How Western media bias allows Israel to getaway with murder in Gaza

Ramzy Baroud

An Israeli attack on Gaza was imminent, and not because of any provocations by Palestinian groups in the besieged, impoverished Gaza Strip. The Israeli military escalation was foreseeable because it factors neatly in Israel’s contentious political scene. The war was not a question of “if”, but “when”.

The answer came on November 12, when the Israeli military launched a major strike against Gaza, killing an Islamic Jihad Commander, Bahaa Abu al-Ata, along with his wife Asma.

More strikes followed, targeting what the Israeli military described as Islamic Jihad installations. However, the identities of the victims, along with damning social media footage, pictures, and eyewitness accounts indicate that civilians and civilian infrastructure were bombed and destroyed as well.

As of November 14, when a truce was announced, 32 Palestinians have been killed and over 80 wounded in the Israeli aggression.

What truly frustrates any meaningful discussion on the horrific situation in Gaza is the feeble response, whether by international organisations that exist with the sole purpose of ensuring world peace or by Western mainstream media, that ceaselessly celebrates its own accuracy and impartiality.

A most disappointing response to the Israeli violence was offered by Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.

Mladenov, whose job should have long been deemed pointless considering that no “peace process” actually exists, expressed his “concern” about the “ongoing and serious escalation between Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel”.

Not only Mladenov’s statement creates a moral equivalence between an occupying power, which instigated the war in the first place, and a small group of a few hundred armed men, it is also dishonest.

“The indiscriminate launching of rockets and mortars against population centres is absolutely unacceptable and must stop immediately,” Mladenov elaborated, putting great emphasis on the fact that, “there can be no justification for any attacks against civilians”.

A destroyed house seen in Gaza, after Israeli airstrikes hit the building in Khan Yunis, Gaza on November 13, 2019 [Ali Jadallah / Anadolu Agency]

Shockingly, Mladenov was referring to Israeli, not Palestinian civilians. At the time that his statement was released to the media, there were already dozens of Palestinian civilians that had been killed and wounded, while Israeli media reports spoke of few Israelis who had been treated for “anxiety”.

The European Union did not fare any better. The EU parroted the same American knee-jerk response by condemning “the barrage of rocket attacks reaching deep into Israel”.

“The firing of rockets on civilian populations is totally unacceptable and must immediately stop,” a statement by the European bloc read.

Is it not possible that Mladenov and top EU foreign policymakers do not truly comprehend the political context of the latest Israeli onslaught  –  that embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using military escalation as a way of fortifying his weakening grip on power.

Considering this, what is one to make of the poor media coverage, the inept analyses and the absence of balanced reports in major Western news media?

In a report published by the BBC on November 13, the British broadcaster referred to “cross-border violence between Israel and militants in Gaza”.

But Gaza is not an independent country and, per international law, it is still under Israeli occupation. Israel declared Gaza a “hostile territory” in September 2007, arbitrarily establishing a “border” between it and the besieged Palestinian territory. For some reason, the BBC finds this designation acceptable.

CNN, on the other hand, reported on November 13 that “Israel’s military campaign against Islamic Jihad” is entering its second day, while emphasizing the UN condemnation of the rocket attacks.

CNN, like most of its American mainstream counterparts, reports on Israeli military campaigns as a part and parcel of some imagined “war on terror”. Therefore, analyzing the language of US mainstream media with the purpose of underlining and emphasizing its failures and biases, is a useless exercise.

Sadly, US bias regarding Palestine has extended to mainstream media in European countries that were, to some degree, fairer, if not somewhat sympathetic, with the Palestinian peoples’ situation.

El Mundo of Spain, for example, spoke of a number of Palestinians – making sure to emphasize that they were “mostly militants”, – who “died” as opposed to “were killed” by the Israeli military.

“The escalation followed the death of Gaza’s armed branch leader,” El Mundo reported, failing once more to pinpoint the culprits in these seemingly mysterious deaths.

La Repubblica, which is perceived in Italy as a “leftist” outlet, sounded more like a rightwing Israeli newspaper, in its description of the events that led to the death and wounding of many Palestinians. The Italian newspaper used a fabricated timeline that only exists in the mind of Israeli military and decision-makers.

