On US Campuses, Pro-Israel Groups Target Supporters of Palestinian Rights
Sunday, 13 December 2015 00:00 By Joe Catron, Truthout | News Analysis
Students for Justice in Palestine demonstrating at UC Berkeley, September
23, 2014. (Photo: Ariel Hayat / Flickr)
As a Palestinian uprising across the West Bank, Israel and the Gaza Strip
stretches into its third bloody month, Palestinian and solidarity activists
say a quieter struggle is taking places on campuses and in communities
across the United States as Israel supporters seek to silence them.
They point to experiences like that of Ramie Abounaja, a
Palestinian-American junior studying biomedical engineering at Washington,
DC's George Washington University.
On October 26, a campus police officer arrived at Abounaja's room in the
university's Mark Shenkman Hall and demanded that he remove a Palestinian
flag hung from his dorm window. According to Palestine Legal, a public
interest law firm that advises and represents activists whose rights are
challenged, "The officer explained that the department had received numerous
complaints about the flag and declared that he would leave only after the
flag was removed." Minutes after leaving, the officer returned, saying his
supervisor had asked for a report. On November 3, university administrators
sent Abounaja a letter "warning" him about the incident.
"IT'S BEEN REPORTED THAT ISRAELI OFFICIALS FROM NETANYAHU DOWN ARE
DEDICATING RESOURCES TO COUNTERING ADVOCACY FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS."
The next day Abounaja responded, asking that they retract their letter and
clarify the university's policy. "I was motivated to do this after I had
seen dozens of different banners and flags hung outside other residential
campus living spaces throughout my three years here at GW," he wrote. "I
felt like I was being singled-out, because of my heritage and the viewpoint
of my speech, for something I've seen dozens of students, fraternities and
other student groups do in my three years at GW."
After a brief reply acknowledging his letter, the university went quiet. For
over a month, its administrators failed to respond to Abounaja's telephone
calls and emails. An assistant director at its Office of Student Rights and
Responsibilities canceled a meeting, citing a scheduling conflict. Only
after Palestine Legal contacted the university on December 7, citing a
potential violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, did it finally
respond.
In a public "university statement regarding flags on campus," the
university's Office of Media Relations wrote, "GW has not banned any flags
from its campus; however, the university's Residential Community Conduct
Guidelines prohibit the hanging of any object outside of a residence hall
window (Section III. 7), and this is enforced when reported to the GW Police
Department."
But Abounaja and his supporters quickly responded that the university was
selectively enforcing a rule it typically ignored, citing other flags hung
from windows across the campus. Some even posted albums of them on Facebook.
"GW's practice of allowing students to hang some flags out of windows while
censoring others, creates a double standard and violates the free speech
principles to which the university claims to adhere," Palestine Legal said
in a statement.
Another student told the Jewish newspaper the Forward that the university
had never penalized him for hanging an Israeli flag from his window. "If the
university is not going to enforce it on everyone, why is it fair to just
use the fire code to further a specific agenda?" Jared Stevens said.
On Thursday, with attention from the media growing, the university buckled.
Its president, Steven Knapp, released a public statement saying, "I have
personally apologized to the student for this unfortunate incident and
assured him that the university's actions were in no way a response to his
expression of his beliefs or opinions."
Earlier in the day, Palestine Legal said the university's own justification
of its conduct was discriminatory. "According to a December 7th statement
from GW, flags will only be removed when complaints are made to the GW
police department," it said in a press release. "In other words, GW will
continue to treat different messages in a disparate manner based on how much
controversy they provoke."
"A Few Patterns Have Emerged"
Palestine advocates say the university's attempt to selectively restrict
Palestinian speech fits into a broader pattern unfolding throughout the
country.
Two reports issued in late September described the various methods
pro-Israel groups, including some with direct ties to the Israeli
government, use to discourage support for Palestinian rights. "It's been
reported that Israeli officials from [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu
down are dedicating resources to countering advocacy for Palestinian rights
in general and the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement in
particular all over the world, and that some of these resources would
involve using baseless lawsuits and legal threats," said Radhika Sainath, a
staff attorney at Palestine Legal and cooperating counsel with the Center
for Constitutional Rights.
