Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-07-23 Thursday

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Democracy Now! Thursday, July 23, 2026

This is Democracy Now. People, you get people. That's why I'm quick. Milwaukee's largest mosque is still at risk of deportation, despite being freed last month from an ice jail. After 80 days, Salasar Sarsur, a green card holder of over 30 years born in the occupied West Bank, says he's targeted for his speech and support of Palestinian rights. He'll join us today from Wisconsin. Then Palestinian rights activist and Columbia University graduate student, Mossein Madawi.

He's also facing deportation. A three-judge federal appeals panel has just overturned a lower court ruling that freed him from ICE detention last year just before his graduation. This is not just my case, but it is a right. to a deep question about the heart of this country that is related to the Constitution. And the question that is at stake, do we believe in the rule of law according to the Constitution or do we believe in the rule of whoever is in power? Mosan Madawi would join us from Vermont.

And we speak to the Israeli-American genocide scholar Omar Bartoff. His latest warning, if the plans that are currently being elaborated for Gaza go forward, genocide may come to be seen by some nations as the legitimate and lucrative extension of politics by other means, unquote. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warrant Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The Republican-led House of Representatives has approved a $95 billion budget framework to fund the U.S. war in Iran while pressuring states to adopt new restrictions on voting. The framework outlined $73 billion in additional funding for war and intelligence gathering,

$12 billion in farm aid, $10 billion for a fund aimed at incentivizing states to adopt core components of the Save America Act, including a voter ID requirement for in-person voting, millions of citizens who lack easy access to the bills required forms of documentation, could be at risk of disenfranchisement. The House approved the framework by a vote of 216 to 214, with all Democrats present casting votes in opposition. Three Democrats were absent or did not record a vote. This is Washington Congress Member Pramilla Jaya Paul. Months after Hegsaith claimed victory,

Iran continued to strike American assets in the Middle East, kill American service members and close the Straits of Hormuz. The administration has clearly gotten us into a war that they have no clue how to get us out of. Americans deserve a clear strategy, not shifting explanations that change by the day. They deserve thoughtful diplomacy, not tweets like the one that the president just released today. Congresswoman Jayapal was referring to Trump's truth social post, reading, quote, from this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it is be by missile, rocket drone or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy one bridge or power plant, including those located next to or in the capital city of Tehran, the president wrote.

Iran's foreign minister of Basaragchi respond on social media, quote, Our defense doctrine is clear. Eye for an eye. Any aggression against Iran, including our infrastructure, will compel a powerful and decisive response, unquote. The war of words came as the U.S. bombed Iran for a 12th consecutive night. Iranian officials reported a U.S. missile attack on a passenger terminal at a border crossing into Iraq, killed two people, and wounded 11 others. Separately, the U.S. struck sites across southern Iran.

including Boucher, Avaz, Jask, Andimesh, and Siddik. Iran responded with fresh missile and drone attacks on Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain, where U.S. forces are based. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced it had stopped three oil tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz. It said in a statement, one of the ships exploded and caught fire before the other two reverse course. Meanwhile, in Yemen, Iran-alied Houthi fighters announced they attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, Saudi news agency later confirmed one ship was on fire. Oil prices climbed on the news to nearly $100 a barrel. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's defending President Trump's agreement to provide Saudi Arabia with a civilian nuclear program using U.S. technology. Rubio spoke on the sidelines of the

ASEAN summit in the Philippines. I'll let the agreement speak for itself. Suffice it to say that any agreement that we're going to make with any country in the world on civil nuclear energy is going to be one that will have safeguards in place to ensure that it can't be turned into a weapons program. And one of the best safeguards is to make sure that American technology and American companies are the ones that are involved in doing it. The deal is likely worth tens of billions of dollars to U.S. nuclear energy companies like Westinghouse, whose reactors produce plutonium as a byproduct. Non-proliferation experts warn that waste could be reprocess for use in nuclear warheads. James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace wrote, quote, if true, this is tantamount to the United States giving up on nonproliferation, unquote. Here in New York, a federal judge has set a trial date of June 1st of next year for former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, a former member of Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly. Maduro and his wife, Flores, were abducted by the U.S. military during a raid of their compound in Cadacus January. They appeared in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday where they denied charges of drug trafficking. Meanwhile, demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse protesting both for and against U.S. intervention in Venezuela. The United States is not have the interests of the Venezuelan people in mind.