“Violence continued. Several rockets were thrown towards Israel by Gaza’s Islamic Jihad (militants), breaking the brief truce, according to (rightwing Israeli newspaper) The Jerusalem Post and to the Israeli army”.

It remains unclear what “truce” La Repubblica was referring to.

France’s Le Monde followed suit, reporting the same deceptive and cliched Israeli lines and emphasizing statements by the Israeli military and government. Interestingly, the death and wounding of many Palestinians in Gaza did not deserve a place on the French newspaper’s homepage. Instead, it chose to highlight a comparatively irrelevant news item where Israel denounced the labeling of illegal settlement products as “discriminatory”.

Maybe, one could have excused these across-the-board journalistic and moral failings if it were not for the fact that the Gaza story has been one of the most covered news topics anywhere in the world for over a decade.

It is obvious that the West’s “newspapers of record” have maintained their blindspot on fairly reporting on Gaza and intentionally kept the truth from their readers for many years so as not to offend the sensibilities of the Israeli government and its powerful allies and lobbies.

While one cannot help but bemoan the death of good journalism in the West, it is also important to acknowledge with much appreciation the courage and sacrifices of Gaza’s young journalists and bloggers who, at times, are targeted and killed by the Israeli army for conveying the truth on the plight of the besieged but tenacious Strip.

Was Iran really behind the attack on Saudi Aramco facilities?

Omar Ahmed

On 14 September, state-owned Saudi Aramco’s oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in the Eastern Province were the target of a sophisticated drone and cruise missile attack. The Houthis of Yemen were quick to claim responsibility for “Operation Deterrent Balance 2”, which more than halved Saudi Arabia’s oil output and caused a surge in oil prices by 20 per cent at one point.

If true, this would be their most significant and daring attack in the Kingdom to date. A month ago, they carried out the first “Operation…” using 10 drones against the Shaybah oil fields in south-east Saudi Arabia near the border it shares with the UAE.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said that new drones had been used, which likely refers to the long-range Samad-3, unveiled officially on 7 July by the Supreme Political Council and named after former Council president Saleh Ali Al-Samad who was killed in a Saudi-led coalition drone strike last year. The same “suicide UAV” Samad-3 was used by the Houthis to strike Abu Dhabi’s International Airport last year.

However, dismissing the Houthi claims, both the Saudis and the US are intent on laying the blame on Iran. Describing the events as an “act of war”, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has stated explicitly that Iran carried out the operation and requested all nations to “unequivocally condemn Iran’s attack”, thus leaving no room for an alternative narrative. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been less keen to label Iran as the perpetrator.

For its part, Iran has flatly denied the allegation and reiterated Yemen’s right to defend itself against foreign aggression. Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan implied that Saudi Arabia was to blame for dropping bombs on Yemen in the first place. Close US allies such as Japan and France have also confirmed that there is no actual evidence of direct Iranian involvement; even Gulf neighbour and coalition partner the UAE has not backed the allegation.

Saudi Ministry of Defence spokesman Colonel Turki Al-Malki revealed to the press on Wednesday the wreckage of drones and missiles which he said were fired from the north or north-west. He told reporters that the attacks were “unquestionably sponsored by Iran.” However, when pressed by journalists, he too failed to state explicitly that the attacks emanated from Iranian territory.

One of the most far-fetched claims thus far has been from US investigators suggesting that the Saudis have recovered a “pristine circuit board” from a cruise missile retrieved from the attack site. This is reminiscent of the claims that one of the 9/11 hijackers’ passports survived the attack on the World Trade Centre.

9/11 attacks [File photo]

What the Saudis did state, though, was that 18 drones were launched against the Abqaiq oil facility and seven cruise missiles targeted the Khurais oil fields, three of which fell short. Satellite images provided by the US government of the attack sites revealed at least 17 separate impact points.

However, this is not sufficient evidence that the attacks came from Iranian territory. Retired General Mark Hertling told CNN that the images “really don’t show anything, other than pretty good accuracy on the strike of the oil tanks.”

Furthermore, the evidence made public does not suggest that the attacks came from the north or north-west (which would have us believe that the source was either Iran-aligned Iraqi territory or from south-west Iran, which would be north-east of the attack sites). They also do not point to the south, which would be the most likely trail leading to the Houthis in Yemen.

