Blog - Short Takes
Hate Crime or Someone Who Hates War Crimes?
On February 28 police in West Hartford, CT arrested Hicham Talal, a young man who they claimed sprayed red paint on a Webster Bank building during a protest for Palestine. He was charged with “intimidation based on bigotry”, in other words a “hate crime”. Now that’s a curious charge for throwing paint on a bank. What’s the logic?
In a Fox 61 video you see the bank building had all kinds of post it notes put on it by protesters. In another article you see the words on the post it notes, some of which say, “Shut Elbit Down" Evidently the protesters think Webster Bank has a connection with a company called Elbit.
Ahh. So the thrower of paint didn’t like the Elbit company. Elbit is Israeli-owned. Israel calls itself the Jewish state. So the paint thrower hates Jews. Hate crime, open and shut case.
But wait a second. Could there be a different reason why the protesters dislike Elbit?
I know a bit about the Elbit company because it’s one of the companies that the Connecticut Treasury has invested in, to the tune of over $900,000. We’ve been looking into Connecticut’s Israeli investments. Elbit is Israel’s biggest weapons-maker.
One of Elbit’s key products is military drones. In 2014 their Hermes drone was involved in a notorious incident at a Gaza beach where the drone gunned down 4 cousins playing soccer. It first killed one 11 year-old boy and when the others ran away it pursued them and killed them.
That was ten years ago. Now they have a Lanius drone that's a modified racing drone that can fly into buildings and open fire. On Feb. 15 a doctor in Nasser Hospital told Democracy Now, “Yesterday also, Israeli snipers and Israeli quadcopters, which is a drone, carry on it an AR, and with a sniper, they shot all over the building. And they shot my colleague, Dr. Karam. He has a shrapnel inside his head. I can upload for you a cat scan for him”
And on February 29th Israel committed the “Flour Massacre” killing over 100 on the spot with over 700 injuries, many who will die because north Gaza has only a few barely functioning hospitals. Democracy Now reported Palestinians in northern Gaza were waiting for food aid when “they came under fire from Israeli tanks and drones.” Elbit drones again.
So maybe, maybe these protesters and the paint thrower didn’t like Elbit because its products shred Palestinians. That’s not a hate crime… is it?
P.S. American Muslims for Palestine says the whole case against Talal is bogus. More about that later.
Blog - Short Takes
Bad Framing by WFSB
Oct 19, 2023. For a few seconds I was happy at the CBS Hartford (WFSB) coverage on the 6 o'clock news of the JVP led march and rally in New Haven on Oct. 19.
Then I realized the framing. The journalist Susan Raff said there had been rallies for or against Israel. This was a "rally against Israel". In other words it was a matter of one or another ethnicity being supported.
Never did she say the rally was led by Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish organization. So there's no inkling that the rally was over a matter of principle, that one should not support genocide. There was no notice in the coverage that people were protesting a siege even though the video showed a banner protesting a siege in the first few seconds. No mention that marchers complained that politicians were complicit in war crimes. There was nothing about Biden rejecting a U.N. resolution calling for a ceasefire and release of captives. No, it was all about being "anti-Israel".
Raff tweets at @SusanRaff1 You can write to WFSB at: newsdesk3@wfsb.com
Raff did do us a service by getting a comment from DeLauro who told her,
"Israel has our unequivocal support as they seek to defeat Hamas. The Palestinian people are not Hamas. This war is against Hamas, not the Palestinian people."
So DeLauro supports warfare that bombs civilian targets, housing, schools, hospitals all over the Gaza Strip in the name of a campaign to "defeat Hamas". They sure aren't targeting Hamas, because they have no idea where Hamas is. DeLauro is absolutely complicit in the genocidal Netanyahu-Biden war.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Interestingly the fuller coverage of the rally ONLINE was much better. It's the same link, but look at the headline and scroll down.
It does mention that the rally was led by Jewish Voice for Peace.
An Email to the Editors of the New York Times
Oct. 13, 2023
“To the editors:
Sorry, but your editorials are awful. The response to Hamas atrocities should not be genocide. I've never used the "g" word before in talking about what's happening but that's what the leadership of Jewish Voice for Peace is saying. I just was on a zoom call with 1,000 people. Don't think Jews are united in calling for blind revenge..
At the Rally on October 9
My remarks at the rally on after the attack from Gaza
In New Haven, CT.
I didn't have much prepared and most of that I threw away. I came late to the rally and I could see lots of Israeli flags from a counter-rally on the same City Hall steps. There was also the truck from the Lubavitcher's, the Jewish sect, that inspires so many Israeli fascists. It had a large sound horn blaring.
I was introduced as speaking on behalf of Jewish Voice for Peace and denounced the counter-rally explaining that the Lubavitcher's were the extreme, that only 10% of U.S. Jews were Orthodox, and that the Lubavitcher's were only a minority of them.
I said the Israeli flag had the status of the Confederate flag and asked the crowd to join in a chant "Take Down the Israeli Flag" which it did.
I also talked about the touching concern by the State Department for Americans who had been killed by Hamas and remarked on their hypocrisy for not doing anything for the families of Americans like Shireen Abu-Akleh, Omar As'ad, and Rachel Corrie who were killed by Israelis.
Lastly I explained that the endless U.S. government support for Israel had more to do with U.S. imperial goals than the power of Zionist lobbies.
Think I ended with "Free Palestine".
One thing I didn't do, and that I regret, was I did not denounce the massacres that some Palestinians did at "rave" concert on Oct. 7. It was just two days after the attacks which seemed military at the outset, and I guess part of me didn't want to believe that Hamas or the people it inspired would purposely kill masses of obvious civilians.