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Francesca Albanese & Abby Martin in Tunis
Conversations on Empire, Resistance, and Media
UNFLINCHING may be the best word to describe human rights lawyer Francesca Albanese, since her appointment as UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine in May 2022 and and more intensely since October 2023. She has staunchly defended the rights of the people of Palestine from the perspective of international law, no matter how hostile or misinformed her audience or interviewer may be. This conversation with journalist Abby Martin, which took place in Tunis in March 2025, highlight some of the fundamental issues of the Occupation of Palestine right now in the context of the ongoing genocide, including the U.S. administration’s erratic and grotesque policies serve as deliberate distractions from Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing, and the fact that that the suffering in Gaza is compounded by the inaction of global powers.

ABBY MARTIN: Give us your reaction not just to Trump’s stated desire to “ethnically cleanse” Gaza and force Palestinian refugees into neighboring countries, but also to the psychological warfare aspect—this hyper-normalization where, every day, there’s a new spectacle to focus on. Meanwhile, the policies are ramping up and being greenlit.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I believe there is a deliberate strategy behind the way the current U.S. president and his acolytes communicate. It’s intentional, and it’s psychologically overwhelming. Every day, most of the world—whether in Europe, Africa, or elsewhere—wakes up to some new, erratic, grotesque policy. Grotesque in the sense that it is so insulting to fundamental freedoms, basic human rights, and dignity that we are left stunned. The reaction is often, ‘Oh my God, what is he doing?’ or ‘Why aren’t people reacting?’
We end up in a state of alarm and panic, distracted by the spectacle. This mode of communication is part of the problem, and I truly believe it’s intentional. While I don’t downplay the very real danger these people pose to fundamental freedoms—both for Americans and others—when looking at it from the perspective of Palestine, it serves as a massive distraction, and of course, an insult.
The point is—and this is what I really need people to understand—while we speculate about why Trump is saying these things about Gaza, debating whether it’s legal or illegal (which, of course, it is illegal), we need to move beyond just debating. We need to take measures not only to prevent this from happening but to actively address this misconduct.
Because the reality on the ground is that, regardless of what Trump says, Israel is already advancing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It’s incredible that statements regarding the so-called ‘Gaza Riviera’ came out so soon after a meeting with the Israeli prime minister—who is wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
I see these two forces not just colliding but colluding in pursuit of an even greater evil: the forced displacement of Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territories. And this is happening in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
ABBY MARTIN: Well, it’s shocking.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: The other shocking thing is how numb we have become to the suffering of the Palestinian people. Every day, Israeli jails vomit out what remains of Palestinians who have been arbitrarily arrested, detained, and tortured.
I heard a former Palestinian detainee recount how he begged his torturer to treat him like an animal—saying, Can you just treat me like an animal? Because you would have more respect for animals.
The level of sadism unleashed against Palestinians is truly unfathomable. It is redefining what genocide looks like, and yet, no one reacts.

ABBY MARTIN: It seems like only a matter of time before the war continues there. Israel has already killed over 100 people and is refusing to comply with even this current phase. At every step, they’re trying to stall and prevent these phases from being fulfilled as they were negotiated.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: First of all, I want to say that it’s important to understand the ceasefire has never truly meant a cessation of violence for Palestinians—especially in Gaza. Hundreds of people have been killed, most of them shot as they tried to move from south to north.
But there have been other violations of the ceasefire agreement—no mobile units or homes have been allowed in. Only two-thirds of the aid trucks that were agreed upon have entered, along with some of the tents. This is why people, especially young children, are freezing at night. The temperatures are extremely cold, and they die—not just from lack, but from terminal conditions caused by deprivation.

The situation in Gaza is brutal. And yet, Qatar, Egypt, the U.S.—the supposed guardians of the ceasefire—what are they doing? There is a profound sense of abandonment. Palestinians have been left to their fate, and it’s incredibly unjust.
This is why I understand why they look to me and my mandate as a beacon of light—because no one else is speaking up for their rights at this level. Yes, the people in the streets stand with Gaza, but what about those with real platforms, with even an inch of power? No one speaks out.
ABBY MARTIN: I think that’s what feels so strange about this temporary cessation—or the ceasefire, as you said—because it doesn’t really mean a cessation of hostilities or violence. We’ve clearly seen what Israel has continued to do.
But that’s what felt so strange about a ceasefire being put in place after 15 months of unending slaughter—especially of children. The bare minimum demand that activists and Palestinians have been calling for, for so long, has finally been met, but only after Gaza has already been decimated. After Israel has seized even more territory beyond its so-called borders.
And now, amid the spectacle of Trump’s rhetoric, we see the war ramping up in the West Bank. Tanks entering for the first time in 20 years, killing dozens, kidnapping hundreds, expelling tens of thousands. Villages being cleared out, attacked by both settlers and armed soldiers. The genocide you’ve outlined in your reports, Francesca—it’s not just confined to Gaza. So talk about that.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yeah, I think that we we are seeing what a settler colonial genocide is when people are sacrificed, are destroyed in the pursuit of control of land and resources attached to the land. This is what the genocide of the Native Americans in the United States, or in other places of the Americas, or in Canada, has been: it’s a fight that the settler, the settler society, undertakes against the natives in order to control land and resources. And you know, I hear at times people feel challenged and uncomfortable with the settler colonial paradigm applied to Israel. Excuse me, but I don’t challenge the facts that the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust had nowhere to go. But there are two things. First of all, the project of colonizing Palestine. It’s something that is written about — the founding fathers of Israel wrote about it since the end of the 19th century. So from the mid 1800’s onward, they’ve been talking about colonizing Palestine because they were looking for a homeland. And so they’ve been exploring different opportunities, from Argentina to Utah to Uganda and Palestine.
So long before modern Israel there was an idea to move to this land of Palestine, that the Hebrew people of the Bible had an attachment to, no question. But what they did, they never went as refugees. And this is the second element: after the Holocaust, it’s not that they went as refugees or migrants seeking asylum. No, they went as part of a project that took the land, took the homes, took everything that had been left behind as people were pushed out. There has been a forced displacement and dispossession of the Palestinians that dates back 100 years, and it started with the Brits, and it has been a low intensity dispossession and forced displacement, with a few peaks, like in 1947-1949, in 1967 and now so it people need to understand that for the Palestinians, this is yet another, surely the most violent face of of annihilation. But this is what settler colonialism does.

ABBY MARTIN: Indeed, Francesca, your compassion and your work has changed the way that people perceive the situation in Palestine. I mean, like you said, people with a modicum of power have just not lifted a finger or uttered one word about the situation. And it does seem it’s just very telling about our political climate and about the repression and chilling effect that this has had over the world’s intellectuals, politicians, media players, celebrities. I mean, the list goes on and on, but you’re out there, front and center, putting yourself out there to be a conduit, a very important one, and it has changed the minds and hearts of countless people. What initially drove you to advocate for Palestine?
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Oh, interestingly, I’m not sure it’s me who changed the way Palestine is discussed. I think I’m part of a transition, I’m part of a wave that has been it has been forming, and it has grown, propelled by the Palestinians, and then Israeli human rights organizations, and then international organizations, and then, little by little, the UN have been also involved in in correcting the narrative that has been dominant. So now, compared to three years ago, it’s much more common to talk about colonialism or apartheid. Yes, I have put a lot of effort into explaining the context to people. And I’ve never intended to be an advocate for the Palestinians. For me, it’s about so much more than the Palestinians. It’s about human rights. I’m a fierce human rights advocate because I do believe that this is what protects us. Human rights are the results of struggles for emancipation of so many people, those who fought for the abolition of slavery, for the end of racial segregation, for the end of apartheid, for the recognition of Indigenous people. It’s through revolutions and through revolts, and struggles that translate into improvement of living conditions. And this is the moment we live in.
