you know, an attempt to declense the Palestinians from their land, to exact another Nakba on the Palestinians there. In conjunction, we find that there are this massive attempt now, worldwide, mainly in the Western world, to intimidate and silence all voices for Palestine and for Palestinian rights, not only Palestinian voices, but all voices, whether Jewish voices, Christian voices, whatever background is, you know, they're all being targeted. Now, if you read about, you know, in the right wing media, even in some of the liberal outlets going after Black Lives Matter, just because they stated their support for Palestinian rights, you know, suddenly you have some of their former allies who are coming out against them, attacking them for standing with the Palestinian rights. Same thing is happening with us, whether as a community or as an organization. Now, while our people are being now dehumanized in Palestine, now we're being delegitimize, or there are these attempts to delegitimize our voices here to marginalize us, you know, whenever we were called by the media to comment on the events on Gaza, the first question you're asked always, do you condemn Hamas? Do you condemn what happened on October 7th? And if you try to just explain the context now, it's not that I'm taking a position for Oregon, that's not my issue here now. If you try to contextualize what is taking place there, you're suddenly accused of being terrorist apologists.  But for the other side, they never face these voices, they never face the same harsh and, you know, tough questions, the same accusations in terms of supporting genocide. But in the case of the Palestinians, no, you're supporting genocide because already they ruled that what happened on October 7th is a genocide. So we see this is now happening not only to organizations like ours, like AMP, but also we've seen it happen, happening now with some members of Congress. Rashida Tlaib, I guess, was censored today or they're voting on it today, but it's going to happen. That's some other members of Congress now are being threatened with primaries and by opponents who are well funded by APAC and they're coming very clear about it. You know, one of the most absurd things that I've heard, you know, the group of Jewish voices for peace who went inside Congress to demonstrate what Congress is doing, the Congress support for Israel, were accused Hamas insurrectionists, you know, comparing them to those who occupied and who invaded the Congress on January 6th, 2021. So we see these attempts now to silence all of our voices. One of the issues now we're dealing with is the this Savina by the Virginia Attorney General, who unfortunately issued a statement and the Savina that are, you know, defamatory and dangerous accusing us of supporting terrorism, although there is no substance into it. And imagine if you accuse of supporting terrorism, you would imagine that there is a criminal indictment, not a civil indictment, but everyone knows that this is a political partial and everyone knows that this is has no merit and no substance. But again, someone who's who's looking for his political fortunes, our our event in Chicago, our convention and the unique thanks given was canceled by the hotel because the hotel received so many threats. Care had to deal with the same issue. Arab Americans, even Christian Americans, had to deal with the same issue in in Orlando, in Arizona, in Houston. Our organizers, you've talked about the students and what they're facing now in in schools. All of that is happening. All of the fueling of Islamophobia, including by the president himself, when he used a debunked lie about beheaded Israeli children, is fueling Islamophobia that accumulated in the murder of a Palestinian American child, six years old in Chicago. And yet no one is talking about Islamophobia other than another stunt by this administration to announce that they're launching a new committee to investigate and to combat Islamophobia while the administration is the driving force or one of the driving forces of Islamophobia now with the media or so-called mainstream media. So no one is talking about it, but everyone is accusing those who go and demonstrate for Palestinian rights, demanding an immediate and complete ceasefire, demanding a humanitarian aid. No one is defending Hamas and no one is speaking for Hamas and Hamas doesn't have an extension here. But still, since even with these demonstrations, these rallies that come from different backgrounds, intersectional movement that is coming together to speak out for against the American support, blind support for the Israeli atrocities are called Hamas sympathizers, our use of fueling Islam, anti-Semitism, while you have a good percentage of those who are demonstrating and those who are speaking out Jewish are Jewish themselves. So this shows you that it's unfortunate that we're dealing with this environment, including some resolutions in the House and the Senate to condemn anti-Semitism. But the way I looked at it and I want to conclude with this is that the reason why they're going after our voices and they're trying to silence us is because they see because they know that we're affected, that things have shifted. The trajectory is going upward in terms of the support of our Palestinian rights in the past 10, 13 years. So there is that change that is taking place to the point where now more Democrats or at least back to March 16, 2023, as in the Gallup study, the Gallup poll that showed that more Democrats now are sympathizers with the Palestinians as opposed to Democrats sympathizing with Israel 49 to 38. So they see the shift and they see the shift even more mostly within the younger generations, the youth. Even now, you know, some of the public opinion has shifted a little bit on the Palestinian rights because of the way the media is portraying the issue, the one-sided media, but still to their amazement that younger generations, the younger generation is still more supportive of the Palestinian rights to the point where you had one poll by Harvard that showed that 48 percent of Gen Z's are more supportive sympathetic to Hamas than to Israel. Now, 48 as opposed to 52, 52 with Israel. But we're not talking about Palestinian now, we're talking about Hamas, who's being demonized, you know, compared to ISIS in our media. Still, you find 48 percent of the Gen Z's are sympathetic with Hamas, not the Palestinians. But if you ask what about who's about the sympathies with the Palestinians as opposed to Israel, you'll find that the numbers within the numbers are in favor of the Palestinians. So this shows you why they're going after our voices because they know that the future belongs to us if we continue to invest right and to work effectively while they belong to the past, they still may have some holds, they may still have a hold on the present, but they know that the future is not working in their favor because the younger generations are pivoting away, they're moving away from this propaganda machine orchestrated and fueled by our mainstream media. So I think that's why they're going after our voices. Well, that's why they're trying to delegitimize and censor us. It's because they know that we are effective and with all of the support Israel now is enjoying with with the establishment fully behind Israel, still you see cracks within the administration and the cracks in Congress now because time has changed and they want to make sure that this does not reach the point where it will affect policy here. And that's our challenge is to make sure that this will translate into impacting policy here in the United States. Thank you so much. Dr. Osama Agourashati is the executive director of American Muslims for Palestine. I'm so sorry to hear about the pressure coming down from above in Virginia, but we know that there will be lots of pushback in the other direction and the hotels are certainly a challenge. I recently read a data for progress poll that 80% of Democrats want a ceasefire. 66% overall, the US public surveyed want a ceasefire. So we see this tremendous disconnect between what the US public wants and what Congress is intent on funding. And so the pressure we need to keep up with the with the pressure and please do stay with us for the rest of the call. During our capital calling party, we'll be calling our representatives to again say we want you to sign on to a ceasefire resolution and vote no on more weapons for Israel. The 14 billion that President Biden wants. And I don't know if you heard, but the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal, they sent a letter to every member of Congress, putting them an unnotice, basically warning them that a vote for the supplemental for more weapons for Israeli genocide could lead to legal liability as accomplices to genocide before the International Criminal Court. And on Thursday, during the global shutdown for Palestine, and we have some information on that, we'll take a look at that later, with actions across the country in my hometown, we'll be taking the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide to our Congressman's office to put him unnoticed as well. That's Salud Karbihal. All right, now we're going to go to our next guest. I would like to introduce the Executive Director for Social Care, the Council on American Islamic Relations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Zahra Bilu. This care chapter is the oldest one in the organization. Since joining it in 2009, Zahra has led the organization through a period of six-fold growth. Yay. Today, she manages one of the largest care offices in the country with a team of civil rights and social justice advocates dedicated to the empowerment of American Muslims through legal services, legislative advocacy, and community organizing. Welcome, Zahra. Zahra. Thank you so much, Marcy, for having me. I'm honored to share space with all of you in this really difficult one month milestone of the Israeli escalation of violence, violence targeting Palestinians, in particular those in Gaza. So, so grateful to hear from Dr. Osama Burshid. American Muslims for Palestine is one of my favorite organizations. It was through them that I went to Palestine a number of years ago and saw for myself what was happening on the ground. A reminder I offer frequently to people who support the cause of Palestine is that it's important to send money abroad to support relief efforts, but it's also so important to ensure that we are funding advocacy work in the United States because it is our policymakers that are the source of the problem. And then Marcy and Medea, just huge fans. We were talking at CARE yesterday about how you both and Code Pink, in particular, just you are the role models for, for lack of better words, for disruption of everyday normalcy. The fact that you get louder when they try to arrest you is something that inspires all of us. And so thank you for leading the way and being the light when it comes to the necessary civil disobedience now and for so many years. We're what we're looking at right now. And I was talking to someone about this earlier today. Is if we were to compare this period of targeting of Muslim and pro-Palestine activists in the United States, the closest comparison we can come to is the post 9 11 era, about a week before everything began on September 30th. I was talking to and hearing from our research team at CARE National. And it was the first time in 28 years that CARE was reporting a decrease in complaints of Islamophobia. We had actually seen a decline. We were hopeful. This is September 30th. We are sitting in the San Francisco Bay Area saying the numbers are down. And this is really good. It means that Muslims feel more included. They feel more welcome in spaces. And that overall hate, hate based targeting is down. Everything changed on October 7th as many of us found hope in seeing Palestinians break free from the world's largest open air prison. Many of our fellow Americans revealed their genocidal tendencies. I don't want to say that they