It appears more likely that the targets were struck from the west when one looks at the close-up images of the tanks from the Abqaiq facility against the arrow indicating due north. This may corroborate an announcement by Houthi spokesman Saree following the attack, that after careful intelligence gathering and monitoring, it was implemented with “the cooperation of honourable and free men within the Kingdom”, a likely reference to the 15-20 per cent of the population who form the Saudi Shia community concentrated mainly in the oil rich but socio-economically deprived east of the country.

Dr Stephen Byren, writing in the Asia Times, is of the opinion that the Houthis did not carry out the attack, but he certainly believes that, “Saudi Arabia was infiltrated by well-trained operators who were close to the targets and were able to guide the terminal phase of the attacking cruise missiles (and maybe the drones) via video transmitted from the missiles and drones.”

This theory adds credence to the idea of local involvement. Arguably, the targets were carefully selected. With regard to the Abqaiq oil processing plant, at least 11 of the 17 points of impact were tanks containing liquid gas; the piping, it has been suggested, was configured such that any damage to one or a group of tanks, would not affect the overall production process, as it would simply be re-routed to the next tank. However, with all tanks in this particular area being taken out, production was interrupted. “The targeting for this attack was done with detailed knowledge of the process and its dependencies… they may have been launched from within Saudi Arabia.”

This is not to say that Iran did not have a rational motive to carry out the attack. With increased sanctions and external attempts to cripple its economy and ability to export oil, from Tehran’s perspective if Iran is not able to sell oil, then no one else should be. It could also be interpreted as intended to inflict a humiliating blow on the US.

It is their advanced weaponry and defence systems that the Saudis are ultimately employing and relying upon for their state security. The Gulf, after all, is one of the most monitored areas in the world, with US-supplied radar systems and missiles facing Iran, not only in Saudi territory, but also in other Gulf neighbours and on US ships fitted with Aegis air ballistic defence systems. If true, this attack exposes the failure of the US defence systems as deployed there.

The question that must be asked is this: how were almost two dozen missiles and drones not detected, especially if they came from Iran? A former US Navy officer who has experience in the region told Business Insider, “It’s very hard to imagine a salvo of 17 shots from Iranian territory not being picked up via some land and sea radars.”

If there is concrete evidence of Iranian involvement, it should be available from US radar data gathered in the Gulf. A NATO military official posted to Saudi Arabia acknowledged that such data can be obtained easily if the US wanted it, but, “If they haven’t released that info, it’s because either they don’t have it or the Saudis asked for a delay for domestic political reasons.”

One Twitter user on a blog about Iranian geopolitical issues shared an image which purportedly illustrates the reach of Saudi Arabia’s air defence systems near the affected areas.

He argues that the drones were within the range of the Patriot PAC-2 system but just outside that of the Hawk’s; their small size was a possible reason for passing through undetected.

Although, as the Military Times points out, the multitude of US made Patriot air defences in Saudi’s arsenal “are meant to shoot down hostile aircraft or shorter-range ballistic missiles. Patriots provide ‘point defence’ — not protection of wide swaths of territory — and it’s unclear whether any were positioned close to the oil sites.”

In spite of the billions which Saudi Arabia has spent on US-made defence systems, and its reliance on US intelligence, the US does not have “an unblinking eye over the entire Middle East at all times,” said Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The failure of US defence systems was probably why Russian President Vladmir Putin suggested to Riyadh that it should purchase his country’s S-400 defence systems this week.

Whoever was behind the attack, the truth is that the balance of power has changed with the human costs in Yemen pitted against the economic and political costs of the war for the Saudis. Yemen was already the poorest country in the Arab region to begin with and has little else to lose, comparatively speaking. The realisation that there is a very serious capability to interrupt, halt or destroy Saudi Arabia’s oil production may be enough for the Kingdom to rethink its actions in Yemen.

The Yemenis, of course, are within their right under international law to defend themselves against foreign aggression. In their eyes, an attack on an oil producing facility that contributes to the Saudi war machine — which has included 17,000 air raids and the dropping of 50,000 bombs, many on non-military targets — is entirely legitimate.

The fact that the drones were Iranian made or supplied should not be a reason to go to war with Iran. After all, Tehran has merely done the same as Washington by supplying arms to one of the belligerents in the conflict.

