Fifth grade teacher, wife, mom of three, reader, all opinions my own
Joined July 2011
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Mindy Civan retweeted
The decision to award Navi Pillay the Nobel Peace Prize raises painful questions that I cannot leave unanswered.
For years, I have advocated for the rights of the Uyghur people at the UN. Yet within the very institution entrusted with protecting human rights, I have faced Chinese pressure, surveillance and attempts to silence me. In 2017, I was forcibly removed from UN premises.
During Pillay’s tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, particularly in 2012–2013, I encountered serious obstacles to accreditation and access. I later learned that the office she led had shared information about my participation, and that of other human rights defenders, with the Chinese government without our consent. For me, this was a profound betrayal of trust by an institution that should have protected us. The responsibility for this practice still demands a full and transparent accounting.
I acknowledge Pillay’s achievements and courage in other areas. But those achievements cannot erase the failure to protect our rights and safety during her leadership. Nor have I seen from her the strong, unequivocal solidarity that I expected in the face of the Uyghur genocide.
This is deeply personal. My family has paid a devastating price for my human rights advocacy. My mother died in a Chinese internment camp in 2018. My two brothers remain in Chinese prisons.
A Nobel Peace Prize does not place anyone beyond accountability. I want answers: Why was information about human rights defenders shared with China? Who authorised it? And why did those entrusted with our protection fail us?
Human rights are universal. That promise must include the Uyghur people.
Mindy Civan retweeted
I actually understand why Democrat leaders didn't take our stories seriously when the Times reported them in June but are taking them seriously now.
It was by design.
The line most shared from the piece was the claim that the Times “could not corroborate” my story despite talking to two of my friends.
I gave them the contact information for five friends.
They called the two who I clarified would not know about the abuse but would be able to affirm our relationship timeline, events, etc.
They simply did not call the other three.
I also gave them the names of all my former roommates who remembered him stalking our row house (which was about 5 houses down from his) and waiting for me to return. I gave them screenshots of messages between these roommates and I discussing it.
I gave them the names of other men I dated who might have remembered him following us around the hill and showing up on my stoop after we walked home from dates to confront us. I gave them emails to my landlord urgently ending my lease and moving to an apartment across town and diary entries talking about it - all time marked.
I told them that during pre-marital counseling I had spoken to my ex-fiance about the abuse because I had to explain to him why I reacted with such terror any time he lost his temper. They said oh NO we don't need to bother HIM (or my priest). Besides, I had written about it in my diary in detail, they reassured.
As the weeks dragged on I stopped trying to give them evidence because the amount I had already given them seemed to overwhelm them and I thought it meant they clearly had more than enough to verify my every claim.
My friends might not have known the details of the abuse, but they affirmed that yes, I had told them that he was abusive—long before he ran for Senate.
Besides, they assured, my part in their reporting would be small. I thought my details would only serve to affirm Jenny and the other anonymous woman.
Jenny and I - having never met or spoken - both shared with these reporters terrifyingly similar details of intimate partner violence, coercive control, and cycles of abuse/love bombing. The third unnamed woman in the story did as well.
But tell me again how they “could not corroborate.”
Mindy Civan retweeted
Remember the European Hospital in Khan Younis last May?
Israel struck a targeted site there, and the world lost its mind.
Palestinians denied any tunnel existed underneath. The UN and European governments rushed to condemn Israel for attacking a “hospital.” Outrage, headlines, accusations of war crimes… the usual script.
Then June came.
The IDF took international media into the very same location and showed them the tunnel… a full Hamas command center, right under the emergency room.
Weapons, rooms, infrastructure. And yes, that’s where they found and confirmed the body of Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas’s top military commander and brother of Yahya Sinwar.
The strike that killed one of the architects of October 7 was surgically precise, and entirely justified.
Under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, hospitals and other medical facilities lose their protected status when they are used for military purposes, such as command centers, weapon storage, or troop movements. By deliberately turning the European Hospital into a Hamas base, the terrorists themselves stripped it of any legal protection.
Not a single apology from the UN or the European governments that rushed to condemn Israel. Not one admission they were wrong. They simply moved on to the next round of accusations.
This is the pattern. Hamas hides its terror infrastructure under civilian sites, uses hospitals as shields, and the international community reliably attacks the defender for responding, only to be proven wrong again and again and again when the evidence emerges.
