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OPINION: My people live in impoverished exile. Governments must stop talking about ‘regret’ and give our islands back

Ada Colau went beyond the scope of her authority in her desire to support the BDS movement, says The Lawfare Project.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A pro-Israel think tank has filed a lawsuit against Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau for suspending almost all ties with Israel, including its sister-city agreement with Tel Aviv.

The Lawfare Project made the court challenge on behalf of the Barcelona Institute for Dialogue with Israel, a local charity. Its primary assertion is that the mayor violated applicable legal procedures and infringed on the Spanish government’s power to conduct foreign policy.

“The suspension of relations with Israel represents a total misuse of the legal process to engage in a bigoted and partisan campaign, rather than a legal decision within the scope of the Mayor of Barcelona’s power,” explained the Project’s executive director, Brooke Goldstein.

Colau announced on Facebook in February that the decision to break in relations was “due to the repeated violations of human rights of the Palestinian population and non-compliance with United Nations resolutions.” Henceforth, she continued, the city would only maintain ties with “Israeli and Palestinian entities that continue to work for peace and against apartheid.” She also called on other mayors to follow her lead.

At a follow-up press conference, Colau was joined by Alys Samson Estapé, who previously served as the European coordinator of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC).

The BDS movement seeks to delegitimize the Jewish state by falsely accusing it of abhorrent practices such as apartheid and crimes against humanity.

Barcelona Institute chairman Maxo Benalal noted that besides “disturbing” his country’s foreign policy, “by adopting the tenets of a partisan and discriminatory political campaign against Israel, Ms. Colau breaches the mayor’s institutional duty of neutrality [and] brings harm to the good name of the city of Barcelona.”

“I imagine that Ms. Colau would like Barcelona to be akin to a city-state capable of boycotting Israel and conducting its own foreign policy, but sadly for her and fortunately for the people of Barcelona, this is not legally the case,” added Ignacio Palacios, the lawyer engaged by The Lawfare Project to lead the legal charge.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat had condemned the mayor’s announcement, tweeting, “The decision gives support to extremists, terrorist organizations and anti-Semitism, and impairs the interests of the residents of Barcelona.”

It “stands in complete contrast to the position of the majority of the residents of Barcelona and their representatives on the city council,” Haiat added.

The Lawfare Project is an American non-profit think tank and litigation fund that works to protect the human and civil rights of Jewish and pro-Israel communities worldwide by challenging anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish discrimination in court.

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The sweeping campaign of repression is unprecedented since the Soviet era, effectively criminalizing independent reporting on the conflict and any public criticism of the war.

By Associated Press

A Russian court on Monday convicted top opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. of treason for publicly denouncing Moscow’s war in Ukraine and sentenced him to 25 years in prison as part of the Kremlin’s relentless crackdown on critics of the invasion.

The political activist and journalist, who twice survived poisonings he blamed on Russian authorities, has rejected the charges against him as punishment for standing up to President Vladimir Putin and likened the proceedings to the show trials under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Human rights organizations and Western governments denounced the verdict and demanded his release. Amnesty International declared the 41-year-old to be a prisoner of conscience.

“Today, our friend and Senior Fellow @vkaramurza was unjustly sentenced to 25 years in prison. His unlawful imprisonment cannot go unanswered. We must not relent until Vladimir is free. His wife and children need him free. Russia needs him free. The world needs him free,” the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, named after the diplomat who rescued 100,000 Jews during the Holocaust, stated in a tweet on Monday.

Today, our friend and Senior Fellow @vkaramurza was unjustly sentenced to 25 years in prison.

His unlawful imprisonment cannot go unanswered. We must not relent until Vladimir is free. His wife and children need him free. Russia needs him free. The world needs him free. #FreeVKM https://t.co/GH43Rgx5pW pic.twitter.com/UEgtBXfUsu

— Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (@TheRWCHR) April 17, 2023

Former Soviet-Jewish dissident Natan Sharansky, now an Israeli politician, author and human rights activist, also condemned the sentence.

“Putin’s case against Vladimir Kara-Murza is really a case against democracy, human rights, and civil society in Russia. By treating honest and just criticism of the regime’s attack on human rights as high treason and by demanding 25 years in prison as punishment for this, the Russian court is venturing into Stalin-era levels of oppression,” Sharansky posted on social media last week, ahead of the verdict.

