Vance Fraud Task Force Condemned as ‘Smokescreen’ for Booting 700,000 More People Off Healthcare

“This so-called task force is nothing more than a bullshit distraction.”

Vice President JD Vance arrives for a news conference on September 22, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Sep 22, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The Trump administration is planning to boot more than 700,000 people from their Affordable Care Act coverage as part of a purported initiative to root out fraud in the program—an effort that campaigners said is nothing more than a pretext to kick more people off healthcare.

Vice President JD Vance, who is leading the White House’s “Task Force to Eliminate Fraud,” announced the planned ACA purge during a press conference on Tuesday alongside Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, whose agency has touted a right-wing think tank’s dubious claim that millions of ACA enrollees are on the program improperly.

Vance insisted during Tuesday’s press conference that the administration is putting itself “under an extraordinary burden of proof” to ensure its mass removal doesn’t impact people who are eligible for ACA coverage, but advocates were not convinced.

“Vance’s task force is a smokescreen for kicking people off coverage,” declared the advocacy group Protect Our Care. The organization’s president, Brad Woodhouse, said in a statement that Vance’s task force “is nothing more than a bullshit distraction—a political stunt designed to throw even more people off their coverage while pretending to save taxpayers’ money.”

“At a time when millions of Americans are already losing coverage and facing skyrocketing costs, Vance and this administration are making the crisis exponentially worse,” said Woodhouse. “They are piling on more red tape, more confusion, and more opportunities for people to lose the coverage they rely on. Families need coverage they can afford and count on when they get sick. Vance’s task force won’t accomplish that. It’s a smokescreen for an administration whose sole mission is to make it harder to get and stay covered but to shower billionaires with tax breaks instead.”

Millions of people have lost ACA and Medicaid coverage since the start of President Donald Trump’s second White House term, due in large part to a Republican budget law that cut Medicaid by more than $800 billion and did nothing to extend enhanced ACA subsidies, sending premiums soaring.

Trump administration officials have baselessly claimed that their anti-fraud efforts were the key driver of ACA enrollment declines this year.



The mass disenrollment push comes less than two weeks after the Trump administration said it would send $500 rebate checks to some Americans who were allegedly “overcharged” under the ACA. Critics noted that the checks would only go to a small sliver of ACA enrollees and would do virtually nothing to offset premium hikes that are hitting millions of Americans.

Vance indicated Tuesday that the roughly 750,000 individuals who will soon be removed from the ACA due to alleged fraud are just the start of a broader purge. Around 19 million people are currently enrolled in ACA marketplace coverage.

“We’re gonna do some additional verification,” said Vance, who suggested the administration is using artificial intelligence tools to identify purported fraud. “We expect that most of these people are fraudulently enrolled, but we’re gonna do some additional verification on about 419,000 people.”

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the ACA, wrote Tuesday that “people losing healthcare isn’t a bug, it’s [Trump and the GOP’s] plan.”

“First Republicans stripped Medicaid from millions,” the Democrats wrote on social media. “Then they let premiums spike for millions more. Now JD Vance is using claims of ‘fraud’ to take coverage from hundreds of thousands more.”

Mamdani Hails Landmark DoorDash Deal as ‘Largest Settlement for Food Delivery Workers Ever’

“After years of corporate greed and impunity, we are holding DoorDash to account.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani lights the Empire State Building in celebration of America 250 at The Empire State Building on July 4, 2026 in New York City.
(Photo by John Nacion/Getty Images for Empire State Realty Trust)

Brad Reed
Sep 22, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday touted a settlement with food delivery app DoorDash as a “landmark win” for workers.

During a press event, Mamdani announced DoorDash had agreed to pay $131 million—of which $115 million will go directly to short-changed workers—in what he described as “the largest settlement for food delivery workers ever secured in American municipal history.”

The mayor said that DoorDash’s systematic exploitation and underpayment of its workers showed it profited by using “greed as a business model.”

“Two months ago, Tony Xu, the CEO of DoorDash, gave business owners a piece of advice,” Mamdani said. “A CEO, he said, has to take the greedy algorithm and keep going all the way to see if there is more. In computer science, a greedy algorithm is one that makes the most optimized, best short-term outcome at every step, and never weighs the consequences.”



