Latest news with #Liberation
Middle East Eye
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Leading French authors ask for Israel's war on Gaza to be called 'genocide'
The French newspaper Liberation published an op-ed on Monday signed by 300 French-speaking authors, which called for "naming the 'genocide'" committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. The signatories of the text, which included two Nobel Prize winners for literature, Annie Ernaux and Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, denounced "the repeated public statements of leading figures such as Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir," who "openly express genocidal intentions". "The term 'genocide' is not a slogan. It carries legal, political and moral responsibilities. We can no longer simply call it 'horror' or show general and pointless empathy without qualifying this horror or specifying what it is," they argue. "Just as it was urgent to qualify the crimes committed against civilians on 7 October 2023 as war crimes and crimes against humanity, today we must call it 'genocide'." The op-ed, signed by Goncourt Prize winners Leila Slimani and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, also calls for "sanctions against the State of Israel", "an immediate ceasefire" and "the release of Israeli hostages" along with "the thousands of Palestinian prisoners arbitrarily detained in Israeli jails". New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Citing the killing of Palestinian poet and novelist Heba Abu Nada by Israeli bombings on 20 October 2023, the signatories pay tribute to the Palestinians killed "relentlessly" by Israel, "by the dozens, every day" and among them their "brothers and sisters: the writers of Gaza". "When Israel doesn't kill them, it maims them, displaces them and deliberately starves them. Israel has destroyed the places of writing and reading - libraries, universities, homes, parks." 'No longer a matter of debate' The authors point out that "the term 'genocide' to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer a matter of debate for many international lawyers and human rights organisations". Accusations of "genocide" against Israel have multiplied recently, coming from the UN, prominent human rights groups, a growing number of countries and international law experts. Earlier this month, an investigation by Dutch newspaper NRC showed that a growing number of the world's leading genocide scholars believe that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide. Top genocide scholars unanimous that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: Dutch investigation Read More » The paper interviewed seven renowned genocide and Holocaust researchers from six countries - including Israel - all of whom described the Israeli campaign in Gaza as genocidal. Many said their peers in the field share this assessment. On Sunday, Elie Barnavi, former Israeli ambassador to France and a historian, told TV5 Monde that while he had long been reluctant to use the term genocide for "legal and historical" reasons, he had to admit that "there are genocidal people in the Israeli government". "They proclaim it themselves: 'We want to kill everyone, we want to destroy everything,'" he said, adding that these statements clearly reflect genocidal rhetoric. On Monday, the leader of the French Socialist Party Olivier Faure also denounced for the first time Israel's war on Gaza as a 'genocide'. "Benjamin Netanyahu's government is committing genocide," he told hundreds of supporters gathered in Paris, saying he now embraced the term "loud and clear". "Genocide is characterised as soon as there is intentionality. Members of the Israeli government are making numerous statements to this effect [...] This policy is unfortunately thought out, planned, and even claimed," Faure added. "Better late than never," replied Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of France Unbowed (LFI), a left-wing party that has been using the word genocide to describe the situation in Gaza for a long time. Public approve sanctions If the French government itself has refrained from adopting the term - unlike European countries such as Spain and Ireland, which have joined South Africa's lawsuit accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice - it has showed a much more critical stance towards Israel in recent weeks. On 13 May, French President Emmanuel Macron accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "unacceptable" behaviour in blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, raising the possibility of sanctions. French teacher suspended over minute's silence tribute to Palestinians in Gaza Read More » And last week, the French government joined Canada and the UK in condemning Israel's "egregious actions" in Gaza and warned of joint action if it did not halt its current military offensive. The threats of sanctions are widely supported by French public opinion, according to a poll published on Tuesday that reported that 74 percent of respondents were in favour. While 75 percent of respondents support halting arms deliveries to Israel, 62 percent deem necessary the suspension of the trade association agreement between the European Union and Israel, and 58 percent see an embargo on Israeli products as a good solution. In addition to sanctions, Macron could announce France's recognition of the Palestinian state at the UN during a trip to New York in June. The measure is supported by almost two-thirds of those surveyed (63 percent), particularly on the left. On the right and far right, support is weaker, with only 41 percent of far-right National Rally supporters in favour.