"MUSLIM AND ARAB STUDENTS ARE PARTICULARLY SUSCEPTIBLE TO FALSE CHARGES OF
ANTI-SEMITISM IN PART BECAUSE OF EXISTING ISLAMOPHOBIC TROPES."
The two organizations released "The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A
Movement Under Attack in the US," which details strategies ranging from
legal threats, to monitoring and surveillance of activists by secretive
groups, to bureaucratic obstacles and sanctions by university
administrations. A separate report from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP),
"Stifling Dissent: How Israel's Defenders Use False Charges of Anti-Semitism
to Limit the Debate Over Israel on Campus," focuses specifically on baseless
accusations of bias against college activists.
The documents covered considerable ground. In 2014 alone, Palestine Legal
responded to 152 "incidents of suppression," all but 16 of them
campus-related. By June 30, it had responded to 140 in 2015, including 112
on campuses, an increase of almost 50 percent. For each year, the largest
categories by far were false accusations of anti-Semitism and support for
terrorism.
Along with other tactics described by the documents, these claims are often
carefully deployed against specific targets, researchers say.
"In our work on campuses, we've noticed that Muslim and Arab students are
particularly susceptible to false charges of anti-Semitism in part because
of existing Islamophobic tropes," JVP media coordinator Naomi Dann told
Truthout. "Campus administrators and others sometimes lean into those tropes
in their treatment of [Students for Justice in Palestine groups], as seen
through things like requiring extra security for SJP events, [and] canceling
or restricting events because of civility standards or fear of 'militancy.'
The Islamophobia that already exists in mainstream US political discourse is
amplified when the issue of Palestine comes up, and Arab and Muslim students
are often falsely pitted against Jewish students in campus discourse."
Sainath agreed, adding that other groups face specific kinds of threats as
well.
"In interviewing hundreds of activists, a few patterns have emerged," she
said. "Israel advocacy groups frequently falsely accuse Muslims and Arabs in
particular of violence, supporting Hamas, or being militant - simply for
engaging in speech activity critical of Israeli policies - basically
Islamophobic and xenophobic tropes that can have real consequences in a post
9/11 climate, where a Muslim kid can get arrested for bringing a clock to
school. Another pattern we've noticed is Jewish students or professors being
called 'self-hating Jews,' having their Jewish identity questioned - and
even being called the k-word - simply for supporting Palestinian rights. A
third pattern we've seen is LGTBQIA students being singled out for
questioning by pro-Israel groups and told they shouldn't support Palestinian
rights because Palestinians would attack and kill them. And there are
numerous examples of women being targeted with misogynistic attacks and rape
threats."
"The Wrong Side of History"
These different strategies to silence opposition take shape in the pages of
the reports, which detail how various Palestine supporters face very
different kinds of challenges. For example, "Stifling Dissent" includes six
accounts of Jewish students and campus groups excluded from community
activities over their criticism of Israel.
"I think it is harmful to have a political litmus test for spaces that are
supposed to be welcoming for all Jewish students," Gabriel Levine, a member
of JVP's chapter at the University of California, Los Angeles, told
Truthout.
After forming in April 2014, the group applied for membership in UCLA's
Hillel, an umbrella organization for Jewish students.
Following a series of meetings with Hillel's leading rabbi, the organization
asked JVP's representatives to complete a bizarre questionnaire, including
queries like "What's your position on BDS?"; "What's your position on
refugees?"; "What is your relationship with SJP?"; and "Is Zionism racism?
Please explain."
Despite the document's conclusion, a series of platitudes on "dialogue" and
"debate," the JVP members later learned that Hillel had rejected their
application.
"The takeaway from JVP's experience at UCLA Hillel is that Hillel is not the
home for all Jewish students on campus," Levine said "It is only a welcome
space for those who are Zionist and anti-BDS. And as such, Hillel should not
be seen as a legitimate voice for all Jewish voices on campus, as they
themselves have silenced and excluded Jewish voices based on political
opinion."
Despite the likely intentions of Hillel chapters and their global network,
Hillel International, to marginalize Palestine supporters, these polices of
exclusion will probably have the effect of self-isolation as Palestine
emerges as an increasingly popular issue and its supporters solidify
relationships with activists from Black, Indigenous, Latino and other
communities, said JVP's Dann.
"The refusal of Hillel to engage with BDS and BDS supporters and its active
opposition to divestment clearly is isolating them from progressive
coalitions and people of color-led groups on campuses, who see them as being
on the wrong side of history," Dann added.
