Showing posts with label Apartheid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apartheid. Show all posts

Saturday, February 05, 2022

Apartheid is Real.

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

 



 

Illustration:  I've missed the prolific Carlos Latuff. Anyone know what happened to him? Did Bolinsonaro get after him? Just miss his work.

 

APARTHEID AGAIN RECOGNIZED IN ISRAEL

BY

HONEST CHARLIE

 

          We honestly thought we had said about all we needed to or could about Israel as hey have kept on providing only more and moor examples of a fascist state, never missing a beat or opportunity, We realize, however, that our readership has expanded and some have joined since the last time we mentioned the Zionist State and become tired of their only response to anything negative: "That's anti-Semitic" or, the tired (and erroneous) statement "Israel has a right to defend itself." The first ignores the fact that the Arabs are also Semitic, and the second used to justify invasions, killings, attacks, arbitrary incarcerations, and any other form of outrage one can point to[i].

I've read people I trust who actually went there and left with disgust as the other young soldiers demeaned the indigenous population. Also, they didn't want any holocaust survivors to have say in what happened as they would "be too soft" having known what they were doing. Finally, they (the invaders) would never accept the Kantian position that one should act as he would will others to act, and that the Axiom was reciprocal.

 

Well, now Amnesty International has decided Israel is an apartheid state. Israel, of course, points out (can you hear it coming?) that Amnesty International is Anti-Semitic. Well, here is the background on that:

 

 

Amnesty International has become the third major human rights organization to accuse Israel of committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians in a new report released on Tuesday. Amnesty finds Israel's system of apartheid dates back to the country's founding in 1948 and has materialized in abuses including massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians — all of which constitute apartheid under international law. We speak with Amnesty International USA's executive director Paul O'Brien, who calls on the United States to "put pressure on the Israeli government to dismantle this system of apartheid," despite both the Biden administration and the Israeli government rejecting the report's findings.


Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Amnesty International, the world's largest human rights organization, has for the first time accused Israel of committing "the crime of apartheid against Palestinians." Amnesty becomes the third major human rights group to decry Israel's apartheid system over the past year, joining Human Rights Watch and the Israeli group B'Tselem. In its report, Amnesty says the roots of the apartheid system date back to Israel's founding in 1948. Amnesty unveiled their findings in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday. This is Amnesty's Secretary General Agnès Callamard.

AGNÈS CALLAMARD: We are here today to call on the international community to take resolute action against the crime of humanity being perpetrated in order to maintain the system of apartheid.

AMY GOODMAN: The Biden administration has joined the Israeli government in rejecting Amnesty's findings. Israel called the report "false and biased." The U.S. ambassador to Israel called the report "absurd."

In a moment, we'll be joined by Paul O'Brien, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, but first we turn to an excerpt of a new video produced by Amnesty.

NARRATOR: When you hear the word "apartheid," what do you think of? Probably the disturbing images of racial segregation between whites and Blacks in South Africa, where a regime ruled by a racist white minority declared themselves officially superior to the Black majority, then proceeded to dominate them. South Africa's apartheid system officially ended in the mid-1990s, but that doesn't mean apartheid can't happen elsewhere.

Here, in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Palestinians are being forced off their land and out of their homes, separated and segregated by laws, walls and checkpoints. They live in a constant state of fear and insecurity, and deliberately impoverished, while, on the other hand, Israeli authorities have given the Jewish Israeli population privilege over Palestinians in just about every facet of life. The question is: Does this all amount to the crime of apartheid?

First, the definition of "apartheid": The crime against humanity of apartheid is perpetrated when particular serious human rights violations are committed with the "purpose of establishing and maintaining" a system of "domination by one racial group … over [another] and systematically oppressing them."

But does this system exist in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories?

PHILIP LUTHER: There's been a growing debate about whether the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories is apartheid. And now is the time for us, as the world's largest human rights organization, to offer up our analysis. Our findings and criticism are directed not at the Jewish people, but at the Israeli state. It's the Israeli state that put in place the policies that implement the laws and the practices that oppress Palestinians.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Amnesty International's Philip Luther. Amnesty's video goes on to detail a history of the Israeli state, then document how Israel has implemented its apartheid system today.

NARRATOR: One way to understand this segregation and oppression is to look at the ID system. Jewish Israelis have only one ID card, with a status that grants them the rights to live almost anywhere they wish in the country. They can move freely with access to healthcare and vast resources. Palestinians, on the other hand, have four types of ID cards, if any at all. The kind of ID card you are given determines the level of rights you can enjoy and controls where you can go and what you can do.

If you hold a green card, you are subject to military rule. And if you have a green card with a Gaza address, it means you're trapped in a 365-kilometer-square open-air prison under Israeli military blockade in place since 2007. Israel controls what goes in and what goes out, from children's toys to medical supplies. Ninety percent of the people have no access to safe drinking water. Forty-seven percent are unemployed. Fifty-six percent live in poverty. Palestinians with a Gaza ID are forbidden from going to Jerusalem and the West Bank even if they have family there. Some people in the West Bank are considered to live there illegally and can be deported immediately to Gaza if found by the army, even if they have been in the West Bank for decades, whereas if you hold a green card which has a West Bank address, then you live here.

This green card means you can live within specific enclaves surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements. And there's a separation wall and fences built around you since 2002, which Palestinians call the "apartheid wall." It's eight meters high in places and 700 kilometers long. That's twice the height of the Berlin Wall and more than four times its length. Eighty percent of it is built inside the West Bank, occupying even more Palestinian land. There are separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians, hundreds of checkpoints scattered throughout, not to mention the 54 years of occupation which has devastated the lives of millions of Palestinians. Palestinians with a West Bank ID can travel to Gaza or East Jerusalem, but only if they receive a permit from the military to do so.

This blue ID is for Palestinians in East Jerusalem. They can travel to the occupied West Bank, as well as to Israel, but they are not citizens of Israel. They have only been granted a residency status. This means that they cannot vote in Israeli national elections. And if they leave East Jerusalem for too long — for example, to study or work abroad or in other parts of the occupied West Bank — their residency is revoked, so they can't return. Since 1967, Israel has revoked the residency status of more than 14,600 Palestinians from East Jerusalem.

If this complex ID system wasn't enough to segregate the Palestinian community, in 2002 Israel introduced a law that prohibits family unification. That's right, denying Palestinians the right to live with their loved ones if their ID cards are different. And this woman is one of thousands of Palestinians who Israel will not issue any ID card. She can't travel, can't hug her family, only see them meters away across the border.

Putting down roots, the family home, these are crucial parts of what make a strong community. To make sure Palestinian communities can't develop any further, Israel has made it almost impossible to grant building permits for Palestinian homes. So, Palestinians live in a Catch-22 situation: In order to have shelter, to develop their communities, they must build without a permit, and if they do so, Israel can demolish the structures on the basis that it was built without a permit. Right now there are over 150,000 Palestinians currently living under the constant threat of demolition and forced eviction, many of them for the second or third time. In the West Bank, an average of 18 Palestinian structures were demolished every week in 2020, the same year Israel issued 1,094 building permits for Jewish applicants and only one for a Palestinian.

This goes back to the heart of the issue: To maintain the state's character as Jewish, Israel systematically disadvantages Palestinians while privileging Jewish Israelis. This racist privilege has been enshrined in laws, policies and practices, and it enables Palestinian resources to be taken in order to economically benefit Jewish Israeli citizens.

Amnesty International and other rights organizations have been documenting patterns of human rights violations and international crimes for decades. These are the most visible and violent part of this system. At the end of May 2020, 4,236 Palestinians were held in Israeli prisons. And 352, including two children, were held without charge or trial. Between September 2000 and February 2017, Israeli forces killed 4,868 Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including 1,793 children, outside the context of armed conflict. And Amnesty International is not aware of any case in which an Israeli soldier has been convicted of willfully causing the death of a Palestinian in the Occupied Territories since 1987.

This imbalance of rights, justice and accountability is never more clear than when a Jewish Israeli life appears to have more value than a Palestinian's. Israel's apartheid and its cruel and prolonged strategies deliberately disadvantage Palestinians wherever they live. They cannot claim and enjoy equality with Jewish Israelis.

AMY GOODMAN: That's an excerpt of a video produced by Amnesty International, released this week along with a major report accusing Israel of committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians. The Biden administration has rejected Amnesty's findings. On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price was questioned by Associated Press journalist Matthew Lee about the Biden administration's criticism of the Amnesty report.

MATTHEW LEE: Ned, it may be true that you don't offer public comprehensive evaluations of outside reports, but you certainly cite them quite a bit in your own human rights report. And I went back and looked, and, you know, in terms of — just the last human rights report cited Amnesty International on Ethiopia, on Cuba, on China and Xinjiang, on Iran, on Burma, on Syria, on Cuba. And that — those references are endorsements of what this group, Amnesty, and then other groups, as well, that are cited, have found. Why is it that — without taking a stand or making a judgment about the findings of this particular report, why is it that all criticism of Israel is — from these groups is almost always rejected by the U.S., and yet accepted, welcomed and endorsed when it comes — when it comes out, when the criticism is of other countries, notably countries with which you have significant policy differences?

NED PRICE: Matt, I would make a couple points. Number one, when we include a footnote in something like —

MATTHEW LEE: These aren't footnotes, Ned. These are —

NED PRICE: When we —

MATTHEW LEE: These are —

NED PRICE: When we —

MATTHEW LEE: These are —

NED PRICE: When we cite —

MATTHEW LEE: — full-on citations, yes.

NED PRICE: When we cite, which it's a game of semantics, I suppose, but whether you call it a citation or a footnote —

MATTHEW LEE: Well, when it says in the report, Amnesty International found this, X —

NED PRICE: Yes.

MATTHEW LEE: — in Xinjiang with the Uyghurs, and we — and we determine that we think that it's a genocide, and you guys come out and cite that, and say, "Well, we also agree that it's a genocide" —

NED PRICE: That is a far cry, Matt, from saying —

MATTHEW LEE: I'm not saying it's the same thing.

NED PRICE: — from saying that we have —

MATTHEW LEE: But —

NED PRICE: — comprehensive agreement with a third-party report that was produced by an outside group.

MATTHEW LEE: So, it's just — so, it's just when — so, it's just when it's criticism of Israel that you feel free to disagree? Where have you ever disagreed with an Amnesty report or a human rights report on a country such as Iran or China?

NED PRICE: This is not — Matt, this is not about any outside group. This is about our vehement disagreement with a certain finding in a report by an outside group.

AMY GOODMAN: That's State Department spokesperson Ned Price being questioned by the AP reporter Matthew Lee.

We're joined now by Paul O'Brien, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, who's just recently returned from a trip to Israel and the Occupied Territories.

If you could respond to the U.S. rejection of this report, along with the state of Israel, and also the significance of this multiyear project that Amnesty International has just released?

PAUL O'BRIEN: Thanks, Amy. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for your coverage.

You're right: It's taken us four years. The report itself is 280 pages long. And because we are a human rights organization, not a political organization, it focuses on what is the international law now and what is the evidence on the ground. Through hundreds of interviews and looking in depth at laws, policies and practices, is this international legal standard met?

This administration has already said — and these are their precise words — that "Israelis and Palestinians should enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and democracy." In our view, as a human rights organization, the only way that Israelis and Palestinians can enjoy precisely what this administration has said is to dismantle the system of oppression and domination that currently exists now. You can't get there any other way. I think, frankly, that what his administration is responding to is the word and not the legal analysis and not the evidence on the ground.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Paul, explain why Amnesty came to the decision to call it apartheid now.

PAUL O'BRIEN: Well, firstly, why apartheid? People, I think — it is a word that emerges from a particular sociopolitical history, as our video shows. But it also became, in 1965, an international legal standard, enshrined in the Convention of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination — which the United States signed, which Israel signed. It was then defined further in two other documents: the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute. It has particular elements.

What we have done is to take a look at that international legal standard, that crime against humanity that is now enshrined in human rights, and compare the evidence that we found on the ground to that, that legal standard. And we found, with respect to every element: Is it a system of oppression and domination? Yes. Are there widespread crimes that are inhumane or inhuman? Yes. Does it lead to one racial group being oppressed and dominated by another? Yes. Is there an intent to maintain that system of domination and oppression? Yes. And so, across all of these areas of rights violations, we found the crime of apartheid to be in place.

Why now? It took us a long time to do the research. We build off the work of so many Palestinian organizations that have been asking for this legal analysis, frankly, for more than a decade. As you said, we build off the work of other human rights organizations. We wanted to get it done as soon as possible, because the fragmentation, the expulsion, the dispossession of land and property, the deprivation of economic and social rights, it's ongoing, and we need it to stop. And it won't stop without a serious conversation in these United States around what this country can do to put pressure on the Israeli government to dismantle this system of apartheid.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Paul, how do you respond to those who say, even if it is the case that there is a system of apartheid in place in Israel vis-à-vis Palestinians, that a similar argument could be made with respect to China's treatment of its Muslim minority, in particular, in Xinjiang? And Amnesty has done a lot of work in China.