Because the Palestinians have been so fiercely repressed, and because this has happened in flagrant violation of international law, this is why I feel so committed. Because I’ve been asked by the United Nations to report on the reality on the ground. And the reality on the ground is obscene. The policies out there affecting the Palestinians are so deranged, that we are already in a dystopian reality, that I have to go back to my center and try to remember: why you are doing what you are doing, finding your purpose and connecting to the purpose of the others. This is what’s happening right now in my life, and my life in connection with the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
ABBY MARTIN:
To paraphrase Mohammed El-Kurd: It does feel like, especially for Palestinians, being trapped collectively in someone else’s hallucination. It’s like a fever dream that’s imposed on you, where black is white, up is down. Where drone bombings are not terrorism, but words are.
It’s the intent versus the actions, and it’s this bizarre kind of framework that’s imposed on us by the people who are the colonizers. And to your point, these institutions are in place to try to protect some sort of semblance of international law and human rights that we have agreed on after World War Two. And it does seem like there are certain Western powers that are just making a mockery of them, especially European powers, who have been hell bent on criminalizing pro-Palestine speech and journalism, as opposed to actually stopping a genocide, which is the crime of all crimes.
You were just feeling the brunt of this on your European tour in Germany. It was absolutely mind bending to see what happened to you in Germany, where they sent police to intimidate you. Already venues were shut down because of a “security risk”. Talk about what happened to you and why you think it is that not just Europe, but the West at large seems more concerned with clamping down on speech, as opposed to actual genocide.

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: This is the reality, unfortunately, and I had an idea that the situation in Germany was critical before going. I went to Germany at the tail end of a long trip across Europe. I had been to Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands. The pro Israel lobby is pretty strong in the West, and it has grown stronger and stronger with increased focus on “security” and militarization and anti-Arabism, which is very, very wide-spread, very common. There has been a rise of racism in the past 20 years in Europe, and I think it’s totally unreported, and under-reported. So I went to Germany after having faced pressure from the pro Israel groups in other countries, especially in the Netherlands. They managed to have a hearing that I had an invitation from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament, which eventually disinvited me. But it didn’t matter, because eventually I met with a former prime minister, with a former foreign minister, and with parliamentarians, and I also had a press conference at the parliament, but you know, meanwhile, they had the headlines. You know, “she was disinvited because she’s an anti-Semite.”
I went to Germany because I had been invited to the Munich Peace Conference, which took place right next door to this security conference. And I was invited to Munich University and Berlin Friar University. I went to Munich, and I gave my first speech where, of course, I spoke about what happens to the human rights and fundamental freedoms in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Problem number one, and you cannot say “from the river to the sea” in Germany. And the second thing is that I said, “Well, Germany should know, because Germany has committed two genocides in the span of 30 years.” And the genocide of the Jews was not only not the first genocide of human history, it was a genocide that was perpetrated in Europe because the Jews were the Other, like the Other who were the colonized in Asia, Africa, or in the Americas; and this was the second point you cannot say. So I was accused to have called for the erasure of Israel by saying from the river to the sea, and then to have relativized and trivialized the Holocaust. Now, this is why I say this. I mean, I’m debating whether they are stupid, or perform stupidity. And I was leaning toward a latter when I went to Germany. Now I think they’re really stupid. I mean, a lot of people in Germany are obtuse. They are so dogmatic that they don’t think, they just act like a pack, like a herd. It’s incredible that educated people can behave like a herd.
Then I went to Berlin, where I was due to speak at the so-called Free University of Berlin (at one point I told them to drop the “free” from the name). However, it didn’t happen, they cancelled the event because of pressure from the Berlin mayor, the Israeli ambassador, some MPs, the Minister of Science. It’s very serious that the university gave into this pressure. Eventually we had another event where they threatened to shut down the venue who had accepted to host us forever, and we had the event in the newspaper’s office. So instead of 600 there were only 150 people allowed in. There were queues of people waiting, looking, listening to the conference from their phone and looking at it from outside the window and it was an amazing event, so strong. And the police were there in full gear.
Myself and others spoke about the fact that Germany has an identity issue, because, after the Second World War, embracing Israel’s protection was the way to redeem themselves. But they have not really elaborated upon what they had done to the Jewish people, you know, so they stick to Israel without even realizing what they have done to the Jewish people. Because today they continue to persecute the Jewish people. There are Jewish people, including Israelis, who have been arrested and detained for standing in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, you should know that when I went to that event, I knew that the Federal Police had called the UN saying they were going to arrest me. So I didn’t sleep the night before, because I don’t want to be arrested! I was freaking out. You know, people think that I’m brave— I’m not brave, I’m just very sure. I’m very sure of what I’m doing. So I’m so solid and I’m so firm because I know that what I’m saying is true. But then here I am: I find myself in a place where I’m told you’re going to be arrested for what you said? Oh, hold on, hold on a second. So now the law enforcement is after me as if I were the criminal. So it took me the whole night thinking, trying to meditate, to really find peace. And then in the morning, I talked to my husband. I said, Max, these people want to arrest me, and he said they’re crazy. Go ahead and do what you always do. Talk to the people, because they need you to tell them there’s still some oxygen for them to breathe. And you today, you are their oxygen. And this thing really strengthened me Abby, and pushed me through the day. But it was very, very heavy. This has been the heaviest thing other than looking into the eyes of the genocide there and the victims of the genocide, this is, this is one of the most surreal and absurd things I’ve ever gone through.

ABBY MARTIN: Oh my God. That must have been so intense. It was intense just watching it unfold from the safety of Portland, Oregon, thinking you could actually get arrested. I mean, Francesca Albenese, the special rapporteur could be arrested??
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: A UN expert? And for what?
ABBY MARTIN: Exactly. When you zoom out and you look at the ICC, the threats and the sanctions against the ICC and South Africa from the Trump administration and the kind of this new political climate—even though both parties really mirror each other when it comes to this kind of Imperial conquest abroad and the support for Israel—there is something a little bit more “mask off” about the belligerence and the approach from the Trump administration of just no qualms at all about open threats and declaration of war against these institutions that are even trying to impose some sort of penalties for what Israel is doing, or to curb back the impunity. I guess there was this huge sense of relief when the ICC issued the arrest warrants, right? Yes, but now you see what Trump is doing, sanctioning the entire court, their families, imposing all these penalties. What is your response to this new political climate, and what could happen and manifest from the attempt from these global bodies to try to rein in the impunity,
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I do see the normalization and the spreading of mafia style techniques at the international level. It’s becoming more and more common and more normalized to cover up for crimes committed by a country in the name of “friendship”, or Alliance. And this is what the mafia is about. Eventually, you know, you have white collar crimes committed in the interest of protection, having each other’s back. But the point is that in the sanctions against the ICC, the attack on the functions and the persons involved in the ICC investigation; this is a new law, and it represents a fatal blow for the multilateral order. So there should be a strong, the strongest pushback ever from the rest of the world, and it’s not happening. What the US is doing, together with Israel, is dismantling, piece by piece, the multilateral order that has been established over the past eighty years.

ABBY MARTIN: Is there any way to circumvent that power that the US has the dominance over these institutions? We’re seeing efforts like the Hague group and things like that, but it does seem like, because of the power and domination of the US, it’s going to be hard to actually work around that. Because obviously you still have faith in international law, and you feel like the law is the solution. It’s just a matter of implementation. But there is that huge paradox: how do we implement something that the US is obstructing?
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I have already said that there are 192 one member states out of 193 in the UN that have nothing to gain from supporting the policies of the US in the long term. This is imperialism in its crudest form, and there is a need to disengage from that. The world should take this as an opportunity and as a blessing in disguise.
ABBY MARTIN: Indeed. I want to talk quickly about your next report about the institutional complicity in the genocide. What are you hoping to accomplish with the findings? And why is that the next focus for you?