"Tomorrow's Employees"
While Israel supporters target Jewish activists with isolation from local
communities, others are more likely to face direct threats, including to
their livelihoods.
"While there's a particular acrimony for Jewish anti-Zionists, the
'self-hating traitors,' the Arabs and Muslims who criticize Israel validate
the colonial logic of their barbarity," Steven Salaita told Truthout.
"Anything we say in criticism of Israel, then, necessarily reflects our
acrimonious relationship to modernity."
The University of Illinois fired Salaita, a scholar of Native American
studies, in 2014 when its board of trustees refused to confirm his
appointment to a tenured position in the American Indian studies program at
the university's Urbana-Champaign campus. Their decision followed pressure
from donors when Salaita posted a number of tweets critical of Israel during
its 2014 offensive against the Gaza Strip.
After a firestorm of public criticism and academic boycotts and censure,
embarrassing revelations of a cover-up that led to the resignation of the
University of Illinois chancellor, Phyllis Wise, and preliminary losses in a
lawsuit filed by Salaita, the university settled the case in November 2015,
agreeing to pay him $875,000.
Other Israel supporters have sought to expand this model, denying Palestine
activists employment on a broad scale. The website Canary Mission collates
information on their identities and activities. "It is your duty to ensure
that today's radicals are not tomorrow's employees," a promotional video
narrates.
When investigative journalists Julia Carmel and Max Blumenthal researched
the anonymous project, they found neoconservative leader and Middle East
Forum founder Daniel Pipes, who runs a similar website called Campus Watch,
eager to speak on its operators' behalf.
While Campus Watch targets academics, Canary Mission focuses squarely on
students, mainly young undergraduates. Pipes told Blumenthal and Carmel that
"collecting information on students has particular value because it signals
[to] them that calumnying [sic] Israel is serious business, not some
inconsequential collegiate prank; and that their actions can damage both
Israel and their future careers."
"Just Racist as Hell"
Carmel and Blumenthal also traced a number of ties apparently connecting
Canary Mission to the Aish World Center, a global enterprise with modern
Orthodox religious programming and pro-West Bank settlement activities that
receive direct funding from the Israeli government. Carmel said the site
targets specific demographics. "In researching the operatives behind Canary
Mission, I've found that these groups have disproportionately targeted
female activists and minority demographics," she said. "It's important to
consider the fact that people of color - including activists who identify as
Arabs, non-Ashkenazi Jews etc. - consistently tend to empathize more with
oppressed groups. As a result, those of us who have been targeted are part
of a more diverse group."
"But this alone doesn't account for how pro-Israel groups seem to be
targeting minority demographics more frequently than not," Carmel added.
"Out of 159 activists currently profiled by Canary Mission, 92 of them are
women - substantially more than the number of men targeted - and even more
remarkably, at least 103 of them are Arab-American or people of color."
In several of the cases Blumenthal and Carmel examined, these profiles,
which include links to their targets' personal social media accounts, have
led to graphic threats of death, rape and other violence, particularly
against women.
Reflecting on the repressive apparatus facing Palestine activists and his
own experience with it, Salaita concluded, "A lot of people are just racist
as hell."
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
JOE CATRON
Joe Catron, a freelance journalist and solidarity activist, recently
returned to New York City from Gaza, Palestine, where he lived for three and
a half years. He tweets at @jncatron.
RELATED STORIES
Challenging Bullets, Not Boycotts: Education Under Occupation in Palestine
By Kristian Davis Bailey , Truthout | News Analysis
Ten Years of BDS: The Growing Movement Against the Occupation of Palestine
By Joe Catron, Truthout | News Analysis
BDS Opponents Launch "Campus Maccabees" to Fight Divestment Efforts
By Bill Berkowitz, Truthout | Report
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Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
On US Campuses, Pro-Israel Groups Target Supporters of Palestinian Rights
Sunday, 13 December 2015 00:00 By Joe Catron, Truthout | News Analysis
. font size Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.
. Students for Justice in Palestine demonstrating at UC Berkeley,
September 23, 2014. (Photo: Ariel Hayat / Flickr)
. As a Palestinian uprising across the West Bank, Israel and the Gaza
Strip stretches into its third bloody month, Palestinian and solidarity
activists say a quieter struggle is taking places on campuses and in
communities across the United States as Israel supporters seek to silence
them.
