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| A young Afro-Palestinian American is arrested and placed in Israeli prison on a bogus charge. The U.S. has not done a damn thing to get her out. |
Israel has killed Americans. No one was held accountable.
The killing of Rachel Corrie did not move George W. Bush to cut Israel loose.
Corrie was an American nonviolence activist and diarist. She was a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and was active throughout the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. In 2003, she was in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military was demolishing Palestinian houses at the height of the Second Intifada. While protesting the demolitions as they were being carried out, she was killed by an Israeli armored bulldozer that crushed her.
The deaths of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, Tawfiq Abdel Jabbar, Mohammad Khdour, Omar Assad, Shireen Abu Akleh, Jacob Flickinger and Kamel Ahmad Jawad were never investigated by the U.S. Justice Department.
Former president Joe Biden and former vice president Kamala Harris failed. They lost the Arab American and Muslim voters because of their failure to hold Israel accountable for the killings of Americans.
Shireen Abu Akleh, was a journalist who clearly wore a press vest and still was murdered by these vile human scumbags. She was a prominent Palestinian-American journalist who worked as a reporter for 25 years for Al Jazeera, before she was killed by Israeli forces while wearing a blue press vest and covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Abu Akleh was one of the most prominent names across the Middle East for her decades of reporting in the Palestinian territories, and seen as a role model for many Arab and Palestinian women. She is considered to be an icon of Palestinian journalism.
Upon her death on May 11, 2022, Israel denied responsibility and blamed Palestinian militants. However, it gradually changed its narrative until admitting she was likely "accidentally" killed by Israeli fire, but refused to undertake a criminal investigation. The admission came after several independent investigations were conducted by international media outlets, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the United States Department of State. Forensic Architecture refuted Israel's findings on September 20 and said Abu Akleh was deliberately targeted and denied medical aid after she was shot. In November 2022, the United States Department of Justice opened a separate investigation into the killing, in a move that Israel condemned and refused to cooperate with. Her niece Lina Abu Akleh has since been demanding that the Israeli forces responsible for her death be held accountable.
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| Samaher Esmail was arrested at her sister's home. She is an American who was illegally arrested for incitement. Joe Biden, Donald J. Trump, Antony Blinkin and Marco Rubio refused to hold Israel accountable. Samaher is held at gunpoint inside her sister's home awaiting trial. |
The manner of her death and the subsequent violent disruption of her funeral drew widespread international condemnation of Israel. During her funeral procession, the Israel Police attacked the pallbearers at the Saint Joseph's Hospital in East Jerusalem with batons and stun grenades. The hospital itself was also stormed by Israeli police officers, who assaulted patients and threw stun grenades, wounding and causing burns to medical staff in the building. The facility issued a statement from the Christian Churches of the Holy Land, stating that the Israel Police's actions constituted "invasion and disproportionate use of force" and a violation of the "right of freedom of religion" for the Palestinians. Abu Akleh's funeral was attended by tens of thousands of people carrying Palestinian flags and chanting nationalist songs; it is believed to have been the largest Palestinian funeral in Jerusalem in over twenty years. On October 26, 2023, the Israeli military bulldozed a memorial that had been erected at the site where Abu Akleh was killed.
Social media is getting the ball rolling on the unlawful arrest of Shaden al-Quos.
She is an African American woman of Palestinian descent. She was arrested in January and been detained in Isrseli custody since. The U.S. State Department under President Donald J. Trump has not done nothing to get her out.
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| Shireen Abu Akleh worked for al Jazeera. She was a Palestinian American who wore a clearly shown press vest. Israeli snipers deliberately killed her. Joe Biden and Antony Blinkin did not hold Israel accountable for this. |
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former secretary of state Antony Blinkin ain't done nothing to get her out.
The Israeli military raided her home. They illegally entered her home in East Jerusalem on January 6 on the bogus charges of incitement on social media.
She was known activist and some are calls for her immediate and unconditional release. Following five days of forced house arrest, the Israeli military ransacked Shaden’s home and confiscated her laptop and phone. She is currently being held at Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, facing charges related to incitement on social media.
Shaden is a 27-year-old dancer with the El Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe, whose mission is to revive and disseminate Palestinian folk dance and songs in schools and community centers all over the world. Aside from traditional Palestinian dabke, Shaden is known for her Afro-Palestinian dance, a unique fusion that merges elements of West African and Levantine folk dance traditions. In February 2024, Shaden was interviewed on Al-Jazeera’s AJ Stream program, where she spoke about her Afro-Palestinian community, whose presence in the Old City of Jerusalem dates back to the British Mandate, and the routine “double-harassment” it faces at the intersection of Black and Palestinian identities. She highlighted the impact of Israeli occupation and the effect of social media censorship by Israeli authorities and social media platforms, with her arrest showing a clear example of non-violent resistance being targeted.
