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July 2nd, 2021 
Awake Goy 
Biden Bombs Syria and Iraq
Another president, another four years of airstrikes in the Middle East. This time around it’s the Biden administration hitting storage facilities around the Syria-Iraq border. Two in Syria and one in Iraq. Four people killed. It’s Biden’s second round of strikes aimed at Iran, the country he’s trying to negotiate a revamped nuclear deal with.
“The targets were selected because these facilities are utilized by Iran-backed militias that are engaged in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq,” said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby via press release. “…President Biden has been clear that he will act to protect U.S. personnel. Given the ongoing series of attacks by Iran-backed groups targeting U.S. interests in Iraq, the President directed further military action to disrupt and deter such attacks.”
Shortly before the attack the Biden administration met with the Israeli government to talk about Iran’s use of drones in the region. Eric Schmitt’s reporting in the New York Times explains the situation succinctly:
Iran — weakened by years of harsh economic sanctions — is using its proxy militias in Iraq to step up pressure on the United States and other world powers to negotiate an easing of those sanctions as part of a possible revival of the 2015 nuclear deal. Iraqi and American officials say Iran has devised the drone attacks to minimize casualties to avoid prompting U.S. retaliation.
There’s a lot happening in that paragraph, all of it instructive.
How is this playing out in Iraq, where 2,500 U.S. troops remain? Back to the New York Times:
Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said that the United States was disrupting the security of the region with the attacks.
Mr. al-Kadhimi, Iraq’s former intelligence chief, called an emergency meeting of security advisers to discuss the American airstrikes. The Iraqi cabinet called them “a flagrant violation” of international law and said Iraq was in the advanced stages of dialogue with the United States on what it said were the logistical details of removing American combat forces from the country.
As it did when it bombed Syria in February, the Biden administration cited his Article II self-defense authority as the legal justification. This is obviously hilarious but it’s probably also a middle finger to congress. The strike came just days after the House (finally) repealed the AUMF used to justify the attack on Iraq. That move was rhetorically supported by the Biden administration and why not? If you can just cite self-defense after bombing a country, who cares if the AUMF lives or dies? If you can trick some progressives into thinking your foreign policy is moving in a different direction than your predecessor’s, all the better.
The recent attack has prompted some backlash from Democrats. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told Politico that Biden’s actions in the region were starting to look a like a
“low-scale war” and that he was concerned about this broad interpretation of Article II.
“This constant cycle of violence and retribution is a failed policy and will not make any of us safer,” tweeted Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar. “Congress has authority over War Powers and should be consulted before any escalation.”
However, the Biden strike did find a fan in GOP Senator Jim Inhofe. “I believe these actions are overdue and highlight the continued need for the 2002 AUMF, or — at a minimum — the need for a comprehensive replacement before a repeal can be considered,” he declared.
Historian Gregory Brew had this dire warning on Twitter: “‘Forever War’ gets thrown around quite a lot, but there’s a strong sense that the tit-for-tat strikes between the U.S. and Iran in Syria and Iraq could extend indefinitely into the future. The administration’s choice to justify the strikes with Article II, rather than the AUMFs, suggests the U.S. forces in Iraq will remain regardless of whether the AUMFs are revoked or not.”
The more things change…
Nina Turner and Israel
It’s probably no surprise that the Democratic Party Establishment has all hands on deck trying to stop Nina Turner from being elected to the House of Representatives.
The outspoken national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, and congressional candidate in Ohio’s 11th district, is obviously not a fan favorite among centrists and her opponent Shontel Brown has been racking up endorsements from various champions of the status quo. Chief among these are Hillary Clinton and South Carolina Representative James Clyburn.
This race is clearly a microcosm of wider battles going on in the Democratic party, but don’t discount how Israel is factoring in. Turner isn’t a supporter of BDS, but she’s called for conditioning aid to the country and tweeted support for Palestine during Israel’s most recent attacks. Brown went in the opposite direction, citing the standard trinity: Hamas Rockets, Our Closet Ally, The Right to Defend Itself. The Jewish Insider reports that Brown is set receive endorsements from a group of pro-Israel Democrats Josh Gottheimer, Ted Deutch, David Trone, and Brad Schneider.
This week the lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) began running a television ad in support of Brown. Just like their ads attacking Sanders during the Democratic primary, they don’t actually mention Israel at all. DMFI claims that support for the country is rock solid among Dem voters, but the fact they don’t cite it in any of their TV spots is probably a fact worth reflecting on.
DMFI actually first endorsed Brown back in February and sent an email to its supporters attacking Turner. “The stakes in this race are high,” it read. “One of Brown’s opponents, Nina Turner, has been labeled ‘fully anti-Zionist’ by her allies and refuses to join some 95% of House Democrats in condemning the BDS movement, whose founders believe Israel should not exist in any borders. Turner also recently endorsed placing new conditions on U.S. aid to Israel — an idea Joe Biden labeled ‘terrible’ and ‘outrageous.’ She was also a leader of the (unsuccessful) effort to move the Democratic Party platform in an anti-Israel direction.”
“What’s more, Turner literally compared voting for President Joe Biden to eating ‘half a bowl of shit!,” it adds.
The horror, the horror.
