An Elmhurst conservative activist on Monday criticized the city's mayor, saying he was under the influence of a "radical" LGBTQ group.
Resident Tom Chavez, who often addresses the local school board, spoke at Monday's City Council meeting.
Mayor Scott Levin did not respond to Chavez's comments. A representative for the Elmhurst Pride Collective said Tuesday that Chavez was "very confused" about what the group is and does.
In 2021, Chavez started regularly appearing at school board meetings. At the time, he contended local schools were teaching "critical race theory," though he provided no evidence.
He ran for school board last year, but lost by a wide margin.
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891[1]: 17 [2]: 5 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo and Caribbean Vodou.[3] The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays.
Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, and moved with her family to Eatonville, Florida in 1894. She later used Eatonville as the setting for many of her stories. In her early career, Hurston conducted anthropological and ethnographic research as a scholar at Barnard College and Columbia University.[4] She had an interest in African-American and Caribbean folklore, and how these contributed to the community's identity.
She also wrote about contemporary issues in the black community and became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Her short satires, drawing from the African-American experience and racial division, were published in anthologies such as The New Negro and Fire!![5] After moving back to Florida, Hurston wrote and published her literary anthology on African-American folklore in North Florida, Mules and Men (1935), and her first three novels: Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934); Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937); and Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939).[6] Also published during this time was Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938), documenting her research on rituals in Jamaica and Haiti.
Hurston's works concerned both the African-American experience and her struggles as an African-American woman. Her novels went relatively unrecognized by the literary world for decades. In 1975, fifteen years after Hurston's death, interest in her work was revived after author Alice Walker published an article, "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston" (later retitled "Looking for Zora"), in Ms. magazine.[7][8] In 2001, Hurston's manuscript Every Tongue Got to Confess, a collection of folktales gathered in the 1920s, was published after being discovered in the Smithsonian archives. Her nonfiction book Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo", about the life of Cudjoe Lewis (Kossola), was published in 2018.
At least seven people were killed overnight in Israeli air strikes on tents in the Al Mawasi humanitarian zone in western Rafah, Palestinian Wafa news agency reported on Wednesday.
Scores of others were injured and tents occupied by displaced Palestinians caught fire, local sources said.
Al Mawasi area was designated as a “safe zone” by the Israeli army.
According to Reuters, the OHCHR report details six incidents that took place between 7 October and 2 December, in which the UN human rights office was able to assess the kinds of weapons, the means and the methods used in these attacks.
“We felt that it was important to get this report out now, especially because in the case of some of these attacks, some eight months have passed, and we are yet to see credible and transparent investigations,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for OHCHR.
“We call first on the Israeli authorities to take steps to ensure that proper investigations, transparent investigations are held.” She added that, in the absence of transparent investigations, there would be “a need for international action in this regard as well.”
In Jerusalem, at least one person was wounded and nine others arrested Monday night as thousands of protesters rallied near the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Among those detained was a family member of an Israeli taken hostage by Hamas. It was one of dozens of protests taking place across Israel this week demanding immediate elections and a Gaza ceasefire. This is 26-year-old Yotam Cohen, whose brother remains a hostage in Gaza.
Yotam Cohen: “The last eight months have been an emotional roller coaster for me and the other hostage families. And I think that without a struggle and without the protest, this deal will also be put down. And we’re here to tell the government and shout for them to close the deal and to bring them home.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticised the administration of US President Joe Biden for “withholding weapons” to Israel in recent months as it presses its war on Gaza.
Netanyahu said in a video statement on Tuesday that it was “inconceivable” that the United States had been “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel” in recent months.
WASHINGTON, June 18 — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today released the following statement in response to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s claims that the United States should be supplying Israel with additional weapons and ammunitions in its war against Gaza:
Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu put out a video attacking the United States for not sending him bombs fast enough. No doubt, we will hear similar complaints when he addresses Congress on July 24.
Virtually everyone recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism and respond to the horrific October 7th Hamas attack that killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and took hundreds of hostages. But the Israeli government did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. Yet that is exactly what has happened.
Let’s be clear: the right wing, extremist Netanyahu government has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and injured nearly 85,000, sixty percent of whom are women, children, or elderly.
After displacing nearly 1.8 million people from their homes, it has damaged or destroyed more than 60 percent of the housing stock in Gaza.
It has devastated the civilian infrastructure, including water and sewage systems. Today, despite extraordinarily high temperatures, there is virtually no electricity in Gaza.
