palestine – Techdirt (original) (raw)
Why Mamdani’s Refusal To Condemn Speech He Never Made Is Good Free Speech Advocacy
from the don't-take-the-bait dept
At a time when politicians on both sides reflexively call for censorship and speech policing, it’s refreshing to see someone actually defend free speech principles—especially when it would be politically easier to cave.
That’s exactly what New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani did when NBC’s Meet the Press tried to pressure him into condemning language he’s never used. Rather than take the bait, Mamdani delivered a strong defense of free speech principles. It’s a better defense of free speech than we’ve seen from most politicians lately.
What makes this particularly frustrating is that many of the Democrats attacking Mamdani should be laser-focused on the existential threat Trump poses to democracy. Instead, they’re wasting time and energy going after someone who actually accomplished what establishment Democrats claim they desperately want: activating young people who often fail to vote. Mamdani didn’t just talk about engaging young voters—he did it, handily winning the Democratic primary by mobilizing exactly the demographic Democrats say they need. His reward? A coordinated attack campaign.
The controversy stems from demands that Mamdani condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada”—language he doesn’t use but which critics insist he must denounce to prove he’s not antisemitic. It’s the kind of ridiculous purity test that marginalized politicians routinely face (but somehow, white, Christian, male politicians never do), demanding they repeatedly distance themselves from the words of others simply because they share some demographic or political similarity.
But rather than playing that game, Mamdani chose to defend the principle that government officials shouldn’t be in the business of policing speech—even speech they personally disagree with. At the same time, he used the opportunity to move from the “gotcha” kind of question to a focus on how to tackle the actual problems of racism and bigotry, beyond just focusing on specific language questions.
There’s been a lot of pressure on Mamdani to specifically criticize pro-Palestinian language used by others. And, over the weekend, he went on Meet the Press and gave, what I think, is a really strong answer to a silly gotcha question that I think others could learn from:
KRISTEN WELKER:
I want to ask you about an issue that has divided some New Yorkers in recent weeks. You were recently asked about the term “globalize the intifada,” if it makes you uncomfortable. In that moment you did not condemn the phrase. Now, just so folks understand, it’s a phrase that many people hear as a call to violence against Jews. There’s been a lot of attention on this issue, so I want to give you an opportunity to respond here and now. Do you condemn that phrase “globalize the intifada?”
ZOHRAN MAMDANI:
That’s not language that I use. The language that I use and the language that I will continue to use to lead this city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights. And ultimately, that’s what is the foundation of so much of my politics, the belief that freedom and justice and safety are things that, to have meaning, have to be applied to all people, and that includes Israelis and Palestinians as well.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But do you actually condemn it? I think that’s the question and the outstanding issue that a number of people, both of the Jewish faith and beyond, have. Do you condemn that phrase, “globalize the intifada,” which a lot of people hear as a call to violence against Jews?
ZOHRAN MAMDANI:
I’ve heard from many Jewish New Yorkers who have shared their concerns with me, especially in light of the horrific attacks that we saw in Washington, D.C. and in Boulder, Colorado about this moment of antisemitism in our country and in our city. And I’ve heard those fears and I’ve had those conversations. And ultimately, they are part and parcel of why, in my campaign, I’ve put forward a commitment to increase funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800%. I don’t believe that the role of the mayor is to police speech in the manner, especially of that of Donald Trump, who has put one New Yorker in jail, who’s just returned to his family, Mahmoud Khalil, for that very supposed crime of speech. Ultimately, what I think I need to show is the ability to not only talk about something but to tackle it and to make clear that there’s no room for antisemitism in this city. And we have to root out that bigotry, and ultimately we do that through the actions. And that is the mayor I will be, one that protects Jewish New Yorkers and lives up to that commitment through the work that I do.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But very quickly for the people who care about the language and who feel really concerned by that phrase, why not just condemn it?
ZOHRAN MAMDANI:
My concern is to start to walk down the line of language and making clear what language I believe is permissible or impermissible takes me into a place similar to that of the president, who is looking to do those very kinds of things, putting people in jail for writing an oped. Putting them in jail for protesting. Ultimately, it’s not language that I use. It’s language I understand there are concerns about. And what I will do is showcase my vision for this city through my words and my actions.
Note what he does here. It would be easy enough to give into the framing and make statement condemning the language. And while some will (in bad faith) argue his failure to outright condemn the language is an endorsement of it, that’s bullshit. His answer is actually very thoughtful and a good way to approach such bad faith questions.
He starts out with a direct and clear denial of using that language:
That’s not language that I use.
This immediately deflates the premise that he’s somehow responsible for words he’s never spoken.
He then immediately shifts to a more positive framing of how he views what he’s focused on in his hopes of becoming mayor: human rights for all.
The language that I use and the language that I will continue to use to lead this city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights. And ultimately, that’s what is the foundation of so much of my politics, the belief that freedom and justice and safety are things that, to have meaning, have to be applied to all people, and that includes Israelis and Palestinians as well.