Mamdani explained that DoorDash for years “failed to count every hour worked by deliver workers,” emphasizing that this was “not an accidental rounding error or a mistake.”

The mayor touted the work done by the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), which analyzed more than 150 million DoorDash payments and determined that the company had “underpaid more than 260,000 delivery workers across New York City” over a four-year period.

“After years of corporate greed and impunity, we are holding DoorDash to account,” Mamdani said. “City Hall will not sit idly by while a megacorporation that made nearly a billion dollars in profits last year rips off the working people who keep our city moving.”

A Tuesday report in The New York Times noted that, in addition to making a $131 million payout, DoorDash has also agreed to allow closer monitoring of its payment methods to ensure that its workers get what they are owed.

While the company defended its payment calculation model as “fair, practical, and legal,” it also acknowledged it made mistakes that led to some workers not getting everything they had earned.

“We screwed up,” DoorDash said, “and our mistakes meant some NYC Dashers were underpaid or paid late.”

DCWP Commissioner Samuel Levine told the Times that the city’s settlement with the delivery app “sends a strong message that we are in a new era of enforcement in New York,” adding that “we will not tolerate nickeling and diming New York City workers.”

Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of Campaign for New York Healthcare, said in a Tuesday social media post that the DoorDash settlement showed the importance of electing leaders willing to take on corporate power.

“Just in case you were wondering why DoorDash was spending so much money to elect Andrew Cuomo and oppose Zohran Mamdani,” D’Arrigo observed, “DoorDash now has to pay $115 million to the workers it stole wages from.”

#METOO LONG

‘Massive Exhale’: Survivors Relieved as Weinstein Gets 15 Years for New York Sex Crime Conviction

“Our work doesn’t end here,” said one campaigner. “Across the country, it’s still the case that a majority of survivors of sexual abuse are often not served by our courts,”


Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears for sentencing in the sexual assault of Miriam Haley, on September 23, 2026, in New York City.
(Photo by Barry Williams/Pool/Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Sep 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting former assistant Miriam “Mimi” Haley in 2006, prompting expressions of relief from survivors and advocates after nearly a decade of legal battles—and calls to improve how such cases are handled so that the process does not punish victims.

The sentence, handed down by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber, adds to the prison time Weinstein has already served and follows his conviction last year for committing a first-degree criminal sexual act. With three separate felony sex crime convictions stemming from his 2022 California case still standing, Wednesday’s conviction marks the 74-year-old’s fourth extant felony.

In 2020, Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years behind bars after a New York jury found him guilty of sexually assaulting Haley and raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann—but those convictions were overturned in 2024, sparking widespread anguish and outrage.

“Having been sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein has had a devastating effect on my life and sense of security that may never go away. Making the decision to speak up will have me looking over my shoulder for years to come,” Haley—who testified at both New York trials—told the court Wednesday in her pre-sentencing victim impact statement. “It’s a life sentence for me.”



Haley—who had worked briefly on the Weinstein-produced reality show “Project Runway”—described the years of litigation, public scrutiny, and attacks on her credibility as deeply damaging. She said that she often considered dropping the case, a process she called one of the most difficult decisions of her life.

Prosecutors had sought a 20-year sentence, arguing that Weinstein had shown no genuine remorse and continued to portray himself as the victim, and that he had used private investigators and other intimidation tactics against Haley.

After Weinstein’s sentence was announced, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg praised Haley and other survivors for their perseverance through the lengthy process.

“Today was about the survivors,” Bragg said. “Ms. Haley, her remarks were powerful, moving, and eloquent.”

Weinstein—who is expected to appeal—also addressed the court before Farber imposed the sentence. He apologized for causing Haley pain but again professed his innocence.

“I am not a perfect person. I live with many regrets and sincerely apologize for my actions,” he said. “I do have remorse for Miriam Haley’s pain, but I have to reiterate my innocence.”

Farber wasn’t having it, calling Weinstein “the literal face of the #MeToo movement.”

A 2017 New York Times investigation into Weinstein led to a flood of allegations against him and others—sparking a #MeToo movement that featured a phrase coined by survivor and activist Tarana Burke more than a decade earlier.