How many times does this have to happen before the world stops falling for it?
Mindy Civan retweeted
This statement from @UMichPresGrasso misses the mark. There needs to be real accountability for someone who deviated from their “approved remarks”. Put him on leave without pay, strip him of administrative support or research assistants, cut his expense budget, among others.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and they have a right to express it, but the university has the right to set the time, manner, and place.
When I’m Regent this type of divisive and disrespectful behavior will not go without consequence.
president.umich.edu/news-com…
#umich #michigan #Goblue #universityofmichigan #umichcommencement
What a beautiful and sad statement
Hundreds of Jewish students at @Columbia just published one of the most incredible student letters I have ever read.
It's not only magnificently written, but it also clearly articulates their experiences on campus for the past six months.
Their letter tells the story of what's it like being a Jewish student right now better than any professor like myself could ever do.
Please take 4-5 minutes to read their letter.
Give Jewish students a voice.
docs.google.com/document/u/1…
Mindy Civan retweeted
Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Egyptian bus driver bringing humanitarian aid into Gaza through the border crossing at Rafah
Mindy Civan retweeted
The Nakba was a traumatic event for the Palestinian people in 1948, but so was the loss of ancient and modern Jewish communities despite Israel’s victory.
Invading Arab armies razed, looted and emptied Jewish towns, notably the Old City of Jerusalem, where 2,000 Jews were expelled and 35 synagogues destroyed. It was a traumatic event occurring only weeks after declaring independence.
“Al-Quds was purged of Jews and for the first time in 1000 years no Jew remained there” wrote a battalion commander of the Arab Legion, Major Abdullah el-Tell. King Abdullah of Jordan visited triumphantly as Jerusalem was finally under Arab control for the first time since the year 1099.
A day before Israel declared independence Kfar Etzion was conquered by the Arab Legion, killing 242 Jews, including 13 who were killed after surrendering. A survivor of the attack reestablished the kibbutz in 1967, making it the first West Bank settlement.
Other Jewish towns conquered and depopulated in ‘48 include Neve Yaakov and Atarot near Jerusalem, Beit HaArava and Kalya near the Dead Sea, & Masu’ot Itzhak, Ein Tzurim and Revadim south of Bethlehem. Also Nitzanim, Kfar Darom and Yad Mordechai near Gaza.
Even before ’48 Jews had already been expelled from the ancient Jewish quarter of Hebron following the Arab riots of 1929 that saw 66 Jews massacred and dozens seriously injured. Despite the resemblance, these pictures are not from October 7.
Jews and Arabs dealt with the losses in very different ways. Israel was able to embrace the victory narrative to project might that would inspire and empower in the building of a country. Internal Jewish refugees from ’48 joined existing communities or reestablished destroyed towns within the new borders.
Israel then absorbed 800,000 Jews who fled Iraq, Yemen, North Africa and Eastern Europe. Many of the neighborhoods and towns they left behind were then ransacked and cleansed of all Jewish life and history.
In contrast, Palestinian refugees from ‘48 were primarily directed to UN refugee camps, denied citizenship in their host countries, and told to save their house keys until Israel would be defeated. With time they would embrace the victim narrative to project helplessness and sympathy, but also to justify armed resistance and an eliminationist stance towards Israel.
If one is to talk of “ethnic cleansing” in ’48 it must also include the expulsion, massacres and erasure of Jewish communities. The simplicity of delegitimizing the victor in war as the violent and belligerent side is no substitute for critical thinking. Similarly today, Palestinians propagate claims of "genocide" after Hamas pepetrated the worst massacre of Jews since Israel’s founding.
Beautifully stated @BenjaminAbella
As a medical school professor, I spoke yesterday at a #upenn session with President, Provost and others.
Here is what I said, a plea to American academia on behalf of Jewish students, staff and faculty.
#israel #HateSpeech #Zionism #AcademicTwitter
Mindy Civan retweeted
I gave a presentation this morning, partly about Afghanistan. On the drive home it set me thinking.
My hunch is that part of the reason for Western protests about Gaza is a total failure to understand what urban war is, and what it looks like, and people are horrified to see it. Totally understandable. Now couple that to a powerful disinformation campaign that exploits those feelings of horror and tells them what they’re seeing and can’t comprehend (urban war) is something else (genocide).
