theintercept--2020-02-01--People Keep Dying In Mississippi Prisons but the Governor Wants to Move On

stood in front of a stage in downtown Jackson , Mississippi , waiting for the rally to start , when a woman ’ s voice rang through the crowd .
“ What we gon na do ?
” she shouted .
“ SHUT IT DOWN !
” the crowd yelled back .
The protesters had gathered at the intersection of Mississippi and North Congress , in the shadow of the state Capitol .
Hip-hop blared from the speakers , activists circulated leaflets , and posters carried messages for the news cameras clustered on a nearby platform .
One read : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and we won ’ t be silent anymore.
” Just before noon , activist Sharon Brown took the mic .
A member of the Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition — and leader in the recent push to change the state flag — she traced the crisis across the state ’ s prisons to its legacy of slavery , brutally embodied by the Mississippi State Penitentiary , known as Parchman Farm .
For more than 100 years , Parchman has been the site of forced labor , a plantation where incarcerated men still work in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ photos and videos from contraband phones had exposed rat-infested cells , unusable toilets , and graphic evidence of medical neglect .
As the images went viral , an outbreak of violence and a slew of deaths between December and mid-January thrust Mississippi prisons into the national spotlight .
“ I wan na thank those brothers behind the walls that had the courage to let the world know of the injustices , ” Brown said .
“ To let the world know that they are beaten , broken , tired.
” The latest death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , on Wednesday , January 22 .
According to the Mississippi Department of Corrections , 49-year-old Thomas Lee was found hanging in his cell that morning , inside Parchman ’ s Unit 29 .
This brought the death tally to 10 in less than a month .
In the meantime , many families had not heard from their loved ones since the upheaval began .
Sallye House stood in the front row , in gloves , a winter hat , and a T-shirt reading “ FIX YOUR PRISONS.
” She had made the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with her daughter and son-in-law .
It was her second protest in two weeks .
At a vigil outside Parchman on January 11 , she described how the toilet in her son ’ s cell had been broken for months , forcing him to urinate and defecate in plastic bags .
House carried a red folder containing copies of letters she had written to local officials over the years , begging for help for her 38-year-old son , Alchello .
“ My sole reason for reaching out to you is my son ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrote in one letter from July 2016 .
Alchello had been transferred to Parchman after being violently attacked at a different prison .
House had begged for him to be moved but was horrified when he was sent to Parchman , where he had been stabbed by a gang member years before .
It was also Parchman where Alchello had contracted sarcoidosis , an inflammatory disease affecting the lungs and other organs — and where he was now being denied adequate medical care .
“ Please send someone to his cell and take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House wrote .
“ His face is skin and bones .
His neck and chest bones are sticking out.
” Her next letters sounded even more urgent .
“ Dear Sir or Madam , I need your help desperately !
” House wrote in January 2017 .
For almost six months , she said , her son ’ s unit had constantly been on lockdown , meaning he could not buy food from the prison canteen , which he relied upon to supplement the meager portions provided by MDOC .
She included pictures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life and death.
” The last letter , from January 2018 , revealed Achello had thyroid cancer .
“ If he dies while suffering in these conditions there will be NOTHING done about it .
That is why I am asking to move him BEFORE something happens to him.
” Yet two years later , Alchello remained in Unit 29 .
The rally lasted three hours .
The speeches were brief and raw , testimony steeped in trauma and righteous anger .
There were demands for accountability and calls for action — to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demand that Parchman be closed .
But there was also an overwhelming sense of a deeper problem , too vast for words like “ reform.
” There were too many familiar stories , too many mothers like House , exhausted from years spent screaming into the void .
“ I ’ m just really emotional , ” said Ann Adams from the stage .
Her son was healthy when he went to prison in 2012 , she said , but now he had seizures and suffered from malnutrition .
She had not seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nodded in recognition throughout the rally .
“ That ’ s what ’ s happening to my son , ” she said .
She had come downtown in blue hospital scrubs , ready for her work shift later that day .
As the rally wound down , she told me that her son is also housed in Unit 29 .
A case manager had said that he was OK , but she had not heard from him in weeks .
“ He ’ s always told me , from the time he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if you don ’ t hear from me , there ’ s something wrong with me.
’ ” It was not long ago that Mississippi ’ s criminal justice system was hailed as a burgeoning success story : a state that went from decades of federal prison monitoring to a model for reform .
In 2010 , following years of litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union , MDOC finally shut down Parchman ’ s Unit 32 , where men had been held in punishing isolation for 23 hours a day .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ reducing the number of people in solitary confinement across the state , “ saving money , lives , and sanity , ” as the New York Times wrote in 2012 .
Then , in 2013 , Mississippi legislators voted to create the bipartisan Corrections and Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force , whose policy recommendations would save millions in taxpayer money by reducing recidivism — and forestalling a ballooning prison population that had grown by 300 percent over 30 years .
But the promised changes never took root .
Epps was arrested on corruption @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s nascent criminal justice reforms unraveled before they had even begun .
Last year , an investigative series by ProPublica and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that the millions that were supposed to be reinvested to improve reentry had instead been used to cover corporate tax breaks .
“ Meanwhile the number of prisoners is creeping back up , and the lack of funding and staff is contributing to worsening conditions.
” Today , one of the biggest problems plaguing Mississippi ’ s prisons — cited by families and officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ qualified staff .
The number of guards has gone down from almost 1,600 in 2014 to 731 , according to the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting .
Starting salaries are the lowest in the country , creating further incentive to smuggle and sell contraband cell phones .
But while officials have long decried the phones as enabling criminality — particularly by prison gangs — it ’ s no secret that the phones are a crucial lifeline for those on both sides of the walls .
Phone calls can be prohibitively expensive — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from official channels .
It was only because of cell phones that the public learned of a disturbing development in early January : The MDOC had quietly reopened Parchman ’ s Unit 32 .
A photo had gone viral on social media , showing five men in striped prison jumpsuits lying on the ground in a filthy cell .
Lawyers later confirmed that the images came from the long-shuttered housing unit , where clients said they were being forced to sleep on the concrete floor and denied showers , food , and running @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even worse by a lack of leadership among state officials .
The upheaval began with a spate of violent incidents in the last days of 2019 , before Mississippi ’ s newly elected governor , Tate Reeves , was sworn into office .
Three deaths at three different prisons led to a statewide lockdown on New Year ’ s Eve .
That same day , MDOC Commissioner Pelicia Hall announced she would resign .
As the lockdown continued , hundreds of men were moved from Parchman to a facility in Tutwiler , run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ During the entire process , the inmates ’ needs have been met , ” the MDOC said in a press release .
On January 17 , activists and community members packed a room inside the state Supreme Court for a regularly scheduled meeting of the Corrections and Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force .
The death toll inside the prisons stood at five .
The lockdown had been lifted at all prisons except Parchman , where hundreds of men were still awaiting a transfer , according to MDOC .
In the meantime , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ court , while a second prison official announced his retirement .
“ At least a few of the task force members appeared to be caught off guard by the public ’ s interest in their meeting , ” wrote the Clarion Ledger .
Judge Prentiss Harrell stressed the progress in the state since its policies became law in 2014 , including a savings of almost $ 50 million .
While unfortunately the money had not yet gone to increased wages of prison staff or improvements in the facilities , Harrell said , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such things in the coming session .
“ We do believe the pendulum is swinging.
” Yet the focus on funding tends to eclipse an obvious factor that has driven the crisis in Mississippi ’ s prisons : too many people in prison for too long .
Activists had long pushed for meaningful sentencing and parole reforms in Mississippi , including revising the state ’ s habitual offender law and making it easier to grant early release to “ geriatric inmates.
” Although the task force seemed open to such ideas , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call .
The crisis had inspired no-nonsense rhetoric , including from former governor Phil Bryant .
“ Someone asked earlier ‘ Who ’ s responsible for what ’ s happening at Parchman ?
’ ” he told reporters in early January .
“ The inmates .
The inmates are the ones that take each other ’ s lives .
The inmates are the ones that fashion weapons out of metal .
The inmates are the ones that do the damage to the very rooms that they ’ re living in.
” On January @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Prison Reform Coalition announced the rally in Jackson , Gov .
Tate Reeves held a news conference at the state Capitol .
In glasses and a dark windbreaker emblazoned with the Mississippi state seal , Reeves read from a prepared statement , announcing that he had visited two of the state prisons in the past 24 hours .
One was Parchman ; the other was Walnut Grove Correctional Facility , which has stood empty since 2016 .
The governor was considering transferring men out of Parchman and into Walnut Grove , which would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the prison can hold inmates as early as tomorrow , ” he said .
But like reopening Unit 32 , moving people to a private prison seemed like an obvious step in the wrong direction .
The former juvenile facility run by GEO Group had closed after a federal investigation exposed harrowing conditions , including sexual misconduct by staff described as “ among the worst that we have seen in any facility anywhere in the nation.
