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November 5th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
Virginia
Who could have possibly predicted that Terry McAuliffe would blow it in Virginia? Thousands of people, maybe millions. There’s a right-wing bogeyman in every election, whether it’s death panels, flag burning, or CRT. To win you need a candidate strong enough to make that kind of scaremongering a nonfactor. A corporate moderate who has worked for both Clintons, used to head the DNC, and has already lost a gubernatorial race probably isn’t that person. The election was his to lose and this crew almost always finds a way. “Pretty telling that McAuliffe, a Clinton Democrat, refused to stop Virginia’s final execution,” tweeted Radley Balko when it began looking grim. “If he loses tonight, let it be the end of Clintonism forever.”
There were some differences between McAuliffe and governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, but good luck finding any daylight between the two on Israel. McAuliffe has always been a strong supporter of the country. “I tried to foster that as governor, a strong relationship between Israel and Virginia,” he told Jewish Insider earlier this year. “We did a lot of economic projects together…I went over (to Israel) and spent an hour alone with Bibi. I’ve met Olmert. I’ve met with Sharon, Barak, and Peres.”
Youngkin is new to the game, but it seemed like he learned the ropes pretty fast. In June he unveiled a plan to combat antisemitism in Virginia. What’s the main component of this vision? Getting the state to embrace the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism of course. As you know, that definition includes certain criticisms of Israel and is frequently used as to muzzle dissent.
The concern about school curriculum being used as a cultural wedge certainly extends to our beat. Anyone who has followed the battle over ethnic studies in California knows that pro-Israel groups will try their hardest to assure that young people don’t learn about Palestine’s actual history.
An interesting fact about Virginia that’s barely mentioned by the mainstream media: the state’s taxpayers fund something called The Virginia-Israel Advisory Board. Its charter is to “advise the Governor on ways to improve economic and cultural links between the Commonwealth and the State of Israel, with a focus on the areas of commerce and trade, art and education, and general government.”
As far as I know this was only mentioned once during the race, at a Democratic primary event sponsored by a number of local progressives organizations. Lee Carter, the only person running who supported the BDS movement, said he wanted to eliminate the board. McAuliffe skipped that debate.
Florida
We’ve covered Omari Hardy, the only candidate in Florida’s 20th district race who embraced the BDS movement. Hardy lost badly, finishing 6th in an 11 person race with 5.9% of the vote.
It’s impossible to know how much this stance hurt him at the polls, but we know he faced vicious attacks because of it. The local Sun Sentinel endorsed him, then ran an editorial denouncing his position. They also published a letter from a local Trump-supporting rabbi comparing him to Hitler.
Democratic Majority of Israel (DMFI) ran a full-page ad in South Florida’s Jewish Journal effectively tagging Hardy as an antisemite. “Omari Hardy supports the anti-Israel and antisemitic BDS movement,” it declared. “Omari Hardy said he would have voted AGAINST funding for the lifesaving Iron Dome. Over 96% of Democrats in the House voted YES and EVERY Senate Democrat will vote yes. But Hardy announced he’d vote NO.”
DMFI apparently also made a bunch of robocalls attacking Hardy and accidentally gave him a ring. “Hey, DMFI!,” he tweeted. “The next time you do a robocall attacking me for supporting human rights in Palestine, you might want to remove me from the call list! That might save you a few cents. It is clearly a waste of effort and campaign resources to bash a candidate to the very candidate that you’re bashing. It’s amateurish and careless and it shows how little thought went into the effort. That is all.”
Hardy checked a lot of progressive boxes and we’ve seen candidates with similar politics win big races. What’s notable is that liberal orgs barely spent any money on the contest. “Nina Turner’s lost really knocked the wind out of left-wing electoral groups,” tweeted the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel. “They ignored #FL20 completely after throwing money into #OH11. No obvious progressive favorite in FL, no money to create one.”
Anyway, Hardy is probably worth keeping an eye on. Here he is on Twitter last month:
Whenever a gov’t violates the rights of a people, we have reason to speak up and speak out and to use nonviolent tactics to encourage that gov’t to change its behavior. My position on these issues is not about Israel. It’s about my broader principles as they apply to this case.
