[IsraelTimes] An immigration lawyer by day, New Yorker Abraham Hamra has gained over 59,000 followers using his fluent Hebrew and Arabic to bridge gaps with adversaries and counter misinformation
Looking into the camera in one of his recent Instagram posts, Abraham Hamra says, "Arabs, peace be upon you. Many of you are DMing me through Instagram. If you talk to me calmly, if you want to speak with me like a human being, I am ready and I’ll treat you to a cup of coffee... If you insult me, I’ll insult you. I’m not a polite American Jew."
The rest of the message, the translation of which is NSFW, is even louder and more outspoken — because, as Hamra describes himself, he’s a "Loud and Outspoken Syrian Jewish ex-Refugee."
"Syrians are loud people in general. If you come to my family home for Shabbat, you think we’re going to murder each other. Like, straight out, going to kill each other. And it’s in Arabic so it might sound a little scary to people. But this is how we talk," Hamra told The Times of Israel, sitting in the conference room of his law firm just a block from the New York Stock Exchange.
Hamra, who fled Damascus with his parents and two siblings in 1994, is an attorney and managing partner at Cohen, Tucker & Ades, an immigration law firm on Wall Street. His day job revolves around helping people obtain visas, but with 59,000 followers and counting, he’s also become something of a social media star, working to combat antisemitism and misinformation about the Middle East.
To be sure, countless Jewish advocates have emerged on social media since the October 7, 2023, Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... terror onslaught in southern Israel. Yet Hamra stands out not only for his boldness, but because alongside his English, he speaks fluent Hebrew and Arabic. Although he started posting in 2021 — more on that in a moment — he didn’t post a video in Arabic until after October 7.
"I had pushed to blend in, even among Jews. I didn’t want to be seen as an outsider so I didn’t speak Arabic for a very long time," he said. "When I posted in Arabic for the first time it surprised a lot of people. My friends called me in shock, saying things like, ’We always knew you were from Syria, but we didn’t realize you really spoke Arabic.’"
Distant relatives of Hamra’s recently flew to their hometown of Damascus as part of a small delegation seeking to reconnect with their roots following the fall of the Assad regime.
"It was emotional watching them back in the old Jewish quarters," Hamra said. "I do hope we have real peace one day, to enable us to go back and visit."
Hamra was 7 when his family left Syria and resettled in Brooklyn. At the time, about 4,500 Jews remained in the country. Hamra has little recollection of the departure itself, save for running up and down the aisles of the airplane eager to reunite with his "cool aunt."
He does, however, have clear memories of his childhood in Damascus. There was his grandparents’ house in Hashi Basha, Damascus’s Jewish quarter. There was his grandparents’ white refrigerator, the one in which his grandmother stored meat.
"I used to get yelled at a lot about that fridge because I would leave the front door of the house open and stray cats used to come in and try to get at the meat," he said.
He also has fond memories of Shabbat; of walking to synagogue with his family and going to the mountains for picnics afterwards.
"We sat around, just living, you know," he said.
He also has his share of not so fond memories, such as not being able to wear his kippa — the traditional Jewish head covering for men — in public because Paleostinian neighbors would verbally and physically harass him. That antisemitism, along with systemic persecution by the Assad regime, is largely what drove his family to come to the United States.
TIME TO TAKE A STAND
It was in 2021 while he was walking through Times Square that those memories of persecution resurfaced.
Hamra had just seen a trio of pro-Paleostinian men beat up a Jewish man. The man, Joey Borgen, was on his way to a pro-Israel rally while his attackers were on their way to a pro-Paleostine demonstration. The three men were later sentenced to prison.
The attack reminded Hamra of a time in Syria when he was around 4 years old and walking with his mother.
"A Paleostinian kid picked up a stone and chucked it at my head. My mother ran to the police and told them. They came, they saw me, they saw the terrorist that hit me, and they saw his mother. All they told him was, ’Hey, don’t do it again. It’s not nice,’" Hamra said.
"And now this same thing was replaying in America — the place where my family allegedly escaped to for a refuge," he said. "I decided if I didn’t speak out, if I didn’t object, then I’m helping create the same circumstances that led to my displacement. So I decided to post about it."
Since then, Hamra has made more than 760 posts on everything from antisemitism to confronting anti-Israel and antisemitic campus protests, from recent travels through Israel where he visited the Alawite Moslem village of Ghajar, to his thoughts on a two state-solution — which, for the record, he opposes.
