DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST JAKHI MCCRAY | PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE THRIVES AMID STARVATION CAMPAIGN | COLUMBIA PAYS $221M & HIRES WAR CRIMINAL

“A LETTER FROM JAKHI MCCRAY TO THE MOVEMENT”

Below we republish a statement written by activist Jakhi McCray before he turned himself in to federal authorities for allegedly torching multiple NYPD vehicles. On July 21, a judge ordered his temporary release, but he still faces 5 to 20 years in prison if convicted. Prisons are designed to serve as annihilation zones for revolutionaries and the rebelling masses — but repression always breeds resistance. We admire the comrade’s bravery and unequivocally support his freedom. His statement reflects his steadfast spirit and remains an inspiration to our movement.

You can support this comrade by donating to his fundraiser here. Follow @jakhisolidarity on Instagram for more updates.

It has been one month since the NYPD and the U.S. government came after me, accusing me of setting fire to police vehicles belonging to the 83rd precinct in Brooklyn. According to them, $800,000 worth of damage was done and the charred remains of the vehicles represented a direct attack on the police. Today, July 21st, I walked into the 83rd precinct and turned myself in. There’s a real chance that I won’t see the outside of a cell for years, but I make this choice clear of mind and, in a naive way, hopeful. It’s a hope that comes from feeling loved and supported by my friends, my family, and my comrades that have rallied in support of me in wake of the accusations. It’s a feeling that I cherish and will hold on to in the, now, uncertain timeline my life. I’m 21 years old and I know it’s normal to be unsure about life and the world, but I want to thank you—whether I know you or you’re just meeting me for the first time now—for giving me some comfort in all this.

My charge comes with a minimum sentence of five years and a maximum of 20. The federal government has labeled me “armed and dangerous” and blasted a $30,000 bounty for my capture, which Zionist and white supremacist news outlets have happily supported in their racist doxxing and smear campaign against me. My home has been raided alongside two other addresses in New York City, and my little siblings had assault rifles brandished at them as they were harassed and forced outside.

I’m not, nor was I ever, scared. This scare tactic is nothing compared to other black people that are beaten and/or murdered, and their names being dragged through the mud as the media does damage control for the officers that did it. It’s not new to Palestinians and Arabs that are being assassinated, deported, and harassed. I’ve met immigrants that live under daily paranoia, not knowing whether or not ICE goons will bust through their doors and kidnap their families.

I’ve been arrested 12 times before this, and doxxed and lied about by fascist press and police officers alike. I’ve seen friends and comrades lose relationships, homes, and jobs because of their refusal to be responsible for the genocide in Palestine and the kidnapping of migrants. The SCC61, the CUNY8, the Prarieland11, the 2020 prisoners, Tarek Barzouk, Leqaa Kordia—all just a few current examples of the the government’s attempt to regain control. The use of COINTELPRO and its domestic warfare campaign that left hundreds of dead and imprisoned revolutionaries throughout the 20th century and now has caused a memory crater in our movement, where we don’t know to how to handle the brutality of State repression.

Repression is the State trying to call our bluff. It is intense because it shows itself when our potential to disrupt genocides and capital becomes too grand to ignore. Millions of people, whether they consider themselves revolutionaries or not, that participated in the encampments, the anti-ICE street rebellions, and the George Floyd Uprising have helped create a social crisis in the last five years that continues to bring in millions more and fuel the need for liberation.

The constant effort it takes the State to oppress us is not manageable. It is already breaking, with the funding and hiring disasters in federal agencies, the infighting between the Trump administration and his base, and the complete political catastrophe over Israel. The harshness of the State’s eye on our movement is nothing more than a defensive reaction, a mask from their fear. This is as much of a make or break moment for them as it is for us. If we come out of this with our solidarity and our infrastructure intact, it is a monumental win for our communities and a devastation to our enemies.

Our greatest strength is each other—that we are not just coworkers maintaining appearances for the duration of a shift. We are comrades, and with that comes a promise to love, defend, and fight for one another. Because you are my comrades, I hold this promise towards all of you. I don’t know what will happen now, but I do know that I will never stop fighting and I will do my best wherever I find myself to be.