PAUL O'BRIEN: We've documented extensively structural deprivations of rights in Xinjiang. And we've done it elsewhere. We've applied the standard of apartheid elsewhere. In 2017, we applied it in Myanmar, because that's what we found was being experienced by the Rohingya people. It's an international legal standard. We haven't applied it everywhere that it could possibly be found. I hope that we will. But based on the calls of Palestinian activists, that have been going on for a decade, on the human rights work of other groups that have already documented it, there is a human rights conversation now going on around whether apartheid exists in Israel, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and we add our human rights voice to that discussion.

AMY GOODMAN: When you put out your report, you took a series of questions. One of them was: Does Amnesty oppose Israel's military occupation of Palestine? Your response, Paul O'Brien?

PAUL O'BRIEN: We don't take a position on political issues, Amy. We don't take a position on the two-state solution, on the one-state solution. We are an organization that maintains our credibility by focusing on human rights standards and the evidence that supports them. Is it the case that the occupation that is ongoing has led to systemic human rights abuses? It is absolutely. I was in Gaza on my last overseas work trip. I witnessed many of the things that you saw. I saw the restriction of movement. I saw the deprivation of economic and social rights and the failure to get even basic services. I've been in Hebron a number of times. I was in Ramallah last week. I see the checkpoints that we have to go through when we visit the West Bank. It is absolutely the case that the occupation is leading to systemic human rights violations. That's where our focus is.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul O'Brien, I want to thank you for being with us, executive director of Amnesty International USA. We'll link to Amnesty's new report, "Israel's Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity," and to the full video that accompanies it.

When we come back, we go to Moscow to look at the crisis in Ukraine. Stay with us.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Related:

 

Israel's apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity

Israeli authorities must be held accountable for committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, Amnesty International said today in a damning new report. The investigation details how Israel enforces a system of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people wherever it has control over their rights. This includes Palestinians living in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), as well as displaced refugees in other countries.

The comprehensive reportIsrael's Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity, sets out how massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system which amounts to apartheid under international law. This system is maintained by violations which Amnesty International found to constitute apartheid as a crime against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.

Amnesty International is calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to consider the crime of apartheid in its current investigation in the OPT and calls on all states to exercise universal jurisdiction to bring perpetrators of apartheid crimes to justice.

Our report reveals the true extent of Israel's apartheid regime. Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights. We found that Israel's cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid. The international community has an obligation to act

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's Secretary General

"There is no possible justification for a system built around the institutionalized and prolonged racist oppression of millions of people. Apartheid has no place in our world, and states which choose to make allowances for Israel will find themselves on the wrong side of history. Governments who continue to supply Israel with arms and shield it from accountability at the UN are supporting a system of apartheid, undermining the international legal order, and exacerbating the suffering of the Palestinian people. The international community must face up to the reality of Israel's apartheid, and pursue the many avenues to justice which remain shamefully unexplored."

Amnesty International's findings build on a growing body of work by Palestinian, Israeli and international NGOs, who have increasingly applied the apartheid framework to the situation in Israel and/or the OPT.

Identifying apartheid

A system of apartheid is an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination by one racial group over another. It is a serious human rights violation which is prohibited in public international law. Amnesty International's extensive research and legal analysis, carried out in consultation with external experts, demonstrates that Israel enforces such a system against Palestinians through laws, policies and practices which ensure their prolonged and cruel discriminatory treatment.

In international criminal law, specific unlawful acts which are committed within a system of oppression and domination, with the intention of maintaining it, constitute the crime against humanity of apartheid. These acts are set out in the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute, and include unlawful killing, torture, forcible transfer, and the denial of basic rights and freedoms.

Amnesty International documented acts proscribed in the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute in all the areas Israel controls, although they occur more frequently and violently in the OPT than in Israel. Israeli authorities enact multiple measures to deliberately deny Palestinians their basic rights and freedoms, including draconian movement restrictions in the OPT, chronic discriminatory underinvestment in Palestinian communities in Israel, and the denial of refugees' right to return. The report also documents forcible transfer, administrative detention, torture, and unlawful killings, in both Israel and the OPT.

Amnesty International found that these acts form part of a systematic and widespread attack directed against the Palestinian population, and are committed with the intent to maintain the system of oppression and domination. They therefore constitute the crime against humanity of apartheid.

The unlawful killing of Palestinian protesters is perhaps the clearest illustration of how Israeli authorities use proscribed acts to maintain the status quo. In 2018, Palestinians in Gaza began to hold weekly protests along the border with Israel, calling for the right of return for refugees and an end to the blockade. Before protests even began, senior Israeli officials warned that Palestinians approaching the wall would be shot. By the end of 2019, Israeli forces had killed 214 civilians, including 46 children.

In light of the systematic unlawful killings of Palestinians documented in its report, Amnesty International is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. This should cover all weapons and munitions as well as law enforcement equipment, given the thousands of Palestinian civilians who have been unlawfully killed by Israeli forces. The Security Council should also impose targeted sanctions, such as asset freezes, against Israeli officials most implicated in the crime of apartheid.

Palestinians treated as a demographic threat

Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy of establishing and then maintaining a Jewish demographic majority, and maximizing control over land and resources to benefit Jewish Israelis. In 1967, Israel extended this policy to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Today, all territories controlled by Israel continue to be administered with the purpose of benefiting Jewish Israelis to the detriment of Palestinians, while Palestinian refugees continue to be excluded.

Amnesty International recognizes that Jews, like Palestinians, claim a right to self-determination, and does not challenge Israel's desire to be a home for Jews. Similarly, it does not consider that Israel labelling itself a "Jewish state" in itself indicates an intention to oppress and dominate.

However, Amnesty International's report shows that successive Israeli governments have considered Palestinians a demographic threat, and imposed measures to control and decrease their presence and access to land in Israel and the OPT. These demographic aims are well illustrated by official plans to "Judaize" areas of Israel and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which continue to put thousands of Palestinians at risk of forcible transfer.

Oppression without borders

The 1947-49 and 1967 wars, Israel's ongoing military rule of the OPT, and the creation of separate legal and administrative regimes within the territory, have separated Palestinian communities and segregated them from Jewish Israelis. Palestinians have been fragmented geographically and politically, and experience different levels of discrimination depending on their status and where they live.

Palestinian citizens in Israel currently enjoy greater rights and freedoms than their counterparts in the OPT, while the experience of Palestinians in Gaza is very different to that of those living in the West Bank. Nonetheless, Amnesty International's research shows that all Palestinians are subject to the same overarching system. Israel's treatment of Palestinians across all areas is pursuant to the same objective: to privilege Jewish Israelis in distribution of land and resources, and to minimize the Palestinian presence and access to land.

Amnesty International demonstrates that Israeli authorities treat Palestinians as an inferior racial group who are defined by their non-Jewish, Arab status. This racial discrimination is cemented in laws which affect Palestinians across Israel and the OPT.

For example, Palestinian citizens of Israel are denied a nationality, establishing a legal differentiation from Jewish Israelis. In the West Bank and Gaza, where Israel has controlled the population registry since 1967, Palestinians have no citizenship and most are considered stateless, requiring ID cards from the Israeli military to live and work in the territories.

Palestinian refugees and their descendants, who were displaced in the 1947-49 and 1967 conflicts, continue to be denied the right to return to their former places of residence. Israel's exclusion of refugees is a flagrant violation of international law which has left millions in a perpetual limbo of forced displacement.

Palestinians in annexed East Jerusalem are granted permanent residence instead of citizenship – though this status is permanent in name only. Since 1967, more than 14,000 Palestinians have had their residency revoked at the discretion of the Ministry of the Interior, resulting in their forcible transfer outside the city.

Lesser citizens

Palestinian citizens of Israel, who comprise about 19% of the population, face many forms of institutionalized discrimination. In 2018, discrimination against Palestinians was crystallized in a constitutional law which, for the first time, enshrined Israel exclusively as the "nation state of the Jewish people". The law also promotes the building of Jewish settlements and downgrades Arabic's status as an official language.

The report documents how Palestinians are effectively blocked from leasing on 80% of Israel's state land, as a result of racist land seizures and a web of discriminatory laws on land allocation, planning and zoning.

The situation in the Negev/Naqab region of southern Israel is a prime example of how Israel's planning and building policies intentionally exclude Palestinians.  Since 1948 Israeli authorities have adopted various policies to "Judaize" the Negev/Naqab, including designating large areas as nature reserves or military firing zones, and setting targets for increasing the Jewish population. This has had devastating consequences for the tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins who live in the region.

Thirty-five Bedouin villages, home to about 68,000 people, are currently "unrecognized" by Israel, which means they are cut off from the national electricity and water supply and targeted for repeated demolitions. As the villages have no official status, their residents also face restrictions on political participation and are excluded from the healthcare and education systems. These conditions have coerced many into leaving their homes and villages, in what amounts to forcible transfer.

Decades of deliberately unequal treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel have left them consistently economically disadvantaged in comparison to Jewish Israelis. This is exacerbated by blatantly discriminatory allocation of state resources: a recent example is the government's Covid-19 recovery package, of which just 1.7% was given to Palestinian local authorities.

Dispossession

The dispossession and displacement of Palestinians from their homes is a crucial pillar of Israel's apartheid system. Since its establishment the Israeli state has enforced massive and cruel land seizures against Palestinians, and continues to implement myriad laws and policies to force Palestinians into small enclaves. Since 1948, Israel has demolished hundreds of thousands of Palestinian homes and other properties across all areas under its jurisdiction and effective control.

As in the Negev/Naqab, Palestinians in East Jerusalem and Area C of the OPT live under full Israeli control. The authorities deny building permits to Palestinians in these areas, forcing them to build illegal structures which are demolished again and again.

In the OPT, the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements exacerbates the situation. The construction of these settlements in the OPT has been a government policy since 1967. Settlements today cover 10% of the land in the West Bank, and some 38% of Palestinian land in East Jerusalem was expropriated between 1967 and 2017.

Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem are frequently targeted by settler organizations which, with the full backing of the Israeli government, work to displace Palestinian families and hand their homes to settlers. One such neighbourhood, Sheikh Jarrah, has been the site of frequent protests since May 2021 as families battle to keep their homes under the threat of a settler lawsuit.

Draconian movement restrictions

Since the mid-1990s Israeli authorities have imposed increasingly stringent movement restrictions on Palestinians in the OPT. A web of military checkpoints, roadblocks, fences and other structures controls the movement of Palestinians within the OPT, and restricts their travel into Israel or abroad.

A 700km fence, which Israel is still extending, has isolated Palestinian communities inside "military zones", and they must obtain multiple special permits any time they enter or leave their homes. In Gaza, more than 2 million Palestinians live under an Israeli blockade which has created a humanitarian crisis. It is near-impossible for Gazans to travel abroad or into the rest of the OPT, and they are effectively segregated from the rest of the world.

For Palestinians, the difficulty of travelling within and in and out of the OPT is a constant reminder of their powerlessness. Their every move is subject to the Israeli military's approval, and the simplest daily task means navigating a web of violent control

Agnès Callamard

"The permit system in the OPT is emblematic of Israel's brazen discrimination against Palestinians. While Palestinians are locked in a blockade, stuck for hours at checkpoints, or waiting for yet another permit to come through, Israeli citizens and settlers can move around as they please."

Amnesty International examined each of the security justifications which Israel cites as the basis for its treatment of Palestinians. The report shows that, while some of Israel's policies may have been designed to fulfil legitimate security objectives, they have been implemented in a grossly disproportionate and discriminatory way which fails to comply with international law. Other policies have absolutely no reasonable basis in security, and are clearly shaped by the intent to oppress and dominate.

The way forward

Amnesty International provides numerous specific recommendations for how the Israeli authorities can dismantle the apartheid system and the discrimination, segregation and oppression which sustain it.

The organization is calling for an end to the brutal practice of home demolitions and forced evictions as a first step. Israel must grant equal rights to all Palestinians in Israel and the OPT, in line with principles of international human rights and humanitarian law. It must recognize the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to homes where they or their families once lived, and provide victims of human rights violations and crimes against humanity with full reparations.

The scale and seriousness of the violations documented in Amnesty International's report call for a drastic change in the international community's approach to the human rights crisis in Israel and the OPT.  

All states may exercise universal jurisdiction over persons reasonably suspected of committing the crime of apartheid under international law, and states that are party to the Apartheid Convention have an obligation to do so. 

The international response to apartheid must no longer be limited to bland condemnations and equivocating. Unless we tackle the root causes, Palestinians and Israelis will remain locked in the cycle of violence which has destroyed so many lives

Agnès Callamard

"Israel must dismantle the apartheid system and start treating Palestinians as human beings with equal rights and dignity. Until it does, peace and security will remain a distant prospect for Israelis and Palestinians alike."