"So you [would] have shared security and shared services, like education," he said, outlining his vision for Israeli-Paleostinian coexistence. "It would be decentralized. For example, you break Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... into different areas, like the Emirates, where each area has its own laws and is semi-autonomous. But it’s one state — Israel."
He said his opposition to a two-state solution has prompted some people to say he hates Arabs.
"I don’t hate Arabs. First of all, it’s half of my identity. The reason I’m fighting on Instagram, the reason I may sound loud and mean and confrontational is because I give a shit. I care to create the environment in which we can coexist and can live in peace," Hamra said.
Nevertheless, the fact that he’s "loud and outspoken" has both cost him and rewarded him professionally.
"In November I apologized to my partner after I realized that my talking out sunk our business about 70% in revenue," Hamra said. "I wanted to see what she wanted to do, and all she said was, ’Hey, go look at our website.’ She had taken the initiative to put the Israeli flag on the homepage page of our website with the words, ’We stand with Israel against terrorism.’"
The thing that has surprised him most in his four years on social media is how on occasion some of the most vitriolic exchanges have turned into civil conversations.
"Pro-Paleostinians will come at me in my DMs and a lot of them will have all of the worst symbols in their bios, like inverted red triangles. One guy was from Syria and I told him in Arabic, ’You think you have the grounds to challenge what I say? Look what happened to you in your Syria after you kicked out the Jews.’ I went off," Hamra said.
"He cursed me, I cursed him. Then we calmed down and we started talking more rationally. I realized I can connect one-on-one with someone, even if he’s cursing me or I’m cursing him, and eventually over time, over laughter, over jokes, maybe we can make peace and live side-by-side," he said.
Continued on Page 47
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Daniil Pelymov
[REGNUM] In the year 7162 from the creation of the world,
…the Creation Era of Constantinople was observed by Christian communities within the Eastern Roman Empire as part of the Byzantine Calendar and formally retained by Eastern Orthodoxy until 1728. The Jews have their own Anno Mundi calendar, which makes this year 5785…
or in 1654 from the Nativity of Christ, in the last days of March, an embassy arrived at the court of the Tsar of all Rus' Alexei Mikhailovich from the Zaporizhian Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky, who had recently sworn allegiance to Moscow.
The Cossack delegation was headed by military judge Samoilo Zarudny and Pereyaslav colonel Pavlo Morzhkovsky, nicknamed Teterya. The Zaporozhians brought with them 23 petitionary articles.
In modern language, this was a draft treaty that was supposed to clarify the status of the “new territories” that were reunited with Russia as a result of the Pereyaslav Rada.
Yes, then in Pereyaslav on January 8 (18) of the same 1654, " a great multitude of people of all ranks" bowed to Tsar Alexei. But under what conditions and in what "format" did the Zaporozhian Host and parts of the former Polish voivodeships of Kiev, Chernigov and Braslav join the Russian Tsardom?
For a whole week, the Kremlin hosted "questioning" and coordination of the guests by boyar Vasily Buturlin (who had recently accepted the oath of allegiance of Hetman Khmelnitsky in Pereyaslav), and okolnichy Pyotr Golovin, and Duma clerk Yerofey Ivanov, nicknamed Almaz. As a result, two dozen Cossack petitions turned into 11 points of the treaty - the "March Articles".
“The Articles” were signed and sealed by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich on March 27 (April 6), 1654, and from that time on he called himself: “Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke of all Great and Little Russia, Autocrat.”
Moscow responded to the request that its co-religionists in the western and southern Russian lands formulated long before the start of Khmelnitsky’s war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
IN SEARCH OF PROTECTION
The Zaporozhian Cherkasy (as the Cossacks were called in the Russian Empire) petitioned for Russian citizenship at least three times, during uprisings that were regularly suppressed by the Poles. This was the case under the last Rurik tsar, Feodor Ioannovich, in 1593, when the leader of the rebellious lower Cossacks, Kristof Kosinsky, bowed to him. This was also the case during the time of the first tsar from the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Feodorovich.
Petitions came to Alexei Mikhailovich’s father from the rebellious Cherkassians Karp Guzdan, nicknamed Pavlyuk (1637) and in the following year, 1638, from Yakov Iskra-Ostryanin, the leader of the peasant-Cossack rebellion on the Left Bank of the Dnieper.
Even in the relatively peaceful 1620s, delegations from the Zaporozhian Host came to Moscow. Moreover, the ambassadors were sent by none other than Hetman Petro Sahaidachny, even though his biography included campaigns against Russia on the orders of the king, for which he is revered by modern Ukrainian nationalists, and the schismatic "Orthodox Church of Ukraine" canonized him five years ago. Hetman Sahaidachny was first and foremost a politician, and therefore could not help but take into account the opinion of "his" Cossacks, and they stood for an alliance with the only Orthodox sovereign, the Russian Tsar, against the Latins.