became genocidal. I think that they actually revealed their genocidal tendencies and their willingness to give a blank check to ethnic cleansing overnight. We have documented now an over 200 percent increase in complaints of Islamophobic incidents. I'll repeat that and over 200 percent increase. And that's just who is coming forward. That's just who's complaining about anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian sentiment in terms of what we're seeing. We immediately saw schools and school boards get this wrong. The worst example of this in my experience has been Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest school district in the country putting up an Israeli flag on its website, followed by superintendents and principles making statements across that district that were really problematic. We received those complaints from parents and from students. And repeatedly, what they said is that we don't feel safe at school. This is giving permission to our teachers and to other students to bully and harass us across the country. We've seen problematic actions at all levels. Pre-October 7th, we were already reporting that Muslim students experienced bullying at twice the national average. So imagine what it's been like in October. At workplaces, we also saw a flood of one-sided statements. Most major technology companies, and I speak from sitting in the Silicon Valley where that's our biggest employment sector, but we saw this across the board at hospitals. We saw it in the big five financial firms. We saw it at law firms and we saw it at technology companies. Companies saying that they stand with Israel. Nobody asked them what their position on foreign policy was. Nobody asked them to comment on Israel or Palestine. And here, within days of the escalated Israeli aggression in Gaza, we saw companies issuing these one-sided statements. We saw several technology companies pledge money and employee match contributions to Israeli charities. And the result of that was that Muslims and pro-Palestine voices at workplaces felt isolated, felt targeted. We've seen complaints, we've received complaints of people being terminated from their workplaces or suspended from their workplaces. So we've seen both. Sometimes for pro-Palestine speech that they engaged in in the workplace and other times for speech or action that they engaged in outside of the workplace. The most visible examples we've seen of this have actually been with law students. There were several on the East Coast who had their law firms rescind their job offers from them. And so you run into this question of what speech is protected in the workplace? Organizing speech is union speeches. But if you're just speaking out for Palestine, it may or may not be. And there's going to be a number of test cases that arise from that. But the consequences that people are afraid of speaking out in the workplaces. We've seen, I'll talk to two last types. The third we've received reports of is people who are being visited by the FBI. This is not surprising. Law enforcement traditionally follows foreign policy when it comes to who they will target and how they will do that targeting. I remember I was aghast when the Arab Spring happened and people who had ties to countries where there were democratic uprisings were being visited by the FBI at their homes in their workplaces and asked, do you know anything about what's going on? So we've received a number of those complaints from the East Coast as well. We worry that there will be more as activism increases and sustains, in fact. But also as Palestinians come back into the United States, that the FBI may visit them to ask them, what do you think about what's happening in Gaza? What are your thoughts on Hamas? And the list goes on. I'll note here. I mean, I'll note here. If you're visited by law enforcement and you didn't call them, please call a lawyer. That is the absolute necessary thing to do.  Do not speak to law enforcement without counsel present. The last thing I'll note in terms of the types of complaints we've received are complaints of Islamophobia on the streets, protests and in every day interactions. And this has come up in a lot of different ways. So people have complained about how they have felt as they've seen just the plastering of pro-Israel messaging on billboards and light poles and telephone poles across their neighborhoods. They've also complained of being yelled at and harassed on the street. There have been a lot of questions about safety going to protests. And I recall very directly that in the first week this was happening and it remains the case, mosques had to increase their security. Right. The big question of if we are seeing violence on the street and we are seeing hate crimes with individuals being attacked, then when hundreds, if not thousands of Muslims are gathering in one place, we need to make sure that they are they are safe. And so the spread is wide. But that is what we are working on at care. We are working around the clock, supporting protests, participating in the advocacy efforts, working to place people from Palestine in front of the TV cameras so that it's not unrelated people or uncredentialed experts, but actually people with the experience and then responding to an over 200 percent increase in complaints of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian activity at school, at work, in interactions with law enforcement and, of course, just in daily interactions when it comes to hate crimes and hate incidents. I'll leave you with one request for everyone on this call is report everything if it makes you feel unsafe, if it is intimidating, if you are being targeted for your identity, ethnic or national, your religious beliefs or your political beliefs, report it, report it to care, report it to Palestine legal and report it to anyone else that is tracking it. Let the lawyers and the researchers do the job of determining what is and is not an actionable complaint. We want to make sure that we're documenting everything. When I say 200 percent, that doesn't account for the people who aren't calling and helping, but instead are suffering quietly and we want to make sure that we are lifting up your stories and your data to make the very necessary argument that our government dehumanizes Palestinians in Palestine, that that violence is not limited to international borders, but will, in fact, come home to report it. So is. Thank you so much. What an eloquent presentation and informative one as well. Zahra Delushi is the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, the San Francisco chapter. And we will all remember, don't talk to law enforcement if they knock on the door and ask about your politics and Palestinian rights, your protest activity. Don't talk to them. Talk to a lawyer and report everything. Sage advice, so thank you for that. Our next guest, I'm very honored to introduce a long time. Code Pink supporter, Laura Sheehy, is an assistant professor of clinical psychology at George Washington University's professional psychology program, where she is the founding faculty director of the Psychoanalysis and the Arab World Lab. Lara's work takes up decolonial and anti-oppressive approaches to psychoanalysis with a focus on liberation struggles in the global South. After Stand With Us, SWU, a pro-Israel group understatement named only her in a discrimination complaint against the university with the U.S. Department of Education, the American Psychoanalytic Association barred Lara from speaking on a panel titled Psychotherapy in Conditions of War. Following an exhaustive third party investigation, the university exonerated Lara of all wrongdoing. So honored to have you with us tonight for this program censorship. Viva, Palestinian. Welcome, Lara Sheehy. Thank you so much, Marcy, and thank you, Maria and Code Pink, for all your work and Osama and Zahraiyatikun Al-Fafi. Thank you so much, all of you. So I'm going to just speak briefly about my case, but really I want to make the sort of larger point that my colleagues here have also made that what we are seeing right now has a, you know, a long runway, as they say, there has been decades and decades and decades of work that has caused this moment and has allowed for forces and for the United States government to come through and turn what once was we can call boutique cases by pro-Israel advocacy groups into a campaign of state repression. And I think this is what we're seeing right now and why it's so important for us to get behind protecting students, faculty, academics and everybody on campuses, our campuses have turned into, have always been. We know under fascist times that it's intellectuals and campuses that sort of get targeted first, but right now our campuses really are a place of contestation and we need to rally everything we have behind, particularly our students who are leading the way and sort of as always in showing their voices. And as Osama said, sort of really imagining a new world and a new future for us all. And so I, you know, my case is a textbook in many ways. In last October, I had a preeminent feminist Palestinian scholar who also has Israeli citizenship come and give inaugural talk for the second house is in the Arab World Lab. Her name is Nadira Shalhub Kavirkyan, who incidentally also in the so-called democratic state of Israel is being repressed, not allowed to speak and have from, have heard from very reliable Israeli sources that the Department of Education in Israel has put pressure on the president of Hebrew University where she works and pressured the rector to intimidate her and try to fire her and make her leave Hebrew University. So if we think that this is just in the United States, it's anybody anywhere. This is somebody with an with Israeli citizenship. So our ideas about who has rights and where they where they work is really on display right now for us all. So Nadira spoke to us and spoke about Israeli mental health washing. We've all heard of pink washing by the Israeli state and I'm a clinician and many of us are concerned that there is also mental health washing where states like Israel, for example, in parallel to USAID might come in on a scene of a crisis and use that as an opportunity to normalize to sort of really and there are Israeli academics who have worked on this to really push this estate agenda. And this was her position is that we should not as mental health clinicians, we should be very careful, especially in times of crisis, not to support any state interventions and sort of launder programs or propaganda about states in the name of mental health and really be coercive in times of crisis for people. Following that, there were several movements in the department, students complaining of anti-Semitism. This was adjudicated on the level of my department, on the level of the deans. But that wasn't enough. So when January rolled around, stand with us filed a complaint with the Department of Education. And this is where it's really important for us. The way I found out about this was through a right wing, quote unquote, news source, instead of releasing this to the Department of Education, they released this to a right wing news source and they redacted everybody's name except mine, which, of course, we understand what that means is a well oiled machine within 24 hours. There was a massive smear campaign that was a global smear campaign. Once me, I've received death threats. My partners received death threats.  