Al Manar
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Manar
South Lebanon Elections: Voters Reiterate Allegiance to Resistance Path with High Turnout Rates
In addition to the vast election wins by acclamation in 109 out of 271 towns and villages in South Lebanon and Nabatieh governorates, the voters whose candidates engage in the municipal and mayoral election contest have been flocking into the polling stations with high turnout rates. Ministry of Interior and Municipalities released updated voter turnout rates across southern Lebanon. The figures are as follows: Jezzine: 35.04% Hasbaya: 28.36% Marjeyoun: 24.92% Bint Jbeil: 21.82% Nabatieh: 32.20% Tyre: 29.03% Sidon: 33.02% President Jospeh Aoun inspected the electoral process in South Lebanon, greeting the martyrs on the 25th anniversary of Liberation and calling on the voters to choose those who will contribute to the reconstruction of the town. President Aoun cast his ballot at one of the polling stations in his hometown, Aisheyye. Member of Loyalty to Resistance bloc Dr. Hasan Fadlallah, in turn, underscored the high voter turnout as an indicator of the southerners commitment to the resistance path, reiterating that the Lebanese government must carry out the project of reconstructing what has been destroyed by the Zionist war. Sayyed Fadlallah pointed out that 400 thousand families have benefited from the financial compensations paid by Hezbollah, adding that any government reluctance in implementing the reconstruction project will not be tolerated.
Hindustan Times
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Suspect in Israeli embassy shooting in US was critic of Gaza war
In the years before he was accused of killing two Israeli Embassy employees, the suspect in the fatal shootings was an active participant in Chicago's left-wing protest scene, speaking out against police violence and a proposed Amazon headquarters. Then the war in Gaza ignited his fury into violence. Elias Rodriguez, 31, was charged Thursday with the murder of foreign officials and other crimes in connection with the deaths of Israeli citizen Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, an American, as they left an event at a Jewish museum. The couple had plans to become engaged. He told police after his arrest, 'I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,' according to court filings. Rodriguez lived in a modest 850-square-foot apartment on Chicago's north side and worked as an administrative assistant at a medical trade group. He had no apparent criminal record. In his activism, he protested police violence against minorities and the power of corporations. His online posts had recently become fixated on the war in Gaza, calling for retaliation against Israel. In the window of his apartment hung a photo of Wadee Alfayoumi, a 6-year-old Muslim boy killed in a 2023 stabbing in Chicago shortly after the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people in Israel. A neighbor, John Wayne Fray, described Rodriguez as 'quiet and friendly.' 'He seemed like a normal, friendly guy,' Fry told reporters Thursday, standing near yellow crime-scene tape left by law enforcement officers who searched the suspect's apartment. He said Rodriguez and a woman who lived with him appeared to be 'very sensitive people, especially about the issue of Palestine.' An October 2017 article in Liberation, the online newspaper for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, quoted Rodriguez as a member of the group participating in a protest outside the Chicago home of then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel over the police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald and the city's bid to be the site for a new Amazon headquarters. A photo of a man holding a protest sign published with the article appeared to match photos of Rodriguez posted on social media. The organization denied Thursday that Rodriguez was an active member, though it acknowledged a 'brief association' in the past. The group also scrubbed the 2017 article identifying Rodriguez as a member from its website. 'We reject any attempt to associate the PSL with the DC shooting,' the group said in a statement. 'We know of no contact with (Rodriguez) in over 7 years. We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it.' As recently as this week, the group's X feed posted pro-Palestinian statements calling for an end to the war in Gaza and characterizing Israel's attacks on Palestinians as genocide. Family members of Rodriguez and his defense attorney, Elizabeth Mullin, did not return messages seeking comment. The FBI did not respond to questions about whether he was on the bureau's radar before the shooting. A GoFundMe page from 2017 sought to raise money to pay Rodriguez's way to People's Congress of Resistance, an event in Washington that September to 'fight the Trump agenda and the Congress of millionaires!' As part of the appeal, Rodriguez recounted his father's military service in the Iraq War. 'When my dad came home from Baghdad, he came with souvenirs,' Rodriguez was quoted as saying. 