Shane Bauer
@shane_bauer
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Former @motherjones. Author of “American Prison,” one of the NYT’s 10 best books. Writing a book on Americans in the Syrian war. Email me at [email protected]
Joined November 2011
I wrote about the violence of settlers, and the ways the state of Israel supports them in grabbing land, for The New Yorker.
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Statue of Francis Scott Key, slave owner and author of the Star Spangled Banner, toppled in San Francisco.
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This 24-year-old black man gives a moving speech to thank nonviolent protesters who are being arrested in Oakland tonight. Watch the whole thing to see how the police react.
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People just toppled the Junipero Serra statue in San Francisco. Serra founded the first nine Spanish missions in California.
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I keep thinking about how, in 2016, it took me just one day to infiltrate multiple militias via Facebook. Then I drove to one group's temporary military base in the desert, the coordinates of which were posted on Facebook. These people plan everything in the open.
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When I was in the West Bank settlers attacked olive pickers, saying they were Hamas agents. IDF soldiers used the same pretext to stop the harvest. One soldier told me picking olives was a “political act.” A thread on things I saw while reporting for The New Yorker:
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The U.S. just announced sanctions against Neria Ben-Pazi and Moshe Sharvit, two Israeli settlers I recently wrote about for the New Yorker. These are two very dangerous men, but the sanctions conspicuously avoid targeting their Israeli state sponsors. Some thoughts and details:
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To be clear, Serra tortured and imprisoned Native Americans in his drive to convert them to Christianity.
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You’ll notice that a cop asks him for media credentials. She points to a group of us and says, “You see how everyone else has their credentials out?” She points at me. I don’t have media credentials. I was wearing a black hoodie and carrying a skateboard. Then he’s arrested.
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Haha Thailand paper trolling hard, using western media language to describe the US. "The protests began in the small province of Minnesota, located in the agrarian ‘Middle West,’ over the killing of an ethnic minority by state security forces."
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They do that because they are so confident that they won't get into any trouble. In the five days I was undercover on their "base," I saw cops and border patrol praise them. They've been show since well before Trump that they have nothing to worry about.
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After I published my article, the Department of Homeland Security reached out to me and asked if I had any advice about how to infiltrate such groups. (I told them I didn't.) Pretty unbelievable given that all it took was spending a few hours online.
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I remember going to a police convention years ago and they kept saying they needed vehicles like this for terrorists or mass shooters. They’re on our streets for protests now.
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It really is crazy how thoroughly the phrase “I can’t breath” has captured this year.
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Came across this exchange in a court hearing between a lawyer and an FBI agent, trying to work out the difference between boogaloo and juggalos.
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The man is @mikehoustonbk, who is from Brooklyn and lives in Oakland. He’s out and safe. He asked me to post this statement: “What happened to me here is nothing compared to the unlawful murder of George Floyd. They think they can silence us? They’re wrong. BLACKLIVESMATTER!”.
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I went undercover in one of these groups a couple years ago and the Border Patrol directly coordinated with these groups to catch immigrants.
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Today, Mother Jones published my 30,000-word, year-long investigation into America's role in the Syrian civil war. I traveled to the country to track down the CIA, special forces, anarchists, and jihadists who fought there.
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Jarret Tonn, the Vallejo officer who shot Sean Monterrosa while he was unarmed and kneeling, makes almost a quarter million dollars a year. Cops in California are rich.
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Thousands of people broke curfew in Oakland tonight. No cops in sight.
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By targeting just a few individuals, the Biden administration is casting the problem as one of fringe extremists, glossing over the well-documented fact that the state of Israel has been relying on violent settlers to expand its territory in the West Bank.
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At the demonstration today in Damascus, an armed HTS man took the mic. When he spoke against sectarianism and for freedom in Syria, he was met with applause. When he spoke in religious terms, people drowned him out with “Secularism! Secularism!” and “No to Religious Rule!”
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I know everyone is saying we should use this time to be productive in new ways or whatever but maybe we could use it to think about what kind of world we want to live in.