Kara-Murza reacted calmly as the judge read the verdict and sentence in a quick monotone. His lawyer, Maria Eismont, later quoted him as telling her: “My self-esteem has risen: I realized that I have done everything right. Twenty-five years is the highest appraisal that I could get for doing what I did and what I believed in, as a citizen, a patriot and a politician.”

Kara-Murza’s wife, Evgenia, who lives in the U.S. with their three children, tweeted after the verdict: “A quarter of a century is an ‘A+’ for your courage, consistency and honesty in your years-long work. I am infinitely proud of you, my love, and I’m always by your side.”

The charges against Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-British citizen who has been behind bars since his arrest a year ago, stem from a March 2022 speech to the Arizona House of Representatives in which he denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as other speeches abroad.

“There are millions of people in my country who fundamentally reject and fundamentally disagree with everything that the Putin regime represents and stands for, from the kleptocracy and thievery to the abuses and the repressions and the crimes against humanity that are being committed,” Kara-Murza said in his 17-minute speech to lawmakers in Arizona, which he visited at the invitation of the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations.

“It was an absolute honor for me to witness his courage last year when he addressed” the House, said state Rep. Marcelino Quiñonez, a Democrat and House Minority Whip. “Obviously this sentence is a travesty for justice all around the world.”

Days after the invasion, Russia adopted a law criminalizing spreading “false information” about its military. Authorities have used the law to stifle criticism of what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation.”

Another prominent opposition figure, Ilya Yashin, was sentenced to 8½ years in prison last year on charges of spreading false information about the military.

Last month, a Russian court convicted a father over social media posts critical of the war and sentenced him to two years in prison. His 13-year-old daughter, who drew an antiwar sketch at school, was sent to an orphanage. Days later, Russia’s security service arrested Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal, on espionage charges.

A recent report by the Russian Supreme Court said that in 2022, courts ordered citizens to pay fines for discrediting the military 4,439 times, for the equivalent of about $1.8 million in total, according to Russia’s independent news site Mediazona.

‘The darkness engulfing our country will dissipate’

In a statement at the end of his trial, Kara-Murza said he was jailed for “many years of struggle against Putin’s dictatorship,” his criticism of the war in Ukraine and his long efforts to champion Western sanctions against Russian officials involved in human rights abuses.

“I know that the day will come when the darkness engulfing our country will dissipate,” he told the court in remarks posted on his Twitter account. “This day will come as inevitably as spring comes to replace even the frostiest winter.”

Amnesty International denounced Kara-Murza’s sentence as “yet another chilling example of the systematic repression of civil society, which has broadened and accelerated under the Kremlin since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.” The organization declared Kara-Murza a prisoner of conscience.

Memorial, one of Russia’s oldest and most prominent human rights organizations that was named a co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize along with human rights defenders from Ukraine and Belarus, also has named Kara-Murza as a political prisoner.

Memorial’s head Yan Rachinsky described the sentence as “monstrous,” adding that it reflected the authorities’ fear of criticism and “marked a difference between today’s Russia and civilized countries.”

British and U.S. ambassadors to Russia called for Kara-Murza’s immediate release, speaking to reporters on the steps of the Moscow courthouse. Western governments strongly condemned the conviction.

“Vladimir Kara-Murza bravely denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for what it was — a blatant violation of international law and the U.N. Charter,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

The Foreign Office said it summoned Russian Ambassador Andrey Kelin over the conviction. The U.K. previously sanctioned the presiding judge for human rights violations in another case and said it would consider taking further action to hold people accountable in Kara-Murza’s case.

Former Arizona state Rep. César N. Chávez, a Democrat who was vice chairman of international affairs committee to the legislature when Kara-Murza gave his speech, called the sentence “appalling and sad to those of us who live in a free society.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment.

Kara-Murza’s health has deteriorated in custody, leading to the development of polyneuropathy — disease of or damage to nerves — in both his feet, according to his lawyers.

Lawyer Prokhorov told German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle on Monday that the politician was handed “in essence, a death sentence.”

World Israel News contributed to this report.

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A new poll found that 80% of French people believe the class struggle is a reality. While workers are seeing their pensions cut back, the superrich are wealthier than ever — and it’s because of their success in capturing the Republic’s institutions.

