American Victims of Hamas and Hezbollah Attacks Sue U.N. Agency
The lawsuit suit was filed on Thursday in federal court in the District of Columbia by American citizens living in Israel and the United States and their family members. A similar case has been playing out since last year in federal court in Manhattan.
Both suits are attempting to hold the United Nations Relief and Work Agency, known as UNRWA, responsible in some measure for violent acts by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, groups dedicated to the destruction of Israel that have been designated terrorist organizations by the United States. The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages, both compensatory and punitive.
Israel has long maintained that UNRWA has been infiltrated by militants and is biased against Israel in the war in Gaza, an accusation U.N. officials have denied. The agency has been at the center of controversy during the conflict, which was set off by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In the New York case, lawyers for the U.N. agency have argued it is exempt from such suits because it has diplomatic immunity. The Biden administration supported that position, but in April, lawyers in President Trump's Justice Department reversed the government's stance, paving the way for the latest lawsuit.
Some analysts say the Justice Department's new position could open the door not only to more civil cases seeking damages from the agency, but also to the Treasury Department's imposing sanctions on it.
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The Verge
26 minutes ago
- The Verge
The ‘Epstein files' implosion bleeds into foreign policy
While the summer doldrums have hit Washington, the MAGA influencers can never truly go on vacation, especially if they've spent their careers promising to reveal the truth about Jeffrey Epstein. Although their politicians are now in power, they're getting stonewalled, and in the absence of juicy 'Epstein files' to feed to their audiences, a new maelstrom of discontent is brewing, one that implicates much more than allegations about a pedophile's sex trafficking ring. The complex rift around Donald Trump's loyalists and the diehard Epstein truthers can no longer be separated from the issue of Israel, and as days pass, vocal criticism of the Israeli government is becoming louder and louder inside the American right wing — something that was once unthinkable. It should be emphasized that some of the most anti-Israel voices on the right are simply open antisemites, and that's using the word in the narrowest possible sense. (For example, white nationalist Nick Fuentes has espoused Holocaust denial and praised Hitler.) It is also true, however, that Israel is currently engaged in an internationally unpopular asymmetric war in Gaza, and that there is an outstanding arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare. For the hardened antisemite, the mere fact that Epstein was Jewish establishes a connection between the so-called Epstein files and Israel; elsewhere in the MAGAverse, major figures (like Tucker Carlson) advance the theory that the billionaire sex offender was a Mossad asset. (This theory is bolstered in part by long-standing rumors that Ghislaine Maxwell's father was a Mossad agent.) The faction highlighting both Epstein and Israel is either nonideological (such as Theo Von, who pressed JD Vance on the Epstein files and has questioned 'why we [America] support Israel'), deeply populist and/or conspiratorial, and sometimes a combination of these categories. Tucker Carlson's two most recent podcasts, for instance, were deep dives into Epstein's history and heavy criticism of Israeli military strikes on Christian churches in Gaza — just weeks after he referenced the Epstein Mossad theory at the TPUSA conference. Alex Jones has run nonstop coverage of Epstein developments this week and on Wednesday hosted a debate with Fuentes wherein he called the Trump administration an 'absolute failure.' But shockingly, the faction that's attempted to support Trump while placating their audience has pivoted as well: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a MAGA megastar who somehow balances her support of Trump with her frequent antisemitism, went even further and called Netanyahu's actions a 'genocide.' Both Matt Gaetz and Steve Bannon, whose Epstein messaging waxes and wanes, recently called the situation in Gaza a political liability for Trump. As a news event, it's impossible to ignore Netanyahu's occupation of Gaza and the subsequent humanitarian crisis, and how it's chipped away at Americans' sentiment toward the state of Israel, now at historic lows. Trump himself notably broke with Netanyahu on Monday, telling reporters that he did not believe the prime minister's claims that children were not starving in Gaza. 'Based on television … those children look very hungry,' Trump said, adding later: 'I see it, and you can't fake that.' While unclear if they would have begun criticizing Israel if Trump hadn't done it first, the influencers' pivot was inevitable if one looks at the shifting attitudes of the podcast-listening demographic. A Pew poll published last year found that only half of young Republican men between 18 and 34 were sympathetic to Israel's actions, while the other half were either opposed or unsure — a shocking statistic compared to older Republicans, who overwhelmingly supported Israel. It hasn't gotten better since: a Gallup poll released this Tuesday found that while a majority of self-identified Republicans continued to support Israel's actions in Gaza, 51 percent of men, 54 percent of white people, and a staggering 82 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 34 did not. Maintaining a good relationship with MAGA influencers is a rather different dynamic than maintaining their alliance with Fox News For the Trump team and the Republican Party as a whole, it's becoming clearer that maintaining a good relationship with MAGA influencers is a rather different dynamic than maintaining their alliance with Fox News. A single influencer is held accountable to their audience and the comments section, whereas if a Fox talking head goes rogue, the White House can call Rupert Murdoch — whose media empire, and particularly Fox, needs access to the White House — and wrangle them back into line. (Incidentally, over the past week, according to a Media Matters analysis published Thursday, Fox News spent a cumulative three minutes talking about Epstein, and 85 minutes talking about