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I witnessed settlers rampage on several occasions. They tended to be young, and usually had soldiers protecting them. It was like watching a coming of age ritual in which they learned that the land was theirs to take with impunity. Here they destroy a house with soldiers watching
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Today I visited Yarmouk camp, which was once the largest Palestinian community outside Palestine. I once lived here, and these streets were full of people. The Assad regime did this. Remember this the next time you hear that the fall of the Assad regime was bad for Palestinians.
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Just watched the Oakland cops pounce on this black couple standing on the sidewalk. #GeorgeFloyd
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One of the things that baffled me most about militias when I infiltrated them in 2016 was how out of shape they were. There were several instances where guys collapsed from walking a few hundred yards. You’d think that training for the coming war would include cardio, but no.
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Olive groves have become dangerous. I went to one with @thabjouqa where a man had been killed a week earlier. IDF soldiers appeared on a hill and pulled weapons on us. I caught some of it on video. One cocked his rifle right after I turned the camera off. It was terrifying.
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Beautiful shrine in Oakland for those who have been killed during the George Floyd uprising.
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Reminder that antifa hasn’t killed anyone. White supremacists in the other hand. .
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I watched young settlers seize a spring from Qaryut. In this video, shot by Bashar Ma’amar, they are destroying the water basin Palestinians used to irrigate crops, again with soldiers nearby. As the days passed, they turned it into a swimming pool, sometimes with snipers above.
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There are bathrooms in San Francisco cafes now that unlock by app. The same people who complain about people defecating on the sidewalks are developing high tech ways to keep them out of toilets.
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I visited a shepherd outpost run by Moriah and Moshe Sharvit. Arabs were not “regular people,” Moriah told me. She said her husband was stopping Palestinians from “stealing” land that was given to the Jews by God. She said their illegal farm was supported by various govt branches
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As I reported, Ben-Pazi was targeted by Israeli authorities in 2015 when he ran an outpost that sheltered Jewish terrorists. Then in 2019, after Netanyahu announced a plan to annex part of the West Bank, the state suddenly started backing him.
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If you think cops are bad, wait till you check out prisons.
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More anarchists and communists died fighting ISIS in Syria than American soldiers. A lot more.
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In one village, settlers left fliers on farmers’ cars. It read, “You wanted war, now wait for the great Nakba. This is your last chance to escape to Jordan in an orderly fashion before we forcibly expel you from our holy lands, which were given to us by God.”
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A cop shot through the windshield of his own car and killed Sean Monterrosa while he was kneeling outside a Walgreens in Vallejo. He was unarmed. This was on Tuesday and they still haven’t told us who the cop is or whether he is facing any consequences.
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Israel allocated land to Ben-Pazi for an illegal outpost within the area targeted for annexation and paid for guards who violently expelled Palestinians from the surrounding land. Senior IDF officers, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, regularly visited his outpost.
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@realDonaldTrump FINALLY a president who knows where Mars ACTUALLY IS!!!!!!!!!!! So tired of the fake news media telling us the moon and Mars are separate.
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The settlers latest land-seizing strategy is through shepherding. They set up illegal outposts, range sheep over a wide area, and attack Palestinians that enter their turf, keeping huge swaths of the West Bank—especially areas eyed for annexation by Israel—empty of Arabs.
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Ben-Pazi coordinated the expulsion of Wadi al-Seeq, starting early in 2023 and finishing the job after October 7. Together, settlers and soldiers threatened, beat, and tortured Palestinians and Israeli activists. They all left and the army has not allowed them to return.
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Vallejo is an example of what can happen to a small city when a police union amasses power--cops kill without consequence, drain the city of funds, and intimidate politicians and lawyers. Sean Monterrosa was just one more victim among many. My latest.
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This is my semi-annual reminder that the US has bombed Syria nearly 20,000 times. Thank you.
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It’s not just fringe extremists glorifying the nakba. Bezalel Smotrich, who oversees the West Bank, wrote, “Zionism was built based on population exchange” including “the exit of masses of Arabs” from Israel. “This historic pattern seems to require culmination.” This is his goal.
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The mayor of Eli, Ariel Elmaliach, took me to the spring. When I asked why they were taking it from Qaryut, he told me, “If you are coming to a new land, and you are now the owner of that land, then you put in that land the rules that you want.”.
