Image by Phạm Nhật.
Recall those feverish days leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq when Colin Powell presented his dubious evidence to the United Nations Security Council, claiming Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs. The result of those bogus lies was The Iraq Resolution, which authorized the use of force against the sovereign state, and passed the Senate by a decisive 77-23 margin, with only 23 dissenting votes. Support crossed party lines as Hillary Clinton and many other prominent Democrats consistently reached into George W. Bush’s basket of lies, repeating the neocons’ WMD propaganda. The New York Times, fulfilling its usual perfunctory role, ran Judith Miller’s series of bogus articles parroting the same falsehoods. Outrage grew, and we took to the streets as the U.S. invasion loomed.
Today, I have the same sense of helplessness each time Israel is engulfed in yet another murderous deception, which warmakers spread through a compliant mainstream press. Much like their selling of the Iraq war, The New York Times relentlessly publishes pieces reiterating Israel’s rationale for bombing hospitals and promoting the (now thoroughly debunked) allegations of mass sexual assault, which have been used to depict all Palestinians as savages deserving of execution. The New York Times often qualifies its errors with caveats but rarely admits fault. Democrats still vote against halting arms shipments to war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, knowing it will likely harm innocent children in Gaza. History repeats, and mothers weep.
In March 2003, during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we were still adapting to the emerging digital media landscape. There were no smartphones, TikTok, Twitter, or Instagram. While information was accessible, distribution was limited to email lists and message boards. Independent outlets like CounterPunch, TomDispatch, and Antiwar.com were trailblazing radical journalism, countering the tide of pro-war disinformation from mainstream sources.
Consider YellowTimes.org, a prominent alternative to The New York Times before the Iraq War. Shortly after the U.S. military arrived in Iraq, their server was suspended for posting screenshots from Al Jazeera of dead U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. The outrage stemmed not from dead Iraqis but from the sight of lifeless troops, victims of the Bush administration’s deceit.
“No TV station in the US is allowing dead US soldiers of POWs to be displayed and we will not either. We understand free press and all that but we don’t want someone’s family member to see them on some site. It is disrespectful, tacky and disgusting,” read an email to Yellow Times editor Erich Marquardt from the site’s Florida-based server provider, VortechHosting.
YellowTimes was finished, never to return. While their decision to publish graphic war photos might have smacked of poor taste, there was nothing illegal about publishing gruesome war photos. The blatant suppression of the YellowTimes, along with the mainstream media’s unwillingness to question the government’s WMD narrative, would have disastrous consequences. Over the next eight years, nearly 500,000 excess deaths would be attributed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, including 4,419 U.S. service members, and mainstream media outlets would be disseminating the majority of the reporting.
First They Came for the Students
In March, nearly 22 years to the day since YellowTimes was taken down, a video captured six plainclothes ICE agents apprehending Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk on the streets near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts. As widely reported, Öztürk, a Fulbright scholar, was in the country on a student visa, concluding a PhD program in Child Study and Human Development. The disturbing video footage provides a bird’s eye view of the authoritarian overreach we are experiencing, highlighting the intensification of Trump’s efforts to suppress pro-Palestine activism and a broader assault on press freedom.
Like Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia University, and others who’ve been arrested in recent weeks, Öztürk had not been accused of breaking any laws; she had merely co-written an op-ed for the student newspaper urging Tufts’ President Sunil Kumar to recognize resolutions passed by the student senate, which included a call for the university to disclose and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
“These resolutions were the product of meaningful debate by the Senate and represent a sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law,” Öztürk and her co-authors wrote. “Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.”
Öztürk’s arrest by ICE and the threat of deportation represent an escalation. The ICE abduction of Öztürk was a draconian strategy intended to dissuade others, especially those on student visas, from expressing similar empathy for Palestinian suffering. As of April 10, a total of 600 student visas have been revoked in the United States, with most citing pro-Palestine activism.
Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine protests at universities like Columbia—and the threat to withhold $400 million in federal funding–is an escalation of a bipartisan effort to silence pro-Palestinian voices. While President Biden spoke against alleged anti-Semitism, he only weakly addressed the violence directed at pro-Palestine encampments last year, which drew criticism.