When NBC’s Welker trots out the purity test point, demanding he condemn it, he points out that he shouldn’t be in the business of policing language, but rather is focused on actual concerns of the people he’s hoping to represent. In doing so, he makes it clear that he’s concerned about actual antisemitism and actual threats and risks, and he’s looking at what might actually help rather than policing specific language:
I’ve heard from many Jewish New Yorkers who have shared their concerns with me, especially in light of the horrific attacks that we saw in Washington, D.C. and in Boulder, Colorado about this moment of antisemitism in our country and in our city. And I’ve heard those fears and I’ve had those conversations. And ultimately, they are part and parcel of why, in my campaign, I’ve put forward a commitment to increase funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800%.
And then he pivots to a reasonable defense of free speech, not in the misleading sense the way others view it, but rather in noting that government shouldn’t be in the business of policing speech (as Trump is doing) but focusing on where the real problems of hate and bigotry show up.
I don’t believe that the role of the mayor is to police speech in the manner, especially of that of Donald Trump, who has put one New Yorker in jail, who’s just returned to his family, Mahmoud Khalil, for that very supposed crime of speech. Ultimately, what I think I need to show is the ability to not only talk about something but to tackle it and to make clear that there’s no room for antisemitism in this city. And we have to root out that bigotry, and ultimately we do that through the actions.
After Welker desperately goes back to the “but won’t you condemn the language” nonsense, he makes it clear that speaking out on specific language choices is not productive when his focus is on dealing with the actual underlying problems:
My concern is to start to walk down the line of language and making clear what language I believe is permissible or impermissible takes me into a place similar to that of the president, who is looking to do those very kinds of things, putting people in jail for writing an oped. Putting them in jail for protesting. Ultimately, it’s not language that I use. It’s language I understand there are concerns about. And what I will do is showcase my vision for this city through my words and my actions.
This final answer is particularly smart because it connects his refusal to condemn specific language to Trump’s actual authoritarian attacks on free speech. Rather than getting trapped in semantic debates about particular phrases, he’s defending the broader principle that government officials shouldn’t be arbiters of acceptable speech.
The contrast is stark: while the Trump regime is literally jailing people for their speech, critics want Mamdani to engage in the kind of speech policing that leads down that same authoritarian path. His refusal isn’t endorsement of problematic language—it’s recognition that the role of government isn’t to play word police.
This is exactly the kind of principled free speech defense we need more of, especially from Democrats who have too often been willing to compromise these principles for short-term political gain. While it would have been easy for Mamdani to simply condemn the phrase and move on, his more thoughtful approach actually serves the cause of free speech better.
The irony is that many of the same people attacking Mamdani are Democrats who claim to be defending democracy against Trump’s authoritarianism. Yet they’re demanding exactly the kind of speech policing that authoritarian governments excel at—forcing officials to take public positions on specific language as loyalty tests.
And yes, some could argue that simply condemning certain language is not the same as censoring it. It’s not. It’s stating an opinion. But there’s value in Mamdani making it clear he’d rather focus on the real underlying issues around bigotry and hatred than trying to say magic words to appease a media that would never ask similar questions of a white, Christian politician.
In an era where politicians routinely cave to demands for performative condemnations and symbolic gestures, Mamdani’s approach stands out. He’s more interested in actual solutions—like his 800% increase in anti-hate crime funding—than in playing the gotcha game that dominates political discourse.
This is what defending free speech actually looks like: not demanding the right to be an asshole without consequences, but refusing to let government officials become the arbiters of acceptable speech—and politely reframing the issue when the media insists on playing such a gotcha game. If more politicians followed Mamdani’s lead, we’d have a much healthier democratic discourse.
Filed Under: antisemitism, bigotry, free speech, israel, kristen welker, meet the press, nyc, palestine, speech police, zohran mamdani
Texas Lawmakers Walk Back Campus Free Speech Law Because It’s Letting Too Many Pro-Palestinian Students Protest
from the party-of-free-speech-strikes-again dept
It would be too kind to say the irony is lost on Republican lawmakers. They would have to be capable of comprehending and acknowledging their own hypocrisy to even begin to recognize the irony. That’s why these lawmakers are so unconcerned with the long-term destruction they’re causing. It’s all worth it if it results in short-term success. And besides, they’re not the ones who are going to have to deal with the fallout.
But every so often, the tides turn fast enough even these sorts of lawmakers are getting caught up in the messes they’ve made. That’s how it’s going in Texas right now, as Republican lawmakers seek to undo campus free speech protections enacted a half-decade ago because it’s allowing people they don’t like to express ideas they don’t like.
Here’s how it started, as reported by the Texas Tribune:
In 2019, the Legislature passed a law requiring colleges and universities to ensure that all outdoor common areas of campus can be used to stage a protest, as long as demonstrators don’t break the law or disrupt school activities.
That measure came after Texas A&M leaders canceled a white nationalist rally and Texas Southern University scrapped a planned speech by Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park. Both happened in 2017. Texas A&M said it canceled the event due to safety concerns while TSU said it canceled Cain’s speech because it was organized by an unregistered student group.
“Our college students, our future leaders, they should be exposed to all ideas, I don’t care how liberal they are or how conservative they are,” Sen. Joan Huffman said at the time.