” One judge famously wrote that Walnut Grove “ paints a picture of such horror as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world.
” Reeves acknowledged that there had been problems at the facility in the past .
But he gave a practical explanation for the idea .
The cell walls at Walnut Grove were made of poured concrete rather than cinder blocks , he said , which would make it harder to pass contraband .
“ A lot of these things will seem like common sense , ” he said .
“ That ’ s because they are.
” I last visited Parchman in 2016 , as part of a tour organized through an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prison offers tours to schools , churches , and other groups , and the visit was carefully curated .
Prison personnel welcomed our group into a visitor ’ s center containing rocking chairs and vases of fake flowers , along with a display of contraband collected over the years — shanks made from pens , spoons , and other materials .
“ They make ’ em out of anything , ” the guide said .
A tour bus drove our group across the prison ’ s sprawling grounds , passing fields where men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to address “ inmate idleness , ” according to MDOC , as well as providing healthy food .
“ They do squash , broccoli , greens , ” the guide said .
After providing a hearty lunch — grilled shrimp , teriyaki green beans , and pecan cobbler — the food services director shared a story of a man who trained under him while incarcerated at Parchman .
“ He ’ s been released and is cooking in Memphis , ” he said proudly .
There was at least one moment of blunt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a man 40 years into a life sentence , who spoke to the group about the need for education programs .
“ There is no rehabilitation in Mississippi , ” he said .
“ Don ’ t kid yourself.
” In the decades he had been at Parchman , sentences had gotten harsher — in Mississippi and across the country — while program after program had been stripped away .
There used to be a choir , a radio station , a print shop , he said .
“ All of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the tour became emotional remembering her childhood trips to Parchman , where she would see her father in what was known as extended visitation — weekendlong visits where incarcerated men could spend more time with their families .
Mississippi ended the practice in 2012 .
Then , in 2014 , MDOC put an end to conjugal visits .
The risk of pregnancies was a concern , our guide explained .
“ Who ’ s going to take care of that child ?
” In a state that claims to want to reduce recidivism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undoubtedly done more harm than good .
Studies have long shown that stronger ties to family increase the likelihood of success after prison .
And those previously incarcerated in Mississippi say that curtailing visitation and other programs have made a dehumanizing experience even worse .
Al Coleman was at Parchman in the 1990s , during the time that many states began to eliminate educational opportunities inside prisons .
He worked in the fields , picking cotton , potatoes , and okra .
Such labor was supposed to keep violence at bay , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time there .
“ Prison has always been violent , ” he said .
“ It ’ s like walking into a zone with a bunch of time bombs waiting to explode .
… If you ’ re being treated like you ’ re nothing , like you ’ re a dog , an animal , and you ’ re not getting the right amount of food , water , you don ’ t have no way to use the restroom , the frustration constantly builds.
” The main difference he sees now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see the evidence for themselves .
On the day after the rally in Jackson , Jessica Young went to visit her brother , Cedric , at Marshall County Correctional Facility , a private prison run by the Utah-based Management and Training Corporation .
He ’ d been transferred to MCCF from Parchman months earlier , but the conditions were not much better .
The visitation room was freezing ; her brother said it was much colder in the housing units .
Cedric was convicted in 2017 for a crime he swore he did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to prison , he was not given a change of clothes for months .
Photos revealed disgusting meal trays , dull-colored clumps of food impossible to identify .
“ We were scared to post them because we didn ’ t want anything to happen to him , ” Young said .
But now that the images are out in the open .
They are less afraid .
The visit lasted from 11 until around 2:30 .
Later that night , she heard from her brother again .
He told her that he had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that a man had died at the prison that day .
“ The whole time we were in visitation with him , there was an inmate in the back , dead , ” Young said .
A cell phone video captured the scene ; men calling out for attention while the lifeless body laid there .
Guards are supposed to do routine checks of each housing units , but there was nobody answering .
“ It ’ s devastating , ” Young said .
The problems were much bigger than Parchman , much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entire MDOC as a whole is hitting rock-bottom.
” The man who died was later identified as 38-year-old Jermaine Tyler .
The next day , another death was reported at Parchman : 26-year-old Joshua Norman , a man from Young ’ s hometown .
Then , two more deaths , at two different prisons across the state : 28-year-old Limarion Reaves on January 29 , followed by 52-year-old Nora Ducksworth at MCCF , on the 30th .
In total , 14 men died in Mississippi prisons since December 29 .
In the meantime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the State address at the state Capitol .
He had a big announcement .
“ I have instructed the Mississippi Department of Corrections to begin the necessary work to start closing Parchman ’ s most notorious unit , Unit 29 , ” he said .
Although logistical questions remained , he said , “ I have seen enough .
We have to turn the page .
”

Hundreds of people stood in front of a stage in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, waiting for the rally to start, when a woman’s voice rang through the crowd. “What we gonna do?” she shouted. “SHUT IT DOWN!” the crowd yelled back.
“What we gonna do?”
“SHUT IT DOWN!”
“What we gonna do?”
“SHUT IT DOWN!”
The protesters had gathered at the intersection of Mississippi and North Congress, in the shadow of the state Capitol. Hip-hop blared from the speakers, activists circulated leaflets, and posters carried messages for the news cameras clustered on a nearby platform. One read: “Somebody’s hurting our people and we won’t be silent anymore.”
Just before noon, activist Sharon Brown took the mic. A member of the Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition — and leader in the recent push to change the state flag — she traced the crisis across the state’s prisons to its legacy of slavery, brutally embodied by the Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm. For more than 100 years, Parchman has been the site of forced labor, a plantation where incarcerated men still work in the fields. In recent weeks, photos and videos from contraband phones had exposed rat-infested cells, unusable toilets, and graphic evidence of medical neglect. As the images went viral, an outbreak of violence and a slew of deaths between December and mid-January thrust Mississippi prisons into the national spotlight.
Protesters rally against the conditions at Parchman State Penitentiary in front of the Mississippi State Capitol building on Jan. 24, 2020. At the rally, Eva Scott, left/top, displayed a photograph of her nephew, Antonio Taylor, who was incarcerated at Parchman and was found dead in his cell in December of 2019. Photos: Andrea Morales
“I wanna thank those brothers behind the walls that had the courage to let the world know of the injustices,” Brown said. “To let the world know that they are beaten, broken, tired.” The latest death had been reported just two days earlier, on Wednesday, January 22. According to the Mississippi Department of Corrections, 49-year-old Thomas Lee was found hanging in his cell that morning, inside Parchman’s Unit 29. This brought the death tally to 10 in less than a month. In the meantime, many families had not heard from their loved ones since the upheaval began.
Sallye House stood in the front row, in gloves, a winter hat, and a T-shirt reading “FIX YOUR PRISONS.” She had made the two-hour drive to Jackson from Batesville, with her daughter and son-in-law. It was her second protest in two weeks. At a vigil outside Parchman on January 11, she described how the toilet in her son’s cell had been broken for months, forcing him to urinate and defecate in plastic bags.
House carried a red folder containing copies of letters she had written to local officials over the years, begging for help for her 38-year-old son, Alchello. “My sole reason for reaching out to you is my son’s HEALTH and WELFARE,” House wrote in one letter from July 2016. Alchello had been transferred to Parchman after being violently attacked at a different prison. House had begged for him to be moved but was horrified when he was sent to Parchman, where he had been stabbed by a gang member years before. It was also Parchman where Alchello had contracted sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease affecting the lungs and other organs — and where he was now being denied adequate medical care. “Please send someone to his cell and take a look at his appearance,” House wrote. “His face is skin and bones. His neck and chest bones are sticking out.”
Sallye House, left, at the march in Jackson on Jan. 24, 2020. She carried a photo of her son, Alchello House, who is incarcerated at Parchman. Photos: Liliana Segura/The Intercept
Her next letters sounded even more urgent. “Dear Sir or Madam, I need your help desperately!” House wrote in January 2017. For almost six months, she said, her son’s unit had constantly been on lockdown, meaning he could not buy food from the prison canteen, which he relied upon to supplement the meager portions provided by MDOC. She included pictures — “it is a matter of life and death.” The last letter, from January 2018, revealed Achello had thyroid cancer. “If he dies while suffering in these conditions there will be NOTHING done about it. That is why I am asking to move him BEFORE something happens to him.” Yet two years later, Alchello remained in Unit 29.
The rally lasted three hours. The speeches were brief and raw, testimony steeped in trauma and righteous anger. There were demands for accountability and calls for action — to contact legislators, to vote, to demand that Parchman be closed. But there was also an overwhelming sense of a deeper problem, too vast for words like “reform.” There were too many familiar stories, too many mothers like House, exhausted from years spent screaming into the void. “I’m just really emotional,” said Ann Adams from the stage. Her son was healthy when he went to prison in 2012, she said, but now he had seizures and suffered from malnutrition. She had not seen him in nine years.