“You had it all,” the judge said. “Your legacy could have been cemented with greatness. But you threw it all away by assaulting Miriam Haley.”

In June 2025, a Manhattan jury convicted Weinstein of first-degree criminal sexual act, a felony, for forcibly sexually assaulting Haley at his Manhattan apartment in 2006. He was acquitted of a separate first-degree charge involving former model Kaja Sokola. The jury deadlocked on the third charge, involving Mann’s 2013 rape, resulting in a mistrial.

In California, Weinstein was convicted of felony rape, forcible oral copulation, and sexual penetration by a foreign object stemming from a 2013 assault. Originally sentenced to 16 years, a California appeals court upheld the convictions in June while ordering a pending resentencing.

Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein’s most prominent accusers and a major figure in the #MeToo era, posted an Instagram video reacting to the sentence.



“It’s done. I can’t really adequately explain what this is like, what this feels like,” McGowan said. “It’s too strange and surreal and massive exhale and massive fucking yes.”

“Enough,” she added. “Years stolen from so many of us. Thank you to the women in New York. You did this.”

Gloria Allred, Haley’s attorney, said that “Mimi underwent a trial by fire twice, and prevailed both times, unlike any other person in the ‘MeToo’ movement.”

“Mimi is a true hero. She has survived all attempts both inside and outside of court to discredit her or question her motives,” Allred added. “To describe Mimi as courageous is an understatement. She faced her fears and overcame them.”

Elisa Batista, campaign director at the women-led gender justice group UltraViolet, said in a statement that “Harvey Weinstein, like so many powerful abusers, thought the system would enable and protect him forever. That era is over.”

“This victory belongs to courageous survivors like Miriam Haley, Kaja Sokola, and Jessica Mann who came forward at great personal risk to tell their stories, as well as those abused by Weinstein who were unable to,” Batista continued.

“Thankfully, justice was delivered. But our work doesn’t end here,” she stressed. “Across the country, it’s still the case that a majority of survivors of sexual abuse are often not served by our courts,” said Batista. “We will continue to stand with survivors and fight the systems that enable and protect abusers—whether in Hollywood, the workplace, the White House, or anywhere else.”

Haley left the courthouse Wednesday surrounded by supporters, including other Weinstein accusers and Allred.



“This being so public, for this having gone on for so long,” she said, “it’s been really, really tough.”

The US National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), by texting “START” to 88788, or through chat at thehotline.org. It offers 24/7, free, and confidential support. DomesticShelters.org has a list of global and national resources.

Human Rights Group Urges Congress to Block ‘Illegal’ Sale of 2,000-Pound Bombs to Israel

“A vote to let this sale proceed is a decision to help Israel commit more war crimes.”

Crew members with the 28th Munitions Squadron warehouse 2,000-pound MK-84 bombs inside a hardened structure at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota on April 21, 2010.
(Photo by Airman 1st Class Corey Hook/United States Air Force)

Brett Wilkins
Sep 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A human rights organization called on members of Congress to block the Trump administration’s proposed $2.8 billion transfer of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, warning that approving the massive weapons package could violate US law and expose lawmakers to potential liability for complicity in war crimes.

In a letter to congressional lawmakers, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) urged legislators to introduce joint resolutions of disapproval under the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) once the administration formally notifies Congress of the sale.

“Forty thousand of the bombs that flattened Gaza is not a defense package, it is a down payment on the next round of atrocities,” DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said in a statement. “Every member of Congress now has the law and the evidence in front of them. A vote to let this sale proceed is a decision to help Israel commit more war crimes.”

The proposed package includes 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, along with 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, according to reporting by The Washington Post. The weapons would be purchased largely through Foreign Military Financing, meaning US taxpayers would pay for Israel’s acquisition of the munitions.

The MK-84 is among the largest conventional bombs in the US arsenal. The Post reported that its blast can propel metal fragments thousands of feet, penetrate thick concrete and metal, and create large craters.

“Munitions experts [said] that US forces almost never drop bombs of this size in populated areas,” DAWN wrote in its letter. “Israel has used them hundreds of times in Gaza and Lebanon. The Biden administration paused a shipment of these bombs in May 2024 precisely because of the risk of mass casualties in Rafah; President [Donald] Trump released it within days of taking office.”

