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adalah justice project
'The Genocide Gentry': Weapon Execs Sit on Boards of Universities, Institutions
"This research provides a view into just how embedded the corporate, profit-fueled war machine is in our higher education and cultural institutions," said one campaigner.
Sep 18, 2024
A trio of human rights groups on Wednesday announced a new interactive initiative exposing what the coalition is calling a "Genocide Gentry" of weapons company executives and board members and "54 museums, cultural organizations, universities, and colleges that currently host these individuals on their boards or in other prominent roles."
The coalition—which consists of the Adalah Justice Project, LittleSis, and Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE)—published a map and database detailing the "educational and cultural ties to board members of six defense corporations" amid Israel's ongoing annihilation of Gaza, for which the U.S.-backed country is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
" Israel has destroyed every university in Gaza and nearly 200 cultural heritage sites since October 2023, using bombs and weapons manufactured by the companies included in the Genocide Gentry research," the coalition said. "As of April, these attacks have killed more than 5,479 students and 261 teachers and destroyed or critically damaged nearly 90% of all school buildings in Gaza."
"Universities across the country including the likes of Columbia University, Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and New York University have remained largely silent on Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza," the groups added. "Behind closed doors, these same universities are hosting executives and board members of the companies manufacturing the weapons used in these attacks as board members, trustees, and fellows."
Members of the Genocide Gentry include:
- Jeh Johnson, Lockheed Martin board of directors: Johnson is currently a Columbia University trustee, and sits on the board of directors at MetLife and U.S. Steel. Columbia University notably shut down student protests demanding divestment from weapons companies like Lockheed Martin.
- Brian C. Rogers, RTX board of directors: Rogers is currently a trustee of the Harvard Management Company, tasked with managing the $50 billion endowment. Notably Harvard administrators have cracked down on students demanding divestment from weapons companies like RTX, formerly Raytheon.
- Catherine B. Reynolds, General Dynamics board of directors: Reynolds is a trustee of the Kennedy Center and sponsors a fellowship at New York University, which has also cracked down on anti-genocide protests and recently enacted a policy equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
"Students on university campuses across the country have not only been demanding divestment, but transparency," said Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project. "Transparency about their institutions' investments, partnerships, donors, and decision-makers, and their connections to individuals and companies directly enabling and profiting off war and genocide."
"This research helps provide some of this transparency by illuminating just how embedded the interests of the weapons industry are within our institutions, so we can begin chipping away at the power and influence that they wield," she added.
ACRE campaign director Ramah Kudaimi noted that "as part of its genocide since October 2023, Israel has targeted universities and cultural centers across Gaza, destroying campuses, museums, libraries, and more."
"That this is all backed by the United States means U.S. educational and cultural institutions have a responsibility to consider what their role is in helping end these war crimes, and that starts with reconsidering their connections with the weapons companies profiting from the destruction," Kudaimi said.
Munira Lokhandwala, director of the Tech and Training program at LittleSis, said: "This research provides a view into just how embedded the corporate, profit-fueled war machine is in our higher education and cultural institutions. Through this research, we show how the defense industry shapes and influences our civic and cultural institutions, and as a result, their silence around war and genocide."
"We must ask our institutions: What role are you playing in whitewashing war and destruction by inviting those who profit from manufacturing weapons onto your boards and into your galas?" she added.
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Palestinian Journalists Urge US Media to Boycott White House Correspondents' Dinner
"The Biden administration's ongoing support for Israel's genocidal policies implicates it directly in the relentless targeting and massacring of journalists in Gaza, including hundreds of our colleagues and their families."
Apr 05, 2024
Palestinian journalists this week issued an appeal to their U.S. counterparts urging them to boycott the April 27 White House Correspondents' Association dinner over the Biden administration's complicity in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
"In the past six months alone, the Israeli military has executed over 125 Palestinian journalists in Gaza—10% of Gaza's community of journalists," notes the appeal, which is being organized with the help of Adalah Justice Project and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. "The year 2023 marked the bloodiest year for journalists worldwide in over a decade, with over 75% of killed journalists targeted by Israel’s attacks on Gaza."
"As Palestinian journalists, we urgently appeal to you, our colleagues globally, with a demand for immediate and unwavering action against the Biden administration's ongoing complicity in the systematic slaughter and persecution of journalists in Gaza," the authors wrote.
"We bear the enormous burden of exposing the realities of Israel's genocidal campaign to the world while living through it in real-time. Israel has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians as we watch on," the journalists said. The death toll in Gaza now exceeds 33,000—mostly women and children—with at least 75,550 other Palestinians wounded since October 7.
The appeal continues:
In Gaza, journalism is synonymous with putting our lives on the line as Israel methodically targets us in its desperate bid to silence our voices and obscure the grim reality of its genocidal actions and its project of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. For Palestinian journalists in Gaza, the blue press vest does not offer us protection, but rather functions as a red target.
The Biden administration's ongoing support for Israel's genocidal policies implicates it directly in the relentless targeting and massacring of journalists in Gaza, including hundreds of our colleagues and their families.
