Why did the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), the non-profit arm of AIPAC, fund Columbus City Councilmembers’ trips to Israel in 2023, including one nine day trip costing over $17,000? According to a public records request to the City of Columbus, AIEF sponsored trips to Israel for several City Councilmembers prior to October 7, 2023. Below the article there is a PDF table of the cost breakdown including airfare, ground transportation, hotels, food, and other expenses.

The arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are a diplomatic disaster for Israel, reported The Economist, a ‘hard stigma’ for the Israeli leader,

The Ohio Coalition To End Qualified Immunity (The OCEQI) announces serious concerns regarding Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s repeated public hostility toward the proposed initiative aimed at ending qualified immunity, prosecutorial immunity, sovereign immunity, and all statutory immunities enjoyed by the government to the detriment of the people.

Over the past two years, Secretary LaRose has engaged in a pattern of false and disparaging statements about the initiative and its sponsors, referring to it as an “assault on our state constitution” and accusing its backers of being financed by “the radical left.” In an article by the Toledo Blade on August 10, 2023, Secretary LaRose claimed the initiative “threatens to unleash a flood of frivolous, politically motivated lawsuits against the brave men and women trying to protect our communities.”

“Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well,” Frantz Fanon wrote in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’.

 What the iconic anti-colonial philosopher and psychiatrist was essentially arguing is that the mind must be decolonized first, in order for the undoing of colonialism to succeed in all aspects of our liberation.  

 Many in the Global South, but especially intellectuals and analysts concerned with Middle Eastern affairs, are still struggling with their relationship with the United States.