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In Chicago, politicians are comparing ICE to the Gestapo — are they right?
On Halloween afternoon in Evanston, Illinois— just a couple miles north of my home — masked, armed men went on a rampage: They deliberately caused a fender-bender accident, shoved women to the ground, repeatedly punched a young man in the head and dragged him across the pavement, and pointed pistols at and pepper-sprayed passersby. These masked men were agents of the United States Customs and Border Protection.
“As soon as I walked up,” local resident Jennifer Moriarty recalled in an online interview, “an agent grabbed me by my neck and threw me back and threw me to the ground and was on top of me.”
As horrifying as the assault was, it had sadly become the norm for our community: For the previous two months, the greater Chicago area was the target of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) crackdown on immigrants and, increasingly, those who came forward to protect their immigrant neighbors.
The following day, Daniel Biss, Evanston’s mayor, spoke to hundreds who gathered to protest the federal government’s campaign. “We in Evanston are on fire,” Biss said. “We know what is being done to our people… We know the violence and the emergency and the authoritarian nightmare that is coming at us.”
He then evoked the memory of his grandmother, who as a young woman in Europe in 1940 had not comprehended the dangers she faced. “By the time she knew the truth,” said Biss, “it was too late to protect herself, and she and her siblings and her parents were put on a cattle car, and the day they got off that cattle car was the last day her parents lived.”
The analogy is an extraordinary one, but Biss is not alone in evoking the specter of the Holocaust to describe the daily reality here — a reality that was subsequently visited upon Charlotte, North Carolina and is planned for New Orleans next. Several members of Chicago’s city council called out “the Gestapo tactics” of the twin DHS agencies, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And as far back as February, JB Pritzker — the first Jewish governor of Illinois — publicly decried the Trump administration’s “authoritarian playbook,” warning “It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.”
The very name of the DHS campaign — “Operation Midway Blitz” — served to conjure up the WWII bombing of London. And the daily itinerary of its agents called to mind aspects of 1930s Germany. Every morning, federal agents departed their local headquarters in the near-west suburb of Broadview in unmarked SUVs, wearing gator-style face-coverings and carrying semi-automatic weapons.
They cruised the streets of a rotating group of targeted neighborhoods or suburbs, looking for dark-skinned workers whom they deemed would be easy pickings: tamale vendors, landscape workers, day laborers at Home Depot, drivers in the ride-share lot at O’Hare. They made only cursory efforts to determine whether their targets were citizens, legal residents, or undocumented individuals. The DHS talking point that agents are only seizing the “worst of the worst” criminals is easily refuted by the data: When the Trump administration finally released names of people they arrested in the Chicago operation, 598 of the 614 had no criminal record at all.
The DHS arrestees were manhandled and taken to Broadview, where they were held in gruesome conditions and pressured to sign self-deportation agreements. Many detainees are so fearful of indefinitely staying at Broadview — or a similarly cruel detention facility — that they sign. They often leave behind families and shattered lives.
The federal agents made a point of flouting the law, as if celebrating their indifference to anything other than their own cruel mission. If an immigrant refused to leave their car, agents routinely smashed the window, dragged the person from the vehicle, and sped off, leaving their victim’s car unattended and unsecured. When agents found themselves surrounded by residents calling attention to their presence, they brandished guns, hurled epithets, fired pepper bombs, and lobbed teargas canisters.
An investigation by Block Club Chicago found that federal agents employed tear gas and other chemical weapons 49 times in the Chicago area from Oct. 3 through Nov. 8. Even an admonishment from U.S. Circuit Court Judge Sara Ellis did not stop them; after her temporary restraining order, federal agents used chemical weapons at least four more times.
Ellis’s 233-page opinion in the use-of-force case, released on Thursday, is a compendium of immigration enforcement run amok. With access to aerial, bodycam, and cell phone footage, along with extensive testimony, the court found a consistent pattern of violence from government operatives, and an equally consistent pattern of lying about that violence from their superiors. In determining whether the government had violated the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights, Judge Ellis noted that “repeatedly shooting pepper balls or pepper spray at clergy members shocks the conscience… Tear gassing expectant mothers, children, and babies shocks the conscience… Tackling someone dressed in a duck costume to the ground and leaving him with a traumatic brain injury, and then refusing to provide any explanation for the action, shocks the conscience.”