Riot police stand in attention during a protest against pension reforms, Paris, France, April 13, 2023. (Firas Abdullah / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Unpopular pension reforms would force low-wage workers in France to put in a couple more years on the job — and yet the country’s superrich have arguably never had it so good. For all the complaints about supposedly stifling regulation and excessive taxes, France is home to more than forty billionaires — including the world’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, whose fortune recently eclipsed $200 billion. His family and others, like the Bettencourts, Wertheimers, Saadés, and Pinaults, sit on mountains of inherited wealth bound up in globally renowned brands like L’Oréal, Chanel, and Yves Saint Laurent, capturing lucrative profits even as the global economic situation sours.

The ultra-wealthy also benefit from numerous allies in government, maintaining close ties to the world of French politics. Thanks to President Emmanuel Macron, they benefit from a reduced levy on capital gains and are no longer required to pay a wealth tax as of 2018. According to economist Gabriel Zucman, the wealthiest 370 households in France pay an effective tax rate of just around 2 percent. A recent poll found that more than eight in ten French people still believe the “class struggle” is a reality today. But if so, why is the minority winning it?

In his book Parasites, released in February by publisher Les liens qui libèrent, labor sociologist and editor of Frustration magazine Nicolas Framont takes aim at the ultra-wealthy and the stranglehold they exert over French culture and politics — all the while making a renewed case for how to shift the balance of power. He spoke with Jacobin’s Cole Stangler about the particularities of France’s moneyed elites and how the country’s working majority can start winning the class war.

This interview has been edited and translated from French.

Cole Stangler

Why did you decide to write this book?

Nicolas Framont

It’s similar to our approach at Frustration magazine, which I’ve led for a few years. Our subtitle is “the media of the class struggle.” This notion of class war seems central for understanding what’s going on politically — but also in the sense that it determines a big part of our daily lives. I wanted to write a very accessible book. The goal was not to do a book for Marxist specialists, but rather to refresh this framework of the class struggle and apply it to contemporary France. The title came later. I wanted something that was punchy and that would attract attention, including from people who aren’t already convinced of a class-based analysis.

Cole Stangler

“Parasite” is a strong word. Why this term?

Nicolas Framont

I wanted something used in everyday language. It’s a strong word that gets attention.

The second reason is that it describes the process pretty well. Workplace exploitation is a form of parasitism. The standard functioning of the bourgeoisie — the process that has allowed it to exist and to get rich — is the exploitation of the work of others. They’re feeding themselves through the work of others. I also think it shines a light on the political parasitism taking place in France: the fact that we have a social class that is [dependent on state aid], benefitting from a lot of public money. That’s the case in most capitalist states, but in France, we’re talking about very significant sums of money. We really have a total porosity between the state and French capitalism.

The third reason is there’s the idea of flipping the stigma on this head. The term assistés [a pejorative term for people dependent on aid] and the term parasite are words that can be used by the far right to describe people receiving welfare benefits, or foreigners. The idea was to take this term, empty it of all anti-poor or anti-immigrant substance, and to use it only for the rich.

Cole Stangler

Capitalism, by its very nature, is an international system. But one of the particularities in France is the importance of inherited wealth. This seems to inform your analysis a lot.

Nicolas Framont

There’s an article I reference from the Financial Times showing that [around] 80 percent of the wealth of French billionaires is inherited. It’s not surprising! In France, we have a bourgeoisie that is very effective at reproducing itself, where “nothing is left to chance.”

The standard functioning of the bourgeoisie — the process that has allowed it to exist and to get rich — is the exploitation of the work of others. They’re feeding themselves through the work of others.

I think it’s particularly effective because it benefits from state tools to do this. The grandes écoles [elite colleges] are an example. There’s this originality in France of having bourgeois education paid for by taxpayers. That’s not the case for every country in the world. [In France], they have these very, very specific, closed-off spaces. I’d say the children of the grande bourgeoisie can only become grands bourgeois themselves.

There are few ways of getting rich in France if you’re not the child of a bourgeois. The fact that the bourgeoisie tries to inspire itself with these stories from US entrepreneurs — which, of course, also have been invented through storytelling of their own — is even more ridiculous in France. That’s just not how it works.

Cole Stangler

One of the most interesting parts of the book is when you talk about the role of the media in France. You write about this group that isn’t necessarily part of the bourgeoisie, but that, in your view, serves the interests of this class. Could you talk about how this works?