Vera Young nodded in recognition throughout the rally. “That’s what’s happening to my son,” she said. She had come downtown in blue hospital scrubs, ready for her work shift later that day. As the rally wound down, she told me that her son is also housed in Unit 29. A case manager had said that he was OK, but she had not heard from him in weeks. “He’s always told me, from the time he’s been at Parchman, ‘Mama, if you don’t hear from me, there’s something wrong with me.’”
A solitary cell in Unit 32 of the Mississippi State Penitentiary, the state’s super-maximum security prison, in Parchman, Miss., on Feb. 27, 2012. Photo: Josh Anderson/The New York Times via Redux
An Escalating Crisis
It was not long ago that Mississippi’s criminal justice system was hailed as a burgeoning success story: a state that went from decades of federal prison monitoring to a model for reform. In 2010, following years of litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union, MDOC finally shut down Parchman’s Unit 32, where men had been held in punishing isolation for 23 hours a day. Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps was lauded for reducing the number of people in solitary confinement across the state, “saving money, lives, and sanity,” as the New York Times wrote in 2012. Then, in 2013, Mississippi legislators voted to create the bipartisan Corrections and Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force, whose policy recommendations would save millions in taxpayer money by reducing recidivism — and forestalling a ballooning prison population that had grown by 300 percent over 30 years.
But the promised changes never took root. Epps was arrested on corruption charges in 2014. And the state’s nascent criminal justice reforms unraveled before they had even begun. Last year, an investigative series by ProPublica and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that the millions that were supposed to be reinvested to improve reentry had instead been used to cover corporate tax breaks. “Meanwhile the number of prisoners is creeping back up, and the lack of funding and staff is contributing to worsening conditions.”
Today, one of the biggest problems plaguing Mississippi’s prisons — cited by families and officials alike — is a dangerous lack of qualified staff. The number of guards has gone down from almost 1,600 in 2014 to 731, according to the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. Starting salaries are the lowest in the country, creating further incentive to smuggle and sell contraband cell phones.
Photo: Josh Anderson/The New York Times via Redux
But while officials have long decried the phones as enabling criminality — particularly by prison gangs — it’s no secret that the phones are a crucial lifeline for those on both sides of the walls. Phone calls can be prohibitively expensive — and families describe a constant lack of information from official channels. It was only because of cell phones that the public learned of a disturbing development in early January: The MDOC had quietly reopened Parchman’s Unit 32. A photo had gone viral on social media, showing five men in striped prison jumpsuits lying on the ground in a filthy cell. Lawyers later confirmed that the images came from the long-shuttered housing unit, where clients said they were being forced to sleep on the concrete floor and denied showers, food, and running water.
The escalating crisis was made even worse by a lack of leadership among state officials. The upheaval began with a spate of violent incidents in the last days of 2019, before Mississippi’s newly elected governor, Tate Reeves, was sworn into office. Three deaths at three different prisons led to a statewide lockdown on New Year’s Eve. That same day, MDOC Commissioner Pelicia Hall announced she would resign. As the lockdown continued, hundreds of men were moved from Parchman to a facility in Tutwiler, run by private prison giant CoreCivic. “During the entire process, the inmates’ needs have been met,” the MDOC said in a press release.
On January 17, activists and community members packed a room inside the state Supreme Court for a regularly scheduled meeting of the Corrections and Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force. The death toll inside the prisons stood at five. The lockdown had been lifted at all prisons except Parchman, where hundreds of men were still awaiting a transfer, according to MDOC. In the meantime, a high-profile lawsuit had been filed in federal court, while a second prison official announced his retirement.
“At least a few of the task force members appeared to be caught off guard by the public’s interest in their meeting,” wrote the Clarion Ledger. Judge Prentiss Harrell stressed the progress in the state since its policies became law in 2014, including a savings of almost $50 million. While unfortunately the money had not yet gone to increased wages of prison staff or improvements in the facilities, Harrell said, he thought the legislature would be open to such things in the coming session. “We do believe the pendulum is swinging.”
Yet the focus on funding tends to eclipse an obvious factor that has driven the crisis in Mississippi’s prisons: too many people in prison for too long. Activists had long pushed for meaningful sentencing and parole reforms in Mississippi, including revising the state’s habitual offender law and making it easier to grant early release to “geriatric inmates.” Although the task force seemed open to such ideas, it was unclear whether lawmakers would heed the call. The crisis had inspired no-nonsense rhetoric, including from former governor Phil Bryant. “Someone asked earlier ‘Who’s responsible for what’s happening at Parchman?’” he told reporters in early January. “The inmates. The inmates are the ones that take each other’s lives. The inmates are the ones that fashion weapons out of metal. The inmates are the ones that do the damage to the very rooms that they’re living in.”
On January 23, the day after the Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition announced the rally in Jackson, Gov. Tate Reeves held a news conference at the state Capitol. In glasses and a dark windbreaker emblazoned with the Mississippi state seal, Reeves read from a prepared statement, announcing that he had visited two of the state prisons in the past 24 hours. One was Parchman; the other was Walnut Grove Correctional Facility, which has stood empty since 2016. The governor was considering transferring men out of Parchman and into Walnut Grove, which would be privately run. “The majority of the prison can hold inmates as early as tomorrow,” he said.
But like reopening Unit 32, moving people to a private prison seemed like an obvious step in the wrong direction. The former juvenile facility run by GEO Group had closed after a federal investigation exposed harrowing conditions, including sexual misconduct by staff described as “among the worst that we have seen in any facility anywhere in the nation.” One judge famously wrote that Walnut Grove “paints a picture of such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the civilized world.”
Reeves acknowledged that there had been problems at the facility in the past. But he gave a practical explanation for the idea. The cell walls at Walnut Grove were made of poured concrete rather than cinder blocks, he said, which would make it harder to pass contraband.
“A lot of these things will seem like common sense,” he said. “That’s because they are.”
The Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm, in Parchman, Miss., on Sept. 10, 2014. Photo: Andrea Morales/The New York Times via Redux
Worsening Conditions
I last visited Parchman in 2016, as part of a tour organized through an academic conference at Ole Miss. The prison offers tours to schools, churches, and other groups, and the visit was carefully curated. Prison personnel welcomed our group into a visitor’s center containing rocking chairs and vases of fake flowers, along with a display of contraband collected over the years — shanks made from pens, spoons, and other materials. “They make ’em out of anything,” the guide said.
A tour bus drove our group across the prison’s sprawling grounds, passing fields where men harvest crops. The fieldwork is supposed to address “inmate idleness,” according to MDOC, as well as providing healthy food. “They do squash, broccoli, greens,” the guide said. After providing a hearty lunch — grilled shrimp, teriyaki green beans, and pecan cobbler — the food services director shared a story of a man who trained under him while incarcerated at Parchman. “He’s been released and is cooking in Memphis,” he said proudly.
There was at least one moment of blunt honesty during the tour. It came from a man 40 years into a life sentence, who spoke to the group about the need for education programs. “There is no rehabilitation in Mississippi,” he said. “Don’t kid yourself.” In the decades he had been at Parchman, sentences had gotten harsher — in Mississippi and across the country — while program after program had been stripped away. There used to be a choir, a radio station, a print shop, he said. “All of that’s gone.”
One woman on the tour became emotional remembering her childhood trips to Parchman, where she would see her father in what was known as extended visitation — weekendlong visits where incarcerated men could spend more time with their families. Mississippi ended the practice in 2012. Then, in 2014, MDOC put an end to conjugal visits. The risk of pregnancies was a concern, our guide explained. “Who’s going to take care of that child?”
In a state that claims to want to reduce recidivism, however, eliminating such programs has undoubtedly done more harm than good. Studies have long shown that stronger ties to family increase the likelihood of success after prison. And those previously incarcerated in Mississippi say that curtailing visitation and other programs have made a dehumanizing experience even worse. Al Coleman was at Parchman in the 1990s, during the time that many states began to eliminate educational opportunities inside prisons. He worked in the fields, picking cotton, potatoes, and okra. Such labor was supposed to keep violence at bay, but Coleman saw rapes and killings during his time there.
“Prison has always been violent,” he said. “It’s like walking into a zone with a bunch of time bombs waiting to explode. … If you’re being treated like you’re nothing, like you’re a dog, an animal, and you’re not getting the right amount of food, water, you don’t have no way to use the restroom, the frustration constantly builds.” The main difference he sees now is that people on the outside can see the evidence for themselves.
Jessica Young, left, and her mother, Kathy King Roberson, at the march in Jackson, Mississippi, on Jan. 24, 2020. Photo: Liliana Segura/The Intercept
On the day after the rally in Jackson, Jessica Young went to visit her brother, Cedric, at Marshall County Correctional Facility, a private prison run by the Utah-based Management and Training Corporation. He’d been transferred to MCCF from Parchman months earlier, but the conditions were not much better. The visitation room was freezing; her brother said it was much colder in the housing units.