This was a very quick and very well oiled machine, as I'm saying. So in a move that we had not seen prior, George Washington University preempted the Department of Education in adjudicating this and hired a third party investigator to investigate the claims based on pressure from outside sources, of course, stand with us as a right wing organization works with multiple sort of shell organizations to astroturf and demand certain movement. And this is the reason why, for example, JVP Healthcare Advisory Council wrote a letter for me. The Middle East Studies Association Academic Freedom wrote a letter for me. There was 2,500 people across the world signing letters because all of us were concerned about the backdooring of fascism, especially in clinical psychology and, in this case, in psychoanalysis based on what was happening, how quickly this was moving. This, as Marcy noted, this was a comprehensive third party investigation, of course, stand with us and their supporters were incredibly happy at the beginning and said, see, this is why she's actually guilty because there's no way that George Washington University would expend this much money under tight, we know how tight university belts have been, especially during COVID, there's no way they would spend this much money to do this unless we knew. Well, after three months, including eyewitness accounts from multiple students, including comprehensive interviews with faculty, with administrators, the third party investigator, which is an internationally renowned firm that also has an Israel practice in it and an anti-boycott legislation practice in it. Hardly in my favor for the first time ever released a legal document that underlined that not only had they found me entirely without fault, but that stand with us had fabricated, decontextualized and completely misled in terms of what they represented, what actually happened in the classroom and in the in the brown bag that Nadir Shahrub Karukyan had presented. More than that, they went further and said that equating anti-Israel or sort of the critique of Israel with anti-Semitism would be an encroachment on academic freedom, which is where we find ourselves right now. Of course, the second this came out, stand with us, that was once happy immediately turns around and says, this was a sham investigation. These were hired investigators. This was GW's lawyers. I can assure you myself three months of being iced out and having to go through an investigation that was truly felt like legal proceedings, that this was in no way a sham investigation, but it just shows the agility with which their positions shift shows us what the actual intent was. The intent is to harm worse than this. What we have seen, especially in psychoanalysis, as Marcy mentioned, I was barred from speaking at the American Psychoanalytic Association. This is an association that I've held leadership positions in, in which I've sat on the program committee for and in one fell swoop, barred me entirely from speaking, which goes against their entire due process. Nobody was notified. Many high profile psychoanalysts resigned as a case of this. It was it was noted that this was discriminatory in nature and that it was because of my politics, my race, my ethnicity, that this was happening. What we find out and what is very concerning is that there are external players that are infiltrating fields and making these sort of giving playbooks to folks and making, putting pressure on organizations. This is happening again right now with the with the president of the American Psychological Association, who now has a Change.org petition against her to remove her for something she didn't even she didn't even say, right, because the APA sent out a report and said they condemned Hamas, of course, but then also for the first time in the history of the APA, mentioned Palestinians and mentioned anti-Arab hate. And and this sort of full submission is what these right wing organizations are looking for. I'll say one just a couple of last things here. I'm not sure if if many of you have already seen, but there's a wonderful forensic expose in the nation by James Bamford talking about how these campaigns are actually coordinated by the Israeli government that worked with a side group called as an Israeli psychological war firm firm. As he as he notes with close connections to the Mossad, it's called Project Butterfly and the proposal as outlined by them is an espionage outline and including operations within, quote, the theater of action, which is the United States, right? And so there is billions of dollars going into these clandestine operations, targeting. And part of what they say is their purpose is to, quote, damage specific Americans and US organizations associated with the boycott movement, developing ways to disrupt their activities, lead them to be falsely investigated by the authorities and run a hidden media influence campaign against them. So it's secret internal operations plan includes executing intelligence and influence efforts and an infrastructure for narrative warfare, alter alternative messaging and negative platforms. And what does that mean? It means they create fake news outlets. They actually create fake news, Facebook personas posts. This is bots. They have a sort of a bot place where they generate hits. They generate emails to universities. They generate emails to administrators. So my case, if anything we can see is not is quite ordinary, but we are moving into the place where now this is becoming with the help of Biden and the federal government has become a state operation. And that's the place where we really need to be concerned right now, especially as we move towards full blown fascism and why I think it's really important for us to be to know every single case. The last thing I will say is that I'm in close contact with folks across Palestine and I cannot underscore how important it is for them to see people show up in the streets to see events like this. People it gives them hope. Those within the 1948 borders of the state now known as Israel are not allowed to post. They're not allowed to say anything. They're not allowed to like anything, but they're watching and they're seeing. And it really means the world to everyone. So if you feel tired, just remember that and please do keep up the pressure. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Lara. Sheeha. Wow. You know, we know we see the the hotels, we hear about the hotels canceling. We hear about students being investigated, but we don't always have an inside view of what's going on in the field of clinical psychology, and it does make a lot of sense that if you wanted to manufacture consent for ethnic cleansing, that would be a place you would focus on the narrative infiltrating psychology departments and silencing voices of dissent. We're so sorry about all that you had to contend with, but very relieved that after this exhaustive investigation, all was cleared and stand with us is not happy. Oh, dear. OK, all right, let's go to our next speaker. Medea will introduce her. Yes, this is our last speaker, and then we'll have a quick Q&A and take action. And I'm very excited to introduce our friend from Belgium, Sittkin Van Melen, who is works for a wonderful peace group in Belgium called Brede in support of the Palestinian struggle for liberation campaign to boycott, divest and sanction Israel. And we thought it would be good to talk to her. She has also been to Gaza about the censorship throughout Europe that's happening. We don't have much time, Sittkin, so I hope we can cover this quickly, but we do want it to be clear that this is not only happening here in the United States. So thank you so much for joining us. Can you unmute? Yeah. Hello, everybody. Thank you for staying up for me. And thank you for everybody's very interesting presentations and good work. I was asked to say a few things about the protests in solidarity with the Palestinians in Europe and also about the attempts to block or criminalize them, which is, as Midia says, something that also happens in the democratic states of Europe. But the European Union in foreign affairs is absolutely not a union. So there are a lot of differences in the different states. So I'm just going to focus on the ones where this censorship or these attempts to block protests are the worst or the most common. And that's the UK, Germany and France. And I think the ban that on protests, street protests that have been going on in France is the most known because it was in the international press. But first of all, before I say something about these protests and these bans, it's important to say that the reaction of European leaders after the center of October was different than during previous flare ups or wars in Gaza or Israeli operations in Gaza, because this time they were much more vocal and much more explicit in their support for Israel. Before they were always very stressing, we don't want any escalation and we are for a two state solution. Now everybody was keen to say how they were very much in solidarity with Israel and thought they had the right to defend themselves. And I think this also, the fact that in the first 10 days after the attack of Hamas, I think the heads of states of France, the UK, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, they all flew physically to Tel Aviv to show their solidarity. So this is basically very different than previous times. And I think it has also shrunk the space to be in solidarity with the Palestinians. And then, especially in those three countries. But in spite of that, there's plenty of protests in Europe. They're going on from the beginning in Belgium and four days after the attack, we were in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with 3,000 people. 10 days later, we were 40,000 people in Brussels. And this has been going on in the whole of Europe and has been growing because, of course, the atrocities are getting worse and the massacre keeps on going and people are incredibly angry and yeah, they feel the need to go out. Also, people that are quite not political and have no strong opinions on Israel, Palestine, have no knowledge specifically about the situation, but just feel that this is so inhumane. And so they feel the need to show this. So yeah, I have to make it short. So in France, they had the Minister of Foreign Affairs put out a directive to ban all street protests, pro-Israelan street protests. Now, in foreign press, this has been reported as a general ban that is enforceable, but actually he doesn't have the power to do that. It's like in the US, I assume, in these democratic European countries that every demo has to be checked case per case and by the local administrative prefectures, prefectures in France. So there have been bans, but there also have been authorized protests in France and there have been bans upturned by the courts because people immediately go to court when there's a ban. And especially in Paris, they have been waiting a long time. The first legal demo in France was now the fourth, while there was also the huge demo in Washington. And there were 60,000 people, which was the first legal one. OK, so but it just they can't it just not tenable anymore to keep on pushing for these bans.  