[[link removed]]

‘PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO BE COMPLICIT IN WAR CRIMES’  
[[link removed]]


 

Janine Jackson
July 25, 2025
FAIR - Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ People are starting to really see that direct line between
themselves as US taxpayers, and where and what their money is being
spent on, and just how it’s actually being used to abuse, assault
and murder Palestinians. _

Iman Abid, Director of Advocacy and Organizing, US Campaign for
Palestinian Rights, (Photo: Thomas Morrisey, Rochester Democrat &
Chronicle.)

 

JANINE JACKSON: Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the West
Bank and Gaza, has called down all manner of official and unofficial
grief for saying what any thinking person would know: that a mass
extermination and displacement project, such as Israel is carrying out
in Palestine, doesn’t fund itself
[[link removed]].

As US citizens, we know we’re involved, that our “tax dollars”
are used by politicians we may or may not have elected to do things
that we don’t condone, much less endorse. But what US elite news
media seem to hate above all things is the connecting of dots, the
recognition that we are all related across borders and boundaries.

That the thing that brought US sanction
[[link removed]]
was Albanese’s naming of defense companies providing weapons used by
Israel’s military, makers of equipment used to bulldoze Palestinian
homes, is telling. Watching corporate media try to maintain the notion
that, yes, _Citizens United_ said money is speech, and you can’t
curtail that, but no, you absolutely cannot say that people might not
want to support companies who are funding a genocide. Well, that’s
telling about media as well.

Joining us now to talk about this is Iman Abid. She’s director of
advocacy and organizing at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
[[link removed]]. She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to
COUNTERSPIN, Iman Abid.

IMAN ABID: Thank you so much.

JJ: The statement in Albanese’s report
[[link removed]],
“While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under
escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide
continues: because it is lucrative for many”—I mean, it’s only
in a weird world of elite media that that would be something that you
can’t say. That should just be a point of information in our
understanding, yes?

IA: At any point in time that we target or uplift the war crimes that
these large corporations are partaking in, we’ve seen just how
silenced or suppressed people are, and Francesca has now been a part
of that. She’s brought a lot to light in this new document that has
come out, information that many people, in various forms, have already
uplifted, but has done a really incredible job at trying to both
consolidate and make the information a lot more accessible. And so,
since it is a lot more digestible to see, it’s easier to access.
Weapons manufacturers and large corporations have been extremely
disappointed in what the world is able to finally see.

JJ: Right. Transparency is their enemy.

IA: Yeah, exactly.

JJ: And you would think that journalists—whatever they want to say
about it—would support the idea that the public can understand
exactly what’s happening. And yet that’s not the response that
we’ve seen, from certainly the US officially, but also from
journalists. I don’t feel that they are celebrating this report in a
way that one would hope.

IA: Absolutely. I think that the reality is that much of the
documentation, and the notes that are provided to us for review in
this report, showcase not just what has been going on, and what
corporations have been enacting for the last two years, throughout the
duration of the genocide, but rather for the last few decades. This
information has been available to the public, available to journalists
and reporters, for a really long time, and for whatever reason, people
generally choose to still avoid it.

Now, whether or not they themselves—certain news outlets have
partnerships with some of these corporations, and they’re keeping
them quiet for that purpose, or if there’s any other reason where
maybe they as individuals are profiting off of these corporations
themselves, we’ve seen just how silent people are when it comes to
uplifting the harms of these corporations.

JJ: What do you hope or think might be the impact? Because it seems,
obviously, Marco Rubio saying, “Ah! Shut up! Sanctions!” is
telling that this information is important. What do you hope might be
used? How do you think it might be used?

IA: My hope is that, especially for the American people, in any point
in time, when this administration tries to silence someone, when they
implement sanctions or any of that, I really encourage people to take
a look at their work. And Francesca Albanese is an incredibly
profound, extraordinary being who has spent their career building up
and bringing awareness to the atrocities happening to the Palestinian
people. This report is only one aspect of the work that she’s been
so committed to.

[NPR: U.S. issues sanctions against United Nations investigator
probing abuses in Gaza]
_NPR (7/10/25
[[link removed]])_

And I think that people like Marco Rubio
[[link removed]],
and other people
[[link removed]]
within the Trump administration
[[link removed]],
don’t want you to see this, because they themselves are, again,
establishing partnerships, or have established partnerships, with
these corporations. And even some of the members of Congress, who have
also uplifted and supported the sanctions on Francesca Albanese
[[link removed]],
some of them are war profiteers. They are the ones who are both
building up the contracts with the federal government, or supporting
the contracts with the federal government, to keep these corporations
alive and thriving.

I think the report itself mentions on every single page just how
Palestine is being used as this sort of military technology incubator.
It’s an opportunity for these companies to use their work, and to
see how it works on the Palestinian people. They’re almost using us
as dispensable objects for their weapons. And I think that a lot of
that is uplifted in this document.

And because of the atrocities that are being highlighted, and because
of the direct connection to the United States Congress, the United
States administration, it just shows an incredibly bad light on the
US. And it also showcases just how harmful the partnerships and the
military investment really is, across not only the US, but across the
globe.

JJ: Elite media seem vigorously invested in policing lines between
“us” and “them,” but it’s not working. Support for
Palestinian human rights is growing
[[link removed]],
even as it’s being seriously criminalized. So where are you seeing
daylight? Because I see a lot of people being extremely brave and
using information, such as in this Albanese report, to say, “We’re
armed. We’re armed with information, and we’re not going to buy
the line that we’re being sold.”