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: The next report is about the private sector: the maze of business, corporations, financial institutions, research institutions, everyone that is partaking in the legality of the occupation at the international level. And there is a network, a system made of ganglions, that nourishes and profits from the legality of the occupation, from research centers, universities, charities, banks, pension funds, businesses, startups connected to the surveillance and military sector, the military sector itself. It’s sickening, if you look at it from within, because there are so many, there are so many ties that link to the to the contribution of individuals that are not even aware of their part of an unlawful endeavor. And this is what prompted my interest in exposing this, because I need one of the things that I promised myself I would do through my mandate, is that I would pull back the various layers covering the reality, covering the truth. I will expose it. This is what the truth teller, in the words and in spirit of Professor Edward Said, would do, and this is what I think is the role of anyone who has an inch of an intellect to contribute to the debate, so I need to expose that and seek and give civil society tools to seek accountability.
ABBY MARTIN: What do you think is next for Gaza in terms of how we can keep this issue on people’s minds? Because it seems like there’s a fatigue and exhaustion, especially with this resurgence of fascism in you know, my country, Francesca, that’s overseen and subsidizing the vast majority of what’s happening, there’s a lot of fatigue, because for the last 15 months, a lot of Americans have been protesting Biden for overseeing this, and now it’s like, oh my god, now we’re supposed to protest fascism and this kind of new era, and I think people just don’t know where to take it. And I think the worry is that Palestine is going to be absent from the conversation, considering the gravity of everything else that’s going on and compounding it with the ongoing genocide.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Look, I know that there is a lot of fatigue, but we cannot stop because we are tired. And I think that people do not realize you think that it’s been me contributing to the shift of debate, of the debate, but hell no, it’s been us — us, me, and other special rapporteurs and Amnesty International and people on the ground and scholars who have fought to stand by their principles and last but not least, the protesters and the Palestinians, those who have been really on the front line, the Palestinians who have been genocided. And while they were being genocided, they were sending messages to the outside world. And so the protesters were the ones carrying that word into their world. They need to be told that they need to be acknowledged. If I could, I would hug everyone and say thank you, because we are part of a revolution. We are still small and we need to grow, but we are many, so rather than grow, we need to unite. And this is what I keep on telling people, keep on moving, keep on talking. Don’t get gaslighted. Don’t get distracted. Keep on going. Even if we lose, we will lose fighting for something that’s just, and we will fall while fighting against something that is terribly untenably unjust. We need to try at least, and I’m very positive that if we do that, if we continue, if we are not defeated by our own fear or self doubt, we will make it. We will succeed. We will bring Israel to accountability. Many things seem impossible till they become possible. Nelson Mandela used to say, we need to feel it inside, really in our guts.

In Conversation:
Photography by:
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"excerpt" : "UNFLINCHING may be the best word to describe human rights lawyer Francesca Albanese, since her appointment as UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine in May 2022 and and more intensely since October 2023. She has staunchly defended the rights of the people of Palestine from the perspective of international law, no matter how hostile or misinformed her audience or interviewer may be. This conversation with journalist Abby Martin, which took place in Tunis in March 2025, highlight some of the fundamental issues of the Occupation of Palestine right now in the context of the ongoing genocide, including the U.S. administration’s erratic and grotesque policies serve as deliberate distractions from Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing, and the fact that that the suffering in Gaza is compounded by the inaction of global powers.",
"content" : "UNFLINCHING may be the best word to describe human rights lawyer Francesca Albanese, since her appointment as UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine in May 2022 and and more intensely since October 2023. She has staunchly defended the rights of the people of Palestine from the perspective of international law, no matter how hostile or misinformed her audience or interviewer may be. This conversation with journalist Abby Martin, which took place in Tunis in March 2025, highlight some of the fundamental issues of the Occupation of Palestine right now in the context of the ongoing genocide, including the U.S. administration’s erratic and grotesque policies serve as deliberate distractions from Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing, and the fact that that the suffering in Gaza is compounded by the inaction of global powers.ABBY MARTIN: Give us your reaction not just to Trump’s stated desire to “ethnically cleanse” Gaza and force Palestinian refugees into neighboring countries, but also to the psychological warfare aspect—this hyper-normalization where, every day, there’s a new spectacle to focus on. Meanwhile, the policies are ramping up and being greenlit.FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I believe there is a deliberate strategy behind the way the current U.S. president and his acolytes communicate. It’s intentional, and it’s psychologically overwhelming. Every day, most of the world—whether in Europe, Africa, or elsewhere—wakes up to some new, erratic, grotesque policy. Grotesque in the sense that it is so insulting to fundamental freedoms, basic human rights, and dignity that we are left stunned. The reaction is often, ‘Oh my God, what is he doing?’ or ‘Why aren’t people reacting?’We end up in a state of alarm and panic, distracted by the spectacle. This mode of communication is part of the problem, and I truly believe it’s intentional. While I don’t downplay the very real danger these people pose to fundamental freedoms—both for Americans and others—when looking at it from the perspective of Palestine, it serves as a massive distraction, and of course, an insult.The point is—and this is what I really need people to understand—while we speculate about why Trump is saying these things about Gaza, debating whether it’s legal or illegal (which, of course, it is illegal), we need to move beyond just debating. We need to take measures not only to prevent this from happening but to actively address this misconduct.Because the reality on the ground is that, regardless of what Trump says, Israel is already advancing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It’s incredible that statements regarding the so-called ‘Gaza Riviera’ came out so soon after a meeting with the Israeli prime minister—who is wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.I see these two forces not just colliding but colluding in pursuit of an even greater evil: the forced displacement of Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territories. And this is happening in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.ABBY MARTIN: Well, it’s shocking.FRANCESCA ALBANESE: The other shocking thing is how numb we have become to the suffering of the Palestinian people. Every day, Israeli jails vomit out what remains of Palestinians who have been arbitrarily arrested, detained, and tortured. I heard a former Palestinian detainee recount how he begged his torturer to treat him like an animal—saying, Can you just treat me like an animal? Because you would have more respect for animals.The level of sadism unleashed against Palestinians is truly unfathomable. It is redefining what genocide looks like, and yet, no one reacts.ABBY MARTIN: It seems like only a matter of time before the war continues there. Israel has already killed over 100 people and is refusing to comply with even this current phase. At every step, they’re trying to stall and prevent these phases from being fulfilled as they were negotiated.FRANCESCA ALBANESE: First of all, I want to say that it’s important to understand the ceasefire has never truly meant a cessation of violence for Palestinians—especially in Gaza. Hundreds of people have been killed, most of them shot as they tried to move from south to north.But there have been other violations of the ceasefire agreement—no mobile units or homes have been allowed in. Only two-thirds of the aid trucks that were agreed upon have entered, along with some of the tents. This is why people, especially young children, are freezing at night. The temperatures are extremely cold, and they die—not just from lack, but from terminal conditions caused by deprivation.The situation in Gaza is brutal. And yet, Qatar, Egypt, the U.S.