The real defender of Orthodoxy from the union and Polish oppression, canonized by the canonical UOC, Metropolitan Job (Boretsky) of Kiev, in the same 1620s asked Tsar Mikhail to intercede for the Orthodox in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - as for “the Russian tribe of people of the same womb.”
The reason was clear. As the Zaporozhian chronicler Samoilo Velichko wrote, the Poles "ravaged our land, plundering it clean, sparing neither the old nor the young, nor the innocent women, and all this for the Orthodox faith, and because we, the Cossacks, wanted to be free."
In the 1630s, due to the strengthening of Polish-Catholic oppression, a mass migration of Circassians to the border regions of the Russian state began - to the territory of today's Belgorod, Kharkov, Kursk and Sumy regions. Cossacks, entering the service of the Romanovs in Belgorod, Putivl or Chuguev, thus already "joined" the Russian state individually.
THREE PATHS FOR THE HETMAN
But Moscow did not dare to engage in direct combat with the then powerful Polish-Lithuanian state. And there were objective reasons for this - the country was recovering from the Time of Troubles. Let us recall that the Polish intervention began in 1609, back in the days of the "Tushino thief", and lasted until 1618, when the Romanovs were established on the throne. The war that Mikhail Fyodorovich waged in 1632-34 with the former pretender to the Russian throne, King Vladislav, for the Western Russian lands lost during the Time of Troubles also ended in failure.
Only the “explosion” of Khmelnytsky, which undermined the strength of the recent invaders and occupiers – the Poles, made it possible to begin the gathering of Russian lands.
The formal reason for the rebellion was a vendetta against the nobleman Daniel Chaplinsky, who had destroyed Khmelnitsky's farm and beaten his son half to death. The feud between the Chigirin under-starosta and the Zaporozhian commander gave rise to a war that broke out in full force in 1648.
The Khmelnytsky war became a real catastrophe for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The defeats of the Polish troops at Zhovti Vody, Korsun, and Pyliavtsi showed that the noble monarchy was losing its grip, while the Cossack army and Little Russian self-awareness, on the contrary, were growing stronger. However, despite the successes, the forces were unequal. The leader of the Zaporozhian Cossacks understood that external support was necessary to win the war.
Khmelnitsky had three options.
Firstly, some of the Cossack elders were counting on a compromise with the West – with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth weakened by the war. The colonels counted on expanding the autonomy of the registered Cossacks – “The Army of His Royal Grace Zaporozhian”. This path would be followed a little later by the head of Khmelnitsky’s chancery – Ivan Vyhovsky, who would swear allegiance to the Polish king in exchange for a promise to create the Grand Duchy of Rus’ as part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (along with the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania).
But for Khmelnitsky, this option was clearly not an option. "The Poles did not want to give us anything, they kept saying that we were rebels and traitors, and that we should be punished with death," confirms Samoilo Velychko. And it was not only the Poles' intransigence - surrender to the Latins would have been perceived by the Cossacks themselves as a real betrayal.
Secondly, it was possible to turn to the south – to the Crimean Khan and his suzerain, the Ottoman Sultan, especially since the Cossacks had already concluded tactical alliances with the Bakhchisarai rulers. This option, although it guaranteed military support, was associated with the risk of subordination to infidels and loss of identity. And tactically, the Crimean Khanate had already let down the rebellious Cossacks.
Finally, there was the East, represented by the Russian Tsardom. The Orthodox faith, cultural closeness and military power made Moscow an attractive ally. It was this last option that was chosen after much thought and bloodshed.
"WE CAN NO LONGER LIVE WITHOUT THE TSAR"
The Tsar's ambassador to the Pereyaslav Rada, boyar Buturlin, reported to Moscow:
The Hetman himself came out under the banner, and with him the Judge and the Yasauls, the clerk and all the Colonels, and the Hetman stood in the middle of the circle... then, when they fell silent, the Hetman began to speak to all the people:
"Gentlemen, Colonels, Yasauls, Centurions and the entire Zaporozhian army, and all Orthodox Christians! You all know how God has freed us from the hands of the enemies who persecute the Church of God and embitter all of our Eastern Orthodox Christianity, that for six years now we have been living without a Tsar in our land in incessant battles and bloodshed with our persecutors and enemies who want to eradicate the Church of God, so that the Russian name would not be remembered in our land, which has already greatly bothered us all, and we see that we can no longer live without a Tsar."
