The State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices highlighted Israel prominently, featuring concerns over the country’s precautions to minimize the civilian toll of Palestinians on the first page, which is normally reserved for the most egregious of human rights abusers. 

In the report’s preface, President Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the human rights concerns with the war between Israel and terrorist group Hamas prior to either Iran or the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

‘The conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza continues to raise deeply troubling concerns for human rights,’ Blinken wrote. 

He explained that the U.S. has ‘made clear’ that Israel needs to follow international law ‘and take every feasible precaution to protect civilians.’ Blinken emphasized that the department is still ‘urgently’ raising concerns about civilian deaths in Gaza during the war.

The U.S. also ‘repeatedly’ brought up concerns about humanitarian aid access in Gaza, civilian displacement and ‘unprecedented’ journalist deaths, the report noted. 

Israel was mentioned before the Biden administration’s State Department addressed ‘ongoing and brutal human rights abuses in Iran’ or ‘the Taliban’s systemic mistreatment of and discrimination against Afghanistan’s women and girls.’ 

The Jewish state was featured after only Russia’s civilian violence in Ukraine and ‘mass killings’ and ‘rape’ perpetrated by the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces. 

Hamas terrorists are mentioned in the same paragraph, with the U.S. condemning Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which, it noted, ‘included appalling abuses, including gender-based violence and sexual violence.’ 

After noting the urgent concern over Israel’s civilian precautions, Blinken added, ‘We have repeatedly condemned Hamas’ abhorrent misuse of civilians and civilian infrastructure as human shields.’ 

‘Hamas’ horrific attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 last year, and the devastating loss of civilian life in Gaza as Israel exercises a right to ensure that those attacks never happen again, have also raised deeply troubling human rights concerns,’ Blinken reiterated at a press conference following the report’s unveiling. 

A State Department official told Fox News Digital that the report’s discussion of issues globally is not a ranking of countries that compares them to one another. 

Representatives for the Israeli government did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment for purposes of this story. 

The Supreme Court appeared deeply at odds on Monday over a small city’s ban on homeless people sleeping in public places, with emotional statements from the bench over society’s competing civic responsibilities.  

It comes as jurisdictions across the nation – but especially in the West – struggle with a record double-digit surge in the homeless population.

The current appeal comes from officials in Grants Pass, Oregon, with almost 40,000 residents. 

Municipal ordinances there ban sleeping or camping on streets, under bridges and in parks or other publicly owned property. The ban includes the use of bedding, pillows, cardboard boxes, sleeping bags, stoves or fires – with fines starting at $295.

At issue is whether the enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property – but targeting the unhoused – constitute ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

The city argues its policies are fairly enforced, banning camping for everyone on public land. But homeless advocates say it criminalizes those who live outdoors without a stable place to call home.

In the contentious two-and-a-half hours of arguments, the justices repeatedly questioned whether the city’s law banned conduct or status – just camping on public property vs. the larger situation of being homeless.

‘Your ordinance goes way beyond that,’ said Justice Elena Kagan. ‘Your statute says that person cannot take himself and himself only, and can’t take a blanket and sleep someplace without it being a crime… It seems like you’re criminalizing a status.’

But others on the bench said these difficult on-the-ground discretionary decisions should best be left out of the hands of judges.

‘Municipalities have competing priorities,’ said Chief Justice John Roberts. ‘What if there are lead pipes in the water? Do you build the homeless shelter or do you take care of the lead pipes? Why would you think these nine people [on the court] are the best to weigh those policy judgments?’

Cities across the country will watch how the nine justices rule on this balancing act between helping the misfortunate with a range of public benefits vs. the financial and social costs associated, including crime, mental health and sanitation concerns. 

San Francisco in an amicus brief said it spent over $672 million last year to provide shelter and housing for the homeless, but public encampments continue to grow. The city says its inability to enforce its own laws ‘has made it more difficult to provide services’ to that population. 

About 600 people are estimated to be involuntarily unsheltered in Grants Pass, a scenic area surrounded by the Klamath Mountains in the southwest part of the state along the Rogue River.

City leaders have expressed frustration about not being able to open an appropriate government-run indoor shelter space, citing a variety of competing community views over funding, size and location.

To fill the gap, nonprofit and religious volunteers provide hot food and health care in the unhoused community, in areas like Tussing Park, which is dotted with picnic benches and landscaping. 