Sydney Sweeney's denim controversy.) Even if the Trump administration establishes a symbiotic relationship with some influencers, with the expectation that they parrot Trump's line about Epstein (or Israel), they may find that their power to persuade only goes so far. A recent example from the manosphere demonstrates the limit of an influencer to, well, influence: earlier this month, the Nelk Boys, two Canadian right-wing bro podcasters, posted an interview with Netanyahu, whose government (and, by extension, Israel) has become increasingly unpopular with younger Americans due to his actions in Gaza. It backfired completely: their audience immediately began accusing the two of platforming a genocidal Zionist, going ballistic when the hosts admitted that the Israeli government fed them questions, and drew criticism from leftist streamer Hasan Piker and Nick Fuentes during the same livestream. Their YouTube channel has lost over 20,000 subscribers since posting the interview, according to Social Blade. But being on the White House's good side does have its benefits even if one loses followers: Laura Loomer, one of the loudest voices calling for Epstein documents, has recently dialed down her trutherism and instead clung harder to the White House's official continued support on Israel: In a post criticizing Zohran Mamdani, the current Democrat nominee in the New York City mayoral race, she announced that she would never 'feel safe with Muslims holding office in America' and that she didn't care about who she offended. 'This is why I will never care about Gaza,' she added. Unconditional loyalty, however, does have its benefits: Loomer's been credited with convincing Trump to fire over a dozen officials for perceived MAGA disloyalty. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Tina Nguyen Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Policy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Politics
Fox News
26 minutes ago
- Fox News
DAVID MARCUS: Fetterman calls fellow Democrats ‘just gross' for shunning Israel
There is a growing notion that support for Israel is becoming a divisive issue on the American right, owing mostly to a handful of influencers who nobody who isn't terminally online has ever heard of, but in fact, it's Democrats who are divided in very plain sight. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., an emerging leader in the caucus, on Friday took to X to say that "Recognizing a Palestinian State is an idea whose time has come," which mirrors plans by France, the UK, and Canada, to do just that. I pointed out to the congressman that by "handing out prizes for massacring teenagers at music festivals, Hamas will learn this lesson well and execute it in blood," which was to say, if they are rewarded, they will do it again. Here it gets interesting. As Khana points out, his proposal "explicitly calls for a democratic Palestine where Hamas is not in power and has disarmed." This led me press the congressman on whether this recognition would take place before or after Hamas actually left power. "I am for recognizing a Palestinian state (non Hamas representative) and then working with the 22 Arab countries to work on a democratic Palestine," he replied. So, in effect, the answer was that, yes, as a result of the barbarism of Oct. 7, 2023 and its aftermath, Khanna wants to reward the terrorists with the achievement of their secondary goal, a Palestinian state. Their primary goal, of course, is the destruction of Israel. I decided to see how a pro-Israel Democrat voice on Capitol Hill would react to Khanna's proposal, so I asked Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., to weigh in. Boy did he. "Witnessing many in the media and in my party turning Israel into a pariah state is just gross," the maverick lawmaker told me. Fetterman makes a key point here: The sudden calls for a Palestinian state are clearly not just a rebuke of Israel, but a threat to it. The Jewish state is being told to end its war, even with Hamas in power, or else. The good news here is that Rep. Khanna and his anti-Israel allies have no more power to recognize a Palestinian state than you or I have to recognize a sovereign Quebec or Alberta. The bad news is that it may be Khanna, not Fetterman who represents the zeitgeist of the Democrat party on the Israel issue. On Friday, it was Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who "reaped the whirlwind," as he once put it, as protesters, including a New York City council member, descended on his office in Gotham to hoot, holler, and get arrested while voicing their opposition to Israel. It could not have happened to a more deserving member of Democrat leadership. These protesters are the wages of Schumer's fecklessness in the face of not just of anti-Israel sentiment in his party, but often, straight-up antisemitism. It was, after all, Schumer and his ilk who sat by quietly as Jewish students were harassed and chased down by pro-terrorist mobs on college campuses in recent years, a despicable situation that President Donald Trump has cracked down on. This week, 27 Senate Democrats voted to cut some military aid to Israel. No Republicans did, but that also leaves 20 Democrats who didn't. It was a pretty close margin among Democrats, even if the anti-Israel crowd is much, much louder. Ultimately, if the Khanna wing of the Democrat Party has its way, Israel will be weakened, Hamas will be strengthened, and the deadly counterbalance of the past 75 years will be reinstated. The Fetterman wing, albeit quietly aside from the Keystone state's hoodie-rocking senior senator, on the other hand, stands with Trump and almost all of the GOP in the firm belief that a return to the pre-war status quo that leaves Israel open to further attack is not acceptable. Last year, in Israel, I had the chance to speak with officials, including some in the war cabinet, and they stressed one principle over and over: Neither Hamas, nor the Palestinian cause in general, can be allowed to grow stronger than it was on October 6, 2023. It is a mystery as to why so many Democrats cannot understand that rewarding bad behavior begets more bad behavior, but whether this refusal stems from political necessity, or just hapless progressive naivete, it's dangerous. For now, it certainly seems that the virulent anti-Israel wave in the Democrat Party is washing over Fetterman and the few brave others standing for the Jewish state, like Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. If there are others ready to stand up, now is the time.