The aforementioned Jewish Insider piece on the race refers to Turner as “controversial” and a “source of concern” but casually references DMFI without any qualifiers. Justice Democrats’ Waleed Shahid emailed the author, Matthew Kassel, about this. His tweets on the issue are worth reading:
I emailed Matthew Kassel asking why his recent piece refers to Nina Turner as “controversial” and a “source of concern” but is neutral in describing DMFI, a SuperPAC running ads against Nina Turner that takes GOP money and whose board member called for burning all of Gaza.
For context, the piece includes six quotes from people backing Nina Turner opponent, Shontel Brown, and zero quotes from people backing Nina Turner.
He said: “Fair enough, Waleed. Would you like to offer a comment on the ad buy? I can probably update the piece with a quote if you’re interested in providing one.” I sent a quote naming DMFI’s numerous controversies. He replied saying they could no longer fit it in the story.
“please provide a quote.” “wait no not that one!”
I wouldn’t usually post about this but it’s a clear example of a double standard that paints people of color supportive of Palestinian rights as “controversial” while not saying a word about a “Democratic” group receiving GOP money whose board member called for genocide in Gaza.
It’s not about Matt, he tries to be fair. It’s implicit bias on what is considered “controversial” by press. Backing from a group whose board member said all of Gaza should be burned gets no mention. But any comment on Israel from Ilhan Omar, AOC, Jamaal Bowman is controversy.
Odds & Ends
🇮🇱 The IDF sent a delegation to assist rescue efforts at the disaster site in Miami. “After destroying hundreds of homes, businesses and facilities in Gaza last month, the Israeli occupation military is doing a PR-clean-up by heading to the Miami building collapse, tweeted the Electronic Intifada‘s Tamara Nassar. “It’s like an arsonist helping to put out a fire after he has arsonized an entire neighborhood.”
🇮🇱 You might recall that some House Democrats sent Secretary of State Blinken a letter in April, asking the Biden administration to consider alternatives to the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism. That definition infamously includes some legitimate criticisms of Israel.
The letter (which was signed by Reps. Pocan, Levin, Raskin, and Jayapal) didn’t actually attack the IHRA definition, although it definitely should have. It merely suggested that the administration consider other interpretations, like the Nexus Document and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.
These lawmakers have finally got a response from the administration in the form of a letter from Acting Assistant Secretary Naz Durakoğlu from the Bureau of Legislative Affairs. Durakoğlu does not actually address anything the congress members suggested. He just asserts that the IHRA definition is great:
“The Department agrees that it is crucial that governments and publics are able to recognize anti-Semitism in its many forms, traditional and contemporary, so that we can call hate by its proper name and take effective action. To those ends, like prior U.S. administrations of both political parties, the Biden Administration embraces and champions the IHRA non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism in its entirety, including its examples, and the Administration continues to encourage other countries as well as international bodies to do the same. The IHRA working definition is the ‘gold standard.’”
🇵🇸 The Executive Board of the Rutgers PTLFC-AAUP-AFT, the union that represents Part-Time Lecturers at the school, recently put out a statement in solidarity with Palestinians. “As teachers and union members, we can no longer allow ourselves to be complicit in the illegal acts of the Israeli government that have driven Palestinians from their homes or with military actions that have targeted, killed and maimed civilian populations of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and that have destroyed vital infrastructure, including schools and hospitals,” it read.
Acknowledging death and destruction was enough to rankle Democratic New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who sent the university president a letter expressing his discomfort.
“To be sure, Rutgers’ part-time lecturers are entitled to hold their own opinions, even those which may be disagreeable,” he wrote. “However, it is important to recognize that invective which singles out, disparages, delegitimizes, or demonizes Israel can and in many cases does fall outside of bounds.”
🇵🇸 Palestine Legal has a blog post about St. John’s censoring a Palestinian grad student:
St. John’s University in New York censored a Palestinian doctoral student, preventing her from celebrating her Palestinian identity and scholarship during the school’s virtual commencement ceremony last month.
The university removed “Free Palestine” from the graduation presentation slide of Dr. Laila Shikaki, outrageously claiming initially that her slide violated campus guidelines forbidding content considered “defamatory, libelous, obscene, immoral, or fraudulent to St. John’s University.”
After apologizing for implying that advocating for Palestinian liberation was defamatory, the university then claimed that Dr. Shikaki’s slide was “political speech” and violated previously-unexpressed policies requiring that messages be “content neutral” and “celebratory in nature.” These requirements had not been published or shared in advance of the ceremony.
📺 CNN published an article about antisemitism on college campuses. The whole piece is based on the opinions of a couple pro-Israel student activists.
🎓 Yale College Council, the undergraduate student body at the school, has voted to endorse a statement condemning ethnic cleansing in Palestine. “As Yale students, we condemn the injustice, genocide, and ethnic cleansing occurring in Palestine,” it reads. “We emphasize – this is not a political issue. Israeli forces are acting in clear violation of international law and are conducting egregious human rights violations against the Palestinian people. As students at one of the most privileged academic institutions in the world, we must call out injustice wherever it may occur. We stand against the discriminatory application of the law that strips Palestinians of basic rights. We stand against the violent expulsions of those living under occupation in Sheikh Jarrah. We stand against the apartheid and the persecution of Palestinians, and stand for peace and the freedom of the Palestinian people from violent military occupation.”
🇺🇸 Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld died on Tuesday, somehow not in The Hague. “The Gulf War in the 1990s lasted five days on the ground,” he told the press in 2002. “I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks or five months. But it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.”
Stay safe out there,
Michael
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