All it wants is the oil. It wants the natural resources. That's all it's interested in. More details are emerging about the fatal show. shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Aroujo by ICE agents in Houston, Texas, July 7th. According to the written statements of two witnesses who were in the van when he was shot dead, two unmarked vehicles struck them from behind and the side, forcing their vehicle to come to a halt. Daniel Tarado Pantoja, a passenger in the back of the van, said, quote, Lorenzo had come

to a full stop while the agents fired, unquote. Jose Trinidad Rojaspliego, who was also in the back of the van, confirmed the account saying, quote, when Lorenzo stopped the van, the officer shot him anyway, unquote. Lorenzo Salgado O'Rajo was an immigrant from Mexico who'd lived in the United States for 30 years. He's the father of three sons who are all U.S. citizens. The Miami Herald reports a 28-year-old Mexican national killed during an encounter. with ICE last week, was in the United States on a tourist visa and had arrived in Florida just two days before his death.

Juan Haydo, Cornea, Duran had traveled from Guanoatu, Mexico to Atlanta in June to visit family and friends before visiting Florida for a beach holiday. He was killed by a semi-truck while fleeing immigration officials after they approached him at a gas station near San Agostin. Karnia Duran is among four ice-related deaths. that occurred in less than one week. On Capitol Hill, Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee Wednesday pressed ICE officials about body cameras, vehicle stops, and training in the wake of ice-related killings of immigrants. The public hearing came after ICE officials told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that there have been 56 complaints of excessive force against ICE agents.

32 were cleared with just one ICE agent referred for disciplinary action. This is Democratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin. Since the administration took office, more than 50 people have died in ICE custody. More have died in custody in 2025 than in any year in the last two decades. The rate of death in ICE custody is spiking because the conditions are simply worse than they've ever been before. ICE and DHS traffic in lawless violence, propaganda, and disinformation to mask all the corruption and cruelty, which are the daily bread of the system. In Madison, Wisconsin, protests erupted Wednesday after local police shot dead a black man in broad daylight and in front of witnesses.

The shooting occurred early in the afternoon of Madison's Marquette neighborhood just two miles from the state capital. Police say they were responding to a report of a person allegedly checking parked vehicles when they confronted the man on his bicycle, who later fled. the scene. After they tracked him down, an arm struggle ensued when the man allegedly pulled out a knife and attacked an officer. Bystander video shows officers struggling with the man before he's tasered and kicked to the ground and held down with his knee. An officer then fires his gun at the man at close range. Urban triage at Madison-based Black Community Advocacy Group said, quote, another black man is dead on a Madison Street. And our community watched him die before we even knew his name. That's the cruelty of state violence,

they said. In Italy, protests erupted after the death of a Moroccan-born man in police custody. Abder Rahim Fakhir, a 42-year-old immigrant business owner, was pinned to the ground by police, and his last moments were captured and circulated widely on social media. The footage shows two officers holding him down as he screams for help in Italian, a third man. holds his feet as he's bound. Fakir continues screaming until he is unconscious. Police in Bologna said dozens of officers were injured in six vehicles were damaged after the protests. His demonstrators vandalized shop windows and set dumpsters on fire. This is Fakir's niece. We will continue to demand a truth for him and for our family so that no one else ever has to go through what he went through.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. In the United States, the Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee has subpoenaed Breakthrough News, demanding the independent online news outlet handover internal communications and financial records. Breakthrough News says it's being targeted over its coverage of U.S. mass deportations, ICE abuses, Cuba and Palestine solidarity, and U.S. foreign policy. Breakthrough News has launched a fundraiser to pay for legal expenses. And a statement had said, quote, For years, Republican lawmakers have painted a target on our backs, falsely claiming our political views and reporting are part of some foreign plot, unquote. And New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani announced he does not have the authority to arrest

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives in New York to attend the UN General Assembly in September. Instead, the mayor urge federal authorities to enforce an ICC arrest warrant for the Israeli leader. This is Mayor Mamdani in a video. As I've said, I agree with the ICC. The Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested and tried for his crimes, as I do for anyone else charged by the ICC. My administration has refuted every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether New York City could execute the international criminal courts. arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here. It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant. The federal government, however, does. And I call

on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant. Mayor Mamdani's video has been viewed on X more than 80 million times. Later in the broadcast, we will speak with the Israeli-born genocide scholar Omar Bartah. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. And I'm Nermin Sheikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. On March 30th, on a morning like any other, in my hometown of Milwaukee, a man in plain clothes emerged from a car speeding toward me, a handgun visible at his side, and asked, are you Salas Sarsur? Within minutes, nearly a dozen cars and some 20 agents masked plain clothes, one flashing a U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement badge converged on me and informed me that I was under arrest.