Cedric was convicted in 2017 for a crime he swore he did not commit. When he first got to prison, he was not given a change of clothes for months. Photos revealed disgusting meal trays, dull-colored clumps of food impossible to identify. “We were scared to post them because we didn’t want anything to happen to him,” Young said. But now that the images are out in the open. They are less afraid.
The visit lasted from 11 until around 2:30. Later that night, she heard from her brother again. He told her that he had returned to his unit to find out that a man had died at the prison that day. “The whole time we were in visitation with him, there was an inmate in the back, dead,” Young said. A cell phone video captured the scene; men calling out for attention while the lifeless body laid there. Guards are supposed to do routine checks of each housing units, but there was nobody answering. “It’s devastating,” Young said. The problems were much bigger than Parchman, much bigger than Unit 29. “The entire MDOC as a whole is hitting rock-bottom.”
The man who died was later identified as 38-year-old Jermaine Tyler. The next day, another death was reported at Parchman: 26-year-old Joshua Norman, a man from Young’s hometown. Then, two more deaths, at two different prisons across the state: 28-year-old Limarion Reaves on January 29, followed by 52-year-old Nora Ducksworth at MCCF, on the 30th. In total, 14 men died in Mississippi prisons since December 29.
In the meantime, the governor gave his first State of the State address at the state Capitol. He had a big announcement. “I have instructed the Mississippi Department of Corrections to begin the necessary work to start closing Parchman’s most notorious unit, Unit 29,” he said. Although logistical questions remained, he said, “I have seen enough. We have to turn the page.”


theintercept--2020-02-01--The Erasure of Palestinians From Trump’s Mideast “Peace Plan” Has a Hundred-Year History

Editor ’ s Note : This excerpt from Columbia University historian Rashid Khalidi ’ s newly released book , “ The Hundred Years ’ War on Palestine : A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance , 1917-2017 , ” was scheduled to run in the Wall Street Journal this weekend in its Review section .
On Thursday , about two months after the Journal accepted Khalidi ’ s excerpt for publication , an editor informed him the piece was being killed because it “ felt too close to the op-ed end of the spectrum.
” The Review section is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which is supposed to be independent of its opinion department , which maintains an unremittingly pro-Israel stance .
Days before deciding not to publish Khalidi ’ s book excerpt , the Journal published an editorial that warmly praised the Trump administration ’ s one-sided plan for Palestine drafted by the president ’ s son-in-law Jared Kushner .
Asked for comment , the Journal said , “ Opinion Department staff have no input into the essays run by Review ’ s editors .
In preparing each week ’ s issue of Review , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ensure that the essays in the section are differentiated from the Journal ’ s Opinion Department editorials and op-ed pieces .
This can entail difficult editorial decisions , sometimes late in the process , as occurs in any news organization .
We are pleased that Prof. Khalidi ’ s piece is running in The Intercept.
” the Palestinians on display this week as President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a one-sided “ vision for peace ” might have been an unusually blatant act of disregard , but it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the essence of the conflict .
I was reminded of this back in the early 1990s , when I lived in Jerusalem for several months at a time , doing research in the private libraries of some of the city ’ s oldest families , including my own .
I spent over a year going through dusty worm-eaten books , documents , and letters belonging to generations of Khalidis , among them my great-great-great uncle , Yusuf Diya al-Din Pasha al-Khalidi .
Through his papers , I discovered a worldly man with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Malta , Istanbul , and Vienna .
He was the heir to a long line of Jerusalemite Islamic scholars and legal functionaries , but at a young age , Yusuf Diya sought a different path for himself .
After absorbing the fundamentals of a traditional Islamic education , he left Palestine at the age of 18 — without his father ’ s approval , we are told — to spend two years at a British Church Mission Society school in Malta .
From there , he went to study at the Imperial Medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attended the city ’ s Robert College , recently founded by American Protestant missionaries .
For five years during the 1860s , Yusuf Diya attended some of the first institutions in the Middle East that provided a modern , Western-style education , learning English , French , German , and much else .
With this broad training , Yusuf Diya filled various roles as an Ottoman government official : translator in the Foreign Ministry , consult in the Russian Black Sea port of Poti , governor of districts from Kurdistan to Syria , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decade .
He was also elected as the deputy from Jerusalem to the short-lived Ottoman parliament established in 1876 , and he did stints teaching at the Royal Imperial University in Vienna .
As a result of his wide reading , as well as his time in Vienna and other European countries , and from his encounters with Christian missionaries , Yusuf Diya was fully conscious of the pervasiveness and virulence of European anti-Semitism .
He had also gained impressive knowledge of the intellectual origins of Zionism , and he was undoubtedly familiar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The Jewish State , ” by the Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl , published in 1896 , and was aware of the first two Zionist congresses in Basel , Switzerland , in 1897 and 1898 .
Moreover , as mayor of Jerusalem , he had witnessed the friction with the local population prompted by the first years of proto-Zionist activity , starting with the arrival of the first European Jewish settlers in the late 1870s and early 1880s .
Yusuf Diya would have been more aware than most of his compatriots in Palestine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movement , as well as its strength , resources , and appeal .
He knew perfectly well that there was no way to reconcile Zionism ’ s claims on Palestine and its explicit aim of Jewish statehood and sovereignty there with the rights and well-being of Palestine ’ s Indigenous inhabitants .
On March 1 , 1899 , Yusuf Diya sent a prescient seven-page letter to the French chief rabbi , Zadoc Kahn , with the intention that it be passed on to the founder of modern Zionism .
The letter began with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ admiration for Herzl , whom he esteemed “ as a man , as a writer of talent , and as a true Jewish patriot , ” and of his respect for Judaism and for Jews , whom he said were “ our cousins.
” He understood the motivations for Zionism , just as he deplored the persecution to which Jews were subject in Europe .
In light of this , he wrote , Zionism in principle was “ natural , beautiful , and just.
” He added , “ who could contest the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ My God , historically it is your country !
” But the former mayor of Jerusalem went on to warn of the dangers he foresaw as a consequence of the implementation of the Zionist project for a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine .
Whatever the merits of Zionism , Yusuf Diya wrote , the “ brutal force of circumstances had to be taken into account.
” Palestine “ is inhabited by others.
” It had an Indigenous population that would never accept being superseded , making it “ pure folly ” for Zionism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Nothing could be more just and equitable ” than for “ the unhappy Jewish nation ” to find a refuge elsewhere , but , he concluded , “ in the name of God , let Palestine be left alone.
” Herzl replied—and quickly , in a letter on March 19 .
His letter was probably the first response by a leader of the Zionist movement to a cogent Palestinian objection to its embryonic plans for Palestine .
Herzl simply ignored the letter ’ s basic thesis , that Palestine was already inhabited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be supplanted .
Although Herzl had visited Palestine once , in an 1898 visit timed to coincide with that of German Kaiser Wilhelm II , he ( like most early European Zionists ) had not much knowledge of or contact with its native inhabitants .
Glossing over the fact that Zionism was ultimately meant to lead to Jewish control of Palestine , Herzl deployed a justification that has been a touchstone for colonialists and that would become a staple argument of the Zionist movement : Jewish immigration would benefit Palestine ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well-being , their individual wealth , which we will increase by bringing in our own , ” Herzl wrote , adding that “ no one can doubt that the well-being of the entire country would be the happy result.
” Herzl ’ s letter addressed a consideration that Yusuf Diya had not even raised : “ You see another difficulty , Excellency , in the existence of the non-Jewish population in Palestine .
But who would think of sending them away ?
” But Herzl had underestimated his correspondent .
From Yusuf Diya @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he understood perfectly well that at issue was not the immigration of ( as Herzl put it ) “ a number of Jews ” into Palestine , but rather the transformation of the entire land into a Jewish state .
Instead , Herzl offered the preposterous inducement that the colonization , and ultimately the usurpation , of their land by strangers would benefit the people of that country .
Herzl ’ s reply to Yusuf Diya appears to have been based on the assumption that the Arabs could ultimately be bribed or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually intended for Palestine .
This condescending attitude toward the intelligence , not to speak of the rights , of the Arab population of Palestine was to be serially repeated by Zionist , British , European , and American leaders in the decades that followed , down to the present day .
As for the Jewish state that was ultimately created by the movement that Herzl founded , as Yusuf Diya foresaw , there was to be room for only one people , the Jewish people .
As for the others , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happened , despite Herzl ’ s disingenuous remark .
Herzl ’ s letter referred to Palestinian Arabs , then roughly 95 % of Palestine ’ s inhabitants , merely as its “ non-Jewish population.
” The Jewish state , Herzl wrote in “ Der Judenstaat , ” would “ form a part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia , an outpost of civilization against barbarism.
” Herzl ’ s imperious disregard of the Palestinians has been replicated over the decades in much discourse in the United States , Europe , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clearly audible from the White House as recently as this past week .