Please see the full report for detailed definition of apartheid in international law.

For more information please contact press@amnesty.org

Topics

·                                 NEWS

·                                 ISRAEL AND OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

·                                 DISCRIMINATION

 

So, excuse me, but I need a good, long break. I made it to February, at least, who know how much longer? I'm just too busy coming up.

 

Take care all of you and I'll be checking in from time to time, I think. :)



[i] The fact that Arabs are Semitic is explained too many ways, including language going back to Sanskrit and surprise, Persians, or Iranians can trace their origins through Pharisee back to the indo-European Family of languages. 


I do think I need a rest, but I'll be in touch. I'll be here and you can subscribe for free at the Substack and WP sites. Right now, Substack affords me better quality while WP seems to have kept everything I've ever posted. No, I won't even ask for a cent. 

Thursday, June 03, 2021

Apartheid Today

   THE ABSURD TIMES


THE ABSURD TIMES

Now it's 'antisemitic' to say that Israel practices 'apartheid'

BY JAMES NORTH AND PHILIP WEISS  MAY 27, 2021

Text Box:  Share on FacebookText Box:  Share on Twitter

 

 

PALESTINIANS TAKE PART IN A RALLY AGAINST ISRAEL'S CLOSURE TO PALESTINIANS OF WHAT WAS FORMERLY THE MAIN MARKET STREET IN HEBRON, SHUHADA STREET, TO ACCOMMODATE ILLEGAL JEWISH SETTLERS IN THE CITY CENTER, 2011. PALESTINIANS CHANGED THE NAME OF SHUHADA STREET TO APARTHEID STREET TO MAKE CLEAR THE INEQUITY. PHOTO BY MAMOUN WAZWAZ

 

        Clearly, these issues have become festering for a long time. Now, Retrumplicans, with their strange chants of "Jews will not replace us" have taken stupidity to new levels and it is clear, but equally dangerous, to say that these morons have given "anti-Semitism" a bad name. Well, it is clear that Bibi has taken Israel into the level of apartheid. That may be one reason that all the other parties there have joined together and formed a new government: the get rid of him as he has given Israel a bad name world-wide. The court system is now free to prosecute and it does not seem likely that he can find another country to shelter him.

       

A similar fate awaits Trump as his delusions have now grown so vividly as to qualify his as psychotic, no longer a sociopath, but a fading moron with delusions of grandeur.  As his trials and convictions become more real and immediate to him, he may realize his inevitable fate and seek a refuge in some foreign country. He has made investments in housing in several already.

 

So, It is time to get these interviews up and posted and then be released from further responsibility. One can look at charts of numbers of vaccinations or cases of this current infection and notice dramatic changes that started just about January 20. It is a good time to just let all of this go on of its own accord (no,Trump will not be returned to the Presidency in August) and rest for awhile. Meanwhile, I have some other things to say that have little to do with current events.

 

Here are a couple things from Democracy Now that are self-explanatory:

 

As you are surely aware, advocates for Israel are using an apparent surge in antisemitic attacks to try to delegitimize pro-Palestine advocacy.

Part of that effort is a move to characterize the charge that Israel is practicing apartheid as antisemitic. Four pro-Israel congresspeople sent a letter to President Biden yesterday taking aim at fellow Democrats who are critical of Israel. The four — Josh Gottheimer, Elaine Luria, Dean Phillips, and Kathy Manning, all of whom are Jewish — say Israel protects Jews, so criticisms of Israel over "apartheid" or "terrorism" are "antisemitic at their core."

We also reject comments from Members of Congress accusing Israel of being an "apartheid state" and committing "act[s] of terrorism." These statements are antisemitic at their core and contribute to a climate that is hostile to many Jews. We must never forget that less than eighty years ago, within the lifetime of our parents and grandparents, six million people were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust because they were Jews. Israel has long provided the Jewish people with a homeland in which they can be safe after facing centuries of persecution.

That reference to other House members is to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who have charged Israel with "apartheid." While Ilhan Omar has leveled the "terrorism" charge (per JTA).

The idea that it is antisemitic to say Israel practices apartheid is patently absurd. The apartheid accusation has been made for years by Palestinian human rights groups who rightly object to Palestinian conditions. Lately other groups have joined on: In January Israel's leading human rights group B'Tselem said Israel is an "apartheid . . . regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea." And a month ago Human Rights Watch issued a 213-page report saying Israel commits the crime of "apartheid" — with a systematic oppression of Palestinians, inhumane acts, and an intention to dominate Palestinians. Both B'Tselem and HRW are headed by Jews, by the way.

And let's not even get into the long history of the apartheid charge from American visitors, including Jimmy Carter, who have been shocked by the limits on Palestinian movement and residency and representation in the West Bank. And by the way, two U.S. Jewish groups — IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace — state that Israel practices apartheid.

If the shoe fits, wear it. . .

Nonetheless, the Israel lobby has set up this new front in the battle for Israel's legitimacy. They're pushing it.

An Israeli reporter who was granted an interview with Antony Blinken on Tuesday asked him: "When we see, for example, known figures on the far left in the United States referring to Israel as an apartheid state, are you worried that this rhetoric could lead to more anti-Semitic incidents, instead of calming things down?" (Blinken dodged the question: "one of the great things about my job . . . is I don't do politics, I just focus on policy.")

Bernie Sanders flubbed the question on Face the Nation, Sunday. He accepted the view that "apartheid" contributes to antisemitism. Host John Dickerson asked:

"There are a number of liberals who use the word apartheid to describe Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, a number of them liberals in the House who use that language. The executive director of the American Jewish Congress who handled Jewish outreach for your campaign Sanders' campaign ― Joel Rubin — has said that using the word has increased the level of vitriol that has contributed to this antisemitism. Do you think that those who share your view should not use that kind of language?"

Sanders said, "Well, I think we should tone down the rhetoric." Though Sanders did speak about the inhumane siege of Gaza.

It's actually not the rhetoric that is extreme here; it's the underlying facts. And the willingness of prestige organizations to accept the truth has helped to change the U.S. discussion. That makes this a good battle to have. "Call on your government to end its sponsorship of Israeli apartheid" (say the Sunrise Movement and Adalah Justice Project in this new video.)

Thanks to Adam Horowitz and Michael Arria.

 

 

 

In her first TV interview, we speak with Emily Wilder, the young reporter fired by the Associated Press after she was targeted in a Republican smear campaign for her pro-Palestinian activism in college. Wilder is Jewish and was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace at Stanford University before she graduated in 2020. She was two weeks into her new job with the AP when the Stanford College Republicans singled out some of her past social media posts, triggering a conservative frenzy. The AP announced Wilder's firing shortly thereafter, citing unspecified violations of its social media policy. "Less than 48 hours after Stanford College Republicans began to post about me, I was fired," says Wilder. "I was not given an explanation for what social media policy I had violated." Over 100 AP journalists have signed an open letter to management protesting the decision to fire Wilder, which came just days after Israel demolished the building housing AP offices and other media organizations in Gaza. Journalism professor Janine Zacharia, a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post who taught Wilder at Stanford, says the episode is an example of how much pressure news organizations face on Middle East coverage. "I am very aware, perhaps more than most, to the sensitivities around the questions of bias and reporting on the conflict," says Zacharia. "In this case it wasn't about bias."

Related Story

WEB EXCLUSIVEMay 18, 2021Palestinian Journalist: Israeli Media Incites Mob Violence, Ignoring Settler Attacks




GUESTS

·    Emily Wilder

22-year-old journalist who was fired by the Associated Press after right-wing critics attacked her for past pro-Palestinian activism in college.

·    Janine Zacharia

journalism professor at Stanford and a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post.




Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: The Associated Press news service is facing growing criticism for firing a young reporter after she was targeted by a right-wing smear campaign for her pro-Palestinian activism while she was a college student at Stanford.

Emily Wilder is Jewish. She was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine and also the group Jewish Voice for Peace at Stanford University before she graduated in 2020. She was an intern at The Arizona Republic before the AP hired her for an entry-level role in Phoenix, and was two weeks into her new job when the Stanford College Republicans began highlighting some of her past tweets. Their campaign was then amplified by right-wing media and politicians, including Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton. The AP says it fired Wilder for violating its social media policy. The decision came just days after Israeli forces bombed the building housing the AP's office in Gaza.

Ten senior AP executives stood by the decision to fire Emily Wilder, noting in a leaked memo to editorial staff, quote, "We did not make it lightly," referring to the decision. The AP's executive editor, Sally Buzbee, did not sign the memo. She begins her new job next month as executive editor at The Washington Post. She's making history as the first woman executive editor of The Washington Post. She told NPR she has, quote, "handed over day-to-day operations" at AP, so, quote, "I was not involved in the decision at all."

Meanwhile, journalists at the AP protested Wilder's firing in an open letter Monday, writing, quote, "It has left our colleagues — particularly emerging journalists — wondering how we treat our own, what culture we embrace and what values we truly espouse as a company," unquote.

For more, we go to Phoenix, Arizona, to speak with Emily Wilder in her first television broadcast interview. We're also joined by Janine Zacharia, who was Emily Wilder's journalism professor at Stanford University. She's the former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Emily, why don't you just take us through what happened to you?

EMILY WILDER: Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me.

Last Monday, a group from my alma mater, the Stanford College Republicans, began to post online past posts that I had made on social media, in an attempt to expose my history of activism for Palestinian human rights while I was an undergraduate at Stanford University, and in an attempt to link AP to Hamas. In the next two days, I began to receive a lot of harassment, a lot of pretty heinous harassment, as well as prominent Republicans on the internet began to lambaste me, including Senator Tom Cotton and Ben Shapiro.

I was reassured during this time by my editors that I would not face repercussions for my past activism and that they just wanted to support me while I was facing this smear campaign. But less than 48 hours after the Stanford College Republicans began to post about me, I was fired. The reason given was a supposed social media violation sometime after I joined AP on May 3rd. I was not given an explanation for what social media policy I violated or what tweet had violated policy, and I still have not received an explanation.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Emily, when you were originally hired, what were you told by the Associated Press of what its social media policy was for its reporters?

EMILY WILDER: I was told that reporters must not share opinions online, must not show bias in coverage.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you were covering — what were you covering while you were at the AP?

EMILY WILDER: Well, I was hired as a news associate on the West Desk, which covers the western United States, 14 states in the western United States. And my position is not actually a reporting position; it was an entry-level kind of apprenticeship, an editorial and production apprenticeship. And so, I was concerned with assisting coverage in the western United States.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, in effect, why would these folks at Stanford target you? It seems almost nonsensical they would go after you in this concerted and campaign-like manner.

EMILY WILDER: Well, first of all, this is not my first encounter with this group. During my time at Stanford, they built a reputation as kind of bullies. They antagonized really any student they disagreed with. And I was in their crosshairs more than once. So they knew my name, and I guess they did not forget about me. And I can't say for certain why they did what they did, but perhaps they learned that I had joined a national news organization at a moment that that news organization was under public scrutiny, and they took it as an opportunity to both smear me and smear the Associated Press.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, the union representing Washington Post reporters — now, of course, Emily was working for the AP, but the union representing Washington Post reporters tweeted, quote, "Solidarity with the staff of the @AP and Emily Wilder. We hope management provides swift answers on her termination and clarifies the newsroom's social media practices," unquote. The AP said in a memo to staff Monday it plans to review its social media policies. Now, the significance of The Washington Post writers' union expressing solidarity is that Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of AP, is going to become the first woman executive editor of The Washington Post, beginning in June, which brings us to our next guest, Janine Zacharia, a professor at Stanford University who taught Emily Wilder. You were The Washington Post bureau chief in Jerusalem, is that right, about a decade ago?

JANINE ZACHARIA: That's correct.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about this controversy?

JANINE ZACHARIA: So, I want to speak about it on two levels. I want to speak personally, as Emily's instructor at Stanford, what this has been like, and then I want to speak in the macro about what I think is really happening here.

So, personally, I want to say that when Emily called me to tell me that she had been fired by the AP, I literally was shocked. I was really shocked, because — and I really didn't know what to say. And I said to Emily, "Close your laptop. I need to call you back," because I really need to think about what's happening here, what we're going to do and how am I going to help my brilliant former student continue with a career in journalism, because, yes, I spent most of my career, close to two decades, reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I started my career as a young woman in Jerusalem in an earlier incarnation, in the '90s, for Reuters. So I am very aware, perhaps more than most, to the sensitivities around the questions of bias and reporting on the conflict.

Nevertheless, as was mentioned, in this case it wasn't about bias. And it wasn't even about, I don't think, social media policies, because if you review what Emily posted since she started at the AP, there was one tweet that mentioned a mild opinion about the question of objectivity on reporting on the conflict and the language we use, and an editor could have come to her and said, "I think you should take down that tweet, because it expresses an opinion in violation of our social media policies. Doesn't mean you can't have these opinions, but you can't broadcast them on social media." But I think that the bigger issue in this case, if you read the letter of her dismissal, was that it mentions you cannot have any conflict that could be perceived as a bias or leading to accusations of bias. Something to that effect was the language.