As a commander in Afghanistan on my first two tours, which were before the “counterinsurgency” era, I saw my job as being to apply maximum violence to kill the enemy legally within rules of engagement. If I had a Harrier or an A-10 or an Apache to call on, I’d use that as a first option. If not, I’d use mortars or Javelin or machine guns if I had them. Only as a last resort would I commit my rifle sections.
That’s war. And that’s what Israel is fighting, on a far more brutal scale. Hamas and the surrounding Iranian proxies are an existential threat to Israel’s existence as a country. It’s that which people in the West fail to understand. We’re used to expeditionary wars of choice on the other side of the world. Israel has kibbutzim 5km from where their troops are fighting. The IDF in Gaza can look over their shoulders and see their home. It’s a totally different perspective on war from the one we in the West are used to.
Hamas have to be deleted as a fighting force for Israel to survive as a country with safe borders. To achieve that is the single most basic function of government. This isn’t a war Israel wants but it’s one they’ve been forced to fight. They’ve already taken double the fatalities the British did in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
If they wanted to, they could stand off with jets, and hit Gaza City and Khan Younis and Rafah simultaneously and level the place - and legally. If it’s a military target and you can justify the collateral damage, the law of armed conflict says that’s legal. That Israel hasn’t done that tells you all you need to know about whether this is a genocide or not.
I don’t blame people for being sucked in by disinformation about Gaza. It’s been sophisticated and effective information warfare. I have no limits to my contempt for those who throw around “genocide” when they know perfectly well it isn’t. The most serious of crimes shouldn’t be debased like that, and shame on South Africa and their allies who have abused international law in this way.
War is horrifying, brutal, and extremely violent. Gaza isn’t a conventional counter-terror campaign. We saw on 7 October how well armed, organised and tactically aware Hamas are. They use human and humanitarian shields. They’ve forced Israel into the only appropriate response, and it’s the innocents in Gaza who suffer. That the numbers of innocents injured and killed is so low is a testament to the IDF using tactics that have incurred far higher IDF casualties than other options on the table.
“War is hell” is a cliche for a reason. But it’s nothing more than a war that we see in Gaza.
Mindy Civan retweeted
Hezbollah is once again launching Rockets and One-Way “Suicide” Drones against the Town of Arab al-Aramshe in Northern Israel, whose Community Center was Struck yesterday by at least 2 Anti-Tank Guided Missiles and a Drone resulting in Injuries to 18 Israeli including several IDF Reservists.
Mindy Civan retweeted
🚨🇾🇪 Here's something the international media is not covering about the Yemeni Houthis (the so-called "heroes"):
The Houthi terrorists sentenced human rights defender Fatema Al-Arwali to death for reporting on their crimes.
They kidnapped her, denied her a lawyer, and falsely accused her of being "a spy for Saudi Arabia" without a fair trial in December.
They're executing her in February.
Her only crime is being a brave Yemeni woman who's reporting on their crimes.
Just like Hamas, they execute everyone who opposes them.
#SaveFatima
Mindy Civan retweeted
"Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, contended that Israel did not stand in the way of humanitarian assistance and blamed Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza, for any shortages. He accused Hamas of seizing some of the aid for its own uses. He did not provide evidence..." Did you ask me for evidence, @nytimes? I'd have sent it to you.
nytimes.com/2024/01/01/world…
Mindy Civan retweeted
‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7
A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.
(Gift link)
nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world…
Mindy Civan retweeted
Every journalist needs to see this.
Today, at @Columbia University
1. An UNAUTHORIZED EVENT took place
2. Protestors chanted CALLS FOR VIOLENCE AND GENOCIDE of the Jews
3. SJP and JVP (who hosted the event) BROKE THE RULES OF THEIR SUSPENSION.
***
It's time for expulsions.
"Intifada, intifada, long live the intifada!"
@Columbia has two choices:
(1) Expel organizations that explicitly call for violence against Jews and Israelis
(2) Show the world it can't/won't enforce its own rules (and face legal consequences for unequal enforcement)
Mindy Civan retweeted
Breaking:
One of the Israeli hostages says he was held for weeks at the house of a teacher in UNRWA - in his attic.
UNRWA is neck deep in Hamas ties and has to be defunded and dismantled completely.
Mindy Civan retweeted
Overheard today at the Rally: A local police officer said he received a career’s worth of thank yous in one day!