Some of these same lawmakers are now involved in an effort to create more speech restrictions on campus because students failed to comprehend the 2019 law was only there to ensure the presence of white nationalist rallies on Texas university campuses. Now that these expanded protections are being enjoyed by non-white nationalists, it’s time for a change.
Senate Bill 2972, which passed 97-39 in a final House vote on Wednesday, would give university systems’ governing boards the power to limit where protests can take place on campus.
Republicans who support say it will prevent disruption and unsafe behavior seen during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year. Critics say the measure contradicts previous conservative efforts to protect free speech rights on Texas campuses and is unconstitutional.
As is almost always the case when Republicans start re-writing laws they previously enacted, it’s the Republicans who are wrong and the critics who are right. Of the two groups, the critics are, at least, more consistent in their views.
There’s more to the law than simply expanding the amount of viewpoint censorship publicly-funded schools can engage in. In addition to giving universities more discretion on time/place decisions, students would be forbidden from using amplification devices (including microphones) when protesting during class hours, erecting overnight encampments, taking down a university’s “U.S. flag to put up another nation’s or organization’s banner,” wearing disguises (which really just means wearing masks of any kind, including the COVID-prevention variety), and protesting within 300 feet of any residences overnight.
This was never a problem between 2019 and this year, even though none of the proposed restrictions were in place since the law was first passed for the sole purpose of forcing public universities to host far-right speakers and white nationalist rallies. But with pro-Palestine protests taking over college campuses, it’s time for a change. Fewer rights for everyone — something that may result in fewer white nationalist rallies but a hit white nationalists are likely to take because it means people they don’t like won’t be able to protest either.
Even if you ignore the blatant hypocrisy of rolling back protections just because they’re capable of protecting students Texas Republicans don’t like, there’s also the sheer stupidity of what will likely become the finished work product sent to the governor’s desk. Here’s FIRE attorney Tyler Coward pointing out some obvious problems with the current proposal:
“Under this bill, the university would be required to ask a student to take off a MAGA hat if they were wearing it at 10:15 p.m. or a Bernie Sanders shirt because that is political, that is expressive activity,” he said.
Meanwhile, true believers like Senator Huffman will continue to pretend her party isn’t selling out its white nationalist voting bloc with this ham-handed attempt to silence pro-Palestinian protesters.
Huffman, a Houston Republican who authored that 2019 law, voted earlier this month in favor of the new limits on protests, citing similar reasons mentioned by other supporters. She said the new measure doesn’t undermine the former one.
Oh, but it does. It rolls back protections and makes it that much easier for universities to block appearances and rallies by bigots the Republic Party approves of. This attempt to only harm the protesters Huffman doesn’t like while protecting those she does like means the law won’t protect anyone and will make universities less likely to allow protests, rallies, and public appearances of any kind because nearly any cause could be considered to be “political” enough it’s just going to create a bunch of extra enforcement work for schools and their local security/police forces.
Filed Under: campus speech, free speech, gop, hypocrisy, palestine, protests, texas
State Dept. Says Any Foreigner Seeking To Visit Harvard Must Be Vetted For ‘Hostile Attitudes Towards US Culture’
from the thoughtcrime-prescreenings dept
Here are your options as a foreigner, whether you live in the US already or are just seeking a chance to enter the country: support Israel’s actions against Palestine or GTFO.
The Trump Administration continues to pretend supporting Palestine is the same thing as being racist against Israel. And it’s using this false dichotomy to further punish a university it’s already punishing and to allow government staffers performing entrance visa vetting to pretend any opposition to Trump is just as bad as being antisemitic on main.
The executive orders aimed at enforcing only Trump’s approved view on the Israel-Palestine conflict pretend they have something to do with “national security.” The vanishing of migrants and legal residents who are opposed to Israel’s actions is just more of the same thing. And the DHS’s recent targeting of Harvard shows Trump and his enablers will only amp up the bullying if their intended victims refuse to immediately acquiesce.
A cable sent by State Department figurehead Marco Rubio to consulates all over the world instructs them to amp up their vetting process for visa applicants, specifically in order to prevent people with anti-Israel (or anti-MAGA) views from being allowed to enter the country for the purpose of heading to Harvard. The cable only targets applicants heading to Harvard and covers everyone from prospective students to instructors to contractors.
Marisa Kabas posted some screenshots on Bluesky before covering the full cable at The Handbasket. There’s more to Rubio’s instructions than can be seen in Kabas’ social media post, so definitely head to the source to get all the details.
The opening of the cable might lead people to believe this vetting is only targeting a few outliers on the migrate-to-Harvard spectrum:
“Effective immediately, consular officers must refer certain student and exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa applicants to the Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU) for a mandatory social media check as described below,” the cable reads. It then references a quote from Rubio on March 16th: “We don’t want people in our country that are going to be committing crimes and undermining our national security or the public safety. It’s that simple. Especially people that are here as guests. That is what a visa is… It is a visitor into our country. And if you violate the terms of your visitation, you are going to leave.”