Editor’s Note: This excerpt from Columbia University historian Rashid Khalidi’s newly released book, “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017,” was scheduled to run in the Wall Street Journal this weekend in its Review section. On Thursday, about two months after the Journal accepted Khalidi’s excerpt for publication, an editor informed him the piece was being killed because it “felt too close to the op-ed end of the spectrum.” The Review section is part of the Journal’s newsroom, which is supposed to be independent of its opinion department, which maintains an unremittingly pro-Israel stance. Days before deciding not to publish Khalidi’s book excerpt, the Journal published an editorial that warmly praised the Trump administration’s one-sided plan for Palestine drafted by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Asked for comment, the Journal said, “Opinion Department staff have no input into the essays run by Review’s editors. In preparing each week’s issue of Review, News Department editors have ongoing discussions to ensure that the essays in the section are differentiated from the Journal’s Opinion Department editorials and op-ed pieces. This can entail difficult editorial decisions, sometimes late in the process, as occurs in any news organization. We are pleased that Prof. Khalidi’s piece is running in The Intercept.”
The erasure of the Palestinians on display this week as President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a one-sided “vision for peace” might have been an unusually blatant act of disregard, but it was in no way new. The omission is the essence of the conflict. I was reminded of this back in the early 1990s, when I lived in Jerusalem for several months at a time, doing research in the private libraries of some of the city’s oldest families, including my own. I spent over a year going through dusty worm-eaten books, documents, and letters belonging to generations of Khalidis, among them my great-great-great uncle, Yusuf Diya al-Din Pasha al-Khalidi.
Through his papers, I discovered a worldly man with a broad education acquired in Jerusalem, Malta, Istanbul, and Vienna. He was the heir to a long line of Jerusalemite Islamic scholars and legal functionaries, but at a young age, Yusuf Diya sought a different path for himself. After absorbing the fundamentals of a traditional Islamic education, he left Palestine at the age of 18 — without his father’s approval, we are told — to spend two years at a British Church Mission Society school in Malta. From there, he went to study at the Imperial Medical School in Istanbul, after which he attended the city’s Robert College, recently founded by American Protestant missionaries. For five years during the 1860s, Yusuf Diya attended some of the first institutions in the Middle East that provided a modern, Western-style education, learning English, French, German, and much else.
With this broad training, Yusuf Diya filled various roles as an Ottoman government official: translator in the Foreign Ministry, consult in the Russian Black Sea port of Poti, governor of districts from Kurdistan to Syria, and mayor of Jerusalem for nearly a decade. He was also elected as the deputy from Jerusalem to the short-lived Ottoman parliament established in 1876, and he did stints teaching at the Royal Imperial University in Vienna.
As a result of his wide reading, as well as his time in Vienna and other European countries, and from his encounters with Christian missionaries, Yusuf Diya was fully conscious of the pervasiveness and virulence of European anti-Semitism. He had also gained impressive knowledge of the intellectual origins of Zionism, and he was undoubtedly familiar with “Der Judenstaat,” or “The Jewish State,” by the Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl, published in 1896, and was aware of the first two Zionist congresses in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897 and 1898. Moreover, as mayor of Jerusalem, he had witnessed the friction with the local population prompted by the first years of proto-Zionist activity, starting with the arrival of the first European Jewish settlers in the late 1870s and early 1880s.
Yusuf Diya would have been more aware than most of his compatriots in Palestine of the ambition of the nascent Zionist movement, as well as its strength, resources, and appeal. He knew perfectly well that there was no way to reconcile Zionism’s claims on Palestine and its explicit aim of Jewish statehood and sovereignty there with the rights and well-being of Palestine’s Indigenous inhabitants. On March 1, 1899, Yusuf Diya sent a prescient seven-page letter to the French chief rabbi, Zadoc Kahn, with the intention that it be passed on to the founder of modern Zionism.
The letter began with an expression of Yusuf Diya’s admiration for Herzl, whom he esteemed “as a man, as a writer of talent, and as a true Jewish patriot,” and of his respect for Judaism and for Jews, whom he said were “our cousins.” He understood the motivations for Zionism, just as he deplored the persecution to which Jews were subject in Europe. In light of this, he wrote, Zionism in principle was “natural, beautiful, and just.” He added, “who could contest the rights of the Jews in Palestine? My God, historically it is your country!”
Image: Central Zionist Archives
But the former mayor of Jerusalem went on to warn of the dangers he foresaw as a consequence of the implementation of the Zionist project for a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine. Whatever the merits of Zionism, Yusuf Diya wrote, the “brutal force of circumstances had to be taken into account.” Palestine “is inhabited by others.” It had an Indigenous population that would never accept being superseded, making it “pure folly” for Zionism to plan to take Palestine over. “Nothing could be more just and equitable” than for “the unhappy Jewish nation” to find a refuge elsewhere, but, he concluded, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.”
Herzl replied—and quickly, in a letter on March 19. His letter was probably the first response by a leader of the Zionist movement to a cogent Palestinian objection to its embryonic plans for Palestine. Herzl simply ignored the letter’s basic thesis, that Palestine was already inhabited by a population that would not agree to be supplanted. Although Herzl had visited Palestine once, in an 1898 visit timed to coincide with that of German Kaiser Wilhelm II, he (like most early European Zionists) had not much knowledge of or contact with its native inhabitants.
Glossing over the fact that Zionism was ultimately meant to lead to Jewish control of Palestine, Herzl deployed a justification that has been a touchstone for colonialists and that would become a staple argument of the Zionist movement: Jewish immigration would benefit Palestine’s Indigenous inhabitants. “It is their well-being, their individual wealth, which we will increase by bringing in our own,” Herzl wrote, adding that “no one can doubt that the well-being of the entire country would be the happy result.”
Herzl’s letter addressed a consideration that Yusuf Diya had not even raised: “You see another difficulty, Excellency, in the existence of the non-Jewish population in Palestine. But who would think of sending them away?”
But Herzl had underestimated his correspondent. From Yusuf Diya’s letter, it is clear that he understood perfectly well that at issue was not the immigration of (as Herzl put it) “a number of Jews” into Palestine, but rather the transformation of the entire land into a Jewish state. Instead, Herzl offered the preposterous inducement that the colonization, and ultimately the usurpation, of their land by strangers would benefit the people of that country. Herzl’s reply to Yusuf Diya appears to have been based on the assumption that the Arabs could ultimately be bribed or fooled into ignoring what the Zionist movement actually intended for Palestine.
This condescending attitude toward the intelligence, not to speak of the rights, of the Arab population of Palestine was to be serially repeated by Zionist, British, European, and American leaders in the decades that followed, down to the present day. As for the Jewish state that was ultimately created by the movement that Herzl founded, as Yusuf Diya foresaw, there was to be room for only one people, the Jewish people. As for the others, “sending them away” was indeed what happened, despite Herzl’s disingenuous remark.
Herzl’s letter referred to Palestinian Arabs, then roughly 95% of Palestine’s inhabitants, merely as its “non-Jewish population.” The Jewish state, Herzl wrote in “Der Judenstaat,” would “form a part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.” Herzl’s imperious disregard of the Palestinians has been replicated over the decades in much discourse in the United States, Europe, and Israel; indeed, it was clearly audible from the White House as recently as this past week.


theintercept--2020-02-01--SEAL Commander Who Clashed With Trump to Leave Early

the Navy SEALs who found himself at odds with President Donald Trump over disciplining a notorious member of his force has informed the Navy that he will step down a year early , according to three people familiar with the decision .
Rear Adm. Collin Green , commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command , will leave his post in September , two of the people familiar with his decision said .
Green was widely viewed as a reformer who was willing to hold his command accountable .
His departure follows two years during which he sought to repair the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a slew of criminal charges against SEALs , including war crimes , murder , drug use , and sexual assault .
Green had publicly told his force that the SEALs had a “ problem ” and that some members of the unit were “ ethically misaligned.
” Green ’ s departure is unusual in part because it comes as his current tour length of two years is being extended to three , meaning he has effectively declined a final year in the job and won ’ t seek a third star .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ SEAL admiral , H. Wyman Howard III , a former commander of SEAL Team 6 , according to two people familiar with the Navy ’ s pick .
Howard is currently in command of Special Operations Command Central .
Howard has his own questionable past .
When he was a squadron commander at SEAL Team 6 , Howard solicited donations to procure expensive , hand-made hatchets for his operators , and encouraged them to “ bloody the hatchet ” on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan , The Intercept previously reported .
Later , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Howard ’ s men were using the hatchets to hack dead and dying militants .
SEAL Team 6 did not conduct any investigations based on the allegations .
A spokesperson for Naval Special Warfare directed questions about personnel changes to the Pentagon .
Green led the command of roughly 3,000 SEALs , which includes the Naval Special Warfare Development Group , best known as SEAL Team 6 , during a period of unprecedented public controversy .
Green faced calls from the Navy and Congress to address the ethical and legal troubles plaguing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the stress from his reform efforts , as well as personal issues , have taken a toll , according to two people who have spoken with him in recent months .