Avoiding war with Iran becomes increasingly difficult, however, when there are policymakers intent on justifying military action, especially without providing credible, concrete evidence. This won’t be the first time that a war was predicated on lies, though. There are also those in the media with their delusionary push for armed conflict.

Conrad Black’s timely piece in the National Review, for example, wherein he argues that “an air assault on Iranian oil facilities and nuclear military sites would be entirely justified”, gives little thought to the consequences for the region. Such a response would surely have been undertaken already if the political will existed. Then again, according to Black, Saudi Arabia is “a much more reputable regime than the terrorism-promoting, bigoted theocracy of Iran,” so we know where he is coming from.

For now, Donald Trump plans to impose further sanctions on Iran, which so far have not had any impact on Tehran’s resolve and defiance. The US President has previously turned down plans to strike against the republic in the wake of the downing of a US Navy drone on 20 June, so there is hope yet that common sense can prevail and war is not inevitable.

India annexes Kashmir under the dark shadow of Netanyahu and Modi’s far-right embrace

Nasim Ahmed

The depth of love between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi has few parallels. Many traits unite the current crop of populist, power-hungry, authoritarian strongmen that have been on the rise of late, but few have enjoyed the kind of relationship that has blossomed between Modi and Netanyahu. The two are in a league of their own; conjoined twins some may say, whose friendship is forged through similar racist ideologies and deep dislike of minorities.

Both leaders again expressed their affection for each other yesterday. Netanyahu responded to Modi’s declaration of “eternal” friendship by saying: “Thank you, my friend, Indian PM @narendramodi. I could not agree with you more. The deep connection between Israel and India is rooted in the strong friendships between Israelis and Indians. We cooperate in so many areas. I know our ties will only strengthen in the future!”

Netanyahu’s adoration was prompted by a Modi tweet in which he thanked an Israeli Embassy message on Twitter: “May our ever-strengthening friendship & #growingpartnership touch greater heights.” Replying in Hebrew, Modi said: “Thank you; I wish the great citizens of Israel and my friend @netanyahu a happy Friendship Day. Israel and India have proved their friendship over time. Our ties our eternal and strong. I hope that our friendship will continue to thrive and grow even further.”

The exchange took place as India prepared to more or less annex the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir by revoking its special status. Modi’s right-wing Hindu nationalist government pushed forward with a hostile move to revoke the part of the constitution that gives Indian-administered Kashmir special status in what is seen as an unprecedented move. It is not unlike Israel’s ongoing attempt to seize the whole West Bank and is just as likely to spark unrest.

OPINION: Modi’s ‘de-hyphenated’ policy on Palestine contradicts India’s struggle against British colonialism

Article 370 is sensitive because it guarantees significant autonomy for the disputed territory by allowing the 12 million people who live in Jammu and Kashmir to have their own constitution, a separate flag and independence over all matters except foreign affairs, defence and communications. India’s decision has been denounced by the former chief minister of the state, Mehbooba Mufti, who is reported by the BBC as saying that the move effectively made India an occupying force. “Today marks the darkest day in Indian democracy,” she tweeted, adding that the government’s “unilateral decision” is “illegal and unconstitutional.”

Modi’s decision, which upheld a promise made by his right-wing Hindu nationalist party during its 2019 election campaign, is expected to lead to violence and arrests. Activists on the ground in Kashmir spoke to MEMO of the “total communication blackout since midnight” and reported that the “whole of Kashmir is under strict indefinite curfew.” In recent days, the Indian government has also moved 10,000 troops to what is already one of the most militarised regions in the world and ordered tourists and Hindu pilgrims to leave the Himalayan valley.

The newly dispatched soldiers will join the nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers already deployed in Indian-administered Kashmir, where civilian protesters and armed rebels either want freedom for the Muslim-majority Kashmir from India or merger with Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan claim the region of Kashmir in full and have fought two of their three wars over it.

Modi’s plan for India-administered Kashmir has uncanny similarities with the way in which Netanyahu, with a similar right-wing extreme nationalist government, is looking to annex the West Bank. The ideological bond between the extreme version of Zionism represented by Netanyahu and the extreme Hindu nationalism of the Hindutva, represent by Modi, is almost identical: both are political ideologies; both subscribe to the same concept of a far-right ethno-nationalist movement that uses religion to achieve its aims, and both misrepresent history to justify atrocities against minorities in pursuit of an exclusivist and discriminatory political vision.