And also the actual politicians, a lot of leaders in Spain and Belgium are getting really uncomfortable and are really condemning Israel. And in Spain, the ministers have used the term genocide. So it's it's just not tenable anymore to do that. Then in comparison, Germany, I want to just say something very short about Germany, Germany, because that's a very special case, because they have like this. Yeah, it's like a cult of guilt that has been perpetuated for already several years, and they have this thing that in the name of coming to terms with their past, they are incredibly, incredibly sensitive to anything that can be perceived as anti-Semitic as the perpetrators of the Holocaust, of course. And so the thing is that in Germany, anything that is pro-Palestinian is almost automatically seen as anti-Semitic. So the space is very, very small to to say anything. This is something that goes over the whole political spectrum there that the media, the mainstream media is also very sensitive about. And so there, there have also been bans. It's the same system as in France. It's case per case, but it's not new. They have been doing this for years. So but now, of course, it gets into the news. But for instance, last year, all the NACBA commemoration actions or events were all banned in Germany. So this is something that is really, really common there. And the thing is that because of this special situation with this also very ingrained in the actual population of German, the German population, it is, yeah, it's like a self-censure in a way. I mean, in the end, last weekend, they finally in Berlin also had a illegal protest, but there were 11,000 people. This is a capital of a huge European country. But that is considered one of the biggest protests, pro-Palestinian protests in the history of Germany. So this is a specific situation in Germany. They're also like there's a very famous football player in the top league of Germany that got kicked out of his team for having a pro-Palestinian post. They have now on the 2nd of November, the Ministry of the Interior Ministry has forbidden Samidun, which is like a Palestinian network, international solidarity network for Palestinian political prisoners. They have just banned this there. It's not legal anymore. They can't do any activities. So there it is very heavy, the censorship. And then you have maybe the OK, where there are no bans. But I think from what I read and see, is maybe more comparable with the situation in the US, where you have a very biased, just like in Germany, mainstream media. And you have in the political spectrum also and the government is very pro-Israel, but also then labor, the current leader of labor is also quite very pro-Israel. There's been people getting kicked out of the labor party for saying things, doing things, people have stepped out of the labor party as a protest for the labor leadership being so pro-Israel. So but there are no bans. It's more so the street protests are all allowed. And actually it's the government that is pressuring the police because also there is the same system. The police decides crashing the police to ban now for the first time a big pro-Palestinian rally because it's going to be on the 11th, which is arms this day, which is like a very big deal in the UK. And so but the Metropolitan Police already said we are not going to be put let us be put under pressure by the politicians. There is no reason not to ban this demo. So it's going to. So the thing is maybe just to finish, there's a growing movement. There's lots of protests. They keep on going. And I think that I mean, it is very important just as the previous speaker said that we keep on going in the streets, I'm also in contact with people in Gaza. And for them, it is really, really important just to know that they're not standing alone. So maybe if you think what can I do when my government doesn't listen to me? Just this is so important, this show of solidarity. So, yeah, I'll finish here. Thank you so much. Second, Van Milen, she is with Verde, a Belgian peace organization. It's great to get an overview of what's going on in Europe and to know that governments can say you can't march or you can't protest. But if people do it anyway, I don't know what power the government has. Right. We're going to jail everybody. I don't think so. So that's encouraging. Germany is a whole other story. And I'm glad to hear that people were out in Berlin, I think you said as well. So we're going to spend the next five to ten minutes taking some questions and having some back and forth and then go to our Capitol Calling Party. Do please stay with us, because we will be making those very important phone calls to Capitol Hill to our representatives to say, sign on to Rashida Tlaib ceasefire resolution or introduce your own in the Senate. And don't you dare vote for that 14 billion dollars for Israeli genocide. Horrific. All right, Medea, first question. Well, Osama, I know that we've brought up on this call that mentioned Rashida Tlaib, and I think the vote is going to be tomorrow on the censorship. But, you know, she is one of the few. And we know there's a couple of others. I just ran into Summer Lee and Jamal Bowman today, who said how attack they have been or they are by APAC groups that wanting to take them out in the next elections. So given that you have the congressional lobbying day tomorrow and yet there is so much opposition to these few courageous people, all Democrats, not one Republican who have spoken out. What suggestions do you have about how we can support them better? I mean, number one is to keep the pressure on our members of Congress. And I applaud you for your efforts to keep that pressure on and to call members of Congress, because if we're seeing cracks now within Capitol Hill, we're seeing it on the other side, not on the side of the few who are standing with Palestinian rights, the few are still, you know, speaking out for the Palestinian rights, still, you know, advocating against the support that the US is providing to the Israeli genocide. But now on the other side, we see members from the Democrats, members of the Democrats or the also establishment Democrats like Dick Durbin, Chris Murphy. I know in a few days there will be a letter coming out from some members of the House, some of which of whom were supporters of the Palestinian rights. But unfortunately, this time chose not to be to stand unprincipled. I've seen some letters coming or being suggested now, they're being circulated. That's going to come out in a few days, maybe tomorrow after tomorrow, where they call straight forward forward for for for a ceasefire. So I think the cracks are happening in the other camp with all of the divisions that we're seeing now within the the Biden campaign. We're hearing about this generational gap that generational shift where you have the youngest are more are very critical or where the Biden administration is standing on the situation. And as we've heard about other divisions within the State Department, within USAID, within Congress. So I think that this pressure is is paying off. And we have to continue that pressure. We have to continue also to show support to members, to the few members of Congress, who are taking a lot of heat. Honestly, I don't know if I can be a she that live or Cody Bush. I don't know if I can be them. You know, the amount of pressure, the threats that they're receiving, the intimidation, the insults. I mean, it takes a lot of courage, a lot of courage to continue to stand forward, you believe, believe in and to continue to defend what is what is right. So I think not only to call our members of Congress who are standing on the wrong side of the equation, but also to call those who are standing on the right side of the equation to show them our appreciation. I think we need maybe in our personal capacities. I know that we'll see threes, even our C4, the action we cannot fundraise for politicians or give political contributions. But I think this is the time also to maybe start organizing and and fundraising for them, you know, if a pack is is going to primary them, then let us stand behind them, let us show them that, you know, you're not alone in this and we're not only appreciating what you say verbally, but also we appreciate what you say with everything that we can do to help you and support you. Because I think this is a battle of worlds now in America, you know, where one side think that they have a grip over the narrative and they think that no one can shake that narrative. But in fact, that narrative is not as strong, as solid as they think. That's why they try to silence everyone else. Otherwise, why are you trying to silence a small organization like A&P? Why do you come after us accusers of all of these bogus accusations and lies? You know, trying to silence us for what? What impact do we have, you know, in reality? But for them, no matter how small that voice is, no matter how minor that voice is, it is making a difference. And Rashida Tlaib is making a difference. And Corey Bush is making a difference. And Jamal Bowman is making a difference. And that's for them is a problem. So let us widen this problem and get more people elected who will stand unprincipled and at the same time make sure that the ones who are standing with us don't end up firing this alone. So I hope that we continue this and from this from this forum, maybe we can organize in our personal capacities now, come up with with a pack or something and start working towards this, because I think there's a lot of interest and a lot of I'm sure we'll get a lot of traction in this context. Thank you so much, Osama. Yeah, I appreciate the reminder of how important it is to be in solidarity with these Congress members who are under a vicious attack. Yes, absolutely.  And what I'm finding is that people see through this manufactured consent. There, you know, it's impossible really not to see through it. So thank you for that. And I have a question for you, Lara, and that is if I were to say to you, what's the most strategic campaign we could we could pursue right now to penetrate the censorship in the field of clinical psychology? What would you say? I'll just say as an aside, I received an email from my own Congressman Salud Carbohal, who's on the House Armed Services Committee. He mentioned Gazans, but he did not mention Palestine. He didn't mention Palestinians. And so when you mentioned that clinicians in Israel are not allowed to mention Palestinian in their organizational communications, it reminded me of this. And I'm just wondering how important that is to to press on so that we don't fall asleep while these people are trying to erase Palestinians. Right. Right. Well, you just you just answered it. I think, you know, pushing up against settler colonial reality bending, it takes every day we disavow, we do this in the United States all the time.  The practice is not just performative. It is one of the ways that we psychically remember not to be seduced by settler colonialism. And so speaking Palestine, remembering Palestine, bringing it up in every way we can, correcting historical information. Part of how settler colonialism works is erasing entirely, whether through language or through history or through borders, normalizing. This is the way it works. And it gets inside of us. It gets inside of us in a way where every time we feel we are starting from the get go again and on the defensive or on the back foot. What we are seeing is a groundswell. And I think this is the generational shift. I think Osama is also talking about where folks by and large know history and also are not OK with settler colonial apartheid and erasure. Right. I think the same and an intersectional movement, whether that's in clinical psychology, part of what we're seeing and what is being pushed against is the same people who are infiltrating and sort of pushing a fascist white supremacist ideology are the people who are in cahoots with pro-Israel apartheid activists in cahoots with anti trans bills in cahoots with anti reproductive justice. This is not by chance. When these folks come together, there also is a way in which they are asked. Palestine is an entry point. Right.  Liberals will come together and side with fascists when Palestine is mentioned. This is for us to be very careful about that, because if the entry point, if the door is Palestine, it will not stop at Palestine. Folks, this is how what I'm talking about psychologically of backdooring fascism, and all of a sudden people will wake up and say all of our civil liberties are gone, all of our are sort of any claims to democratic values, any claims to liberal values are out the door entirely. And that door was Palestine. And so this is a reminder to us all why it's super important. You're seeing this in psychology. We were seeing this across the board.  