His most recent effort to bring what the Navy refers to as “ good order and discipline ” to his unit failed after he sought to expel Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher , who had been charged with murdering an unarmed ISIS detainee during a 2017 deployment in Iraq .
Gallagher was acquitted of that charge and several others , but convicted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a photo with the fighter ’ s dead body .
Trump took an interest in Gallagher ’ s case after seeing his story on Fox News .
After the Navy confined Gallagher pending his court martial , Trump had him released and tweeted his support for Gallagher .
When Gallagher ’ s rank was reduced as part of his conviction , Trump reinstated it .
After the court martial , Green signaled that he would allow a discipline review board , an internal nonjudicial process conducted by Gallagher ’ s senior enlisted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who posed with the dead ISIS detainee accountable .
The review board could have stripped Gallagher of his SEAL trident pin , the emblem that signifies his membership in the Navy SEAL community .
But Gallagher ’ s supporters viewed Green ’ s effort as an attempt to smear the convicted SEAL , who was planning to retire after the case and the public uproar it generated effectively ended his 20-year-career in the Navy .
In a humiliating defeat for Green , Trump overruled him , demanding that the review be halted and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his trident pin .
Gallagher has since posted pictures on social media of himself and his wife with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and started a clothing line .
He also recently posted a video that included the photos , names , and current military assignments of the SEALs in his platoon who testified against him at his court martial .
Last year , after an entire platoon from SEAL Team 7 was sent home from a deployment in Iraq amid allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse , Green fired the commanding officer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officer .
The move was almost unprecedented .
Some in the SEAL community applauded the decision , but two of the SEALs who were relieved of duty later filed an inspector general complaint alleging that Green had made them scapegoats after Gallagher was acquitted of war crimes .

The commander of the Navy SEALs who found himself at odds with President Donald Trump over disciplining a notorious member of his force has informed the Navy that he will step down a year early, according to three people familiar with the decision.
Rear Adm. Collin Green, commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command, will leave his post in September, two of the people familiar with his decision said.
Green was widely viewed as a reformer who was willing to hold his command accountable. His departure follows two years during which he sought to repair the vaunted military unit’s image after a slew of criminal charges against SEALs, including war crimes, murder, drug use, and sexual assault. Green had publicly told his force that the SEALs had a “problem” and that some members of the unit were “ethically misaligned.”
Green’s departure is unusual in part because it comes as his current tour length of two years is being extended to three, meaning he has effectively declined a final year in the job and won’t seek a third star.
He will likely be replaced by another two-star SEAL admiral, H. Wyman Howard III, a former commander of SEAL Team 6, according to two people familiar with the Navy’s pick. Howard is currently in command of Special Operations Command Central.
Howard has his own questionable past. When he was a squadron commander at SEAL Team 6, Howard solicited donations to procure expensive, hand-made hatchets for his operators, and encouraged them to “bloody the hatchet” on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Intercept previously reported. Later, SEAL Team 6 commanders received internal reports that Howard’s men were using the hatchets to hack dead and dying militants. SEAL Team 6 did not conduct any investigations based on the allegations.
A spokesperson for Naval Special Warfare directed questions about personnel changes to the Pentagon.
Green led the command of roughly 3,000 SEALs, which includes the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, best known as SEAL Team 6, during a period of unprecedented public controversy. Green faced calls from the Navy and Congress to address the ethical and legal troubles plaguing the SEALs. He has said that the stress from his reform efforts, as well as personal issues, have taken a toll, according to two people who have spoken with him in recent months.
His most recent effort to bring what the Navy refers to as “good order and discipline” to his unit failed after he sought to expel Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who had been charged with murdering an unarmed ISIS detainee during a 2017 deployment in Iraq. Gallagher was acquitted of that charge and several others, but convicted of a relatively minor charge for posing for a photo with the fighter’s dead body.
Trump took an interest in Gallagher’s case after seeing his story on Fox News. After the Navy confined Gallagher pending his court martial, Trump had him released and tweeted his support for Gallagher. When Gallagher’s rank was reduced as part of his conviction, Trump reinstated it.
After the court martial, Green signaled that he would allow a discipline review board, an internal nonjudicial process conducted by Gallagher’s senior enlisted peers, to hold Gallagher and others who posed with the dead ISIS detainee accountable. The review board could have stripped Gallagher of his SEAL trident pin, the emblem that signifies his membership in the Navy SEAL community.
But Gallagher’s supporters viewed Green’s effort as an attempt to smear the convicted SEAL, who was planning to retire after the case and the public uproar it generated effectively ended his 20-year-career in the Navy. In a humiliating defeat for Green, Trump overruled him, demanding that the review be halted and that Gallagher be allowed to retire with his trident pin.
Gallagher has since posted pictures on social media of himself and his wife with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and started a clothing line. He also recently posted a video that included the photos, names, and current military assignments of the SEALs in his platoon who testified against him at his court martial.
Last year, after an entire platoon from SEAL Team 7 was sent home from a deployment in Iraq amid allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse, Green fired the commanding officer, his senior enlisted, and the executive officer. The move was almost unprecedented. Some in the SEAL community applauded the decision, but two of the SEALs who were relieved of duty later filed an inspector general complaint alleging that Green had made them scapegoats after Gallagher was acquitted of war crimes.


theintercept--2020-02-01--Meet Mark Mellman: the Centrist, Pro-Israel Operative Behind the Anti-Sanders Ads in Iowa

a number of outspoken progressives to Congress opened the door for a previously unprecedented conversation about the special relationship between the United States and Israel .
But for longtime Democratic pollster Mark Mellman , a top consultant for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee , it was a warning sign .
This week , the political action committee affiliated with Mellman ’ s new group , the Democratic Majority for Israel , is spending at least $ 800,000 on ad buys in Iowa to go after presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders , I-Vt. , who is polling as the frontrunner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At least one of the ads mentions Sanders ’ s heart attack .
The ad campaign , which the Daily Beast initially reported Monday , is the first attacking Sanders by name so far in either of his presidential campaigns .
The ads deal with electability and Sanders ’ s identification as a “ socialist ” label , but the name of Mellman ’ s group points to another motive for going after Sanders : the shifts in how Democrats , especially progressives , are approaching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
As rote Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasingly untenable with a rising progressive wing of the party , longtime party strategists are pushing back .
Enter Democratic Majority for Israel .
Mellman and several strategists close to the Democratic Party launched the group last year .
DMFI aims to curtail criticisms of Israel from the party ’ s left flank by targeting primary challenges against pro-Israel Democrats .
The group ’ s political action committee , which formed in July , has only spent money in Iowa so far .
The PAC “ does plan to spend in other races @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pro-Israel Democratic candidates for House and Senate , ” Mellman said .
“ We are still determining exactly which races we will be involved in.
” On Friday , DMFI PAC , which put out the anti-Sanders ad , released its donor list in a Federal Election Committee filing .
The donor rolls include several overlaps with major AIPAC funders and activists .
Though Mellman has denied that his new group is affiliated with the flagship Israel lobby , DMFI ’ s ties to AIPAC run deep , including a lucrative relationship between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consulting firm .
The largest DMFI PAC donor in January , energy executive Stacy Schusterman , made a $ 995,000 donation ; she is an AIPAC national council member , according to her family foundation website .
Laura Lauder — the wife of Gary Mark Lauder , who gave DMFI PAC half a million dollars — is listed as an AIPAC Northwest regional board member on her foundation ’ s site .
And Milton Cooper , an AIPAC National real estate committee member , contributed $ 140,000 to DMFI PAC .
Schusterman and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mixed records of making political contributions to Republicans as well as Democrats .
Some of the other donors listed in the DMFI PAC ’ s FEC disclosure also have AIPAC affiliations .
( Reached for comment , Lauder bemoaned that some politicians were not “ fully informed ” about Israel , but demurred when asked if he meant Sanders .
Schusterman and Cooper could not be reached by press time . )
The closeness of DMFI to the pro-Israel establishment ’ s more right-of-center leanings has not gone unnoticed among even Republicans .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ since been deleted , Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks praised DMFI , citing a Nation story about the group .
“ ‘ We need an org that mirrors the @ RJC and concentrates on Democrats.
’ We agree !
@ DemMaj4Israel is an important voice in the Dem Party and fills a need due to the silence of other Jewish Dem groups , ” wrote Brooks .
Democratic Majority for Israel is billed as a broad-based effort to shore up support within the party for Israel , but tends to spend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certain positions .
Mellman has been critical of Sanders ’ s Middle East policies in particular , suggesting last November that the senator , who has frequently opposed AIPAC ’ s policy priorities , was uniquely concerning .
When Sanders snagged major endorsements from Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , D-N.Y. , and Ilhan Omar , D-Minn. , in October , Mellman said the endorsements were “ deeply disturbing ” because of Ocasio-Cortez and Omar ’ s criticisms of Israel .
As DMFI PAC launched its anti-Sanders ad in Iowa — which made no mention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fundraising email focusing on a Sanders remark from October .