'One was a magazine pouch with a warning in Arabic to back away or my dad would shoot and kill you. ... He also gave me a patch of Iraq's national flag, one he ripped off of an Iraqi soldier's uniform because he could. I don't want to see another generation of Americans coming home from genocidal imperialist wars with trophies.' The effort raised $240. Social media accounts tied to Rodriguez suggest he had become increasingly focused over the last two years on the Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children. An account on X that used a variation of a screen name Rodriguez had used on other sites, along with his given name and photo, frequently featured pro-Palestinian posts, including a video from an October 2023 protest in downtown Chicago against U.S. aid to Israel. Last October, the account also reposted two videos of speeches by Hassan Nasrallah, a Lebanese cleric and a former leader of Islamic militant group Hezbollah. Nasrallah had been killed two weeks earlier in an Israeli airstrike. Less than an hour after the shooting in Washington on Thursday night, the X account posted, 'Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home,' along with screen grabs of a nearly 1,000-word essay signed with Rodriguez's name. It was not immediately clear whether Rodriguez, who was in police custody at the time, had used a feature on X to schedule the release of the post in advance or if another person might have had access to the account. In the piece, Rodriguez railed against the mounting death toll in Gaza, saying Israel 'had obliterated the capacity to even continue counting the dead, which has served its genocide well.' About 11 years ago, he wrote, he 'personally became acutely aware of our brutal conduct in Palestine.' He sought to justify what he called 'the morality of armed demonstration,' adding 'those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.' 'The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification,' he wrote. 'We who let this happen will never deserve the Palestinians' forgiveness.' Rodriguez also invoked the death last year of Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force who he set himself ablaze outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington while declaring that he 'will no longer be complicit in genocide.' Bushnell's sacrifice, he wrote, was 'not made in vain.' Court records say Rodriguez made similar remarks about Bushnell after he was taken into custody, describing the man as 'courageous' and a 'martyr.' At the end of the screed, Rodrigez expressed his love for his parents, his younger sister and the 'rest of my familia.' He signed off with 'Free Palestine' and the emoji for the Palestinian flag. Rodriguez's employer, the American Osteopathic Information Association, issued a statement Thursday expressing shock and saying it would cooperate with investigators. 'As a physician organization dedicated to protecting the health and sanctity of human life, we believe in the rights of all persons to live safely without fear of violence,' the group said.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Suspect in shooting of Israeli Embassy staffers railed against Gaza war in online posts
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the years before he was accused of killing two Israeli Embassy employees, the suspect in the fatal shootings was an active participant in Chicago's left-wing protest scene, speaking out against police violence and a proposed Amazon headquarters. Then the war in Gaza ignited his fury into violence. Elias Rodriguez, 31, was charged Thursday with the murder of foreign officials and other crimes in connection with the deaths of Israeli citizen Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, an American, as they left an event at a Jewish museum. The couple had plans to become engaged. He told police after his arrest, 'I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,' according to court filings. Rodriguez lived in a modest 850-square-foot apartment on Chicago's north side and worked as an administrative assistant at a medical trade group. He had no apparent criminal record. In his activism, he protested police violence against minorities and the power of corporations. His online posts had recently become fixated on the war in Gaza, calling for retaliation against Israel. In the window of his apartment hung a photo of Wadee Alfayoumi, a 6-year-old Muslim boy killed in a 2023 stabbing in Chicago shortly after the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people in Israel. A neighbor, John Wayne Fray, described Rodriguez as 'quiet and friendly.' 'He seemed like a normal, friendly guy,' Fry told reporters Thursday, standing near yellow crime-scene tape left by law enforcement officers who searched the suspect's apartment. He said Rodriguez and a woman who lived with him appeared to be 'very sensitive people, especially about the issue of Palestine.' An October 2017 article in Liberation, the online newspaper for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, quoted Rodriguez as a member of the group participating in a protest outside the Chicago home of then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel over the police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald and the city's bid to be the site for a new Amazon headquarters. A photo of a man holding a protest sign published with the article appeared to match photos of Rodriguez posted on social media. The organization denied Thursday that Rodriguez was an active member, though it acknowledged a 'brief association' in the past. The group also scrubbed the 2017 article identifying Rodriguez as a member from its website. 'We reject any attempt to associate the PSL with the DC shooting,' the group said in a statement. 