Loosened rules of engagement implemented by the Israel Defense Forces following the Hamas-led attack of October 2023, combined with the IDF’s use of artificial intelligence technology to select targets far more rapidly than humans, resulted in a staggering loss of civilian life in Gaza when 2,000- and 1,000-pound bombs were dropped.

“Israel’s assault has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 21,000 children, and the killing has not stopped,” DAWN said on Friday, adding that the United Nations Children’s Fund “said last month that at least 300 children had reportedly been killed since the October 2025 ceasefire, an average of one child every day.”

DAWN argued that the proposed transfer would violate multiple US laws, including provisions of the AECA and Foreign Assistance Act governing how American weapons may be provided and prohibiting assistance to governments engaged in consistent patterns of gross human rights violations. The organization also invoked the Leahy Laws, which prohibit certain assistance to foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights abuses.

The group further warned that knowingly providing weapons that are subsequently used to commit war crimes could also be “illegal” under the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although Israel and the US are not signatories to the Rome Statute, the treaty stipulates that people from nonsignatory nations who commit crimes in states that are party to the treaty—as Palestine is—can be held criminally accountable for their acts.

The ICC has issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The Hague-based court also ordered the arrest of three senior Hamas leaders; all three were extrajudicially assassinated by Israel.

The proposed sale has already encountered some congressional resistance. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced Wednesday that he would not clear the transfer, citing the absence of sufficient assurances that the weapons would be used consistently with US and international law and concerns about civilian protection in Gaza and Lebanon. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has also vowed to block the sale in the upper chamber.

However, DAWN cautioned that a congressional hold is not necessarily sufficient to stop the transfer. The organization noted that the Trump administration has previously invoked emergency authorities to bypass congressional review of arms sales to Israel.

Under the AECA, Congress can attempt to block a major arms transfer through a joint resolution of disapproval. DAWN is urging lawmakers to bring such resolutions to recorded votes in both chambers and to hold public hearings examining the administration’s use of emergency authorities to circumvent congressional oversight.

“The administration is betting that Congress will do what it always does: complain, then look away,” DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar said on Friday. “Congress should show the administration that it’s no longer the rubber stamp it long has been on arms to Israel and block this sale.”

UK’s New Israel Sanctions Haven’t Actually Suspended Any Weapons Transfers

One anti-arms trade advocate said it showed the UK’s new policy toward Israel was “nothing more than a soundbite designed to appease voters, whilst failing to deliver meaningful policy change.”


An Israeli Air Force F-35I Adir multirole fighter aircraft flies over the Negev Desert after taking off from a military base en route to the Gaza Strip on October 14, 2023.
(Photo by Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 24, 2026
C0MMON DREAMS

Earlier this month, the UK government announced plans to cut off trade with Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank—including weapons shipments.

But according to new disclosures made to Parliament, reported Thursday by Declassified UK, the sanctions regime has not actually led to any weapons licenses being suspended or revoked, validating warnings by some critics that the new Labour government’s effort to cut ties with Israel’s occupation was only skin-deep.

Back in 2024, as Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza was raging, then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer had suspended 30 out of approximately 350 arms export licenses to the country.

According to the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK has still approved at least £178 million ($235 million) worth of fixed-value military export licenses to Israel since October 2023—a figure that excludes exports authorized under open licenses, including much of Britain’s contribution to the F-35 program.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband described the new restriction on arms export licenses as a “double lock against arms sales” to Israel under which the government would continue its existing suspensions and refuse applications for arms that “materially contribute to the occupation” of Palestine.

However, CAAT warned the following day that the policy, while welcome, “does not go far enough,” and included several loopholes—including one that allowed the UK to continue supplying F-35 fighter jet parts to an international pool used by the Israeli military and another allowing Israel to potentially use military equipment exported there for use by third countries.

Several prominent leftists in Parliament, including Your Party co-founders Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, as well as Green Party leader Zack Polanski, said that the trade bans should ultimately be just a first step on the way to a full arms embargo.

On September 16, the UK’s trade department acknowledged, following a question from MP Iqbal Mohamed, that “no additional licenses have been revoked or suspended since September 8,” according to Declassified.



The department explained that this was “largely because licenses for items that might materially contribute to the occupation have already been suspended because of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza conflict.”

