Zaid Jilani

Thursday

Zaid Jilani

Whither the whistleblower: leakers and leak-hunters get a boost from tech

When Americans think about the word “whistleblower,” their minds may go to the 1970s, when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein began communicating with the informant who came to be known as Deep Throat, after the pornographic film of the same name (their source, a disgruntled FBI official called Mark Felt, outed himself decades later). But the history of whistleblowing in the United States predates Watergate by centuries. “Whistleblowing in this country is not new,” says Jackie Garrick, executive director at the whistleblower-support group Whistleblowers of America.

whistleblower

Thursday

Zaid Jilani

We need to talk about anti-Semitism among the West’s Muslims

I’ve spent a good part of my adult life writing about US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians. To put all my cards on the table, I’m firmly in the camp that the US should adopt a less one-sided policy that puts firm conditions on the military aid that we give to Israel in order to pressure the country to respect Palestinian human rights. But there is a certain trap that a lot of the left tends to fall into when they take sides in conflicts such as these — where you have a weaker party quarreling with a much stronger party.

anti-semitism

Wednesday

Zaid Jilani

When ‘white supremacists’ aren’t even white

If your only source of information is progressive politicians and media, you might think that the Ku Klux Klan had invaded the Bay Area of California and New York City in order to commit crimes against Asian Americans. Democratic lawmakers have been quick to blame former President Donald Trump’s anti-China rhetoric for the violence. A lengthy New York Times op-ed on the topic goes back further, positioning the latest spree of violence as an extension of white mobs in the 19th century brutally assaulting immigrants. The article carefully avoids identifying the ethnic background of the assailants in this year’s attacks. In New York City, hundreds of people marched in a rally that called on the city to 'unite against White nationalism’.

asian