The privately operated Grants Pass Gospel Rescue Mission offers immediate and long-term assistance. And the Mobile Integrative Navigation Team (MINT) provides free transportation for medical care and other vital services. 

In its appeal to the high court, the city says its enforcement scheme ‘does not prohibit modest fines and short jail terms, which are neither cruel nor unusual by any established measure, for camping on public property.’

It said a federal appeals court ruling striking down its laws, ‘prevents governments from proactively addressing the serious social policy problems associated with the homelessness crisis, and calls into doubt many other criminal prohibitions.’

But lawyers for homeless individuals and support organizations say singling out and criminalizing this vulnerable population is not the answer, and only creates more civic problems for everyone.  

‘There is simply no place in Grants Pass for them to find affordable housing or shelter,’ said the United Community Action Network, a nonprofit group that serves homeless people in Josephine County. ‘They are not choosing to live on the street or in the woods.’

Local residents say the encampments create unsafe and unhealthy conditions.

‘Families are afraid to go to the parks,’ said Brock Spurgeon. ‘And it’s not just the campers or the homeless. It’s the drug use and the vandalism and the excessive littering. Needles on the ground, broken meth pipes on the ground. So no one wants to take their kids anymore.’

In court arguments, every justice agreed the homeless problem was serious and needed to be addressed immediately, but there were disagreements over how and who should tackle it.

‘Before extending a constitutional precedent, we usually think about whether state or local law already achieves those purposes, so that the federal courts aren’t micromanaging the homeless policy,’ said Justice Brett Kavanaugh. ‘And it’s on a daily basis, when you work with the homeless… how many people are going to show up to the food bank.’

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested the city here failed in that basic civic responsibility.

‘The intent is to remove every homeless person and give them no public space to sit down with a blanket or fall asleep with a blanket,’ she said. ‘Where do we put them when every city, every village, every town lacks compassion? If they pass a law identical to this, where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves [by] not sleeping?’  

The homeless population in the U.S. rose 12% last year to its highest level, according to a federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD). That is about 653,000 people in the January 2023 snapshot study.

California, Washington, Florida and New York represent more than half the homeless population, with California alone comprising 28%, according to the HUD study. 

Officials cite a dramatic rise in rents, as well as a drop in coronavirus pandemic-related public assistance.

The Justice Department is supporting neither party in the Grants Pass case, but says a federal appeals court properly concluded ordinances punishing people for sleeping outside where there is insufficient shelter space are unconstitutional. But it added that applying its ruling to all homeless people was wrong, ‘without requiring a more particularized inquiry into the circumstances of the individuals to whom those ordinances may be applied.’

The key to resolving this case could be how the Supreme Court applies its 1962 precedent in Robinson v. California. There, the justices concluded the Eighth Amendment’s ban on ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ prevents cities from criminalizing a person’s drug status – for simply being an ‘addict.’ But states could prosecute drug ‘conduct’ – buying, selling or possession of narcotics.

The case is City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson (23-175).

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been a longtime opponent of requiring voters to show proof of identification to cast a ballot, a number of his resurfaced writings and interviews show.

The material reviewed by Fox News Digital was published throughout 2008 in the run-up to that year’s presidential election, and included Kennedy referencing voter ID laws as ‘racially rancid,’ and claiming voter fraud was ‘non-existent.’

One of his past writings – a comic book co-authored with investigative journalist Greg Palast and sponsored by numerous liberal and left-wing organizations – specifically claimed voter ID requirements were discriminatory against Black people.

‘One out of every ten Americans don’t have a government-issued ID because they don’t travel abroad, so they don’t have passports, and they don’t drive a car[,] so they don’t have drivers[‘] licenses. The number rises to one in five when you’re dealing with the African American community. And, indeed, for those people to get a government-issued ID – it’s an obstacle,’ Kennedy wrote on page 16 of the comic.

On the same page, Kennedy described voter ID laws as ‘racially rancid,’ citing thousands of voters rejected at the polls for having an expired license – or no license at all – during an unnamed previous election being ‘disproportionately’ Black.

Kennedy wrote on another page that an Idaho requirement for newly registered voters in the state to show ID to have a mail-in ballot counted was ‘a new voter Block-the-Vote trick.’ He later described voter ID laws as ‘the newest scam to steal your vote,’ and specifically called those turned away from the polls for not being able to prove their identity as ‘stolen votes.’