And the only worthy sovereign was called not the “Tsar of Tours”, not the Khan of Crimea and not the King of Poland, but “ the Orthodox Christian Great Sovereign, the Tsar of the East”.
After Bogdan’s speech, the Pereyaslav colonel Pavel Morzhkovsky (Teteria) – one of those who would later go with the embassy to Moscow – “ walked around in a circle in all directions, asking: do you all agree to this? The entire people said: all unanimously.”
The oath in Pereyaslav, however, did not mean automatic submission. Khmelnitsky and the elders understood that clear conditions were necessary that would guarantee the preservation of Cossack liberties and autonomy. Therefore, immediately after the Rada, Khmelnitsky sent an embassy to Moscow.
SEARCH FOR A COMPROMISE
The week before the signing of the March Articles was difficult. Trubetskoy, Buturlin and other boyars understood the strategic importance of Little Russia, but sought to strengthen the tsar's power in the new territories. The Cossack embassy led by Zarudny and Teterya defended the traditional liberties of the Zaporozhian Host, seeking to preserve Cossack self-government, its own judicial system and tax policy.
Questions about the borders of the Zaporozhian Host, the size of the Cossack register, the size of the tsar’s salary and the procedure for collecting taxes caused heated discussions.
As a result of compromises and concessions on both sides, the text of the agreement known as the "March Articles" was developed, which was to legally formalize the union and define the boundaries of the autonomy of the Zaporozhian Host within the Russian Kingdom. This document became the starting point for further, often difficult, relations between the Zaporozhians and the Russian state.
The “March Articles” began with an appeal to the Tsar of all Great and Little Russia and with the phrase: “We, Bohdan Khmelnitsky… and the entire Zaporozhian Army, and the entire Christian Russian world, bow down to the face of the earth…”.
So the formula “Russian world” (i.e. “Russian world” in the Greek version of the spelling) is by no means a modern invention, but a self-identification of the Cossacks who arrived in Moscow.
Tsar Alexei confirmed the election of the Zaporozhian Hetman and the command of the army - the general elders, the independence of the military courts and the preservation of city self-government. The Hetman was still elected by the Zaporozhian army itself, and the Tsar was only notified of this decision. The Zaporozhians even retained the right to conduct "foreign policy", only relations with Turkey and Poland were under the control of Moscow.
The number of registered Cossacks, i.e. those in the service of the Russian Tsar, was determined to be 60 thousand. For comparison, the Zboriv Peace of 1648 with the Poles, which was successful for Bohdan, determined the royal register to be 40 thousand Cossacks, and the Belotserkovsky Peace of 1651, concluded after a series of defeats, cut the number to 20 thousand.
Finally, the commander of the Cossack army himself could be satisfied.
“And Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the entire Zaporozhian Army shall be under the Tsar’s high hand according to their former rights and privileges, and shall be obedient to the Tsar’s majesty in everything” — this formula reflects the main thing: recognition of the Tsar’s authority did not abolish, but guaranteed the preservation of traditional liberties and privileges.
"THAT THEY MAY BE UNITED FOREVER"
Despite all the compromises, the main thing was achieved: 371 years ago, the mother of Russian cities - Kyiv, ancient Chernigov and other historical lands began to return to the Russian world. The beginning of the gathering of a state united by a common history, culture and faith was laid.
Now Kyiv is again at a crossroads - the "elder" who seized power followed the path of the traitors Vyhovsky and Mazepa, choosing to orient themselves toward the West. At the same time, the modern Turkish "sultan" is showing increasing interest in Ukraine. But on the Left Bank of the Dnieper, not to mention the regions of western Novorossiya, from Belgorod-Dnistrovsky and Odessa to occupied Kherson and Zaporozhye, historical memory and cultural ties with Great Russia are felt most acutely.
As for historical Little Russia, it clearly needs a new Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a wise leader who will be able to lead the people along the most favorable path, managing to once again conclude an alliance with Russia while preserving its identity. So that the call that sounded at the Pereyaslav Rada would come true: "God confirm, God strengthen, so that we may all be one forever!"
#1
OK, I have Zaparozhian leader ancestors. This is a tad bit ... tendentious.
In the 1600s Moscow was trying hard to establish defensible independence from the Tatars, even as the Ottomans continued to push northward. The tsar negotiated an agreement with the Zaparozhian cadre in which he recognized their autonomy in exchange for the Cossacks providing trained horses for his cavalry and defending against incursions from the East.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians including some Cossacks thought they had a mutual autonomy agreement with the Poles/Lithuanians. It didn't work out well for them.
