Facebook is refusing to take down an ad that Rep. Ilhan Omar
Omar’s office has requested that Facebook remove an ad paid for by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that features Omar’s face on Hamas rockets and says, “When Israel Targets Hamas Rep. Omar calls it an ‘act of terrorism.’
In a tweet last week, Omar stated, Israeli air strikes killing civilians in Gaza is an act of terrorism.
ADVERTISEMENT
The tweet went on to say: Palestinians deserve protection. Unlike Israel, missile defense programs, such as Iron Dome, don’t exist to protect Palestinian civilians. It’s unconscionable to not condemn these attacks on the week of Eid.
Facebook has refused to remove a widely viewed attack ad that links Representative Ilhan Omar to Hamas, even after her aides told the tech giant that the message is inaccurate, hateful and threatened to subject her to death threats.
There’s a story Joe Biden likes to tell any time he speaks to an audience about Israel.
It’s 1948, a matter of days before Israel’s founding and three years after the end of World War II. Six-year-old Joey Biden is at the dinner table with his family, listening to his Catholic father wonder aloud why some people wouldn’t want to recognize the state of Israel. That’s when his father uttered the words “never again,” making clear to young Joey that the existence of Israel was crucial to preventing another Holocaust.
It’s a story that helps explain why, even in the face of mounting pressure from human rights groups and progressives within his own party, Biden has stood firmly by Israel over the last 10 days as it has relentlessly bombed Gaza, killing more than 200 people, including children.
NationofChange
When Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister for the second time in March 2009, it was not long after Israel had conducted three weeks of sustained air attacks on the enclave of Gaza. More than 1,100 Palestinians died in that campaign. About a dozen Israelis also perished, four from friendly fire, the rest from rockets coming from Gaza.
Operation Cast Lead, as it was called, was supposed to eliminate the offensive capabilities of Hamas, the Palestinian political faction that had taken over Gaza the year before. The Israeli operation also featured a ground offensive with thousands of troops and tanks. There was nothing surgical about the strikes or the intervention. At least half of the Palestinian casualties were estimated to be civilians. The U.N.-sponsored Goldstone report identified “actions amounting to war crimes” committed by both sides.