But it’s actually a lot worse than that. It tells those doing the vetting to instruct applicants to set all social media accounts to Public and assume that anyone utilizing private accounts or refusing to do so when instructed must be hiding something.
As in all instances in which an applicant refuses to provide certain information upon request, consular officers should consider whether the lack of any online presence, or having social media accounts restricted to “private” or with limited visibility, may be reflective of evasiveness and call into question the applicant’s credibility.
I know the wording sounds like it’s telling them to use their judgment, but considering this memo specifically targets only applicants seeking to visit Harvard, the most common assumption will be in favor of blocking their application.
And this is just the warning shot. Harvard is the target du jour. There will be more targets in the future and consulate officers should probably just starting vetting every applicant for anti-Israel (or anti-Trump) sentiment.
Implementation of this vetting measure for applicants traveling to Harvard will also serve as a pilot for expanded screening and vetting of visa applicants, and as the Department continues to develop and expand any enhanced vetting requirements to student visas generally, it may announce similar measures for other groups of visa applicants…
Speaking of expanded implementation, here’s the part that goes past the supposed national security concerns of rooting out antisemitic visa applicants:
[I]n another section, it states that a student visa applicant doesn’t necessarily need to express explicit support for “terrorist activity” in order to be denied, but just that they demonstrate “a degree of public approval or public advocacy for terrorist activity or a terrorist organization.”
It goes on to say: “This may be evident in conduct that bears a hostile attitude toward U.S. citizens or U.S. culture (including government, institutions, or founding principles). Or it may be evident in advocacy or sympathy for foreign terrorist organizations. All of these matters may open lines of inquiry regarding the applicant’s credibility and purpose of travel.”
The Trump Administration is doing everything it can to homogenize the nation with its mass deportation program. This addition to visa vetting procedures makes it clear it’s only willing to extend this privilege to people who appear to like Trump and this administration or, at the very least, have never posted anything remotely controversial ever. And that’s why white South Africans are getting the red carpet rolled out for them while everyone sporting browner shades of skin are getting hustled into planes bound for whatever country has expressed an interest in jailing non-citizens indefinitely.
Filed Under: donald trump, executive orders, harvard, immigration, marco rubio, palestine, state department
Israel Shows It Has Nothing To Fear From International Coverage Of Palestine Conflict By Kicking Al Jazeera Out Of The Country
from the I-guess-we'll-just-have-to-take-the-state-media's-word-for-it dept
Wars, conflicts, domestic dust-ups, whatever you want to call them… they’re sensitive situations, easily made worse by even the most mild fluctuations in the political climate or the public temperament.
And while I’m completely aware there’s no enshrined rights protecting journalism on par with the First Amendment in Israel, this latest turn of events does the country’s government no favors… especially when it’s already on the losing end of a lot of battles in the court of public opinion.
Israeli authorities raided a Jerusalem hotel room used by Al Jazeera as its office after the government decided to shut down the Qatari-owned TV station’s local operations on Sunday, an Israeli official and an Al Jazeera source told Reuters.
Video circulated online showed plainclothes officers dismantling camera equipment in a hotel room, which the Al Jazeera source said was in East Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet shut down the network for as long as the war in Gaza continues, saying it threatened national security.
This is the sort of thing that happens almost everywhere when the domestic situation starts to get a bit war-ry. Having blacked its own eye several times — not the least of which was the apparent “targeted” killing of international aid workers providing food for Palestinians on the other side of Israel’s siege tactics — the Israeli government apparently won’t be allowing this particular non-Israeli news agency from criticizing it while enjoying the relative safety of a Jerusalem hotel room.
As usual, the excuse used for ejecting foreign journalists is a favorite of any country whose government wants to oust critics, dissidents, or unfriendly journalists: “national security.”
Certainly Al Jazeera’s coverage has been critical, but no more so than plenty of other news agencies. Its recent exposure of even more abuse of Israeli-crafted spyware by a questionable government customer couldn’t have helped, but Israel’s domestic news agencies have been doing this for years, helping contribute to the worldwide woes suffered (deservedly so!) by malware merchants like NSO Group and Candiru.
This decision to boot Al Jazeera was the result of a concerted effort that required a vote from the members of the Israeli government cabinet. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the vote was “unanimous.”
And it’s not as though Al Jazeera’s hands are completely clean, either. Accusations that its journalists cohabitate and collaborate with members of Islamic extremist groups have dogged the new outlet for years. There have been several accusations over the past several months that Al Jazeera journalists are not only embedded with Hamas, but apparently acting as operatives. (Of course, most of these accusations tend to come from governments irritated with Al Jazeera reporting, rather than sources with little to gain from silencing apparent critics.)
But there’s no reason to believe the journalists staying in Jerusalem were involved with anything more than providing ongoing coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. And this ousting by the Israeli government hasn’t earned it any international accolades. Instead, it has been met with united criticism from other governments as well as news agencies around the world.