These are the words of Salah Sarsur, president of the Milwaukee Islamic Society, published by USA earlier this week. Sarsur, who is Palestinian, has been in a protracted deportation battle since that day, despite being a legal permanent resident of the United States for over 30 years. Following his arrest, Sarsur was detained in an ICE jail for 80 days. Sausu's lawyers say he's being targeted for deportation by the federal government over his advocacy for Palestinian human rights. Attorneys for DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, are claiming Sao Suu was arrested for allegedly lying on his 1993 green card application about a conviction in Israeli military courts when he was a teenager in the occupied West Bank. In June, a district judge appointed by President Trump, agreed with Saasur's attorneys saying they had, quote,

presented a substantial claim of First Amendment retaliation and that Saoos' detention was unlawful. He was released and reunited with his family, which includes six children and nine grandchildren, all of whom are U.S. citizens. But that ruling has no bearing on his deportation case. On Wednesday, a federal immigration judge heard arguments in deportation proceedings for Salasar. Those proceedings continue next week. In a USA Today op-ed, Salas Arsour wrote, quote, As a national leader supporting some of the largest and longest-standing grassroots

organizations for Palestinian rights, my arrest marked a serious escalation in the Trump administration's repression agenda. This is not just an attack against me and others working for Palestinian freedom. It's an attempt to dismantle the very values we profess as a nation. For more, we go to Wisconsin. where we're joined by Salas Sarsour himself. Thanks so much for being with us. When we were in Milwaukee on Mother's Day,

one person after another came up to us to say, do you know about Salas Sarsur? You had been jailed for more than a month at that point. Can you describe further what happened to you, how you were approached, and what your detention was like? Good morning. Thank you very much for having me this morning with you guys. I really appreciate that. Actually, as you mentioned in your report in March 30th, it was the day when I was very surprised when ICE agents came toward me with guns and they asked to arrest me in that day. And they took me immediately to Chicago, then to Indiana facility. In that day, by the way, this morning, I supposed to take my mom to her doctor appointment. And honestly, I thought they are mistaken.

They're supposed to take someone else, and they came toward me. But unfortunately, after a while, I felt like I was targeted, as you mentioned in the report, because my activism and because I'm standing with just causes, and I'm practicing my free speech. And I felt the Trump administration targeting me for that. And Salah, could you just lay out, what exactly is the U.S. government alleging? Actually, they came after me for some very old accusations. Even the federal judge clearly.

released me from all those accusations. It's just like, again, as I mentioned, it's just like it was a very tough experience and a kind of a bad memory journey with ICE detention for no reason but my activism and my free of speech. And I really felt like if it happened to me, it could happen to anyone. Because as you mentioned, even in your report, I'm a businessman, family man, someone who build bridges with faiths and other communities and working to build a society. So I was asking all the time, why the government targets me and why I'm here in this inmate facility in Indiana. There's no reason for that. And you also wrote, Salah, in your USA Today piece, quote,

aspects of my confinement were hauntingly reminiscent of my experience growing up, a brutal Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, where we became accustomed to violent, humiliating treatment at the hands of Israeli soldiers. As a child of 15, I was imprisoned for two years on charges that included throwing stones and was subjected to intimidation, coercive interrogation tactics, and threats of rape. So could you elaborate on that,

and the fact that you felt this was reminiscent to your time in Israeli custody, your time here in ICE detention? Yes, actually in ICE detention, as you mentioned, it brought to me this bad memories when my childhood, when I was under the Israeli

actually military occupation and Israeli military rules in Palestine, in West Bank. So I never thought in my life that I will see such facility in the United States here with

all this kind of bad treatment. So immediately, as I mentioned, it brought me this memories what I went through as a child when they arrested me from my house, when the Israeli soldiers came and arrested me and make me go through two years, at least in a prison, for one reason that I'm a Palestinian. That's all. And can you also talk about what you had to sign when you were held? You were held for almost two years by the Israeli authorities when you were a teenager? Yes, I went through two experiences in prison in Palestine, one of them two years, actually.

And this is not only me. As you know, as Palestinian, we live under Israeli occupation, military occupation, and there is no equal rights there. So thousands and thousands of Palestinian children, they went through this experience, actually. When I was in Milwaukee, as I mentioned in May, I spoke to Jodi Malamad, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, Milwaukee. She talked about how many in the Jewish community organized for your release. This is what she said. As Jewish voice for peace, we know him to be an amazing human being, a duer of mitzvahs.