'We know of no contact with (Rodriguez) in over 7 years. We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it.' As recently as this week, the group's X feed posted pro-Palestinian statements calling for an end to the war in Gaza and characterizing Israel's attacks on Palestinians as genocide. Family members of Rodriguez and his defense attorney, Elizabeth Mullin, did not return messages seeking comment. The FBI did not respond to questions about whether he was on the bureau's radar before the shooting. A GoFundMe page from 2017 sought to raise money to pay Rodriguez's way to People's Congress of Resistance, an event in Washington that September to 'fight the Trump agenda and the Congress of millionaires!' As part of the appeal, Rodriguez recounted his father's military service in the Iraq War. 'When my dad came home from Baghdad, he came with souvenirs,' Rodriguez was quoted as saying. 'One was a magazine pouch with a warning in Arabic to back away or my dad would shoot and kill you. ... He also gave me a patch of Iraq's national flag, one he ripped off of an Iraqi soldier's uniform because he could. I don't want to see another generation of Americans coming home from genocidal imperialist wars with trophies.' The effort raised $240. Social media accounts tied to Rodriguez suggest he had become increasingly focused over the last two years on the Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children. An account on X that used a variation of a screen name Rodriguez had used on other sites, along with his given name and photo, frequently featured pro-Palestinian posts, including a video from an October 2023 protest in downtown Chicago against U.S. aid to Israel. Last October, the account also reposted two videos of speeches by Hassan Nasrallah, a Lebanese cleric and a former leader of Islamic militant group Hezbollah. Nasrallah had been killed two weeks earlier in an Israeli airstrike. Less than an hour after the shooting in Washington on Thursday night, the X account posted, 'Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home,' along with screen grabs of a nearly 1,000-word essay signed with Rodriguez's name. It was not immediately clear whether Rodriguez, who was in police custody at the time, had used a feature on X to schedule the release of the post in advance or if another person might have had access to the account. In the piece, Rodriguez railed against the mounting death toll in Gaza, saying Israel 'had obliterated the capacity to even continue counting the dead, which has served its genocide well.' About 11 years ago, he wrote, he 'personally became acutely aware of our brutal conduct in Palestine.' He sought to justify what he called 'the morality of armed demonstration,' adding 'those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.' 'The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification,' he wrote. 'We who let this happen will never deserve the Palestinians' forgiveness.' Rodriguez also invoked the death last year of Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force who he set himself ablaze outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington while declaring that he 'will no longer be complicit in genocide.' Bushnell's sacrifice, he wrote, was 'not made in vain.' Court records say Rodriguez made similar remarks about Bushnell after he was taken into custody, describing the man as 'courageous' and a 'martyr.' At the end of the screed, Rodrigez expressed his love for his parents, his younger sister and the 'rest of my familia.' He signed off with 'Free Palestine' and the emoji for the Palestinian flag. Rodriguez's employer, the American Osteopathic Information Association, issued a statement Thursday expressing shock and saying it would cooperate with investigators. 'As a physician organization dedicated to protecting the health and sanctity of human life, we believe in the rights of all persons to live safely without fear of violence,' the group said. ___ Mustian reported from New York. ___ Contact AP's global investigative team at Investigative@ or
Winnipeg Free Press
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Suspect in shooting of Israeli Embassy staffers railed against Gaza war in online posts
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the years before he was accused of killing two Israeli Embassy employees, the suspect in the fatal shootings was an active participant in Chicago's left-wing protest scene, speaking out against police violence and a proposed Amazon headquarters. Then the war in Gaza ignited his fury into violence. Elias Rodriguez, 31, was charged Thursday with the murder of foreign officials and other crimes in connection with the deaths of Israeli citizen Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, an American, as they left an event at a Jewish museum. The couple had plans to become engaged. He told police after his arrest, 'I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,' according to court filings. Rodriguez lived in a modest 850-square-foot apartment on Chicago's north side and worked as an administrative assistant at a medical trade group. He had no apparent criminal record. In his activism, he protested police violence against minorities and the power of corporations. His online posts had recently become fixated on the war in Gaza, calling for retaliation against Israel. In the window of his apartment hung a photo of Wadee Alfayoumi, a 6-year-old Muslim boy killed in a 2023 stabbing in Chicago shortly after the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people in Israel. A neighbor, John Wayne Fray, described Rodriguez as 'quiet and friendly.' 