The health care system has been decimated, with 19 hospitals knocked out of service and more than 400 healthcare workers killed.
The education system has also been devastated – 88 percent of all school buildings have sustained damage, and all twelve of Gaza’s universities have been bombed, leaving 625,000 students with no access to education.
According to humanitarian organizations, hundreds of thousands of people face possible famine. Already, more than 8,000 children under the age of five have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition, the result of the Netanyahu government’s restrictions on humanitarian aid.
Given all of this, it is easy to understand why Netanyahu is credibly accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court and the United Nations. He is beholden to extreme racists in Israel and has devoted his career to undermining the prospects for a two-state solution and lasting peace.
It
is absurd that Netanyahu has been invited to address Congress. We
should not be honoring people who use the starvation of children as a
weapon of war. Instead, the United States should be withholding all
offensive military aid to Israel and using our leverage to demand an end
to this war, the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, a stop to
the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, and initial steps towards
a two-state solution.
Sanders and a growing number
of Democratic lawmakers are planning to boycott Netanyahu's scheduled
address to a joint meeting of Congress next month, citing his
government's creation of one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in
modern history and continued indiscriminate attacks on the Gaza Strip.
"I will not attend," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) toldNBC News on Sunday. "I said that if he wants to come to speak to members of Congress about how to end the war and release hostages, I would be fine doing that, but I’m not going to sit in a one-way lecture."
The number of US troops stationed in Jordan has soared to a two-decade high amid Israel's war on Gaza, according to a new congressional report.
US President Joe Biden informed Congress on 7 June that the US had deployed 3,813 to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a nearly 20 percent increase in troop numbers from December.
The troop levels are higher than at any time since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, according to US troop levels reported at the time.
The surge in troop numbers coincides with Israel's war on Gaza, which has seen the relatively stable Kingdom of Jordan cast into the centre of soaring tensions between the US and Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to the acclaimed Holocaust and genocide scholar Raz Segal. Eight months ago, the Israeli American historian became one of the first scholars to accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Professor Segal laid out his case in a widely read article for Jewish Currents headlined “A Textbook Case of Genocide.” The piece’s subtitle was “Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening?” Professor Segal went on to give numerous interviews, including to us on Democracy Now!
RAZ SEGAL: We need to recognize what’s going on around us, what’s unfolding in front of our eyes, which is really a textbook case of genocide, with the rhetoric, with the actions, with everything involved.
AMY GOODMAN: Raz Segal’s description of Israel’s war on Gaza as a genocide has now cost him a job. Last week, the University of Minnesota withdrew an offer to Segal for him to head the school’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, after two of the center’s board members resigned to protest his hiring. The school’s decision also came after the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas launched a campaign to block professor Segal from getting the job. The group described him as a, quote, “extremist.”
Raz Segal joins us now. He’s currently associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, an endowed professor in the study of modern genocide. He’s joining us from Bulgaria.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Professor Segal. Can you explain exactly what happened? And is there a chance you will be reoffered this job?
RAZ SEGAL: Thank you, Amy, for inviting me again to the show.
What happened is that there was a completely regular hiring process in a public university. There was a public announcement of the job. There were applications. There were Zoom interviews. There were campus visits. There was actually significant community engagement also during this process. And then, eventually, the search committee deliberated and made a recommendation to hire me to the interim dean, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. I was then, on the 5th of June, sent an official job offer.
And then, as you described, two professors who were formerly on the advisory committee of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota resigned and, together with the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, put a lot of pressure, which was really a hateful campaign of lies and distortions against me and based on their political position in support of Israel. And on 10th of June — so within days, right? — the interim president of the University of Minnesota sent me an email withdrawing the job offer.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in that letter of withdrawal, did the interim president give a reason?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah. He said that due to the public-facing role of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and its director, community members have come forward with some concerns. And that was given as the reason for the withdrawal. And it’s important to say, of course, that this is a crude and very dangerous political — the legitimization — right? — of a political interference in an absolutely legitimate hiring process in a public university. It’s, you know, completely unacceptable that a political pressure group, the JCRC of Minnesota and the Dakotas here, and a political position, of support of Zionism and the state of Israel — right? — especially, of course, at a time when Israel is committing the crime of genocide for eight months now, right? But regardless, actually, any political position, any pressure group is not a criteria — should not the defining factor in a hiring process, and certainly once an official job offer has been made.