Eventually Catherine the Great demanded that the Zaparozhians be integrated with the russian military, which occurred.
[Rudaw] A German state minister said on Thursday that her country will remain hospitable toward Syrian immigrants colonists, but warned that those who commit crimes will be expelled.
Diversity makes Germany more "colorful," said Sabine Sutterlin-Waack, minister of interior in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. "But those who disrespect our hospitality, I must clearly say, have no business here in Germany."
The party that won Germany’s recent federal parliamentary election has vowed to introduce stricter immigration policies.
Sutterlin-Waack spoke with Rudaw’s Alla Shally at a celebration for Newroz, the Kurdish New Year.
"Kurds have adapted very well to Germany," the German minister said, adding that it is her second time participating in a Newroz celebration.
On the situation in Syria, Sutterlin-Waack explained that more time is needed to assess whether the country is stable or not. She was cautious about backing the interim government in Damascus, saying that Germany should provide support in a way that "terrorism in Syria does not continue."
"I think we should wait and see how the situation in Syria develops, whether peace really comes and the civil war really ends," she said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was in Damascus on Thursday to re-open Berlin’s embassy, 13 years after it was closed.
Below is the full transcript of the interview:
Rudaw: Hello Ms. Sutterlin-Waack, thank you very much for being with us. Your Excellency, today, as the minister of interior of this region, you participated here in the celebration of Newroz, which is an important holiday for the Kurds and means resistance. You made a speech. What do you see as the importance of holding this celebration here?
Sutterlin-Waack: I think it is very important that we celebrate together here, because the Kurds have adapted very well to Germany, so it is important to celebrate some of their special identities here in Germany together. I am also happy to be able to participate in this celebration for the second time.
Ms. Sutterlin-Waack, I would like to ask you about the Kurds of Rojava [northeastern Syria]. A large number of Kurds live here who have been able to adapt well and work here, but at the same time there are many voices of politicians who say that now, after toppling [Bashar] al-Assad, they must return to their country. What do you say about this?
In my opinion, we have to wait a bit. We have now heard terrible news from Syria. At first, we all had great hope that the Assad regime would be gone. We still have great hope that peace will come, that the civil war will end, but unfortunately we have heard bad news in recent days. So I think we should wait and see how the situation in Syria develops, whether peace really comes and the civil war really ends. There are also many Syrians who have adapted very well here. We need many people who come from other countries and make our society colourful and live in diversity, because diversity helps us to move forward.
Well, Ms. Minister, now Germany and other European countries support the Syrian government, but that government does not give the Kurds their rights, what do you say about that?
I always say that one certainly supports someone who really works for peace and democracy, and we have to look at that carefully. As I said now, this is important to us and we must simply say that terrorism must end. I am also the minister of interior. I am responsible for internal security. In Germany, of course, we need to take a close look at who is coming to our country. And we need to know exactly who we are supporting, so that terrorism in Syria does not continue.
You mentioned terrorism. The Kurds in Syria fought very bravely against terrorism. Now there are no rights for the Kurds in the interim constitution of Syria. What is your position?
We in Germany have very strong protection for minorities, especially here in Schleswig-Holstein in the north. I come from a more northerly region than here in Kiel. We have very strong protection for the Danes living in Germany, and for the Germans living in Denmark. So we live among minorities and I think some countries can treat minorities a little more carefully. The Kurds are a component of Syria and I think that the new Syrian state, whatever it may be, hopefully peace and democracy, can consider minorities as well. This also has to do with diversity and they are part of the identity of the nation.
Okay, let me come back to Germany. The issue of migrant policy was a very hot topic during the election and now the future government has agreed on this issue. As minister of interior, is it so easy to deport those migrants colonists who are from Afghanistan or Syria and commit crimes here?
My clear position, anyone who commits a crime here in Schleswig-Holstein must be expelled from Germany. This is not acceptable. Our people are afraid and this cannot be done and we do not want it either. This means that those who commit crimes must be expelled. This is very clear. Although this is not always easy, we both know that, but we must work on it. And those who have the right to stay can stay here because their lives are still in danger. I support the German asylum law, this must remain and we must take it into account. We want that. But those who disrespect our hospitality, I must clearly say, they have no business here in Germany. They must leave.
On the issue of migrant policy, one of the important points was border control. Is this now agreed upon in the negotiations? Will it be implemented?