With love and solidarity, Jakhi

STUDENT INTIFADA FORCES COLUMBIA TO FORK OVER $221 MILLION

Last week, Columbia escalated its crackdown on the Palestine solidarity movement, suspending and expelling nearly 80 students for participating in the Basel al-Araj Popular University. Days earlier, Columbia announced its adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism that conflates any criticism of israel or zionism with antisemitic hate speech. Simultaneously, they disclosed new institutional partnerships with a slate of zionist orgs, including

• Anti-Defamation League: zionist lobby group known for surveilling activists, genocide denial, and defending Elon Musk's Nazi salute while its CEO equates keffiyehs with swastikas

• Foundation to Combat Antisemitism: founded by billionaire Robert Kraft, who publicly condemned pro-Palestine actions on campus before pulling millions in donations from Columbia

• Kalaniyot: created in response to Operation al-Aqsa Flood with the express goal of "strengthening US-Israel university research collaborations"

Now Columbia will pay $221 million to the federal government as ransom to restore funding that was slashed this past March in response to pro-Palestine escalations on campus.

The settlement includes a number of stipulations that reflect the reactionization of Columbia, headed by ultra-zionist Claire Shipman, who has long-standing ties to the pro-israel lobby—once even moderating an AIPAC event alongside Marco Rubio.

The settlement includes:

• Columbia will undertake a comprehensive review of its international admissions processes and policies and will ensure that international student-applicants are asked questions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study in the United States. — a McCarthyite attempt to weed out "politically troublesome" students

• Columbia will also develop training materials to socialize all students to campus norms and values more broadly. — If Shipman had it her way she'd turn MESAAS into a zionist re-education camp.

• Columbia will promptly provide the United States, upon request, with all disciplinary actions involving student visa-holders resulting in expulsions or suspensions, and arrest records that Columbia is aware of for criminal activity, including trespass or other violation of law, to the extent permitted by FERPA. Disciplinary actions will be determined without regard to immigration status. The University will provide the Resolution Monitor with anonymized statistical data sufficient to evaluate compliance with the foregoing sentence — endorsing anti-immigrant hysteria and facilitating the deportation and detention of immigrant students

Columbia settles out of fear. It knows it can't quell our movement so it seeks political and legal cover to carry out its desires. Namely, to purge pro-Palestine students who threaten its financial interests and to increase zionist normalization through both institutional partnerships and embedded ideological "training".

To be attacked by Columbia is, as ever, a sign that we're hitting where it hurts. This settlement is a direct result of our efforts to strike at Columbia’s finances. $221M is a significant financial blow brought on by the relentless student movement for Palestine. Columbia has been forced to pay ransom to restore its federal funding. It must now face the reputational damage of groveling before the ultra-reactionary Trump administration – a move that isolates even liberals. The university is bleeding money, credibility, and control, even as it clamps down.

Even if they recover federal funding, they cannot guarantee the favor of a volatile administration—especially one that will soon see the movement is far from deterred. Whether we are students of Columbia or students of the Popular University, we have made it clear that we will not stop until Palestine is free.

COLUMBIA FUNDS GENOCIDE WHILE CONDEMNING CUAD FOR SUPPORTING GENOCIDE RESISTANCE

In her email on July 15, Claire Shipman wrote that "Columbia has not, and will not, recognize or meet with the group that calls itself “Columbia University Apartheid Divest” (CUAD), its representatives, or any of its affiliated organizations. Organizations that promote violence or encourage disruptions of our academic mission are not welcome on our campuses and the University will not engage with them."

The Columbia administration has repeatedly described CUAD as an organization that promotes violence and disrupts the university's academic environment. This is their justification for the official refusal to negotiate with us in any capacity. Aside from the absurd irony of criticizing violence and disruption while holding direct financial and ideological ties to an entity committing a full-scale genocide, it is clear that these accusations are meant to put us on the defensive. However, Columbia's attempt to force us to moderate and backpedal on our demands and actions in order to gain institutional legitimacy is in vain.

We do not seek this legitimacy; and in fact it is essential that we refuse to do so. Respectability politics in the heart of empire is inherently exclusive, requiring its adherents to flaunt their privilege and abandon their comrades in order to gain even the slightest chance at concessions that generally do not end up being granted. We understand that our demands must be won through struggle - they won't be granted by the "good graces" of an institution actively funding and profiting from genocide and apartheid normalization. Columbia has shown time and time again that they have never and will never negotiate in good faith. They renege on terms, obscure meetings behind closed doors and lengthy bureaucratic processes, and actively endanger negotiators. Playing the game of legitimacy and civility with Columbia University gives us nothing. So instead, we disrupt.

We disrupt, and we are not afraid to claim and embrace that very nature of our actions. In fact, occupations, encampments, and protests must be disruptive, otherwise they are nothing more than parade and spectacle. We act with the consciousness that the genocide in Palestine is ongoing and worsening, and that it is funded and enabled by Columbia. A wrench must be thrown into this machine, by any means necessary.