When assessing the government’s truthfulness, Ellis wrote that “[CBP Commander Gregory] Bovino appeared evasive over the three days of his deposition, either providing ‘cute’ responses to Plaintiffs’ counsel’s questions or outright lying.”
The use of force, along with the targeting of individuals based on their ethnic identity and the government mandate to deport one million immigrants per year, brings to mind for me the Polenaktion, the mass arrest and deportation of 17,000 Polish Jews from Germany in 1938. At the same time, I ask myself, are such equivalences accurate and helpful? Holocaust scholar Daniel H. Magilow, in an astute discussion of ICE/Gestapo comparisons, reminds us that while “analogies can be useful for clarifying complex ideas… they risk oversimplifying and trivializing history.”
For my parents, who came of age as Brooklyn Jews as the Nazis were coming to power in Europe, the question had hovered over their lives: “Could it happen here?” After two months of brutal and lawless behavior, I was asking, “Is it happening here? Now?”
So I called my nonagenarian parents to ask them what they thought. My dad said Operation Midway Blitz did remind him of “Gestapo tactics, a Gestapo presence, the Gestapo’s impact on society.” My mom added a note of caution: “We should be careful talking about them like all individuals in ICE are the same. It takes a while to answer the question ‘who are they,” how Gestapo-ish all the people in ICE are.”
Who are the officers of ICE and CBP? It is a question that Illinois Senator Dick Durbin addressed in a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Durbin pointed to loosened standards for ICE hiring and training, and to recruiting advertisements — targeted to white applicants — urging them to join up to “defend your culture.” (A recent article in Haaretz also raised alarms that imagery on DHS’s social media used antisemitic dog whistles and was intended to appeal to neo-Nazis.) Durbin asked Noem whether there was any vetting to check if applicants were January 6 rioters or members of white nationalist groups and, if so, whether those extremists were getting hired.
Such concerns go back many years. A ProPublica investigation in 2019 uncovered a secret Facebook group for current and former CBP personnel that revealed “a pervasive culture of cruelty aimed at immigrants.” In 2022, twenty-seven civil rights organizations wrote the Justice Department to warn that CBP was collaborating with white supremacist paramilitary groups on the U.S. southern border.
Whether one accepts the “Gestapo” analogy or not, it is clear that Chicago residents are heeding the dire warnings coming from politicians and activists alike. When the “five-alarm fire” commenced, the response of thousands of residents was rapid and well-organized. Secure chat groups were launched; ICE-watch trainings were at capacity. In my neighborhood and beyond, during the worst days of the crackdown, one could see on every street-corner people on patrol with orange whistles around their necks, ready to document and peacefully confront the armed federal incursion.
During the Halloween incident in Evanston, CBP agents stuffed three people — including Jennifer Moriarty — in an SUV. They then drove erratically around Evanston and Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, attempting to goad other drivers into more traffic accidents. But wherever they went, the orange whistles were sounding. “When I was on the ground and when I was in the car,” Moriarty recalled, “looking out at all the people, all the faces of the community members… I never felt I was doing anything wrong. And all those people were also there, doing all the right things, as well.”
My experience when I joined a local patrol was the same as Moriarty’s. I had a sense of pride and wonder that so many neighbors were united in non-violent opposition to racist attacks. Whether DHS agents were akin to the Gestapo, in the end, did not matter to me. What mattered was that there was definitely a Resistance.
The post In Chicago, politicians are comparing ICE to the Gestapo — are they right? appeared first on The Forward.
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Portuguese artists pull out of Jerry Seinfeld-headlined festival
(JTA) — Several Portuguese artists have dropped out of a comedy festival in Lisbon headlined by Jerry Seinfeld, citing their support for Palestinians and implying opposition to Seinfeld’s support for Israel.
At least six acts over recent days have canceled their appearances at the MEO Commedia a La Carte Fest, a new international comedy festival in the Portuguese capital. The event from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 has advertised that it will host Seinfeld’s first live appearance in Portugal.