They point to experiences like that of Ramie Abounaja, a
Palestinian-American junior studying biomedical engineering at Washington,
DC's George Washington University.
On October 26, a campus police officer arrived at Abounaja's room in the
university's Mark Shenkman Hall and demanded that he remove a Palestinian
flag hung from his dorm window.
http://palestinelegal.org/news/2015/12/7/george-washington-u-bans-palestinia
n-flag-on-campusAccording to Palestine Legal, a public interest law firm
that advises and represents activists whose rights are challenged, "The
officer explained that the department had received numerous complaints about
the flag and declared that he would leave only after the flag was removed."
Minutes after leaving, the officer returned, saying his supervisor had asked
for a report. On November 3, university administrators sent Abounaja a
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/548748b1e4b083fc03ebf70e/t/5665d6f6111
5e0c567231d7b/1449514742111/Attachment+A_Redacted.pdfletter "warning" him
about the incident.
"It's been reported that Israeli officials from Netanyahu down are
dedicating resources to countering advocacy for Palestinian rights."
The next day Abounaja responded, asking that they retract their letter and
clarify the university's policy. "I was motivated to do this after I had
seen dozens of different banners and flags hung outside other residential
campus living spaces throughout my three years here at GW,"
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/548748b1e4b083fc03ebf70e/t/5665d706111
5e0c567231ed2/1449514758059/Attachment+B.pdfhe wrote. "I felt like I was
being singled-out, because of my heritage and the viewpoint of my speech,
for something I've seen dozens of students, fraternities and other student
groups do in my three years at GW."
After a brief reply acknowledging his letter, the university went quiet. For
over a month, its administrators failed to respond to Abounaja's telephone
calls and emails. An assistant director at its Office of Student Rights and
Responsibilities canceled a meeting, citing a scheduling conflict. Only
after Palestine Legal
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/548748b1e4b083fc03ebf70e/t/5665d674111
5e0c567231307/1449514612875/PalLegal.Letter.GW.12-7-15.pdfcontacted the
university on December 7, citing a potential violation of Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act, did it finally respond.
In a public
http://mediarelations.gwu.edu/university-statement-regarding-flags-campus"un
iversity statement regarding flags on campus," the university's Office of
Media Relations wrote, "GW has not banned any flags from its campus;
however, the university's Residential Community Conduct Guidelines prohibit
the hanging of any object outside of a residence hall window (Section III.
7), and this is enforced when reported to the GW Police Department."
But Abounaja and his supporters quickly responded that the university was
selectively enforcing a rule it typically ignored, citing other flags hung
from windows across the campus. Some even posted albums of them on Facebook.
"GW's practice of allowing students to hang some flags out of windows while
censoring others, creates a double standard and violates the free speech
principles to which the university claims to adhere," Palestine Legal
http://palestinelegal.org/news/2015/12/8/george-washington-u-bans-palestinia
n-flag-on-campussaid in a statement.
Another student told the Jewish newspaper the Forward that the university
had never penalized him for hanging an Israeli flag from his window. "If the
university is not going to enforce it on everyone, why is it fair to just
use the fire code to further a specific agenda?"
http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/326407/george-washington-student-threa
tens-suit-over-palestinian-flag/Jared Stevens said.
On Thursday, with attention from the media growing, the university buckled.
Its president, Steven Knapp, released a public statement saying, "I have
personally apologized to the student for this unfortunate incident and
assured him that the university's actions were in no way a response to his
expression of his beliefs or opinions."
Earlier in the day, Palestine Legal said the university's own justification
of its conduct was discriminatory. "According to a December 7th statement
from GW, flags will only be removed when complaints are made to the GW
police department," it said in a press release. "In other words, GW will
continue to treat different messages in a disparate manner based on how much
controversy they provoke."
"A Few Patterns Have Emerged"
Palestine advocates say the university's attempt to selectively restrict
Palestinian speech fits into a broader pattern unfolding throughout the
country.
Two reports issued in late September described the various methods
pro-Israel groups, including some with direct ties to the Israeli
government, use to discourage support for Palestinian rights. "It's been
reported that Israeli officials from [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu
down are dedicating resources to countering advocacy for Palestinian rights
in general and the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement in
particular all over the world, and that some of these resources would
involve using baseless lawsuits and legal threats," said Radhika Sainath, a
staff attorney at Palestine Legal and cooperating counsel with the Center
for Constitutional Rights.