Maybe students can't study quietly for finals in a particular reading room, or cross the lawns without encountering tents, or enter the gates without pushing through a picket line. And so what? These disruptions are not even a taste of what the zionist entity has subjected students and universities in Gaza to, using money and weapons provided by the United States, and by extension, Columbia itself. These investments are seen as 'business as usual' by the administration, but business as usual cannot be allowed to continue during a genocide. An undisrupted world is a complicit one, and an undisrupted campus is one purposefully ignorant of its own hypocrisy.

People are being massacred. Bombs are dropping on schools, houses, mosques, and churches. Hospitals are being invaded and raided at gunpoint. Babies are starving to death as boxes upon boxes of food and formula are being held just outside of Gaza, with armed soldiers preventing their distribution. Journalists are collapsing from malnutrition, prisoners are being tortured, and families are being displaced and torn apart, all while the imperial West watches, aids, and abets the perpetrators.

But between the land and those who commit genocide to conquer it stands resistance. Time and time again, the Palestinian people and their allies have taken up arms and put their lives on the line to defend their homes and families from the encroaching occupation. The world watches, but the Palestinian resistance acts. Somehow, despite over 77 years of attempted conquest and nearly two years of an all-out genocidal campaign, the "most technologically advanced military in the world" has not been able to defeat the Palestinian resistance, and never will.

Instead, the resistance humiliates the zionist state, as seen when the Al-Aqsa Flood breached the separation wall between Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestine. It was in fact armed resistance that liberated southern Lebanon from zionist military occupation, that continues to defend towns and camps in the West Bank from encroaching settlers and keeps the Gaza strip out of the hands of the IOF. As such, we will never condemn armed resistance. If Columbia phrases this as supporting violence, then so be it. Their condemnation means nothing, as they have already proven their own illegitimacy through their open endorsement of genocide and settler colonialism.

Columbia's attempts to intimidate us through surveillance, sanctions, prosecution, and denial of negotiations will do nothing to deter us. Their escalatory actions only highlight their desperation as a failing institution. In choosing to collaborate with the ultra-reactionary federal government they only hasten their own demise.

We will continue to support and justify resistance in all its forms until Palestine is free and the world is liberated from the chokehold of imperialism. Disruption until divestment, and revolution until victory.

ANOTHER WAR CRIMINAL WORKING AT COLUMBIA: JENN COUNTER AND HER ROLE IN MANUFACTURING THE STARVATION IN GAZA

While it may seem impossible for Columbia to sink to a new moral low, news broke this month that the so-called university employs one of the key strategists behind the reprehensible Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a sham of an organization that has directly led to the murder of over 1,000 Palestinians seeking aid. As the zionist entity refuses to let in the tons of food and medical supplies languishing on the border, the GHF forces Gazans to wait in cages for rotten food and allows the IOF to shoot into the crowd after only a few minutes

Jenn Counter, a course associate in the Strategic Communications department at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies, is currently Vice President of Orbis Operations, an imperialist intelligence contractor that assisted israel in designing and implementing the GHF. In late 2024, Orbis spun off Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) to serve as GHF’s primary contractor in Gaza. Counter joined SRS as a “Subject Matter Expert,” contributing directly to the machinery of death dressed as humanitarian aid.

Counter also writes imperialist drivel as a senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Foreign Defense Group, an international affairs think tank that champions “American military strength.” Last December, Counter co-wrote a paper calling for prioritization of “counterterrorism” efforts in the Middle East and unqualified support for israel. She advocated for funding opposition grassroots organizations that serve western interests and imposing harsher sanctions on nations resisting U.S. hegemony.

Counter’s resume reads like a blueprint for imperial violence: prior posts in the U.S. State Department, Air Force intelligence, and military-aligned think tanks all point to a career spent refining tools of occupation and repression. Her so-called expertise is in weaponizing colonial propaganda to destabilize the Middle East and support the zionist project in its genocidal mania—killing Palestinians trying to fetch flour for their starving families.

Columbia proudly showcases Counter’s immorality on their website. Anyone who clicks on Counter’s profile can read her April 2021 publication “Rules of Offensive Influence" that lays out tactics for manipulating local populations to “adopt” pro-U.S. sentiments. She views civilian groups as chess pieces in the game of resource grabbing and colonial violence, seen in statements where she advocates for weaponizing emotion to capture the “lizard-brain” of your audience, using “divides in society” to spread misinformation and co-opt community movements, and “knowing your enemy, their culture, their society, and history” to leverage this knowledge to meet strategic goals.

