When the Biden administration restored tens of millions of dollars in aid to UNRWA, then-secretary of state Antony Blinken said the assistance “serves important U.S. interests and values” and “supports Israeli-Palestinian understanding.” Privately, the Biden State Department was singing a different tune.
Just weeks after the funding resumption, in April 2021, the agency penned an internal memo aimed at addressing “criticism of U.S. assistance to the UN Relief and Works Agency.” That memo, obtained by the Free Beacon‘s Adam Kredo, starts by addressing UNRWA “educational materials,” which are known to encourage violence and demonize Israel.
In the memo, the Biden State Department acknowledged “problematic” UNRWA-produced study cards, one of which accused Israel of “deliberately dumping radioactive and toxic waste in the West Bank,” according to a January 2021 watchdog report. UNRWA removed or changed some of those cards, the State Department wrote. But it opted not to change 12 others, including those that used the term “jihad” and accused Israel of “occupation.” Those terms, the memo says, did not violate “U.N. principles.”
“UNRWA removed or updated four cards while retaining a dozen cards it deemed as in line with UN principles (e.g. use of ‘jihad’ in the Quran or the term ‘occupation’) but are viewed as inappropriate by some other audiences.”
“The memo,” writes Kredo, “offers a fresh window into the Biden administration’s decision to restore funding to UNRWA—one that shows the Biden State Department was well aware of the issues plaguing the embattled relief agency but opted to barrel forward with funds anyway. It came just two months before the State Department privately assessed that Hamas was likely to benefit from more than $360 million in additional aid.”
On Tuesday, Joe Rogan recounted the reasoning behind the Harris campaign’s decision not to have the candidate appear on his world-famous podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience. Harris, Rogan said, wanted any interview to be “very controlled” and was “really concerned that it wasn’t going to be edited.” Typically, politicians are concerned about misleading edits, but not Kamala! Roughly 24 hours later, CBS News demonstrated why.
Facing pressure from Donald Trump and his FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, the network handed over an unedited recording of its 60 Minutes interview with Harris, which aired just before Election Day. At issue was a question correspondent Bill Whitaker put to Harris about Israel’s war against Hamas. In a pre-show promotional clip, Harris delivered a word salad on “a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.” In the final cut, she answered more succinctly, saying, “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” What happened?
Harris’s full answer started with the word salad. It ended with her pledge to “not stop pursuing what is necessary.” In the final cut, CBS omitted the first portion in favor of the second. The result was what appeared to be a concise statement, one that some 3.8 million people viewed on YouTube, with millions more watching on TV.
The revelation won’t hurt Harris’s electoral chances. It could, however, impact parent company Paramount, which is reportedly in settlement talks with Trump over a suit that accuses the company of deceptively editing the video.
Take a look at how the network edited the clip here.
Anti-ICE protests have swept through southern California in recent days, some leading to illegal freeway blockades and criminal vandalism. Left-wing group Unión del Barrio has participated in those protests. It has also made clear that its campaign against the Trump administration’s deportation plans is not stopping with street rallies.
UdB, our Jessica Costescu reports, models itself after militant groups like the Brown Berets and Black Panthers. It launched in 1981 to combat “all manifestations of colonial, imperialist, and neoliberal oppression” and now claims that America is an “empire in decline.” And last month, as Trump prepared to begin his promised deportations, the group began offering “self-defense” trainings that teach illegal immigrants how to “identify, denounce and expel” ICE officials and “fight” their raids. Those particularly committed to the cause are encouraged to carry out daily car patrols, according to a PowerPoint presentationwe obtained.
“The Community Patrols are a means of building community-based power that will challenge police and migrant attacks,” UdB’s website states. “These agencies are trained to profile, harass, detain, arrest, and brutalize our people. We are determined to build … barrio-centered self-defense and prevent the detention and family separation that has taken place over the last several decades.”
“The objective is to organize our people in every barrio, block by block, to defend our communities from colonial violence and threats to our human and democratic rights,” the webpage continues. “We intend to expose the anti-Raza nature of the colonizer state that has now openly declared itself a tool to terrorize, repress, and exploit the lives and labor power of the Mexicano-Raza working class.”
Sounds like a real patriotic crowd. Read more here.
Away from the Beacon:
- AOC’s former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, is running for Congress against Nancy Pelosi, he announced in a lengthy X post that dinged the former House speaker for entering politics “45 years ago” and blocking AOC’s bid to serve as “chair of the powerful Oversight committee.”
- Andrea Mitchell, the veteran news anchor best known for opposing the construction of sidewalks that would allow poor people to walk through her ritzy D.C. neighborhood, is leaving MSNBC after 17 years. See, nobody cares.
- A federal employee who bought a house on the West Coast to work remotely during the Biden administration wrote Slate magazine to lament that the “absolute worst-case scenario happened.” No, the Los Angeles wildfires didn’t burn the home down. The Trump administration issued a “return to office mandate.”
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