He's like the Papa Bear of our Palestinian Solidarity Movement. We love him. We need him back. His case also represents Jews really standing against the weaponizing of the immigration system in the name of anti-Semitism. We have 8,000 signatures on Ben the Ark letter. We have hundreds of signatures from Wisconsin Jews. So Jews for whom the red line is the First Amendment are really coming together, and we're going to have a big vigil for him. So that was Jodi Malamette of Jewish Voice for Peace, Milwaukee.

When you got out of ICE detention, you thanked among others, JVP, Jewish Voice for Peace. You also greeted your newest grandchild who was born while you were jailed. You're the father of six, grandfather of nine. Can you talk about what the solidarity meant and what it meant to be apart from your family? I mean, thanks God, there is many great people, people of values, like Jewish Voice of Peace, other people of faith, Christian, Muslims, Jewish, who works together like always to stand with justice. And this means a lot to me, and especially for someone who's going through an unjust situation. And as you mentioned, like I'm a family man living with my children and all my children, by the way, my six children, they finish colleges here in Wisconsin.

And I have 90 grandchildren. All of them are American citizens. I have my mother. She's 85 years old. She really needs me for her support, daily support. So someone living this kind of life, I never imagine myself living like a lot. in a prison in the state. It was never like even an idea in my mind to think about it. And as you mentioned, like my daughter Sundas actually, she had my number nine grandchildren,

which is her four child coming while I was in Indiana prison. And it was a very difficult timing for me actually. So Salah, can you explain what comes next now? I mean, first of all, I really like to thank all media outlets. and all community members, leaders, organizations, people of faith, people of values, who's standing with me, and this is what gives me support, and this makes me continue the fight to stay with my family, with my children, with people I love.

So I have a great, actually, legal team who's working hard to keep me here and to win this fight. And I have a big hope after the federal judge actually released me from the prison and clearly he highlighted that, as you mentioned, I'm a community person, a family person, a legal residence in 32 years, someone who stands with just causes, and he highlighted my freedom of speech. So this gives me hope in the system, and this gives me hope that I will go through like a fair treatment, and it will end me free and back working to my family and my community who relies on me. Well, Salasasasur, we will continue to follow your case, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the largest mosque community in Wisconsin, and a national board member of American Muslims for Palestine. We'll link to your op-ed in USA Today, headlined, ICE detain me for 80 days. America's silence is no longer an option.

Coming up, Palestinian rights activists, Columbia University graduate student, Mosan Madawi. He is also facing deportation. A three-judge federal appeals panel has just overturned a lower court ruling that freed him from ICE detention last year just before his Columbia graduation. Stay with us. Inside my head I decorate with tapestry and she, China plays, two lamps with bulbs of different shades, one for the night, one for the day.

A studio with cupboard space, 600 squared inside my brain, wooden floors in both hallways, one for the night, one for the day. Inside my head by Sov the Second from Boise, Idaho. This is DemocracyNow.comocracy now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin-Sheikh. We turn now to the case of another Palestinian green card holder and activist born under Israeli occupation, who's also at risk of deportation from the U.S. after speaking out for Palestinian human rights. Mosen Madawi is a Columbia University graduate student.

Last year, masked and hooded ICE agents detained him when he appeared for what he believed would be a final naturalization interview in Vermont. He was held for 16 days before a judge ordered his release. Then on Tuesday, a three-judge federal appeals panel overturned the lower court ruling that had freed Madawi from ICE custody. The ruling comes two months after the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated deportation proceedings against him. After his release from ICE custody last year, Mosin Madawi returned to Columbia University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. He's now a graduate student at Columbia. In addition to his Palestine advocacy, Mosen is also the former president of Columbia University's Buddhist Association. Mosen Madawi joins us now from Vermont. And we're joined by Nathan Fried Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU's speech, privacy, and technology project, one of the legal team representing Mosen.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now. Mosen, if you could start off by sharing your reaction to the three-judge panel overturning a lower court ruling that you should be freed from. detention. The judge at the time who freed you was defiant, especially when the federal government threatened to arrest you if you cross state lines, you had to come back to New York to graduate from Columbia. And he said you should be not only allowed to graduate, but talk to anyone you wanted to, et cetera. But now a federal judge ruling has overturned that decision. Good morning, Amy and Armeen, and to your audience. This decision is very disappointing and on a personal level heart-wrenching because I put my trust in the court and I continue to believe in the legal and in the court system in America.