‘Voter fraud is non-existent… everybody who has ever studied this – non-partisan, bi-partisan groups – [has] said that it is simply not a problem in this country,’ Kennedy also wrote in the comic.

Kennedy also claimed voter fraud ‘doesn’t exist’ during a 2008 HuffPost interview while comparing voter ID requirements to Jim Crow laws and accusing Republicans of using fear surrounding voter fraud as an excuse to make it harder for minorities to vote.

‘Republicans have seized on this in order to erect all kinds of obstacles and impediments that essentially mimic the old poll taxes that were used in the southern states during the Jim Crow period, to keep Black people from voting. Today, they’re directed toward suppressing the votes, not only Blacks, but Hispanics and American Indians, of young people of senior citizens,’ Kennedy said.

That same year, Kennedy admitted in a piece published by liberal outlet Rolling Stone that ‘the requirement to show a government-issued ID doesn’t seem unreasonable,’ but claimed again that traditional Democrat voters, which, at the time, he described as young voters, minorities and seniors, ‘often have no driver’s licenses or state ID cards.’

He repeated similar claims during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow just days ahead of the 2008 presidential election. ‘One in five Black voters does not have a driver’s license. That means if you require a driver’s license, you’re getting rid of 20% of the Black voters in this country,’ he said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Kennedy’s campaign for comment.

Despite his past claims about them, voter ID laws remain popular across the country. Numerous polls taken in recent years have shown more than three-quarters of Americans support requiring proof of identification to cast a ballot.

Kennedy is running alongside wealthy entrepreneur and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan, a former Democrat who he announced would join his ticket during a rally in Oakland, California, last month.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said Monday that he was offended by President Biden’s recent comments suggesting his uncle was eaten by cannibals in the Oceanic nation during World War II.

Marape expressed disappointment in a statement Monday that Biden would suggest his nation was rife with cannibals, noting also that Papua New Guinea was unwillingly pulled into the global conflict in the 1940s. Biden’s comments suggesting his uncle, 2nd Lt. Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr., was eaten in Papua New Guinea, came during a speech to a steelworkers union in Pittsburgh last week.

‘President Biden’s remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labeled as such,’ Marape said in a statement. ‘World War II was not the doing of my people; however, they were needlessly dragged into a conflict that was not their doing.’

‘The remains of WWII lie scattered all over PNG, including the plane that carried President Biden’s uncle,’ he continued. ‘Perhaps, given President Biden’s comments and the strong reaction from PNG and other parts of the world, it is time for the USA to find as many remains of World War II in PNG as possible, including those of servicemen who lost their lives like Ambrose Finnegan.’

Marape added that Papua New Guinea citizens continue to live in fear of active bombs dating back to the 20th-century conflict. He said the country is littered with human remains, plane and ship wrecks, tunnels and bombs from World War II.

On Wednesday, during his speech at the United Steelworkers headquarters, Biden recalled his uncle’s military service and how he flew a single-engine plane for the U.S. Army to collect reconnaissance. The president said Finnegan was gunned down in Papua New Guinea and his body was never recovered, pointing to the existence of cannibals in the nation.

‘And he got shot down in New Guinea, and they never found the body because there used to be – there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea,’ Biden said.

After the comments were criticized, though, the White House defended the president. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that Biden made the comments while having an ’emotional moment.’

‘So, his uncle, who lost his life when the military aircraft he was on crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea. The president highlighted his uncle’s story as he made the case for honoring our sacred commitment to equip those we send to war and take care of them and their families when they come home,’ Jean-Pierre said.

Meanwhile, Biden’s remarks came days after his latest call with Chinese President Xi Jinping on April 2. Papua New Guinea has emerged as a potential strategic ally amid tensions between the U.S. and China.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Frustrated House Republicans are trading barbs with their own colleagues after the passage of a $95 billion foreign aid bill with funding for Ukraine and Israel.

Different factions of the House Republican Conference feuded over the weekend after the House passed four foreign aid bills via a simple majority vote, while a separate border security bill that needed two-thirds supermajority of the chamber failed to reach that threshold.

‘[T]he only reason the supermajority procedure was required was that a handful of self-destroying Republicans joined with all Democrats to oppose the Rule which would have allowed it to pass with a simple majority,’ Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., wrote on X. ‘Those so called Republicans killed border security before Schumer could!’

House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, shot back, ‘Those who wanted to force a Senate vote on border security were betrayed by the surrender of leverage, not by opposition to the rule.’

