“Registered Israeli foreign agent driving contrived campus antisemitism crisis”, Dec. 17, 2023, Wyatt Reed, The Gray Zone, at < https://thegrayzone.com/2023/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: First I want to express my gratitude to DreamJoeHill2, for directing me to this excellent article about the never-ending Anti-Semitism Blitz being broadcast on the Corporate Controlled U.S. Media, and also by their collaborators in the Alternative Media. Reed looks at the actual people, and their affiliations, among the supposedly intimidated Jewish Students and some prestigious U.S. Universities. This sort of public relations and other political maneuvering in the U.S. with regard to Israel is nothing new. That is discussed briefly here below.
The influence and power of Israel, working along with its allies and operatives in the U.S., has been a strong political force in American domestic affairs, since the day that the Israelis declared the founding of the Jewish State. In fact this is also true going back to before Israel became a state; when the Zionist movement worked in Europe, the U.S., and Palestine to achieve that goal.
For example, The Balfour Declaration, from 1917, was a letter from Arthur Balfour to Walter Rothschild with a promise to support a Jewish State in Palestine. This was in trade for support by American Jews to move the U.S. towards entering WW 1, as a member of the Allies against Germany agreements not discussed in the short letter. And I would never claim that "the Jews" caused this to occur, the fact is that American financiers and bankers (including some Jewish financiers) led by J.P. Morgan had lent a lot of money to Britain and France; and they were very worried about collecting on those loans in a milieu in which Germany won the war, or forced a peace settlement that acknowledged that the war had ended in a draw.
Later Israel was greatly aided in its emergence as a new Country by Truman's recognition of the new country just 11 minutes after its declaration of Statehood on May 14, 1948.
By the 1960s when JFK was elected president, both he and his brother Robert were strongly opposed to Israel obtaining atomic weapons. In fact, the Kennedy's also wanted to begin a process of nuclear disarmament for the nuclear powers of the day, including the U.S. along with the U.S.S.R., England, France. Israel was busy obtaining any nuclear technology possible, by any means legal or illegal, from the 4 nuclear powers of the day. The main target of these efforts was the U.S.
The Prime Minister of Israel during most of the Kennedy Presidency David: "Ben-Gurion is said to have been 'nearly obsessed' with Israel's obtaining nuclear weapons, feeling that a nuclear arsenal was the only way to counter the Arabs' superiority in numbers, space, and financial resources, and that it was the only sure guarantee of Israel's survival and the prevention of another Holocaust.[132] During his final months as premier Ben-Gurion was engaged in a, now declassified, diplomatic standoff with the United States.[133][134]" (See, "David Ben-Gurion", "Second Tenure as Prime Minister", Wikipedia, at < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
JFK and RFK also both strongly advocated requiring Israeli-front organizations operating in the U.S. to register as agents of a foreign country under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Of course the Israelis and their allies among American Zionists in general, and American Zionist Jews in particular, were strongly opposed to registration under FARA.
Even the famous Oliver Stone movie "JFK" was affected by these machinations. The Executive Producer of "JFK" was none other than Arnon Milchan. Milchan, who had major success as a producer of movies in Hollywood, was at the same time a Mossad operative and Nuclear Weapons technology thief and operative for Israel in the U.S. This is all hardly a secret as there have now been some Israeli Newspaper articles, about his long-time exploits; and he wrote an autobiography in which he brags about his activities in stealing and otherwise obtaining U.S. Nuclear bomb technology for Israel among other activities.
Why was Milchan the executive producer of "JFK"? It would certainly appear that he was there to make sure that Stone, a standup guy and a person dedicated to a truthful narrative, did not stray into any mention of a role for Israel, in the killing of John F. Kennedy. Exposing the actions of the U.S. Military, the CIA, the FBI, local police, Texas Oil Tycoons, and Cuban Exiles was all well and good (and clearly they were all significant players in the killing of JFK). But not a word about Israel and its allies among the U.S. power structure was to be uttered; and that is pretty clearly why Milchan held the position of Executive Producer for the influential movie "JFK", that millions of ordinary Americans watched.
There are also many questions that need to be further investigated about the role of the Israelis, their allies among American Zionists (both Jewish and non-Jewish) in cooperation with other major shadowy forces among members of the U.S. ruling class in the September 11, 2001 events. Chris Bollyn is a major source of information on the role of the Israelis. He has written dozens of articles, some books including Solving 9-11: The Deception That Changed the World, and has given dozens of lectures and interviews on the subject. Bollyn, btw, moved to Europe after an attack on his person at his suburban Chicago home and a prosecution attempt that he felt would set him up for a Jailhouse Assassination. He left the U.S. with no delay at that point several years ago. The long tradition of skepticism and suspicion of the "Official Stories" began with the JFK Assassination in November of 1963 and was taken up by thousands of 9-11 Truth citizen journalists and researchers. The Israelis and their allies in the U.S. are a part of the shadowy forces but are far from the only ones.
