Global

Gaza mother's farewell message to her miracle twins

Rania was breastfeeding her miracle twins at night with her husband sleeping beside them. She held the twins tight to her chest and said, "If thousand people love you, I will the first one, if only one person love, it would be me, and if no one loves, I will be dead." An hour and a half later, she was awakened when her home was hit by an Israeli airstrike in the city of Rafah.
 
According to March 4, 2024, ITV News.' Rania screamed for her children and her husband. But there was an answer. "They were all dead." 
 
Farouq Abu Anza, a relative of Rania, said about 35 people were staying at the house, some of whom had been displaced from other areas. Total people murdered in the airstrike were 14 people, six were children, and four were women, according to the Hospital director where the bodies were taken. In addition to her husband and children, Rania also lost a sister, a nephew, a pregnant cousin, and other relatives.
 
The Abu Anza twins were named Wissam and Naeem, who were born after their parents spent 10 years trying to conceive.

Professor Michiko Hikida was spot on about OSU protest

On Tuesday May 1, I attended a protest at the South Oval at Ohio State University where students were demanding OSU to divest investments from companies with links to Israel and calling to end Israel’s genocide and forced starvation in Gaza.
 
The atmosphere was peaceful and festive and student activists passed sandwiches and slices of watermelons. I was there at the protest with my son who attends OSU. It is offensive for OSU and the media to call students' family members as "unaffiliated" and "agitators." You don't even have to be a "student" to take part in the protest at OSU. Do you? 
 
I met a lot of old friends and made a new one in the form of Assistant Professor Michiko Hikida of OSU, Department of Teaching and Learning. I learned from her that she attended the April 25 massive protest where nearly 40 protesters (students, faculty, and community members) were brutalized and violently arrested by Ohio State Troopers.

The Enemy Is Among Us?

Well friends, the verdict is in! If you are opposed to Israel’s slaughter of something like forty thousand Palestinians, mostly women and children, or the clearly enunciated plans by that nation’s government to ethnically cleanse the rest of historic Palestine, making the developing Eretz or Greater Israel a legally Jewish state, and are prepared to protest or speak up about it, then you are an antisemite Jew-hater and probably even a holocaust denier. If you are a student demonstrating against the slaughter you are increasingly being referred to by talking heads and the media as a pro-Hamas terrorist. That you must be condemned and sanctioned or even criminalized as a consequence of the labels is only fair in a country that apparently has come to believe that Jews and Israel, uniquely, cannot be criticized due to their cited ad nauseam victimhood and their anointment by God no matter what the First Amendment to the US Constitution relating to freedom of speech might say.

The Iron Heel of the State at UCLA: Eyewitness Account

“Biden Biden, Whattaya Say? How Many Kids You Kill Today?”

This was one of the militant chants of hundreds of students on May 1 at UCLA. I went to the university after covering the May Day rally in Hollywood, arriving around 4:00 p.m., and this is what I witnessed at the frontlines of the class struggle in Westwood:

I made my way on foot across the sprawling campus towards the epicenter of the unfolding action, the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment, led by Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Divest Coalition at UCLA. The first thing I noticed was the sound of helicopters hovering overhead and a heavy security presence. The latter included the LAPD, the LA County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol, UCPD and CSC, a private firm specializing in crowd management. Upon reaching Dickson Plaza, the rather large area was cordoned off with metal barricades.

War, Money and Universities

Peaceful protest, violent response – that says it all.

Human politics – from global to local – remain mixed with hatred, dominance and . . . well, dehumanization. We’ve organized ourselves across the planet around one primary principle: the existence of an enemy. The division between “us” and “them” can be based on anything: a difference in race, language, culture – or simply a difference of opinion, which is beginning to happen on campuses across the country, as peaceful, intensely determined protesters, demanding their institutions divest from the Israeli war machine, face violent resistance from police and/or counter-protesters.

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