Assault on gaza. As the two candidates face off tonight at a debate in brooklyn ahead of the New York Primary on april 19, well speak with Stanford University historian joel beinin about the candidates positions on israel and palestine. Then to a Landmark Legal lawsuit 21 kids sue the federal government over Climate Change. Demanding the court to enforce climate recovery plans upon our government, to massively cut carbrbon for future, to honor or constitutional right to life, land, and liberty. Amy and we will look at students challenging Stanford University over the issue appraisal diversity. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. About 100 more people have been arrested in washington, d. C. C. ,s part of the ongoing democracy spring protests against political corruption and big money in politics. Wednesday marked the third consecutive day of mass arrests at the u. S. Capitol after 85 people were arrested tuesday and more than 400 were arrrrested on monday. About 36,000 verizon workers have go on strike along the east coast, from massachusetts to virginia, marking one of the biggest u. S. Strikes in years. Verizon has sought to cut pensions and ease the outsourcing of work. In newew york cityty, verizon wr gail rodgegers spoke out. We are fighting, trying to give the company from taking things that we rightfully gained through previous contracts that should be hours. Medical benefits, the right to work. Work overseas. We cant have that. Work needs to stay in america for americans. Amy both democratic presesidential candididates joid verizon workers on n the picket lines in new york city. Speaking in his hohome borough f brooklyn, sanders criticized verizon. It is a question of workers standing up for justice, taking on a large, gritty corporation who wants to outsource good paying jobs, who wants to take away Health Care Benefits from its workers. Somehow, they do have enough money to pater ceos 20 million the year. There standing up for justice and i stand with them today. Amy on wednesday evening, Bernie Sanders drew one of his largest crowds to date in new york citys Washington Square park. His campaign put the crowd at 27,000 people. The entire front section appeared to be Striking Verizon workers. Meanwhile verizons ceo hit back , at sanders in a blog post, calling the senators views contemptible. Hillary clintons critics have noted the Clinton Campaign has received tens of thousands of dollars from verizon executives and lobbyists. Verizon paid clinton 225,000 for a 2013 speech. On wednesday, senator sanders won the endorsement of the new York City TransitWorkers Union while clinton was backed by an , electrical Workers Union. Activists with the occupied wall street journal and indypendent newspaper teamed up to publish a newspaper in support of sanders headlined the battle of new , york. Ththey square off tonight five days before the New York Primary. Erupted between donald Trump Supporters and protesters outside the republican frontrunners rally in pittsburgh wednesday night. Hundreds of antiracist demonstrators gathered to chant racist bigots have got to go. , inside, trump said both the republican and democratic systems for choosing candidates are rigged. Whether you like Bernie Sanders or not, i have a think he is terrible but that is ok but whether you like them or not no, no, whether you like e tm or not, you turn on television and every week, Bernie Sanders wins. Bernie sanders wins. He wins every weekend. Youu listen toto the pundits, bt he cannot win. Im like, wait come here is one every week for the last seven weeks, but he cannot win. I say, oh, it is a rigged system. Trump and his fellow republican candidates are expected to attend a gala in manhattan tonight. Hundreds are expected to protest truck outside. A great laters have warned five of the 10 or five of the top too bigrgegest banks are to fail, meaning taxpayers would need to bail them out again in the event of another financial collapse. The f Federal Reserve and fdicc said jp morgan chase, bank of america, wells fargo, state street and bank of new york all lacked credible plans to enter bankruptcy in the event of a financial crisis. The warnings echo calls by vermont senator bernie sananders to break up the big banks, a plan criticizezed by rival hilly clinton. The biggest babanks arare even biggerer now than before the 208 meltdown. Officials at the centers for Disease Control and prevention say they have confirmed the link between the zika virus and microcephaly, a condition that can cause infected mothers to give birth to babies with abnormally small heads. Cdc director Thomas Frieden said there is no longer any doubt that zika causes the birth defect. This comes after officials said the mosquitoes that spread zika are now in 30 u. S. States. White House Press Secretary josh earnest said wednesday congress has not done enough to address the virus. You may be familiar with the expression of being a day late and a dollar short. In this case, congress is two months late and 1. 