In addition to dance, Shaden paints murals depicting Palestinian cultural and political symbols and scenes in East Jerusalem despite the criminalization of the display of the Palestinian flag by Israeli authorities. Shaden is also a law student at Birzeit University in the West Bank.
Last year around Feb. 2024, Samaher Esmail, a 46-year-old mother of Palestinian origin and resident of New Orleans, had been in the West Bank for under three months when she was charged with incitement for several photos and messages she posted to social media. Some of them involved images of top Hamas leaders, but did not explicitly call for violence. Esmail, who suffers from cancer and kidney problems, was bruised and sickly when her lawyer visited her at Damon prison, where she was held in the north of Israel before her release.
She was tried in military court for the very same charges that Shaden had.
Samher will only be able to go back to the U.S. once her trial concludes, which could take months, and only if she is found not guilty.
That a U.S. citizen is being tried in military court — an apartheid legal system for West Bank Palestinians separate from the civilian courts enjoyed by Israelis — has drawn widespread criticism. Israel doesn't offer due process and largely imprisons those who threaten its security. Palestinians and human rights groups say the system is awash in violations of due process and almost always renders guilty verdicts, with 95% of military court hearings ending in convictions, according to Israeli watchdog Military Court Watch.
It is a fucking kangaroo court.
Esmail’s representatives and family celebrated Thursday’s decision to release her on bail, but expressed dismay at what they perceive as a tepid U.S. government response to the incarceration of an American by Israel.
“We’re ecstatic because we feel like this rarely happens,” said Esmail’s son, Suliman Hamed, who lives in New Orleans. “I feel like because of all the media coverage they may have done it fairly this time around. I really thought I might never see her again.”
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| Rachel Corrie. George W. Bush and Collin Powell did not hold Israel accountable for her death. She was intentionally ran over by a bulldozer trying to protect a West Bank family's home from being destroyed. |
On Feb. 6, Esmail was dragged out of her house by Israeli forces in the middle of the night. A video of the incident provoked outrage on social media. During her arrest, her lawyer alleges Israeli forces beat Esmail, did not give her time put on her hijab — the headscarf worn by some Muslim women — and her Israeli interrogator did not ask properly if Esmail wanted an attorney present.
Little was known publicly about her whereabouts, the charges against her, or her condition.
She was not able to see a lawyer until four days after her arrest, according to court documents from her initial hearing. Esmail reportedly did not have access to her medications for at least the first six days of her detention and fainted in prison, said a letter written to the former secretary of state Blinken by Jonathan Franks, a crisis management consultant who represents Americans detained abroad and is working for Esmail’s family. A consular officer did not visit Esmail until 14 days after her arrest, Franks said Thursday.
“I was extremely frustrated, given the issue of her potentially having been abused in custody, that it took 14 days to get a consular officer to see her,” said Franks, who flew from the U.S. to attend Thursday’s hearing. “I would like to see a public statement from the embassy that it’s our expectation that Americans are not going to be put through these military commissions. And I don’t think that that’s too much to ask of a friend.”
The judge ruled Thursday at Israel’s Ofer prison that the military court did not have jurisdiction to prosecute Esmail for posts she made while in the U.S., but charged her with incitement for posts she made while in the West Bank. Esmail attended the hearing remotely, via videoconference from Damon prison.
Three of the posts involved a figure resembling Abu Obeida, the spokesman of Hamas’ armed wing. Under two of the images was the inscription “Victory or death of the Saints, God willing,” according to court documents. Esmail also changed her profile picture to a masked man resembling Obeida twirling a ball on his finger, emblazoned with U.S. and Israeli flags.
She also posted a photo of Yahya Ayyash, who built bombs for Hamas and was killed by Israel in 1996, against the backdrop of Al-Aqsa mosque.
No post in question received more than 11 likes.
“The posts constituted incitement and support of an illegal organization, and are therefore not protected speech” the judge said Thursday.
The court’s decision means that Esmail will have to remain in the West Bank until the legal proceedings against her are complete. During that time, Esmail is barred from posting publicly on social media. Her next trial at a military court is set for March 31, according to Franks.