Declassified called this into doubt, however:
The government insists that many of the extant licenses for Israel cover items that are for re-export to a third country or military-grade goods for civilian use such as body armor.

Yet fighter jet components are still being exported to global spares pools used by Israel, and UK-made trainer aircraft parts, which help to sustain the F-35 program, continue to flow directly to Tel Aviv.

When asked about trainer aircraft, the trade department told Parliament that such components “are not used in Gaza and… do not materially contribute to Israel’s illegal occupation.”

This is despite the Foreign Office previously acknowledging that Israel’s M-346 trainer aircraft are “used to train [Israeli Air Force] fast-jet pilots” and “facilitate the development of an offensive capacity.”

Dearbhla Minogue, a lawyer from Global Legal Action Network, which took the UK to court over arms exports to Israel in 2024, told the outlet that these revelations appear to indicate that there will be “no concrete consequences for Israel after this government recognized the likelihood of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and what it terms Israeli terrorism.”

“Successive governments have done everything in their power to continue aiding and abetting genocide and war crimes with deadly and devastating consequences,” said Sam Perlo-Freeman, CAAT’s research coordinator. “The new so-called ‘double-lock’ on arms exports to Israel exemplifies this.”

He added that it is “nothing more than a soundbite designed to appease voters, whilst failing to deliver meaningful policy change, and continuing to allow arms dealers to profit from Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”



This news comes days after Prime Minister Andy Burnham also affirmed that the UK would provide military support—specifically “defensive” air-to-air refueling—to Saudi Arabia as it launches new strikes on Yemen’s Houthis.

A new CAAT report says the UK approved £464.8 million in military exports to Saudi Arabia in just the first quarter of 2026, with most of the value consisting of air-to-surface weapons.

The Saudi-led war against Yemen that lasted from 2015-22 killed an estimated 377,000 people from direct and indirect causes. During that time, CAAT found that the UK approved £7.1 billion ($9.4 billion) worth of military goods to Saudi Arabia.

‘Baseless Lies Meant to Sanitize His Genocide’: Mamdani Hits Back After Netanyahu’s Attacks During UN Speech

“No lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity,” New York City’s mayor said of the Israeli prime minister.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a pager as he speaks during the 81st United Nations General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York on September 24, 2026.
(Photo by Timothy Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hit back Thursday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the United Nations General Assembly podium to accuse him of supporting Hamas and making Jewish New Yorkers feel unsafe—remarks that came after delegates from scores of countries walked out of the chamber to protest the far-right fugitive’s presence.

Refuting allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza—where Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including more than 21,500 children, since the Hamas-led attack of October 2023—Netanyahu said, “To all those spreading these lies about my country and about our brave soldiers, whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the antisemitic mayor of New York City, I say this: Shame on you.”



“Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York,” the prime minister claimed. “It’s no wonder... You falsely and repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide. Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide. And that’s exactly what Mr. Mamdani’s Hamas buddies would have done to us had we not stopped them. They would have killed every last one of us.”



Mamdani issued a statement later Thursday saying: “As he has done time and again, Prime Minister Netanyahu used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians. Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, where they are accused of murder and forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. The ICC also issued arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, but Israel assassinated them.

While neither Israel nor the United States is a party to the Rome Statute governing the ICC, the treaty states that people from nonsignatory states who commit alleged crimes in states that are party to the treaty—as Palestine is—can be arrested in third countries and subsequently tried by the court.

Mamdani has said that Netanyahu should be arrested and brought before the Hague-based tribunal for trial, but that he lacks the legal authority to apprehend the prime minister in New York.

The International Court of Justice—also located in The Hague, Netherlands—is currently processing a genocide case filed against Israel by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations. The case is based on what the ICJ called the plausibility that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The court has issued a series of provisional orders for Israel to adhere to the Genocide Convention—orders that critics say Israel has simply ignored.

Last year, an independent UN commission of inquiry found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a conclusion shared by the International Association of Genocide Scholars and other experts including many Israeli and diaspora Jewish academics, jurists, human rights campaigners, and others.

As Netanyahu prepared to deliver his UN speech Thursday, delegates from a reported 77 nations walked out of the chamber in protest.