Given the circumstances of this ejection, it looks far more like the Israeli government wants to wrest control of the conflict narrative. If it had any genuine concerns about Al Jazeera, it had plenty of time to address them before it became the subject of international criticism for its actions and tactics in this latest flare-up in hostilities. The timing here says this is just opportunistic and completely unmoored from any legitimate national security concerns. But when all you have is a war, everything looks like a “national security threat.”
Filed Under: free speech, gaza, israel, journalism, palestine
Companies: al jazeera
EFF Defends Anti-War Group Against SXSW’s Bullshit IP Claims
from the streisand-effect dept
We haven’t talked a great deal about SXSW in some time, but they are back in the news and not for good reasons! The conference and festival kicked off in March as planned, but less planned were the protests that organized against the conference as a result of its affiliations with defense contractors and the United States military and the ongoing support of Israel’s heavy-handed response to the attacks it suffered from Hamas last year. Performers backed out and a handful of protest groups organized alternative concerts and demonstrations out in front of SXSW.
One of those groups was the Austin for Palestine Coalition (APC) that put out communication and organized protests along these lines. In those communications, some of them included parodied versions of the SXSW branding to make it clear that the group believes the organization has blood on its hands. For instance:
Now, for the sin of publishing this parody content, which you will already recognize as protected speech under the First Amendment, SXSW made several trademark and copyright claims for takedowns of social media and internet content. To be clear, those claims are utter nonsense.
And if you want to understand the specifics as to why, the EFF has gotten involved in supporting AFC and has a great explainer in the link.
On the trademark question first:
The law is clear on this point. The First Amendment protects your right to make a political statement using trademark parodies, whether or not the trademark owner likes it. That’s why trademark law applies a different standard (the “Rogers test”) to infringement claims involving expressive works. The Rogers test is a crucial defense against takedowns like these, and it clearly applies here. Even without Rogers’ extra protections, SXSW’s trademark claim would be bogus: Trademark law is about preventing consumer confusion, and no reasonable consumer would see Austin for Palestine’s posts and infer they were created or endorsed by SXSW.
Completely correct. APC is protected when it comes to this content via several vectors. Parody is protected speech. Political messaging is protected speech. And, finally, trademark law struggles to be employed when there is no serious concern for confusion in the public. And if SXSW really wants to make the argument that someone is going to take messaging critical of it as affiliated with SXSW, I’m happy to sit back and laugh at them.
As for the copyright claim, it’s even worse.
SXSW’s copyright claims are just as groundless. Basic symbols like their arrow logo are not copyrightable. Moreover, even if SXSW meant to challenge Austin for Palestine’s mimicking of their promotional material—and it’s questionable whether that is copyrightable as well—the posts are a clear example of non-infringing fair use. In a fair use analysis, courts conduct a four-part analysis, and each of those four factors here either favors Austin for Palestine or is at worst neutral. Most importantly, it’s clear that the critical message conveyed by Austin for Palestine’s use is entirely different from the original purpose of these marketing materials, and the only injury to SXSW is reputational—which is not a cognizable copyright injury.
As far as the EFF has heard, SXSW hasn’t responded to its pushback. And, of course, guess what all of this bullying type behavior designed to bury the protests has actually done? Well, in true Streisand Effect fashion, the very information this bullying was supposed to tamp down is instead on a repeater as more and more outlets, including us, discuss the story in its entirety.
When will they ever learn?
Filed Under: austin for palestine coalition, copyright, israel, palestine, parody, protests, sxsw, trademark
Companies: sxsw
No, Trademark Squatting On Anti-Israel Phrase Won’t Keep It From Use
from the not-gonna-work dept
For some reason, there are enough people who are ignorant enough about trademark law such that every once in a while you get people who don’t like a thing trying to trademark that thing thinking they can prevent that thing from being done or used. It’s a form of trademark squatting. Confused? An example would be one man who thought he could keep the NFL’s Raiders in Oakland merely by applying for a trademark on “San Antonio Raiders,” where the team was rumored to relocate to. Stuff like that doesn’t work, primarily because you have to actually show a use of the trademark in commerce, or at least a valid intent to use it. You don’t get to go out and trademark something merely to sit on it and prevent someone else from using it.
Which brings us to the war between Israel and Hamas. The brutal conflict is raging once more, as are various political discussions around it. One phrase you are likely to have heard at some point is: “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.” To be clear, that phrase is a hateful, anti-Israel rallying cry that calls for the abolition of the state of Israel. That isn’t to say that there shouldn’t be a Palestinian state, of course, but to pretend like that statement calls for anything less than the destruction of Israel as a state is silly.
Equally silly is two Jewish men in America somehow thinking that they’re going to control the use of the phrase merely by trying to trademark it.
Two Jewish American men have submitted separate trademark applications for the expression “from the river to the sea,” triggering a flurry of reactions. A prominent legal expert has cautioned that the move might have unintended consequences for both the Jewish community and Israel.
Joel Ackerman and Oron Rosenkrantz filed trademark applications for the phrase that refers to the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing Israel and the Palestinian territories.