And so, when the Stanford College Republicans documented some of her pro-Palestinian activism in college, I think they got a little spooked, because it was in the context, as Emily mentioned, of Israel's strike on the Gaza bureau and Hamas, and people who wanted to defend that strike were trying to accuse AP of knowingly sharing a building with Hamas — when Hamas rules the Gaza Strip for 15 years; they're everywhere — and this was a way to continue to fuel that narrative: "Look, you hired this news associate who has pro-Palestinian views." And so, it really was a full-on disinformation campaign against not only Emily, but the AP. These are actors who are not interested in having a serious conversation about how we cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They want to take down credible, fact-based news organizations.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Janine Zacharia, what are some of the unusual pressures that reporters who are covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have to deal with, especially here in the United States?

JANINE ZACHARIA: You know, I think the number-one one is this perception of — there's one — there's a couple, OK? First of all, it's a conflict of dueling narratives. And when you are trying to do objective reporting on the conflict, you know, you do — and this is the way it is — you try and figure out what's going on, what do people say happened at that checkpoint, what happened right now with the bombing of the building, whatever, and you evaluate the information that's given to you.

You know, if you take a walk in my inbox from 2009, 2010, 2011, when I was there for The Washington Post — you know, social media was still in its infancy, but I received so much hate mail. Nothing like what happened to Emily now could have happened to me, because there were no Twitter mobs back then, really. "You're pro-Zionist." "You're pro-Palestinian." "You're this." "You're that." And it could be very intense.

You know, I remember when I covered — there was an incident of what was called the flotilla. The Mavi Marmara was an aid shipment going to Gaza, and I was in the Gaza Strip for The Washington Post. And I got woken up around this time, 4 or 5 a.m., and I was told that the Israelis, IDF, had killed — or maybe it was the Navy or whatever, whoever — there was images of them dropping onto this Turkish aid ship — had killed nine people. And so I started writing for The Washington Post. I was doing radio. And I got a call that night from a very senior Israeli official yelling about this A1 story I had written for The Washington Post. And the Israelis hadn't — the Israelis hadn't released any information. It was like we were trying to — it was hard, in other words. So you do your best to cover this conflict as best as you can.

And what I do at Stanford is take people like Emily, brilliant students who care about the world, who have deep social conscience, who study history, who know what's going on in the world, and I try to train them to channel that social conscience into accountability journalism. And what's so distressing to me about this incident is Emily shouldn't have to and can never erase who she was — right? — before joining the AP. And if they decide that because she was a pro-Palestinian activist, attacked by a student group, amplified by a right-wing smear campaign against her, then they're going to — what does this mean? Does this mean that any student who was an activist in college — which is what students do, they're activists in college — can't become a journalist? You know, what happens if they're activists on abortion or climate change? Or is this specifically about Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because of the pressures that these news organizations feel?

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read what Ari Paul, who wrote about Emily Wilder for FAIR, later wrote on Facebook. He said, "She was not some famous firebrand. She wasn't appointed to some high-level post like Jerusalem correspondent. She's a college grad who had a low-level job at a domestic bureau. But it's clear that right-wing organizations are keeping tabs on all sorts of college activists and keeping track of where they end up working. And the right is clearly organized to follow and stalk them and ruin their lives, or at least attempt to." Emily, can you comment on this? And talk about what the Associated Press said to you before you joined. I mean, it wasn't a secret that you were part of — you were a Jewish student, you were part of Jewish Voice for Peace, and also you were part of the group for justice in Palestine.

EMILY WILDER: I think that that post is absolutely right, especially considering my post was in the western United States. My beat was totally unrelated to the Middle East. Like Janine said, yes, I have opinions about the Israel-Palestine conflict as a citizen of the world, but also as a Jewish American who grew up in a Jewish community. And, yes, I have history of activism on that issue. Neither of those facts prevent me from being able to do fair, credible, fact-based reporting, especially when the beats are entirely unrelated to the Middle East.

But also, I want to take it a step further and say that the values that led to my activism, the values of compassion and justice that compelled me to speak out loudly and advocate for Palestinian human rights, those values are powerful assets in my reporting. And I don't think newsrooms should try to get me to yield those values. And I really hope that I can continue to channel those values in accountability journalism, like Janine said.

AMY GOODMAN: I also want to point out that more than a hundred Associated Press employees signed a letter in support of you, Emily, that read, in part, quote, "Wilder was a young journalist, unnecessarily harmed by the AP's handling and announcement of its firing of her. We need to know that the AP would stand behind and provide resources to journalists who are the subject of smear campaigns and online harassment."

I also wanted to ask both Emily and Professor Zacharia about this timing of when this happened. You know, I was watching — while Sally Buzbee said she's not involved with day-to-day now at AP because she's going over to The Washington Post to head that news organization, she was on television talking about the bombing of the AP offices in Gaza, talking about calling for an investigation, and the intimidation this meant for the fact that there would be fewer voices reporting out of Gaza, and how critical that was. Emily, if you could talk about this? And then I'd also like to ask Janine Zacharia to go broader, both of you, on the coverage of Israel and Palestine. There was just a major petition that was signed by many to Canadian journalism organizations talking about the fact that they're not even supposed to use the word "Palestine."

EMILY WILDER: I can't really speak to which executives within the Associated Press were involved in the decision to fire me, partly because I received so little information when I was fired. And still I have received so little information. But I agree with you, the timing is really important to the story here. I mean, it's a perfect storm. We have the event in Gaza with the AP office a couple days ago. We have — people have made links between my treatment and the treatment of other journalists, like Chris Cuomo on CNN. And this is also happening within a moment that newsrooms are reckoning with this question about social media objectivity, past activism, diversity of life experiences. And I think that that's why, you know, my former colleagues at the Associated Press — that's partially why they felt so compelled to speak out. And seeing that is really encouraging and uplifting as a young journalist.

AMY GOODMAN: I should also point out that — and a number of others have done this — Wolf Blitzer, a main anchor on CNN, formerly worked for AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He hasn't been fired or prevented from reporting on Israel and Palestine. Professor Janine Zacharia, would you like to comment?

JANINE ZACHARIA: You know, I just — there's so many things that are upsetting about all this. But, you know, if you're going to go down the road of — in general, of, "OK, well, Emily was with Jewish Voice for Peace, and Wolf Blitzer was for AIPAC," the answer has to be, you know, judge your reporters based on their work. Right? Because it's insane to think that journalists don't have passions and opinions, because the very people who go into journalism, as you very well know, Amy, are people who are passionate and have opinions about things in the world. And so, it's just — that's distressing.

And also, I just want to echo something that Emily said about how they still haven't told her really what's going on. To me, as her instructor, as someone who maybe feels like I entrusted my young student with them, this is shocking to me that they didn't do more to sort of talk to her about it. And I think it's because it really wasn't about social media policy.

And this is something that the AP and other news organizations really need to think about. Who are we going to let work in our newsrooms? How are we going to deal with — I mean, if you have, for example, a whole generation of students who went to Black Lives Matter protests last summer, and then they come and take my journalism class at Stanford or another university, and they say, "You know what? I want to be a journalist," and their lives live on TikTok and Instagram and all that, are all these journalists not — are these students not going to be able to be journalists now? I mean, are there not top managers in news organizations who were in anti-Vietnam protests in the '60s, and their lives live on in Instagram?

Or is this specific to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Which, as you noted, the coverage is shifted the very week that Emily got caught up in this. You had the bombing of the AP bureau in Gaza. You had a very visceral reaction by the American public to the Israeli attacks in Gaza, in a way that you did not have in 2014 when 2,200 Palestinians were killed. You didn't see this kind of reaction. You had, on the A1 of The New York Times on Sunday, a story about the brutality of life under Israeli occupation. These are all very unusual. Look on The New York Times today in terms of a letter from Gaza that really calls into question a lot of the Israeli narrative about Hamas and what's really happening in Gaza. I mean, there's just — there's a major shift going on.

And so, you know, I think that Emily, in a way, the reason that she's seeing a lot of support is — I was worried. I wanted to make sure she had support. And you're seeing that because it's coming at that moment. Thank God, because I can't tell you again how distressing this has been for me as her instructor and someone who cares so deeply about her.

AMY GOODMAN: A major —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Emily —

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, Emily, I wanted to ask you: How has this, the last few days, shaped your view of journalism and what you want to do as a journalist?

EMILY WILDER: Yeah, it's really rocked my perspective, honestly, I mean, obviously. You know, I wanted to join the AP because — while, like everybody on this Earth, I do have opinions, and those opinions fuel my passion for journalism, I wanted to join the AP because I am capable at doing fact-based accountability journalism. That is what I really excelled at at The Arizona Republic, and that's why the AP hired me. And they were aware that I cared about the world. They were aware that I had a commitment to justice and marginalized communities. So, I thought I would be welcome in a newsroom like AP.

But, you know, I was also aware of this broader history, that I'm just one example in, of media institutions unfairly applying these rules about objectivity and social media haphazardly, when expedient, in a way that generally comes down hardest on journalists of color, journalists who have ever spoken out on Israeli policy, and in a way that just reinforces status quo politics. So I was aware of that, and I was witnessing these shifts in the industry. I thought I'd be welcome.

But now I know that I — this experience, I guess, could have made me question my commitment to those values that compel me to do journalism, but I will not yield them. And now I know that I need to channel them into journalism in a team, in an organization, that is similarly aligned.

AMY GOODMAN: It's interesting, when you follow the money, as journalists are supposed to do. The Stanford Review, a conservative publication, was co-founded over 30 years ago by the venture capitalist and conservative philanthropist Peter Thiel, who went on to speak at Trump's first Republican National Convention. He didn't contribute a lot to Republican senators, but he did contribute to the one who attacked you, Emily, and that was Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, and also has a lot of ties to the Stanford College Republicans.

But I also wanted to thank you for a piece that you did in The Arizona Republic that Juan and I followed up on, that you broke for them, which became a major national story. And that's the story of Kristin Urquiza, whose father, Mark Anthony Urquiza, was a supporter of Donald Trump and died after believing the president's assurances that the coronavirus pandemic was under control. He died of COVID. In October, we spoke to Kristin Urquiza, after you highlighted her in your piece in The Arizona Republic about losing her father. And I just want to play that clip for you.

KRISTIN URQUIZA: My dad, first and foremost, was great and did not deserve to die alone in a hospital with just a nurse holding his hand. He was also a lifelong Republican who was politically aware. He watched television news programming fairly regularly, read the newspaper, and engaged me as a young kid in politics, which is kind of where I got my interest in the world around me from. He was a Trump supporter and voted for Trump and believed him in what he had to say.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that's Kristin Urquiza talking about losing her father. But, you know, you had major impact as a young reporter at The Arizona Republic. And if also you could go back to commenting on Peter Thiel?

EMILY WILDER: Yeah, that story was really formative in my time at The Arizona Republic. It was pretty early on in my time at the Republic. And it represents exactly the kind of journalism that I excel at and that I want to continue doing, which is highlighting the undertold, underrepresented or suppressed stories of certain communities and linking those experiences to a larger investigative context, to a larger — to the situation that we're in, where communities of color are the most at risk for COVID-19. So, I was really grateful to have been a part of that and to have broken such an important story. And, you know, that's what I — I try to continue to do impactful storytelling like that.

And in terms of the connection with Peter Thiel, yes, this organization does have powerful and wealthy connections in the conservative ecosystem. But I also want to make sure that people understand that this is just a group of college-aged trolls, honestly, and they did not have to become relevant. They should not have — the Associated Press should not have felt threatened by them. I truly believe they would have gone away — they would have spun their wheels on this and gone away, if the Associated Press had not fired me and had not sort of empowered them and empowered their bullying, empowered their disinformation.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Professor Janine Zacharia, what are you going to teach your students, as they come back to Stanford now, about what this means for journalism? In the end, because of Emily's outspokenness and bravery in taking this on instead of slinking away, do you think journalism will advance in this country, and particularly around the Israel-Palestine issue?

JANINE ZACHARIA: Well, I scrapped my class in foreign correspondence on Thursday that I had planned, and we're devoting it to this, because it's so important, obviously. Emily is a peer and a friend of many of the students in my current class, who have been very traumatized by this whole thing, wondering, again, you know, whether they have a future in journalism, reaching out to me quite shell-shocked. And so, I feel the need as their instructor to talk about what's happened.

But I don't know what to say, you know, truthfully, Amy, because what I do, as someone who started at Reuters and worked at The Washington Post, the conventional media, you know, what I train them to do, I don't know — I just don't know what to say right now. I'm still processing it all. But what I will do is hold up Emily as an example of what I believe they all should do, is use their brilliance and channel their convictions into amazing reporting that gets picked up by Amy Goodman and others. She had another story, by the way, about wait times for COVID testing, that was featured on Rachel Maddow, as an intern. Right? So, in the end, you know, I'll stress that this is really the AP's loss, and whoever hires her next is going to be so very fortunate.