Though none of the artists who withdrew mentioned Seinfeld by name, some hinted at a boycott against his pro-Israel views. The Jewish comedian has become one of Hollywood’s most prominent advocates for Israel since October 2023.
Actress and comedian Inês Aires Pereira announced on Instagram on Saturday that “one of the names” featured at the festival “persistently defends ideas and acts that I consider indefensible,” adding, “We cannot relativize or normalize a genocide.”
The comedy duo Cebola Mol posted a graphic of themselves with a watermelon, widely recognized as a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians. “We will celebrate justice, freedom and joy with you on another occasion,” they said on Instagram.
The festival announced on Friday that performances by the groups Tributo Pop and Conjunto Cuca Monga were also canceled, but did not provide reasons. Two other acts, comedian Pedro Tochas and visual artist Vhils, shared their cancellations on Instagram without further details.
Seinfeld has aligned himself with Israel during its current conflict in Gaza, following decades of largely avoiding commenting on political issues. He visited Israel in December 2023 to meet with the families of hostages seized by Hamas on Oct. 7 of that year. Since then, he has attracted attention for a series of dismissive remarks toward pro-Palestinian advocates.
During an appearance last year at Duke University, Seinfeld compared pro-Palestinian activists with the Ku Klux Klan, saying, “The Klan is actually a little better here because they can come right out and say, ‘We don’t like Blacks, we don’t like Jews.’ OK, that’s honest.”
Representatives of Seinfeld and producers of the MEO Commedia a La Carte Fest did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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UK, France, Canada to ban goods from Israeli settlements
(JTA) —
The United Kingdom, France and Canada will ban goods produced in the West Bank settlements and Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told Parliament on Tuesday, explaining that all such communities were deemed by his country to be illegal.
The declaration exacerbated the rising tensions riling the traditionally strong Israel-U.K. alliance. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar warned that these steps stoked antisemitism against British Jews in an on-camera statement to reporters in Jerusalem.
Sa’ar charged that the measures were a politicized hostile action deliberately taken ahead of Friday’s Jewish New Year holiday, with an eye toward influencing the country’s Oct. 27 elections.
Israel, he said, is responding by closing the British Consulate in Jerusalem that services Palestinians. It will also remove British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat and halt the British training of Palestinian Authority security forces. He added that Israel would bar the entry of 12 British politicians and other nationals involved in anti-Israel activity.
France and Canada have also announced a ban on the import of settlement goods, Miliband told parliament. He noted that the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway have either banned goods or in the process of doing so.
In the same address, Miliband affirmed Israel’s right to exist, reflected on his own Jewish roots and rejected the notion that there was a connection between the policy steps against West Bank settlement activity and the safety of British Jews.
What is motivating the U.K., Miliband said, is “a deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community” as well as Israel’s “clear intent to bury the Palestinian state.”
In response, he said, the U.K. “will introduce an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied [Palestinian] territory” as part of a “new comprehensive sanctions regime” that will be put in place within nine months.
This will include, he said, “action against specific companies and individuals who provide services, such as construction, infrastructure, financing or real estate for settlement expansion.”
To those who “finance or facilitate illegal settlements, let me say this, you will face the full force of U.K. sanctions,” Miliband warned.
Miliband clarified that the ban would not affect the export of religious items or life-saving Israeli medications. He explained that trade with the settlements was minimal and that the greater impact would be the sanctions on services.
As part of declaring the ban, Miliband said that the British government is also adopting the International Court of Justice’s 2024 advisory opinion that all Israeli settlement activity over the pre-1967 border was illegal.
But others in Parliament pushed back against Miliband’s declaration. MP Richard Tice of Britain’s right-wing Reform party said that the sanctions were a grave mistake that would “embolden the scourge of antisemitism against British Jews on British streets,” endanger ties with the United States and lead to “tit for tat” sanctions from Israel.
Miliband shot back that “no British Jew is responsible for the policies of the Israeli government and it behooves all of us to make sure that there can be no confusion about that,” saying that Tice’s statement “fell foul” of that goal.