“If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall—please do so now,” the prime minister said. “Thank you very much.”



While some observers applauded the display of solidarity with Palestinians, others expressed disgust that Netanyahu was allowed to address the world body and that he has not yet been brought to justice.

“The head of the genocidal Israeli apartheid regime, a fugitive indicted for crimes against humanity, was allowed to enter the US and to address the UNGA today, without arrest,” said Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN official who resigned in protest of what he described as the world body’s failure to stop Israel’s genocidal war.

“Netanyahu insulted delegations, openly celebrated the regime’s many crimes, bragged about its terrorist pager attacks on Lebanon, repeated the regime’s debunked genocide propaganda, defended the illegal occupation of Palestine and Syria, lied incessantly, called violent, racist, illegal Zionist settlers ‘peaceful’ and ‘honorable people,’ labeled human rights defenders as ‘antisemites,’ even arrogantly attacked American citizens and officials for speaking out against the regime’s crimes,” he continued.



“This violent psychopath cannot hide behind [US President Donald] Trump’s skirts forever,” Mokhiber added. “He (and his collaborators) must be captured and brought to justice. And the UN must finally act to isolate the regime and hold it accountable. ”

Referring to Netanyahu’s address and Trump’s threat on Tuesday to “annihilate” Iran during his rambling, lie-laden General Assembly speech, University of Colorado Law School associate professor Maryam Jamshidi said on social media, “Between Trump threatening Iran w/annihilation and Netanyahu bragging about Israel’s pager attacks, the UN podium has become a venue for promoting genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.”

Meanwhile, people took to the streets of New York to protest Netayahu’s presence in the city, US complicity in Israeli crimes, and to show solidarity with Palestinians.



Hundreds of protesters gathered outside UN headquarters in Turtle Bay for a sit-in demonstration led by Jewish Voice for Peace. Demonstrators blocked roads while chanting slogans including, “Netanyahu you can’t hide, you are wanted for genocide!”

As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, more than 100 demonstrators were arrested.



Among those reportedly arrested were progressive congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier; actors Susan Sarandon, Hannah Einbinder, and Cynthia Nixon; New York state Assemblymember Emily Gallagher (D-50); Democratic New York City Councilmembers Chi Ossé and Alexa Avilés; former Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning; and Palestinian American political activist Linda Sarsour.

“I will never, ever be silent,” Sarsour said on Facebook. “I will never just accept the world as it is. I want history to record for future generations of Palestinians that we fought. At every turn. In every way. When it was easy and when it was hard.”

“I want Palestinian girls in Gaza to see me in my hijab and my unapologetic Palestinian blood fighting for them to live FREE,” she added. “This is bigger than all of us. Netanyahu is a war criminal and belongs in The Hague, not the United Nations.”

‘Netanyahu Wanted for Genocide!’ 100+ Arrested Outside UN Speech

“I want elected leaders here in this country to catch up to the American people,” said actor and activist Cynthia Nixon, “who understand that what is happening in Gaza and Palestine is a war crime.”


Pro-Palestinian demonstrators block First Avenue near the United Nations headquarters building, ahead of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York, on September 24, 2026.
(Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As she waited to be loaded into a police vehicle with several other pro-Palestinian protesters in New York City on Thursday, Democratic US House candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier said she was among hundreds of New Yorkers who had risked arrest “because we can’t allow a war criminal to roam the streets of our city.”

“He needs to be tried in The Hague,” she added, speaking about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose arrival in the city for the United Nations General Assembly sparked the protest outside the UN headquarters.




Other politicians who joined the protest included Brad Lander, Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania, Melat Kiros of Colorado, and Adam Hamawy of New Jersey, while celebrities who have been outspoken supporters of Palestinian rights, including actors Hannah Einbinder, Susan Sarandon, Elliot Page, Cynthia Nixon, and writer Tony Kushner also joined the demonstration led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

“I’m here because I want to stop US complicity in the genocide that is happening in Gaza and the West Bank,” said Nixon. “I want to stop us funding Israel, I want to block the bombs, and I want elected leaders here in this country to catch up to the American people and people everywhere around the globe who understand that what is happening in Gaza and Palestine is a war crime, it’s unacceptable, and it’s wrong, and history will judge them very harshly.”