Nevertheless, I feel still hopeful, optimistic and resolved and determined to. achieve justice for myself and for millions of people in this country, whether if they are green card holders or students, international students, whose this action actually is chilling their speech and creating more fear among the community that they know that the government can punish them and arrest them, detain them, and deport them possibly, just because the government disagree with their, speech. And this is what I'm fighting for. I'm fighting for justice to be able to speak my truth

and to be able to say, stop the ongoing genocide against my people. Enough is enough. Palestinian people deserve to have safety, freedom, and equal rights between the river and the sea. And this government is trying to silence me, targeting me, like what we heard from brother Salah Salih Salisal, all solidarity to him. So Nathan Fried Wester, you are on Amosin's legal team. If you could talk about what this ruling means and explain what a habeas petition is. Yeah, a habeas petition is one of the oldest forms of legal process we have. It dates from the 1,200s in England as a way to give judges the power to release people from unjust or unconstitutional or illegal detention.

immediately after Mosin was seized by immigration agents last year, his legal team filed a rid of habeas corpus in federal court. And within just a couple of weeks, a federal judge looked at the case and ordered him released, saying that there was strong reason to believe that this detention was in violation of his First Amendment rights. That's critical because otherwise, what the government wants is to be able to hold people, non-citizens,

in immigration detention facilities for months or years, while the very slow immigration court process plays out to silence people by putting them behind bars just because the Secretary of State or some other high-level official doesn't like what they say. That is just textbook censorship, and the First Amendment doesn't allow it. And it's critical that judges have the power to get people out of jail in that situation. And unfortunately, this panel of an appeals court this week overturned the district court judge's ruling. and said that actually federal court judges do not have the power

to let people out of detention in this circumstance. Instead, Mosen and people like him are supposed to go to immigration court before judges who aren't actually independent judges. They're employees of the executive branch in a process that takes a very long time. You mean immigration judges? Immigration judges are, right?

Go through that process and then at the end of that process, finally see a federal judge and make your First Amendment arguments. That's just not tenable in a democracy. There's no way to get back the time that someone has spent locked up in prison in retaliation for their speech. And if you could talk about, you mentioned the Secretary of State Rubio's memo last year. If you could explain what specifically it said and what section of the Immigration and Nationality Act it relied on?

Yeah, there's an old section of federal immigration law that gives the government the power to exclude or deport people who are opposing a serious threat to American. foreign policy. And that's what the Secretary of State invoked as to Mosin. But he invoked it based solely on Mosin's lawful speech. This two-page memo that the Secretary of State signed makes that very clear. It's only based on his lawful speech. His advocacy as a student at Columbia University about the rights of Palestinians and justice in Palestine. That cannot stand next to the First Amendment to the Constitution, which protects everybody's freedom of speech, including non-citizens. If you're in the country, you are protected. So in other words, is that explicitly in the Constitution that First Amendment rights are granted

also simply to people who live in the U.S. or people who are U.S. green card holders or people who hold visas? The First Amendment protects the right of the people, not U.S. citizens, and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, going back well into the last century, have said over and over that that includes non-citizens. And most in, has been a lawful permanent resident, a green card holder for more than a decade. He is deeply rooted in the United States. If there's anyone who deserves the protections of this part of the Constitution, it's someone like Mosen, who's part of the community, who's adding his voice to vital debates

of the day. And Mousson Madawi, can you talk about the day you were taken when you were at, I mean, you were beyond green card holder. You were going for final approval to become a U.S. citizen. Can you talk about the day you were called to Vermont and you appeared for that final naturalization interview and what happened to you there? This is the message that the government is trying to send to everyone who's considering to become a citizen. That after you believe in the constitution and the promise that it has. And when you say, I believe that I want to belong to this country, this is the community that I,

have been in for a while. I rooted here. I created life here. And I decided to apply for my citizenship to become a citizen of this country. And when I was asked, if I'm willing to protect and defend the constitution of this country by the end of my interview, I was handcuffed, detained, and thrown in prison just because I spoke up for Palestine. Now, what is ironic is, I am still holding up the pledge that I did not take because everything I am doing right now, fighting in the courts. I'm not fighting only for myself and for my freedom.