—the supposed guardians of the ceasefire—what are they doing? There is a profound sense of abandonment. Palestinians have been left to their fate, and it’s incredibly unjust.This is why I understand why they look to me and my mandate as a beacon of light—because no one else is speaking up for their rights at this level. Yes, the people in the streets stand with Gaza, but what about those with real platforms, with even an inch of power? No one speaks out.ABBY MARTIN: I think that’s what feels so strange about this temporary cessation—or the ceasefire, as you said—because it doesn’t really mean a cessation of hostilities or violence. We’ve clearly seen what Israel has continued to do.But that’s what felt so strange about a ceasefire being put in place after 15 months of unending slaughter—especially of children. The bare minimum demand that activists and Palestinians have been calling for, for so long, has finally been met, but only after Gaza has already been decimated. After Israel has seized even more territory beyond its so-called borders.And now, amid the spectacle of Trump’s rhetoric, we see the war ramping up in the West Bank. Tanks entering for the first time in 20 years, killing dozens, kidnapping hundreds, expelling tens of thousands. Villages being cleared out, attacked by both settlers and armed soldiers. The genocide you’ve outlined in your reports, Francesca—it’s not just confined to Gaza. So talk about that.FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yeah, I think that we we are seeing what a settler colonial genocide is when people are sacrificed, are destroyed in the pursuit of control of land and resources attached to the land. This is what the genocide of the Native Americans in the United States, or in other places of the Americas, or in Canada, has been: it’s a fight that the settler, the settler society, undertakes against the natives in order to control land and resources. And you know, I hear at times people feel challenged and uncomfortable with the settler colonial paradigm applied to Israel. Excuse me, but I don’t challenge the facts that the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust had nowhere to go. But there are two things. First of all, the project of colonizing Palestine. It’s something that is written about — the founding fathers of Israel wrote about it since the end of the 19th century. So from the mid 1800’s onward, they’ve been talking about colonizing Palestine because they were looking for a homeland. And so they’ve been exploring different opportunities, from Argentina to Utah to Uganda and Palestine.So long before modern Israel there was an idea to move to this land of Palestine, that the Hebrew people of the Bible had an attachment to, no question. But what they did, they never went as refugees. And this is the second element: after the Holocaust, it’s not that they went as refugees or migrants seeking asylum. No, they went as part of a project that took the land, took the homes, took everything that had been left behind as people were pushed out. There has been a forced displacement and dispossession of the Palestinians that dates back 100 years, and it started with the Brits, and it has been a low intensity dispossession and forced displacement, with a few peaks, like in 1947-1949, in 1967 and now so it people need to understand that for the Palestinians, this is yet another, surely the most violent face of of annihilation. But this is what settler colonialism does.ABBY MARTIN: Indeed, Francesca, your compassion and your work has changed the way that people perceive the situation in Palestine. I mean, like you said, people with a modicum of power have just not lifted a finger or uttered one word about the situation. And it does seem it’s just very telling about our political climate and about the repression and chilling effect that this has had over the world’s intellectuals, politicians, media players, celebrities. I mean, the list goes on and on, but you’re out there, front and center, putting yourself out there to be a conduit, a very important one, and it has changed the minds and hearts of countless people. What initially drove you to advocate for Palestine?FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Oh, interestingly, I’m not sure it’s me who changed the way Palestine is discussed. I think I’m part of a transition, I’m part of a wave that has been it has been forming, and it has grown, propelled by the Palestinians, and then Israeli human rights organizations, and then international organizations, and then, little by little, the UN have been also involved in in correcting the narrative that has been dominant. So now, compared to three years ago, it’s much more common to talk about colonialism or apartheid. Yes, I have put a lot of effort into explaining the context to people. And I’ve never intended to be an advocate for the Palestinians. For me, it’s about so much more than the Palestinians. It’s about human rights. I’m a fierce human rights advocate because I do believe that this is what protects us. Human rights are the results of struggles for emancipation of so many people, those who fought for the abolition of slavery, for the end of racial segregation, for the end of apartheid, for the recognition of Indigenous people. It’s through revolutions and through revolts, and struggles that translate into improvement of living conditions. And this is the moment we live in.Because the Palestinians have been so fiercely repressed, and because this has happened in flagrant violation of international law, this is why I feel so committed. Because I’ve been asked by the United Nations to report on the reality on the ground. And the reality on the ground is obscene. The policies out there affecting the Palestinians are so deranged, that we are already in a dystopian reality, that I have to go back to my center and try to remember: why you are doing what you are doing, finding your purpose and connecting to the purpose of the others. This is what’s happening right now in my life, and my life in connection with the Palestinian struggle for freedom.ABBY MARTIN: To paraphrase Mohammed El-Kurd: It does feel like, especially for Palestinians, being trapped collectively in someone else’s hallucination. It’s like a fever dream that’s imposed on you, where black is white, up is down. Where drone bombings are not terrorism, but words are.It’s the intent versus the actions, and it’s this bizarre kind of framework that’s imposed on us by the people who are the colonizers. And to your point, these institutions are in place to try to protect some sort of semblance of international law and human rights that we have agreed on after World War Two. And it does seem like there are certain Western powers that are just making a mockery of them, especially European powers, who have been hell bent on criminalizing pro-Palestine speech and journalism, as opposed to actually stopping a genocide, which is the crime of all crimes.You were just feeling the brunt of this on your European tour in Germany. It was absolutely mind bending to see what happened to you in Germany, where they sent police to intimidate you. Already venues were shut down because of a “security risk”. Talk about what happened to you and why you think it is that not just Europe, but the West at large seems more concerned with clamping down on speech, as opposed to actual genocide.FRANCESCA ALBANESE: This is the reality, unfortunately, and I had an idea that the situation in Germany was critical before going. I went to Germany at the tail end of a long trip across Europe. I had been to Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands. The pro Israel lobby is pretty strong in the West, and it has grown stronger and stronger with increased focus on “security” and militarization and anti-Arabism, which is very, very wide-spread, very common. There has been a rise of racism in the past 20 years in Europe, and I think it’s totally unreported, and under-reported. So I went to Germany after having faced pressure from the pro Israel groups in other countries, especially in the Netherlands. They managed to have a hearing that I had an invitation from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament, which eventually disinvited me. But it didn’t matter, because eventually I met with a former prime minister, with a former foreign minister, and with parliamentarians, and I also had a press conference at the parliament, but you know, meanwhile, they had the headlines. You know, “she was disinvited because she’s an anti-Semite.”I went to Germany because I had been invited to the Munich Peace Conference, which took place right next door to this security conference. And I was invited to Munich University and Berlin Friar University. I went to Munich, and I gave my first speech where, of course, I spoke about what happens to the human rights and fundamental freedoms in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Problem number one, and you cannot say “from the river to the sea” in Germany. And the second thing is that I said, “Well, Germany should know, because Germany has committed two genocides in the span of 30 years.” And the genocide of the Jews was not only not the first genocide of human history, it was a genocide that was perpetrated in Europe because the Jews were the Other, like the Other who were the colonized in Asia, Africa, or in the Americas; and this was the second point you cannot say. So I was accused to have called for the erasure of Israel by saying from the river to the sea, and then to have relativized and trivialized the Holocaust. Now, this is why I say this. I mean, I’m debating whether they are stupid, or perform stupidity. And I was leaning toward a latter when I went to Germany. Now I think they’re really stupid. I mean, a lot of people in Germany are obtuse. They are so dogmatic that they don’t think, they just act like a pack, like a herd. It’s incredible that educated people can behave like a herd.Then I went to Berlin, where I was due to speak at the so-called Free University of Berlin (at one point I told them to drop the “free” from the name). However, it didn’t happen, they cancelled the event because of pressure from the Berlin mayor, the Israeli ambassador, some MPs, the Minister of Science. It’s very serious that the university gave into this pressure. Eventually we had another event where they threatened to shut down the venue who had accepted to host us forever, and we had the event in the newspaper’s office. So instead of 600 there were only 150 people allowed in. There were queues of people waiting, looking, listening to the conference from their phone and looking at it from outside the window and it was an amazing event, so strong. And the police were there in full gear.Myself and others spoke about the fact that Germany has an identity issue, because, after the Second World War, embracing Israel’s protection was the way to redeem themselves. But they have not really elaborated upon what they had done to the Jewish people, you know, so they stick to Israel without even realizing what they have done to the Jewish people. Because today they continue to persecute the Jewish people. There are Jewish people, including Israelis, who have been arrested and detained for standing in solidarity with the Palestinians.Meanwhile, you should know that when I went to that event, I knew that the Federal Police had called the UN saying they were going to arrest me. So I didn’t sleep the night before, because I don’t want to be arrested! I was freaking out. You know, people think that I’m brave— I’m not brave, I’m just very sure. I’m very sure of what I’m doing. So I’m so solid and I’m so firm because I know that what I’m saying is true. But then here I am: I find myself in a place where I’m told you’re going to be arrested for what you said? Oh, hold on, hold on a second. So now the law enforcement is after me as if I were the criminal. So it took me the whole night thinking, trying to meditate, to really find peace. And then in the morning, I talked to my husband. I said, Max, these people want to arrest me, and he said they’re crazy. Go ahead and do what you always do. Talk to the people, because they need you to tell them there’s still some oxygen for them to breathe. And you today, you are their oxygen. And this thing really