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I was surprised how openly settlers likened the current time to 1948, the year 700,000 Palestinians were exiled. David Elhayani, governor of a settler regional council, told me, “The fight of 1948 is the same fight [today] in all of Judea and Samaria”—the fight over land.”.
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The Palestinians from those houses told me after October 7, Moshe Sharvit and his brother showed up with M16s, beat an old man, and told them to leave.
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Since people seem to be wondering, I can report that the bars in Damascus seem to be doing just fine.
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Vallejo police hired outside attorneys to tell me that particular records I requested don’t exist. Thing is, I already have some of them in my possession.
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The rate of these videos coming out is completely overwhelming.
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Through Sharvit and Ben-Pazi, Israel seizes land while avoiding the legal hurdles of starting official settlements. Avi Naim of the Settlement Ministry said “You take people who believe in that goal as a pioneering mission, and let them spearhead the work to keep control of land”.
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Just interrupting the 9/11 stuff to say that on the West Coast, 500,000 people have been displaced by fires in Oregon alone and where I live in California, the air quality index is 240, which means the air outside my window is hazy and it’s dangerous to step outside.
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When I visited the empty community, I ran into Neria Ben-Pazi, the man who organized the expulsion of the Palestinians. He lives there now. A settler publication said his illegal outpost had previously been visited by senior IDF officers and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
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Then Ben-Pazi started more outposts. His lawyer said he had "extensive ties with the security forces." "When an officer wants to know what’s going on, they ask him,” he told me. The head of a settlement told me Ben-Pazi was “keeping the Arabs away. It’s really convenient for me.”.
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Wadi al-Seeq is now a ghost town, and I ran into Ben-Pazi there, living comfortably. He got a new road. Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu spent the night there and tweeted that Ben-Pazi was “the first line of defense against the enemy.”.
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I met Palestinians who Moshe had driven out after October 7. Here his wife shows me their now-empty houses.
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Moriah Sharvit told me the army gave her and her husband M16s. Since 2020, the Sharvits had surveillance cameras on the land surrounding the outpost that were controlled by soldiers at a command center. Then after Oct 7, Moriah said, Palestinians living nearby “just left.”
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A number of Palestinian communities were depopulated before and after October 7. This is Wadi Al-Seeq, which was evacuated by settlers and soldiers on October 12.
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Millions of people in this country would be totally happy with a dictatorship.
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As Avi Naim of the Ministry of Settlement Affairs put it, settlers were helping “prevent Palestinian invasions” of West Bank land. “You take people who believe in that goal as a pioneering mission, and let them spearhead the work to keep control of land,” he said.
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Ten years ago I was in an Iranian prison, trying to ring in the new year with some hooch made from dates and some off-brand xanex we tricked the prison doctors into giving us. Hope tonight is more fun lol.
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I also visited Moshe Sharvit's outpost. His wife Moriah spoke openly about wanting to expel Palestinians. They weren’t “regular people,” she said. “I think we need to give an alternative to the Arabs who live here. There’s Jordan, there’s Egypt, there’s Syria.”.
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The night after our interview at the outpost, a fire was lit in one of the nearby Palestinians’ empty houses.
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The Sharvits had "a gazillion meetings" with government bodies to set up the illegal outpost, Moriah said. The farm acted as "eyes" for the army, she said. The army gave them M16s and set up surveillance cameras on the surrounding land, which it controlled from a command center.
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Investigative journalism can be really exciting, but it can also be really tiresome. In order to to write the clause “mostly-white police force” I spent 2-3 hours looking up every cop on a roster to count how many were white.
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Sean Monterrosa was killed while kneeling Tuesday night by Vallejo PD. He was unarmed, and the cop shot him through this own windshield. At a memorial, his sister Ashley says when they tried to locate his body that night, cops told them “you’ll find out on the news.”
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Even the FBI is worried about the election.
Yesterday as Trump refused to condemn far-right violence, the FBI quietly issued a warning about the threat of far-right extremists, per intel report leaked to me. It identifies the period between presidential election and inauguration as a "flashpoint".