Finally it is worth mentioning that Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate (both American Jews) have worked hard, to come to grips with the endless schemes and crimes of Israel; and to discuss what American Jews should do and/or say about those developments and events. They are to be commended for their steadfast dedication to that effort. The declining persuasive power of the Zionists in the U.S. is reflected by the decreased support among young American Jews for Israel and the heavy handed threats and actions carried out against young people in the U.S. and Europe who support the Palestinians.
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Registered Israeli foreign agent driving contrived campus antisemitism crisis - The Grayzone
Lawsuits accusing top US universities of harboring antisemitism all originate from one source: a corporate law firm that fielded the pro-settler ex-US ambassador to Israel, and which was registered as a foreign agent of an Israeli principal as recently as 2021.
The firm now represents professional Israel lobby activists posing as victimized “Jewish students” and seeking to crush the free speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists.
The fallout from December 5 House Committe on Antisemitism hearings has already cost University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill her job, while demands by billionaire pro-Israel donors and politicians for the firing of Harvard’s Claudine Gay have grown by the day. Both stand accused of refusing to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews, even though no such calls have taken place on their campuses.
Meanwhile, little attention has been paid to the forces orchestrating the carefully choreographed, heavily-funded campaign to crush Palestine solidarity activism on campus.
The law firm leading the assault on the universities has included David Friedman, the former ambassador to Israel under Donald Trump, among its partners. Until 2021, this firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres, was registered with the US Department of Justice as a foreign agent on behalf of an Israeli principal.
The firm’s clients include associates of a jailed Ukrainian billionaire who bankrolled neo-Nazi militias, along with a who’s who of corporations accused of defrauding and even killing consumers.
Meanwhile, the “Jewish student” witnesses who set the stage for the attacks on Magill and her fellow university presidents at the House Antisemitism Committee were employed on at least a semi-professional basis by Israeli lobbying cutouts.
They included Jonathan Frieden, a Harvard Law student who moonlights as president of Alliance for Israel; MIT graduate student Talia Khan, the president of MIT Israel Alliance; and Bella Ingber, co-president of NYU’s Students Supporting Israel.
Israel lobbyist moonlighting as UPenn student calls for Covid-style lockdowns on Palestine protests
The most harrowing — and clearly questionable — claims furnished during the December 5 congressional hearings came courtesy of Eyal Yakoby, an Israeli-American senior at UPenn.
“Over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve… read the statement, ‘Ninety-percent of pigs are gas chambered!’ on the pavement as I walked to class,” Yakoby moaned.
The most likely explanation for the appearance of this phrase on UPenn’s Locust Walk was not the presence of chalk-wielding neo-Nazis but rather, that of animal welfare advocates, who were presumably calling attention to the fact that most pigs are killed by slaughterhouses which employ a grotesque method of gas inhalation exposed by activists in late 2022.
“‘You’re a dirty little Jew and you deserve to die’ are not words said by Hamas, but by my classmates and my professors,” Yakoby claimed during a December 5 press conference convened by the House GOP leadership. Oddly, he neglected to name a single student or UPenn employee responsible for such inflammatory remarks.
Conjuring up images of a campus overwhelmed by Hamas-linked hatemongers, Yakoby seemed to call for imposing Covid-era lockdowns on students protesting Israel’s blood-drenched assault on the besieged Gaza Strip.
“During Covid, strict guidelines governed everything from class attendance and graduation walks,” he said. “But now, when students and faculty defy policies to intimidate Jewish students, where is the same resolute enforcement?”
Lawsuits target top US campuses with flimsy, unprovable allegations
Just hours after his appearance alongside members of Congress, Yakoby filed a lawsuit against UPenn, claiming the university violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by failing to respond to antisemitism.
Yakoby’s lawsuit was filled with dubious, highly politicized accusations, including complaints about the chanting of “antisemitic slurs” such as “Intifada revolution” and “from the river to the sea.”
A closer examination of other incidents described in the lawsuit against Penn reveals a great number of them appear to have been seriously exaggerated or manufactured out of whole cloth.
The most ‘threatening’ episode described by the Yakoby, for example, consists of a man who “threateningly approached him” and “yelled ‘fuck you.’” As a result of this experience — and the agony apparently endured when the plaintiff observed other students removing posters showing Israeli captives — the suit claims that “Yakoby missed his next two classes” because he was “shaken by these escalating acts of hate.”
The vast majority of claims of overt antisemitism appear to consist of statements by students and professors who criticized the state of Israel but generally took pains to distinguish between the political ideology of Zionism and the religion of Judaism.
Elsewhere, the lawsuit accuses professors of antisemitism because they questioned now-debunked Israeli atrocity propaganda about the October 7 attacks, including a demonstrably false claim by Yakoby that the “killing of 40 [Israeli] babies” by Palestinian militants had been “confirmed.”