9 billion short in providing the assistance that our Public Health professionals say they need to make sure the respond appropriately to the situation. The bill that Congress Passed yesterday does not include any funding. It certainly it is not going to do anything to help local communities across the country that carry this piracy this virus or fight the mosquitoes that carry this by r rest. Light strip s largest privatesector coal company has filed for bankruptcy. Peabody energy is at least the fifth Major Coal Company to seek bankruptcy amid a decline in coal. The environmenental group 350. Og declared the move a harbinger of the end of the fossil fuel era. Former florida senator bob graham says he received a cacall from the white house this week over the 28 secret pages of a report on the 9 11 terror attacks. Graham has campaigned for years to have the documents declassified, saying they contain key details about saudi arabias role in the attacks. Graham told the Tampa Bay Times a president ial adviser informed him the declassification review of the documents would soon be compmpleted. The call came after b boko 60 minutes ran an episode on the 28 pages sunday. Grahaham spoke to h host steve kroft. Do believe that support came from saudi ararabia . Substantially. A and you mean the governmen . Rich people in the country . Charitieies . All of the above. Amy y in chchicago, a task fore appointed by mayor rahm emanuel has found evidencece of rampant racism within the Chicago Police department. The report finds the Police Departments own data gives validity to the widely held belief the police have no regard for the sanctity of fefe when it comes to people e of color. Despite equal proportions of black, white, and latino residents in chicago, 74 of the more than 400 people shot by Chicago Police between 2008 and 2015 were black. Black people also made up 72 of peoples topped on the street, but not arrested in the summer of 2014 and three out of four people on whom Chicago Police tried to user tasers between 2012 and the report comes as 2015. Mayor emanuel faceces calls to resign over a possible coverup of the Police Killing of laquan mcdonald, the teen shot 16 times in 2014. In panama, authorities have raided the offices of the Mossack Fonseca law firm at the center of the Panama Papers scandal. A massive data leak revealed the firm set up a Global Network of Shell Companies for heads of state and other elites to store money offshore to avoid taxes and oversight. Authorities seized 100 computer servers during a 27hour raid. Protesters rallied outside the firm to demand a thorough investigation. We believe it is important for the attorney general to actively investigate this act of corruption, this embarrassment which was revealed internationally in which panamaa looks s very badad at the momen. Amy newly released records reveal how fbi hackersrs soughto break encryption used by Animal Rights a activists by secretly installing software on the activists computers. While it happened more than a dedecade ago, the effofort has t come to light t through documens provided to the new y york tim by freedom of information activist ryan n shapiro. Six activists, including past democrcracy now guest andy stepanian, were ultimately convicted of conspiracy to violate e the animal enterprisee protection act in the case. Journanalist matthew keys has bn sentenced to two years in prison in a hacking case that has drawn protests from Civil Liberties groups. Keys was convicted in october of giving the Hacker Group Anonymous the username and password of his former employer, the tribune company. A hacker then used the credentials to alter the online headline on a Los Angeles Times story from pressure builds in house to pass taxcut package to pressure builds in house to elect chippy 37, a reference to another hacking group. The change lasted about 40 minutes. Keys had faced up to 25 years in prison. After keys sentencing wednesday, nsa whistleblower Edward Snowden was among those to tweet his support, writing two years for a web defacement lasting 40 minutes. Supporters say keys plightt shows the need to reform the Computer Fraud and abuse act, the sweepiping, decacadesold lw also used to charge activist aaron swartz. He committed suicide in 2013 whwhile facing up to 35eaears in prison for downloading millions of academic articles. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Were on the road at Stanford University in california. We are on a 1 100city tour marking democracacy nows 20th anniversary. Today we will be at Pitzer College at noon and then tonight we will be in los angeles. Check our website e at democracynynow. Org. As Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders prepare for tonights debate in brooklyn, one issue expected to come up is the Israeli Palestinian conflict. New york, which votes on tuesday, is home to the e larget Jewish Population in the world outside of israel. Much of the population is concentrated in brooklyn. Bernie sanders made headlines recently when he mistakenly told the New York Daily NewsEditorial Board that 10,000 civilians died in israels assault on gaza. Sanders said i dont remember the figures, but my r recollection is over 10,000 innocent pepeople were killed in gaza. Does that sound right . According to the united d natio, the actual civilian dedeath toll was at least 1473 in gaza. Lalast week, former israelii ambassador michael oren, w who w serves in the israeli knesset, sasa Bernie Sanders owes i isral an apology. Orenen accuseded sanders of a bd lilibel which is a false, centuriesold allegation that jews were killing children to use their r blood in religious rituals. On