‘If the speaker wanted to keep his own promises on border security, he would have attached border security to the rule. Those opposed would have been forced to accept it, or oppose the rule,’ Davidson responded.

A rule vote is a procedural hurdle that sets terms for debate and a final vote on one or several pieces of legislation. It’s decided by a majority in the House Rules Committee, which is the last test for bills before they reach the House floor.

Conservative foreign aid skeptics were outraged at the decision by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., last week to advance his four foreign aid bills under one rule vote and a fifth border security bill under a separate rule, arguing that it left Republicans with no leverage to force the Senate to take it up. 

In protest, three of those skeptics joined all Democrats in killing the bill in the Rules Committee, which forced Johnson to bring the bill up for a vote by forgoing the procedural hurdle in exchange for raising the threshold for passage to two-thirds instead of a simple majority.

Predictably, the bill failed with no Democrats backing the measure.

Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., took a veiled shot at GOP rebels after the Saturday vote, accusing them of throwing up roadblocks for media attention, ‘Sadly we have some egos outpacing intellects. Could they survive a day [without] a microphone or camera in front of them? We are here TO GOVERN not play to the press.’

On the other side of the argument, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, one of the three Rules Committee Republicans who blocked the border bill from getting a simple majority vote on the House floor, accused GOP leaders of putting it up for ‘cover.’

‘Ukraine issues aside, our take down of the SEPARATE border… rule – they needed desperately to pass as cover – has enraged them [because] they now can’t easily lie that border was attached in a package,’ Roy wrote on X in an unrelated post.

Meanwhile, Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., piled on Barr’s earlier post, ‘After each sellout, once the fury of Republican voters sets in, the self-serving lies begin. Leadership NEVER proposed to attach ANY border security measure to this Ukraine package. They set up a separate, cosmetic vote to give cover that the Senate would have been free to ignore. The Rules Committee conservatives killed that separate rule.’

But even Johnson himself dismissed arguments that he was in a position to force border security measures through the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House, telling FOX Business’ Larry Kudlow days before the vote, ‘Some of my colleagues want the speaker of the House to have a magic wand. If we could close the border ourselves, we would have done it a long time ago.’

The infighting is not a new phenomenon in the House, but it illustrates the exceptional divides in Johnson’s GOP Conference.

House lawmakers are back in their home districts this week, but when they return, GOP leaders will be grappling with just a one-seat majority after the early departure of Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis.

A group that’s backing leftist candidates for Congress who want to place conditions on U.S. aid to Israel is hosting a Monday night event aimed at bashing the pro-Israel lobby and ‘building progressive power in Congress.’

Our Revolution, an organizing group founded by self-described ‘democratic socialist’ Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is hosting a town hall featuring Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., along with Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., according to a press release sent Monday morning.

The group’s new campaign is ‘Committed to Countering the Rise in Rightwing, Anti-Peace Lobbying, Including AIPAC’s $100 Million Campaign to Unseat Candidates Calling For a Permanent Ceasefire,’ the release said.

Monday night’s event is part of ‘a strategic effort to shore up defenses against well-funded corporate lobbyists,’ specifically naming the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – an organization that works along bipartisan lines to promote the traditional U.S.-Israel relationship.

AIPAC has been in the crosshairs of progressive lawmakers in recent months, particularly as it has ratcheted up criticism of those lawmakers for not supporting Israel’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Israel’s ensuing ground invasion and airstrikes in Gaza have served to bring long-simmering fractures within the Democratic Party to the surface, with a growing number of young leftists in Congress calling for a harsher stance against Israel, including conditioning military aid on its treatment of civilians in Gaza.

Our Revolution is backing candidates who, among other things, have called for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. But Republicans and more moderate Democrats warn that a permanent cease-fire will only help Hamas, and could endanger the lives of dozens of Israeli hostages still being held by anti-Israel terrorists since October.

The group said AIPAC is ‘targeting some of our most ardent advocates for peace in Congress.’

Fox News Digital reached out to AIPAC for comment.

AIPAC is expected to funnel millions of dollars into primary and general election candidates to unseat those progressive lawmakers, including Bowman, who is appearing at the Monday night event. 

‘The candidates Our Revolution is backing have been on the forefront of advocating for a cease-fire in Gaza, as well as voicing their intent to condition U.S. funding of the far-right Netanyahu regime,’ the press release said, referencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

‘They have also been at the forefront of the fight for critical progressive issues that will be crucial to driving voter turnout in the 2024 general election, including climate action, student loan relief, affordable housing, comprehensive immigration reform, and racial justice.’