The demonstrators blocked roads outside the UN headquarters, and The New York Daily News reported that more than 100 people were arrested.

“There’s an arrest warrant out for Benjamin Netanyahu for the war crimes he’s committing in Gaza,” said Sumaya Awad, director of the New York-based Organizing for Adalah Justice Project. “ Trump is refusing to arrest him so we’re taking to the streets to make it clear to our government, and to future generations who will look back on this moment, that we refuse to normalize genocide. We refuse to normalize sending billions to commit war crimes, meanwhile our own schools and hospitals here are underfunded.”

The US has provided at least $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel since the country began its military campaign in Gaza—on top of $3.8 billion it provides annually.

But as Nixon noted, public approval for US funding of the Israel Defense Forces has plummeted in recent years. A Quinnipiac University poll last year found that 60% of Americans no longer support providing Israel with weapons and military funding.

Nixon was among many attendees who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, “Fund People, Not Bombs.” Protesters chanted, “Netanyahu, you can’t hide, you are wanted for genocide!” and “Not another penny, not another dime, no more money for genocide!”



Netanyahu has been welcomed to the US multiple times since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant in November 2024 for his arrest, along with that of former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, who was killed several months later.

Netanyahu has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the military campaign his government has ordered in Gaza since October 2023, in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack—which, according to a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz earlier this month, the prime minister was alerted about ahead of time by the United Arab Emirates.

In Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, decimated the vast majority of housing units, and bombed hospitals, schools, and refugee camps. According to testimony from IDF soldiers, commanders have explicitly allowed the mass killing of civilians.

The government has also blocked humanitarian aid, leading to the starvation of hundreds of people, including at least 130 children. Amnesty International said last year that Netanyahu’s government had used starvation as a “weapon of war,” and the group is one of numerous human rights organizations that have called the assault on Gaza a genocide.

Netanyahu has joined US politicians in accusing critics of the Israeli government of “antisemitism,” but JVP noted that a majority of people who took part in Thursday’s protests were “Jewish New Yorkers, joined by Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian New Yorkers, including parents, teachers, nurses, grandmothers, and descendants of Holocaust survivors who were determined to raise their voices as Netanyahu roamed free in the streets of New York City.”

Stefanie Fox, executive director of JVP, noted that “as we protest, the Israeli military expands its genocide in Gaza and destruction across the region,” while “we are living through the crushing conditions of expanding fascism here in the US.”

“But this is a movement that refuses to give up, and we know we can end this,” said Fox. “From the streets of NYC to the halls of Congress we will be relentless in our demands to stop arming Israel.”

Inside the UN headquarters, a number of delegations walked out of the room as Netanyahu began addressing the General Assembly on Wednesday afternoon—leading to jeers from the prime minister, who called the leaders “moral cowards” for objecting to the presence of an accused war criminal at the UN.

By continuing to back Israel, said Utah state Sen. Nate Blouin (D-13), “The US is very much not in step with the rest of the world.”

Israeli Election Panel OKs Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s Far-Right Parties After Voting to Ban Arab Ones

“Meanwhile, ministers and MKs threaten to nuke Gaza, starve the population, annex the West Bank, call to arrest journalists and enshrine Jewish law. This is who gets the all-clear,” noted one Israeli writer.


Palestinian protesters take part in a demonstration against Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in front of the United Nations headquarters in Gaza City on January 12, 2023.
(Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


On the heels of voting to disqualify all Arab-majority political parties and multiple candidates from Israel’s October 27 Knesset election, the Israeli Central Elections Committee on Thursday declined to bar various far-right parties—a series of events that critics condemned as anti-democratic and racist.

The CEC—which is chaired by a Supreme Court justice but dominated by members of the Knesset’s governing coalition—rejected petitions to ban National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, and Zehut, founded by Moshe Feiglin, a former member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

“Under Israel’s Basic Law on the Knesset, candidates and party slates can be barred from elections for rejecting Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state, inciting racism, or supporting armed struggle by an enemy state or terrorist organization against Israel,” explained Haaretz.

In an unsuccessful bid to bar the Otzma Yehudit slate, Gilad Kariv, a member of the Knesset for the Democrats, declared that “Ben-Gvir is not a right-wing Zionist; he is a racist Kahanist who has been convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization.”

