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FFormer House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has come under fire for suggesting that some pro-Palestinian activism in the United States is part of a foreign influence operation.
On Sunday, the California Democratic representative said she would like the FBI to investigate possible Russian connections and financing behind American calls for an armistice in the war between Israel and Hamas.
Answering a question on CNN state of the union about growing anger among Democrats, particularly young people and arab americansOn the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict, Pelosi said: “What we have to do is try to stop the suffering in Gaza… But for them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message.”
“Make no mistake, this is directly related to what he would like to see,” Pelosi continued. “I think some of these protesters are spontaneous, organic and sincere,” he warned. “I think some are connected to Russia. And I say this after having looked at this for a long time, as you know.”
Asked by CNN correspondent Dana Bash to clarify whether she thought some protests were “Russian plants,” Pelosi responded: “Seeds or plants; I think some financing should be investigated, and I want to ask the FBI to investigate that.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has openly opened blamed the United States and the West for the crisis in Gaza, and experts say he is trying to take advantage of the widespread reaction to the increasing number of victims among Palestinians to Countering America’s global influence..
Pelosi, however, appears to be the first and highest-ranking U.S. official to publicly claim that Russia, which the U.S. intelligence community says meddled so much in the 2016 and 2020 presidential election, is actively trying to divide the Democratic Party base through the American pro-Palestinian movement ahead of the 2024 elections in November.
Read more: What Russia hopes to gain from the conflict between Israel and Hamas
Adding to his accusations of Russian influence, in a video Posted by anti-war group Code Pink on X on Monday, Pelosi can be seen telling activists outside her home in October to “go back to China, where your headquarters is.”
Like Russia, China, which has called for a ceasefire but generally maintains a strategically ambiguous stance about the war between Israel and Hamas, has been accused of using the war to undermine the US
Last August, the New York Times reported links between Code Pink and Beijing. The investigation concluded that the group, which also opposes US funding and arms supplies to Ukraine, “is part of a generously funded influence campaign that defends China and pushes its propaganda.” (The GOP-led House Natural Resources Committee Announced in November that it was conducting ongoing monitoring of the tax-exempt nonprofit’s possible connections to the PCC).
Code Pink said in a statement on Monday that he “vehemently condemns” Pelosi’s comments. “It is an egregious insinuation that those activists who want to end the genocide in Gaza are acting as agents of a foreign state,” the group said. “Such a statement not only undermines the fundamental principles of American democracy but also constitutes a slanderous attack.”
Pelosi also drew condemnation from other advocacy groups and political observers. in a statement On Sunday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations called Pelosi’s comments a “baseless smear.”
“Reps. Pelosi’s claim that some of the Americans protesting a ceasefire in Gaza are working with Vladimir Putin sounds delusional and her call for the FBI to investigate those protesters without any evidence is downright authoritarian,” said the CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad.
Waleed Shahid, left-wing strategist and former spokesperson for progressive Democrats, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, described Pelosi’s comments about X are “unacceptable misinformation spread by the Democratic Party’s most powerful leaders about the positions of the vast majority of Democratic Party voters.” He aggregate: “Foreign adversaries will exploit each and every division. But the job of a politician is to heal the division, not to further criminalize Arabs and Muslims.”
The United States has a long and unpleasant history of using law enforcement to monitor and suppress anti-war activism, from Vietnam to Iraq.
Former Democratic congressional candidate and head of the progressive PAC Rebellion, Brianna Wu, offered a more charitable interpretation, saying in a mail in X that Pelosi’s choice of words “was not excellent” but also that “information warfare does not invent new divisions. “It finds existing divisions and exacerbates them.”
“Since Putin wants Trump to win, he will obviously fund efforts to divide the Democratic Party,” he continued. “Why is it so shocking that Pelosi wants credible allegations investigated?”
Pelosi’s office issued a statement to the media on Monday: “As Speaker Pelosi said on CNN, we need to focus on stopping the suffering in Gaza, and she will continue to demand that all hostages be released now. Speaker Pelosi has always supported and defended the right of all Americans to make their opinions known through peaceful protests. Informed by three decades on the House Intelligence Committee, Speaker Pelosi is well aware of how foreign adversaries meddle in American politics to sow division and impact our elections, and she wants to see more investigations before the US election. 2024.”
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