Asked for a response to the Monday event, AIPAC told Fox News Digital, ‘We are proud to engage in the democratic process to help elect pro-Israel candidates, and we will not be deterred by an extremist, anti-Israel fringe. We believe that it is entirely consistent with progressive values to stand with the Jewish state as it confronts aggression from Iran and its terrorist proxies.’

A spokesperson for the group also told Fox News Digital that AIPAC is ‘the largest PAC contributor’ to Democratic candidates.

Earlier this month, Anti-War Committee Chicago organizer Shabbir Rizvi was filmed teaching a group of 80 activists in Chicago to chant ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to America’ in Farsi. Rivzi has a troubling background when it comes to his documented support for Iran and anti-Israel views.

The Free Press first broke the story about Rizvi’s chants that occurred during a breakout session of an event in which 300 activists countrywide gathered to plan protests to disrupt the Democratic National Convention in August. The crowd reportedly burst into applause hours later when another activist shared the news that the Islamic Republic of Iran had attacked Israel, launching more than 300 bomb-bearing Shahed drones and ballistic missiles into its airspace.

In the video shown by the Free Press, Rivzi said that ‘marg barg’ could either mean ‘death to, or down with,’ while previously stating to laughter ‘depending on who’s asking.’

Before videos of Rizvi’s ‘Death to America’ chant made their way around the internet, the self-professed anti-war activist was a regular contributor to Iran’s Press TV and an outlet called Al Mayadeen. David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, spoke to Fox News Digital about these outlets’ links to Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

‘Press TV is a known Iranian mouthpiece,’ Daoud said, noting that its U.S. website was seized in June 2021 alongside 32 other sites by the U.S. Justice Department. He said it ‘targeted the United States with disinformation campaigns and malign influence operations.’ 

Rizvi propelled this anti-Israel, anti-U.S. ideology while writing for Al Mayadeen on Jan. 19, explaining that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 incursion into Israel, had ‘called the Axis of Resistance into action.’ Rizvi specifically cites Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as groups that ‘harmonized in action while maintaining their own sovereignty to assist their Palestinian allies.’ The IRGC is also a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

Rizvi’s Press TV reports also show an alleged pro-terror bias. In a Dec. 9 Press TV article, Rizvi writes not of terror attacks on innocents on Oct. 7 but of ‘the severity of the humiliation the Zionist regime was dealt on October 7 by the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas.’

Ties between Al Mayadeen and Hezbollah are ‘a little bit more complicated,’ Daoud said. While the Lebanon-based outlet calls itself ‘an independent Arab satellite news channel,’ Daoud said it is ‘at times it’s virtually indistinguishable from Al-Manar,’ a Lebanese outlet owned by Hezbollah. ‘In both content and in terms of access to Hezbollah officials,’ Daoud said he ‘considers Al Mayadeen a Hezbollah-linked media outlet,’ though the site’s funding sources ‘have always been shrouded in a little bit of mystery.’

Daoud said both channels ‘take the ‘Resistance Axis’ ideology’ and ‘spread it as far and wide in the Arab world as possible.’ 

Though Rizvi may portray these actors as part of a ‘resistance,’ Daoud says these groups merely use the term ‘to gain legitimacy’ while seeking the annihilation of the state of Israel. ‘Their objectives are not defensive,’ Daoud said. ‘The elimination and destruction of a country is not a defensive action. The idea of resisting Israel’s very right to exist is not resistance. This is propaganda’ designed to ‘make the objectives more palatable,’ Daoud said.

When discussing Iran’s April 13 strike on Israel for Press TV, Rizvi said the ‘Iranian retaliation is within the scope of international law’ and that Iran’s response ‘is proportional and just and comes after much patience in dealing with the rogue regime [Israel].’ He continued, ‘The morale of the Islamic world is being restored as Iran acts as the harbinger of regional stability.’

On the contrary, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner notes that both Israel’s April 1 attack on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria, and Iran’s April 13 aerial attack on Israel ‘may … constitute the international crime of aggression.’

After videos of his anti-American chants spread, Rizvi appears to have scrubbed his social media presence on the internet. The Powerless Podcast set an episode with Rizvi to private on April 16. In the episode, discussing so-called Western and Israeli propaganda, Rizvi suggested that ‘no politician, no business person, no corporation should be allowed to enjoy any peace until there’s justice.’