Nicolas Framont

If we’re thinking about television, there are two things. Firstly, there are the social origins of journalists. Journalists tell themselves that they’re neutral and are constantly denying that they belong to a class category.

But what’s also striking is how the biases of social and geographic selection mean that it’s constantly the same people on TV. I’ve experienced it myself. Sometimes I get invited on these shows, and I always find myself in this sort of closed-off Parisian space. All the TV channels are based in Paris. They’re constantly busy, so they invite you at the last minute. Typically, only Parisians can make it! There’s also this kind of convergence of interests between producers who want guests who can speak about everything and nothing, and then this galaxy of think tanks, foundation, and institutions who send them the same people every night to preach bourgeois-friendly ideas. A lot of these think tanks basically exist for this! They don’t do research, they don’t publish studies — they produce people that they pay to send on TV sets.

Cole Stangler

The fact that power is so concentrated in Paris plays a role in strengthening the trends you identify in the book.

Nicolas Framont

It plays a huge role. I think the bourgeoisie everywhere find ways to create these closed-off spaces. But in France, it’s greatly aided by the fact that these people are living and working in the same place. I’m always struck by this in TV studios. Maybe these people come from different universes — there could be business executives, editors, journalists, etc. — but they already all know each other! They have this closed-off space concentrated within a square mile or two, generally in western Paris. The French bourgeoisie is very effective because it has these resources that allow it to exercise its domination and ensure its reproduction. Paris is a part of this. Paris is another resource they have to achieve their ends.

Cole Stangler

In the book, you use certain terms that can appear outdated to some. You write about the bourgeoisie and the classes laborieuses [“laboring classes”]. Are these categories still relevant today?

Nicolas Framont

This is also a critical response to other types of analytical frameworks. On the Left, these last ten years, we’ve heard a lot about the 1 percent and the 99 percent, what you might call the Occupy Wall Street framing. I think there’s grounds to criticize this, because it doesn’t account for the intermediary groups that maintain the domination of the 1 percent. And then 99 percent of people don’t have common interests.

There’s also this practice of just talking about “the rich” or “the superrich” or “the billionaires.” For me, these terms are focusing only on wealth, which is one of the forms of power for the bourgeoisie, but ultimately one of many.

Talking about “the bourgeoisie” is also meant to show historical continuity. Things haven’t changed that much! Maybe it sounds outdated, but it’s still the same class, so it should be named the same way. Renewing terms just for the sake of renewing them doesn’t make much sense.

On the other hand, with Frustration magazine, when we decided to use the term classes laborieuses, we had to really think about what term to use. In France, the term “people” [often used by the Left] doesn’t allow us to think about class divides, and then the term classe ouvrière is more restrictive. For us, classes laborieuses is the translation for “working class” in English.

Cole Stangler

Let’s talk about the final section of the book, entitled “remedies.” What should be done?

Nicolas Framont

There are a couple of ways to think about it.

One is, let’s say, cultural or ideological: How do we reappropriate a discourse of class struggle and cultivate a form of pride in our social backgrounds? This is important to me. There’s class consciousness. But there’s also class confidence. How do we collectively gain confidence and feel strong and legitimate? For me, it’s happening precisely at times like these! I feel like there’s a form of class confidence that’s very strong. People are getting actively involved.

The second dimension is more organizational: How do we organize ourselves as dominated classes to manage to overthrow the bourgeoisie and create a society without classes? That’s still the project behind all this! It requires a pretty stern critique of current organizations. We need to criticize left-wing parties that are dominated by elites and that are very poorly representative of the classes they claim to represent. They’re still taking the lead from the bourgeois republic. They have ultimately little autonomy and are very submissive to the dominant agenda.

Cole Stangler

As you say in the book, the left-wing coalition called Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale (NUPES) is largely made up of white-collar professionals. Among its members in the National Assembly, there are very few blue-collar workers.

Nicolas Framont

Yes, it’s not at all a class-based party. It sees cleavages in terms of ideology. And it’s not infused with this history of class cleavages. Maybe La France Insoumise is more than most, but it is ambivalent on the topic. Sometimes Jean-Luc Mélenchon will have a very republican, very unifying discourse, and sometimes it’ll be more polarizing.