AMY GOODMAN: Maybe she'll be Sally Buzbee's first hire at Washington Post —

JANINE ZACHARIA: That would be nice.

AMY GOODMAN: — and then follow in your footsteps. Emily — I want to thank you both for being with us, Emily Wilder, fired by AP, which has fired up the journalism community, not only in the United States, and others for more just reporting around the world, and Janine Zacharia, Emily Wilder's journalism professor at Stanford University who is the former Washington Post Jerusalem bureau chief.

 


 

THE ABSURD TIMES

Now it's 'antisemitic' to say that Israel practices 'apartheid'

BY JAMES NORTH AND PHILIP WEISS  MAY 27, 2021

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PALESTINIANS TAKE PART IN A RALLY AGAINST ISRAEL'S CLOSURE TO PALESTINIANS OF WHAT WAS FORMERLY THE MAIN MARKET STREET IN HEBRON, SHUHADA STREET, TO ACCOMMODATE ILLEGAL JEWISH SETTLERS IN THE CITY CENTER, 2011. PALESTINIANS CHANGED THE NAME OF SHUHADA STREET TO APARTHEID STREET TO MAKE CLEAR THE INEQUITY. PHOTO BY MAMOUN WAZWAZ

 

        Clearly, these issues have become festering for a long time. Now, Retrumplicans, with their strange chants of "Jews will not replace us" have taken stupidity to new levels and it is clear, but equally dangerous, to say that these morons have given "anti-Semitism" a bad name. Well, it is clear that Bibi has taken Israel into the level of apartheid. That may be one reason that all the other parties there have joined together and formed a new government: the get rid of him as he has given Israel a bad name world-wide. The court system is now free to prosecute and it does not seem likely that he can find another country to shelter him.

       

A similar fate awaits Trump as his delusions have now grown so vividly as to qualify his as psychotic, no longer a sociopath, but a fading moron with delusions of grandeur.  As his trials and convictions become more real and immediate to him, he may realize his inevitable fate and seek a refuge in some foreign country. He has made investments in housing in several already.

 

So, It is time to get these interviews up and posted and then be released from further responsibility. One can look at charts of numbers of vaccinations or cases of this current infection and notice dramatic changes that started just about January 20. It is a good time to just let all of this go on of its own accord (no,Trump will not be returned to the Presidency in August) and rest for awhile. Meanwhile, I have some other things to say that have little to do with current events.

 

Here are a couple things from Democracy Now that are self-explanatory:

 

As you are surely aware, advocates for Israel are using an apparent surge in antisemitic attacks to try to delegitimize pro-Palestine advocacy.

Part of that effort is a move to characterize the charge that Israel is practicing apartheid as antisemitic. Four pro-Israel congresspeople sent a letter to President Biden yesterday taking aim at fellow Democrats who are critical of Israel. The four — Josh Gottheimer, Elaine Luria, Dean Phillips, and Kathy Manning, all of whom are Jewish — say Israel protects Jews, so criticisms of Israel over "apartheid" or "terrorism" are "antisemitic at their core."

We also reject comments from Members of Congress accusing Israel of being an "apartheid state" and committing "act[s] of terrorism." These statements are antisemitic at their core and contribute to a climate that is hostile to many Jews. We must never forget that less than eighty years ago, within the lifetime of our parents and grandparents, six million people were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust because they were Jews. Israel has long provided the Jewish people with a homeland in which they can be safe after facing centuries of persecution.

That reference to other House members is to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who have charged Israel with "apartheid." While Ilhan Omar has leveled the "terrorism" charge (per JTA).

The idea that it is antisemitic to say Israel practices apartheid is patently absurd. The apartheid accusation has been made for years by Palestinian human rights groups who rightly object to Palestinian conditions. Lately other groups have joined on: In January Israel's leading human rights group B'Tselem said Israel is an "apartheid . . . regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea." And a month ago Human Rights Watch issued a 213-page report saying Israel commits the crime of "apartheid" — with a systematic oppression of Palestinians, inhumane acts, and an intention to dominate Palestinians. Both B'Tselem and HRW are headed by Jews, by the way.

And let's not even get into the long history of the apartheid charge from American visitors, including Jimmy Carter, who have been shocked by the limits on Palestinian movement and residency and representation in the West Bank. And by the way, two U.S. Jewish groups — IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace — state that Israel practices apartheid.

If the shoe fits, wear it. . .

Nonetheless, the Israel lobby has set up this new front in the battle for Israel's legitimacy. They're pushing it.

An Israeli reporter who was granted an interview with Antony Blinken on Tuesday asked him: "When we see, for example, known figures on the far left in the United States referring to Israel as an apartheid state, are you worried that this rhetoric could lead to more anti-Semitic incidents, instead of calming things down?" (Blinken dodged the question: "one of the great things about my job . . . is I don't do politics, I just focus on policy.")

Bernie Sanders flubbed the question on Face the Nation, Sunday. He accepted the view that "apartheid" contributes to antisemitism. Host John Dickerson asked:

"There are a number of liberals who use the word apartheid to describe Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, a number of them liberals in the House who use that language. The executive director of the American Jewish Congress who handled Jewish outreach for your campaign Sanders' campaign ― Joel Rubin — has said that using the word has increased the level of vitriol that has contributed to this antisemitism. Do you think that those who share your view should not use that kind of language?"

Sanders said, "Well, I think we should tone down the rhetoric." Though Sanders did speak about the inhumane siege of Gaza.

It's actually not the rhetoric that is extreme here; it's the underlying facts. And the willingness of prestige organizations to accept the truth has helped to change the U.S. discussion. That makes this a good battle to have. "Call on your government to end its sponsorship of Israeli apartheid" (say the Sunrise Movement and Adalah Justice Project in this new video.)

Thanks to Adam Horowitz and Michael Arria.

 

 

 

In her first TV interview, we speak with Emily Wilder, the young reporter fired by the Associated Press after she was targeted in a Republican smear campaign for her pro-Palestinian activism in college. Wilder is Jewish and was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace at Stanford University before she graduated in 2020. She was two weeks into her new job with the AP when the Stanford College Republicans singled out some of her past social media posts, triggering a conservative frenzy. The AP announced Wilder's firing shortly thereafter, citing unspecified violations of its social media policy. "Less than 48 hours after Stanford College Republicans began to post about me, I was fired," says Wilder. "I was not given an explanation for what social media policy I had violated." Over 100 AP journalists have signed an open letter to management protesting the decision to fire Wilder, which came just days after Israel demolished the building housing AP offices and other media organizations in Gaza. Journalism professor Janine Zacharia, a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post who taught Wilder at Stanford, says the episode is an example of how much pressure news organizations face on Middle East coverage. "I am very aware, perhaps more than most, to the sensitivities around the questions of bias and reporting on the conflict," says Zacharia. "In this case it wasn't about bias."

Related Story

WEB EXCLUSIVEMay 18, 2021Palestinian Journalist: Israeli Media Incites Mob Violence, Ignoring Settler Attacks




GUESTS

·    Emily Wilder

22-year-old journalist who was fired by the Associated Press after right-wing critics attacked her for past pro-Palestinian activism in college.

·    Janine Zacharia

journalism professor at Stanford and a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post.




Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: The Associated Press news service is facing growing criticism for firing a young reporter after she was targeted by a right-wing smear campaign for her pro-Palestinian activism while she was a college student at Stanford.

Emily Wilder is Jewish. She was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine and also the group Jewish Voice for Peace at Stanford University before she graduated in 2020. She was an intern at The Arizona Republic before the AP hired her for an entry-level role in Phoenix, and was two weeks into her new job when the Stanford College Republicans began highlighting some of her past tweets. Their campaign was then amplified by right-wing media and politicians, including Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton. The AP says it fired Wilder for violating its social media policy. The decision came just days after Israeli forces bombed the building housing the AP's office in Gaza.

Ten senior AP executives stood by the decision to fire Emily Wilder, noting in a leaked memo to editorial staff, quote, "We did not make it lightly," referring to the decision. The AP's executive editor, Sally Buzbee, did not sign the memo. She begins her new job next month as executive editor at The Washington Post. She's making history as the first woman executive editor of The Washington Post. She told NPR she has, quote, "handed over day-to-day operations" at AP, so, quote, "I was not involved in the decision at all."

Meanwhile, journalists at the AP protested Wilder's firing in an open letter Monday, writing, quote, "It has left our colleagues — particularly emerging journalists — wondering how we treat our own, what culture we embrace and what values we truly espouse as a company," unquote.

For more, we go to Phoenix, Arizona, to speak with Emily Wilder in her first television broadcast interview. We're also joined by Janine Zacharia, who was Emily Wilder's journalism professor at Stanford University. She's the former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Emily, why don't you just take us through what happened to you?

EMILY WILDER: Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me.

Last Monday, a group from my alma mater, the Stanford College Republicans, began to post online past posts that I had made on social media, in an attempt to expose my history of activism for Palestinian human rights while I was an undergraduate at Stanford University, and in an attempt to link AP to Hamas. In the next two days, I began to receive a lot of harassment, a lot of pretty heinous harassment, as well as prominent Republicans on the internet began to lambaste me, including Senator Tom Cotton and Ben Shapiro.

I was reassured during this time by my editors that I would not face repercussions for my past activism and that they just wanted to support me while I was facing this smear campaign. But less than 48 hours after the Stanford College Republicans began to post about me, I was fired. The reason given was a supposed social media violation sometime after I joined AP on May 3rd. I was not given an explanation for what social media policy I violated or what tweet had violated policy, and I still have not received an explanation.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Emily, when you were originally hired, what were you told by the Associated Press of what its social media policy was for its reporters?

EMILY WILDER: I was told that reporters must not share opinions online, must not show bias in coverage.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you were covering — what were you covering while you were at the AP?

EMILY WILDER: Well, I was hired as a news associate on the West Desk, which covers the western United States, 14 states in the western United States. And my position is not actually a reporting position; it was an entry-level kind of apprenticeship, an editorial and production apprenticeship. And so, I was concerned with assisting coverage in the western United States.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, in effect, why would these folks at Stanford target you? It seems almost nonsensical they would go after you in this concerted and campaign-like manner.

EMILY WILDER: Well, first of all, this is not my first encounter with this group. During my time at Stanford, they built a reputation as kind of bullies. They antagonized really any student they disagreed with. And I was in their crosshairs more than once. So they knew my name, and I guess they did not forget about me. And I can't say for certain why they did what they did, but perhaps they learned that I had joined a national news organization at a moment that that news organization was under public scrutiny, and they took it as an opportunity to both smear me and smear the Associated Press.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, the union representing Washington Post reporters — now, of course, Emily was working for the AP, but the union representing Washington Post reporters tweeted, quote, "Solidarity with the staff of the @AP and Emily Wilder. We hope management provides swift answers on her termination and clarifies the newsroom's social media practices," unquote. The AP said in a memo to staff Monday it plans to review its social media policies. Now, the significance of The Washington Post writers' union expressing solidarity is that Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of AP, is going to become the first woman executive editor of The Washington Post, beginning in June, which brings us to our next guest, Janine Zacharia, a professor at Stanford University who taught Emily Wilder. You were The Washington Post bureau chief in Jerusalem, is that right, about a decade ago?

JANINE ZACHARIA: That's correct.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about this controversy?

JANINE ZACHARIA: So, I want to speak about it on two levels. I want to speak personally, as Emily's instructor at Stanford, what this has been like, and then I want to speak in the macro about what I think is really happening here.

So, personally, I want to say that when Emily called me to tell me that she had been fired by the AP, I literally was shocked. I was really shocked, because — and I really didn't know what to say. And I said to Emily, "Close your laptop. I need to call you back," because I really need to think about what's happening here, what we're going to do and how am I going to help my brilliant former student continue with a career in journalism, because, yes, I spent most of my career, close to two decades, reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I started my career as a young woman in Jerusalem in an earlier incarnation, in the '90s, for Reuters. So I am very aware, perhaps more than most, to the sensitivities around the questions of bias and reporting on the conflict.

Nevertheless, as was mentioned, in this case it wasn't about bias. And it wasn't even about, I don't think, social media policies, because if you review what Emily posted since she started at the AP, there was one tweet that mentioned a mild opinion about the question of objectivity on reporting on the conflict and the language we use, and an editor could have come to her and said, "I think you should take down that tweet, because it expresses an opinion in violation of our social media policies. Doesn't mean you can't have these opinions, but you can't broadcast them on social media." But I think that the bigger issue in this case, if you read the letter of her dismissal, was that it mentions you cannot have any conflict that could be perceived as a bias or leading to accusations of bias. Something to that effect was the language.