"Muslim and Arab students are particularly susceptible to false charges of
anti-Semitism in part because of existing Islamophobic tropes."
The two organizations released
http://palestinelegal.org/the-palestine-exception"The Palestine Exception to
Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US," which details strategies
ranging from legal threats, to monitoring and surveillance of activists by
secretive groups, to bureaucratic obstacles and sanctions by university
administrations. A separate report from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP),
http://stiflingdissent.org/"Stifling Dissent: How Israel's Defenders Use
False Charges of Anti-Semitism to Limit the Debate Over Israel on Campus,"
focuses specifically on baseless accusations of bias against college
activists.
The documents covered considerable ground. In 2014 alone, Palestine Legal
responded to 152 "incidents of suppression," all but 16 of them
campus-related. By June 30, it had responded to 140 in 2015, including 112
on campuses, an increase of almost 50 percent. For each year, the largest
categories by far were false accusations of anti-Semitism and support for
terrorism.
Along with other tactics described by the documents, these claims are often
carefully deployed against specific targets, researchers say.
"In our work on campuses, we've noticed that Muslim and Arab students are
particularly susceptible to false charges of anti-Semitism in part because
of existing Islamophobic tropes," JVP media coordinator Naomi Dann told
Truthout. "Campus administrators and others sometimes lean into those tropes
in their treatment of [Students for Justice in Palestine groups], as seen
through things like requiring extra security for SJP events, [and] canceling
or restricting events because of civility standards or fear of 'militancy.'
The Islamophobia that already exists in mainstream US political discourse is
amplified when the issue of Palestine comes up, and Arab and Muslim students
are often falsely pitted against Jewish students in campus discourse."
Sainath agreed, adding that other groups face specific kinds of threats as
well.
"In interviewing hundreds of activists, a few patterns have emerged," she
said. "Israel advocacy groups frequently falsely accuse Muslims and Arabs in
particular of violence, supporting Hamas, or being militant - simply for
engaging in speech activity critical of Israeli policies - basically
Islamophobic and xenophobic tropes that can have real consequences in a post
9/11 climate, where a Muslim kid can get arrested for bringing a clock to
school. Another pattern we've noticed is Jewish students or professors being
called 'self-hating Jews,' having their Jewish identity questioned - and
even being called the k-word - simply for supporting Palestinian rights. A
third pattern we've seen is LGTBQIA students being singled out for
questioning by pro-Israel groups and told they shouldn't support Palestinian
rights because Palestinians would attack and kill them. And there are
numerous examples of women being targeted with misogynistic attacks and rape
threats."
"The Wrong Side of History"
These different strategies to silence opposition take shape in the pages of
the reports, which detail how various Palestine supporters face very
different kinds of challenges. For example, "Stifling Dissent" includes six
accounts of Jewish students and campus groups excluded from community
activities over their criticism of Israel.
"I think it is harmful to have a political litmus test for spaces that are
supposed to be welcoming for all Jewish students," Gabriel Levine, a member
of JVP's chapter at the University of California, Los Angeles, told
Truthout.
After forming in April 2014, the group applied for membership in UCLA's
Hillel, an umbrella organization for Jewish students.
Following a series of meetings with Hillel's leading rabbi, the organization
asked JVP's representatives to complete a bizarre questionnaire, including
queries like "What's your position on BDS?"; "What's your position on
refugees?"; "What is your relationship with SJP?"; and "Is Zionism racism?
Please explain."
Despite the document's conclusion, a series of platitudes on "dialogue" and
"debate," the JVP members later learned that Hillel had rejected their
application.
"The takeaway from JVP's experience at UCLA Hillel is that Hillel is not the
home for all Jewish students on campus," Levine said "It is only a welcome
space for those who are Zionist and anti-BDS. And as such, Hillel should not
be seen as a legitimate voice for all Jewish voices on campus, as they
themselves have silenced and excluded Jewish voices based on political
opinion."
Despite the likely intentions of Hillel chapters and their global network,
Hillel International, to marginalize Palestine supporters, these polices of
exclusion will probably have the effect of self-isolation as Palestine
emerges as an increasingly popular issue and its supporters solidify
relationships with activists from Black, Indigenous, Latino and other
communities, said JVP's Dann.