This is pointless at best, and potentially counterproductive to the goal at worst. It’s pointless for a number of reasons. For starters, it’s very unlikely that either trademark application will be approved at all. It’s a widely used political phrase that does nothing to serve as a source identifier of a good. But even if it were granted, it would be for an extremely limited type of goods, such as t-shirts and hats. No such mark would prevent the phrase from being said, chanted, written, nor used on all sorts of other products. It’s simply not going to stifle any real use of the phrase, so what’s the point?
“We don’t know for sure what the outcome will be, but the chances [of their receiving these trademarks] is not that good,” Katzenelson said. “Since it only applies to hats and shirts, stopping its use on other services and goods would be very difficult.”
The counterproductive piece is somewhat akin to the Streisand Effect. Whatever contact the general public has had with this anti-Israel message, now that message is being written and talked about all the more thanks to this attempt to trademark it. And there’s certainly no guarantee that those who come across the message, thanks to all of this, will take the same view of it as these two gentlemen.
Now, again, I don’t expect that these applications will be approved at all. But the point is that there was no reason to attempt any of this to begin with.
Filed Under: from the river to the sea, hamas, israel, palestine, trademark, trademark abuse, trademark squatting
New Israeli Law Makes Consuming ‘Terrorist’ Content A Criminal Offense
from the well-that's-a-mess dept
It’s amazing just how much war and conflict can change a country. On October 7th, Hamas blitzed Israel with an attack that was plainly barbaric. Yes, this is a conflict that has been simmering with occasional flashpoints for decades. No, neither side can even begin to claim it has entirely clean hands as a result of those decades of conflict. We can get the equivocating out of the way. October 7th was different, the worst single day of murder of the Jewish community since the Holocaust. And even in the immediate aftermath, those outside of Israel and those within knew that the attack was going to result in both an immediate reaction from Israel and longstanding changes within its borders. And those of us from America, or those that witnessed how our country reacted to 9/11, knew precisely how much danger this period of change represented.
It’s already started. First, Israel loosened the reins to allow once-blacklisted spyware companies to use their tools to help Israel find the hundreds of hostages Hamas claims to have taken. While that goal is perfectly noble, of course, the willingness to engage with more nefarious tools to achieve that end had begun. And now we learn that Israel’s government has taken the next step in amending its counterterrorism laws to make the consumption of “terrorist” content a criminal offense, punishable with jail time.
The bill, which was approved by a 13-4 majority in the Knesset, is a temporary two-year measure that amends Article 24 of the counterterrorism law to ban the “systematic and continuous consumption of publications of a terrorist organization under circumstances that indicate identification with the terrorist organization”.
It identifies the Palestinian group Hamas and the ISIL (ISIS) group as the “terrorist” organisations to which the offence applies. It grants the justice minister the authority to add more organisations to the list, in agreement with the Ministry of Defence and with the approval of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee.
Make no mistake, this is the institution of thought crime. Read those two paragraphs one more time and realize just how much the criminalization of consumption of materials relies on the judgement and interpretation of those enforcing it. What is systematic in terms of this law? What is a publication? What constitutes a “terrorist organization,” not in the case of Hamas and ISIL, but in that ominous bit at the end of the second paragraph, where more organizations can — and will — be added to this list?
And most importantly, how in the world is the Israeli government going to determine “circumstances that indicate identification with the terrorist organization?”
“This law is one of the most intrusive and draconian legislative measures ever passed by the Israeli Knesset since it makes thoughts subject to criminal punishment,” said Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. It warned that the amendment would criminalise “even passive social media use” amid a climate of surveillance and curtailment of free speech targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel.
“This legislation encroaches upon the sacred realm of an individual’s personal thoughts and beliefs and significantly amplifies state surveillance of social media use,” the statement added. Adalah is sending a petition to the Supreme Court to challenge the bill.
This has all the hallmarks of America’s overreaction to the 9/11 attacks. We still haven’t unwound, not even close, all of the harm that was done in the aftermath of those attacks, all in the name of safety. We are still at a net-negative value in terms of our civil liberties due to that overreaction. President Biden even reportedly warned Israel not to ignore our own mistakes, but they’re doing it anyway.
And circling back to the first quotation and the claim that this law is temporary over a 2 year period, that’s just not how this works. If this law is allowed to continue to exist, it will be extended, and then extended again. The United States is still operating under the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 and used it in order to conduct strikes in Somalia under the Biden administration, two decades later.
The right to speech and thought is as bedrock a thing as exists for a democracy. If we accept that premise, then it is simply impossible to “protect a democracy” by limiting the rights of speech and thought. And that’s precisely what this new law in Israel does: it chips away at the democracy of the state in order to protect it.
That’s not how Israel wins this war, if that is in fact the goal.
Filed Under: hamas, israel, palestine, terrorism, terrorist content
Israel Gives Blacklisted Spyware Companies The Go-Ahead To Help It Track Israeli Hostages
from the not-just-a-tool-of-oppression! dept
Decades of somewhat-restrained conflict between Israel and Palestine erupted into war again at the beginning of the month. Islamist militant group Hamas followed rocket strikes with a physical invasion, the latter of which included the massacre of hundreds of Israeli civilians. Israeli civilians were also tortured and mutilated.