Sanders had said that he supported conditioning military aid to Israel on changing its policy with respect to Israeli settlements and suggested diverting some of that $ 3.8 billion to humanitarian efforts in the impoverished Gaza Strip .
“ Some of Sanders ’ views regarding the U.S.-Israel relationship are well outside the mainstream of our Party , ” the fundraising plea said .
“ He suggested diverting some U.S. military aid , promised by the Obama administration , away from Israel and giving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DMFI email also slammed Sanders for taking on official campaign surrogates who support the Boycott Divest Sanctions , or BDS , movement against Israel ’ s occupation .
Sanders , however , may not be as out of step with Democrats as Mellman ’ s group hopes .
Last month , the progressive polling firm Data for Progress released a report showing 45 percent of voters support reducing military aid to Israel based on human rights violations , including 63 percent of Democratic voters .
What ’ s more , Sanders is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a diplomatic lever with Israel .
Former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg in June stopped just short of saying he ’ d consider cutting aid , saying taxpayers wouldn ’ t pay if Israel annexed settlements in the West Bank , though he waffled on the question last week , as Israel moved forward with plans for annexation .
Another candidate who has said that “ everything is on the table ” — including aid — if Israel moved away from a two-state solution , was Sen. Elizabeth Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DMFI .
Last summer , the anti-occupation Jewish group IfNotNow convinced Warren to say she would push Israel to end the occupation .
DMFI then sent a memo warning other Democratic presidential candidates about IfNotNow .
Mellman also called Warren ’ s campaign seeking — and receiving — assurances that an IfNotNow co-founder on her staff was not making Israel policy .
Emily Mayer , another IfNotNow co-founder , said it was “ worrying that , behind closed doors , someone in [ Warren ’ s ] campaign leadership would try to appease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s experience is varied , but his work rarely , if ever , extends beyond achieving centrist , moderate , and center-right aims .
Along with his longtime Israel activism , he ’ s consulted for a number of clients including moderate Democrats , like then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev. , and Rep. Steny Hoyer , D-Md.
, as well as a number of other federal and local officials .
And his consulting firm ’ s clients have included pharmaceutical industry giants , health insurers , and Wall Street firms .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ beyond U.S. borders : he worked for Israel ’ s centrist Blue and White party .
On the Middle East , however , Mellman ’ s advocacy has sometimes sided — and overlapped — with right-leaning groups .
Mellman worked hard to defeat former President Barack Obama ’ s Iran nuclear deal in 2015 , despite the consultant ’ s ties to Democratic leaders who overwhelmingly supported the accord .
Mellman ’ s opposition , however , was in line with one of his highest profile clients : AIPAC .
He worked with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ efforts to defeat the deal , consulting for AIPAC ’ s dark-money cutout , Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran .
CNFI spent tens of millions of dollars to oppose the deal in 2015 — including $ 241,439 paid to Mellman ’ s firm that year .
( Mellman told The Intercept that he opposed President Donald Trump ’ s withdrawal from the nuclear deal .
“ I have publicly opposed Trump ’ s withdrawal from the agreement which I think was a serious mistake , ” he said . )
Mellman has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the American Israel Education Fund , which is best known for organizing trips to take members of Congress to Israel .
In 2015 — the year of the nuclear deal ’ s signing — the Mellman Group was the American Israel Education Fund ’ s second largest independent contractor , according to the nonprofit ’ s federal tax filings .
Mellman ’ s firm was paid $ 1.3 million by the AIPAC-affiliated group , second only to a travel business owned by GOP megadonor and far-right Israel advocate Sheldon Adelson .
Though Mellman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ separate and independent , ” there are more connections than just the DMFI PAC donor rolls : As The Nation reported , at least 11 of DMFI ’ s own board members have worked at , spoken to , volunteered with , or donated to AIPAC .
DMFI ’ s rhetoric and aims also mirror AIPAC ’ s .
Like the Israel lobby group , DMFI loudly opposes efforts like the BDS movement .
And , like AIPAC , DMFI can be slow to issue even muted criticisms of Israeli policies toward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the occupation , Mellman did not offer an answer .
And DMFI and AIPAC even have the same target list : both groups have harshly criticized Sanders along with Omar , the Minnesota representative .
AIPAC has released Facebook ads targeting the two members of Congress .
Likewise , in addition to its criticisms of Sanders , DMFI spent at least $ 14,924 on Facebook ads , the bulk of which paid for at least 64 ads attacking Omar and urging viewers to sign a petition calling on lawmakers to condemn what it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mellman , however , is undaunted in advocacy for Israel — and he sees his group as a bulwark against changing views in the Democratic Party .
“ While we think the Democratic Party we know is overwhelmingly pro-Israel , ” Mellman told Jewish Insider , “ there is no question that we see some trends that are not reassuring and we want to respond to those trends and staunch problems before they become bigger and more serious.
” Mellman told the Jerusalem Post in July that “ the overwhelming majority of elected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep it that way , ” adding that “ there is a small group of outliers who are trying to change that and we are here to do battle with them.
” In a piece last month , Responsible Statecraft called DMFI “ the last gasp of the bipartisan consensus on Israel.
” That consensus has long held that critiquing U.S.-Israel relations is taboo — and that Israel must be supported no matter what .
Yet cracks are beginning to show , even in unexpected places .
The Nation and the Jewish Telegraphic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during a June meeting of Senate Democrats that presidential candidates had not condemned rocket attacks from Hamas against Israel .
The Nation reported that Sen .
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer , D-N.Y. , normally a staunch Israel supporter , was unhappy that Mellman was criticizing members of his own party .
DMFI responded that the account of the meeting was “ not accurate , ” and Schumer ’ s office didn ’ t comment .
Meanwhile , DMFI is still flexing its muscle in the top-level structures of the Democratic Party .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a statement through Mellman , on behalf of DFMI , in response to news that Trump would deliver the keynote address at the national summit of the Israeli-American Council .
“ Neither the American people generally , nor the pro-Israel community specifically , will reward Trump for fomenting hatred at home or for offering symbolic gestures and pursing counterproductive polices abroad , ” Mellman said .
The DNC is a former client of Mellman ’ s , but it ’ s unclear why it released a statement through his group .
DMFI also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the DNC ’ s platform committee by party chair Tom Perez .
The group has already seen some victories .
Mellman cheered a November decision by the California Democratic Party to vote against an amendment advocating for a Palestinian right of return and opposing “ any unilateral annexation of territory ” at their November convention .
DMFI helped pro-Israel Democrats in the state defeat the amendment .
Mellman told the Jewish Journal the failed amendment was “ extreme , ” “ one-sided , ” and “ anti-Israel.
” Whether the group is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by shying away from Israel and going after electability , however , remains to be seen .
The DMFI ad backfired in at least one sense : Despite spending $ 800,000 to attack him , Sanders ’ campaign raised $ 1.3 million in a day in a plea noting the ad buy .

The 2018 election of a number of outspoken progressives to Congress opened the door for a previously unprecedented conversation about the special relationship between the United States and Israel. But for longtime Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, a top consultant for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, it was a warning sign.
This week, the political action committee affiliated with Mellman’s new group, the Democratic Majority for Israel, is spending at least $800,000 on ad buys in Iowa to go after presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who is polling as the frontrunner for Monday’s early-state caucus. At least one of the ads mentions Sanders’s heart attack. The ad campaign, which the Daily Beast initially reported Monday, is the first attacking Sanders by name so far in either of his presidential campaigns.
The ads deal with electability and Sanders’s identification as a “socialist” label, but the name of Mellman’s group points to another motive for going after Sanders: the shifts in how Democrats, especially progressives, are approaching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As rote Democratic defenses of Israel’s actions become increasingly untenable with a rising progressive wing of the party, longtime party strategists are pushing back.
DMFI’s ties to AIPAC run deep, including a lucrative relationship between the lobby group and Mellman’s consulting firm.
Enter Democratic Majority for Israel. Mellman and several strategists close to the Democratic Party launched the group last year. DMFI aims to curtail criticisms of Israel from the party’s left flank by targeting primary challenges against pro-Israel Democrats. The group’s political action committee, which formed in July, has only spent money in Iowa so far. The PAC “does plan to spend in other races in other places, on behalf of pro-Israel Democratic candidates for House and Senate,” Mellman said. “We are still determining exactly which races we will be involved in.”
On Friday, DMFI PAC, which put out the anti-Sanders ad, released its donor list in a Federal Election Committee filing. The donor rolls include several overlaps with major AIPAC funders and activists. Though Mellman has denied that his new group is affiliated with the flagship Israel lobby, DMFI’s ties to AIPAC run deep, including a lucrative relationship between the lobby group and Mellman’s consulting firm.