“Rather than addressing the sources of violence and heeding calls for immediate federal action to protect student activists and uphold their rights to free expression and assembly, President Biden has misplaced the blame on the peaceful student activists,” wrote American Muslims for Palestine in a May 2024 statement. “Doing so sets a dangerous precedent for students across the United States, making them open targets for attacks by police, administrators, and extremist Zionist groups.”
It was Biden’s dangerous precedent that set the stage for Trump’s escalating attacks on those speaking out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Students on visas in the country have been an easy target, but these ICE arrests may only signal the beginning of what’s to come. The press, especially media outlets that expose Israel’s genocide, are likely to be next.
The Case of the Alleged Hamas Freelancer
Ramzy Baroud, one of CounterPunch’s popular contributors, was born in a Gaza refugee camp and now resides in the U.S. His early life in the refugee camps gave him a profound understanding of his people’s struggle for liberation. A prolific journalist and author, Ramzy also serves as the editor of the Palestine Chronicle, one of the first English-language Palestinian media sources on the internet, which has been active since 1999.. Last October, his sister, Dr. Soma Baroud, was assassinated by the Israeli Defense Forces when a missile struck her vehicle. Her crime? Being a doctor in Gaza. At that time, she was one of over 1,000 healthcare workers killed by Israel.
Ramzy clearly explains why his sister, like many others, was targeted. We recently had him discuss it on our CounterPunch Radio podcast.
“ [Israel knows] the importance of our women in our society. They know the significance of doctors in our society, especially doctors who play more than the role of just someone who heals wounds and helps people at hospitals,” Ramzy explained. “Doctors who also serve the role of community leaders. And she really was a [leader] … So it’s kind of layers of devastation. I think the family is still unable to understand fully or to come to terms with the emotional loss just because the loss is never really stopped and there is just no time to even reflect in any profound or deep way about all of this.”
While Ramzy’s sister was targeted in Gaza, the non-profit Palestine Chronicle has also faced attacks. Last July, The New York Times published an article about a former Israeli hostage in Gaza named Andrey Kozlov, who had been held captive by Hamas fighters for six excruciating months after being kidnapped. Kozlov claimed that one of his captors, Abdallah Aljamal, was moonlighting as a journalist for the Palestine Chronicle. This accusation was repeated by Almog Meir Jan, who had been abducted along with Kozlov and another Israeli named Shlomi Ziv at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.
Aljamal was killed in a massacre at the Nuseirat refugee camp in June 2024. He was 37 years old. Israel has provided no evidence that Aljamal, a well-known Palestinian journalist, was ever a member of Hamas, participated in the October 7 attacks, or held Israeli hostages. However, as we know, Israel doesn’t require evidence to commit war crimes, including the murder of journalists. Aljamal wasn’t the only contributor to the Palestine Chronicle who Israel killed; notable journalists Wafa Al-Udani and Yousef Dawas were also targeted, among the over 175 media workers killed by Israel during its onslaught on Gaza.
In July 2024, Almond Meir Jan, one of the Israeli hostages, filed a lawsuit against the Palestine Chronicle, claiming that, by publishing Aljama, they had provided “material support” for a “designated foreign terrorist organization.” The suit was later dismissed for lack of evidence that Baroud’s media project was in any way connected to Hamas.
U.S. District Court Judge Tiffany Cartwright stated in her ruling, “Many of the positions taken by the Chronicle, such as highlighting the deaths of Palestinian civilians and criticizing Israeli airstrikes, have been echoed by countless news organizations, protesters, and political leaders around the world … These articles do not cross the line from protected speech to inciting or preparing for unlawful activity. Nothing in the complaint alleges that Defendants advocated for, incited, or planned specific human rights violations.”
For its part, the Palestine Chronicle denied having knowledge of any ties between Aljama and Hamas, noting that he was an unpaid freelancer and not a staff writer. Additionally, they stated in their response to Jan’s lawsuit that “Defendants do not contest that the underlying torts committed against Jan by Aljamal and Hamas—the kidnapping and imprisonment of a civilian hostage—are international human rights violations.”
Following the death of Ramzy’s sister last October, Almond Meir Jan and Shlomi Ziv filed another lawsuit against the Palestine Chronicle, submitting a similar complaint that by publishing Abdallah Aljamal, they were providing “material support” for terrorism. This suit is supported by the National Jewish Advocacy Center, led by Mark Goldfeder, who argues that he perceives anti-Zionist activism as inherently antisemitic. The organization has filed similar lawsuits against other media outlets, including the Associated Press, for their reporting on the October 7 attacks.