Right now, we often have social movements that express class consciousness and confidence. But they’re unable, in such a limited time period, to build themselves organizations that allow this consciousness to exist beyond periods of mobilization.

We have this [vision of class struggle] to some extent on the far left, but it’s made up of small groups. There is a lot of criticism to be made of the French far left, which is very, very ineffective because its members are interested, above all, in internal purity. They spend their time splitting. Even if I think they’re ultimately right, they’re very ineffective.

There is also a criticism to be made of French trade unions, which can sometimes be very disconnected from the situation on the ground. Like you’ve said before, they put out strike calls and then see what happens.

All in all, it means workers don’t have organizations that let them truly fight against all these forms of discrimination that they suffer on the job. It’s worth thinking about what kinds of organizations can be adapted to present-day constraints. For example, union meetings that end at midnight every night aren’t possible. People have complex lives and they don’t want to go to annoying meetings. Today, that’s what “getting engaged” means — going to meetings with people who listen to each other talk. Changes are needed.

How can we imagine an organization that’s present at the workplace but also in different aspects of life — and that is able to maintain and strengthen class consciousness? At the moment, this doesn’t exist: an organization that’s present at the workplace but also in different aspects of life — and that is able to maintain and strengthen class consciousness. Right now, we often have social movements that express class consciousness and confidence. But they’re unable, in such a limited time period, to build themselves organizations that allow this consciousness to exist beyond periods of mobilization. For me, that’s one of the things that needs doing.

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Ramsey Clark passed away in April 2021 

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Social media giants not doing enough to purge antisemitic content, watchdog group warns, noting 180% increase in Holocaust denial and antisemitic content on the internet in 2022.

By World Israel News Staff

According to a report by Fighting Online Antisemitism (FOA), the prevalence of antisemitic, Holocaust-denying, and Israel-hating content on social media has surged by 180% in the past year.

FOA monitored major social networks, including Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, VK, and newer networks like Spotify, LinkedIn, Telegram, and GAB, reporting all instances of antisemitic content in accordance with the definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and directly to the networks.

Sixty percent of all flagged posts were found on Twitter, while VK and Facebook followed with 14% and 10%, respectively.

FOA categorized all content into three groups: Holocaust denial, classical antisemitism, and hatred of Israel.

Around 64% of the content was classified as Holocaust denial and classic antisemitism, while 36% was aimed at Israel with calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and the desecration of its flag.

Only 5% of this content was taken down. Approximately 35% of posts were removed, including those containing conspiracy theories about supposed Jewish links to the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 epidemic.

Barak Aharon, FOA’s director of monitoring, stated that the findings indicate that social media giants are not doing enough to prevent the publication of antisemitic content.

The report called on social networks to adopt an uncompromising policy and actively take steps to prevent the distribution of such content. FOA founder and CEO Tomer Aldubi revealed that the watchdog trained over 200 volunteers over the past year to remove antisemitic content from the internet.

CyberWell, a group that employs AI models to monitor and combat antisemitism online, reported that only 2.3% of antisemitic posts on major social media networks involve calls for or attempts to justify violence against Jews. However, 90% of such posts were found on Twitter, rendering it the most violent network regarding antisemitic content.

All five major networks (TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube) have policies against expressions of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, but there are differences in the extent to which users can access such content.

Facebook denies a user trying to search for Holocaust denial-related expressions and recommends fact-checking, while Twitter imposes zero restrictions on searching for antisemitic content.

Although YouTube also primarily does not restrict searches, it has a more stringent enforcement policy, resulting in minimal results for such searches, with little to no authentic antisemitic content or Holocaust denial material. TikTok prohibits users from searching for Holocaust denial content and displays a message recommending verification of historical facts in both English and Arabic languages.

The report also highlighted that the types of stereotypes associated with Jewish people vary across social media platforms. On TikTok, Jews are often portrayed as exerting control over the world, while on Twitter, the primary stereotype is that Jews are greedy and obsessed with money.

In October, there was a surge in antisemitic posts on social media, which coincided with rapper Kanye West’s antisemitic remarks.

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Following the siren sounded annually on Yom Hashoah throughout Israel, when people stand for a moment of silence in honor of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid a wreath at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day 2023.

This year’s central theme was Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust: Marking 80 Years since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

At the Knesset ceremony, the prime minister lit a candle in honor of the victims.

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