Pro-Palestine Author Appears To Defend Protesters’ Right To *Checks Notes* Hijack Airplanes
'You can’t hijack planes...You just can’t be'
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky of making an anti-Semitic post after Massie posted a meme suggesting that Congress has been averse to American patriotism while embracing Zionism.
"Rep. Massie, you're a sitting Member of Congress. This is antisemitic, disgusting, dangerous, and exactly the type of thing I was talking about in my Senate address. Take this down," Schumer tweeted in response to Massie's post.
"If only you cared half as much about our border as you do my tweets," Massie replied.
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"Thomas Massie, a House Republican, is pitting American patriotism against Zionism. Most Americans are both pro-America and pro-Israel and see no contradiction between the two," Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York tweeted.
The House voted 311-14 on Tuesday in favor of a resolution which, in part, declares that the House decries anti-Semitism, supports the Jewish community, and "clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism."
While 13 Democrats voted against the resolution, Massie was the only House GOP lawmaker who voted against it. A whopping 92 Democrats voted present.
In a social media post on Monday, Massie had stated his intention to vote against the resolution, writing, "Anti-Zionism isn't antisemitism."
In that tweet, Massie shared a video clip of Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) saying that it is "either intellectually disingenuous or just factually wrong" to assert that all anti-Zionism represents anti-Semitism.
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Nadler, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) had noted in a statement that they planned to vote present. They urged their colleagues to do the same.
"Among other problems with this resolution, H. Res. 894 does not account for the complexity of Judaism itself and ignores nuanced examples such as the Satmar sect, a Hasidic Jewish movement, which remains staunchly anti-Zionist and quite obviously is not antisemitic," the Democratic lawmakers said in the statement.
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The Iranian government has claimed responsibility for a recent missile barrage that targeted the expansive U.S. consulate complex in the Iraqi city of Irbil – also spelled Erbil.
There are no reported American fatalities, according to the Associated Press, but the attack marks a significant escalation between the U.S. and Iran.
The Iranian Revolutionary guard said that it launched the attack against an Israeli “strategic center of conspiracy” in Irbil.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard said that Israel recently acted offensively by planning a recent strike that killed two members of the Revolutionary Guard which prompted an Iranian response.
“Following the recent crimes of the fake Zionist regime and the previous announcement that the crimes and evils of this infamous regime will not go unanswered; Last night, the ‘Strategic Center of Conspiracy and Evil of the Zionists’ was targeted by powerful and point-to-point missiles of the IRGC,” the Iranian Revolutionary Guard said in a statement following the attack.
An American defense official and an Iraqi security official confirmed that the strike was launched from Iran.
An Iraqi official in Baghdad initially said that several missiles had struck the U.S. consulate in Ibril and that the consulate was the target of the attack.
However, Lawk Ghafari, the head of the Kurdish foreign media office, said that none of the missiles struck the U.S. facility but that areas around the sprawling complex had been hit.
The U.S. defense official said it was unclear how many missiles were fired and what the precise area of impact was. A second U.S. official said that there was no damage at any building belonging to the U.S. government and that there is no clear indication that the target was the consulate complex.
The barrage came several days after the Iranian government said that it would retaliate for an earlier Israeli attack outside of Damascus, Syria, that resulted in the deaths of two members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The attack also coincided with increasing regional tensions.
Negotiations between U.S. and Iranian officials over the Iran nuclear deal have been paused in response to Russian complaints over Western sanctions stemming from the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian diplomats have been serving as meditators during the negotiations.
Iranian officials also suspended the ongoing secret Baghdad talks that were aimed at defusing longstanding tensions with its rivals in Saudi Arabia.
The Jerusalem Post reported that the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi responded to the attack by tweeting: “The aggression which targeted the dear city of Erbil and spread fear amongst its inhabitants is an attack on the security of our people. I discussed these developments with the KRG PM. Our security forces will investigate and stand firm against any threats toward our people.”
Israeli leadership urged their Ukrainian counterparts to accept the peace offer made to them by Vladimir Putin.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the phone and urged the Ukrainian president to accept an offer extended by Russia to end the military conflict, the Jerusalem Post reported.
An official with the Ukrainian government said that Zelenskyy did not accept Bennett’s advice.
Bennett reportedly said, “If I were you, I would think about the lives of my people and take the offer.”
To which Zelenskyy responded with, “I hear you.”
The same Ukrainian official told the Jerusalem Post that “Bennett told us to surrender. We have no intention of doing so. We know Putin’s offer is only the beginning.”
Russian leadership said that it would end its invasion if Ukraine ceased military actions, changed its constitution to ensure geopolitical neutrality, recognized Crimea as Russian territory, and recognized the Russian-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office has claimed that Israel’s mediation efforts force both Ukrainian and Russian leadership to seek a more cautious and balanced approach to the conflict. In this spirit, Israeli leadership asked the Russian government to cease its requests for military and defense aid from other nations.
According to the Ukrainian official, however, Zelenskyy is growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of results from Bennett’s mediation. The official said that Zelenskyy feels as though Bennett is functioning more as a middle-man who passes along messages from parties in Russia and Ukraine without doing much to help the two nations find an agreeable compromise.
“We don’t need a mailbox,” the official said, “We have enough of those. If Bennett wants to be neutral and mediate, we would expect to see him appoint someone to work on it day and night and try to get a compromise.”
The Ukrainian ambassador to Israel — Yvgeni Kornichuk — is expected to meet with Knesset Chairman Mickey Levi to discuss the details of Zelenskyy’s planned address to Knesset members.
Previously, Kornichuk said that Israel’s mediation efforts were a valuable resource for the Ukrainian government.
He said, “Thank you for the peace effort. This is priceless for us. This is much more important than sales of weapons and of munitions, which we are still fighting for, but we understand [your reasons for not sending them].”
In a Saturday briefing, Zelenskyy reaffirmed his belief that Israeli leadership serves an important role as a mediator.
He said, “I believe [Bennett} can play an important role, because Israel is a country with a lot of history and parallels [to our situation], as well as having a large migration of Jews from Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.”