“ [Trump] wants to silence dissent in the United States, and there’s been a major war on Palestinian voices and pro-Palestinian voices, [anyone] who dares stand up for the Palestinian people,” Ramzy Baroud told CounterPunch Radio. “For many Americans, what is happening [to] Mahmoud Khalil … [is] not igniting the kind of attention that it really should be igniting … [Next we] are going to see attacks on American citizens under various guises. The Espionage Act of this and that. The Israelis have done it … I feel like the Americans are following that trajectory.”
The lawsuits targeting the Palestine Chronicle are not standalone incidents; they form part of a larger strategy involving widespread visa cancellations and, illustrated by Rümeysa Öztürk’s case, a repression of student journalism aimed at silencing those seen as threatening U.S. interests. Consider the fate of YellowTimes during the Iraq War, now intensified many times over. A fresh wave of McCarthyism is resurfacing, energized by Donald Trump.
The Media as Terrorist Enablers
Palestine supporters have faced various forms of censorship since October 7, including significant collaboration between Israel and Meta to eliminate anti-genocide content from their Facebook and Instagram platforms. Additionally, Meta has radically adjusted its algorithms to shadow ban posts criticizing Israel. In a 2023 report, Human Rights Watch described Meta’s assault on free speech as “systemic and global.”
In June 2024, former Meta engineer Ferras Hamad filed a lawsuit against Meta, claiming he was wrongfully terminated for attempting to undo a program used to suppress content related to Palestine.
These well-documented actions have affected not only personal accounts but also media outlets. And it’s not just Meta. The New York Times, seemingly acting on behalf of the State Department, has done its best to discredit journalists like Vijay Prashad, peace organizations like CODEPINK, and others, suggesting they are pawns of the Chinese Communist Party (a claim they openly deny). The Times’ questionable reporting has led conservative lawmakers to urge Attorney General Pamela Bondi to investigate the situation in hopes of shutting them down. Our own podcast, CounterPunch Radio, had an episode discussing the October 7 attacks with investigative journalist Arun Gupta removed twice, without notice, by our hosting service Blubrry. While these various attempts at censorship might seem disparate, collectively they signify a deliberate assault on media free speech.
The U.S. government has stepped up its legislative efforts against non-profit media, viewing it as detrimental to its foreign policy goals. In November 2024, HR 9495, referred to as the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, was approved with a vote of 219-184. This legislation allows the Treasury Department to strip the tax-exempt status of any non-profit organization it classifies as a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Full authority would be granted to Treasury officials, bypassing due process. While the bill has stalled in the Senate, it could be brought back at any moment and, with considerable Democratic support, might find an easier route to the President’s desk. The act would first target organizations that oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
This legislation is not an isolated act but a continuation of the government’s crackdown on voices it finds uncomfortable–a ruthless campaign that dates back to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which laid the foundation for the PATRIOT Act, enacted after the 9/11 attacks. What we are experiencing now is an extension of these policies. The plan is to expand the government’s authority to curtail free speech. Under the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, journalists and whistleblowers could face prosecution. Additionally, Project Esther—developed by the same goons behind Project 2025—outlines a strategy to categorize all pro-Palestine protests as anti-Semitic and supportive of Hamas. This sinister initiative, as exposed by Mondoweiss last year, also advocates for the removal of pro-Palestine students and professors from universities.
“As the more notorious U.S. policies of the post-9/11 era … fade from public memory, these older antiterrorism laws have been normalized as a comparatively liberal baseline, their structurally anti-Palestinian character having been obscured in the meantime,” writes Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights in a 2024 report. “The most important of these has been the statute criminalizing ‘material support’ for terrorist organizations, the most commonly charged federal antiterrorism offense … As in prior moments of crisis, the same Zionist organizations that pushed for expanded antiterrorism laws – most no- tably the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – now brazenly tar all advocacy of Palestinian liberation as support for terrorism.”
Frederick Douglass once stated, “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants.”
Douglass recognized that it’s our responsibility to resist censorship in all its forms. This begins by speaking out and supporting radical, independent media. Because, no matter how hard the tyrants try, they’ll never silence us all.
The post Media Censorship in the Age of Palestinian Genocide appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Joshua Frank.