CBS News
26 minutes ago
- CBS News
U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff meets with Gaza hostage families in Tel Aviv
U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff on Saturday met with the families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza in Tel Aviv as fears for the captives' survival grew nearly 22 months into the war. The families of the hostages were protesting in Tel Aviv, urging Israel's government to push harder for the release of their loved ones. Witkoff, who was greeted with some applause and pleas for assistance, joined them for a closed meeting. Videos shared online showed Witkoff arriving as families chanted "Bring them home!" and "We need your help." The Hostages of Missing Families Forum confirmed the meeting, which came a week after Witkoff quit ceasefire talks, blaming Hamas' intransigence and pledging to find other ways to free the hostages and make Gaza safe. After the meeting, the Forum released a statement saying that Witkoff had given them a personal commitment that he and President Trump would work to return the remaining hostages. "We will get your children home and hold Hamas responsible for any bad acts on their part. We will do what's right for the Gazan people," Witkoff said in the meeting, according to the Forum. Of the 251 hostages who were abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, around 20 are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, released separate videos of individual hostages this week, triggering outrage among hostage families and Israeli society. Israeli media haven't broadcast the videos, calling them propaganda, but the family of 21-year-old Rom Braslavski allowed the release of a photograph showing him visibly emaciated in an unknown location. After viewing the video, Tami Braslavski, his mother, blamed top Israeli officials and demanded they meet with her. "They broke my child, I want him home now," Braslavski told Ynet on Thursday. "Look at him: Thin, limp, crying. All his bones are out." Protestors called on Israel's government to make a deal to end the war, imploring them to "stop this nightmare and bring them out of the tunnels." "Do the right thing and just do it now," said Lior Chorev, chief strategy officer of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. Witkoff's meeting with the families came a day after he and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee toured one of the privately run U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's distribution sites in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. "We received briefings from (the IDF) and spoke to folks on the ground. GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!" Huckabee said in a social media post. The GHF's four distribution sites, which are in zones controlled by the Israeli military, have become flashpoints of desperation, with mass crowds of people gathering outside but who have then come under fire from Israeli forces or been trampled in the resulting crush. On Saturday, hospitals in Gaza reported the killing of more than a dozen people, eight of them food-seekers, by Israeli fire. Near a GHF distribution site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to seek aid Saturday morning, described a panicked scene now grimly familiar. After helping carry out three people wounded by gunshots, he told the Associated Press he looked around and saw others lying on the ground bleeding. "It's the same daily episode," Youssef said. In response to questions about several eyewitness accounts of violence at the northernmost of the Israeli-backed American contractor's four facilities, GHF said "nothing (happened) at or near our sites." "We weren't close to them (the troops) and there was no threat," Abed Salah, a man in his 30s who was among the crowds close to the GHF site near Netzarim corridor, said. "I escaped death miraculously." From May 27 to July 31, 859 people were killed near GHF sites, according to a United Nations report published Thursday. Hundreds more have been killed along the routes of food convoys. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel's military has said it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, though on Friday said it was working to make the routes under its control safer. Israel and GHF have said that the toll has been exaggerated. Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions about the deaths near the aid sites. Its top general, meanwhile, warned Saturday that "combat will continue without rest" if hostages weren't freed. Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Israel's military would adapt to "place Hamas under increasing pressure." The war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The U.N. and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on France-Presse contributed to this report.