strengthened me Abby, and pushed me through the day. But it was very, very heavy. This has been the heaviest thing other than looking into the eyes of the genocide there and the victims of the genocide, this is, this is one of the most surreal and absurd things I’ve ever gone through.ABBY MARTIN: Oh my God. That must have been so intense. It was intense just watching it unfold from the safety of Portland, Oregon, thinking you could actually get arrested. I mean, Francesca Albenese, the special rapporteur could be arrested??FRANCESCA ALBANESE: A UN expert? And for what?ABBY MARTIN: Exactly. When you zoom out and you look at the ICC, the threats and the sanctions against the ICC and South Africa from the Trump administration and the kind of this new political climate—even though both parties really mirror each other when it comes to this kind of Imperial conquest abroad and the support for Israel—there is something a little bit more “mask off” about the belligerence and the approach from the Trump administration of just no qualms at all about open threats and declaration of war against these institutions that are even trying to impose some sort of penalties for what Israel is doing, or to curb back the impunity. I guess there was this huge sense of relief when the ICC issued the arrest warrants, right? Yes, but now you see what Trump is doing, sanctioning the entire court, their families, imposing all these penalties. What is your response to this new political climate, and what could happen and manifest from the attempt from these global bodies to try to rein in the impunity,FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I do see the normalization and the spreading of mafia style techniques at the international level. It’s becoming more and more common and more normalized to cover up for crimes committed by a country in the name of “friendship”, or Alliance. And this is what the mafia is about. Eventually, you know, you have white collar crimes committed in the interest of protection, having each other’s back. But the point is that in the sanctions against the ICC, the attack on the functions and the persons involved in the ICC investigation; this is a new law, and it represents a fatal blow for the multilateral order. So there should be a strong, the strongest pushback ever from the rest of the world, and it’s not happening. What the US is doing, together with Israel, is dismantling, piece by piece, the multilateral order that has been established over the past eighty years.ABBY MARTIN: Is there any way to circumvent that power that the US has the dominance over these institutions? We’re seeing efforts like the Hague group and things like that, but it does seem like, because of the power and domination of the US, it’s going to be hard to actually work around that. Because obviously you still have faith in international law, and you feel like the law is the solution. It’s just a matter of implementation. But there is that huge paradox: how do we implement something that the US is obstructing?FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I have already said that there are 192 one member states out of 193 in the UN that have nothing to gain from supporting the policies of the US in the long term. This is imperialism in its crudest form, and there is a need to disengage from that. The world should take this as an opportunity and as a blessing in disguise.ABBY MARTIN: Indeed. I want to talk quickly about your next report about the institutional complicity in the genocide. What are you hoping to accomplish with the findings? And why is that the next focus for you?FRANCESCA ALBANESE: The next report is about the private sector: the maze of business, corporations, financial institutions, research institutions, everyone that is partaking in the legality of the occupation at the international level. And there is a network, a system made of ganglions, that nourishes and profits from the legality of the occupation, from research centers, universities, charities, banks, pension funds, businesses, startups connected to the surveillance and military sector, the military sector itself. It’s sickening, if you look at it from within, because there are so many, there are so many ties that link to the to the contribution of individuals that are not even aware of their part of an unlawful endeavor. And this is what prompted my interest in exposing this, because I need one of the things that I promised myself I would do through my mandate, is that I would pull back the various layers covering the reality, covering the truth. I will expose it. This is what the truth teller, in the words and in spirit of Professor Edward Said, would do, and this is what I think is the role of anyone who has an inch of an intellect to contribute to the debate, so I need to expose that and seek and give civil society tools to seek accountability.ABBY MARTIN: What do you think is next for Gaza in terms of how we can keep this issue on people’s minds? Because it seems like there’s a fatigue and exhaustion, especially with this resurgence of fascism in you know, my country, Francesca, that’s overseen and subsidizing the vast majority of what’s happening, there’s a lot of fatigue, because for the last 15 months, a lot of Americans have been protesting Biden for overseeing this, and now it’s like, oh my god, now we’re supposed to protest fascism and this kind of new era, and I think people just don’t know where to take it. And I think the worry is that Palestine is going to be absent from the conversation, considering the gravity of everything else that’s going on and compounding it with the ongoing genocide.FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Look, I know that there is a lot of fatigue, but we cannot stop because we are tired. And I think that people do not realize you think that it’s been me contributing to the shift of debate, of the debate, but hell no, it’s been us — us, me, and other special rapporteurs and Amnesty International and people on the ground and scholars who have fought to stand by their principles and last but not least, the protesters and the Palestinians, those who have been really on the front line, the Palestinians who have been genocided. And while they were being genocided, they were sending messages to the outside world. And so the protesters were the ones carrying that word into their world. They need to be told that they need to be acknowledged. If I could, I would hug everyone and say thank you, because we are part of a revolution. We are still small and we need to grow, but we are many, so rather than grow, we need to unite. And this is what I keep on telling people, keep on moving, keep on talking. Don’t get gaslighted. Don’t get distracted. Keep on going. Even if we lose, we will lose fighting for something that’s just, and we will fall while fighting against something that is terribly untenably unjust. We need to try at least, and I’m very positive that if we do that, if we continue, if we are not defeated by our own fear or self doubt, we will make it. We will succeed. We will bring Israel to accountability. Many things seem impossible till they become possible. Nelson Mandela used to say, we need to feel it inside, really in our guts."
}
,
"relatedposts": [
{
"title" : "Indonesia at a Crossroads: Revolt, Reckoning, and Reform",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/indonesia-at-a-crossroads-revolt-reckoning-and-reform",
"date" : "2025-09-05 13:06:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/indonesia-chairfire.jpg",
"excerpt" : "1. Death Ignites National Outrage The political unrest sweeping Indonesia was triggered by the fatal police incident that claimed the life of a young motorbike driver, Affan Kurniawan, during a protest. Videos of the incident went viral, catalyzing outrage and prompting widespread demonstrations.(The Economist, AP News)",
"content" : "1. Death Ignites National Outrage The political unrest sweeping Indonesia was triggered by the fatal police incident that claimed the life of a young motorbike driver, Affan Kurniawan, during a protest. Videos of the incident went viral, catalyzing outrage and prompting widespread demonstrations.(The Economist, AP News)2. Oligarchic Frustration Meets State Discontent The protests were more than a reaction to a single tragedy—they reflect deeper resentment toward rising economic inequality, government corruption, and perceived elite impunity. Outrage also flared when lawmakers revealed they received a monthly housing allowance ten times higher than the Jakarta minimum wage.(AP News, Jacobin)3. Heavy-Handed Response Fuels Escalation Security forces responded with force, resulting in at least 10 deaths nationwide and over a thousand arrests. Buildings—parliament and police stations included—were torched in moments of rage and despair.(Indonesia at Melbourne, AP News, Foreign Policy, The Times of India)4. Government Concedes, but Doubts Remain In a bid to defuse tensions, President Prabowo Subianto fired the officer involved in Kurniawan’s death, rescinded legislators’ allowances, suspended overseas trips, and pledged investigations. Yet, many see this as insufficient given systemic grievances.(The Australian, The Diplomat, AP News)5. A Reversion to Militarization? Beyond economic and social pressure, Indonesia is grappling with democratic backsliding. Moves by the government to allow active-duty generals to assume civilian ministerial roles have sparked fears of a return to authoritarian control. Proposals to expand military involvement into civil affairs are meeting growing resistance.(International IDEA, Wikipedia)6. Youth are Engaged—But Vulnerable Students and civil society activists are at the forefront of the resistance, demanding transparency and accountability—especially around military reform. But with civic education weak and political representation often dynastic, sustaining long-term change remains a challenge.(East Asia Forum, Freedom House)7. Economic Fragility Adds Fuel to the Fire Indonesia’s economic growth has slowed dramatically—falling below 5%—amid budget cuts to health and infrastructure. Rising public debt, currency instability, and capital flight are making policymakers increasingly desperate to assert control.(broadsheet.asia, biia.com, AInvest, GIS Reports)What’s at Stake?Indonesia now stands at a critical fault line: between authoritarian retrenchment and democratic renewal. The popular protests shine a light on inequality, governance failures, and militarization. The president’s concessions—though visible—may be too little, too late without structural reform.That said, youth-led resistance, digital solidarity, and civil society activism offer a fragile but meaningful glimmer of hope. Their next steps will determine whether Indonesia moves toward meaningful reforms—or slides deeper into repression."