We are primed to be infiltrated in this way. And I think it sets the tone going forward. So I would just again continue saying is speak truth telling matters. This is why billions of dollars go into opposing boycott, divestment and sanctions. This is why billions of dollars goes into these smear campaigns. This is why Corey Bush and Ashida Tlaib and and folks are being attacked because there's there's the there's nothing that will stop telling the truth. Right. There's nothing more powerful than that. Absolutely. Appreciate all of your comments, Lara. And now the last question, Medea. Well, I thought we could do one to each of our our speakers. And Zara, I really found your your talk tonight very compelling. And I am so appreciative of care at the big march in DC this weekend. I think what was most reported on the media was the speech by your executive director, Neha Dawad, because he kept saying, in November, we remember in November, we remember. And I wonder how you feel about that, especially given what Lara has been talking about and how Trump has been so key on setting the stage or not, you know, furthering this whole horrific fascist kind of tendencies. So, yeah, how do you feel? And also, especially since these polls that have come out talking about Biden losing in key states like Michigan, what this means for the Arab community, for the Muslim community? Yeah, I'm not sure if Zara is still with us. Oh, I see Osama shaking your head there. Maybe you can answer this. OK. So I remember Neha saying this as as he cautioned that he was speaking in his personal capacity because he leads a five one C three organization. So he wasn't speaking for care. But this is this is a sentiment within the Muslim community now. The Muslim community was pivotal in supporting Biden. And, you know, just if you take Arizona, Arizona, Biden and by the way, that's one of the one of the lawsuits that Trump is facing is because he tried to influence the Germany general and the voting in the votes in Arizona because he lost by maybe, I don't know, maybe seven, eight thousand, nine thousand votes. And he wanted to find just a few thousand, just find me a few thousand votes to win if you remember this. So I've seen a poll that suggested that one hundred forty thousand Muslims voted for for Biden. In Michigan, Hillary Clinton lost Michigan because she wasn't able to inspire progressives, she wasn't able to inspire youth and she wasn't able to inspire Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Americans. Biden, on the contrary, was because people voted for him because he wasn't Trump. That's why people voted for him. I think this analogy that, you know, I am not the Trump candidate is not going to get to work. We've seen it now in polls, not only in relation to the Muslim community, but also in relation across the board, you know, an economy he doesn't score good on mental and health fitness. He doesn't score good on foreign policy. He doesn't score good. So and within the Democrats, he doesn't score good. So now when you're losing your coalition, I think that is going to impact him. But one of their calculation, and this is something that was related by people who met with him, some of the Muslims who met with him, they think that eventually we're going to vote for him because otherwise we'll be faced either with the Samte or Nikki Hilli or with the Trump. And Muslims have no choice. Youth have no choice. Liberals have no choice. I think that's a huge miscalculation on their part. And I think that's why you see now more Democrats calling for him not to to run. So I know that we're a small percentage of votes. But if we're talking about we know that you don't win the presidency by popular vote, you want it by swing states. Virginia is one of them. Arizona now, I guess, I don't know if it will continue to be as a swing state or not, but at least that it happened in 2020. But Michigan definitely, Pennsylvania definitely and Virginia definitely. And I think he has he's he's miscalculating. His campaign is miscalculating and the frustration within the community. I'll conclude with this. You know, I didn't have my citizenship when Trump was a president. When he issued his Muslim ban, I had my green card. I had to sue the government until I got my citizenship in 2017. By the way, one of the ironies and paradoxes of America that I get my citizenship on September 11th, 2017. And my name is Osama, and everyone knows what the name resembles. So but this is one of the paradoxes of America. And I think that's why I'm a believer. Let's continue the fight. That's how it works here in America. But at the time, yes, Muslims were fearful of Trump. But one of the things that Trump was successful at is creating and forming a social justice movement that is collective, unified against him and against his bigotry. So the Muslims might might be victimized if they vote or don't vote for for Biden, if they vote for Trump or they don't vote for Biden, they just cast a white paper. But I think it's then that's when Democrats will start noticing. And that's when our elected officials start noticing that you cannot continue to discount voices and discount people in America just because you think that they forget they will forget and they will not hold you accountable and that they will not remember on the day of election. So I think that's part of the calculation on our side. And, you know, someone who lived through the Trump era, I would rather going against Trump than going against Biden, who claims to be compassionate, claims to be the the wise man, no, I would rather going against someone who everyone thinks that he's moron, everyone thinks he's erratic, everyone thinks he's extremist, everyone thinks and, you know, maybe he is someone who's bigoted because that will give me a depth in a movement rather than being isolated or dehumanized within this movement where now we've been accused of being sympathizers of terrorism and instead of being defending people who are defendants who have nothing, no one is amplifying their voices and those who are amplifying their voices are being eradicated or there are attempts to eradicate voices by canceling them.  There is no moral authority and moral clarity. It's better to deal with Trump in my in my personal opinion. Well, thank you for sharing your personal opinion. You mentioned the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia, how Biden is losing the Muslim vote there. I mean, it's just dropped radically. And I think that we have to use our leverage and we cannot we cannot tolerate this and we cannot support this. And so the only way to push for change is to say that we're not going to vote, we're not going to vote. But, you know, Code Pink is not it's a 501 to see three. So that's just my personal opinion. Last question for you so I can, you know, I'm listening to you talk about Germany. It's everything so convoluted upside down. Crazy. Do you think it makes any sense to try to approach the German embassies here, the consular general in major cities to say, you know, we don't like this. We're on record. We're very disappointed. I mean, does that matter? I don't know. I think you have the least chance to have an impact there. Actually, I think other consulates might be yeah, better targets. Maybe, you know, from countries that obviously are critical, but because they're in the union and the union has decided to have this weak stance of having a humanitarian pause, that's what they are they are asking. And they say you have the right to defend itself, but it has to be within international law. So these are the weak statements that they have as a common block. But as we know, a lot of the or several of the governments are really not pleased with this weak statement. So maybe it could be interesting to pressure them to have and their own statements as a country. Some specific governments. Well, I think the biggest is Spain. So I think the Belgian government, we have with my organization, we have been speaking with the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs. They're actually, when we go there as a pro-Palestinian movement, we support the BDS for years already. And we have been doing actions for years and years. So they know us. I have to say, when we have this conversations, they agree with everything we're saying, really, which is quite. Yeah, they actually say, yeah, it's right. It's right. I mean, there is no discussion there. So but then still there is no statement from the Belgian government that is really like substantial. I mean, yesterday, the Prime Minister of Belgium said, this is really getting completely disproportional. They're saying things like that then. I mean, yeah, that's not really a very good statement, I think. But I don't know. I think it's more in Europe itself that people need to do that. And I hear you have a lot of work here, much more work, I think, in the sense that if you think about the whole of Europe, even in the in the European Parliament and in the individual governments of the states, there is a much more diversity than here. I mean, hearing that only 18 Congress, Congressional can people of the Congress support a ceasefire resolution is baffling. I mean, in the European governments and certainly the parliament, I mean, not the government, the parliament, there is a much bigger range of opinions. And I think in several of these parliaments, the really like pro-Israel stance, like in a way that you hear it here and maybe from the UK is really a minority. So and certainly with the people. So the problem is the EU as a block. You know, we want to amplify her voice. And I really want to thank all of you for joining us tonight. And I want to ask everybody to unmute and show your appreciation, your gratitude for our fantastic lineup here talking about censorship, Aviva, Palestine and ways to challenge the censorship and expose it at the same time. So let's thank everybody. Thank you so much. Wonderful, wonderful information. Yes, I know, Grace, that you're able to unmute everyone. Yeah, and don't leave everyone because we're going to take action. But our speakers can after we thank them. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yes, thank you. We can't hear you, Marcy. So sorry. OK, now on to the Capitol Calling Party. We have a script.


Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice President and I are very pleased to welcome you to our press conference. We will now report on the outcome of today's meeting of the Governing Council. As usual, let me start with the decisions taken. Based on our regular economic and monetary analysis and in line with our forward guidance, the Governing Council decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged. Our asset purchase program continues to proceed smoothly. Regarding non-standard monetary policy measures, following the announced review of the public sector purchase program's issue-share limit after the first six months of purchases, the Governing Council decided to increase the issue-share limit from the initial limit of 25% to 33%, subject to a case-by-case verification that this would not create a situation whereby the euro system would have a blocking minority power, in which case the issue-share limit would remain at 25%. Underline our monetary policy assessment was a review of recent data, new staff macroeconomic projections, and an interim evaluation of recent market fluctuations. The information available indicates a continued, though somewhat weaker, economic recovery, and a slower increase in inflation rates compared with earlier expectations. Our recently renewed downside risks have emerged to the outlook for growth and inflation. However, owing to sharp fluctuations in financial and commodity markets, the Governing Council judged it premature to conclude on whether these developments could have a lasting impact on the outlook for prices and on the achievement of a sustainable path of inflation towards our medium-term aim or whether they should be considered to be mainly transitory. Accordingly, the Governing Council will closely monitor all relevant incoming information. It emphasises its willingness and ability to act, if warranted, by using all the instruments available within its mandate, and in particular recalls that the asset purchase programme provides sufficient flexibility in terms of adjusting the size, composition, and duration of the programme. In the meantime, we will fully implement our monthly asset purchases of 60 billion euros. These purchases have a favourable impact on the cost and availability of credit for firms and