Many of the alleged incidents described as “assaults” fail to meet basic evidentiary standards, leaving the court with no option but to take the plaintiffs’ word that the contents of the complaint happened as described.
Claims that a Jewish student was taunted with exhortations to “keep walking you dirty little Jew,” for instance, are typical of the highly suspect claims found throughout the lawsuit.
Indeed, no proof of this alleged interaction was provided, nor did the plaintiff’s provide even a vague sketch of the assailant’s identity. Instead, the entire emphasis is placed on the supposed lack of “sympathy” subsequently shown to the student by a professor who decided not to award her an “extension on her class lecture note assignment.”
The plaintiffs also took aim at Palestinian academic and poet Refaat Alareer, who had been invited to a literary festival at Penn before being murdered in a December 6 Israeli strike described by human rights monitors as a “targeted assassination.”
The demands of the pro-Israel activists include “terminating deans, administrators, professors and other employees” who they say are “responsible for the antisemitic abuse permeating the school, whether because they engaged in it or permitted it; suspending or expelling students who engage in such conduct… the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” and “compensatory, consequential, and punitive [financial] damages.”
Israel lobbyists are also targeting America’s most expensive campus, New York University, leveling a litany of flimsy and unprovable antisemitism allegations to extract heavy financial damages, including a full refund of tuition. Bella Ingber, who also featured prominently at the House Republican press conference, is a leading face of the NYU lawsuit.
During the Republican presser, Ingber compared conditions at NYU to life under the German Nazi Reich.
“Since Oct. 7,” Ingber said, “the unmistakable anti-Semitism that I have experienced on campus is reminiscent of the Jew-hatred I’ve heard about from my grandparents, Holocaust survivors who experienced first-hand the deafening silence of their neighbors in Poland and Germany when the Nazis first rose to power.”
The plaintiffs of the Israel lobby-led lawsuit “request that a judgment be entered in each of their favor, and against NYU” which would see the university “terminating deans, administrators, professors and other employees responsible for the antisemitic abuse permeating the school, whether because they engaged in it or permitted it… suspending or expelling students who engage in such conduct,” and “compensatory and punitive damages.”
In other words, the lawsuit seeks campus-wide regime change, replacing any and all administrators with those willing to take instructions from the Israel lobby.
“Bibi Netanyahu’s guys in the Trump White House” lead legal assault on campus speech
If the language of the NYU lawsuit sounds familiar, that is because it was brought by the same high-powered corporate legal firm presiding over the legal action against UPenn: Kasowitz Benson Torres, best known for its work on behalf of former President Donald Trump. The firm’s leadership has been aptly described as “Bibi Netanyahu’s guys in the Trump White House.”
The law firm was known as Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman until 2017, when its partner, David Friedman left to become US Ambassador to Israel. Friedman has been credited with working alongside former presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner to pressure Trump into adopting more radically anti-Palestinian positions.
The firm was founded in 1993 by attorney Marc Kasowitz, who gained national notoriety for his work representing Big Tobacco, describing himself as one of the “most feared lawyers in the United States.” Though reports describe him as a strong Trump ally and a go-to source for the former president, financial disclosures show Kasowitz and his wife have donated thousands of dollars to Democratic politicians as well, including former President Barack Obama, current President Joe Biden, and Sen. Chuck Schumer. Also employed by the firm is former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a hardcore neoconservative who now serves as chairman of the pro-war United Against a Nuclear Iran. While in Congress, Lieberman advocated for moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as far back as 1995.
A quick glance at Kasowitz Benson Torres’ recent handiwork reveals a lengthy track record of defending Goliath from David. For example, its website boasts of successfully defending Comcast against a class-action lawsuit by angry customers. Other high-profile clients include Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva, best known for causing the ongoing worldwide shortage of a vincristine — a crucial drug in treating most types of childhood cancers with no known substitute — after it deemed production insufficiently profitable.
In 2019, the firm signed on to represent the US-based co-defendants of notoriously-corrupt Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who now languishes in a Kiev prison and is known for bankrolling current president Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian military’s neo-Nazi Azov Regiment. Ukrainian financial giant Privatbank maintains that Kolomoisky and his associates defrauded the bank out of billions of dollars.
A year later, Kasowitz Benson Torres was required to register as a foreign agent with the US Justice Department after agreeing to represent an Israeli real estate developer specializing in building luxury condos for ulra-Orthodox Jews living in illegal settlements.
This November, The Grayzone revealed a leaked letter signed by David Friedman and delivered to NYU administrators in advance of the lawsuit. The letter demanded NYU establish a position dedicated to “combating antisemitism,” and disband student clubs dedicated to Palestine activism.
Now, the law firm’s crusade to crush the free speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists is spreading across the country. This November, two of the firm’s partners revealed that the legal team plans similar suits for Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, MIT, Stanford, and UC-Berkeley, accusing them all of “deliberate indifference” to the supposed plight of Jewish student
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