}
,
{
"title" : "Clear Backpacks, Columbine, and the Colors of School Safety",
"author" : "Derecka Purnell",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/clear-backpacks-columbine-colors-of-school-safety",
"date" : "2025-09-02 23:38:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2025_9_Gun_Violence_Derecka_Purnell_1.jpg",
"excerpt" : "In elementary school, our classroom’s wooden door displayed a laminated sheet that listed emergency drills, coordinated by shades of urgency. Green, yellow, orange, red. Fire drills were fun. We stole giggles and glances at friends and crushes as everyone lined up outside on the playground. Tornado drills - when we were sure they were just drills - took us into hallways to tuck our heads between our knees for a thrilling disruption to an otherwise routine school day. Teachers taught us to scoot under our tiny desks during earthquake drills. A couple of kids would get in trouble for twisting their heads around and shaking on their backs, clearly possessed by the demons of imaginary tremors. We’d defend our acting, “But why we gotta practice sitting still for an earthquake!?”",
"content" : "In elementary school, our classroom’s wooden door displayed a laminated sheet that listed emergency drills, coordinated by shades of urgency. Green, yellow, orange, red. Fire drills were fun. We stole giggles and glances at friends and crushes as everyone lined up outside on the playground. Tornado drills - when we were sure they were just drills - took us into hallways to tuck our heads between our knees for a thrilling disruption to an otherwise routine school day. Teachers taught us to scoot under our tiny desks during earthquake drills. A couple of kids would get in trouble for twisting their heads around and shaking on their backs, clearly possessed by the demons of imaginary tremors. We’d defend our acting, “But why we gotta practice sitting still for an earthquake!?”Then, we started preparing for people to kill us.Tornadoes don’t twist door knobs, target classrooms, punish giggles or reload weapons. Shootings are unnatural disasters. The one at Columbine happened right after my 9th birthday. Learning that kids kill kids colored my school days more. Intruder drills are dark. We’d turn off the lights, sit in silence, and hide in the coat room. At last, an administrator tapped on each door to signal that we were clear.In the thirty years since those sixteen kids had their lives stolen in Colorado, I have been a student, youth worker and organizer, freedom school instructor, middle school teacher, board member of a youth nonprofit, the best aunt to my niblings, an improving godmother, and now parent of an eleven and nine year old– nearly an expert in first days of school. We send kids into the world. We expect them to come home with their crayons and their complaints. Sometimes, they do not. According to data by the Washington Post, more than 394,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine, impacting more than 400 schools across the country. Over 200 people have been killed and twice as many people have been injured.On the last day before my first holiday break from teaching, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was breaking news. Word passed between teacher to teacher like a virus, each one of us sinking with symptoms of heartbreak into the spinning black office chairs around the work lounge. A few months later, pessimism spread, too. A white man in the United States of America could murder his mother, and then a class of nearly all white kindergarteners, and nothing would really happen. Twenty miniature caskets and politicians failed to carry any piece of federal legislation down the aisle to be signed into law for ten years. President Biden ultimately signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, which did not address how the Sandy Hook shooter ultimately secured the weapon used in the killing spree, which was legally obtained by his mother. More mass school shootings followed.About ten states have bans on assault rifles, important bans birthed in the activism and tears following deadly rampages. Yet the usual political sluggishness and nothingness resulting from school shootings was one of the most important lessons that would secretly haunt me throughout the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement: most white lives did not matter in the U.S. In fact, most people who are white can never matter as long as death-dealing forms of oppression exist, including patriarchy, ableism, homophobia, imperialism, capitalism, and white supremacy. Those children were sacrificed at capitalism’s bloody altar, little casualties for the sake of gunmaking CEOs.As with all pain and suffering, capitalists turn school shootings into a market. Kids get killed, companies get cash. According to a major study, people bought three million more guns than normal in the five months following the Sandy Hook shooting. The same study found an additional correlated spike in unintentional gun-related deaths for sixty people, including twenty children in that period. No drills or alarms or color coded systems can prepare anyone for these accidents.Gun sales belong to an entire marketplace that depends on preventable deaths. Instead of eliminating the problems - including weapons manufacturers - capitalists sell “solutions.”Florida is spending half a million dollars to pilot drone technology in three school districts. Pilots will operate the drones inside the schools from a remote command center, and for a thousand bucks a month, be able to “respond within five seconds and take out the shooter in less than a minute.” What if there are multiple shooters, like Columbine? Maybe multiple drones! What if the shooting takes place on the playground? Maybe playground drones! What if the shooting takes place on the school bus? Maybe school bus drones! Of course, the solutions have to be piloted, subscribed to, implemented, insured, updated, repaired, replaced, repackaged, and resold. We are in a kaleidoscope of the school to prison pipeline, military industrial complex, and carceral state.Two years ago, my kids’ school district emailed parents another new “solution:” clear backpacks. In three bullet points, they listed that clear backpacks will help school officials scan bookbags, reduce weapons and contraband, and increase transparency among students. As cons, they acknowledged that some people might view it as an invasion of privacy and that the bookbags might be hard to find in stores. My then nine-year old child had questions.* Why are they turning our school into a prison? Isn’t that much plastic bad for the environment? What do they think might happen?*Columbine and Sandy Hook were not secrets I withheld. His questions made me feel otherwise. When he found out how Tamir Rice was killed later in the school year, he was livid that in all that I had told him about the police, I did not tell him that they also can kill kids. In 2014, the year he was born, it was news to me, too. I learned about Aiyanna Stanley-Jones after Michael Brown was killed, even though cops killed her four years earlier. Breaking old news to children hurts. In a moment, they experience the specific cruelty of the incident, the general cruelty of the world, and immediate vulnerability to a new danger. His childhood is now colored by these events, and the clear bookpack solution was as fake as the plastic material of the bag.His questions led us on a research journey. Some school districts in other parts of the country introduced clear bookbags and then rescinded them. Why? Clear backpacks contain polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. The kind of PVC in bookbags contains a chemical that can cause cancer, asthma, fertility issues, early puberty for girls, liver damage, and mental developmental issues. In 2022, the Charlotte School District in North Carolina halted its bookbag policy and rollout due to California Proposition 65 Warning attached to the clear backpacks, notifying consumers of cancer causing agents due to the PVC.One year later, vinyl chloride, the underlying chemical in PVC, came into public scrutiny in the aftermath of a major train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Residents of the small, mostly white town witnessed a catastrophic spill and burn that released over 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride into the soil, air, and water, alongside other toxic chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency reported that public health agencies informed residents that vinyl chloride is a known human carcinogen that “continuous lifetime exposure to low levels of vinyl chloride can increase an individual’s risk of developing liver cancer, as well as other cancers.” The EPA has ongoing reporting on the environmental impact of the toxins, explaining to residents that screenings have returned readings below the amount necessary for government protection. Residents have organized and reported otherwise, including “recurring rashes, lesions, and bloody noses endured by themselves, their loved ones, and their children.”Not only would PVC bookbags cause plastic pollution for the planet, it was bad for humans, too.The pervasiveness of guns and the political permission for school shootings to persist will attempt to undermine other aspects of our social, physical, and mental health. Clear backpacks - which experts warn that no evidence supports improving safety- may make parents and educators feel better. But it is not worth exposing kids to cancer causing agents, slowly, intentionally, on their backs, everyday, and equally important, conditioning us all to perform or accept additional surveillance as convenient protective measures.My kid and I were successful at convincing some parents and the school leadership to reverse the clear backpack policy. But the next year, a new principal introduced optional mesh bookbags as an alternative, gentler surveillance, and so our fight continues. The color of school safety is not clear, and a clear backpack is not as immediately lethal as a gun. What remains dangerous is the kind of market driven approach that offers new drills and commodities towards a different kind of preventable tragedy. Let’s not be the kind of society who accepts it."