A separate profile on Columbia’s website highlights her role in funneling imperialist propaganda into civil society and media organizations across South Asia, East Africa, and Western Europe—experiences the university frames as having given her the “untraditional strategic communications skills” she brings to her current work. But there is nothing 'untraditional' about her methods. Counterinsurgency, psychological manipulation, and narrative control have always been tools of U.S. imperialism. As a professor of “Strategic Communication,” Counter is meant to groom students with nationalist propaganda—teaching them to manipulate, dehumanize, and dominate any perceived adversary to U.S. hegemony.

With hundreds of thousands of Gazans now suffering in one of the most catastrophic manufactured famines in modern history, Columbia shamelessly hosts one of its architects. As Jenn Counter prepares for another semester of teaching, we must continue to disrupt business as usual—because that “business” includes legitimizing those who design and implement the machinery of genocide. Institutions like Columbia rely on silence and normalization to sustain their complicity. It is our responsibility to expose and disrupt that complicity at every turn.

PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE THRIVES AMID ZIONIST STARVATION CAMPAIGN

Despite facing a massively disproportionate military onslaught and an escalating starvation campaign, Palestinian resistance groups continue to demonstrate resilience, coordination, and tactical evolution.

In recent months, fighters have inflicted hundreds of casualties among enemy ranks, with growing numbers of soldiers reportedly suffering psychological trauma and suicides, attributed to both the brutal actions they carry out and the fierce resistance they face. Combatants on the ground are overpowering the cowardly zionist army through direct combat, explosive ambushes, sniping, and strategic raids. A recent operation in Khan Younis saw resistance fighters reach enemy forces at close range, neutralize a soldier who was demolishing civilian homes, and seize his weapon. Efforts to capture occupying soldiers are ongoing, with several recent attempts nearly succeeding.

In a recent speech, Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida emphasized that the resistance’s advanced tactics are a product of hard-fought lessons learned during the longest and most intense confrontation in Palestinian history. Abu Obeida highlighted the breadth of the resistance, stretching from the northern city of Beit Hanoun down to Rafah on the Egyptian border, calling it “the greatest military school for a people’s resistance confronting its occupiers in modern history.”

Despite nearly 2 years of intensified genocide, ethnic cleansing, and starvation, the resistance continues to fight with unyielding resolve for the just cause of Palestinian liberation. The zionist regime’s escalating brutality reveals its failure to extinguish the steadfast flame that burns in the hearts of the Palestinian people. May the courage and perseverance of the resistance serve as an inspiration to us all. We must continue the struggle in unwavering solidarity. Glory to the resistance!

“RESISTANCE IS FREEDOM" - GEORGES ABDALLAH RELEASED AFTER 41 YEARS IN PRISON

On July 17, Georges Abdallah was ordered to be released from a French prison after enduring 41 years of incarceration. A former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and founder of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), Abdallah was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his alleged involvement in the assassinations of a U.S. military officer and an israeli diplomat.

Since 1999, Abdallah has been eligible for release. However, due to sustained U.S. and israeli pressure, he remained imprisoned for decades more. In 2015, it was revealed that war criminal and Columbia professor Hillary Clinton had personally ordered the French Foreign Minister to block Abdallah’s release, claiming that despite being 72 years old, he "may return to the battlefield."

On July 25, upon his return to Lebanon, Abdallah was greeted by a large crowd of supporters. In a passionate speech, he reaffirmed his lifelong commitment to Palestine and the global struggle for liberation. His words rang with revolutionary optimism:

“Resistance is freedom! It is freedom in itself! Let’s all rally around resistance, around Gaza, around the supporters of resistance. You are the symbol of honor and dignity.”

In response to enemy propaganda that the resistance is weakening, Abdallah responded with conviction:

"The resistance is not weak, the resistance is strong because of its martyrs, its leaders are martyrs, so the resistance is strong."

He also highlighted the crucial role of global solidarity in securing his release:

“'israel' is living its last chapter, and I was released thanks to the solidarity movement with me. When a prisoner inside jail starts to cost more than their release, thanks to [the solidarity movement], they will release him.”

Georges Abdallah’s release is a victory for all who resist imperialism and zionism.

As we close this edition, we honor Georges Abdallah and call for the release of all political prisoners. The struggle continues, and the resistance endures.

GLORY TO THE RESISTANCE!

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!