Loading ...Pro-Palestine Student Activists Face Cyberbullying, Backlash on US Campuses
By Annie Hylton
Truthout
Sitting in a large classroom in northern New Jersey, Khalil, a shy and soft-spoken 18-year-old first-generation Palestinian immigrant, forms a circle with fellow pro-Palestine student activists. They nervously recount the issues they’ve faced for their outspoken political views, turning their heads each time a person peeks into the room.
“Everyone has to take more caution,” Khalil said. The group of activists, aged 18 to 22, asked that their names and college be withheld. Khalil’s name has been changed. “There are spies everywhere,” he said. “It is scary.”
Khalil has good reason to be nervous. Student groups, professors and academic associations “are increasingly engaging in conversations, debate, research and other speech activity that’s challenging the status quo on Israel/Palestine,” said Radhika Sainath, staff attorney at Palestine Legal, an organization that defends the civil rights of those who speak out for Palestinian rights.”Along with this growth in support for Palestinian rights we are also seeing an increase in suppression.”
“This is a deliberate strategy by Israel advocacy groups to shut down any and all criticism of Israel by maligning activists.”
In 2015, pro-Palestine students at University of California, Santa Cruz set up mock checkpoints to illustrate their concerns with the Israel-Palestine conflict. The students were accused (through anonymous reports submitted to the school’s administration) of supporting terrorism and dressing like “Islamic jihadis”; and in 2010, a student fundraiser at Rutgers University for the US Boat to Gaza was shut down when Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League accused the students of providing material support for terrorism. Hillel, a Jewish campus organization, and the Anti-Defamation League, a nongovernmental organization aimed at countering anti-Semitism, have both been known to stifle criticism of Israel. In November, fake Facebook accounts targeted pro-Palestine, University of Chicago students by posting threatening Islamophobic and homophobic comments while a University of Illinois, Chicago student received an email with death threats.
A report released in September by Palestine Legal documents hundreds of these alleged incidents involving censorship, punishment and suppression of advocacy over an 18-month period. In October, the organization documented 31 alleged incidents. The group found that nearly half of the incidents involved false accusations of support for terrorism or anti-Semitism, and the vast majority targeted students and scholars.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Sainath, one of the authors of the report.”These false accusations of supporting terrorism and anti-Semitism often have Islamophobic and xenophobic tones when levied against Muslim and Arab Americans.” Such accusations may lead to criminal investigations, cancellation of events, harassment and even death threats. “This is a deliberate strategy by Israel advocacy groups to shut down any and all criticism of Israel by maligning activists,” Sainath added.
Hillel International, the world’s largest Jewish organization with significant financial backing, has about 550 chapters across most college campuses and has been around for nearly a century. The group has been exposed by media outlets like AlterNet and The New York Times, as well as civil rights groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal, for attempting to suppress speech critical of Israel across campuses.
A younger group, Students for Justice in Palestine, a pro-Palestine student organization, is present across more than 100 US campuses and in recent years has gained visibility. The group was founded in the early 2000s and calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel into ending its military occupation and respecting international law – a campaign modeled off of the South African anti-apartheid movement. The relationship between the groups has become more and more antagonistic.
As violence is on the rise between Israel and Palestine, the United States has increasingly come under fire from pro-Palestine advocates for its unwavering support of Israel. But the risks of speaking out are potentially grave. Students have feared that they or their families will face travel restrictions because of false accusations of terrorism. This “can have a real long-term effect on students,” said Sainath, and some don’t get involved because they are afraid of the consequences.
Travel Restrictions
Students in the US who have come as refugees or have families back in Palestine often fear backlash if they return home, said Omar Shakir, a Bertha Justice Institute fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the authors of the report. In some cases, Israeli border officials have denied students entry into Palestine, apparently as a result of their activities on campus.
Israeli authorities control entry and exit into the Palestinian territories. The Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan is the only entry point for Palestinians with a Palestinian Authority ID card. Palestinian-Americans have, in the past, entered through Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport with a US passport, but have been denied entry in recent months.
The US State Department says Palestinian nationals, including dual nationals, must enter through the Allenby crossing from Jordan using a Palestinian Authority travel document, rather than via Ben-Gurion Airport, unless they have obtained advance permission from an Israeli embassy or consulate on humanitarian or emergency grounds.
State Department spokesperson John Kirby said, “Specifically, the U.S. government remains concerned at the unequal treatment that Palestinian-Americans and other Arab-Americans receive at Israel’s borders and checkpoints.”
Source: www.truth-out.org