This is difficult, but of course it can be done. It would be better if we controlled the external borders of Europe, because we have the Schengen Agreement, which we fought very hard for a long time so that we have no control within Europe, now it is in danger. But this is obviously difficult at the moment and that is why we in Germany control the borders. Although we will never be completely successful, because it is not so easy, we have to see who comes to Germany.
The stability of internal security is another important issue in Germany. How do you want or what is your plan to protect internal security at a time when, as you mentioned, people are afraid?
Internal security is now a very broad topic. At the conference of interior ministers, we are always busy with that. We must know that those who adapt themselves to us, can stay here according to German law. I am a lawyer, I am bound by all German laws. They must adapt themselves here. We must help them in that, this is natural. We also need people to work for us. We just talked about the young man you mentioned. We need people to work here. Our numbers are constantly decreasing and we are constantly getting older and we need diversity. But as I said, those who commit crimes, who have committed crimes, must leave Germany. I strongly believe in that.
So you want to focus on the arrival of immigrants colonists through legal channels?
Legal immigration, of course. We need to think carefully about this again, whether it can be done through asylum or through work. There are some overlaps there that I would like. If we have people who can live well and work well here, then we must try to keep them here. There are so many decent, friendly and skilled people coming to us from other countries, and we have to be careful about them, but as I said, I have said it many times now, those who commit crimes have no business with us.
My last question to you, madam minister of interior, the [far-right Alternative for Germany] AfD party has doubled its votes. How dangerous do you see this?
I see this as a great danger and it is very disturbing. Fortunately, the AfD party is not in the Schleswig-Holstein parliament. The AfD is not in the state parliament. In the last state parliamentary election, we were able to remove them. They were there before, but now they are gone. And of course it is disturbing, but every voter who votes for that party is certainly not a Nazi. That is true. But some of their voters might be Nazis. And how one cannot forget Germany's past. I was just at the memorial site at the very end. I can say, how can you forget what happened and deny it and also say it's not all true. This is incomprehensible to me and this is what worries me a lot, because they want to completely change our state system. And they want to change our democracy. They want to change freedom of opinion. Everything that is very important to us, which has been with us for 75 - 80 years in Germany, as well as in Schleswig-Holstein, that must be changed and we must resist it with all our might.
Continued on Page 47
[JustTheNews] The People's Forum helped organize the encampments on Columbia University's campus. Now the well-funded pro-CCP Marxist group is organizing the protests to free Mahmoud Khalil.
Protests against the arrest of a pro-Paleostine Columbia graduate student are being organized by a Marxist revolutionary group that is pro-Communism, anti-Israel, and has potential links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Mahmoud Khalil, a leader in the pro-Paleostine and anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University, was detained earlier this month by the Trump administration, with the Department of Homeland Security arguing that he "led activities aligned to Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... , a designated terrorist organization." The People’s Forum helped organize some of the campus chaos and is now organizing protests to free Khalil.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) is the pro-Paleostine and anti-Israel group that sparked many of the student encampments at Columbia University. Khalil was a lead "negotiator" for CUAD as the group occupied buildings on Columbia’s campus in the wake of the deadly Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023.
A former CUAD leader, Khymani James, said that "Zionists don’t deserve to live" and was eventually banned from campus. While CUAD initially apologized for James’s remarks, last October the group withdrew its apology and declared: "We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance... Long live the Intifada." CUAD had also shared a message on Instagram stating that "we are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization."
"Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University," President Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... wrote on Truth Social last week. "This is the first arrest of many to come."
The Trump Education Department has also pulled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of grants from Columbia and has provided the university with a list of demands to comply with.
Khalil’s large legal team is fighting his detention and deportation, writing in federal court that "this case concerns the government’s targeted, retaliatory detention and attempted removal of a student protestor because of his constitutionally protected speech."
THE FORUM AND KHALIL
The People’s Forum has been a driving force behind protests condemning the detention and possible deportation of Khalil. There are scores of videos posted by the forum on social media detailing the group’s role in organizing, promoting, attending, and leading the pro-Khalil protests, including a rally outside a NYC courthouse and a "sit-in at Trump Tower." Khalil’s legal team addressed the crowd at a protest organized by the forum. There is no indication that Khalil himself is involved in the protests by The People's Forum.
The communist group has connected its pro-Khalil efforts to its broader "Shut It Down For Paleostine" street protest campaign and to its fight against ICE being allowed on campus. The group said that "we will take to the streets to demand the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil and reaffirm our commitment to struggle for a free Paleostine." The forum urged supporters to be "All Out for Mahmoud Khalil."
"ZIONIST HARASSMENT CAMPAIGNS"
The forum’s leader, Manolo De Los Santos, has also personally tweeted multiple times to promote the forum-led protests for Khalil.
