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Partnering with the Israeli Weapons Maker: University of Arizona and Navajo Nation
Photo: Rally for Palestine in downtown Tucson, Monday, Oct. 17, 2023 KOVA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt72UoX72UE
The University of Arizona president spoke out against support for Palestine and a rally was canceled. The university brags about its partnership with Raytheon Missile in Tucson, which provides weapons to Israel.
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News
TUCSON, Arizona -- A Pro-Palestinian rally was canceled after the University of Arizona's president spoke out against it. The university in Tucson brags about its partnership with local Raytheon Missiles, now named RTX Corp., a provider of weapons to Israel. The university not only partners with the weapons maker, but it has a manufacturing plant on the Navajo Nation, where commercial crops are grown.
Raytheon's missile plant on the Navajo Nation was so censored by Indian Country Today, when I was a staff reporter there, that the editors told me not to even research it.
It all happened this way.
A pro-Palestine rally at the University of Arizona was abruptly canceled hours before it was scheduled to take place Thursday after University of Arizona President Robert Robbins released a statement calling it 'antithetical' to the school’s beliefs. The rally, which was planned by the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the UA, was a part of the nationwide organization’s National Day of Action.
The student organization released this statement about blatant hostility and discrimination.
Earlier, the university partnered with the Pope when it ignored and violated Apache beliefs and ceremonies and built the telescopes on sacred Mount Graham. The University of Arizona even went so far as to have Apache Wendsler Nosie arrested for praying there, during the long years of resisting the telescopes on the sacred mountain.
At the same time, while the University of Arizona was receiving millions of dollars in grants designated for Native Americans, the university was researching and producing drones and border surveillance technology -- which ultimately targeted Native Americans on the border, and Indigenous migrants.
The university has further violated federal laws by refusing to return Native Americans' ancestors. The university's museum in Tucson, the Arizona State Museum, has only returned 50 percent of the Native remains it harbors. It has 1,162 remains that it has not returned to O'odham and other Native American Nations, ProPublica reports.
Now, the university boasts that Raytheon Missiles and Defense, RTX, is a longstanding partner with the University of Arizona. The company also is one of the largest tenants at the UA Tech Park at Rita Road since establishing its operations there in 1993. Currently, Raytheon partners with the Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to provide weapons to Israel.
In the end, the deal with Cuba for NAPI's food products fell through.
The Navajo Nation funded a new $4.4 million warehouse on the Navajos commercial farm, to lease to Raytheon Missiles in 2015. The expansion was for the manufacturing of mechanical and electro-mechanical assembly, as well as cabling for numerous defense products.
A few hours ago, Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza, killing doctors and patients.
"Israel just striked Al Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing more than 500 people, including patients and medical staff.
 |
| Al Ahli Hospital Bombed Today by Israel |
"This is genocide backed by the British government, media and weapons manufacturers," Palestine Action just reported.
Doctors around the world said this is a massacre.
Here are articles that I wrote after being censored and terminated at Indian Country Today.
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News (2009)
This week in the news, Indian Country Today celebrated the war manufacturer Raytheon Missiles producing missile parts on the Navajo Nation's commercial farm.
Shortly before I was terminated in 2006, an ICT editor forbid me to expose the fact that Raytheon Missiles was operating on the same land where the Navajo Nation was growing corn and other crops for commercial sale at Navajo Agricultural Products Industry near Farmington, New Mexico.
It was during the same time that NAPI was negotiating a deal with Cuba for the sale of NAPI farm products to Cuba.I wanted to find out what toxins and byproducts might be produced by Raytheon Missiles there, which would endanger the health of people eating the crops, including corn, pinto beans and potatoes, which become commercial food products.
I had been to NAPI before, while I was working for Navajo Times, during the 18 years that I lived on the Navajo Nation.
The Indian Country Today editor forbid me from even researching the matter. (Yes, he put it in writing.)
It comes as no surprise today that ICT is celebrating the missile maker being there on Navajoland.
One of ICT's primary advertisers on the ICT website, with a large ad revolving, has been the CIA Clandestine Services, recruiting for CIA spies, since the fall of 2008.
Advertisers always exert influence over newspapers. Further, the income from advertisers pays at least a portion of the salaries of the reporters and editors.
Native Americans activists, including Louise Benally, Dine' on Big Mountain resisting relocation, point out that the US colonizers indoctrinated Navajos to such an extent in boarding schools and public schools, that they are now manufacturing weapons which ultimately kill other Indigenous Peoples.
Navajo Agricultural Products Industry is located in the same area where the US government sent Dine', Navajos, to their deaths with cancer and respiratory diseases from radiation exposure, during Cold War uranium mining.
It is the same area where Utah Navajos with respiratory diseases have long fought the oil and gas wells around their homes.
It is the same area of the Navajo Place of Origin, Dinetah. Bahe Katenay, Dine' from Big Mountain, spoke out in defense of Dinetah, in northwest New Mexico. Katenay's comments came during the Bush energy exploitation of the land. Katenay opposed extensive oil and gas wells around Dinetah. Katenay was censored by Indian Country Today.
It is the same area where the land, water and air has been mined, desecrated and polluted by both the US government and Navajo politicians.
It is the Four Corners region.
Navajo Corn, Raytheon and Cuba
By Brenda Norrell (2006)
With the Navajo Nation Council considering expanding the Raytheon Missile plant, where the tribe grows corn and potatoes for commercial crops, it is a good time to ponder again why Indian Country Today, where I served as staff writer for the Southwest, demanded that I never write about this.
