Columbia students confront Hillary Clinton with her war crimes

Ali Abunimah Power Suits 15 February 2024

On 9 February, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs hosted a high-profile event headlined by Hillary Clinton, titled “Preventing and addressing conflict-related sexual violence.”

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 false claims 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.

Rashida Tlaib echoes atrocity propaganda

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.

She was speaking during a debate on House Resolution 966, which purports to condemn “rape and sexual violence committed by Hamas in its war against Israel.”

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.

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Comments

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Ghost replied on

Talib's decision to vote 'present' over 'nay' speaks volumes - the politicians need to realize the public can only take so much betrayal before her words mean nothing at all. perhaps that is part of some kind of de-legitimizing campaign. I wonder what happened. what did she see? was she blackmailed or otherwise role threatened?

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kiers replied on

You notice? on the GOP side...SINGLE players can bring proceedings to a HALT:
Tommy Tuberville single handedly held up the ENTIRE military job staffing apparatus for abortion reasons.
Gaetz got rid of McCarthy (who raised a half billion to be speaker) and did MORE to shut down Israel and Ukraine blood money than ANY PROGRESSIVE EVER could!

I say join with the right and make politics WORK AGAIN. The progressive caucus is a fraud. JOin with Matt Gaetz, Chip Roy, rand paul et al to shut down this bloodshed.

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tom hall replied on

We tend to assume that high ranking officeholders reach decisions, even ones we vehemently disagree with, through some form of engagement with the facts. Sadly, this is all too frequently not the case. Elected officials are often so poorly informed as be incoherent. It may be that Rashida Tlaib is genuinely unaware of skeptical reporting in the Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, The Grayzone, and an increasing number of outlets on the subject of Israeli atrocity propaganda.

Members of Congress seek public information from the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and their home town media. That's the range they consult. Under those conditions, they're unlikely to even be aware of critical voices challenging the narrow-band spectrum of acceptable opinion. I know it sounds absurd to suggest that Rep. Tlaib of all people doesn't realize that these claims of widespread systematic rape by Hamas fighters on Oct. 7 have been discredited, but that may indeed be the case. I'm not offering that as an excuse, merely an observation. Of course, it's more likely that her statement was a product of informed calculation rather than sheer ignorance or folly. The same can be said of her curious vote on the measure in question. But anyone who's looked into the eyes of one of our representatives while trying to explain an issue and seen reflected there only bewilderment will not discount the possibility that any given matter at hand may well constitute a mystery to the average officeholder.

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John Costello replied on

Rashida Tlaib is a fine courageous woman who is trying to move this beast from the inside. Expecting every move she makes to fit perfectly your high expectations is immature and reveals an ignorance of the challenges she faces caucusing even with other progressives, much less a wide enough consensus to accomplish anything at all. She's giving her all and it's not just to move her mouse around.

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Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.