Gaza First Amendment Alert
A Zionist group draws on facial recognition tech, FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force personnel raid students' homes over graffiti, and a lawsuit claims a journalistic outlet aided terrorism.
As a tidal wave of repression hits pro-Palestine activism and advocacy, the Gaza First Amendment Alert keeps you up to date, with posts every other Wednesday. (As a programming note: the next Gaza First Amendment Alert would fall on Christmas Day, so the next issue will be in the new year!
With Trump Allies Plotting Deportation of Activists, Right Wing Zionist Group Turns to Facial Recognition to Identify International Students
As reported previously in the Gaza First Amendment Alert, Trump, his potential cabinet picks, and key allies, have all been open about their hopes to deport pro-Palestine activists. Betar US is turning to vigilantism, using facial recognition to identify international students amongst campus protesters, build dossiers on them, and hand over the information to the Trump Administration. The group purports to have made a list of dozens of students. Their executive director has described US campuses as “war zones.” Of the groups intent to aid politically motivated deportations, he told the Times of Israel, “We believe in freedom of speech, but if a foreign student is here on a visa, they don’t have the same rights as others to protest or promote anti-Zionist narratives.” He states that even those protesters engaged in peaceful activities may be part of a “front for groups that are trying to undermine America and Israel.”
Betar US is the North American affiliate of the youth movement founded in 1923 by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. At the time of its founding, the right wing Zionist youth group was controversial within the larger Zionist movements for its uniforms, which emulated the aesthetics of European fascism and glorification of militarism.
FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Investigates Graffiti
On November 7 of this year, law enforcement raided the family home of two George Mason students. Twelve law enforcement officers reportedly took part in the raid, including one Fairfax Detective acting in their capacity as an agent of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). JTTFs bring federal agents and local police together under the auspices of the FBI's Counter Terrorism Division to carry out the Bureau's counter terrorism mission.
According to The Intercept, the raid was in connection with an investigation into “a spray-paint vandalism incident at George Mason’s campus in August — part of the widespread campus protests related to Israel’s war on Gaza.” During the raid, the two students had their phones, laptops, and electronic devices seized. While such a raid is a dramatic overreaction to what is petty vandalism, it is in line with a history where the FBI has used minor acts of vandalism and property damage to predicate counter terrorism investigations that focus on political protest.
George Mason University has offered a $2,000 reward for information on the graffiti, suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, and served the two students whose home was raided with a trespass notice barring them from campus for four years. Defending Rights & Dissent joined 80 organizations in sending a letter to the school’s administration condemning the suspension and calling for an investigation into the raid.
Another Right Wing Think Tank Creates Blueprint For Destroying Palestine Solidarity Movement
The Gaza First Amendment Alert reported on the Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther in its October 30, 2024 edition. Now, Truthout has revealed another rightwing think-tank, Capital Research Center (CRC), has its own 150-page blueprint “Marching Toward Violence: The Domestic Anti-Israeli Protest Movement.” The document names 157 groups involved in campus protests who CRC calls “pro-terrorism.” The document claims that mere opposition to Israeli or US policy or extremist views does not allegedly meet their threshold. Instead, the Capital Research Center purports to use a definition of pro-terrorism based on FBI definitions.
In spite of this claim of rigor in defining terror and employment of weasel words aimed at giving the impression their definition is the one used by the FBI (as opposed to “based on” on it and very loosely if at all), the report’s list is unsurprisingly a list of political activists groups, like Code Pink, ANSWER, and Jewish Voice for Peace, civil rights and legal defense organizations, like the Center for Constitutional Rights, Palestine Legal, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and National Lawyers Guild, and foundations likes Tides. Nearly all of the entries reviewed for these groups are a compendium of First Amendment protected speech. Some of the entries reviewed by the Gaza First Amendment Alert were found to contain misleading or false statements.
For example, a factual summary of the laws from the Center for Constitutional Rights around international armed conflict pertaining to attacks on military targets was quoted, before the false claim that the Center for Constitutional Rights believes Israeli citizens are military targets was added. A review of the actual statement shows it contains no such point of view. The entry for Democratic of Socialists of America quotes the organization as condemning all violence against civilians before stating that Hamas supporters commonly mislead people about their beliefs. It goes on to suggest without evidence that DSA could possibly believe Israeli civilians do not count as civilians.
In order to attack the Black Lives Matter movement, the report accuses the groups of making “strategic alliances” with “anti-police bigots”.