And so, when the Stanford College Republicans documented some of her pro-Palestinian activism in college, I think they got a little spooked, because it was in the context, as Emily mentioned, of Israel's strike on the Gaza bureau and Hamas, and people who wanted to defend that strike were trying to accuse AP of knowingly sharing a building with Hamas — when Hamas rules the Gaza Strip for 15 years; they're everywhere — and this was a way to continue to fuel that narrative: "Look, you hired this news associate who has pro-Palestinian views." And so, it really was a full-on disinformation campaign against not only Emily, but the AP. These are actors who are not interested in having a serious conversation about how we cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They want to take down credible, fact-based news organizations.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Janine Zacharia, what are some of the unusual pressures that reporters who are covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have to deal with, especially here in the United States?

JANINE ZACHARIA: You know, I think the number-one one is this perception of — there's one — there's a couple, OK? First of all, it's a conflict of dueling narratives. And when you are trying to do objective reporting on the conflict, you know, you do — and this is the way it is — you try and figure out what's going on, what do people say happened at that checkpoint, what happened right now with the bombing of the building, whatever, and you evaluate the information that's given to you.

You know, if you take a walk in my inbox from 2009, 2010, 2011, when I was there for The Washington Post — you know, social media was still in its infancy, but I received so much hate mail. Nothing like what happened to Emily now could have happened to me, because there were no Twitter mobs back then, really. "You're pro-Zionist." "You're pro-Palestinian." "You're this." "You're that." And it could be very intense.

You know, I remember when I covered — there was an incident of what was called the flotilla. The Mavi Marmara was an aid shipment going to Gaza, and I was in the Gaza Strip for The Washington Post. And I got woken up around this time, 4 or 5 a.m., and I was told that the Israelis, IDF, had killed — or maybe it was the Navy or whatever, whoever — there was images of them dropping onto this Turkish aid ship — had killed nine people. And so I started writing for The Washington Post. I was doing radio. And I got a call that night from a very senior Israeli official yelling about this A1 story I had written for The Washington Post. And the Israelis hadn't — the Israelis hadn't released any information. It was like we were trying to — it was hard, in other words. So you do your best to cover this conflict as best as you can.

And what I do at Stanford is take people like Emily, brilliant students who care about the world, who have deep social conscience, who study history, who know what's going on in the world, and I try to train them to channel that social conscience into accountability journalism. And what's so distressing to me about this incident is Emily shouldn't have to and can never erase who she was — right? — before joining the AP. And if they decide that because she was a pro-Palestinian activist, attacked by a student group, amplified by a right-wing smear campaign against her, then they're going to — what does this mean? Does this mean that any student who was an activist in college — which is what students do, they're activists in college — can't become a journalist? You know, what happens if they're activists on abortion or climate change? Or is this specifically about Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because of the pressures that these news organizations feel?

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read what Ari Paul, who wrote about Emily Wilder for FAIR, later wrote on Facebook. He said, "She was not some famous firebrand. She wasn't appointed to some high-level post like Jerusalem correspondent. She's a college grad who had a low-level job at a domestic bureau. But it's clear that right-wing organizations are keeping tabs on all sorts of college activists and keeping track of where they end up working. And the right is clearly organized to follow and stalk them and ruin their lives, or at least attempt to." Emily, can you comment on this? And talk about what the Associated Press said to you before you joined. I mean, it wasn't a secret that you were part of — you were a Jewish student, you were part of Jewish Voice for Peace, and also you were part of the group for justice in Palestine.

EMILY WILDER: I think that that post is absolutely right, especially considering my post was in the western United States. My beat was totally unrelated to the Middle East. Like Janine said, yes, I have opinions about the Israel-Palestine conflict as a citizen of the world, but also as a Jewish American who grew up in a Jewish community. And, yes, I have history of activism on that issue. Neither of those facts prevent me from being able to do fair, credible, fact-based reporting, especially when the beats are entirely unrelated to the Middle East.

But also, I want to take it a step further and say that the values that led to my activism, the values of compassion and justice that compelled me to speak out loudly and advocate for Palestinian human rights, those values are powerful assets in my reporting. And I don't think newsrooms should try to get me to yield those values. And I really hope that I can continue to channel those values in accountability journalism, like Janine said.

AMY GOODMAN: I also want to point out that more than a hundred Associated Press employees signed a letter in support of you, Emily, that read, in part, quote, "Wilder was a young journalist, unnecessarily harmed by the AP's handling and announcement of its firing of her. We need to know that the AP would stand behind and provide resources to journalists who are the subject of smear campaigns and online harassment."

I also wanted to ask both Emily and Professor Zacharia about this timing of when this happened. You know, I was watching — while Sally Buzbee said she's not involved with day-to-day now at AP because she's going over to The Washington Post to head that news organization, she was on television talking about the bombing of the AP offices in Gaza, talking about calling for an investigation, and the intimidation this meant for the fact that there would be fewer voices reporting out of Gaza, and how critical that was. Emily, if you could talk about this? And then I'd also like to ask Janine Zacharia to go broader, both of you, on the coverage of Israel and Palestine. There was just a major petition that was signed by many to Canadian journalism organizations talking about the fact that they're not even supposed to use the word "Palestine."

EMILY WILDER: I can't really speak to which executives within the Associated Press were involved in the decision to fire me, partly because I received so little information when I was fired. And still I have received so little information. But I agree with you, the timing is really important to the story here. I mean, it's a perfect storm. We have the event in Gaza with the AP office a couple days ago. We have — people have made links between my treatment and the treatment of other journalists, like Chris Cuomo on CNN. And this is also happening within a moment that newsrooms are reckoning with this question about social media objectivity, past activism, diversity of life experiences. And I think that that's why, you know, my former colleagues at the Associated Press — that's partially why they felt so compelled to speak out. And seeing that is really encouraging and uplifting as a young journalist.

AMY GOODMAN: I should also point out that — and a number of others have done this — Wolf Blitzer, a main anchor on CNN, formerly worked for AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He hasn't been fired or prevented from reporting on Israel and Palestine. Professor Janine Zacharia, would you like to comment?

JANINE ZACHARIA: You know, I just — there's so many things that are upsetting about all this. But, you know, if you're going to go down the road of — in general, of, "OK, well, Emily was with Jewish Voice for Peace, and Wolf Blitzer was for AIPAC," the answer has to be, you know, judge your reporters based on their work. Right? Because it's insane to think that journalists don't have passions and opinions, because the very people who go into journalism, as you very well know, Amy, are people who are passionate and have opinions about things in the world. And so, it's just — that's distressing.

And also, I just want to echo something that Emily said about how they still haven't told her really what's going on. To me, as her instructor, as someone who maybe feels like I entrusted my young student with them, this is shocking to me that they didn't do more to sort of talk to her about it. And I think it's because it really wasn't about social media policy.

And this is something that the AP and other news organizations really need to think about. Who are we going to let work in our newsrooms? How are we going to deal with — I mean, if you have, for example, a whole generation of students who went to Black Lives Matter protests last summer, and then they come and take my journalism class at Stanford or another university, and they say, "You know what? I want to be a journalist," and their lives live on TikTok and Instagram and all that, are all these journalists not — are these students not going to be able to be journalists now? I mean, are there not top managers in news organizations who were in anti-Vietnam protests in the '60s, and their lives live on in Instagram?

Or is this specific to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Which, as you noted, the coverage is shifted the very week that Emily got caught up in this. You had the bombing of the AP bureau in Gaza. You had a very visceral reaction by the American public to the Israeli attacks in Gaza, in a way that you did not have in 2014 when 2,200 Palestinians were killed. You didn't see this kind of reaction. You had, on the A1 of The New York Times on Sunday, a story about the brutality of life under Israeli occupation. These are all very unusual. Look on The New York Times today in terms of a letter from Gaza that really calls into question a lot of the Israeli narrative about Hamas and what's really happening in Gaza. I mean, there's just — there's a major shift going on.

And so, you know, I think that Emily, in a way, the reason that she's seeing a lot of support is — I was worried. I wanted to make sure she had support. And you're seeing that because it's coming at that moment. Thank God, because I can't tell you again how distressing this has been for me as her instructor and someone who cares so deeply about her.

AMY GOODMAN: A major —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Emily —

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, Emily, I wanted to ask you: How has this, the last few days, shaped your view of journalism and what you want to do as a journalist?

EMILY WILDER: Yeah, it's really rocked my perspective, honestly, I mean, obviously. You know, I wanted to join the AP because — while, like everybody on this Earth, I do have opinions, and those opinions fuel my passion for journalism, I wanted to join the AP because I am capable at doing fact-based accountability journalism. That is what I really excelled at at The Arizona Republic, and that's why the AP hired me. And they were aware that I cared about the world. They were aware that I had a commitment to justice and marginalized communities. So, I thought I would be welcome in a newsroom like AP.

But, you know, I was also aware of this broader history, that I'm just one example in, of media institutions unfairly applying these rules about objectivity and social media haphazardly, when expedient, in a way that generally comes down hardest on journalists of color, journalists who have ever spoken out on Israeli policy, and in a way that just reinforces status quo politics. So I was aware of that, and I was witnessing these shifts in the industry. I thought I'd be welcome.

But now I know that I — this experience, I guess, could have made me question my commitment to those values that compel me to do journalism, but I will not yield them. And now I know that I need to channel them into journalism in a team, in an organization, that is similarly aligned.

AMY GOODMAN: It's interesting, when you follow the money, as journalists are supposed to do. The Stanford Review, a conservative publication, was co-founded over 30 years ago by the venture capitalist and conservative philanthropist Peter Thiel, who went on to speak at Trump's first Republican National Convention. He didn't contribute a lot to Republican senators, but he did contribute to the one who attacked you, Emily, and that was Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, and also has a lot of ties to the Stanford College Republicans.

But I also wanted to thank you for a piece that you did in The Arizona Republic that Juan and I followed up on, that you broke for them, which became a major national story. And that's the story of Kristin Urquiza, whose father, Mark Anthony Urquiza, was a supporter of Donald Trump and died after believing the president's assurances that the coronavirus pandemic was under control. He died of COVID. In October, we spoke to Kristin Urquiza, after you highlighted her in your piece in The Arizona Republic about losing her father. And I just want to play that clip for you.

KRISTIN URQUIZA: My dad, first and foremost, was great and did not deserve to die alone in a hospital with just a nurse holding his hand. He was also a lifelong Republican who was politically aware. He watched television news programming fairly regularly, read the newspaper, and engaged me as a young kid in politics, which is kind of where I got my interest in the world around me from. He was a Trump supporter and voted for Trump and believed him in what he had to say.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that's Kristin Urquiza talking about losing her father. But, you know, you had major impact as a young reporter at The Arizona Republic. And if also you could go back to commenting on Peter Thiel?

EMILY WILDER: Yeah, that story was really formative in my time at The Arizona Republic. It was pretty early on in my time at the Republic. And it represents exactly the kind of journalism that I excel at and that I want to continue doing, which is highlighting the undertold, underrepresented or suppressed stories of certain communities and linking those experiences to a larger investigative context, to a larger — to the situation that we're in, where communities of color are the most at risk for COVID-19. So, I was really grateful to have been a part of that and to have broken such an important story. And, you know, that's what I — I try to continue to do impactful storytelling like that.

And in terms of the connection with Peter Thiel, yes, this organization does have powerful and wealthy connections in the conservative ecosystem. But I also want to make sure that people understand that this is just a group of college-aged trolls, honestly, and they did not have to become relevant. They should not have — the Associated Press should not have felt threatened by them. I truly believe they would have gone away — they would have spun their wheels on this and gone away, if the Associated Press had not fired me and had not sort of empowered them and empowered their bullying, empowered their disinformation.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Professor Janine Zacharia, what are you going to teach your students, as they come back to Stanford now, about what this means for journalism? In the end, because of Emily's outspokenness and bravery in taking this on instead of slinking away, do you think journalism will advance in this country, and particularly around the Israel-Palestine issue?

JANINE ZACHARIA: Well, I scrapped my class in foreign correspondence on Thursday that I had planned, and we're devoting it to this, because it's so important, obviously. Emily is a peer and a friend of many of the students in my current class, who have been very traumatized by this whole thing, wondering, again, you know, whether they have a future in journalism, reaching out to me quite shell-shocked. And so, I feel the need as their instructor to talk about what's happened.

But I don't know what to say, you know, truthfully, Amy, because what I do, as someone who started at Reuters and worked at The Washington Post, the conventional media, you know, what I train them to do, I don't know — I just don't know what to say right now. I'm still processing it all. But what I will do is hold up Emily as an example of what I believe they all should do, is use their brilliance and channel their convictions into amazing reporting that gets picked up by Amy Goodman and others. She had another story, by the way, about wait times for COVID testing, that was featured on Rachel Maddow, as an intern. Right? So, in the end, you know, I'll stress that this is really the AP's loss, and whoever hires her next is going to be so very fortunate.