Rizvi’s ‘abolishnato’ handle on X, formerly known as Twitter, no longer exists. The internet and several concerned groups, however, have a long memory of the hate he espoused there.

On April 14, the Anti-Defamation League shared a tweet in which Rizvi wrote, ‘God bless Iran and the heroes of the IRGC,’ in response to a tweet from Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

Canary Mission, which highlights U.S. entities and individuals spreading anti-Israel or antisemitic hate, shared several of Rizvi’s archived tweets and press appearances with Fox News Digital. They demonstrate what they claim is Rizvi’s anger toward Israel and its supporters.

On Oct. 25, Rizvi said on Press TV that Israel is ‘actively flaunting’ plans to create ‘a greater Israel’ that ‘extends into Egypt, extents into Syria, extends into Saudi Arabia.’ He further said that if Israel were to ‘execute these grand plans of maybe even invading Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan … it would have the full political and military backing of the United States.’ He noted that Israel ‘is actively admitting that they have plans to kill’ those they conquer.

Daoud says the idea that Israel seeks to expand its territory to create a ‘greater Israel’ is ‘a conspiracy theory usually espoused by the most feverish of antisemitic minds.’ Furthermore, Daoud explained that Rizvi’s belief that ‘Israel wants to conquer most of the Middle East and slaughter its inhabitants goes a step further, showing that his worldview is based in the demonization and dehumanization of Israelis.’

On Nov. 1, Rizvi addressed Press TV once more, stating that ‘the Zionist lobby has a huge influence on the American political system and spends millions and millions of dollars, sometimes per congressional representative, to make sure that everybody follows suit with what the Zionist political line is.’ Rizvi also said in the interview that he did not believe you could ‘call [the conflict between Hamas and Israel] a war when one side is annihilating an entire people.’

In a series of archived Tweets that Canary Mission uncovered, Rizvi’s fervor against Israel is further revealed. On Nov. 15, 2023, Rizvi decried The Guardian newspaper’s decision to remove Usama Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America,’ explaining that bin Laden had ‘correctly blamed America for its role in ethnic cleansing of Palestine by arming Israel.’

On Jan. 6, 2024, Rizvi wrote, ‘Love waking up to news that Hezbollah put these Zionists in a blender.’ A month later, on Feb. 11, he tweeted that the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism’s Super Bowl ad, which he wrongly attributes to the state of Israel, was proof that ‘from sports to Hollywood, the entire entertainment industry is complicit in genocide.’

Though Rizvi and numerous protesters from Saturday’s activist gathering allege that Israel is committing genocide, the International Court of Justice ruled on Jan. 26 that there has not been a genocide in Gaza.

Fox News Digital attempted to contact Rizvi for comment about his online statements and writings and for context behind his chanting on Saturday. Rizvi did not respond.

Saturday’sassembly in Chicago was the start of a greater initiative to protest against Israel at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson rejected protesters’ initial request to march in the vicinity of the convention. Fight Back News reported that a coalition of protesters sued the city to march in a location where President Biden ‘can hear us and see us.’ Calling the president ‘Genocide Joe Biden,’ the spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the DNC told Fight Back News that ‘Biden could stop the war with one phone call. He refuses to take action, and so we must protest.’

According to Axios, the city must respond to protesters’ request for a permit to protest closer to the convention by April 21. One protester told Axios that the group will be ‘marching with or without a permit’ because of the ‘genocide happening in Gaza.’

While anti-Israel fervor rises in Chicago, where the mayor cast the deciding vote on a controversial cease-fire resolution in January, the Jewish population in Illinois has faced increased hate. On April 16, the ADL released its findings that antisemitic incidents in Illinois rose 74% between 2022 and 2023. Of the 211 recorded incidents of vandalism, harassment and assault, 68% occurred after Oct. 7.

Leaders in Israel criticized potential sanctions that are expected to be imposed by the U.S. as early as this week against an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military battalion accused of violating human rights back in 2022.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken could announce sanctions against IDF battalion ‘Netzah Yehuda’ within days, marking the first time the U.S. will have placed sanctions on military units operated by Israel. If Blinken follows through with the sanctions, it could further strain relationships between the allies, which have already become tense as Israel continues its war in Gaza.

