[Ali Abunimah Power Suits 15 February 2024]
One of the speakers was Jeffrey Gettleman, the lead author of a major New York Times story published in December, purporting to corroborate Israel’s discredited claims of mass rape by Hamas fighters on 7 October – claims that unfortunately Palestinian American lawmaker Rashida Tlaib is now also parroting despite the lack of evidence.
Gettleman’s story was a journalistic fraud.
As I reported on The Electronic Intifada livestream this week, the Columbia event – co-sponsored by Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security – was set up to promote Israel’s discredited claims of 7 October “mass rapes”and to give this genocidal atrocity propaganda a veneer of academic legitimacy.
The event was carefully stage-managed to exclude any real public or student participation: No questions were allowed from the floor and comments were turned off on the event’s YouTube livestream.
But it did not go to plan. Columbia University students made sure their voices were heard. They interrupted and protested Hillary Clinton and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations.
They confronted Clinton with her history of supporting or participating in war crimes against the peoples of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Palestine.
Notably, when Clinton was US secretary of state, her department disseminated falseclaims that Libyan armed forces had been given Viagra and instructed to carry out mass rapes as a weapon of war.
These fabrications were used to build public support for the Obama administration’s regime-change war that ended in the murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi – to Clinton’s delight – and turned the country into a haven for human trafficking, torture and sexual violence.
Columbia students staged a mass walkout, leaving most of the seats in the auditorium empty.
As for Gettleman, he was treated to a softball interview by former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, who completely failed to challenge him on his fraudulent “journalism” that is even being challenged and repudiated by some of his own colleagues at The New York Times.
In our livestream segment in the video at the top of this article, you can watch some of the protests against Clinton and other speakers and hear our analysis of this propaganda event.
Palestinian American Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic member of Congress from Michigan, is one of the few national legislators to regularly speak out against Israel’s crimes.
But her comments on the House floor on Wednesday will cause dismay to many of her supporters.
But instead of refuting the false premise of this resolution, and pointing out how this is a campaign of lies designed to justify Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, Tlaib gave credence to Israel’s fabricated atrocity propaganda.
“All acts of sexual violence are horrific. We should all be fighting to end it here at home and all around the world,” Tlaib said. “So while the resolution on the floor today rightfully denounces any sexual violence by Hamas, I am disturbed that it completely ignores and erases any sexual violence and abuse committed by the Israeli forces against Palestinians, especially children.”
“War crimes cannot justify more war crimes,” Tlaib added. “We must stand up for everyone’s safety and human rights, no matter their faith, no matter their ethnicity.”
Tlaib pointed out that there are “numerous, well-documented reports of sexual violence, including rape committed by Israeli forces against Palestinians in their custody. Children [are] detained and stripped to their underwear in public for the world to see,” she said.
Tlaib submitted into the congressional record an article from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz containing victim accounts of such abuses.
But Tlaib did not point to any evidence backing up Israel’s claims of widespread and systematic rape and sexual violence by Hamas resistance fighers on 7 October.
That’s likely because – as the reporting by The Electronic Intifada and other independent outlets has consistently shown – these claims are not accompanied by any credible evidence.
Indeed most of them emanate from either the Israeli military or organizations with a record of fabrication and lies, such as the Israeli Jewish extremist group ZAKA.
Tlaib may have thought that accepting the baseless Israeli claims would buy her some goodwill with anti-Palestinian racists – including her Democratic Party colleagues like Florida Representative Lois Frankel, the sponsor of the resolution – but that strategy totally failed.
Tlaib’s tweet of her speaking in the House generated an overwhelmingly hostile response from Israel supporters, while the House resolution passed by 418 in favor with zero votes against.
Tlaib, inexplicably, voted “present,” rather than opposing the resolution.
Tlaib should not have bought into Israel’s atrocity propaganda. She should retract her statement lending it credence, a statement that can and undoubtedly will be used against Palestinians as a whole.
She should demand a full, credible independent investigation of Israel’s allegations, including its use of atrocity propaganda to incite genocide against the Palestinian people.
A request for comment has been sent to Tlaib’s office.