This actually might be a case of discrimination, because I’m targeted here specifically as an Israeli American Jew, and I’m targeted because of my identity as a Jew who refuses the narrowing down of Jewish identity to Zionism and to support of Israel, whatever it does, which is the position of the JCRC of Minnesota and the Dakotas in its claim to speak for all Jews in the Twin Cities, which is absolutely false. I mean, I’ve received hundreds, hundreds of emails in support, including from many Jews in the Twin Cities, who say explicitly that the JCRC does not speak for them, does not represent them. A community letter from within and outside the university in Twin Cities, again including many, many Jews, have now attracted more than 500 signatures. There’s also a letter of scholars from around the world, including many in the University of Minnesota, of course, that has attracted about a thousand signatures, maybe a bit more, in support of me. So, this idea that the JCRC speaks for all Jews — right? — is absolutely false.
But again, this kind of crude political intervention in the hiring process, and its legitimization by the university, is extremely dangerous. It joins this attack that we’re seeing in the academic world, that has intensified since October, of really suppressing academic freedom. And this is a very, very dangerous sign. That’s the reason that students and faculty members across the University of Minnesota, not only in the College of Liberal Arts, are furious at this decision of their interim president and are not willing to accept it.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And among the people who have been supporting you have been some scholars in Israel who may not agree with your characterization of what Israel is doing in Gaza as genocide but still believe that you’re being treated unfairly?
RAZ SEGAL: Absolutely. The letter of the scholars that I mentioned, that has, again, a bit more than a thousand signatures right now, has many, actually — many Jewish scholars, of course, but many Israeli Jewish scholars in universities in Israel. Many of them do not necessarily agree with my interpretation of Israel’s attack on Gaza, but understand the very dangerous precedent here, you know, and are very fearful of the implications. And, of course, what we’re seeing in terms of suppression of academic freedom in Israel is in many ways related to this, so I think that’s also in their minds. But, yes, many Israeli Jewish scholars also support me.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I’m just looking at Minnesota Public Radio. They said hundreds of professors have signed a letter condemning the university’s decision. The University of Minnesota’s chapter of the American Association of University, AAU, sent a letter to the administration. And then, looking at a response from the spokesperson for the University of Minnesota, they said, “Members of the university community have come forward to express their interest in providing perspective on the hiring of the position of Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Because of the community-facing and leadership role the director holds, it is important that these voices are heard.” So, if you can respond to that? And also, Professor Segal, they’re still offering you what? An assistant professorship at the University of Minnesota, but withdrew your offer as director, or not?
RAZ SEGAL: No, no, no, no. The day, on 10th of June, when the interim president withdrew the entire offer, all of it, I was still — the provost called me and said that the university is still interested in offering me the academic position in the history department of tenured associate professor. That’s what was in the original offer, as well. But I have not yet received any revised offer. So, currently, what — the situation currently is that the official offer was officially withdrawn, and there’s nothing besides that at this point. That’s one issue.
Look, the response of the university is ridiculous. This was a completely — of the leadership of the university. It’s important to say. As I said, faculty and students across the university, overwhelmingly — I mean, professor Painter and Chaouat, the two professors who resigned from the advisory board of the center and started this scandal — right? — are absolutely unrepresentative of faculty and students at the university. And they are furious at this, because everyone knows — everyone knows — that this was a completely legitimate hiring process. It was actually public. It also actually had a lot of community outreach — right? — for people to come to the job talk, which was public. People could come, and people indeed came, also joined via Zoom, and provide feedback, provide their responses. You know, I met with a lot of people when I was in the campus visits here. So, the response of the university as if now, after an official job offer, after a professional and academic hiring process had been concluded and the job offer was made, now we need community consultation is simply in order to blur a clear truth in front of everyone’s eyes that the JCRC here, again, claiming falsely to represent all Jews, is putting political pressure in a very dangerous way on a public university, which is absolutely unacceptable.