'He seemed like a normal, friendly guy,' Fry told reporters Thursday, standing near yellow crime-scene tape left by law enforcement officers who searched the suspect's apartment. He said Rodriguez and a woman who lived with him appeared to be 'very sensitive people, especially about the issue of Palestine.' An October 2017 article in Liberation, the online newspaper for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, quoted Rodriguez as a member of the group participating in a protest outside the Chicago home of then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel over the police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald and the city's bid to be the site for a new Amazon headquarters. A photo of a man holding a protest sign published with the article appeared to match photos of Rodriguez posted on social media. The organization denied Thursday that Rodriguez was an active member, though it acknowledged a 'brief association' in the past. The group also scrubbed the 2017 article identifying Rodriguez as a member from its website. 'We reject any attempt to associate the PSL with the DC shooting,' the group said in a statement. 'We know of no contact with (Rodriguez) in over 7 years. We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it.' As recently as this week, the group's X feed posted pro-Palestinian statements calling for an end to the war in Gaza and characterizing Israel's attacks on Palestinians as genocide. Family members of Rodriguez and his defense attorney, Elizabeth Mullin, did not return messages seeking comment. The FBI did not respond to questions about whether he was on the bureau's radar before the shooting. A GoFundMe page from 2017 sought to raise money to pay Rodriguez's way to People's Congress of Resistance, an event in Washington that September to 'fight the Trump agenda and the Congress of millionaires!' As part of the appeal, Rodriguez recounted his father's military service in the Iraq War. 'When my dad came home from Baghdad, he came with souvenirs,' Rodriguez was quoted as saying. 'One was a magazine pouch with a warning in Arabic to back away or my dad would shoot and kill you. … He also gave me a patch of Iraq's national flag, one he ripped off of an Iraqi soldier's uniform because he could. I don't want to see another generation of Americans coming home from genocidal imperialist wars with trophies.' The effort raised $240. Social media accounts tied to Rodriguez suggest he had become increasingly focused over the last two years on the Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children. An account on X that used a variation of a screen name Rodriguez had used on other sites, along with his given name and photo, frequently featured pro-Palestinian posts, including a video from an October 2023 protest in downtown Chicago against U.S. aid to Israel. Last October, the account also reposted two videos of speeches by Hassan Nasrallah, a Lebanese cleric and a former leader of Islamic militant group Hezbollah. Nasrallah had been killed two weeks earlier in an Israeli airstrike. Less than an hour after the shooting in Washington on Thursday night, the X account posted, 'Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home,' along with screen grabs of a nearly 1,000-word essay signed with Rodriguez's name. It was not immediately clear whether Rodriguez, who was in police custody at the time, had used a feature on X to schedule the release of the post in advance or if another person might have had access to the account. In the piece, Rodriguez railed against the mounting death toll in Gaza, saying Israel 'had obliterated the capacity to even continue counting the dead, which has served its genocide well.' About 11 years ago, he wrote, he 'personally became acutely aware of our brutal conduct in Palestine.' He sought to justify what he called 'the morality of armed demonstration,' adding 'those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.' 'The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification,' he wrote. 'We who let this happen will never deserve the Palestinians' forgiveness.' Rodriguez also invoked the death last year of Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force who he set himself ablaze outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington while declaring that he 'will no longer be complicit in genocide.' Bushnell's sacrifice, he wrote, was 'not made in vain.' Court records say Rodriguez made similar remarks about Bushnell after he was taken into custody, describing the man as 'courageous' and a 'martyr.' At the end of the screed, Rodrigez expressed his love for his parents, his younger sister and the 'rest of my familia.' He signed off with 'Free Palestine' and the emoji for the Palestinian flag. Rodriguez's employer, the American Osteopathic Information Association, issued a statement Thursday expressing shock and saying it would cooperate with investigators. 'As a physician organization dedicated to protecting the health and sanctity of human life, we believe in the rights of all persons to live safely without fear of violence,' the group said. ___ Mustian reported from New York. ___ Contact AP's global investigative team at Investigative@ or
