News and Analysis 1/28/24

“In a scathing ruling, McMahon wrote that the FBI invented the conspiracy and identified the targets” …

• Judge Orders Release of ‘Newburgh Four’ Defendant and Blasts FBI’s Role in Terror Sting (abc News)

… and now they are going after opponents of apartheid and genocide …

• Rights Group Report Spike in FBI Interrogation of Pro-Palestine Activists (Middle East Monitor)

… and Italy has banned protests of current genocide on Holocaust Remembrance Day:

• Police Beat Pro-Palestine Demonstrators in Italy (Aljazeera)

The “ABC’s global affairs editor … said the broadcaster’s independence and reputation had been ‘compromised’ by its willingness to yield to outside pressure on such an important matter”:

• A Post on Gaza Leads to Turmoil at Australia’s Public Broadcaster (NY Times)

After UNRWA “terminated contracts with ‘several’ employees and ordered an investigation after Israel provided information alleging they played a role in the [Oct. 7] attack” …

• US Pauses Funding to UN Agency for Palestinians After Claims Staffers Were Involved in Hamas Attack (AP)

… but, unsatisfied, Israel’s FM “said UNRWA should be replaced once fighting in the enclave dies down” …

• More Countries Pause Funds for UN Palestinian Agency (Reuters)

… continuing a history of Israeli antipathy for the humanitarian group:

• Israel Has History of Friction With U.N. Agency for Palestinians (NY Times)
• U.N. Pleads With Major Donors to Not Cut Aid for Palestinians (NY Times)

The sixteen-to-two ruling means that “Israel’s abuses were so egregious that even a career State Department apparatchik and its own handpicked judge ruled against it”:

• ICJ’s Genocide Ruling Is a Rebuke to Israel and the US (Jacobin)

“The Biden administration has maintained that genocide allegations against Israel are ‘meritless’ and ‘unhelpful’” even though Israel “has killed at least 25,000 Palestinians”:

• “I Have Lost Everything”: In Federal Court, Palestinians Accuse Biden of Complicity in Genocide (The Intercept)

The county “agreed to pay Johnston $100,000[,] … to accommodate religious attire and … to delete Johnston’s booking photos and … video footage … without her hijab”:

• Muslim Woman Who Was Required to Remove Hijab for Booking Photo Reaches Settlement with Rutherford County (WKRN)

A “Baluch rights group Haalvash said on its website that the victims were Pakistani labourers who lived at an auto repair shop where they worked”:

• Gunmen in Iran kill Nine Pakistanis Days After Tit-for-tat Strikes (Reuters)

“Biden had publicly dismissed the likelihood that Arab and Muslim Americans would not vote for him … if he continued to remain silent about … what some have described as … genocide”:

• Arab and Muslim American Leaders in Michigan Just Canceled a Meeting with the Biden Campaign (Mother Jones)

One is described as “a research satellite,” and the other two as “nanosatellites focused on global positioning and communication respectively”:

• Iran Launches Three Satellites into Space as Tensions Rise (NPR)

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