Is Israel violating the Palestinians’ human rights? Yes. Is BDS a non-violent protest movement aimed at encouraging the world to encourage Israel to stop violating the Palestinians’ rights? Yes. What more do we need to know, here?
It is a double-oppression to say to an oppressed people that they may not use non-violent protest methods to change their oppressor’s behavior.
DSA
At the Democratic Socialists of Americas’s 2017 national convention, the organization formally endorsed the BDS movement. The national group endorsed 32 candidates in this week’s election and 23 of them were able to declare victory. Many of the winners have made public statements in support of Palestine.
Here’s Aisha Chughtai, who prevailed in the Minneapolis City Council’s Ward 10 race: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. And from South Minneapolis to Sheikh Jarrah, may we all stand shoulder-to-shoulder in our shared struggle against militarized oppression and displacement everywhere.”
Here was Kendra Hicks, who will represent Boston city council’s 6th ward, in response to a Juneteenth tweet from Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey: “Politicians are really progressive about everything except Palestine. It’s the same picture Ed! No Black liberation without the liberation of all oppressed people globally.”
Other Local Races
Abdullah Hammoud will become the first Arab mayor of Dearborn. Shahana Hanif will be the first Muslim elected NYC city council. Etel Haxhiaj became the first Muslim elected to city council in Worcester, Massachusetts.
After Israel’s deadly attacks on Gaza this year, Haxhiaj tweeted, “I stand with Palestine. In 2015 my dad and I joined a peaceful protest in Worcester to protest the massacres in Gaza by Israeli army. Then and now, I stand against oppression and for the liberation of Palestinian people from violence and oppression.”
Her opponent, Gregory Stratman, rushed to Facebook and effectively declared that she hated Jewish people. “This post is not to oversimplify the complexities of the region but to highlight differences between my opponent and myself,” he wrote in a lengthy diatribe. “This election is about choice and contrast. As a retired Massachusetts state trooper I spent my career serving and protecting all people, and will continue to do so as city councilor. By contrast, Haxhiaj’s anti-Semitic statement is one of many in a pattern of hateful comments and attitudes directed at other groups of people in Worcester…In closing, in Israel, across the world, and here in Worcester the Jewish community is strong and resilient, and I would be proud to represent Worcester’s Jewish residents as their city councilor of Worcester district five.”
Haxhiaj garned almost 56% of the vote nonetheless. In most parts of the country, that kind of stuff just doesn’t land like it used to.
Odds & Ends
🇺🇸 From the AP: “An independent Pentagon review has concluded that the U.S. drone strike that killed innocent Kabul civilians and children in the final days of the Afghanistan war was not caused by misconduct or negligence, and it doesn’t recommend any disciplinary action.”
What is the domestic population supposed to do with this news? Assume that dead children is standard operating procedure?
Author Vincent Bevins: “That is hegemonic privilege – kill a lot of people, investigative yourself, and find yourself innocent”
🇮🇱 Say what you will about the previous administration, at least they were upfront about supporting Israel’s terror. With Biden we’re back to the old way of doing things. You denounce settlement expansion in passionate terms and then do nothing about Palestinian homes being bulldozed. Last week State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the Biden team was “deeply concerned” about settlements and declared that any new ones are “completely inconsistent with efforts to lower tensions and to ensure calm, and it damages the prospects for a two-state solution.”
And here’s the NYT on what’s currently happening in Palestine:
The Israeli government advanced plans on Wednesday to build more than 3,000 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank, in the first move of its kind since Prime Minister Naftali Bennett succeeded Benjamin Netanyahu in June.
A defense ministry planning committee approved the construction of 3,130 new homes that would be spread across 25 existing settlements, most of them deep inside the West Bank, the territory that Palestinians hope will form part of a future Palestinian state.
Rinse, repeat.
