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Rapper Macklemore Donates Proceeds From New Anti-Israel Song to UN Agency Allegedly Linked to Oct. 7 Attack
Macklemore performs at Alcatraz Milan on May 3, 2023 in Milan, Italy. Photo: Roberto Finizio via Reuters Connect
Seattle-based rapper Macklemore said on Tuesday that he will donate all proceeds from his new song to a controversial UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees that has come under fire for 19 of its employees allegedly participating in the Hamas terrorist attacks across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
The American rapper, whose real name is Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, released on YouTube this week the music video for his new track Hind’s Hall. In the song, Macklemore, 40, raps about his avid support for students participating in anti-Israel protests at a number of university campuses across the US in recent weeks. He claims that the often violent protesters who chant for the destruction of Israel want “peace” and implies that the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks were an act of “resistance.”
“What is threatenin’ about divesting and wantin’ peace?” he raps at the start of the song. “The problem isn’t the protests, it’s what they’re protesting/It goes against what our country is funding/Block the barricade until Palestine is free … Screamin’ ‘Free Palestine’ ’til they’re home at last.” He also claims that antisemitism is not synonymous with anti-Zionism.
In January, Israel alleged that 12 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) were involved in the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, assisted in kidnapping Israelis that day, and had other close ties to Hamas. Israel said one UNRWA employee, a math teacher, was a Hamas operative who helped kidnap an Israeli soldier from Be’eri in southern Israel on Oct. 7 and assisted in the transfer of Hamas weapons and trucks. Israel said the math teacher had a “logistical position” in Hamas’ Deir el-Balah battalion, was involved in “receiving and holding hostages,” and was “seen photographing a female hostage.”
The UN has been probing the allegations in an ongoing investigation. Last month, a UN spokesperson said that one case had been closed and four others suspended, citing a lack of evidence.
As a result of the accusations, roughly 15 countries suspended funding to UNRWA, but some have since resumed their financial support for the agency. In recent months, the UN received information about seven more UNRWA employees allegedly involved in the Oct. 7 attacks. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also alleged that 1,468 UNRWA workers “are known to be active” members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group based in Gaza, and that 185 of them are “active in the military branches of Hamas.”
UNRWA has also been accused of inciting antisemitism, terrorism, and hatred of Israel in the textbooks it issues to Palestinians schools.
In Hind’s Hall, Macklemore raps about Israel: “A state that’s gotta rely on an apartheid system to uphold an occupyin’ violent/History been repeating for the last seventy-five/The Nakba never ended, the colonizer lied … Where does genocide land in your definition, huh?” The Grammy Award-winning rapper also called out politicians who support the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Christians United for Israel (CUFI).
The song’s title is a reference to Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, the building that anti-Israel student protesters broke into and occupied in April. The student activists nicknamed the building “Hind’s Hall” to commemorate Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas terrorists controlling the region.
“What if you were in Gaza? What if those were your kids?” Macklemore raps in Hind’s Hall. “If the West was pretendin’ that you didn’t exist/you’d want the world to stand up and the students finally did/let’s get it.”
Clips of several Israel-supporting politicians are also used in the music video, including videos of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky,) Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Macklemore additionally raps about not wanting to vote for US President Joe Biden in the 2024 general election because of his support for Israel’s war against Hamas. “The blood is on your hands, Biden, we can see it all,” he raps.
While Hind’s Hall has been widely praised by anti-Israel activisits, it has also received backlash from many on social media, some of whom noted Macklemore’s past allegedly antisemitic behavior.
In 2014, the rapper performed on stage in Seattle while wearing a fake wig and beard, and an oversized prosthetic nose — an outfit choice that B’nai B’rith International said was “deeply offensive and propagates Jewish stereotypes.”
The post Rapper Macklemore Donates Proceeds From New Anti-Israel Song to UN Agency Allegedly Linked to Oct. 7 Attack first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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