AMY GOODMAN: Maybe she'll be Sally Buzbee's first hire at Washington Post —

JANINE ZACHARIA: That would be nice.

AMY GOODMAN: — and then follow in your footsteps. Emily — I want to thank you both for being with us, Emily Wilder, fired by AP, which has fired up the journalism community, not only in the United States, and others for more just reporting around the world, and Janine Zacharia, Emily Wilder's journalism professor at Stanford University who is the former Washington Post Jerusalem bureau chief.

 


 

THE ABSURD TIMES

Now it's 'antisemitic' to say that Israel practices 'apartheid'

BY JAMES NORTH AND PHILIP WEISS  MAY 27, 2021

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PALESTINIANS TAKE PART IN A RALLY AGAINST ISRAEL'S CLOSURE TO PALESTINIANS OF WHAT WAS FORMERLY THE MAIN MARKET STREET IN HEBRON, SHUHADA STREET, TO ACCOMMODATE ILLEGAL JEWISH SETTLERS IN THE CITY CENTER, 2011. PALESTINIANS CHANGED THE NAME OF SHUHADA STREET TO APARTHEID STREET TO MAKE CLEAR THE INEQUITY. PHOTO BY MAMOUN WAZWAZ

 

        Clearly, these issues have become festering for a long time. Now, Retrumplicans, with their strange chants of "Jews will not replace us" have taken stupidity to new levels and it is clear, but equally dangerous, to say that these morons have given "anti-Semitism" a bad name. Well, it is clear that Bibi has taken Israel into the level of apartheid. That may be one reason that all the other parties there have joined together and formed a new government: the get rid of him as he has given Israel a bad name world-wide. The court system is now free to prosecute and it does not seem likely that he can find another country to shelter him.

       

A similar fate awaits Trump as his delusions have now grown so vividly as to qualify his as psychotic, no longer a sociopath, but a fading moron with delusions of grandeur.  As his trials and convictions become more real and immediate to him, he may realize his inevitable fate and seek a refuge in some foreign country. He has made investments in housing in several already.

 

So, It is time to get these interviews up and posted and then be released from further responsibility. One can look at charts of numbers of vaccinations or cases of this current infection and notice dramatic changes that started just about January 20. It is a good time to just let all of this go on of its own accord (no,Trump will not be returned to the Presidency in August) and rest for awhile. Meanwhile, I have some other things to say that have little to do with current events.

 

Here are a couple things from Democracy Now that are self-explanatory:

 

As you are surely aware, advocates for Israel are using an apparent surge in antisemitic attacks to try to delegitimize pro-Palestine advocacy.

Part of that effort is a move to characterize the charge that Israel is practicing apartheid as antisemitic. Four pro-Israel congresspeople sent a letter to President Biden yesterday taking aim at fellow Democrats who are critical of Israel. The four — Josh Gottheimer, Elaine Luria, Dean Phillips, and Kathy Manning, all of whom are Jewish — say Israel protects Jews, so criticisms of Israel over "apartheid" or "terrorism" are "antisemitic at their core."

We also reject comments from Members of Congress accusing Israel of being an "apartheid state" and committing "act[s] of terrorism." These statements are antisemitic at their core and contribute to a climate that is hostile to many Jews. We must never forget that less than eighty years ago, within the lifetime of our parents and grandparents, six million people were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust because they were Jews. Israel has long provided the Jewish people with a homeland in which they can be safe after facing centuries of persecution.

That reference to other House members is to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who have charged Israel with "apartheid." While Ilhan Omar has leveled the "terrorism" charge (per JTA).

The idea that it is antisemitic to say Israel practices apartheid is patently absurd. The apartheid accusation has been made for years by Palestinian human rights groups who rightly object to Palestinian conditions. Lately other groups have joined on: In January Israel's leading human rights group B'Tselem said Israel is an "apartheid . . . regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea." And a month ago Human Rights Watch issued a 213-page report saying Israel commits the crime of "apartheid" — with a systematic oppression of Palestinians, inhumane acts, and an intention to dominate Palestinians. Both B'Tselem and HRW are headed by Jews, by the way.

And let's not even get into the long history of the apartheid charge from American visitors, including Jimmy Carter, who have been shocked by the limits on Palestinian movement and residency and representation in the West Bank. And by the way, two U.S. Jewish groups — IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace — state that Israel practices apartheid.

If the shoe fits, wear it. . .

Nonetheless, the Israel lobby has set up this new front in the battle for Israel's legitimacy. They're pushing it.

An Israeli reporter who was granted an interview with Antony Blinken on Tuesday asked him: "When we see, for example, known figures on the far left in the United States referring to Israel as an apartheid state, are you worried that this rhetoric could lead to more anti-Semitic incidents, instead of calming things down?" (Blinken dodged the question: "one of the great things about my job . . . is I don't do politics, I just focus on policy.")

Bernie Sanders flubbed the question on Face the Nation, Sunday. He accepted the view that "apartheid" contributes to antisemitism. Host John Dickerson asked:

"There are a number of liberals who use the word apartheid to describe Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, a number of them liberals in the House who use that language. The executive director of the American Jewish Congress who handled Jewish outreach for your campaign Sanders' campaign ― Joel Rubin — has said that using the word has increased the level of vitriol that has contributed to this antisemitism. Do you think that those who share your view should not use that kind of language?"

Sanders said, "Well, I think we should tone down the rhetoric." Though Sanders did speak about the inhumane siege of Gaza.

It's actually not the rhetoric that is extreme here; it's the underlying facts. And the willingness of prestige organizations to accept the truth has helped to change the U.S. discussion. That makes this a good battle to have. "Call on your government to end its sponsorship of Israeli apartheid" (say the Sunrise Movement and Adalah Justice Project in this new video.)

Thanks to Adam Horowitz and Michael Arria.

 

 

 

In her first TV interview, we speak with Emily Wilder, the young reporter fired by the Associated Press after she was targeted in a Republican smear campaign for her pro-Palestinian activism in college. Wilder is Jewish and was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace at Stanford University before she graduated in 2020. She was two weeks into her new job with the AP when the Stanford College Republicans singled out some of her past social media posts, triggering a conservative frenzy. The AP announced Wilder's firing shortly thereafter, citing unspecified violations of its social media policy. "Less than 48 hours after Stanford College Republicans began to post about me, I was fired," says Wilder. "I was not given an explanation for what social media policy I had violated." Over 100 AP journalists have signed an open letter to management protesting the decision to fire Wilder, which came just days after Israel demolished the building housing AP offices and other media organizations in Gaza. Journalism professor Janine Zacharia, a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post who taught Wilder at Stanford, says the episode is an example of how much pressure news organizations face on Middle East coverage. "I am very aware, perhaps more than most, to the sensitivities around the questions of bias and reporting on the conflict," says Zacharia. "In this case it wasn't about bias."

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GUESTS

·    Emily Wilder

22-year-old journalist who was fired by the Associated Press after right-wing critics attacked her for past pro-Palestinian activism in college.

·    Janine Zacharia

journalism professor at Stanford and a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post.




Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: The Associated Press news service is facing growing criticism for firing a young reporter after she was targeted by a right-wing smear campaign for her pro-Palestinian activism while she was a college student at Stanford.

Emily Wilder is Jewish. She was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine and also the group Jewish Voice for Peace at Stanford University before she graduated in 2020. She was an intern at The Arizona Republic before the AP hired her for an entry-level role in Phoenix, and was two weeks into her new job when the Stanford College Republicans began highlighting some of her past tweets. Their campaign was then amplified by right-wing media and politicians, including Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton. The AP says it fired Wilder for violating its social media policy. The decision came just days after Israeli forces bombed the building housing the AP's office in Gaza.

Ten senior AP executives stood by the decision to fire Emily Wilder, noting in a leaked memo to editorial staff, quote, "We did not make it lightly," referring to the decision. The AP's executive editor, Sally Buzbee, did not sign the memo. She begins her new job next month as executive editor at The Washington Post. She's making history as the first woman executive editor of The Washington Post. She told NPR she has, quote, "handed over day-to-day operations" at AP, so, quote, "I was not involved in the decision at all."

Meanwhile, journalists at the AP protested Wilder's firing in an open letter Monday, writing, quote, "It has left our colleagues — particularly emerging journalists — wondering how we treat our own, what culture we embrace and what values we truly espouse as a company," unquote.

For more, we go to Phoenix, Arizona, to speak with Emily Wilder in her first television broadcast interview. We're also joined by Janine Zacharia, who was Emily Wilder's journalism professor at Stanford University. She's the former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Emily, why don't you just take us through what happened to you?

EMILY WILDER: Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me.

Last Monday, a group from my alma mater, the Stanford College Republicans, began to post online past posts that I had made on social media, in an attempt to expose my history of activism for Palestinian human rights while I was an undergraduate at Stanford University, and in an attempt to link AP to Hamas. In the next two days, I began to receive a lot of harassment, a lot of pretty heinous harassment, as well as prominent Republicans on the internet began to lambaste me, including Senator Tom Cotton and Ben Shapiro.

I was reassured during this time by my editors that I would not face repercussions for my past activism and that they just wanted to support me while I was facing this smear campaign. But less than 48 hours after the Stanford College Republicans began to post about me, I was fired. The reason given was a supposed social media violation sometime after I joined AP on May 3rd. I was not given an explanation for what social media policy I violated or what tweet had violated policy, and I still have not received an explanation.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Emily, when you were originally hired, what were you told by the Associated Press of what its social media policy was for its reporters?

EMILY WILDER: I was told that reporters must not share opinions online, must not show bias in coverage.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you were covering — what were you covering while you were at the AP?

EMILY WILDER: Well, I was hired as a news associate on the West Desk, which covers the western United States, 14 states in the western United States. And my position is not actually a reporting position; it was an entry-level kind of apprenticeship, an editorial and production apprenticeship. And so, I was concerned with assisting coverage in the western United States.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, in effect, why would these folks at Stanford target you? It seems almost nonsensical they would go after you in this concerted and campaign-like manner.

EMILY WILDER: Well, first of all, this is not my first encounter with this group. During my time at Stanford, they built a reputation as kind of bullies. They antagonized really any student they disagreed with. And I was in their crosshairs more than once. So they knew my name, and I guess they did not forget about me. And I can't say for certain why they did what they did, but perhaps they learned that I had joined a national news organization at a moment that that news organization was under public scrutiny, and they took it as an opportunity to both smear me and smear the Associated Press.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, the union representing Washington Post reporters — now, of course, Emily was working for the AP, but the union representing Washington Post reporters tweeted, quote, "Solidarity with the staff of the @AP and Emily Wilder. We hope management provides swift answers on her termination and clarifies the newsroom's social media practices," unquote. The AP said in a memo to staff Monday it plans to review its social media policies. Now, the significance of The Washington Post writers' union expressing solidarity is that Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of AP, is going to become the first woman executive editor of The Washington Post, beginning in June, which brings us to our next guest, Janine Zacharia, a professor at Stanford University who taught Emily Wilder. You were The Washington Post bureau chief in Jerusalem, is that right, about a decade ago?

JANINE ZACHARIA: That's correct.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about this controversy?

JANINE ZACHARIA: So, I want to speak about it on two levels. I want to speak personally, as Emily's instructor at Stanford, what this has been like, and then I want to speak in the macro about what I think is really happening here.

So, personally, I want to say that when Emily called me to tell me that she had been fired by the AP, I literally was shocked. I was really shocked, because — and I really didn't know what to say. And I said to Emily, "Close your laptop. I need to call you back," because I really need to think about what's happening here, what we're going to do and how am I going to help my brilliant former student continue with a career in journalism, because, yes, I spent most of my career, close to two decades, reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I started my career as a young woman in Jerusalem in an earlier incarnation, in the '90s, for Reuters. So I am very aware, perhaps more than most, to the sensitivities around the questions of bias and reporting on the conflict.

Nevertheless, as was mentioned, in this case it wasn't about bias. And it wasn't even about, I don't think, social media policies, because if you review what Emily posted since she started at the AP, there was one tweet that mentioned a mild opinion about the question of objectivity on reporting on the conflict and the language we use, and an editor could have come to her and said, "I think you should take down that tweet, because it expresses an opinion in violation of our social media policies. Doesn't mean you can't have these opinions, but you can't broadcast them on social media." But I think that the bigger issue in this case, if you read the letter of her dismissal, was that it mentions you cannot have any conflict that could be perceived as a bias or leading to accusations of bias. Something to that effect was the language.

And so, when the Stanford College Republicans documented some of her pro-Palestinian activism in college, I think they got a little spooked, because it was in the context, as Emily mentioned, of Israel's strike on the Gaza bureau and Hamas, and people who wanted to defend that strike were trying to accuse AP of knowingly sharing a building with Hamas — when Hamas rules the Gaza Strip for 15 years; they're everywhere — and this was a way to continue to fuel that narrative: "Look, you hired this news associate who has pro-Palestinian views." And so, it really was a full-on disinformation campaign against not only Emily, but the AP. These are actors who are not interested in having a serious conversation about how we cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They want to take down credible, fact-based news organizations.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Janine Zacharia, what are some of the unusual pressures that reporters who are covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have to deal with, especially here in the United States?