The forum immediately promoted a petition the day after Khalil was arrested, with the petition contending that "Khalil has been the target of various zionist harassment campaigns." Another petition by the forum — signed by a host of leftwing celebrities and activists — lamented that "Mahmoud is just the first target of the Trump Administration's newfound Anti-Semitism Task Force."
The forum is currently helping organize a "powerful event" scheduled for this weekend "in support of Mahmoud Khalil, Paleostine, and civil liberties." The group says that Khalil’s legal team and anti-Israel celebrities such as Macklemore and Alana Hadid will be there. A flyer by the forum promoting the upcoming event says, "Free Mahmoud. Free Paleostine."
THE FORUM’S "MARXIST COMRADE"
A major patron for The People’s Forum is wealthy communist businessman Neville Roy Singham.
"For months we’ve been the target of a campaign that alleges our funding comes from ’dark money.’ A few years ago we met Roy Singham, a Marxist comrade who sold his company & donated most of his wealth to non-profits that focus on political education, culture, & internationalism," The People’s Forum tweeted in December 2021.
Singham married Jodie Evans, the co-founder of the radical left-wing group Code Pink ... a U.S. anti-war group. The group describes itself as a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities. It was founded in 2002 by Jodie Evans, Medea Benjamin and of the other usual antiwar suspects. Its website lists hysterical allegations of US war crimes, and states that thousands of civilians were killed in Fallujah in 2004. Maybe it was millions. Benjamin was a 2000 candidate for the U.S. Senate on the Green Party ticket. She lost... , in 2017. Her group touts itself as antiwar and has become increasingly pro-China in recent years.
The New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reported that Singham works in Shanghai, that his efforts there are linked to the CCP, and that he has attended at least one CCP workshop on promoting the party globally. The outlet also reported that Singham provides backing for The People’s Forum.
The Free Beacon reported that key leaders for the forum "serve in top positions at Singham's Justice and Education Fund." The outlet also reported that the network run by Singham is also behind BreakThrough Media and Dongsheng News, who both push pro-China narratives and whose content is regularly reshared by the forum.
The Free Press reported that Singham and Evans "have donated over $20.4 million to The People’s Forum from 2017 to 2022 through a series of shell organizations and donor advisory groups — accounting for nearly all of the group’s funding." The outlet reported that the pro-China "No Cold War" group was also linked to Singham’s network. Singham was unable to be reached for comment, and The People's Forum did not respond to requests for comment from Just The News.
The People’s Forum "reported total revenue of $15,026,419, total expenses of $3,660,180, and $17,421,642 in net assets" in 2019, according to Influence Watch.
PRAISING THE CCP
The forum is openly pro-China and has produced dozens of what it describes as teaching materials, many of them pro-CCP.
The People’s Forum has repeatedly collaborated with a group called the Qiao Collective on events aimed at softening the image of the CCP and China.
The pro-CCP collective describes itself as "a diaspora Chinese media collective challenging U.S. aggression on China." The collective says: "We aim to challenge rising U.S. aggression towards the People’s Republic of China and to equip the U.S. anti-war movement with the tools and analysis to better combat the stoking of a New Cold War conflict with China. We seek to be a bridge between the U.S. left and China’s rich Marxist, anti-imperialist political work and thought in order to foster critical consideration of the role of China and socialism with Chinese characteristics in contemporary geopolitics."
THE GOP INVESTIGATES
Congressional Republicans have called for investigations into The People’s Forum, its links to the CCP, and its role in anti-Israel protests, vandalism, and violence on campus.
Republicans on the House Boodle Central wrote to the IRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... in 2023 "with growing concern surrounding the influence of America’s foreign adversaries, including the CCP, on U.S.-based tax-exempt organizations" — and specifically pointed to The People’s Forum.
Then-senator and now Secretary of State Marco Rubio ...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration... told the Justice Department that year that "it appears that organizations tied to Neville Roy Singham, a U.S. citizen, have been receiving direction from the CCP." The Republican-led House Natural Resources Committee sent a letter directly to Santos, the leader of the communist forum.
"The Committee is concerned with the CCP’s growing attempts to influence U.S. policies and that the relationship between the CCP and The People’s Forum may impact The People’s Forum’s political and advocacy activities, including those relating to the abuse of free speech," politicians wrote.
The communist outfit responded to GOP calls for investigations with derision: "The political assault against The People’s Forum is part of a larger effort by Republicans and other right-wing forces in Congress to criminalize and demonize Paleostinian, Moslem-American, and anti-war organizations."