It’s also important to say that this is a — the center directorship, this is a center in Holocaust and genocide studies. It’s not only about Jews. What about Indigenous communities, Native communities, which are very important in Minnesota? What about Armenians, which we have many, many communities of forcibly displaced and refugees in the Twin Cities, right? Again, the idea — this also is very, very dangerous, because it feeds into antisemitic ideas about Jewish power and influence, right? So, the JCRC here is also doing a very dangerous thing, feeding into these ideas about Jewish power and influence and intervention here. And it’s simply false. They had an opportunity to provide feedback in the regular hiring process.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor, I wanted to ask you about their broader picture of the enormous damage done to American universities in the last year as a result of people speaking out against the Israeli attack and genocide in Gaza — for example, the university presidents hauled before Congress and basically all having to state that they believe that opposing Zionism is antisemitic, the clamp downs on student protests, the rights of students to even hold protests on universities, the mass arrests that have occurred in so many universities. What is the impact of all of this on the idea of a liberal university?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah, I mean, it spells the end of this idea of free inquiry, of academic freedom, of research and teaching — and all in the service, of course, of supporting an extremely violent state, a state now conducting a destructive assault for eight months on Gaza, genocide or not. I mean, I firmly believe that we’re witnessing a genocidal assault. But even if we’re not, I mean an extremely violent assault. There is a case of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice. The chief prosecutor of International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, has requested arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on war crimes and crimes against humanity. I mean, an international outcry. Dozens of Holocaust and genocide studies scholars, not only me, who have spoken about genocide in Israel’s attack on Gaza, or at least a serious risk of genocide in Israel’s attack on Gaza. So, all this in the service of supporting a violent state and also supporting, again, this very dangerous idea that the only way to be Jews today is to be Zionists and to support Israel.
And as I said, actually, the opposite is the truth. It’s not that criticizing Israel is antisemitism. Not at all. Criticizing the people who criticize Israel in this way, this is antisemitic. This is an attack on Jewish identities. This is an attack, actually, on people who are aiming to criticize a violent state in order to protect a group facing state violence, which is actually very much in line with the historical struggle against antisemitism. So, this is really a world turned upside down. And in the frame of this world turned upside down, we also see the end of the academic world, of academic freedom, of free inquiry, of teaching and research. It’s very, very, very dangerous. And that’s why so many people in the University to Minnesota, across actually the academic world in the U.S. and around the world — right? — within and outside academia, are actually mobilizing now in support of me. But this is, you know, not about me anymore, right? This has far more significant implications and consequences.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about Israeli politician, the former Likud member of parliament, Moshe Feiglin, who Sunday favorably quoted Adolf Hitler while arguing in a TV interview in Israel for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. He said, “As Hitler said, 'I cannot live if one Jew is left,'” Feiglin said during a panel discussion on Channel 12, Israel’s channel, he said, “we can’t live here if one Islamo-Nazi remains in Gaza.” Professor Segal, your response and the significance of these comments, as well as Netanyahu possibly coming to address a joint session of Congress in July?
RAZ SEGAL: I mean, what is there — what is there more — what is there more to say, right? It’s all in front of our eyes: the utter destruction of Gaza, this genocidal discourse, these expressions of genocide that we’ve been exposed to and we’re witnessing since October. This is really — Israel is a society awash now in genocidal discourse, full of war criminals.
And yet, the support of the United States in this genocidal state, in its attack on Gaza, just continues and continues. And, of course, the reason is that if we need to come to terms with Israeli settler colonialism, with this idea that there can’t remain Palestinians — right? — in Israel, that Moshe Feiglin has articulated via Hitler — right? — if we need to come to terms with Israeli settler colonialism since '48, and actually even before it, until Israel's destructive assault on Gaza, that really means that we have to come to terms with settler colonialism more broadly, also in the United States and in other places. And who wants to do — who wants to do that? And that’s why we’re seeing — that’s part of the reason also that we’re seeing this horrific attack also against Jews right now intensifying more and more, including against me in this case — right? — because anything in order not to really come to terms, to open this Pandora’s box for the West of settler colonialism and settler-colonial genocide that we’re all witnessing now. This is the reason that the Biden administration continues to support Israel, whatever happens.
AMY GOODMAN: Raz Segal, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Israeli American historian. Earlier this month, the University of Minnesota rescinded its offer to him to head its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He’s currently associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and endowed professor in the study of modern genocide.
That does it for our show. A very fond farewell to our digital fellow Eric Halvarson and our interns Soledad Aguilar-Colón and Hannah Fitz. We will miss you so, so much. You are now part of our DNA, the Democracy Now! alumni. We’re currently accepting applications for director of development. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 257 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "At least 37,396 people have been killed and 85,523 injured in Gaza during more than eight months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants, the Health Ministry in the territory said Wednesday. The toll includes at least 24 deaths and 71 injuries in the past 24 hours, the ministry said." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
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