The largest DMFI PAC donor in January, energy executive Stacy Schusterman, made a $995,000 donation; she is an AIPAC national council member, according to her family foundation website. Laura Lauder — the wife of Gary Mark Lauder, who gave DMFI PAC half a million dollars — is listed as an AIPAC Northwest regional board member on her foundation’s site. And Milton Cooper, an AIPAC National real estate committee member, contributed $140,000 to DMFI PAC. Schusterman and Cooper, for their parts, have mixed records of making political contributions to Republicans as well as Democrats. Some of the other donors listed in the DMFI PAC’s FEC disclosure also have AIPAC affiliations. (Reached for comment, Lauder bemoaned that some politicians were not “fully informed” about Israel, but demurred when asked if he meant Sanders. Schusterman and Cooper could not be reached by press time.)
The closeness of DMFI to the pro-Israel establishment’s more right-of-center leanings has not gone unnoticed among even Republicans. In a December tweet that’s since been deleted, Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks praised DMFI, citing a Nation story about the group. “‘We need an org that mirrors the @RJC and concentrates on Democrats.’ We agree! @DemMaj4Israel is an important voice in the Dem Party and fills a need due to the silence of other Jewish Dem groups,” wrote Brooks.
Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Targeting Progressives
Democratic Majority for Israel is billed as a broad-based effort to shore up support within the party for Israel, but tends to spend its efforts pressuring presidential candidates to avoid certain positions. Mellman has been critical of Sanders’s Middle East policies in particular, suggesting last November that the senator, who has frequently opposed AIPAC’s policy priorities, was uniquely concerning. When Sanders snagged major endorsements from Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., in October, Mellman released a statement saying it was “deeply disturbing” that Sanders had “surrogates and endorsers who hate Israel, support BDS and have repeatedly made antisemitic statements.” (DMFI’s communications director Rachel Rosen told The Intercept that, though the statement had been prompted by Omar’s endorsement, it “purposely mentioned only [Linda] Sarsour,” a Palestinian-American activist who has supported Sanders’s campaign.)
As DMFI PAC launched its anti-Sanders ad in Iowa — which made no mention of Israel — the group sent a fundraising email focusing on a Sanders remark from October. Sanders had said that he supported conditioning military aid to Israel on changing its policy with respect to Israeli settlements and suggested diverting some of that $3.8 billion to humanitarian efforts in the impoverished Gaza Strip. “Some of Sanders’ views regarding the U.S.-Israel relationship are well outside the mainstream of our Party,” the fundraising plea said. “He suggested diverting some U.S. military aid, promised by the Obama administration, away from Israel and giving it to Hamas controlled Gaza.” The DMFI email also slammed Sanders for taking on official campaign surrogates who support the Boycott Divest Sanctions, or BDS, movement against Israel’s occupation.
Sanders, however, may not be as out of step with Democrats as Mellman’s group hopes. Last month, the progressive polling firm Data for Progress released a report showing 45 percent of voters support reducing military aid to Israel based on human rights violations, including 63 percent of Democratic voters.
What’s more, Sanders is not alone in his willingness to use aid as a diplomatic lever with Israel. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg in June stopped just short of saying he’d consider cutting aid, saying taxpayers wouldn’t pay if Israel annexed settlements in the West Bank, though he waffled on the question last week, as Israel moved forward with plans for annexation.
Another candidate who has said that “everything is on the table” — including aid — if Israel moved away from a two-state solution, was Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has also gotten pressure from DMFI. Last summer, the anti-occupation Jewish group IfNotNow convinced Warren to say she would push Israel to end the occupation. DMFI then sent a memo warning other Democratic presidential candidates about IfNotNow. Mellman also called Warren’s campaign seeking — and receiving — assurances that an IfNotNow co-founder on her staff was not making Israel policy. Emily Mayer, another IfNotNow co-founder, said it was “worrying that, behind closed doors, someone in [Warren’s] campaign leadership would try to appease the right-wing pro-Israel establishment.”
More AIPAC Connections
Mellman’s experience is varied, but his work rarely, if ever, extends beyond achieving centrist, moderate, and center-right aims. Along with his longtime Israel activism, he’s consulted for a number of clients including moderate Democrats, like then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., as well as a number of other federal and local officials. And his consulting firm’s clients have included pharmaceutical industry giants, health insurers, and Wall Street firms. Mellman’s centrism has even extended beyond U.S. borders: he worked for Israel’s centrist Blue and White party.
On the Middle East, however, Mellman’s advocacy has sometimes sided — and overlapped — with right-leaning groups. Mellman worked hard to defeat former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal in 2015, despite the consultant’s ties to Democratic leaders who overwhelmingly supported the accord.
Mellman’s opposition, however, was in line with one of his highest profile clients: AIPAC. He worked with the Israel lobby as part of its efforts to defeat the deal, consulting for AIPAC’s dark-money cutout, Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran. CNFI spent tens of millions of dollars to oppose the deal in 2015 — including $241,439 paid to Mellman’s firm that year. (Mellman told The Intercept that he opposed President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal. “I have publicly opposed Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement which I think was a serious mistake,” he said.)
Mellman has also worked with another AIPAC-created group, the American Israel Education Fund, which is best known for organizing trips to take members of Congress to Israel. In 2015 — the year of the nuclear deal’s signing — the Mellman Group was the American Israel Education Fund’s second largest independent contractor, according to the nonprofit’s federal tax filings. Mellman’s firm was paid $1.3 million by the AIPAC-affiliated group, second only to a travel business owned by GOP megadonor and far-right Israel advocate Sheldon Adelson.
Though Mellman says his new group and AIPAC are “separate and independent,” there are more connections than just the DMFI PAC donor rolls: As The Nation reported, at least 11 of DMFI’s own board members have worked at, spoken to, volunteered with, or donated to AIPAC.
DMFI’s rhetoric and aims also mirror AIPAC’s. Like the Israel lobby group, DMFI loudly opposes efforts like the BDS movement. And, like AIPAC, DMFI can be slow to issue even muted criticisms of Israeli policies toward Palestinians. Asked if the group opposes the occupation, Mellman did not offer an answer.
And DMFI and AIPAC even have the same target list: both groups have harshly criticized Sanders along with Omar, the Minnesota representative. AIPAC has released Facebook ads targeting the two members of Congress. Likewise, in addition to its criticisms of Sanders, DMFI spent at least $14,924 on Facebook ads, the bulk of which paid for at least 64 ads attacking Omar and urging viewers to sign a petition calling on lawmakers to condemn what it called her “recklessly anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
Undaunted Israel Advocate
Mellman, however, is undaunted in advocacy for Israel — and he sees his group as a bulwark against changing views in the Democratic Party. “While we think the Democratic Party we know is overwhelmingly pro-Israel,” Mellman told Jewish Insider, “there is no question that we see some trends that are not reassuring and we want to respond to those trends and staunch problems before they become bigger and more serious.” Mellman told the Jerusalem Post in July that “the overwhelming majority of elected Democrats are pro-Israel and we intend to keep it that way,” adding that “there is a small group of outliers who are trying to change that and we are here to do battle with them.”
In a piece last month, Responsible Statecraft called DMFI “the last gasp of the bipartisan consensus on Israel.” That consensus has long held that critiquing U.S.-Israel relations is taboo — and that Israel must be supported no matter what.
Democratic Majority for Israel is flexing its muscle in the top-level structures of the Democratic Party.
Yet cracks are beginning to show, even in unexpected places. The Nation and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported last year that Mellman complained during a June meeting of Senate Democrats that presidential candidates had not condemned rocket attacks from Hamas against Israel. The Nation reported that Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., normally a staunch Israel supporter, was unhappy that Mellman was criticizing members of his own party. DMFI responded that the account of the meeting was “not accurate,” and Schumer’s office didn’t comment.
Meanwhile, DMFI is still flexing its muscle in the top-level structures of the Democratic Party. In December, the Democratic National Committee released a statement through Mellman, on behalf of DMFI, in response to news that Trump would deliver the keynote address at the national summit of the Israeli-American Council. “Neither the American people generally, nor the pro-Israel community specifically, will reward Trump for fomenting hatred at home or for offering symbolic gestures and pursing counterproductive polices abroad,” Mellman said. The DNC is a former client of Mellman’s, but it’s unclear why it released a statement through his group. DMFI also saw one of its board members assigned to the DNC’s platform committee by party chair Tom Perez.
The group has already seen some victories. Mellman cheered a November decision by the California Democratic Party to vote against an amendment advocating for a Palestinian right of return and opposing “any unilateral annexation of territory” at their November convention. DMFI helped pro-Israel Democrats in the state defeat the amendment. Mellman told the Jewish Journal the failed amendment was “extreme,” “one-sided,” and “anti-Israel.”
Whether the group is able to slow Sanders’s campaign by shying away from Israel and going after electability, however, remains to be seen. The DMFI ad backfired in at least one sense: Despite spending $800,000 to attack him, Sanders’ campaign raised $1.3 million in a day in a plea noting the ad buy.
Correction: February 3, 2020
Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story stated that DMFI released a statement criticizing Ocasio-Cortez’s and Omar’s endorsements of Sanders. In fact, the statement did not name either member of Congress, but was in response to Omar’s endorsement.