"The refusal of Hillel to engage with BDS and BDS supporters and its active
opposition to divestment clearly is isolating them from progressive
coalitions and people of color-led groups on campuses, who see them as being
on the wrong side of history," Dann added.
"Tomorrow's Employees"
While Israel supporters target Jewish activists with isolation from local
communities, others are more likely to face direct threats, including to
their livelihoods.
"While there's a particular acrimony for Jewish anti-Zionists, the
'self-hating traitors,' the Arabs and Muslims who criticize Israel validate
the colonial logic of their barbarity," Steven Salaita told Truthout.
"Anything we say in criticism of Israel, then, necessarily reflects our
acrimonious relationship to modernity."
The University of Illinois fired Salaita, a scholar of Native American
studies, in 2014 when its board of trustees refused to confirm his
appointment to a tenured position in the American Indian studies program at
the university's Urbana-Champaign campus. Their decision followed pressure
from donors when Salaita posted a number of tweets critical of Israel during
its 2014 offensive against the Gaza Strip.
After a firestorm of public criticism and academic boycotts and censure,
embarrassing revelations of a cover-up that led to the resignation of the
University of Illinois chancellor, Phyllis Wise, and preliminary losses in a
lawsuit filed by Salaita, the university settled the case in November 2015,
agreeing to pay him $875,000.
Other Israel supporters have sought to expand this model, denying Palestine
activists employment on a broad scale. The website
http://canarymission.org/Canary Mission collates information on their
identities and activities. "It is your duty to ensure that today's radicals
are not tomorrow's employees," a
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJgXa1Pf8p0promotional video narrates.
When investigative journalists Julia Carmel and Max Blumenthal researched
the anonymous project, they found neoconservative leader and Middle East
Forum founder Daniel Pipes, who runs a similar website called
http://www.campus-watch.org/Campus Watch,
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/modern-day-mccarthyists-are-goin
g-extremes-slime-activists-fighting-israelseager to speak on its operators'
behalf.
While Campus Watch targets academics, Canary Mission focuses squarely on
students, mainly young undergraduates. Pipes told Blumenthal and Carmel that
"collecting information on students has particular value because it signals
[to] them that calumnying [sic] Israel is serious business, not some
inconsequential collegiate prank; and that their actions can damage both
Israel and their future careers."
"Just Racist as Hell"
Carmel and Blumenthal also traced a number of ties apparently connecting
Canary Mission to the Aish World Center, a global enterprise with modern
Orthodox religious programming and pro-West Bank settlement activities that
receive direct funding from the Israeli government. Carmel said the site
targets specific demographics. "In researching the operatives behind Canary
Mission, I've found that these groups have disproportionately targeted
female activists and minority demographics," she said. "It's important to
consider the fact that people of color - including activists who identify as
Arabs, non-Ashkenazi Jews etc. - consistently tend to empathize more with
oppressed groups. As a result, those of us who have been targeted are part
of a more diverse group."
"But this alone doesn't account for how pro-Israel groups seem to be
targeting minority demographics more frequently than not," Carmel added.
"Out of 159 activists currently profiled by Canary Mission, 92 of them are
women - substantially more than the number of men targeted - and even more
remarkably, at least 103 of them are Arab-American or people of color."
In several of the cases Blumenthal and Carmel examined, these profiles,
which include links to their targets' personal social media accounts, have
led to graphic threats of death, rape and other violence, particularly
against women.
Reflecting on the repressive apparatus facing Palestine activists and his
own experience with it, Salaita concluded, "A lot of people are just racist
as hell."
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Joe Catron
Joe Catron, a freelance journalist and solidarity activist, recently
returned to New York City from Gaza, Palestine, where he lived for three and
a half years. He tweets at @jncatron.
Related Stories
Challenging Bullets, Not Boycotts: Education Under Occupation in Palestine
By Kristian Davis Bailey , Truthout | News AnalysisTen Years of BDS: The
Growing Movement Against the Occupation of Palestine
By Joe Catron, Truthout | News AnalysisBDS Opponents Launch "Campus
Maccabees" to Fight Divestment Efforts
By Bill Berkowitz, Truthout | Report
Show Comments
