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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United States, an academic physician at UC San Francisco has sued the university, claiming free speech violations after she was fired over social media posts about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) on CNN clarifies previous statements he’s made about “nuking Gaza” saying that doing so would be a terrible Idea chiefly because the “fallout would drift into Israel”, and in the United Kingdom, Salaam Shalom Kitchen, a Jewish-Muslim run food bank in Nottingham, marks 10 years of operation. Our recommended read of the day is by Lubna Masarwa for The Middle East Eye, on how Palestinian Muslim and Christian families living in Israel are being denied access to bomb shelters alongside their Israeli neighbors. This and more below:
International
Palestinians in Jaffa denied access to bomb shelter by Israeli neighbours | Recommended Read
Palestinians in Jaffa say they are being denied access by their Israeli neighbours to an underground bomb shelter which they had previously been allowed to use during Israel’s escalating war with Iran. Residents of Yehuda Hayamit Street told Middle East Eye they had been told the entry code giving them access to the shelter had been changed after about a dozen or so of them had taken refuge there in recent days as sirens sounded, following Iranian missile attacks targeting nearby Tel Aviv. They say the episode highlights the discrimination and the dangers they face as Palestinian citizens of Israel even in one of the country’s mixed cities, where about a third of the population remains Palestinian. Abed Abu Shahada, a Palestinian activist based in Jaffa, told MEE that the refusal of Israelis to allow their Arab neighbours to share their bomb shelters highlighted an “ingrained racism” within Israeli society. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Backed by Harry and Meghan, unique Muslim and Jewish-run food bank turns 10
An hour before Salaam Shalom Kitchen opens its doors in the Radford neighbourhood of Nottingham, a queue of people begins to form. Wednesdays at Salaam Shalom are usually busy, but this June afternoon, marking the food bank’s 10th anniversary, is especially hectic. “When we opened up 10 years ago we had maybe 30 people coming every week,” said Karen Worth, co-chair of the charity. “Now it’s about 150. “It used to be just single homeless people. Now, we get many different people: families with children, elderly people. Some people are just lonely and isolated and they come here for the community, but many people are struggling financially.” Salaam Shalom was established in 2016 as a collaboration between Tanya Sakhnovich, rabbi at Nottingham’s Liberal Synagogue, and Sajid Mohammed, director of Himmah, a Muslim social justice charity based in the city. The pair wanted their respective communities to work together to improve life for those around them. “It’s the only project like that in the area,” said Zainab Asghar from the Nottingham Muslim Women’s Network. “We need to build more understanding,” said Asghar, adding that Nottinghamshire had become a scarier place for Muslims since the rightwing Reform party gained control of the county council in May. None of the food bank’s funding comes from the council. “Right now I do feel that Muslims are being targeted,” she said. “But I think we need to build bonds with other minorities because you don’t know who will become the next target. “Here at Salaam Shalom we can all relate to each other on just a human-to-human level.” read the complete article
Why can't our government remember torture sessions it took part in?
We’ve forgotten the most basic skills, like map-reading. Indeed, some appear to have forgotten how to read anything more than a few hundred characters of text before slipping into an attention-collapse. However, you’d think that we’d manage to remember that our government engaged in torture. It seems quite important. Even if torture somehow slips the mind of the public, surely the government would remember? If you were involved in torture, wouldn’t it perhaps stay somewhere in your memory banks? I know the Government is busy, but I’m pretty confident that no matter how run off our feet you or I may be we’d remember screams from a torture chamber. This failure of memory struck me as I read accounts of an ongoing tribunal hearing centred on whether British intelligence was complicit in the mistreatment of two men tortured by America’s CIA in the early 2000s. The case is continuing behind closed doors, where the findings will be considered in secret. It centres on two alleged al-Qaeda terrorists. Both have been in Guantanamo Bay since 2006, and were held incommunicado at secret "black site" prisons where they were “systematically” tortured. Lawyers for the two – Mustafa al-Hawsawi, accused of aiding the 9/11 hijackers, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, alleged to have plotted al-Qaeda’s bombing of a US naval ship – claim there’s credible evidence British intelligence unlawfully aided, abetted, conspired or “were otherwise complicit” in their torture by the CIA. read the complete article
United States
Indian American professor sues UCSF over firing linked to Gaza posts
An academic physician at UC San Francisco has sued the university, claiming free speech violations after she was fired over social media posts about Israel’s Gaza operations. What she’s saying: Dr. Rupa Marya, who worked at the university for 22 years — with a focus on “the health impacts of colonialism, racism and state violence as well as the paths to create health equity” — was fired in late May following a nine-month suspension. After Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, she began posting content supporting Gaza’s hospital workers while condemning strikes on medical centers. She slammed Zionist ideology as supremacist and racist, questioning how such beliefs might affect patient care. Her posts reportedly triggered death and rape threats, but administrators allegedly refused protective measures despite providing such help during the 2020 civil rights protests. read the complete article
House Republican Says He Doesn’t Actually Want to Nuke Gaza Because the ‘Fallout Would Drift Into Israel’
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) joined CNN’s Sara Sidner on Monday morning to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Sidner pressed Fine on some of the controversial statements he’s made since recently winning his House seat in a special election, including calling Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) a “terrorist” and arguing for nuking Gaza. “Last month, you said this when asked about how to treat Gaza,” Sidner began before playing a clip of Fine on Fox News. “Did you really mean to say that the U.S. should use nuclear weapons against a people because there’s something wrong with their culture?” Sidner asked. Fine replied, “Of course not. What I was saying is that we didn’t negotiate with evil in World War II. We defeated the Germans, we defeated the Japanese using any means that were necessary. And the same needs to be done in Gaza. Nuking Gaza would be a terrible idea. The fallout would drift into Israel. It would kill the hostages. The point that I was making was—”. Sidner cut in, “But you’re not worried about it killing, for example, women and children in Gaza who, you know, the innocents?” Fine responded, “I think war is a messy thing. And I think that when you defeat evil, you have to do what is necessary to do it. Israel cannot live next to a country that a huge percentage of the people wish to destroy it all of the time. They need to do whatever is necessary, and I don’t know what those things are, in order to get unconditional surrender in Gaza. And that’s what they’re doing right now.” "I believe the Palestinians in Gaza are on a level of evil that we saw in Japan and we saw in Germany back in World War II, and I believe Israel needs to do what’s necessary to defeat it. And I won’t apologize for that,” Fine concluded. read the complete article