While on the campaign trail, President Joe Biden spoke with some “Syrian American activists” who favor increased sanctions on the country as well as regime change in Damascus, during a private fundraiser in Maryland last month. According to neoconservative columnist Josh Rogin – one of Bill Kristol’s protégés – Biden told these regime change advocates that, among other things, Assad must go. Rogin says these activists “took advantage of their audience with Biden… to implore him to do more to oppose” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“We were particularly alarmed by the situation of Palestinian human rights defenders,” reads the report, “who are routinely subject to a range of punitive measures as part of the occupation regime.”
Roger Waters has drawn outrage for wearing a uniform onstage this week that resembles those worn by Nazi SS officers—even though Waters’ outfit is from The Wall film and has been a key part of the former Pink Floyd frontman’s anti-fascist political commentary for years. Waters, 79, walked on stage in the black uniform featuring the two hammers logo from The Wall villain’s garb, while “In the Flesh,” the corresponding song from the film, played in the venue. He held a fake rifle and pretended to fire it; and the names of Anne Frank, Masha Amini, George Floyd, and Shireen Abu Akleh appeared on the Jumbotron overhead. The aggressive anti-establishment vibe culminated with Waters singing “Lay Down Jerusalem (If I Had Been God)” while the message “F$%& the occupation” showed onscreen behind him. It was a common display of political activism for Waters, but it sparked a slew of outrage online—particularly for Waters donning the outfit while in Germany and for using Anne Frank’s name in the performance. “Good morning to every one but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) desecrating the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust,” Israel’s official Twitter account posted Wednesday.
One year ago, on May 11, 2022, an Israeli soldier fatally shot the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the head as she was reporting on an Israeli military raid just outside the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She was shot while wearing a blue helmet and blue flak jacket clearly emblazoned with the word “press.” Abu Akleh was one of the most prominent TV journalists in the Arab world and had worked for Al Jazeera for a quarter of a century. She was also a U.S. citizen. But a year after her death, no one has been held accountable despite detailed testimony from eyewitnesses to the shooting. We air excerpts from the Al Jazeera investigation The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, which just won a George Polk Award, and speak with correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous. “There’s still no justice in her case, no accountability whatsoever,” says Abdel Kouddous. He adds that while the White House has been very vocal about the case of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is detained in Russia, the response to Abu Akleh’s killing has been muted. “Shireen was an American citizen, and her family deserves the same calls for justice, the same push for accountability from the White House.”
Twenty years ago on March 16, the world got a tragic glimpse into what the state of Israel was going to become. Given the green light in the Oval Office by President George W. Bush, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon – “a man of peace,” Bush said at the time – started the now-inevitable march to apartheid and the murderous treatment of the Palestinians against whom the main battle would be waged.
Palestinians say Antony Blinken’s statements in Jerusalem show the U.S. remains biased. “When the US draws an equivalence between the butcher and the butchered, then it is necessarily on the side of the butcher,” says Ubai Aboudi.
In yet another demonstration of anti-Palestinianism in the U.S. mainstream, there is no outcry over Twitter’s arbitrary suspension of Said Arikat, longtime D.C. correspondent for Al-Quds newspaper.
Leave it to innovative Israel to sink to ever-new lows.
It isn’t anything new for the state to smear Palestinians killed by its police and military as terrorists. But it seems to be a fresh twist for Israel to try to convince the UN that most of the Palestinian children slain by its forces had “terror” ties.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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