U.S. officials have not identified the sanctioned unit, though Israeli leaders and local media identified it as Netzah Yehuda, a battalion established nearly 25 years ago.

Israeli officials have condemned the expected sanctions, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he would oppose them.

‘If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit in the IDF, I will fight it with all my might,’ Netanyahu said.

Some of the battalion’s members have been linked to abuse of Palestinians. The group faced harsh criticism from the U.S. in 2022 after a 78-year-old Palestinian-American man, Omar Assad, was found dead after being detained at a West Bank checkpoint.

An autopsy conducted by Palestinian officials found Assad suffered a heart attack caused by ‘external violence,’ adding he had underlying health conditions.

The autopsy also noted that Assad had bruises on his head, redness on his wrists caused by being bound, and bleeding in his eyelids after being tightly blindfolded.

The country’s military also investigated and found Israeli soldiers assumed Assad was sleeping when they cut off the cables binding his hands. When the soldiers saw Assad was unresponsive, they failed to offer medical help and left the scene.

The Israeli military said at the time that one officer was reprimanded, and two others were reassigned to non-commanding roles because of the incident.

The uproar from the U.S. resulted in Israel relocating Netzah Yehuda to northern Israel in 2022, after it had been stationed in the West Bank. After the attack on Israel on Oct. 7 by Hamas-led terrorists, the battalion was relocated again to the southern border near Gaza. The battalion is now reportedly helping with the war effort in the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli military.

‘The battalion is professionally and bravely conducting operations in accordance to the IDF Code of Ethics and with full commitment to international law,’ it said. It said that if the unit is sanctioned, ‘its consequences will be reviewed.’

Axios reported that if sanctions were imposed, the battalion and its members would no longer receive any type of training or assistance from the U.S. military, according to sources.

The U.S. is prohibited under the Leahy Law, from providing any sort of foreign aid or defense department training to countries responsible for alleged human rights violations based on credible information.

While speaking to reporters on Friday, Blinken was asked about Israel’s violations of human rights in the West Bank and recommendations made by his department to cut military aid to certain Israeli units.

Blinken started by saying the Leahy Law was important and applied across the board.

‘When we’re doing these investigations, these inquiries, it’s something that takes time, that has to be done very carefully both in collecting the facts and analyzing them – and that’s exactly what we’ve done,’ he said. ‘And I think it’s fair to say that you’ll see results very soon. I’ve made determinations; you can expect to see them in the days ahead.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department for comment.

The Associated Press reported that Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s War Cabinet, issued a statement saying he spoke with Blinken on Sunday and told him the decision is a ‘mistake.’ Gantz added that sanctions would hurt the country’s legitimacy during a time of war.

The wire service also learned from two U.S. officials familiar with the sanctions that the announcement could come as early as Monday.

The officials reportedly said five units were investigated, and of the five, four acted to remedy violations they were accused of committing.

On Friday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on an ally of Israel’s national security minister and two entities that raised money for Israeli men who allegedly committed settler violence. The new sanctions came in addition to others placed on five settlers and two unauthorized outposts earlier this year. 

Friday’s sanctions will reportedly freeze U.S. assets held by those targeted, while also barring American forces from dealing with them.

Fox News Digital’s Andrea Vacchiano and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Thousands of Colombians took to the streets Sunday in the latest rebuke of leftist President Gustavo Petro’s reform agenda.

The demonstrations took place in several cities, including the capital. Protesters filled Bolivar Plaza outside the presidential palace in Bogotá.

While protests have been constant since the former leftist guerrilla took office in 2022, they’ve gained momentum of late. Petro has floated the possibility of rewriting the constitution to spur social reforms that he’s been unable to advance in the face of opposition by a hostile congress and conservative business groups.

Petro recently suffered an important defeat when Colombia’s congress refused to pass legislation to boost state control of the country’s health care system aimed at improving and lowering the cost of medical care.

In response to the defeat, Petro ordered by decree the takeover of two of the country’s top medical insurers, on which millions of Colombians depend.

The United States needs to maintain its global focus and efforts to stymie the growing cooperation and ambition of ‘axis of evil states,’ according to historian and journalist Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia. Roberts sits in the British House of Lords.

‘When it comes to the axis of evil states, frankly, it’s not the worst thing in the world to have a forever war, especially if you will not actually fight,’ Roberts, a biographer of several British leaders, including Winston Churchill, told Fox News Digital. ‘It can be done for an amount which is a really very impressive return on investment.’ 