Hamas also allegedly kidnapped around 200 Israelis, including 30 children. I say “allegedly” because that’s what Hamas claims, not because I don’t believe Hamas is willing and able to kidnap 200 Israelis.
This horrific string of events has resulted in the Israeli government cautiously welcoming a couple of its most notorious resident tech companies back into the fold… at least for now. Here are more details from Gwen Ackerman and Marissa Newman for Bloomberg:
Israel’s security services are pulling in spyware companies, including the maker of the controversial Pegasus software, to help track hostages in the Gaza Strip, people familiar with the matter said.
NSO Group and Candiru, both of which are blacklisted by the US, are being asked to quickly upgrade their spyware capabilities to meet needs laid out by the country’s security forces, according to four cybersecurity industry sources and an Israeli government official. They, together with several other software firms, are collaborating on the requests and largely offering their services for free, said the people, who asked not to be identified because of they weren’t authorized to comment on military operations.
The Commerce Department blacklist — which followed weeks of negative coverage stemming from the apparent leak of “targets” of NSO customers — led to the Israeli government finally placing limits on who its native malware tech firms could sell to. This reversed the longstanding partnership in which the Israeli government helped NSO and others secure contracts with a variety of known human rights abusers in the Middle East.
It was a severely dysfunctional form of diplomacy, one that blew up in NSO Group’s face. Israel’s government suffered some collateral damage, having assisted a bunch of its former employees (most spyware firms in Israel were formed by former Israeli intelligence operatives) in making the world a worse place for everyone. The leaked list showed a lot of NSO customers weren’t using its powerful Pegasus spyware to track down dangerous criminals and terrorists. Instead, they were using it to spy on critics, journalists, legal advocates, political opponents, and anyone else who might somehow inconvenience those in power.
The fallout led to the government creating some distance between itself and the companies it had indirectly helped to create and directly helped to succeed.
Though Israel has never publicly severed ties with NSO and Candiru, the Israel Defense Forces dismissed some of their employees from military reserve duty after the firms were sanctioned in the US for helping authoritarian regimes track journalists and dissidents.
That gap has been closed a bit in recent weeks. Candiru states that it is volunteering the use of its spyware to help locate and track Israeli captives. The same thing goes for NSO.
NSO has the advantage. It’s Pegasus spyware is a zero-click exploit, which means it only needs to be sent to the phones of kidnapped citizens. It doesn’t require any interaction from the recipient.
While this may be capable of locating phones, it won’t necessarily locate people. No one kidnapped by Hamas would be allowed to keep their phone. However, their captors are certainly in possession of their phones and, in many cases, already have access to their contents. As long as the phones are useful to Hamas, the use of this spyware will allow the government to track the captors. If the phones have been disposed of for exactly this reason — i.e., the possibility they may be converted Israeli government surveillance devices — this effort will go nowhere.
That doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. And it presents a case study for actually useful, non-harmful deployments of powerful cell phone exploits. This is the sort of situation where citizens would welcome government intrusion, and that’s when governments should be prepared to do things like this.
Obviously, it’s not a great way to make money. Both companies appear to be providing their spyware for free. No local company would want to appear to be making a buck on their fellow citizens’ misery… at least not in cases like these. That they’re willing to help their own government engage in domestic surveillance for truly harmful reasons shows what they’re willing to do for a buck, but they can be altruistic when the situation calls for it.
It’s very possible malware like NSO’s Pegasus exploit has helped law enforcement locate kidnapped people before. Great! But that has been the exception, rather than the rule. And the companies pitching in here know you can’t make good money helping out worthy causes or refusing to sell to autocrats or pulling the plug on contracts the moment any questionable uses are discovered.
So, we have what we have here: a worthwhile use of powerful spyware that will always be an anomaly, no matter how often exploit supplies like this are investigated, curtailed, or blacklisted. Hurting powerless people will always be more profitable than helping them. NSO and its competitors will live on, supplying autocrats with tools to silence criticism and stifle dissent. Because that’s where the money actually is.
Filed Under: commerce department, israel, palestine, pegasus, spyware, surveillance
Companies: candiru, nso group
Peering Through The Fog Of War With Open Source Intelligence
from the what-took-them-so-long? dept
“The fog of war” is a phrase that has been used for over a hundred years to describe the profound uncertainty that envelops armed conflicts while they are happening. Today, the uncertainty for non-combatants is exacerbated by the rapid-fire nature of social media, where people often like or re-post dubious war-related material without scrutinizing it first. The situation has become particularly bad on ExTwitter under Elon Musk’s stewardship, as a recent NewsGuard analysis published on Adweek revealed. The platform’s “verified” users pushed nearly three-quarters of the platform’s most viral false Israel-Hamas war-related claims, which were then spread widely by others:
The verified accounts promoted 10 false narratives, such as claims that Ukraine sold weapons to Hamas and a video of Israeli senior officials being captured by Hamas.
Collectively, posts promoting false claims garnered 1,349,979 likes, reposts, replies and bookmarks, and were viewed by more than 100 million people globally in a week, per NewsGuard.