IA: Absolutely. I think the movement has grown exponentially, and I
think it’s simply because of the fact that we have watched this
livestreamed genocide take place. And I think that when people see the
level of death, when people see the level of atrocity, especially for
those who’ve sat on social media platforms and watched the video
footage and documentation of what’s been happening across Gaza,
it’s become extremely difficult to deny what’s actually happening.

And people are moved. People are moved to speak up, people are moved
to stand up, even against the faces of oppression, the Zionist forces
that are trying to silence people, and they’re choosing to say that
I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history, I want to take a
stand on this, and not just a stand in the streets, but a strategic
stand that allows me and my community to actually move towards getting
this genocide to end, and for us to stop upholding these atrocities
being committed against Palestinians.

[Al Jazeera: Norwegian pension fund dumps Caterpillar over Gaza war
risks]
_AL JAZEERA (6/26/24
[[link removed]])_

It’s been deeply fortunate that so many reports have come out, even
just the last two years alone, not only of the weapons that have been
used on Palestinians, but just what specific correlation there is
between the US, the complicity of the US, and what’s been happening
across Gaza and the rest of the West Bank, and even in parts of
Jerusalem. And so people are starting to really see that direct line
between themselves as US taxpayers, and where and what their money is
being spent on, and just how it’s actually being used to abuse,
assault and murder Palestinians. And people don’t want to be on that
side. People don’t want to be complicit. I don’t think anyone
wants to be complicit in war crimes being committed, and mass
genocides being committed.

And so I think we’re starting to see just how people are really
trying to take that next step, and acknowledge there are different
avenues that people can take to really get things to stop. And whether
it’s the targeting of weapons manufacturers like Caterpillar
[[link removed]]
or Hyundai
[[link removed]]
or Elbit
[[link removed]],
whoever is actually equipping Israel with the technology and the
software and the technology that’s being used to destroy homes,
whatever it may be, people are using these sorts of reports to help
uplift the documentation that already exists, to bring attention to
these corporations that we, as the United States, as US taxpayers, are
investing in.

And they’re choosing to say that we don’t want this. We don’t
want this to continue. And we, again, as taxpayers can do something
about it.

JJ: And I’ll end on the media thing, that it calls out the media
hypocrisy, because when folks were pouring out their Bud Light because
they had a trans person in an ad
[[link removed]],
media were sort of celebrating: _Oh, you’re using your consumer
voice, you’re speaking with your dollars_, right? And then out of
the other side of their mouth, they want to say, _Well, BDS is
criminal. You’re not allowed to not shop at a store_, _or whatever,
that supports genocide._ So to me, it tells the tale on US media’s
understanding of what a consumer gets to do with their voice.

IA: Absolutely. Again, yes, the exceptionalizing of Palestine, the
exceptionalizing of the BDS movement, still exists, but we are seeing
a shift. We are seeing people break beyond that, and actually start to
question and start to ask themselves, why has the BDS movement
actually existed for as long as it has?

Again, boycotting, divestment, sanctions is not an area that’s just
particular to the Palestinian movement. It’s been used with South
Africa [[link removed]], it’s been used in
other parts of the world, because it is something that actually works.
When we stop the transfer of dollars to these corporations, and to
these entities like Israel that are actually upholding the genocide
and the mass expulsion of Palestinians, we do start to see the
shifting of it.

[Mondoweiss: The Shift: House Republicans pull anti-BDS bill from
schedule]
_MONDOWEISS (5/8/25
[[link removed]])_

And the Israeli economy, as a matter of fact, is actually beginning to
decline, because of the level of education and the expansion of the
Palestinian solidarity movement across the globe. And people are
trying to be wiser about where they’re spending their dollars. And
so I think that we’re not in the exact place we want to be just yet,
but we are moving the needle towards where we want to go, and people
are being wiser about where money is going.

And so while governments and elected officials are really still
working hard to suppress any sort of BDS movement, whether it’s
through the anti-BDS proposals
[[link removed]],
or if it’s through the sanctioning
[[link removed]]
of certain individuals, the people themselves are starting to actually
say: “Well, wait a minute. Why are you choosing to suppress us for
engaging in this, when we know it’s the right thing to do?”

And members of Congress are starting to be a little more alert, and
start to say, “Wait a minute, this isn’t actually a winning issue
for me if I choose to engage in it. And it’s not necessarily
something that I should really be pushing for.” Because people are
becoming more attentive. And it’s allowing us, again, to move the
needle where we really want to see us going.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Iman Abid from the US Campaign for
Palestinian Rights. They’re online at USCPR.org [[link removed]].
Iman Abid, thank you so much for joining us this week on COUNTERSPIN.

IA: Thank you so much.

_Janine Jackson is FAIR’s program director and producer/host of
FAIR’s syndicated weekly radio show CounterSpin. She contributes
frequently to FAIR’s newsletter Extra!, and co-edited The FAIR
Reader: An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the ’90s (Westview
Press). _

_FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering
well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We
work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater
diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that
marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an
anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and
defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive
group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to
break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent
public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of
information._

* BDS
[[link removed]]
* Palestinians
[[link removed]]
* Gaza
[[link removed]]
* Francesca Albanese
[[link removed]]
* war crimes
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]