households. They are intended to run until the end of September 2016 or beyond if necessary, and in any case, until we see a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation that is consistent with our aim of achieving inflation rates below but close to 2% over the medium term. Let me now explain our assessment of the available information in greater detail, starting with the economic analysis. Real GDP in the euro area rose by 0.3% in the second quarter of 2015, which was somewhat lower than previously expected. The latest survey indicators point to a broadly similar pace of real GDP growth in the second half of this year. Overall, we expect the economic recovery to continue, albeit at somewhat weaker pace than earlier expected. Reflecting in particular the slowdown in emerging market economies, which is weighing on global growth and foreign demand for euro area exports. Domestic demand should be further supported by our monetary policy measures and their favourable impact on financial conditions, as well as by the progress made with fiscal consolidation and structural reforms. Moreover, the decline in oil prices should provide support for households' real disposable income and corporate profitability, and therefore private consumption and investment. However, economic growth in the euro area is likely to continue to be dampened by the necessary balance sheet adjustments in a number of sectors and the sluggish pace of implementation of structural reforms. This assessment is also broadly reflected in the September 2015 ECB, Staff Macroeconomic Projections for the Euro Area, which foresee annual real GDP increasing by 1.4% in 2015, 1.7% in 2016, and 1.8% in 2017. Compared with the June 2015 Euro System Staff Macroeconomic Projections, the outlook for real GDP growth has been revised down, primarily due to lower external demand owing to weaker growth in emerging markets. The risks to the euro area growth outlook remain on the downside, reflecting in particular the heightened uncertainties related to the external environment. Notably, current developments in emerging market economies have the potential to further affect global growth adversely via trade and confidence effects. According to Eurostar's flesh estimate, Euro Area annual HICP inflation was 0.2% in August 2015, unchanged from June and July. Compared with the previous month, this reflects a further decline in energy price inflation, compensated for by higher price increases for food and industrial goods. On the basis of the information available and current oil futures prices, annual HICP inflation rates will remain very low in the near term. Annual HICP inflation is expected to rise towards the end of the year, also on account of base effects associated with the falling oil prices in late 2014. Inflation rates are foreseen to pick up further during 2016 and 2017, supported by the expected economic recovery, the pass-through of past declines in the euro exchange rate, and the assumption of somewhat higher oil prices in the years ahead as currently reflected in oil futures markets. However, this increase in annual inflation rates is currently expected to materialize somewhat more slowly than anticipated thus far. This assessment is also broadly reflected in the September 2015 ECB staff macroeconomic projections for the Euro Area, which foresee annual HICP inflation at 0.1% in 2015, 1.1% in 2016, and 1.7% in 2017. In comparison with the June 2015 Euro System staff macroeconomic projections, the outlook for HICP inflation has been revised down, largely owing to lower oil prices. According to account, the most recent developments in oil prices and recent exchange rates, there are downside risks to the September staff inflation projections. In this context, the governing council will closely monitor the risks to the outlook for price developments over the medium term. We will focus in particular on the pass-through of our monetary policy measures, as well as on global economic, financial, commodity price and exchange rate developments. Turning to the monetary analysis, recent data confirm robust growth in broad money, M3. The annual growth rate of M3 was 5.3% in July, compared with 4.9% in June. Annual growth in M3 continues to be increasingly supported by its most liquid components, with a narrow monetary aggregate, M1, growing at an annual rate of 12.1% in July, compared with 11.7% in June. Loan dynamics continue to improve. The annual rate of change of loans to non-financial corporations increased to 0.9% in July, up from 0.2% in June, continuing its gradual recovery since the beginning of 2014. Despite these improvements, the dynamics of loans to non-financial corporations remain subdued. They continue to reflect the lacked relationship with the business cycle, credit risk, credit supply factors, and the ongoing adjustment of financial and non-financial sector balance sheets. The annual growth rate of loans to households increased by 1.9% in July after 1.7% in June. Overall, the monetary policy measures we have put in place since June 2014 provide clear support for improvements, both in borrowing conditions for firms and households and in credit flows across the Euro area. To sum up, a cross-check of the economic analysis with the signals coming from the monetary analysis indicates the need to firmly implement the governing council's monetary policy decisions and to monitor closely all relevant incoming information as concerns their impact on the medium-term outlook for price stability. Monetary policy is focused on maintaining price stability over the medium-term, and its accommodative stance contributes to supporting economic activity. However, in order to reap the full benefits of our monetary policy measures, other policy areas must contribute decisively. Given continued high-structural unemployment and low potential output growth in the Euro area, the ongoing cyclical recovery should be supported by effective structural policies. Further product and labor market reforms, and particularly actions to improve the business environment, including an adequate public infrastructure, are vital to increase productive investment, boost job creation, and raise productivity. The swift and effective implementation of these reforms in an environment of accommodative monetary policy will not only lead to higher sustainable economic growth in the Euro area, but will also raise expectations of permanently higher incomes and accelerate the benefits of reforms, thereby making the Euro area more resilient to global shocks. Fiscal policies should support economic recovery while remaining in compliance with the stability and growth pact. Full and consistent implementation of the pact is crucial for confidence in our fiscal framework. We are now at your disposal for questions. Mr O'Donnell? John O'Donnell from Reuters. You have projected an inflation rate or inflation growth rate of 0.1 percent for this year. How do you assess the risks that the Eurozone could experience deflation, because you referred to the downside risks to your future projections, and what else can the ECB do, and at what point might it act in the future to expand perhaps its quantitative easing programme? Some people say there's nothing more the ECB can do, because all of these are due to factors beyond its control. We likely see, we may see negative numbers of inflation in the coming months. Is that deflation? The governing council tends to think that these are transitory effects mostly due to oil price effects. However, as I said before, we will closely monitor all incoming information, and the governing council wanted to emphasise in the discussion we had today its willingness to act, its readiness to act, and its capacity to act, its ability to act. There aren't special limits to the possibilities that the ECB has in gearing up monetary policy. In a sense, the decision we've taken today in changing one of the parameters to ensure the smooth and full implementation of the programme is exactly a sign. Ms Jones, please. Claire Jones, Financial Times. I noticed that you slipped into your opening remarks on your willingness to carry out purchases in September 2016, that you're now willing to do it all beyond if necessary. Should we take that as a sign that any souped-up stronger QE package would involve a longer timeline, or would you also consider buying more bonds in the shorter term, or extending the range of assets you'd buy? Second question, on your comments that premature to conclude whether what we've seen in recent weeks will pass through to inflation in the medium term, what sort of things will you be looking at in the coming months to judge whether there is a risk of it passing through to inflation? Thank you. Let me just perhaps repeat, perhaps say differently. I started saying that economic recovery is expected to continue, but at a somewhat slower pace, reflecting the slowdown in emerging market economy, primarily. I said it's still premature to conclude whether these developments could have a lasting impact on output and inflation. However, downside risks have increased, and emerging market economies challenges are unlikely to be quickly reversed. Let me add that the cutoff date of these projections was August 12th. So the events that took place since then are a downside risk to the projections themselves. Furthermore, financing conditions, especially in the last two weeks and even before, have tightened. So lower commodity prices, a stronger euro, a somewhat lower growth have increased the risk to a sustainable path of inflation towards 2%. Also said, on the other hand, the monetary conditions remain supportive. So the discussion today basically converged on an assessment that the downside risk to output and inflation have increased, that will certainly monitor the risk to the outlook and that the governing council emphasized, as I said a moment ago, the willingness and ability to act if warranted by using all the instruments available within its mandate. And in particular, regarding the asset purchase program that provides by itself sufficient flexibility as far as the horizon, the size, and the parameters, as we've seen today. Thank you. Brian Blackstone. Brian Blackstone with the Wall Street Journal. You mentioned the stronger euro and the effect that it could have on the downside risk to inflation. The euro is up a little bit in the last few weeks, but it's down considerably if you look over the last year. Are you making a little bit too much out of this recent strengthening of the euro? And is there a risk that central banks around the world focus a little bit too much on the exchange rate? My second question is there seems to be a lot of anxiety around the world about developed countries hitting 2% inflation. Given what's going on short term, long term trends, demographics, competition, technological change, is it possible that major central banks are just aiming at the wrong target? Maybe 2% inflation is not the appropriate target in this current environment and you're printing all of this money to achieve a target that's not really attainable or not really appropriate anymore. Thank you. Thank you. The first question relates to the exchange rate. I've said several times that the exchange rate is very important for growth, for price stability and I've said it today as well. I've also said that it's not a policy target, but it's rather the effect of diverging recovery paths across the major jurisdictions and it's the effect of diverging monetary policies across the major jurisdictions and it's also the effect of course of what the market expectations are about future growth rates, future monetary policies, future interest rates. Having said that, all countries in the G20 have several times reaffirmed their commitment to the exchange rate policies, to these policies not being used in a competitive fashion and you know the statement of the G20. So when we describe a situation where the exchange rate has produced certain effects, we want to give us a description of what's happened. On the inflation rate, your