Roberts, along with retired Gen. David Petraeus, wrote ‘Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine,’ an assessment of U.S. foreign conflict involvement examined through the lens of successful strategic leadership. Roberts is currently working on new chapters for the paperback release, which will focus on the war in Gaza and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitions for Taiwan. 

He argued that the United States, as a global superpower, can and should ‘walk and chew gum’ – so to speak – and that American isolationism would prove ‘a profoundly dangerous force… not just for the rest of the world but for America as well, ultimately.’ 

‘If the United States decides to essentially shrug off the responsibility of a great global superpower that you’ve been really since the Great White Fleet circumnavigated the world in 1909, a long time ago now… one can understand that any titan gets weary,’ Roberts said. ‘However, if you were to embrace isolationism, the ultimate response would be from the alliance of anti-democratic nations that we are seeing is working closer and closer… ultimately it will rebound terribly on you.’

The desire for an ‘America First’ policy has grown stronger as the U.S. faces down two significant conflicts – first from Russia, now in its third year of invading Ukraine, and from the bubbling tension between Iran and Israel.

Some Republicans particularly have opposed the continued funding of Ukraine without a clear plan as to how the conflict could end, raising fears of another ‘forever war’ like those the U.S. maintained in the Middle East over the past two decades. 

House Republicans have worked to condition aid for Ukraine, which has surpassed $113 billion as of March 2024. Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Va., called for any funding to Ukraine to be balanced out by spending cuts elsewhere and for it to be paired with U.S. border policy changes. The House finally passed the $60 billion funding bill for Ukraine on Saturday.

‘We cannot continue to borrow and spend money we don’t have for wars overseas while failing to protect Americans from the Biden border invasion here at home,’ Good told Fox News Digital earlier this month. ‘At a bare minimum, any package for military aid to Ukraine should be fully offset and must include H.R. 2 with performance metrics to secure our own border.’

Roberts argued that the U.S., as a ‘great superpower… some might argue the only superpower’ can protect both itself and support allies in a conflict that has proven an ‘extremely impressive’ return on investment. 

‘The Ukrainians have taken out well over half of the Russian tank fleet,’ Roberts noted. ‘Now, at any stage in American post-war history, if you offer the president that deal, he’d have snapped it up.’

‘You’ve got a $825 billion per annum defense budget to spend, [and] less than a 10th of that, take out your opponent’s tank fleet, essentially – at least, over half of it – is an amazing return on investment,’ he added. 

‘After 20 years of the forever war in Afghanistan before Biden’s, in my view, outrageous scuttle from that country, you’d got it down to the situation where no Americans had died for 18 months, and the whole American cost of this conflict was down to about 20 to $25 billion a year,’ he said. ‘That’s an amazing thing, to be able to keep the Taliban out of power.’

However, Roberts stressed that there should remain limits to the U.S. ambitions overseas, dismissing the idea that Washington should seek Russian regime change as ‘not our duty, not our job, not our responsibility, and certainly not a very sensible thing.’ 

‘The obvious reason is that it would just stoke anti-Western nationalism in Russia,’ he explained. ‘No, they can do those things themselves, and I think the point at which they might do that is, as has happened so often in history, when Russian aggression has been shown not to succeed.’

Roberts lamented, though, that Russia has made strides in Ukraine’s easternmost territories, with a breakthrough on the front and potentially bigger gains to come ‘if the West doesn’t help Ukraine more.’

Indeed, more and more analysts and commentators have grown increasingly dismal about Ukraine’s potential successes: The BBC, Politico EU and other outlets in the last week have run articles discussing why and how Ukraine could face defeat this year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says any victory hinges on continued funding from allies to keep pace with Russia.

Roberts suggested that such doomsday prophecies may prove premature, stressing that ‘there’s no such thing as inevitability in history.’

‘So many times in history, you’ve seen one thing about to happen and then the opposite happens,’ Roberts mused. ‘These breakthroughs the Russians are having in certain theaters… not major ones so far, but they are fighting with a shell advantage, and that’s because the United States and Europe are not providing the shells.’

‘It’s certainly not inevitable that either the Ukrainians win or lose that war unless, of course, we stopped providing them with the wherewithal to continue to fight,’ he warned. ‘It’s them that are putting up in the blood, huge amounts of it, but simply because Russia is a bigger country does not mean that it’s automatically going to win: If that was the case, you’d have won in Vietnam.’

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.