By Todd Smith
Sep 02, 2024 freedom to travel commentary
Well, it’s happened again: a pro-Palestinian activist was detained at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport by FBI and DHS agents upon his return from the Free Palestine Film Festival in London. Danny Shaw, of Brooklyn, was the detainee of note. Shaw was fired after 2 decades of teaching at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in April because of his pro-Palestinian social media posts critical of the Zionist State known as Israel. According to Shaw, his firing was prompted by agencies outside of the college itself, meaning pro-Israel influence operations, and not by students and fellow faculty.
There’s not a lot of info on-line about this incident outside of the site “Popular Resistance’s” brief article on it, which was covered by the podcast Due Dissidence. The detainment occurred on August 28, and apparently lasted for 3 hours of interrogation by US Government agents, including the now-obligatory confiscation of electronic devices and all other materials deemed relevant by the “authorities.” More details will no doubt emerge in coming days in the alternative, or independent, media, but this incident clearly tracks with the recent Richard Medhurst arrest by British Government agents at London’s Heathrow Airport on similar, baseless grounds.
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freedom to travel commentary
A pattern has emerged of pro-Israel Western governments picking on prominent persons at critical odds with State policy; in this instance: Shaw’s opposition to Israel’s ongoing genocide campaign against Palestinians in Gaza. Airports appear to be prime locations for these type of confiscation/interrogation operations by the Feds. The message? If you have contrarian views, then maybe you’ll think twice before flying the “friendly Open Skies.”
Clearly, the FBI and DHS were aware of Professor Shaw’s itinerary, suggesting strongly that this interdiction was coordinated with British, not to mention Israeli, contacts, and further implies Federal agency spying on Shaw’s communications. Apparently, Danny Shaw has enough social media reach to make him a “person of interest” to a US Government actively promoting Israel’s mass murder campaign in Gaza. In essence, two basic human rights, Free Speech and Travel, were violated during this latest Government “raid” on an individual freely transiting an Airport because of his “WrongSpeak.”
How fanatically pro-Israel (genocide) is the US Government? Consider House Resolution 3515, also known as the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” or “Preventing anti-Semitic Hate Crimes Act,” passed by both houses of Congress by whopping majorities earlier this year. The expressed intent of H.R. 1535 is to “facilitate the expedited review of anti-Semitic hate crimes, and other purposes.” What those “other purposes” are is not spelled out, and kind of sounds like gulag-talk, both vague and menacing at the same time. As for the “Congress-critters” reasoning for such an unprecedented law favoring a foreign country, the Bill has this to say: “…media reports indicate that there has been a dramatic increase in hate crimes against Jews in the United States.”
freedom to travel commentary
Well, the Bill fails to mention a couple things here. Firstly, Congress relied upon Anti-Defamation League statistics to reach this conclusion, and the ADL is 100% an Israeli influencing operation with great access to all corporate media outlets, which insist that pro-Palestinian activists and voices are scurrilously anti-Semitic, “pro-Hamas,” blah blah blah. Secondly, “hate crimes” against American Jews opposed to Israel’s extermination campaign have most certainly risen. The majority of the US Government, including the unequivocally pro-Zionist Biden-Harris regime, does not recognize Jewish American voices protesting America’s dark embrace of Israel; in an ironic twist, the Biden Government itself is “antisemitic.” Jewish culture and politics are not a Monolith, as the multiple Israeli influencing operations in the United States would have you to believe.
In Shaw’s case, Israeli trolls have labeled him a “fucking Nazi” multiple times, part of a Zionist social media campaign to discredit the professor and his pro-Palestinian (not pro-Hamas) views. H.R. 3515 in effect deputizes, and weaponizes, Federal agencies like the FBI and DHS to “go after” anyone suspected of anti-Zionist sentiments, as if this were the United States of Israel instead of America. This is a troubling development for any American who values their Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Travel. What Congress should have passed was a Bill demanding that all Israeli influencers be registered under the “Foreign Agent Registration Act” (FARA) because, after all, they are agents of a foreign entity, Israel, currently conducting unfettered influence operations right here in the—”Land of the Free”?
The author graciously has granted this website permission to reprint selected essays.
The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of APS Radio News or of its affiliate, APS Radio
freedom to travel commentary
Todd Smith editorial appeared originally at his Substack page.