A recent example of how difficult it is to tease out what happened in a fast-moving conflict with many civilian casualties is the explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. As Wired noted:
Within minutes, information about what had happened was distorted by partisan narratives, disinformation, and a rush to be first to post about the blast. Add in mainstream media outlets parroting official statements without verifying their veracity, and the result was a chaotic information environment in which no one was sure what had happened or how.
Open source intelligence – the analysis of information drawn from a variety of freely available sources, usually online – is emerging as one of the best ways to peer through the fog of war. For example both the Guardian newspaper and the UK’s Channel 4 news made use of open source intelligence in their attempts to work out who was responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza. One of the leading journalistic practitioners of data analysis, the FT’s John Burn-Murdoch, believes that the absence of OSINT is why many traditional media outlets are failing so badly in their reporting of the Israel-Hamas war and elsewhere. As he wrote in a thread on ExTwitter:
With the proliferation of photos/footage, satellite imagery and map data, forensic video/image analysis and geolocation (~OSINT) has clearly been a key news gathering technique for several years now. A key news gathering technique *completely absent from most newsrooms*
According to Burn-Murdoch, this has had a terrible effect not just on the quality of reporting, but on the public’s trust in journalism, already greatly diminished as a result of constant attacks on the media by populist politicians around the world:
most mainstream news orgs today are either simply not equipped to determine for themselves what’s happening in some of the world’s biggest stories, or lack the confidence to allow their in-house technical specialists to cast doubt on a star reporter’s trusted source
So you end up with situations where huge, respected news organisations are reporting as fact things that have already been shown by technically adept news gatherers outside newsrooms to be false or at the very least highly uncertain. It’s hugely damaging to trust in journalism.
It’s great that a leading exponent of data journalism like Burn-Murdoch is calling for mainstream media to make the use of open source intelligence a regular and integral part of their reporting. Doing so is especially important at a time when the fog of war is thick, as is the case in the Middle East today. But it’s a pity that it has taken this long for the power of OSINT to be recognized in this way. Techdirt first wrote about what is still probably the leading practitioner of open source intelligence analysis, Bellingcat, over eight years ago.
Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon.
Filed Under: bellingcat, data journalism, elon musk, ft, gaza, israel, middle east, open source intelligence, osint, palestine, twitter, war
Starbucks Joins The List Of Companies Using Trademark Law To Bully Its Own Union
from the not-how-that-works dept
The trend continues. One of the things we’ve noticed more frequently as of late has been larger companies attempting to use trademark law as some kind of cudgel against employee unions. This has taken several forms, from Wal-Mart attempting to shut down a union website for accurately calling itself a union of Wal-Mart employees, Medieval Times trying to shutter a website and merch for its performers’ union for the same reason, and Trader Joes attacking its employees’ union ostensibly for similar reasons, but really it just wanted to cause as much trouble and pain for the union as possible.
This case is admittedly different and, arguably, worse. In this case, Starbucks has threatened Starbucks Workers United with a trademark lawsuit principally, it appears, because the union started tweeting things the company doesn’t like about Gaza.
Starbucks is threatening to sue Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents employees of the coffee conglomerate, for trademark infringement following the union’s ‘Solidarity with Palestine!’ tweet.
Last week, a letter was sent to the president of the union demanding that the union ‘immediately cease and desist’ from using the company’s name and logo or the company will pursue legal action ‘including without limitation monetary damages.’
The tweet has since been deleted, but it read “Solidarity with Palestine!” and was sent in the midst of Israel’s response to a horrific terror attack launched by Hamas out of the Gaza Strip. Now, there is a lot to discuss about the history leading up to this conflict, actions that have been taken on both sides of the equation here, and all the rest. But this is not the forum for that discussion. Nor is the union’s opinion on matters of geo-politics in any way trespassing into the realm of trademark law. In other words, the union’s activities don’t suddenly become trademark infringement simply because it tweeted out something Starbucks doesn’t like, even if you don’t like it either.
It appears the lawyers for Starbucks don’t understand that.
The lawyers wrote that because the union had made ‘statements advocating for violence in the Middle East,’ they must change their name, website address, social media accounts, merchandise, and anything else the features their logo.
The union president Lynne Fox wrote in a response that the company had not managed to ‘identify any such statement.’ She added that Starbucks Workers United is affiliated with SEIU, the president of which issued a statement that read:
‘The violence in Israel and Palestine is unconscionable. @SEIU stands with all who are suffering, while strongly condemning anti-Semitism, Islamophobia & hate in all forms.’
This is a complete non-starter and I’ll be surprised if any lawsuit is actually filed. That being said, executives at the company are insisting a lawsuit will be filed in federal court over all of this. If it does, it will clearly be a lawsuit designed to stop the speech rights of the union through punitive action.
And all the same arguments as to why the union is not infringing simply by calling itself a union for laborers of the company, nor is the branding it chose for itself that has some similarity to the corporate branding, because nobody will be mislead or confused as to the affiliation of a big company and the union it desperately wishes didn’t exist.
Filed Under: bullying, free speech, gaza, hamas, israel, palestine, trademark, unions
Companies: starbucks, starbucks workers united