sunday, berninie sanderers appeared on the leader with jake tapper on cnn. Was israels response disproportionate . I think it was. Israel has what had percent 100 , the right to live in and in, independently, security, without having to be subjected d to terrorist attack. But i thinink that we will not succeed to ever bring peace into that region unless we also treat the palestinians with dignity and respect. And that is my view. It is interesting, if you will permit me to say, the first jew in American History to win a ,elegate, much less a primary is taking this position with israel that is usually in american politics im not criticizing you or whenn usually supports israel, whatever israel wants to do. Youre taking a more critical position. More balalanced position. Amy Bernie Sanders on the lead with jake tapper on cnn. Tapper latater askeded Hillary Clinton to respond in a separate interview. Senator sanders, israels response in gaza was disproportionate leading to an unnecessary loss of innocent life. You told the atlantic i in 2014 that israel did what it had too do to respond to t the attacks. What do you make e of senator sasanders take on it, that it ws disproportionate . . He willll havto speak forr himself you dont agree . I agree with what i said, which is when yoyou are being attacked with rockets raining dodown on your people and youour soldiers are under attack, you have to respond. And i think that what i learned when i negotiated the ceasefire between israel and hamas in 2012 is that hamas provokes israel. Ththey ofteten pretend to have people in civilian garb acting as though they are civilians who are hamas fighters. It is a very difficult undertaking for israel to target those who are targeting them. And d i think israel has hahad o defend itstself. It has a r righto defend i itse. It did not go seeking thihis. This wasas promoted by hamamas. I supportrt israels right of selfdefense. Any code that was hiHillary Clinton speaking on cnn on sunday. The network will host tonights debate in brooklyn. To more about israel and palestine conflict and the 2016 election, we arere joined by jol beinin. He is s professor of middle east history at Stanford University. He is the former director of mimiddle east studies atat the American University in cairo. He is author of several books, most recently, workers and thieves labor movements and popular uprisings in tunisia and egypt. Professor, welcome back to democracy now great to be here. Amy can you talk about the clips we just heard of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton . Bernie has been evolving. If we remember the summer of israels assault on gaza when he tried to shout down people in a town meeting who asked him to be more critical of israel, he was telling the Democratic Party line. He has now backed off from that. He wants to be more balanced. He zimmerman as his Jewish Community outreach coordinator. She recently wrote an oped in the leading liberal daily of israel saying that we should talk about boycott, divestment, and sanctions very friendly jewish voice for peace. A lot of what he is saying is a good bit away from where i think you should be, but compareded to hillary clilintono pretty much parrots the line, he isis in a different place. Amy hillalary clinton right no, where she stands and your view on that on the israelpalestine conflict . She is awfuful. You heardrd in the clip, israel did not go looooking for this. Well, that is not a historical rerecord. Israrael provokedd hamas into firing the rockets. It is not the first time israeal hamas into firing rockets after a period of f qui. The e testimony of soldierers wo gave evidence to breaking the silence say that israel used an insane amount of violence and firepower in invnvading gaza, ad that the levels of instrtruction of civilian infrastructure was insane. That is very different than what Hillary Clinton n is sayg. G. Amy you wrote a letter to senator sanders . Yes. What he tried to do was to say, ok, great that you are against the influence of billionaires in american politics. You talk primarily about domestic politics and i agree with all of that, but there is also a very pernrnicious influee of billionaires inin Foreign Policy a and perhaps nowhere moe so than israelpalestine. Sheldon adelson, the abelson primary, the republican candidate traced to las vegas to get his endorsement. On the democratic side, saban is a huge contributor to Hillary Clinton camppaign and the pastt. Ampaiaigns of thee clintons both are single issue people. They care only about israel. He said he is prepared to o sped whatever it takes to g get hilly clinton elected president. And the policies that Hillary Clinton advocates, as we heard in the case, reflect his views. Amy in her speech to aipac last month, democratic president ial hopeful Hillary Clinton said the u. S. Should help israel maintain qualitative military edge. Will make the commitment to ensure israel maintains qualitative military edge. E. [applause] the United States should provide israel w with the mostst sophisticated defensnse technoly so it can do terror anand stop y threats. One of the first things i will do in office is invite t the israeli prprime minister too vit ththe white house. E. [applause] and i i will send a delegation from the pentagon and the joint chiefs to israel for early consultatio