With the Navajo Nation Council considering expanding the Raytheon Missile plant, where the tribe grows corn and potatoes for commercial crops, it is a good time to ponder again why Indian Country Today, where I served as staff writer for the Southwest, demanded that I never write about this.
It happened this way, in the summer of 2006. When Navajo Agricultural Products Industries, south of Farmington, N.M., announced it was negotiating with Cuba to purchase its food crops, the newspaper asked me to cover it.
I told the editors that I was already researching the Navajo farm (NAPI) and environmental concerns since missile parts were being produced alongside the corn and potatoes.
The Indian Country Today editors demanded that I not write about Raytheon Missiles at NAPI. I asked if I could report this in a separate article. The editors demanded that I not report on this in any article.
The negotiations with Cuba were going on as Castro became ill. (The editors at Indian Country Today became involved in the negotiations, and even went to Cuba in an attempt to broker the deal, which ultimately fell through.)
Meanwhile, Navajo workers at Raytheon on the Navajo farm said their pay was so low, they questioned why the Navajo Nation is investing millions into the Raytheon facility for a small number of low-paying jobs.
Other Navajos question why Navajos are participating in producing missiles and bomb parts, like those for laser-directed bombs. They point out that those missiles and bombs kill Indigenous Peoples, and innocent women and children, in other parts of the world.
My research also led me to Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi, who was pressing for expansion of the Raytheon Missiles plant on the Navajo farm. It turned out that Renzi has a background in military intelligence. It turns out that his father works at ManTech, which provides military intelligence, along with other things, at Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
Fort Huachuca has long been linked to teaching torture practices used in Latin America and more recently at Guantanamo Bay. Two priests were arrested in a peaceful protest there recently over the torture.
The New York Times said Congressman Renzi was under investigation in matters related to the military base and water levels in a nearby river. Further, a Phoenix news service said a federal prosecutor there was recently fired after beginning a probe into Congressman Renzi.
Meanwhile, Renzi was selected co-chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus. Obviously, Renzi has made lots of friends, including some news reporters who write glowing reports. (See related article on this website: San Carlos Apache protest of Renzi censored in 2004.)
Meanwhile, I was terminated just after my research on NAPI and Renzi. About the same time, one of my articles, on Donald Rusmfeld profiteering from the sale of the bird flu medication Tamiflu, was censored and distorted by Indian Country Today editors and turned into an advertisement for Tamiflu. The published article which has my name on it is not the one I wrote.
Also, important to Indian readers, is the fact that one of the managing editors demanded that I stop writing about "grassroots people and the genocide of American Indians."
If it were not for the blogs and the Internet, this bit of history would be lost.
Epilogue
I told the editors that I was already researching the Navajo farm (NAPI) and environmental concerns since missile parts were being produced alongside the corn and potatoes.
The Indian Country Today editors demanded that I not write about Raytheon Missiles at NAPI. I asked if I could report this in a separate article. The editors demanded that I not report on this in any article.
The negotiations with Cuba were going on as Castro became ill. (The editors at Indian Country Today became involved in the negotiations, and even went to Cuba in an attempt to broker the deal, which ultimately fell through.)
Meanwhile, Navajo workers at Raytheon on the Navajo farm said their pay was so low, they questioned why the Navajo Nation is investing millions into the Raytheon facility for a small number of low-paying jobs.
Other Navajos question why Navajos are participating in producing missiles and bomb parts, like those for laser-directed bombs. They point out that those missiles and bombs kill Indigenous Peoples, and innocent women and children, in other parts of the world.
My research also led me to Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi, who was pressing for expansion of the Raytheon Missiles plant on the Navajo farm. It turned out that Renzi has a background in military intelligence. It turns out that his father works at ManTech, which provides military intelligence, along with other things, at Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
Fort Huachuca has long been linked to teaching torture practices used in Latin America and more recently at Guantanamo Bay. Two priests were arrested in a peaceful protest there recently over the torture.
The New York Times said Congressman Renzi was under investigation in matters related to the military base and water levels in a nearby river. Further, a Phoenix news service said a federal prosecutor there was recently fired after beginning a probe into Congressman Renzi.
Meanwhile, Renzi was selected co-chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus. Obviously, Renzi has made lots of friends, including some news reporters who write glowing reports. (See related article on this website: San Carlos Apache protest of Renzi censored in 2004.)
Meanwhile, I was terminated just after my research on NAPI and Renzi. About the same time, one of my articles, on Donald Rusmfeld profiteering from the sale of the bird flu medication Tamiflu, was censored and distorted by Indian Country Today editors and turned into an advertisement for Tamiflu. The published article which has my name on it is not the one I wrote.
Also, important to Indian readers, is the fact that one of the managing editors demanded that I stop writing about "grassroots people and the genocide of American Indians."
If it were not for the blogs and the Internet, this bit of history would be lost.
Epilogue
In the end, the deal with Cuba for NAPI's food products fell through.
The Navajo Nation funded a new $4.4 million warehouse on the Navajos commercial farm, to lease to Raytheon Missiles in 2015. The expansion was for the manufacturing of mechanical and electro-mechanical assembly, as well as cabling for numerous defense products.
A few hours ago, Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza, killing doctors and patients.
"Israel just striked Al Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing more than 500 people, including patients and medical staff.
|
| Al Ahli Hospital Bombed Today by Israel |
"This is genocide backed by the British government, media and weapons manufacturers," Palestine Action just reported.
Doctors around the world said this is a massacre.
Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News. Content may not be used without written permission.
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