}
,
{
"title" : "To Do the Greatest Harm: Cornell University’s Complicity in International Violence & Destruction",
"author" : "Eliza Salamon & MB",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/cornell-complicity",
"date" : "2025-08-20 12:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/greg-daines-A37V-7GyDDg-unsplash.jpg",
"excerpt" : " This independent research shown in this report, show that the US and Israeli military, the largest military and weapons corporations, and technology companies have invested over $180 million in Cornell researchers and departments, mostly from 2023-2024.",
"content" : " This independent research shown in this report, show that the US and Israeli military, the largest military and weapons corporations, and technology companies have invested over $180 million in Cornell researchers and departments, mostly from 2023-2024.Discussion of the military-industrial complex often leaves out its third arm: academia. For many decades, the American defense industry, weapons manufacturers, and universities have collaborated in a profitable pattern that turn students and academics into cogs of the American war machine. 1 2 The Department of Defense (D.o.D.) is the branch of government that distributes taxpayer funds, generally through direct and indirect contracts, to research universities.This report unmasks Cornell University’s participation in this system and its complicity in global violence, destruction, and human rights violations while it enjoys a $10.7b endowment. In particular, our analysis, largely based on Office of Sponsored Research files from 2001-2024, finds that Cornell has been complicit in the U.S.-backed Saudi genocide of Yemen and the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide of Gaza. This complicity has been established through two forms of collaboration: Direct collaboration, through tens of millions of dollars in funding, with weapons manufacturers and fossil fuel companies. These include companies from which the student undergraduate and graduate bodies have adopted divestment resolutions (BAE Systems, Boeing, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Technion Institute, and ThyssenKrupp). 3 4 Direct collaboration with Saudi ARAMCO and the Israeli Ministry of Defense (I.M.o.D.), including millions of dollars in funding. In addition, Cornell’s partnership with the Israeli university Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) through the New York City Cornell Tech Campus is uniquely egregious and a direct form of collaboration. 5 Much of the data supporting this has been aggregated into an excel file attached here 6 with the original files. 7 Hundreds of these sponsored research projects are listed in the linked table in addition to D.o.D. work that is included in our larger report. 8 The projects vary in subject from vaccines to cyber to hardware to policy. The table should be treated as a largely representative but incomplete list of Cornell’s involvement with the most prominent weapons manufacturing-related entities.Israeli Funding and Cornell’s Role in Apartheid and GenocideIn 2007, Harold Craighead, Professor in Applied and Engineering Physics, secured $300k from the I.M.o.D. The funded project focused on the development and fabrication of nanodevices. Though we were unable to obtain papers specifically citing this funding other than the official reporting, we present here the most plausible outcome of the proposed research. In 2006, Craighead received a visit from former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres.9 In a discussion with Peres, Craighead mentioned his collaboration with Tel Aviv University (T.A.U). Indeed, in the same year Craighead published a paper in collaboration with employees of T.A.U. focusing on the same topic of nanodevices.10 Military applications of the research include nano-meter scale robotics and biotechnologies along with optics/imaging. In a similar vein, the unaffiliated partnership between Lockheed Martin and Rice University documents other broad military applications of nano-tech.11In 2020, Robert F. Shepherd, an Associate Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, solicited $100k from the I.M.o.D. for elastic metamaterials research. Like Craighead, this funding is not reported in any of Shepherd’s publications, though one can extrapolate on the basis of the research topic as to which papers of his were I.M.o.D. funded. In particular, a paper from 2020 focuses precisely on the use of fluid flow to modulate material shape.12 This field is largely concerned with the manufacturing of materials which can change properties like texture or rigidity as a modulated response. Such applications are useful for the development of robotic components which can manipulate or navigate the environment. In addition, Shepherd’s collaborator at Israeli university Technion, Amir Gat, lists a 2019-2020 $100k funding grant from Maffat (a joint administrative body of the I.M.o.D and the I.D.F.) under the same topic.13 Conference proceedings also fit under the same topic and Shepherd went to Technion to present his work at a conference in 2020.14 15Frank Wise, Professor of Engineering in Applied and Engineering Physics, also solicited $100k from the I.M.o.D. to research high-power lasers. Such terawatt fiber lasers have a variety of applications but are of particular military interest for destroying aircraft or infrastructure without the use of conventional kinetic weapons like missiles. Lockheed Martin, a weapons manufacturer, reports its own interests in high-power lasers and such weapons are already being applied aboard military ships.16 17 18 This funding resulted in a paper on lasers that can be modulated to use various modes of emission.19 Pavel Sidorenko, a post-doc within Wise’s group, is now holding a position at the Technion continuing research on the high-power fiber lasers “which are becoming increasingly important in a variety of fields ranging from military applications to healthcare”.20Qing Zhao, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, also solicited $420k from the I.M.o.D. between 2021 and 2024. Zhao used this funding to research artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and cites the I.M.o.D. funding in two papers dealing with computer vision and decision-making algorithms.21 22 Focusing on the former, Zhao’s work on computer vision enables cameras to more effectively identify objects, persons and notice patterns.23 Indeed, such computer vision algorithms have been implemented by the Israeli military to identify Palestinians from Gaza at checkpoints targeting forcibly displaced refugees.24Zhao’s work also has applications in the development of efficient autonomous drone swarms, by producing algorithms that lead to effective decision-making.25 Suppose a swarm of drones is navigating an area, each with its own sensors or cameras learning about its environment, then the data has to be processed leading to a decision. Zhao’s work creates an algorithm that processes this information in a centralized way and then makes a decision. This research can be applied to make decisions such as whether or not to kill an individual or bomb a building. Per a Booz Allen Hamilton report, Israel has been to date the first to use machine learning, including drone swarms successfully in military campaigns:“Israel’s victory over Hamas in 2021 was the first war to be won via the asymmetric advantage provided by AI, and the conflict in Gaza that started in 2023 continues to be characterized by AI as well as information warfare in the cognitive domain… Israel became the first country to use true drone swarms, deploying them in its 2021 conflict with Gaza, and is arguably the global leader in this technology because of their implementation of Elbit Systems’ Legion-X, a modular, heterogeneous, multi-domain C2 swarm system”.26 See also.27The use of these machine learning algorithms in Gaza has been documented in +972 magazine with the implementation of algorithms known as The Gospel, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy?28On the policy side, Sarah Kreps, Professor in Government, conducts public policy and supply chain studies for the D.o.D. and the Israeli government. In 2024, she published a study on the best surveillance practices for governments to engage in.29 The study was in part funded by the Israel National Cyber Directorate.Given Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians, Cornell’s collaboration with Technion University in Israel is another blatant example of its active complicity. With the establishment of the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in NYC in 2012, Cornell has doubled down on its commitment to its Israeli collaborations, despite the efforts of its activist student body and the protest of NYC communities.30 31 At the announcement of the partnership, the Israeli consul expressed the “strategic importance” of the project to change the state’s association with conflict and violence, and instead associate it with innovation.32 Cornell consistently touts its collaboration with Technion in published articles: “The impact of the Technion on Israel’s economy, society and defense is unmatched”.33Further, the word “defense” is often used by weapons manufacturers and governments as a euphemism for offensive capabilities. The Technion has also been instrumental in advancing technological capabilities of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.34 35 36 It also had several programs and scholarships sponsored by weapons manufacturers Rafael and Elbit Systems.37 In addition, Technion has been directly complicit through providing support to the Israeli military.38 As the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (B.D.S.) movement has documented: “Technion has developed a course on marketing the Israeli weapons industry to the international market for export. Technion also has numerous joint academic programs with the Israeli military and developed the remote control capabilities for the Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer used by the Israeli military to demolish Palestinian homes—considered collective punishment under international law.”39 40 41 42 Cornell Tech’s council includes Michael Bloomberg who once stated: “I’ll never condition aid to Israel.”43 This may reflect, in part, why Cornell’s leadership has refused to even consider divestment.Saudi Funding and Cornell’s Role in Climate Change and Human Rights AbusesCornell’s complicity with genocidal governments extends further through its substantial relationships with the Saudi government and its institutions. University programs and individual faculty benefit from Saudi funds despite the many violations of human rights carried out by Mohammed Bin Salman, the Saudi totalitarian Crown Prince and Prime Minister. These include but are not limited to the following: the U.S.