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I feel like all this talk about being unproductive during quarantine is a way for us to avoid looking at the fact that we work too much in normal life and it’s psychologically damaging and unsustainable.
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It’s good that journalists are outraged about police targeting them but it’s good to keep in mind that no one else deserves that treatment by cops either.
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Amazing how when there is a disaster everyone starts basically proposing socialism.
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The military is being deployed in the capital. The president is threatening to deploy the military—beyond the national guard—across the country. It’s happening.
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Also, in response to my undercover investigation on border militias, Homeland Security started an investigation into the Border Patrol’s collaboration with militias. The investigation appeared to have been killed after Trump took office.
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Iran always has American citizens in detention to use as a card against the United States. I was one of them for two years. Currently there are at least two—Michael White and Morad Tahbaz. I guarantee you they aren’t getting any sleep right now.
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Imagine if TV news covered how Jeff Bezos got his 147 billion with the same furver it covers poor people looting.
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This whole game where people try to “get” the US by showing that the YPG and PKK are linked and the other side tries to deny it is silly. The YPG is full of PKK members, but it shouldn’t matter. The real issue is that the PKK is listed as a terrorist organization. It shouldn’t be.
With an open invitation to the @WhiteHouse, these images of Gen. Mazloum (real name: Sahin Cilo) are a bit problematic. 1. Swimming as a teenager w. #PKK founder/leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in #Latakia, #Syria. 2. Sat next to #PKK leader Duran Kalkan, wanted by @StateDept for $3m.
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Evin prison is on fire. Solidarity with the Iranian uprising. Burn it to the ground.
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We could’ve given money to people instead of the banks.
Thousands of cars lined up to collect food in Dallas, Texas, over the weekend, stretching as far as the eye can see.
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Threatening to kill Americans is now an election platform.
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If you are against rioting, say so. But don’t handpick videos from the internet to form a narrative because you are uncomfortable with how people use violence. The “white provocateur” narrative is just the flipside if the “black looter” narrative. Neither capture reality.
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Having spent more than two years in the hellhole that is Evin prison with Iranian activists and revolutionaries, each separated from each other in our own little cells, it is hard to describe the elation of seeing that prison burn.
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Here is the piece which, again, takes place before Trump was elected.
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The problem during the Obama years was that very few people took these militia guys seriously. There were literally several hundred militias in the country and people talked about them like they were some grown up Boy Scouts.
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Remember how many people said that if the left stopped giving these people attention they would go away? Turns out they were after something more than attention.
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Hundreds marching in Oakland to commemorate Erik Salgado, killed on Saturday by California Highway Patrol. CHP unloaded over 40 assault rifle rounds on his car, which they say was one of more than 70 looted from a dealership last week. His pregnant girlfriend was hospitalized.
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If you are an NYT reporter, you should be publically condemning the fact that your paper just published a call to deploy the military on the population. This crosses a line and history will remember.
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Not publishing manifestos clearly isn’t preventing mass shootings. And the performative “I’m not going to publish the manifesto but let me tell you what I think about it” take is annoying and unproductive. We should all have access to this material.
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So Halper and @mtaibbi think, “Hey, we should do a show on Syria for Rolling Stone. Who should we have on to explain? The only person I can really come up with is Max Blumenthal, the guy who has been roundly debunked and discredited by everyone who knows anything about Syria.”.
Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal talks about Syria, The White Helmets & James Le Mesurier in this interview with me & @mtaibbi on our #UsefulIdiotsPod. People can accuse max, me or Matt of bias, but not fact checkers a @RollingStone.
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The Pentagon has spent literal billons to militarize police in recent years. It should be no surprise that this is the result.
“IF YOU DO NOT MOVE, YOU WILL BE DEAD” WALNUT CREEK, CA.
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This is huge. The head of the Vallejo police union has been put on leave for allegedly destroying evidence regarding the shooting of Sean Monterrosa.
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More police ramming protesters with cars.
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Trump👏dramatically👏increased👏bombing👏in👏Afghanistan👏Iraq👏Syria👏Somalia👏and👏Yemen. He is not reluctant to bomb. Stop printing this nonsense.
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