Hinduvta members, like their ideological counterparts in Israel, speak openly of ethnic cleansing and expelling minority communities: that includes Dalits, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Ravidassias and Buddhists in the case of the extremist Hindus, and Christian and Muslim Palestinians in the case of Israel. Their vision is rooted in fascism and white supremacy. Hindutva is identified commonly as the guiding ideology of the Hindu Nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of which Modi is a member.

OPINION: Kashmir from Nehru to Modi; what’s changed?

A profile of RSS ideology shows that its leaders draw their inspiration from right-wing, fascist European groups and their leaders, including Hitler and Mussolini. Its long-time chief, M S Golwalkar, is said to have openly admired Hitler’s “final solution” and wanted to apply the same approach in India to eliminate the country’s minorities. This makes the strong bond between Modi and Netanyahu even harder to understand.

While the two countries under their current rulers can be said to enjoy an ideological affinity and subscribe to the exclusivist political vision of the far-right, both are also locked in a struggle with a large minority group challenging military occupation and human rights abuse, thus making them allies in ways that are rare on the global stage. Relations between the two countries have never been better. India is now the largest weapons market for the Israeli arms trade; the two countries carry out joint military exercises; and Israel uses the Negev Desert to train Indian soldiers in the tactics of suppressing civilian populations, its expertise learned through the suppression of Palestinians in the Gaza and the West-Bank.

It’s in this regard that Israel, perhaps more than any other right-wing government, has excelled. It is in an enviable position, according to Israeli author Jeff Halper, to “secure insecurity” having had decades of experience suppressing Palestinians. In his 2015 book, War Against the People Halper argues that Israel’s security exports are unmatched due to its ability to develop weapons and techniques for urban warfare, surveillance and intelligence; what Halper calls “full-spectrum domination”. Israel’s success is put down to its knowledge and experience of developing control technologies and battle-tested weapons that have become the “must-have” items in the armoury of every authoritarian dictator facing a restive population. This was demonstrated clearly when Israeli-made Rafael Spice-2000 “smart bombs” were used by the Indian air force in its strike against Kashmiri “terrorists” inside Pakistan in February.

Beyond trade and arms sales, Israel has also found an ally in Modi on the international stage where the Zionist state regularly comes under sharp criticism from the UN and other international bodies. In June, New Delhi’s representative at the global body voted in favour of Israel in a vote to grant consultative status to a Palestinian human rights NGO, which eventually lost its bid to join the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The vote marked an unprecedented stage in relations between the two countries. India’s history in the anti-colonial movement once made it a strong ally of the Palestinian cause. Previous Indian prime ministers, including the country’s founder and revered leader Mahatma Gandhi, opposed Israel, believing it to be a colonial enterprise. The leader of the Indian independence movement against the British was strongly opposed to the idea of a Jewish national home in Palestine, he believed it was an an expression of ethnonationalism that was inimical to the values of secular liberal democracy.

With his embrace of Netanyahu, Modi has turned his back on the legacy of Gandhi and his vision of a secular democracy based on civic nationalism and equality for all, irrespective of race and religion. Indian democracy has indeed taken a serious hit.

US Professor: Mohammed Bin Salman is world’s richest Zionist

Nasim Ahmed

Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia [SPA]

Pro-Israeli campaigners appear to be hunting for another scalp in their assault against free speech. The victim this time is a tenured Columbia university professor whose crime was nothing more than to speak out against Israel.

A network of pro-Israel activists surged against comments made by Iranian Professor Hamid Dabashi on social media. The professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at the New York University posted remarks criticising Israel for its campaign against the Iran nuclear deal. It’s speculated that Trump was heavily influenced by Tel Aviv in his decision to pull out of the deal which is universally seen as a good thing for global security.

Venting his frustration over the collapse of the nuclear deal on his Facebook page, Dabashi described “the Zionists the Saudis and the US necons” – three groups that were the only ones opposed to the nuclear deal with Iran- as “laughing hyenas”. He denounced them as being “stupid” and “ignorant” and said that they were “fucking with the wrong country”.

In a separate comment he made remarks following revelations in the New York Times, which discovered that opponents of the Iran deal had hired investigators to dig up dirt on officials working under Barack Obama’s administration in order to discredit them and eventually kill the deal.