I'm fighting because I believe in the constitution of this country. Because I believe that the First Amendment is called and named the First Amendment for a reason. It's not the second. It's not the third. It protects the pillars of democracy to be able to express, yourself, the freedom of expression. And exactly as Nate has mentioned, I was tested on

basically a questionnaire that's provided by the immigration branch. And one of the questions on those tests was who has the right to the First Amendment and it is stated there and still there, I checked it out

the other time, And it says everybody in this country. But this is not the only dangerous thing, Amy. I think what I shared is this is a legal error. I'm going to share a bit why. Because in the Declaration of the Independence of this country, what they say, the right that all men are created equal and they have the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

What is the right to liberty? is exactly against what is happening right now, which is unjust detention and targeting of me. And also think of the other DNA, something baked in the constitution of this country, which is what Alexander Hamilton established. We're talking 1788 Article 78, and it's creating separation between the branches of the judicial branch

and the executive branch. to prevent abuse of power. What the government is doing right now, abusing the system of immigration, and we saw that evident. The judge who dismissed my case back, I believe, in March, was basically fired by the executive branch, and they see all of these abuses that are taking place.

So this is why it's dangerous. And the last point I want to drive here is habeas corbus itself is also in the government. Constitution, if you check Article 1, Section 9, habeas corbus is there to protect constitutional rights, such as this one. So this decision is undermining the basic freedoms here, and if they can do it to me, if they can intimidate me, detain me, put me in deportation, throw me in prison, they can do it to anybody in this country.

And this is, again, connecting injustice in this country and injustice in Palestine. It's the same fight. They're trying to create different tiers of rights. I want to quickly ask, you were former president of Columbia, Buddhist Association, Columbia undergrad. When you walked across the graduation line on the stage, we were covering you. Your class, many stood up and gave you a standing ovation. As you walked across the stage, has Colombia spoken up for you? I think that Colombia has, it needs like it's in a situation of unconscious existence in terms of administration. Not only that the community that knew me acknowledged my contribution and acknowledged Palestinian rights.

That's why thousands of students at Colombia has protested for Palestinian rights. but also the majority of this country right now sympathize with Palestine and don't want to support the Israeli genocide and apartheid. So Colombia has not supported me in any way possible, and not only Colombia, but also the mayor of New York City, who it's heartwarming to see that he's standing against Netanyahu and advocating for his arrest. But at the same time, he has not shared anything about my case. This decision was issued in New York City in the Second Circuit to a New York resident. And according to Zohran Mamdani, anyone who lives in New York is a New Yorker and deserves to be free and to live there. And I haven't heard anything from him.

I hope that we can hear something from him about this. I wanted to also ask Nathan Fried Wessler, the three-judge panel that ruled three to zero to overturn the judge's decision who released Mosin. the lead attorney is Deborah Livingston. She is a member of the Columbia Law School Factory. She's a law professor at Mosin's University. Your thoughts on this. Well, I think she and the other two members of the panel had just an incredibly crabbed, narrow understanding

of the First Amendment and the right of habeas corpus. You know, this case is not over. We'll be taking it to the full Second Circuit. that was a three-judge panel, the full set of judges can overturn that. That's right, and we'll be going there to make our arguments yet again that without robust access to the federal courts, when you've been thrown in jail in retaliation for your First Amendment rights, we just cannot have a functioning constitutional system. The judges who ruled this week gave that set of important principles

incredibly short shrift, and that's not the end of the story. I think it's important to acknowledge, too, that, you know, first the federal government came for people speaking out about Palestine. But that's not where it's ended and that's not where it's going to end. You know, just a few weeks ago, we learned about a man named Beto Khoral, a Colombian immigrant, an asylum seeker, who was thrown into immigration detention because the Secretary of State didn't like that he was criticizing a right-wing presidential candidate in Colombia. there's going to be no end to the kinds of retaliation against protected core First Amendment political advocacy and speech if the courts don't shut it down now. And Mosin, just to go back to something that you mentioned earlier,

I mean, your family is still living in a refugee camp in the West Bank. And you've drawn an analogy between what's happening to you in the U.S. and what Israel does to Palestinians when they speak up. If you could elaborate on that. And also the fact that when this deportation order was given, you were not going to be deported back to Palestine, but to Jordan. That's right, Nourmet, and thank you for the question. My family still lives under the apartheid system in the West Bank

in a refugee camp where I was born and raised as a third generation. To this day, since 1948, are not only denied, my family are not only denied their right, of return to their lands, but also they are denied their human, basic human rights. I lost a number of family members, and I'm talking since October 7th, four cousins in the West Bank. And in the second Intifada, I lost my uncle and my two other cousins. I lost my best friend in front of my eyes. And people are still suffering on daily basis. The settler attacks are intensifying.

the military violent occupation. And we heard from Salah Sir Sarsur, who is roughly the age of my father. So I can imagine my father in his shoes. And to confirm his experience, my father and all of my uncles and most of our male neighbors in the refugee camp were arrested when they were teenagers and kids by the Israeli occupation. So what is this government doing right now and this administration? One, they are continuing to support the genocide and the apartheid system that Israel is imposing on the Palestinian people.