"Western media has played an integral role in manufacturing consent for Israel's ongoing violence against the Palestinian people, while obfuscating U.S. complicity," the journalists continued. "Over the past six months, the mainstream press has become the mouthpiece of the homicidal Israeli regime, promoting dehumanizing anti-Palestinian propaganda and platforming genocide apologists and perpetrators, while simultaneously ignoring, downplaying, and underreporting Israel's war crimes against Palestinians."
"The White House Correspondents' dinner is an embodiment of media manipulation, trading journalistic ethics for access," the appeal argues. "For journalists to fraternize at an event with President [Joe] Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris would be to normalize, sanitize, and whitewash the administration's role in genocide."
"As journalists reporting from the belly of the beast, you have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity," the Palestinians implored U.S. journalists. "It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured, and killed for doing our jobs."
The appeal's authors noted that American media professionals have demanded justice for journalists like Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh—who numerous probes found was intentionally killed by Israeli forces in 2022—and Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Washington Post columnist gruesomely murdered in 2018 by Saudi Arabian operatives in Turkey.
"It is past time journalists take action for journalists in Gaza," the Palestinians asserted. "We call on all journalists of conscience to stand with us and uplift our call to boycott the White House Correspondents' dinner."
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80+ Groups Descend on DC Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire, Migrant Rights
"We stand together... to say no to more weapons for Israel's genocide in Gaza, no more money to imprison children and families seeking safety at our border, no more money to destroy lives," said one protest leader.
Dec 19, 2023
Activists from more than 80 advocacy groups took to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to protest what they called the Israeli genocide in Palestine and "cruel" immigration policies here in the United States.
The demonstrators demanded a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, an end to American military aid for Israel, and protection for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"As the Biden administration and Senate Democrats indicate a willingness to advance cruel immigration proposals in order to pass a spending package that will send billions of dollars to Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza, we come together as a coalition of immigrant, Palestinian, and allied organizations dedicated to fighting for justice and liberation to categorically oppose all proposals fueling violence against our communities at home and abroad," a joint statement from the groups taking part in Tuesday's demonstration said.
Arrests were reported after hundreds of activists occupied the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where they sang and chanted slogans including "not in our name" and held signs reading "stop arming Israel" and "protect immigrants and asylees."
"I am here because my government is using my taxpayer dollars to carry out a genocide against people who look just like me in Gaza and to keep immigrant families that look just like mine out of this country," explained Saqib Bhatti, co-executive director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy.
"We are here to stand up for innocent Palestinians, immigrants, and for the vast majority of the American people who are demanding an end to the bloodshed," Bhatti added. "We need a permanent cease-fire today and to begin the hard work of repairing the damage our billions of dollars in military aid has done to the Palestinian people."
Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project, said in a statement that "we stand together, linked arm and arm, to say no to more weapons for Israel's genocide in Gaza, no more money to imprison children and families seeking safety at our border, no more money to destroy lives."
"The Democratic leadership and the Biden administration are failing the people," Tamari added.
Audrey Sasson, executive director of Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, explained that "I am putting my body on the line to demand that Congress stop funding Israeli war crimes in Gaza, and that they reject any proposals for increased militarization on the U.S. border."
"That the war in Gaza is being waged in my name fills me with shame, grief, and rage," Sasson added. "As a Jewish leader watching the Palestinian death toll rise daily, I will not be silent."
The groups' statement decried President Joe Biden's $106 billion "so-called 'national security' supplemental spending package, which would send $14.3 billion in weapons and military funding to Israel to fund its genocidal attacks in Gaza, and nearly $8 billion for deadly enforcement and further militarization of the border."
The activists also noted that "over 8,000 children" are among the nearly 20,000 people killed by Israel's assault on Gaza.
"Palestinians are being killed en masse by the Israeli military and denied access to food, water, shelter, electricity, and medical care in Gaza—a place which has been described as the 'world's largest open-air prison,'" the groups said. "U.S. Border Patrol is holding migrants escaping the conditions created by U.S. imperialism in open-air detention centers at our southern border where they are being deprived food, water, shelter, and medical attention."
The groups' statement continues:
These parallels are not coincidental. We know that our struggle against genocide and militarism in Palestine is the same struggle against militarism here in the U.S. and at our southern border. We see the same technology used by the Israeli military against Palestinians used at our own borders; we see that the Israeli military trains our law enforcement, including [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents; we know that ethnic cleansing and mass displacement will always bring people in need face-to-face with our deadly immigration policies. The decisions to fund these systems are motivated by xenophobia, racism, anti-Blackness, and profit.
"If we allow elected officials to achieve a deal, billions of our taxpayer dollars will fuel war and genocide, and consequently mass displacement abroad, while simultaneously closing the door to asylum and increasing the scale of state violence against our Black, brown, Indigenous, and migrant communities at home," the groups asserted. "We will not allow our communities to be divided and conquered, or to be used as bargaining chips to push through deeply problematic and unpopular military aid."
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