to identify foreign students involved in anti-Israel action on college campuses”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-jewish-group-targets-anti-israel-protesters-in-hopes-trump-will-deport-them/
And the other day they bragged being behind the campaign:
“A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/14/israel-betar-deportation-list-trump
Quite kafkaesque, when people protesting against a genocide is considered the problem.
If the lousy arab world had any self-respect they would respond in kind, kicking out americans.
The dealer-in-chief Donald has publicly admitted that he has already agreed with Vladimir to “divide up certain assets” in Ukraine, regardless of what Ukrainian current authorities may consent or not. Vae victis, for the rare Latin students still around.
Sounds very promising. We can reasonably expect the next episode of this bromance to deal with sharing property in the future Middle East Riviera soon to replace the Gaza disaster area.
Madison,
Trump works on the basis of ‘win-lose’ – so – woe to the vanquished indeed – be this Gaza or Ukraine.
Correct. And so does his counterpart.
Congrats, you seem to be very familiar with predators, whichever banner they pretend to uphold.