The report contains a list of ten options for the government to undermine these groups. The top option is the revocation of 501(c)3 status. A list of the groups, their tax exempt status, and Employer Identification Number is provided. Another option is for the Department of State and Department of Treasury to dramatically extend the number of foreign groups designated as terrorists, including the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Committee or the Palestinian Committee for an Academic or Cultural Boycott of Israel. Other suggestions include charging protesters under federal racketeering and sedition laws, state domestic terrorism laws, deporting activists, launching a lawsuit against Students for Justice in Palestine, and educating the media about these groups.
Lawsuit Against Independent Media Claims Journalism is “Aiding and Abetting Terrorism”
On June 8, 2024, Israeli soldiers massacred 276 Palestinians in Nuseirat refugee camp. According to The Guardian, “The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, called Saturday’s events a ‘massacre,’ while the UN’s aid chief described in graphic detail scenes of ‘shredded bodies on the ground.’ The indiscriminate shelling, bombardments, and airstrikes were purportedly part of a raid that resulted in the rescue of four Israeli hostages.
One of those killed was Abdallah Aljamal, whom the IDF has alleged was holding hostages. A Gaza photojournalist and reporter, Aljamal published a 2019 op-ed with Al Jazeera and a number of pieces with the US-based Palestine Chronicle. Initially, attempts were made to tie Aljamal to Al Jazeera as part of a larger strategy to discredit the network and facilitate Israel’s assassinations of its reporters. Al Jazeera has denied Ajamal ever worked for them, but confirmed he did contribute the op-ed in 2019. At this point, the focus turned to Palestine Chronicle and People Media Project, the US nonprofit that publishes it.
The Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) sent a letter to the IRS asking them to revoke the 501(c)3 of the People Media Project. Smith argued that since terrorism and supporting terrorism are not exempt purposes, their status should be revoked. The letter did not offer any proof that the Palestine Chronicle had any awareness of Aljamal's role in keeping hostages, much less that they actually participated in the act. Disturbingly, in making the claim that People Media Project supported terrorism in violation of its tax-exempt status, the letter honed in on their political views:
This revelation, coupled with the fact that The Palestine Chronicle has previously published articles calling Hamas “resistance fighters” and falsely accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” calls into question what People Media Project knew about its operations in the Gaza strip, whether it ever did any due diligence on hiring Aljamal, whether it has other employees actively holding hostages in Gaza, and whether it employs other members of Hamas.
Israel has been repeatedly credibly accused of ethnic cleansing, including by Human Rights Watch and UN human rights experts.
In July, Almog Meir Jan, one of the hostages held by Aljamal, brought a lawsuit against People Media Project and editors of the Palestine Chronicle under the Alien Tort Statute. Passed in 1789, the law allows non-US persons (“aliens” in the parlance of the statute) to bring civil suits in US courts based on “violations of the laws of nations.” Although this statute was passed by the first US Congress, it was largely dormant until the 1980s when victims of human rights abuses abroad began to bring suits in US courts. The Supreme Court has severely curtailed the scope of the law. The suit claims that taking hostages and “aiding and abetting terrorism” all constitute violations of the law of nations.
The lawsuit does not allege that People Media Project knew about or actively participated in the hostage taking. Instead it argues that, by publishing Aljamal as a journalist, they aided and abetted terrorism by publishing “Hamas propaganda under the guise of independent journalism.” It is clear from the lawsuit that plaintiffs view any mention of civilian casualties in Gaza as Hamas propaganda. For example, one of the examples cited is labeling a strike on an UNRWA school a “gruesome massacre” as opposed to “a precision strike.”
People Media Project is represented by Dan Kovalik, a human rights and labor law lawyer who helped to sue Coca Cola under the Alien Tort Statute for human rights abuses in Colombia. Defendants have moved to dismiss the case in large part because it blatantly falls outside the Supreme Court’s narrow interpretation of the Alien Torts Statute. They also argue much of the actions the defendants seek to hold them liable for are protected by the First Amendment.
Following filing their motion to dismiss, defendants asked for a motion to stay discovery until a decision is made on the motion to dismiss. The plaintiffs have vehemently objected to both motions in caustic language atypical of legal briefs. On November 18 of this year, the judge presiding over the case granted the motion to stay discovery until legal questions about the scope of the Alien Tort Statute can be decided.
Updates
With Pete Hegseth’s nomination for Secretary of Defense increasingly seemingly unlikely (albeit not due to his views on foreign policy or civil liberties), potential replacements have been reported in the media. These include Ron DeSantis, who has been extremely hostile to the First Amendment rights of Palestine solidarity activists.