The U.K. action is the latest escalation in tensions between Israel and the Labour-led British government headed by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took power in July.
The prior government, led by former Labour Premier Keir Starmer, had already angered Israel by recognizing Palestinian statehood in 2025, suspending licenses for the export of arms to Israel and freezing talks toward a free-trade agreement.
France and Canada are also announcing a ban on the import of settlement goods, Miliband told parliament. He explained that the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, and Norway have either banned goods or in the process of doing so.
In concert with Miliband’s appearance at Parliament, Britain and 11 other countries issued a joint statement pledging “their intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements which are illegal under international law.”
Those other countries were Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
The 12-country bloc said it was taking this step to maintain the viability of the two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, describing the situation in the West Bank as “rapidly deteriorating.”
In its statement, the bloc stressed that it was taking this step amid an “unprecedented level of settler violence and settlement expansion, including the unacceptable decision to publish tenders for the E1 settlement project.” That project is seen as cutting through land that would render a Palestinian state unviable.
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California Gov. Newsom, a presidential hopeful, slams Netanyahu and AIPAC in PBS interview
(JTA) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a 2028 presidential hopeful, ventured farther than ever in his criticisms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a weekend interview that delved into the Democratic Party’s relationship with Israel.
“I think it’s overwhelmingly opposed to the current regime in Israel,” Newsom said of the party, in a PBS News Hour interview with Amna Nawaz.
Pressed by Nawaz on divisions among his colleagues on Israel, Newsom denied that the subject is “even controversial anymore,” stressing that “the condemnation of what Bibi Netnayahu’s doing is almost universal.” The governor slammed the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza and condemned the settler violence that has expanded in the West Bank.
“We want a democratic and secure Israel, and we want a secure and democratic Palestinian state as well right next door,” Newsom said, adding that Netanyahu has proved counterproductive to achieving a two-state solution.
Though he repeatedly maintained that Democrats are not divided on Israel, the governor acknowledged that “some of the language” by fellow Democrats “has been weaponized.” Certain “aspects of rhetoric” from individual candidates, he added, are on “the spectrum of concern,” Newsom said.
A number of candidates from the party’s far left place most if not all of the blame on Israel for a war in Gaza that has resulted in tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths. and downplay the role of Hamas in launching the war with the Oct. 7, 2023 raid inside Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were abducted. Newsom’s rhetoric is of a piece with party moderates who are critical of the Israeli government but who call for a secure Israel, reject Hamas and who resist pressure from the left to call Israel’s actions “genocide.”
Newsom nonetheless insisted that the party is unified on the issue. “But I think universally, everyone agrees, even if you don’t think it’s genocide, that it’s been a moral catastrophe,” he said of the war in Gaza. “The vast majority of us also agree about the atrocities on Oct. 7th and how horrific and unacceptable it was, and the terrorism that was perpetrated by Hamas.”
Newsom was among the many U.S. politicians to visit Israel in October 2023, meeting with survivors and families impacted by the attacks.
During a March book tour, Newsom sparked a backlash when he said that some people were referring to Israel “appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.” He quickly walked back these remarks, telling Politico that he had used the term “in the context of the direction that Bibi is going.”
“I revere the state of Israel,” he declared at the time.
The governor warned, however, that if Netanyahu proceeds in the direction of West Bank annexation, apartheid could become “a word you may hear others use.”
In addition to amplifying his condemnation of Netanyahu this weekend, Newsom also addressed the fact that fewer Democrats are accepting funds from political action committees affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group.
As for Newsom himself, Track AIPAC, an organization that compiles Federal Election Commission data to flag pro-Israel campaign contributions, did not log any such donations to the likely presidential candidate. But the group did flag him as “pro-Israel.”
“It’s a minority of Democrats that are accepting AIPAC,” the governor said, noting a “dramatic change” over the last couple years.
“The vast majority of Democrats I talk to, even Democrats in the past that have in the past have taken AIPAC money, are pledging not to now,” Newsom added. “That’s more of a mainstream position, interestingly, within the Democratic Party.”
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