second question, this is an increase in, we shouldn't forget that 10, maybe 12, 13 years ago, a quite similar discussion was taking place where we should look at perhaps the core inflation, perhaps the headline inflation and we decided to look at the headline inflation as our objective, which doesn't mean that we are excluding all other definitions of inflation. In fact, in our analysis, both economic and monetary analysis, we use both concepts, but our mandate is defined in terms of headline inflation. You also said whether this is the 2% as an objective is still reasonable or not. We haven't discussed that. We haven't discussed that and it's, in a sense, it's kind of, it would test, I think, our credibility if we were to change target when it's taking more effort to achieve that target. So there is no, it hasn't mean any discussion about changing target of inflation. So there is Nikas from Greek newspaper, Kathimerini. Let me focus on Greece. Is it accurate that in the Eurogroup the ECB insisted on excluding a depositor, a depositor bail in for Greece? And is this scenario still on the table? And what about the bailing of senior bondholders? This is my first question. The second question is now that Greece has completed the first set of prior actions and got a disbursement approved from ESM. When will the ECB be in a position to reinstate the waiver for Greek collateral? And will this make Greek bonds eligible for a QE program? And one comment about the today decision for Hela, the reduced, which the ceiling was reduced. Thank you. Yes, it's true. The ECB insisted to exclude any bailing of depositors for the Greek banks. The ECB deemed any such measure to be counterproductive for the economic recovery and harmful for the Greek economy. It would have hit not only several thousand of savers, but also especially also SMEs and corporations that had their deposits. And the ECB viewpoint was accepted by the Eurogroup. Similar considerations were deemed not to be applicable to senior bondholders. As far as the measure is concerned, it's been excluded and will stay excluded. The second point is about a waiver. Well, for having a waiver, for reinstating a waiver, the country has to be in a program for financial assistance, has to comply with it, and so has to show strong ownership and consistent and significant implementation. There will be some milestones that will be judged and assessed in the weeks ahead. And based on that assessment, the governing council will take a decision. Now, once a waiver is in place, is this enough to start purchasing bonds? Well, we'll have to look at other conditions there. One is, as you know, the bond purchases cannot take place while the review is ongoing. Second, so there are timing limits. Second, there are issue, and as we've seen today moving from 25 to 33%, issue and issuers limits that have to be respected. And finally, there has to be a debt sustainability analysis by the governing council. On the ELA, you have seen that now we have open communication about ELA. And so the numbers were not discovered by your investigative capacities, but they were normally published. And so we've just one word about the terms about our ELA communication as far as the future is concerned. The governing council agreed in principle that in the future, that in the future, a national central bank could, together with a request for non-objection regarding ELA, seek approval from the governing council to communicate related elements, including the outcome of ELA if it sees a benefit in doing so from a financial stability perspective. Now, this would apply in particular if ELA would address systemic issues. So that's what I was saying last time, if ELA is extended to a large part of a banking system. So the details of this principle will be discussed further in the governing council in due course. But basically, the national central bank that asks for the non-objection of the governing, by the governing council of the ELA will present, will communicate the decision based on a communication that's basically agreed with the governing council. And this is mostly in particular, will apply for systemic issues. Mr. Plickert. Mr. Draghi, a question concerning the... Sorry, Christine was saying that actually, even in this case, the ELA number was gathered by you, thanks to your investigative capacities, because it came out before we could announce it. That's okay. Next time we will announce it. Thank you. Mr. Draghi, another question on the oil price and its impact on the economic recovery. It has gone down considerably in this year and there has been some rebound this week, but do you still think overall it is some boost for the euro area economy, the lower resource costs, or because they are reflecting lower global demand, they are like a burden now? Now, lower oil prices may be lower because of demand and or because of supply effects. In this present situation, it's lower because of supply effects and because demand from China and possibly other emerging market economies is lower. If it's because of supply effects, the outcome, the consequences of a lower price of oil are positive. I would say an ambiguously positive if there are no second round effects which can come from financial stability considerations or second round effects that simply these lower oil prices are being transmitted in lower inflation rate for non-energy components. Now, when oil prices are lower because of demand effects, then we have to consider also the negative impact that lower growth in emerging market economies might have on the growth of the euro area. Mr. Black. Good afternoon, Jeff Black from Bloomberg News. Mr. Draghi, you mentioned earlier on that the governing council is willing to alter the size, the composition or the duration of the asset purchase program should it see the need. Could you perhaps give us a few more details on the instrument you would choose if you do see the need, namely would you take as a first priority the duration of the program or the size of it in the monthly purchases or what your thinking is behind the way that that would operate. My second question is about the change in the issue share limit. Again, could you perhaps give us a few more details on the reasoning behind that? In other words, was it necessary for you to be able to achieve your objectives and what kind you took of financial stability concerns when making that decision? Thank you. Thank you. Your first question was not discussed. We aren't there yet. Your second question is, as I think I said in the introductory statement, a review after six months was scheduled and we found out that the ECB could actually buy more than 25% limit in some cases where there would be no blocking minority by the ECB. That's why in those cases the limit was pushed from 25 to 33%. It was meant to ensure a smooth carrying on of the program. I think that's the main reason and in this sense shows the readiness of the governing council to basically use the flexibility of the program so as to make sure the program would carry out in a smooth way. Smooth and completed. Complete way. Also, it is a sign that technical aspects will not stop the full implementation and the full commitment of the ECB to the program. I'm sorry. Not really because we don't see at this point in time concerns coming from that decision. But as I said, we will look at issue by issue and transaction, transaction by transaction and we'll consider that. Good afternoon, Stefan Jager, German television. Mr Draghi, it seems that triggering an economic stimulus by measures of monetary policy becomes more and more difficult. Why is this so? Is this only because of the situation in the emerging market countries? Well, I would say that our community monetary policy is being passed through to the rest of the economy. I went through the various indicators of the monetary conditions, not only robust growth in M1, significant growth in M3, but also credit flows are now picking up. And the interesting thing is that credit is also improving considerably in some of the stressed countries like Spain and Italy, but certainly in France as well. It's cost has gone down in more particularly what we have is a composed lending indicator cost went down by 74 basis points since the announcement of the credit easing measures. So we have a reduction in dispersion of credit flows, but also a reduction in spreads in lending costs and a reduction in spreads in lending costs to SMEs vis-a-vis other kinds of companies, large companies. So we have evidence that our monetary policy works. At the same time, we have the rest of the world and we have these effects that we've observed over the last few weeks and perhaps more than few weeks, especially in the last few weeks. So we'll have to see whether these effects are transitory or are permanent, where what happened is worsening our medium term outlook or it's just a transitory effect. And then we'll decide whether to do more or not. Mr. Lacour? Two questions. In a recent interview, still ECB board member Benoit Curre outlined that ECB should look beyond short-term volatility and stay calm, the volatility on the market. So how calm are you given the losses on equity markets this summer? Do the bulk of these losses seem past or should we still expect more severe shocks that forces you maybe to take further actions? Second question with an issue that not at first glance is a monetary policy topic, but I mean by that the refugee crisis that is a shock for Europe and with more dramatic aspects every day. How important does that play this topic in your take on the situation from a central banker point of view? I noted that this has a geopolitical background, I mean this crisis, and I noted that in a statement geopolitical risks are not seen as to be monitored what concerns the outlook of price developments for medium term. So this is a non-issue for you. Thank you. The what happened in the last few weeks is basically twofold. The first is that we had a worsening of the situation in several emerging market economies. And it's unlikely that these challenges are going to be quickly reversed. And second we had a tightening of financing conditions across the board, especially in the last two weeks you should consider these projections assumes that the stock prices at exchange rates and interest rates which are not the stock prices, the exchange rates and interest rates that prevail over a 10 days average until today. So basically much of what I've been saying is that we'll have to see whether this is actually short term volatility or is permanent volatility. In which case you would observe an increase in risk premium. If you look at, for example, if you look at inflation expectations, inflation expectations have been pretty volatile. They went down then they went up and this may be due to many many causes. One is as I said the loss of growth momentum in emerging market economies, the movements in the oil prices. There could also be another reason that simply risk premium may have gone up. So we'll have to assess and look through all these several factors before we can decide whether the medium term outlook has worsened. On your other question I think that the only answer there is that really any Europeans should be horrified by the tragic loss of life happening on our doorstep. The ECB simply doesn't have any democratic mandate to act in this sphere. So it's a question for our elected leaders but they certainly shouldn't hamper our most heartfelt participation to what is happening. Mr Bohndermann. Thank you Mr President. Mark Bohndermann for NSA Handelsblatt in the Netherlands. You just mentioned the debate on core inflation and headline inflation. You referred to the fact that the recent in recent past there was a discussion about this as well. My question is whether given the recent volatility of energy prices the core inflation for the ECB as a factor has increased. So the weight of core inflation as a factor. And a second question if I may. So if core inflation sorry if core inflation has become a more important