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Decensored News Profile picture
@decensorednews
Jun 6, 2024 • 17 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
🧵 1/ WATCH: Journalist Sam Husseini (@samhusseini) tries to question the State Dept about whether Israel has really “committed to” the “ceasefire deal” as the Biden administration claims

Nadia Bilbassy-Charters (@nadia_bilbassy), DC Bureau Chief for Saudi Arabia's Al Arabiya news outlet, helps Miller box Sam out and once again evade answering any questions from him:
2/ Miller was finishing his answer to another journalist's question (Said Arikat) when Sam followed up to ask for clarification.

@nadia_bilbassy is part of a small group of "approved" journalists who Miller almost always gives multiple questions to.
3/ Sam is frequently denied the chance to ask even a single question, as @nadia_bilbassy undoubtedly knows from being in the room dozens of times when it's happened.

One of the many examples:
4/ Another example:

5/ Yet another:
6/ Miller once again didn't call on Sam during the entire press conference yesterday, before or after the exchange seen at the beginning of this thread.

Nadia (@nadia_bilbassy), meanwhile, was given three questions in a row after she helped Miller evade Sam's question.
7/ Try searching for an example of @nadia_bilbassy ever standing up for Sam or any of the other journalists Miller loves to ignore while showering her with questions.

It's possible that there are very rare examples, but there may be zero.
8/ Also, FWIW: One day earlier (Tuesday), Miller was boasting about how this “ceasefire deal” has “broad support” throughout the world, including “countries in the Global South.”

When pressed by Matt Lee, Saudi Arabia was the only “Global South” country he could name to back that up.

(@nadia_bilbassy works for Saudi state-owned media)

state.gov/briefings/depa…Image
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@nadia_bilbassy @samhusseini @MaxBlumenthal @TLAVagabond 9/ Bilbassy-Charters, for her part, says that she has “never got a guideline” from the Saudi outlet she works for.

(Like the info in the tweet above, this is just another data point; take from it what you will.)

deadline.com/2024/06/al-ara…Image
10/ “Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for giving us this exclusive interview. We appreciate your time...”

@nadia_bilbassy interviews Blinken in 2023.

Do you think he'd ever give this kind of access to @samhusseini, @MaxBlumenthal, @cosgrove_iv, etc?

tn.usembassy.gov/secretary-anto…Image
@nadia_bilbassy @samhusseini @MaxBlumenthal @cosgrove_iv 11/ Nadia Bilbassy-Charters (@nadia_bilbassy) meets with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office (Dec 2008)

Source / longer version:
@nadia_bilbassy @samhusseini @MaxBlumenthal @cosgrove_iv 12/ None of this is to say that @nadia_bilbassy never asks any good (or at least decent) questions. Here's a notable exchange highlighted by @decensorednews previously, for example:
13/ However, it's pretty incredible for her to paint herself as a “lone voice” for Palestine when she's a willing participant in a very obviously “rigged” press room where some of the reporters who are most capable of—and most willing to—hold the administration's feet to the fire are frequently prevented from doing so (with her complicity).

deadline.com/2024/06/al-ara…Image
@nadia_bilbassy @samhusseini @MaxBlumenthal @cosgrove_iv 14/ There's a reason she's given this level of access, and — sorry — it's not because she's the best reporter in DC (let alone the country) when it comes to “hold[ing] officials accountable” and nailing them on their “double standards” and false narratives.
@nadia_bilbassy @samhusseini @MaxBlumenthal @cosgrove_iv 15/ More biographical info on Bilbassy-Charters, who apparently grew up in Gaza before going to work for the MSM (AFP, BBC, & The Independent) and then “moving to the U.S. to cover politics for Al Arabiya” in/around 2003.

deadline.com/2024/06/al-ara…Image
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@nadia_bilbassy @samhusseini @MaxBlumenthal @cosgrove_iv 16/ Response to @nadia_bilbassy:
@nadia_bilbassy @samhusseini @MaxBlumenthal @cosgrove_iv 17/

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More from @decensorednews

Decensored News Profile picture
Jan 28
🧵 NEW: A forthcoming book by @normfinkelstein makes the case that ICJ president Julia Sebutinde is guilty of “wholesale plagiarism” in her dissenting opinion in support of Israel last year (re: Israel’s unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory).

“No less than 32%” of the opinion was “directly lifted from publications by notorious apologists for Israel,” per Finkelstein.

Moreover, he reportedly argues “in painstaking detail” that “the anomalies, errors, and legal contortions” found therein “could have only resulted from either bribery or blackmail by the Israeli government.”

See the quoted post for his full press release. See the rest of our thread below for further context.Image
Image
2/ In the July 2024 advisory opinion in question, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s “continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful,” and that it is “under obligation” to:

“end its unlawful presence… as rapidly as possible”
“cease immediately all new settlement activities”
“evacuate all settlers” from the oPT
“make reparation for the damage caused…”

They further stated that “all states” are obligated “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by” the Israeli occupation, nor to recognize it “as legal.”

Read more in our report from last year: decensored.news/icj-ruling-unl…Image
3/ “Eleven of the court’s 15 judges agreed with all findings,” explained JURIST News at the time, while Sebutinde was “the only judge to pen a dissent.”

jurist.org/news/2024/07/i…Image
Image
Read 7 tweets
Decensored News Profile picture
Jan 23
THREAD 🧵

In a November 4, 2024 audio recording provided to us by journalist @samhusseini, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller admits that he has been refusing to call on Sam as a matter of policy.

This was shortly after that day's press briefing:
2/ Having followed @samhusseini's appearances at these briefings closely since 2023, we want to emphasize that Miller only confirms in that recording what was already obvious for months: that Sam was completely blackballed. Image
3/ Miller refused to call on @samhusseini many times throughout his tenure.