Reacting to the revelation that detailed reports were being compiled – for what one assumes is an attempt to blackmail US officials – by a private investigations firm established by former intelligence analysts from the Israel army, Dabashi ventured that the “ugly name of Israel” appears on “every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act”. The Times article also mentioned that the same Israeli firm, Black Cube, was hired to gather dirt on women accusing Harvey Weinstein, the movie mogul, of multiple instances of sexual misconduct.

These revelations followed the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The British data analytics company also employed Israeli firms to orchestrate campaigns against political opponents and to harvest millions of user data on social media with the aim of manipulating their vote.

Dabashi’s comments were condemned by the pro-Israel campaign group as anti-Semitic. They appear particularly outraged by his suggestion that “die hard Fifth Column Zionists were working against the best interest of America and for the best interest of Israelis.” The group which calls itself Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF), “a non-profit organisation that brings together alumni to fight the anti-Semitism” sent a petition seen by MEMO calling on Columbia University to “unequivocally condemn” Dabashi for his “anti-Semitic postings” and to “relive” the professor of his teaching duties until he “commits to ending his anti-Semitic remarks”.

MEMO contacted Dabashi about the allegations, which he strongly rejected. He described the “Zionist organisations” leading the attack against him as “morally corrupt and intellectually bankrupt.” The likes of ACF, he said, “had reduced to a monosyllabic automaton with Tourette’s syndrome hurtling the terrorising accusation of ‘antisemitism’ against anyone critical of the criminal atrocities of their favourite settler colony”. The accusation was being hurled at anyone and everyone including the pop artist Shakira and the Argentine national football team, Dabashi pointed out.

Dabashi explained that “under ordinary circumstances these false accusations are obscene but at a time when the Israeli army is slaughtering peaceful Palestinians protesting in Gaza they are positively revolting.”

Over the specific allegation he said: “I am critical of all state violence and all violent ideologies – without a single exception – I criticise Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and the US even more than I do Israel. That does not make me anti-Iranian, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, or anti-American”.

Dabashi thinks that what annoys these pro-Israeli organisations is the fact that he is “vehemently pro-Jewish and anti-Zionist”. They are not so bothered when it’s the other way around, he observed pointing to “nefarious anti-Semites like Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, or even neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer and Sebastian Gorka” who Dabashi says “hate Jews but love Israel”.

Explaining his thoughts further on the marriage between the far-right and Israel he says: “I am pro-Jewish and anti-Zionist precisely the same way that I am pro-Muslim and anti-ISIS [Daesh], pro-Iranian anti-Islamic Republic, pro-Egyptian anti-Egyptian junta of General Sisi, pro-Arab against all Arab dictators — I am in short severely critical of all state violence and all militant ideologies without a single exception— I hate absolutely no human being — simple as that!”

Saudi attracts US attention by singing Israel’s tunes – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

His answer to the “insidious charge” he says is very simple: “Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. The most notorious Zionists have always been in fact Christian. There are plenty of Hindu and Muslim Zionists too — and platoons of good old atheist and agnostic or as they call themselves ‘secular’ Zionists.” He points out that

today the richest and most powerful Zionist is not Sheldon Adelsohn. It is in fact Mohammad Bin Salman who is a Muslim.

Dabashi is another victim of the assault by pro-Israeli organisations on free speech. In the US, the campaign to narrow the space for Israel’s harshest critics represents a stark contrast. While attempts to silence academics critical of Israel has become a feature of universities both sides of the Atlantic, the US is the only country which appears to think that protecting Israel takes a greater priority than protecting the American people.

Gun control laws in the US always get shot down because opponents say it violates the Second Amendment. But it appears that when it comes to protecting Israel, rights protected under the First Amendment are not so important. Americans in at least 20 states are banned from exercising their right to boycott who they wish in order to protect Israel. The Congress has also seen several attempts by staunch supporters of Israel from both major parties pushing through a federal bill that will criminalise the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Critics insist that the legislation would violate speech enshrined within the First Amendment.

In Columbia University, at least, Dabashi is confident that “such winds” will not “shake” the university. The institution, he tells me is “solid” and “is in capable hands”. His advice was “not to overestimate the power of those who attack us.”