🇺🇸 Speaking of Trump, he recently did a radio interview and declared that a foreign country should control the U.S. government. “The biggest change I’ve seen in Congress is Israel literally owned Congress — you understand that — 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And it was so powerful. It was so powerful. And today it’s almost the opposite,” said the former president…And we’re not talking about over a very long period of time, but I think you know exactly what I’m saying. They had such power, Israel had such power — and rightfully — over Congress, and now it doesn’t. It’s incredible, actually.”
Again, at least he’s honest.
🇮🇱 Back to Ned Price for a minute. We’ve reported on how technology developed by the NSO Group has been used by governments to target dissidents and journalists. The NSO Group is an Israeli company and its export license was sold to them by Israel’s government. At a State Department briefing Price was asked if Israel would face any punishment for this. You can probably guess how that went:
QUESTION: What punitive measures are we likely to see against Israel? Will there be any punitive measures?
MR PRICE: So there are punitive measures against these companies and the inclusion of these companies on the Entity List is itself a powerful tool. The Entity List is used by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security to restrict the export, re-export, and in-country transfer of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations to persons, and that includes to individuals, to organizations, to companies reasonably believed to be involved, have been involved, or pose a significant risk to being or becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. So it does impose additional restrictions on these entities, yes.
QUESTION: Just to follow up, you say that this is not – obviously, is not imposed on a country, but NSO Group has export licenses granted by the Israeli military. You’ve got a really close ally that has granted licenses to this company. Do you expect them to take action in response to these – the investigative findings that you’ve got here, and have you shared those with Israel or the Israeli military?
MR PRICE: Well, look, Israel of course is a steadfast friend, steadfast partner. In that vein, we have raised this conduct with – of these companies with the Government of Israel and we look forward to further discussions with the Government of Israel about ensuring that these companies’ products are not used to target human rights defenders, journalists, and others who should be protected.
QUESTION: But if you ask Russia to take action against entities in their country that are carrying out ransomware and cyberattacks on the U.S., why wouldn’t you ask Israel to do the same thing?
MR PRICE: Well, I think in this case, you’re referring to criminals. Private criminal actors in Russia. And we have been very clear that every responsible country has an obligation to take action against criminals operating within their territory.
In this case, we are talking about conduct of private companies that we see as contrary to our national security interests. We have had conversations with our Israeli partners about the conduct of the NSO Group. We will continue to have those conversations in private to make clear our concerns. Yes.
🤠 Big BDS news out of Texas. A Houston company is suing the state over its anti-boycott law. A&R Engineering and Testing Inc is owned by Palestinian-American Russ Hassouna, who has been doing business in the area for almost twenty years. “Israel is an occupier of my homeland and it is an Apartheid State. It is my right and duty to boycott Israel and any products of Israel,” he said in a complaint. “This policy is against my constitutional right and against International Law.”
We will be following this story closely.
🇵🇸 This week activists organized calls to The White House, demanding that the Biden administration take action against Israel for designating a number of human rights groups as terrorist organizations:
Demand accountability for Israel’s attacks on Palestinian civil society! As the Biden administration remains largely silent on Israel’s brazen threats to indefinitely detain leading Palestinian human rights workers, his administartion is not only threatening these organizations’ brave staff, but also continuing to enable the Israeli abuses these organizations work so hard to expose: escalating settler violence, expanding settlements, demolition of schools and homes, and aggressive criminalization of Palestinian life across Palestine.
Israel’s authoritarian attack on these six leading Palestinian human rights organizations exposed Israel’s separate-and-unequal apartheid regime and its settler colonial violence against the Palestinian people. This moment can help transform U.S. politics towards accountability for all of Israel’s abuses, but only if we keep building pressure.
🇸🇴 Nick Turse is in Responsible Statecraft writing about how the Biden administration is not being truthful about U.S. troops in Somalia.
🎤 In the latest episode of the Mondoweiss podcast I spoke with organizers in the tech industry working to counter Project Nimbus, a joint Amazon/Google project with the Israeli military.
Stay safe out there,
Michael
Mondoweiss is a nonprofit news website dedicated to covering the full picture of the struggle for justice in Palestine. Funded almost entirely by our readers, our truth-telling journalism is an essential counterweight to the propaganda that passes for news in mainstream and legacy media.
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