Here he is in Sept 2023, for instance, conspicuously refusing to take Sam's question about Biden's meeting with Netanyahu days earlier.

This was less than two weeks before Oct 7:
Read 17 tweets
Decensored News Profile picture
Jan 17
NEW: We reconstructed @samhusseini's viral confrontation with Antony Blinken by combining footage from multiple sources, including @amrhsayed & @ryangrim. A must-see.

This was the culmination of months of State Dept stonewalling.

“Why aren't you in The Hague??”
Here's an example of why they stopped letting @samhusseini ask any questions. 👇 One of the very few times Miller called on him in all of 2024. Sam presses them about things that other reporters in the room won't (in this case the Hannibal Directive).
Sam's question to Blinken about the Geneva Conventions (vis-a-vis Gaza and Israel) — seen at the beginning our video of yesterday's exchange — is the same one that Blinken's evasive mouthpieces had given him (@samhusseini) the runaround on for months:
Read 5 tweets
Decensored News Profile picture
Jan 2
“I'm not exaggerating when I say that 99% of the people I talk to [in Gaza] just want to die and think that death will finally give them a rest from all this,” says Palestinian journalist @HossamShabat. “The Israeli government has created hell on earth for the people of Gaza.”

This — deliberately creating hell on earth for Gaza's civilian population — is exactly what Daniella Weiss, director of the Israeli settler organization Nachala, discussed and condoned in an interview with BBC News' Orla Guerin that was published in April of 2024.

She told Guerin that “Arabs will not stay” in Gaza and will be replaced by Jews. “Africa is big. Canada is big. The world will absorb the people of Gaza.”

“How will we do it?” she asked rhetorically. “We encourage it.”

When Guerin asked what happens to the Palestinians who want to stay in Gaza, Weiss repeatedly insisted that “The Arabs want to go.”

Her reason? “Normal people don't want to live in hell.”

Guerin: “What you're talking about sounds like a plan for ethnic cleansing.”

Weiss: “You can call it ethnic cleansing, you can call it refugees, whatever you want... apartheid... you choose your definition...”
For those who don't know, Weiss isn't just some random Israeli. Here's an edit of some of CNN & Channel 4's coverage of a conference she organized in early 2024.

Speakers included Itamar Ben-Gvir (national security minister) and Bezalel Smotrich (finance minister).

CNN has called her the “godmother” of the Zionist settler movement.

As seen around the 0:47 mark in this video, she freely admits that deliberately withholding humanitarian aid is one of the “methods” they're using to ethnically cleanse Gaza (i.e., create the “hell” on earth that she speaks of).

Weiss: “There will be no Arabs in [Gaza]... and we'll use different methods; one of them is not to give them any humanitarian aid, so the countries of the world will have pity on them and take them.”

Later in the video, she says that her organization gets funding and support from very “prominent” and “wealthy Jews” in the US.
WEISS: “I want to have for the Jewish nation the promised land from the Bible… from the Euphrates to the Nile…”

Q: “What about southern Lebanon?”

WEISS: “If it's—It is part of it! All of it! Even parts of Syria, part of Iraq, part of Iran. It's huge!”
Read 4 tweets
Decensored News Profile picture
Oct 15, 2024
WATCH: Asked about the Biden admin's newly-published letter to Israel, State Dept spox Matthew Miller admits a long-established fact — that the humanitarian aid that Israel is allowing to reach Palestinians in Gaza is at “very, very low levels” and that the situation is “dire.”

He claims that the election is “not a factor at all” in the timing of this letter, and implies that the fact that the 30 day implementation “window” ends after the election is purely coincidental.

Confronted by a CNN reporter about the fact that this man-made crisis is not new, and that Israel has been blocking huge amounts of aid for months, Miller claims they have “been having a number of ongoing conversations with” the Israelis prior to this letter.

(We have no way to verify that claim, but if that's true then it suggests that they knowingly failed to take the necessary action – or even give Israel an ultimatum – for months.)
Miller refuses to address what will supposedly happen if Israel doesn't start letting more humanitarian aid into Gaza

Q: “And the consequence if they don't do that is what?”

Miller: “So — I'm not going to speak to that today...” [long non-answer]

Q: “Um, yeah, but.... what's the consequence?”

Miller: “There are implications under US law, under policy, that I'm not gonna speak to here...”
Miller refuses to clarify what Israel supposedly has to do with regard to humanitarian aid to avoid potentially facing some kind of vague alleged consequences (that he won't articulate either)

@kylieatwood: “You're not going to lay out what that mark of success would look like?”
Read 5 tweets
Decensored News Profile picture
Oct 1, 2024
“The experience of isolation for years in a small cell is difficult to convey. It strips away one's sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence. I am yet not fully equipped to speak about what I have endured; the relentless struggle to stay alive, both physically and mentally. Nor can I speak yet about the deaths by hanging, murder, and medical neglect of my fellow prisoners...”

Julian Assange begins his testimony:
After thanking PACE and the many others around the world who have campaigned on his behalf for their efforts, Assange says “none of them should have been necessary.”

“But ALL of them WERE necessary, because without them, I never would have seen the light of day...”

“This unprecedented global effort was needed because, of the legal protections that did exist, many existed only on paper, [and] were not effective in any remotely reasonable time...”

“I eventually chose freedom over unrealizable justice...”

“Justice for me is now precluded, as the US government insisted on writing into its plea agreement that I cannot file a case at the European Court of Human Rights, or even an [FOIA] request over what it did to me as a result of its extradition request...”
“I want to be totally clear: I am not free today because the system worked.

I am free today, after years of incarceration, because I pled guilty to journalism.

I pled guilty to seeking information from a source.

I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source.

And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was.

I did not plead guilty to anything else.”

—Julian Assange
Read 4 tweets

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