factor for the ECB given the volatility in energy prices. Thank you. Thank you. No the answer is no I mean our mandate is defined in terms of headline inflation. So we are designing our monetary policy on the basis of that measure. Are we ignoring everything else. No the answer is no. So as we don't ignore for example our mandate is defined in terms of price stability. Are we ignoring growth. No. Are we ignoring labor market. No. And the same way we are not ignoring core inflation. Johanna Tric. Johanna Tric MNI. Mr Draghi two questions as well. Back to the issue limit. So you say that the decision to to increase that will help the smooth implementation of the program. So just to clarify did you already run into constraints now or is this in anticipation for more aggressive purchases down the line. And also did you discuss adjusting the issue issue where limit on this. Did we discuss what. Justing the issue where limit. And the second question in August last year you told us that the ECB was looking to improve its inflation forecasting models since the forecasts had always been more optimistic that inflation then actually played out. And then I was just wondering where that stands that you adjust the models. And if not have you sort of identified where you think what are the causes behind this. Where are you getting it wrong. Thank you very much. Thank you. The answer to the second question is really the causes now mainly lie with the oil price changes. If we are to ask what is the main source of the lower the revised projections. I would say the main source is the change in the oil price. To a lesser extent is the sort of slower closing of the output gap. But it's to to a much lesser extent. The we didn't discuss the issue or limit. And we are decision to change the issue limit is simply to ensure the smooth implementation of the current program. At the same time it's clearly is a sign of the readiness of the governing council to adapt the parameters of the program to the situation. So as to ensure the full implementation of the program. Because we shouldn't we should never forget that the inflation path that is projected to reach one point seven percent if i'm not mistaken now after the revision in 2017. And the growth projections are both predicated conditional upon the full implementation of that program. Thank you. Alessandro Merli. Alessandro Merli of Il Sole 24 ore. Could you give us an assessment more specifically on the situation in China and the response of the Chinese authorities on developments there. And could you tell us if you received any information from the Chinese authorities that would help provide some clarity to remove the uncertainty on the Chinese situation or if you expect to receive that in the coming G-20 in Ankara. As a matter of fact we we do expect to have that in to have much more visibility than we have today in the coming days at the G-20 in Ankara. That is going to be one of the major themes of the meetings. Having said that we took note of the Chinese decision Chinese government decision as far as the exchange rate is concerned. China reaffirmed several times the commitment it she undertook in the G-20 as far as the exchange rate is concerned as the commitment I've said before. And at the same time certainly the Chinese government will have to continue implementing reforms so as to ensure the convertibility of the currency. Mr. Schreuers. Thank you. Back in June you told us that markets should get used to periods of higher volatility. Now that we're in such a period you seem to be very alerted and concerned. Why is that? What has changed your mood? Why has your mood changed so much and don't you see a risk that markets are not able to learn again to live with higher volatility and with different circumstances if every time there is volatility the ECB steps in. And the second question is on a deficit rate. Is that also an option for you or is it still valid that the interest rates have reached the effective lower bound? Thank you. Thank you. The second question was not discussed. Actually the answer to your second question was not discussed today. On the first question you are absolutely right that's what I said in June and the reference was to short time volatility periods. What we've seen in the last few weeks and months actually was basically two factors. We've seen two factors. Two issues. One is was the weakening of the major emerging market economies. And second we've seen an induced volatility due to this effect and to the sudden changes in the oil prices. Whether this is short term or long term is what I was saying before. We'll have to assess. And of recent we've seen obviously some sort of considerable tightening of financing conditions. Is the hearing. Jack Ewing, New York Times. Mr. Draghi, the Federal Reserve is expected to begin raising interest rates possibly very soon. I wonder if you could just talk about what effect that might have on the Eurozone and on your policy. For example do you see a risk that higher interest rates could spill over to the Eurozone and put pressure on bond yields or borrowing costs. And secondly a very simple question. Were there any members of the governing council today who are arguing for increasing asset purchases right away. Thank you very much. Thank you. Second question answer no. There wasn't any discussion of as there wasn't any discussion about changes the size changes in the size of the program or pace or on the other the other question is you see we never really comment on on other jurisdictions policies. But if this is necessary to achieve the inflation objectives and more generally more broadly the objectives of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. This is a plus for the world. So from this view point we can only wish that all jurisdictions achieve their objectives in monetary policy. Just going back to also to well it's partly related to that going back to the previous question as well you see the difference with June is that in June there was no need to revise downward our projections at all. So there's a difference. Sakagawa. Anakagawa Japanese Nikkei. You said repeatedly that the Euro don't countries need to integrate further more. I'm sorry the Euro don't countries need to integrate further more to overcome the crisis. But the proceeding is very slow. In your point of view what is the reason of that huge ideological difference between north and south or laziness of the politics or lack of motivation or fear of the people here in Europe. And what is your strategy to overcome such restrictions to realize the deep integration here in Europe. Yes you are right several times have commented on the on the imperfect nature of our integration at the present time and how this imperfection is a source of fragility for for the monetary union. The reasons are several reasons of course these are countries that have their different nation states they have been different for many many years and they fought against each other for centuries. So the but the point is that all these countries in the aftermath of the Second World War acknowledged that the European integration was not only an economic project but primarily a political project aimed at achieving permanent peace in Europe. And I'm quite confident that this absolute certainty still is with all the Europeans and of course the integration process is a very complicated and complex process that involves several dimensions so it can go faster at times at other times it can go slower. But recently for example we had the five presidents report which was a sort of a kind of which was designing a path towards greater integration and we've seen several several episodes where you could see you could be actually quite optimistic that the process is moving forward but it moves forward like in many other situations it moves forward by coping with challenges and and winning over them. And that's what we are seeing now. Mr. Wood. Barry Wood economics columnist Mr. Draghi further to that question about further integration and the five presidents report. Mr. Kure last week spoke about the ESM as a possible mechanism for becoming a kind of European treasury. I wonder how you see the debate how you would like to see the debate on the evolution towards further integration physical integration take place. Yeah. This is something that I did say several times. If you look at the ECB now of course I'm a biased observer here but you would judge that the integration of monetary policies has been pretty successful. Why is that? Because we moved from a rules based system that we had in the 80s and the 90s to an institution based system where you have co-decision co-decision in in our sense not co-decision in the the way it's been used in Brussels between parliament and different institutions. So it's a it's a sharing of responsibility and a sharing of sovereignty within the same institution. And what I've been arguing is that the same path ought to be adopted in other areas one of which is the budgetary area where we now coordinate our actions based on rules on a set of rules one of which is the stability and growth part. Now one is the six buck and so on. Now we think and I certainly think that this system is not completely satisfactory for a variety of reasons that you've seen in the last few years. And so the it would be a good thing if we were to move to a common institution also in the budgetary area. And this is a point that's been made in the five presidents report so it's not only my own view it's kind of widely shared. Ms. Roth. Best shared by other people I wouldn't say widely shared it would be too ambitious perhaps. Caroline Roth CNBC two questions for you. First of all you mentioned that you're hoping to get more clarity from the Chinese authorities during the G20. In the meantime what exactly are you watching in terms of the economic data which metrics are you watching because many people find that quite confusing. My second question would be given that the ECB is now the main banking supervisor for the year zone. Are there any concerns that there are more risks for some of the institutions that you supervise that they might have run into trouble as a result of the market turbulence as a result of the market volatility. And finally happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. Now we are observing a weakening of the prospects for the Chinese economy. This has two effects substantially. One is through the trade channel of weakening the economies of other of the rest of the world because China by now is a large share of the world economy and has a confidence effect as we've seen on the stock markets and all the other financial markets. She's also operating on the negative side. The same time of course we have we see a lower oil price and the rest of the world at least certainly not the certainly the euro area would draw some benefit. To know what are the origins of this change and especially whether it's a permanent where this is just the beginning of a permanent lower long term output or simply a transitory phenomenon. That's what we are going to what we hope at least to know more in anchor in the G20. On the second question you're right. One of the lingering questions was how is it possible that we all this volatility in the oil prices and the exchange rates and interest rates. Isn't there any financial stability problem and I can say that as far at least as far as the institutions that are being supervised by the ECB we have not observed such effect. It's you know it's true that the volatility is higher so the risks are higher. It's probably true that the risk premium are higher as well. The same time we have not observed in the banking sector a substantial significant increase in leverage and I am deliberately very cautious in saying this limiting our observations to what we are actually observing namely the regulated institutions subject to our supervision. Thank you. And I think that on the happy birthday note we will now close today's press conference. Thank you very much. Thank you.