[IsraelTimes] PA’s Abdallah Kmeil claims Israel wants to keep the PA weak; he doesn’t condemn Hamas’s October 7 slaughter but says he’s become less extreme and wants peace
Continued on Page 47
Long with details of Palestinian Islamic Jihad cruelty mixed with complaining about the government. Respect for his courage and resilience, but the political whining is annoying. Some key bits:
[IsraelTimes] Former hostage, 80, slams Netanyahu for not visiting Nir Oz, ‘evil’ government for not even welcoming him on his return; says most urgent thing for him is ‘friends still there’.
Gadi Mozes, who was freed by terrorists in Gaza in January as part of the hostage-ceasefire deal, said in an interview broadcast Thursday that in his 482 days of solitary captivity, “everything that happened to me was psychological abuse.”
“The depth of the fear, the depth of disconnection from the world, the depth of the unknown — it’s impossible to convey,” the Kibbutz Nir Oz farmer, 80, told Channel 12.
He added that his Palestinian Islamic Jihad captors “tried to depress me, tried to break me.”
“The entire time, I was on guard and focused only on how they won’t hurt me. How I survive,” said Mozes.
“I would calm myself down,” he said. “I would tell myself, ‘This will work itself out.’ But in retrospect… that was an illusion. I didn’t actually calm myself down.”
Mozes was held in 10 different locations, including near the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, where thousands of displaced Gazans had sought shelter. He was taken to a school in the area.
“Horrible sights,” he said. “Thousands of people, refugees who had fled from bombings, lying like sardines in the halls, on the floor.”
Asked if he felt mercy for them, Mozes said he did not.
“I saw a sight that was not normal, but I didn’t feel any emotion,” he said. “I didn’t care about anything. I’m also suffering like them.”
According to Channel 12, Mozes was also held in the designated humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi during the massive Israeli airstrike there that killed Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif in July.
Mozes, a lifelong leftist on the political spectrum, said he felt conflicted after the Hamas onslaught.
“I think peace is made only with enemies,” he said. “What other option is there? That my grandchildren will also die there, be abducted?”
On the other hand, he said, “years and years of belief that we can get along, find a formula that will give room for everyone, have been shattered by this horrendous murder, the murder of my best friends, who all believed in that option.”
[FoxNews] CycloTech, an Austrian aviation company, is turning heads with its BlackBird demonstrator, an electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle (eVTOL) designed to showcase a game-changing propulsion system.
Could this be the technology that finally makes flying cars a practical reality?
WHAT MAKES BLACKBIRD SPECIAL? CycloTech isn't just building another eVTOL. It's hinging its vision on unique CycloRotor technology. What's so special about it? Well, the BlackBird demonstrator is designed to test the seventh generation of CycloTech's 360-degree thrust vectoring propulsion system.
CycloTech claims that its CycloRotor technology is the only propulsion system that can fully control the thrust vector in strength and direction throughout a complete 360-degree path. This allows the Blackbird demonstrator to have unmatched maneuverability; imagine a vehicle that can take off and land vertically, move sideways, brake mid-air and even parallel park. With six CycloRotors, the BlackBird is designed to do just that.
Also, the BlackBird's design aims to decouple the flight path from the aircraft's orientation, promising a smooth and comfortable ride even in less-than-ideal conditions without needing to bank or tilt. When it comes to safety, the Blackbird has it covered with its six CycloRotors, providing redundancy in the event of an engine failure, allowing the aircraft to continue to fly in a controlled manner. CycloTech CEO Hans-Georg Kinsky notes, "With our BlackBird, we are showing how this innovative technology will open up the market for flying cars."
Continued on Page 47
#1
"Or perhaps, after a lifetime of waiting for your flying car, you scrawl your signature on the clipboard held by a smiling delivery robot, ease behind the wheel... and are promptly locked in and autodriven straight to Lubyanka as you mouth mute protests to passing pigeons."
#2
^ This is why SteveS' First Law of Robotics is "All machines must have an off switch".
It stops events like the above, as well as preventing various Terminator-like scenarios.
#3
What the article call "CycloRotors" actually reminded me of a "Voith-Schneider propellers". Lookig further, i find that "CycloRotors" is actually an old conceptfirst used in 1928 and is used nowadays in many applications, including the CycloTech concept.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
CycloTech isn't just building another eVTOL. It's hinging its vision on unique CycloRotor technology. What's so special about it? Well, the BlackBird demonstrator is designed to test the seventh generation of CycloTech's 360-degree thrust vectoring propulsion system. 