In the meantime, her family is worried that she will not have access to adequate cancer treatment in the West Bank and that Israel may arrest her again.
Thursday’s hearings followed a previous military court hearing six days after her arrest in which the military judge assigned to her case openly questioned the wisdom of prosecuting an American citizen and wondered if the court had jurisdiction, according to case files obtained by The Associated Press.
“It is not wise to file indictment against her based on the allegations,” the judge said at the time. “In the substantial sense, nor even in the political sense (in its international sense).”
Despite the judge’s recommendation that Esmail be released on bail, the military prosecutor filed an indictment — leading to Thursday’s hearing.
The case comes at a time of high tension between the U.S. and Israel over the war in Gaza, which has claimed over 30,000 lives since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants staged a cross border attack, killing some 1,200 Israelis and dragging 250 hostages back to Gaza.
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| Little Marco and Butcher Netanyahu. |
Since that day, Israel has clamped down on online speech perceived to glorify Hamas or the Palestinian cause. Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli authorities, fired by Israeli employers and expelled from Israeli schools for speech deemed incendiary, rights groups say.
Hamed, Esmail’s son, said the family was disappointed that the embassy did not send a high-ranking official to attend Thursday’s hearing, despite the family’s representatives asking them to.
The U.S. Embassy did not have immediate comment.
Esmail’s family said she often traveled back and forth between the West Bank and the U.S., where she manages a family owned grocery store in the New Orleans suburb of Gretna and worked as a tutor at a nearby high school. She was in the West Bank to see relatives and testify at a hearing about a previous encounter with Israeli forces where she was beaten, her representatives said.
“It’s clear why they’re holding her,” said Hamed. “They’re trying to use her as an example and to intimidate Palestinians. Cases like these have people deleting their social media, canceling their trips to Palestine. They’re trying to silence us.”
Mask off.
Resistance is not terrorism.
Occupation of oppressed people is not peace.
A two state solution is "separate but equal" and a de facto apartheid.
Telling other countries to take Palestinians is ethnic cleansing.
A sovereignty seizing land in a violent conflict is a war crime.
The double standard in media coverage is the Israelis are hostages and the Palestinians are prisoners. Some of the Palestinians held in Israeli custody are children under the age of 14.
When Russia seized Ukrainian land and Crimea, the U.S. pushed for sanctions.
When Israel seized Lebanese and Syrian land, the U.S. recognized it as Israeli sovereignty. They have actively rejected sanctions imposed on Israel.
Holding these U.S. lawmakers accountable is not just a pledge, but a promise. You need to learn who represents your community. Your local community member, your school board member, your mayor, your state representative, your state senator, your governor, your U.S. Representative, your U.S. Senator and the president need to be held accountable for their actions. If they are taking money from AIPAC, they are working on behalf of foreign interest.
Israel must be held accountable for war crimes and the U.S. must end its aid. Our taxpayer money should not help Israel any further.
Israel is the red line and if any lawmaker backs the apartheid ethnostate, they will not receive my vote. Regardless of political affiliation, if you are supporting Israel, you are not getting donations or a vote from me.
I will hold President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance accountable.
The call number to the White House and US Capitol is now going to be used. This is the official White House numbers 202-456-1111 and 202-456-1414. This is the Congress official phone number, 202-224-3121. Please be respectful to operators, staff members and elected leaders. Your calls are monitored by the US Secret Service and US Capitol Police.
Let them know that "thoughts and prayers," "hearts going to", "illegal immigrants" and "good guys with guns" are no longer acceptable and you want legislation to focus on ending gun violence, lowering costs, improving healthcare and building relationships with other nations. Let them know that we are tired of police officers using immunity when committing death of suspects in custody. Let them know that you are tired of private equity firms getting away with destroying small businesses and long established companies. Let them know that you are tired of your taxpayer money going to foreign nations like Israel. You are tired of hearing about "Israel having a right to..." and the bogus claims of being anti-Semitic or in support of terrorism.
We have bigger issues at home and our tax dollars should solve the housing crisis, lowering food prices, fixing roads, bridges, helping reinvest in struggling urban and rural communities. We have hospitals closing, big box retailers leaving communities and television programs dying. There are bigger issues in the United States than Israel. You want an immediate ceasefire and accountability for war crimes done by Israel. You want no more foreign influence in future American elections. You also want to make sure future presidents and legislators avoid influence from lobbyists.
The Resistance Must Stop Israel!✊️🇵🇸
Israel Must Fall......
Free Palestine 🇵🇸
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