Two, they are coming after everybody who is trying to speak up here for Palestinian rights. And the three, they are denying my own identity when the immigration judge issued a deportation order, a final order of deportation. they did not even acknowledge my identity as a Palestinian. And they said he should be deported to Jordan that I have no connection to Jordan whatsoever except that I traveled to Jordan to come to the United States for the first time in my life. And it was one trip and that's it.

But I want to share to the audience and to everyone, I can be Palestinian and I will continue to root myself in my Palestinian identity and I am proud of it. And I can still strive and want to become an American as much as I feel rooted here in Vermont. We're like, I call it, we are like the hemlock trees here. The communities are interconnected. And Vermonters are sweet as the sab of the maple syrup. So what I want to share with you, that my identity is not for negotiation.

And I will continue to speak up because my family, in the West Bank and in Gaza still suffering, and they are in dear, dear need for healing from all of the trauma and pain that the Israeli occupation has caused them. Mosemadaw, we want to thank you for being with us. We'll continue to follow your case. Colombia University graduate student, Palestinian activist,

and Nathan Fried Wessler, Deputy Director of ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. Coming up the Israeli-American, American Genocide Scholar, Omer Bartoff. Stay with us. When first unto this country, Zara King, and I call the Biden of Plain. When first unto this country, Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman, this is Democracy Now,

Democriticin Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin-Sheikh. New York City Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has announced that he does not have legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives in New York to and the UN General Assembly in September. But Mamdani is urging federal authorities to enforce the ICC arrest warrant for the Israeli leader. On Tuesday, Mamdani released a short video

that has since gone viral with over 80 million views on X. Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people. He is responsible for the killing of more than 73,000 people, for the maiming of tens of thousands of children

as those who survive undergo amputation without anesthesia. For the targeting of neonatal hospitals and maternity care centers, denying newborns even the chance to live. For the countless people he starved as he blocked food and humanitarian aid from reaching them. For the gunning down of hundreds of aid workers and journalists. And just last month, the UN confirmed that Palestinian children continue to be deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli armed forces, more than eight months after the so-called ceasefire.

The list goes on and on. All as we, as Americans, pay for the bombs that do the killing. There is a reason the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest. As human beings, we have spent generations building a shared understanding that there are crimes so grave they offend all of humanity. Anyone with their eyes, with their heart, with their conscience, should recognize the devastation he has wrought and understand that he belongs before a court of law. As I've said, I agree with the ICC that Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested and tried for his crimes, as I do for anyone else charged by the ICC. My administration has refuted every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here. It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant.

The federal government, however, does, and I call on them to join the ICC. and execute this warrant. And I want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large. While we cannot end the genocide on our own, we can decide whether our silence will become another weapon, and we can examine every tool we have

to defend the humanity and dignity of all people. That is my commitment to you. That was New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani. In a video he released on Tuesday night, It has since been viewed more than 80 million times on X alone. We're joined right now by Omer Bartoff, Dean's Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. Born in Israel has been described by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as one of the world's leading specialists on the subject of genocide. Professor Bartoff has written a new essay for the New York Times headlined,

I'm a scholar of genocide. We're entering a terrifying new era. Last year, he wrote in New York Times op-ed, headlined, I'm a genocide scholar. I know it when I see it. Professor Bartoff, welcome back to Democracy Now, today from Lisbon, Portugal. Can you start off by responding to Mayor Mamdani investigating whether he could arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu, based on the warrant for his arrest of the International Criminal Court and then explain your piece that you just wrote in the New York Times headlined, I'm a scholar of genocide. We're entering a terrifying new era. Hi, Amy, and thank you for having me again. Look, what Mayor Mamdani said is precisely the right thing. of all, Benjamin Netanyahu has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. There's a word for his arrest, and he's been flying freely back and forth to the United States

