Author: Brett Wilkins

UPDATE: On Tuesday night the Senate voted down the Sanders resolution by a vote of 72-11.

Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that he will force a Senate floor vote this week on a resolution that would suspend aid to Israel if the U.S. State Department fails to report on how Israeli weapons – many of them supplied by the United States – are being used in Gaza.

Appearing on CNN‘s “State of the Union,” Sanders (I-Vt.) told host Jake Tapper that he will force a Tuesday evening vote on his resolution, which is based on Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, legislation empowering Congress to “request information on a particular country’s human rights practices and to alter or terminate U.S. security assistance to that country in light of the information received.”

Continue reading “Sanders to Force Senate Vote on Probing Israeli War Crimes”

ChatGPT maker OpenAI this week quietly removed language from its usage policy that prohibited military use of its technology, a move with serious implications given the increase use of artificial intelligence on battlefields including Gaza.

ChatGPT is a free tool that lets users enter prompts to receive text or images generated by AI.The Intercept‘s Sam Biddle reported Friday that prior to Wednesday, OpenAI’s permissible uses page banned “activity that has high risk of physical harm, including,” specifically, “weapons development” and “military and warfare.”

Continue reading “OpenAI Cuts ‘Military and Warfare’ Ban From Permissible Use Policy”

The Anti-Defamation League came under fire Wednesday after publishing a report that significantly expanded the group’s definition of antisemitic incidents to include demonstrations against Israel’s U.S.-backed genocidal war on Gaza.

“For the first time, the ADL is counting pro-Palestinian rallies that do not feature overt hostility toward Jews in its count of antisemitic incidents,” Jewish Daily Forward antisemitism reporter Arno Rosenfeld noted on social media in response to the organization’s new report, which lists what it claims are 3,283 anti-Jewish occurrences in the United States in the three months after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that left more than 1,100 Israelis and others dead and over 200 others taken hostage.

Continue reading “ADL Report Decried for Equating Anti-Zionism With Antisemitism”

Human rights defenders marked 22 years since the opening of the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba with renewed calls for President Joe Biden to fulfill his stated intention to close the notorious torture camp, where 30 men—16 of them cleared for release—remain behind bars.

Like most of the roughly 750 prisoners released from Guantánamo, the majority of remaining detainees have never been charged with any crime. Only one—Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul, a Yemeni national—has ever been convicted of terrorism-related charges under the highly controversial military commission regime established by the George W. Bush administration in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Continue reading “22 Years, 4 Presidents, and Just 1 Conviction Later, Dozens Still Jailed at Guantanamo”

The United States and United Kingdom on Thursday launched air and missile strikes on Yemen as part of the international effort to end Houthi rebels’ attacks on Red Sea shipping, with the armed group warning earlier that such aggression “will not go without response.”

Thursday’s U.S.-led attacks on Yemen fueled fears of a wider Middle East war amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and escalating retaliation by Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Houthi forces—who have been waging a decadelong civil war against Yemen’s government and a Saudi-led coalition—began launching missiles and drones toward Israel and attacking shipping traffic in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s Gaza onslaught. Earlier this week, the Houthis launched a sophistical barrage of 21 missiles and drones at U.S. and U.K. warships taking part in a multinational “security” initiative in the crucial waterway.

Continue reading “Fears of Wider War as US, UK Bomb Yemen”

Citing “the urgency of Israel’s defensive needs,” the Biden administration on Friday said it would bypass Congress for the second time this month to approve an immediate arms sale to the key Middle East ally as it continues to wage a genocidal war against Gaza.

The Associated Press reported that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken notified lawmakers of the new emergency determination involving the sale of $147.5 million in equipment including fuses, charges, and primers for 155mm artillery shells that Israel has already purchased from the United States.

Continue reading “Once Again, Biden Bypasses Congress to Approve Arms Sale to Israel”