While the panel ultimately refused to pass petitions on the right-wing parties, the previous day, it voted to disqualify the United Arab List—also known as Ra’am and led by Member of the Knesset Mansour Abbas—and the Joint List, an alliance made up of the parties Balad, Hadash, and Ta’al.

The committee disqualified the Joint List on grounds including its alleged rejection of Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state and support for armed struggle against it, and the United Arab List on those grounds, plus incitement to racism.



Sharply condemning the “political, racist, and anti-democratic decision,” the Joint List said that “Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir know that the only way they can remain in power is by disqualifying Arab political representation and suppressing voter turnout in Arab society. This is how they seek to pave their way to another term.”

“It is deeply regrettable to see that those who claim to seek to replace Netanyahu are once again falling into the racist trap set by Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir and lending their support to this political campaign,” the coalition continued. “In doing so, they are contributing to the continued racist persecution of the entire Arab public, deepening racism, and perpetuating the rule of Netanyahu and his political partners.”

“The Joint List is the only party that has placed at the forefront of its platform the struggle for democracy for all, genuine equality, justice and comprehensive peace. It is the only alternative to the racist policies of Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir,” it added.

Dov Waxman, a professor of Israeli studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, similarly suggested on social media Wednesday that the CEC disqualified the Arab-majority parties “to delegitimize” them “in the minds of Israeli Jewish voters, and they want to do that in order to make it harder for the opposition to form a coalition government.”

An opposition coalition including Ra’am “is the most likely way that an alternative, Eisenkot-led government could take power if the anti-Netanyahu bloc wins the election,” Waxman added, referring to Yashar’s Gadi Eisenkot.



The CEC on Wednesday also disqualified MK Ofer Cassif of the left-wing Arab-Jewish Hadash party and Balad’s leader, Sami Abu Shehadeh. The Times of Israel noted that a representative for Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara reaffirmed her “position that none of the petitions before the CEC had sufficient grounds except the one against Abu Shehadeh.”

“All opposition parties—Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar, Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad, Yair Golan’s Democrats, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White—backed the petition” against the Balad leader, as did Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, the panel’s chair, according to The Times of Israel.



“The backing of Sohlberg and Baharav-Miara raises the prospect that the Supreme Court may uphold the decision, despite its historically high threshold for disqualifying candidates and its repeated overturning of such decisions by the committee,” the newspaper added, pointing to plans for the justices to consider the decisions next week.

Otzma Yehudit sought to disqualify Abu Shehadeh over an article in which he called the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel—which led to the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip widely denounced as genocide—as “an important historic event militarily, politically, and strategically.”

As Haaretz detailed:
Abu Shehadeh said he regretted writing the article at the center of the request to disqualify him. “I wrote it on October 7, and I didn’t know the scale of the atrocities. If I had known, I would not have written it this way,” he said. “I agree with the justified criticism of the article. I should not have written it, and I should have clearly condemned [the attack].”

“My intention was for the military campaign to be halted and for the parties to move to a diplomatic track led by the Palestinian Authority and Arab states,” he explained.

As for Cassif, whose ban was spearheaded by Likud, he said that “the disqualification requests are intended to achieve the complete delegitimization of Arab society and Israeli-Arab partnership, and to perpetuate totalitarian rule and majority tyranny,” according to the newspaper.

“There is no contradiction between the absolute condemnation I have expressed of the Gaza massacre and the war crimes being committed by the Israeli government, and the absolute condemnation I have expressed of the October 7 massacre and Hamas’ horrific crimes,” he added.



After the Wednesday decisions, the Haifa-based rights group Adalah said in a statement that “the hearings, like the motions themselves, showed once again that this is an arbitrary, inciting, and racist process, devoid of any legal process. The CEC conducted an illegitimate political process aimed at persecuting ideas the majority does not accept, and it ended with the disqualification of all Palestinian representation in the Israeli Knesset.”

“The CEC approved every disqualification motion except a separate motion against Balad/Tajammu’ alone, which it rejected on procedural grounds,” noted Adalah—which “represented all the political party lists and individual candidates before the CEC, and will represent them against these decisions before the Supreme Court.”