and visiting the White House. Now, we know, of course, that the United States is actually, United States government, has actually been trying to undermine the International Criminal Court, the ICC, So we can't really expect that the current American administration will arrest Netanyahu, but it is very important for a major figure such as Mayor Mamdani to say what he said, and I greatly applaud him for it. As for what I wrote, what troubles me deeply, and that, of course, does not include your program, but in general is that we have sort of taken our eyes off what is happening in Gaza

and what the future of Gaza is. What troubles me is that Gaza is providing now an example not only of how you carry out genocide, but what is the future of genocide. And what I describe in this piece is that whether the plans that President Trump outlined these 20 points, the creation of an ideal of a utopian city in Gaza, actually implemented or not, what we see now is the future of genocide where not only are people not being brought to account, people obviously like Benjamin Netanyahu and many of the people surrounding him,

including Yoav Garland, who is the other former Israeli Minister of Defense, who also has a war and force arrest from the ICC, but that those countries, first of all, Israel that carried out the genocide in Gaza and continues killing people there on a daily basis. And the countries that facilitate that, Israel's allies, both European allies and the United States, that not only provided Israel with impunity, but also supported it economically and militarily and politically, that those countries not only will never be accountable for that, but also that they will profit from this,

that we will see potentially that something will be created in Gaza, which would be good for Israel, potentially good for Arab states that would support this new ideal city, good for European countries that will maintain their position in the Middle East, good for the United States, good for real estate moguls who will invest and profit from this venture. And the only people who were the victims of their genocide will continue being victimized by it, potentially being those who will build that ideal city and then serve the rich and famous who will inhabit it.

And indeed, Professor Barthoff, you write in the piece that genocide may then come to seem by some nations as the legitimate and lucrative extension of politics by other means. But I'd like you to elaborate on the historical examples you give of genocides, those in which the victims have come out, have, so to speak, won, and those in which the perpetrators have won. In the case of the Herrero people in southwest Africa and the Germans attempt, Germany's attempt to exterminate them, and then what happened following the Second World War with the genocide of the Jews of Europe?

Right. So what I write in the piece is that historically, at least in the case of modern genocide, starting in the 20th century, genocide usually ends in one of two ways. Either the genocity there, the perpetrators accomplish their goal. And the other is that they're stopped, and usually they're stopped because, of military intervention, not just because they want to. Now, until 1945, some of the major genocide that occurred in the first part of the 20th century, the German genocide of the Herrera and German Southwest Africa, now Namibia in 1904, the genocide of the Armenians

that began in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. There was no mechanism for accountability. So the countries that carried out these genocides, first of all, killed and then inherited, that is actually profited from the killing, and were never brought to account. There were some feeble attempts to do that with the Ottoman Empire after World War I, but they failed. And what the international community decided after 1945, in light of the Holocaust and other horrendous crimes carried out by Nazi Germany, was to set up a system that would prevent that kind of lack of accountability. Part of that system was the Genocide Convention of 1948. Now, that is not to say that there were not many genocides thereafter.

Obviously, there were. But in most of the genocides that occurred, some kind of system kicked into place, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, in the case of the genocide in the former Yugoslavia, in the case of the genocide in Rwanda, where at least some people were brought to account, and it was no longer possible to deny,

as Germany had denied the genocide in southwest Africa, and as Turkey continues to deny to this day the genocide in Armenia, it was no longer possible to deny that. And what we see now is that the denial of what Israel has done is ubiquitous, because there is no mechanism that kicked into place. The mechanism exists, but it hasn't been activated to actually bring people to account. If you don't bring people to account, you're sliding back precisely into what the international community tried to prevent after 1945. Professor Bartow, before we conclude, if you could just explain why you think increasing opposition to Israel in the U.S.

across many demographics is not going to make a difference in terms of Israel being held to account. Well, look, I don't know that it won't make a difference. It may make a difference, but we may have to wait until the next presidential election. I actually think that a public opinion in the United States has been shifting both on the left and on the right for different reasons, and it's not impossible to think that a new American administration, whether Republican or Democratic, will have a different politics vis-a-vis Israel after the next election. However, that's a long way away. And what we are looking at now is an attempt to finalize this,

to make people forget what happened in Gaza and to make them think that there is a bright future ahead. and we don't need to think about the horrors that occur there and continue occurring. I'll just say that, you know, on July 20th, yeah, on July 20th, there was an editorial in Ha'Arette, which indicated that 1,114 people were killed since the ceasefire in Gaza,

including 275 children. So the killing continues there, and it's time to put an end. into it. And we have to leave it there. Brown University professor Omar Botoff, leading scholar and Holocaust and genocide studies. That does it for our show. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin-Sheikh.