JANINE ZACHARIA: You know, I think the number-one one is this perception of — there's one — there's a couple, OK? First of all, it's a conflict of dueling narratives. And when you are trying to do objective reporting on the conflict, you know, you do — and this is the way it is — you try and figure out what's going on, what do people say happened at that checkpoint, what happened right now with the bombing of the building, whatever, and you evaluate the information that's given to you.

You know, if you take a walk in my inbox from 2009, 2010, 2011, when I was there for The Washington Post — you know, social media was still in its infancy, but I received so much hate mail. Nothing like what happened to Emily now could have happened to me, because there were no Twitter mobs back then, really. "You're pro-Zionist." "You're pro-Palestinian." "You're this." "You're that." And it could be very intense.

You know, I remember when I covered — there was an incident of what was called the flotilla. The Mavi Marmara was an aid shipment going to Gaza, and I was in the Gaza Strip for The Washington Post. And I got woken up around this time, 4 or 5 a.m., and I was told that the Israelis, IDF, had killed — or maybe it was the Navy or whatever, whoever — there was images of them dropping onto this Turkish aid ship — had killed nine people. And so I started writing for The Washington Post. I was doing radio. And I got a call that night from a very senior Israeli official yelling about this A1 story I had written for The Washington Post. And the Israelis hadn't — the Israelis hadn't released any information. It was like we were trying to — it was hard, in other words. So you do your best to cover this conflict as best as you can.

And what I do at Stanford is take people like Emily, brilliant students who care about the world, who have deep social conscience, who study history, who know what's going on in the world, and I try to train them to channel that social conscience into accountability journalism. And what's so distressing to me about this incident is Emily shouldn't have to and can never erase who she was — right? — before joining the AP. And if they decide that because she was a pro-Palestinian activist, attacked by a student group, amplified by a right-wing smear campaign against her, then they're going to — what does this mean? Does this mean that any student who was an activist in college — which is what students do, they're activists in college — can't become a journalist? You know, what happens if they're activists on abortion or climate change? Or is this specifically about Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because of the pressures that these news organizations feel?

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read what Ari Paul, who wrote about Emily Wilder for FAIR, later wrote on Facebook. He said, "She was not some famous firebrand. She wasn't appointed to some high-level post like Jerusalem correspondent. She's a college grad who had a low-level job at a domestic bureau. But it's clear that right-wing organizations are keeping tabs on all sorts of college activists and keeping track of where they end up working. And the right is clearly organized to follow and stalk them and ruin their lives, or at least attempt to." Emily, can you comment on this? And talk about what the Associated Press said to you before you joined. I mean, it wasn't a secret that you were part of — you were a Jewish student, you were part of Jewish Voice for Peace, and also you were part of the group for justice in Palestine.

EMILY WILDER: I think that that post is absolutely right, especially considering my post was in the western United States. My beat was totally unrelated to the Middle East. Like Janine said, yes, I have opinions about the Israel-Palestine conflict as a citizen of the world, but also as a Jewish American who grew up in a Jewish community. And, yes, I have history of activism on that issue. Neither of those facts prevent me from being able to do fair, credible, fact-based reporting, especially when the beats are entirely unrelated to the Middle East.

But also, I want to take it a step further and say that the values that led to my activism, the values of compassion and justice that compelled me to speak out loudly and advocate for Palestinian human rights, those values are powerful assets in my reporting. And I don't think newsrooms should try to get me to yield those values. And I really hope that I can continue to channel those values in accountability journalism, like Janine said.

AMY GOODMAN: I also want to point out that more than a hundred Associated Press employees signed a letter in support of you, Emily, that read, in part, quote, "Wilder was a young journalist, unnecessarily harmed by the AP's handling and announcement of its firing of her. We need to know that the AP would stand behind and provide resources to journalists who are the subject of smear campaigns and online harassment."

I also wanted to ask both Emily and Professor Zacharia about this timing of when this happened. You know, I was watching — while Sally Buzbee said she's not involved with day-to-day now at AP because she's going over to The Washington Post to head that news organization, she was on television talking about the bombing of the AP offices in Gaza, talking about calling for an investigation, and the intimidation this meant for the fact that there would be fewer voices reporting out of Gaza, and how critical that was. Emily, if you could talk about this? And then I'd also like to ask Janine Zacharia to go broader, both of you, on the coverage of Israel and Palestine. There was just a major petition that was signed by many to Canadian journalism organizations talking about the fact that they're not even supposed to use the word "Palestine."

EMILY WILDER: I can't really speak to which executives within the Associated Press were involved in the decision to fire me, partly because I received so little information when I was fired. And still I have received so little information. But I agree with you, the timing is really important to the story here. I mean, it's a perfect storm. We have the event in Gaza with the AP office a couple days ago. We have — people have made links between my treatment and the treatment of other journalists, like Chris Cuomo on CNN. And this is also happening within a moment that newsrooms are reckoning with this question about social media objectivity, past activism, diversity of life experiences. And I think that that's why, you know, my former colleagues at the Associated Press — that's partially why they felt so compelled to speak out. And seeing that is really encouraging and uplifting as a young journalist.

AMY GOODMAN: I should also point out that — and a number of others have done this — Wolf Blitzer, a main anchor on CNN, formerly worked for AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He hasn't been fired or prevented from reporting on Israel and Palestine. Professor Janine Zacharia, would you like to comment?

JANINE ZACHARIA: You know, I just — there's so many things that are upsetting about all this. But, you know, if you're going to go down the road of — in general, of, "OK, well, Emily was with Jewish Voice for Peace, and Wolf Blitzer was for AIPAC," the answer has to be, you know, judge your reporters based on their work. Right? Because it's insane to think that journalists don't have passions and opinions, because the very people who go into journalism, as you very well know, Amy, are people who are passionate and have opinions about things in the world. And so, it's just — that's distressing.

And also, I just want to echo something that Emily said about how they still haven't told her really what's going on. To me, as her instructor, as someone who maybe feels like I entrusted my young student with them, this is shocking to me that they didn't do more to sort of talk to her about it. And I think it's because it really wasn't about social media policy.

And this is something that the AP and other news organizations really need to think about. Who are we going to let work in our newsrooms? How are we going to deal with — I mean, if you have, for example, a whole generation of students who went to Black Lives Matter protests last summer, and then they come and take my journalism class at Stanford or another university, and they say, "You know what? I want to be a journalist," and their lives live on TikTok and Instagram and all that, are all these journalists not — are these students not going to be able to be journalists now? I mean, are there not top managers in news organizations who were in anti-Vietnam protests in the '60s, and their lives live on in Instagram?

Or is this specific to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Which, as you noted, the coverage is shifted the very week that Emily got caught up in this. You had the bombing of the AP bureau in Gaza. You had a very visceral reaction by the American public to the Israeli attacks in Gaza, in a way that you did not have in 2014 when 2,200 Palestinians were killed. You didn't see this kind of reaction. You had, on the A1 of The New York Times on Sunday, a story about the brutality of life under Israeli occupation. These are all very unusual. Look on The New York Times today in terms of a letter from Gaza that really calls into question a lot of the Israeli narrative about Hamas and what's really happening in Gaza. I mean, there's just — there's a major shift going on.

And so, you know, I think that Emily, in a way, the reason that she's seeing a lot of support is — I was worried. I wanted to make sure she had support. And you're seeing that because it's coming at that moment. Thank God, because I can't tell you again how distressing this has been for me as her instructor and someone who cares so deeply about her.

AMY GOODMAN: A major —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Emily —

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, Emily, I wanted to ask you: How has this, the last few days, shaped your view of journalism and what you want to do as a journalist?

EMILY WILDER: Yeah, it's really rocked my perspective, honestly, I mean, obviously. You know, I wanted to join the AP because — while, like everybody on this Earth, I do have opinions, and those opinions fuel my passion for journalism, I wanted to join the AP because I am capable at doing fact-based accountability journalism. That is what I really excelled at at The Arizona Republic, and that's why the AP hired me. And they were aware that I cared about the world. They were aware that I had a commitment to justice and marginalized communities. So, I thought I would be welcome in a newsroom like AP.

But, you know, I was also aware of this broader history, that I'm just one example in, of media institutions unfairly applying these rules about objectivity and social media haphazardly, when expedient, in a way that generally comes down hardest on journalists of color, journalists who have ever spoken out on Israeli policy, and in a way that just reinforces status quo politics. So I was aware of that, and I was witnessing these shifts in the industry. I thought I'd be welcome.

But now I know that I — this experience, I guess, could have made me question my commitment to those values that compel me to do journalism, but I will not yield them. And now I know that I need to channel them into journalism in a team, in an organization, that is similarly aligned.

AMY GOODMAN: It's interesting, when you follow the money, as journalists are supposed to do. The Stanford Review, a conservative publication, was co-founded over 30 years ago by the venture capitalist and conservative philanthropist Peter Thiel, who went on to speak at Trump's first Republican National Convention. He didn't contribute a lot to Republican senators, but he did contribute to the one who attacked you, Emily, and that was Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, and also has a lot of ties to the Stanford College Republicans.

But I also wanted to thank you for a piece that you did in The Arizona Republic that Juan and I followed up on, that you broke for them, which became a major national story. And that's the story of Kristin Urquiza, whose father, Mark Anthony Urquiza, was a supporter of Donald Trump and died after believing the president's assurances that the coronavirus pandemic was under control. He died of COVID. In October, we spoke to Kristin Urquiza, after you highlighted her in your piece in The Arizona Republic about losing her father. And I just want to play that clip for you.

KRISTIN URQUIZA: My dad, first and foremost, was great and did not deserve to die alone in a hospital with just a nurse holding his hand. He was also a lifelong Republican who was politically aware. He watched television news programming fairly regularly, read the newspaper, and engaged me as a young kid in politics, which is kind of where I got my interest in the world around me from. He was a Trump supporter and voted for Trump and believed him in what he had to say.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that's Kristin Urquiza talking about losing her father. But, you know, you had major impact as a young reporter at The Arizona Republic. And if also you could go back to commenting on Peter Thiel?

EMILY WILDER: Yeah, that story was really formative in my time at The Arizona Republic. It was pretty early on in my time at the Republic. And it represents exactly the kind of journalism that I excel at and that I want to continue doing, which is highlighting the undertold, underrepresented or suppressed stories of certain communities and linking those experiences to a larger investigative context, to a larger — to the situation that we're in, where communities of color are the most at risk for COVID-19. So, I was really grateful to have been a part of that and to have broken such an important story. And, you know, that's what I — I try to continue to do impactful storytelling like that.

And in terms of the connection with Peter Thiel, yes, this organization does have powerful and wealthy connections in the conservative ecosystem. But I also want to make sure that people understand that this is just a group of college-aged trolls, honestly, and they did not have to become relevant. They should not have — the Associated Press should not have felt threatened by them. I truly believe they would have gone away — they would have spun their wheels on this and gone away, if the Associated Press had not fired me and had not sort of empowered them and empowered their bullying, empowered their disinformation.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Professor Janine Zacharia, what are you going to teach your students, as they come back to Stanford now, about what this means for journalism? In the end, because of Emily's outspokenness and bravery in taking this on instead of slinking away, do you think journalism will advance in this country, and particularly around the Israel-Palestine issue?

JANINE ZACHARIA: Well, I scrapped my class in foreign correspondence on Thursday that I had planned, and we're devoting it to this, because it's so important, obviously. Emily is a peer and a friend of many of the students in my current class, who have been very traumatized by this whole thing, wondering, again, you know, whether they have a future in journalism, reaching out to me quite shell-shocked. And so, I feel the need as their instructor to talk about what's happened.

But I don't know what to say, you know, truthfully, Amy, because what I do, as someone who started at Reuters and worked at The Washington Post, the conventional media, you know, what I train them to do, I don't know — I just don't know what to say right now. I'm still processing it all. But what I will do is hold up Emily as an example of what I believe they all should do, is use their brilliance and channel their convictions into amazing reporting that gets picked up by Amy Goodman and others. She had another story, by the way, about wait times for COVID testing, that was featured on Rachel Maddow, as an intern. Right? So, in the end, you know, I'll stress that this is really the AP's loss, and whoever hires her next is going to be so very fortunate.

AMY GOODMAN: Maybe she'll be Sally Buzbee's first hire at Washington Post —

JANINE ZACHARIA: That would be nice.

AMY GOODMAN: — and then follow in your footsteps. Emily — I want to thank you both for being with us, Emily Wilder, fired by AP, which has fired up the journalism community, not only in the United States, and others for more just reporting around the world, and Janine Zacharia, Emily Wilder's journalism professor at Stanford University who is the former Washington Post Jerusalem bureau chief.