-backed genocide in Yemen, the assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the country’s limitless production of fossil fuels, and its persistent crackdowns on its own activists, including feminists. The Yemeni genocide claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians from 2015 to 2022.44 [^45] American-made weapons were used and made the U.S. complicit.45 46 47 48 At no point did Cornell, as an institution, take action to break ties with the Saudi dictatorship. Cornell’s former president Frank H. T. Rhodes served as a trustee at the King Abdullah University of Science Technology along with former M.I.T. president Charles M. Vest.49Over the past few years, faculty have also been subsidized through research funding from Saudi ARAMCO, the majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company responsible for almost 4.5% of all global CO2 and methane emissions between 1965 and 2017.50 The company has a long history of obstructing action against climate change through aggressive lobbying and funding of Western research, especially at American universities.51 The work financed by Saudi ARAMCO at Cornell is focused on oil refinement and energy generation broadly, a problematic venture, especially considering academia’s knowledge of the human role in perpetuating climate change.Amongst the employees who received funds from ARAMCO are Lawrence Cathles, Lynden Archer and Emmanuel Giannelis, professors in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Materials Science, respectively, who received $1.3m from 2009 to 2011 through the KAUST-Cornell Center for Energy and Sustainability. Despite its name, this center, a collaboration between Cornell and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (K.A.U.S.T.) in Saudi Arabia from 2008-2015, was committed to research on oil and gas production.52 53 Further K.A.U.S.T. funding followed: Giannelis also received $531k between 2012 and 2014. Archer, current Dean of the School of Engineering, received $84k in 2017. In 2023, $250k went to Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yong Joo and $400k to a professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Geoffrey Coates. Yong Joo also solicited $200k in funding along with Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering Greeshma Gadikota’s $300k in 2024.Collaboration With Weapons ManufacturersIn addition to collaborating with violent regimes, Cornell has received millions of dollars in research funding that have come directly from weapons manufacturers. Publicly available documents dating from 2001 show this funding includes the “primes”54: Lockheed Martin [~$3m], Raytheon [~$6.5m], Boeing [~$1.4m], Northrop Grumman [~$2.3m] and General Dynamics [~$240k]. B.A.E. Systems [~$2.3m], L3Harris [~$1.4m], Shell [$500k], Exxon [~$1.2m], Intel Corporation [~$16.4m], I.B.M. [~$7.2m], M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory [~$250k], Teledyne [~$700k] and others have also given considerable research funding to the Cornell employees.The group of studies are far too extensive to discuss in one document but demonstrate the ultimate functioning of so-called “academic” research. The funding has been for machine learning and artificial intelligence development, software and computer language platforms, silicon chip and battery development, miniature satellites, robotics, data visualization, 3-D rendering and much more. All of these are components that are often declared as being “dual use” but are used by militaries and states well beyond any stated consumer use. As one example, Raytheon has published articles on its web page touting its collaboration with Cornell on gallium-nitride materials and refinement radio-frequency technologies.55These collaborations extend to student life. Cornell has overtly partnered with Lockheed Martin to create a Masters of Engineering program in Systems Engineering.56 On the front page of the program is stated: “Lockheed Martin Employees - Welcome!”. Standards are lowered for Lockheed Martin employees by waiving GRE scores and requiring only one recommendation letter. Similarly, Cornell has an identical partnership with Boeing for a Masters program along with a 5% tuition discount and waiving of application fee.57The university also holds a key laboratory for the Northeast Regional Defense Technology Hub (N.O.R.D.T.E.C.H.) along with a plethora of other universities and weapons manufacturers.58 Though its aims include a wide array of technologies, they are highly focused on the development of computer chips. The basis of the organization is to create a collaborative space between weapons manufacturers, the D.o.D., and academia.The Cornell Tech campus in N.Y.C. also does its own collaborations, including with DefenseArk.59 Through its startup award it has helped sustain autonomous robotics companies like Aatonomy which are looking to do business with the D.o.D.60OutlookIn the midst of foreign catastrophes including the Yemeni genocide, the ongoing Palestinian genocide and the assassination of hundreds of reporters in Gaza, Cornell has never ceased nor paused its collaboration with regimes or the weapons manufacturers supplying them. Not only does this demonstrate its institutional and individual collaboration with actors that consistently violate international law, but also reveals that its professed human values are ultimately hollow calls. In our non-comprehensive analysis of Cornell research funding from 2001-2024, we found that researchers and institutes received hundreds of millions of dollars from the D.o.D, weapons manufacturers, and international governments committing vast human rights violations. Further investigation would also reveal indirect transfers of technology and weaponry from Cornell to U.A.E.’s fueling of the Sudanese genocide by means of weapons manufacturing sales.61Cornell feigns its research to be merely theoretical, non-applied, or done for the sake of “knowledge production.” David Gray Widder, post-doctoral researcher at Cornell Tech has recently written about the impossibility of making a distinction between basic and applied research when such research is funded by entities whose explicit purpose is to enact harm: “this mutual enlistment is crucial to the perpetuation of the military-industrial-commercial-academic complex, and to the technopolitical imaginaries of security through military domination that keep public funds flowing to projects in more efficient killing and destruction”.62Political scientist Neve Gordon and medical anthropologist Guy Shalev published a recent article titled “The Shame of Israeli Medicine”, which concludes that Israeli academics are not doing their part in preventing the genocide and therefore require external pressure and sanctioned from outside Israel. Despite these findings, Cornell Tech’s president Michael Kotlikoff recently stated proudly in a speech that “at Cornell Tech, we have the most intensive and meaningful collaboration with an Israeli university of any institution in this country”.63As Cornell reportedly prepares to reach a $100 million settlement with the Trump administration over allegations of anti-semitism, it draws ever closer to the belly of the beast.64 The Trump administration’s blatant weaponization of anti-semitism is one of its many tactics designed to manufacture consent for its crackdown on higher education and prompt capitulation. With this settlement, Cornell’s alliances with repressive regimes are only continuing to expand. An institution that continues to tie itself to the destruction of international communities can only degrade and devolve into a symbol of oppression.This report finds that Cornell’s purported goals in sustaining human-centred values are not only lacking, but are egregiously contrary to them. On an institutional and individual level, Cornell is intimately complicit in the act of genocide. And though Cornell has its own unique forms of complicity, the academic-military-industrial complex permeates the entire American system of higher education. If these institutions, as they have demonstrated thus far, do not have the moral capacity to make ethical and just decisions, it is the responsibility of students, faculty, staff, and the broader international academic community to put pressure, sanctions, and boycotts on them. 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}
]
}