02.05.24
Editorial Note
The State of Qatar, known for being the largest financier of Hamas, has also invested millions of dollars in American campuses to promote Islam and anti-Israel themes. It has been doing so for four decades.
Starting in the 1990s, the Qatari government has sponsored groups that could impact the anti-Israel discourse on campus and beyond. Omar Barghouti, one of the pioneers of BDS and the co-founder of The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is a Qatari-born Palestinian.
Qatar, with its Al-Jazeera media outlet, has trumpeted the current upheaval on American campuses. Qatar responds to the riots on campus by convincing readers that the riots are part of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which “guarantees freedom of assembly and speech.” It quotes the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) open letter to public and private universities, “warning them against violating the rights of protesters.”
Al-Jazeera claimed that: “Dozens of faith, civil rights and progressive groups in the United States have expressed solidarity with university students protesting against US support for Israel amid the war on Gaza. The groups – which include the Working Families Party, IfNotNow Movement, Sunrise Movement, Movement for Black Lives, and Gen-Z for Change – lauded the student protesters in a joint statement… The signatories also included the Arab American Institute, MPower Change Action Fund, Greenpeace USA and Justice Democrats.”
An online perusal of MPower Change shows its purpose is to “empower American Muslims to realize their faith values and translate it into local, state and national policies that safeguard the freedom to move, work, and be Muslim. We achieve this through grassroots organizing, political education and training, mobilizing Muslim voters, and leading campaigns that impact Muslims.”
The various groups that Qatar promotes wrote an open letter, “We commend the students who are exercising their right to protest peacefully despite an overwhelming atmosphere of pressure, intimidation and retaliation, to raise awareness about Israel’s assault on Gaza – with US weapons and funding. These students have come forth with clear demands that their universities divest from corporations profiting from Israeli occupation, and demanding safe environments for Palestinians across their campuses.”
Qatar urges American universities to divest from Israel. Columbia University President Minouche Shafik released a statement saying, “While the University will not divest from Israel, the University offered to develop an expedited timeline for review of new proposals from the students by the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing, the body that considers divestment matters.”
Qatar tried to blame pro-Israel groups for escalating the riots. It accused President Shafik, “Her statement failed to mention Palestinians or the anti-Arab and Islamophobic bigotry that demonstrators have reported receiving from counterprotesters.”
Qatar’s goals are not new, in July 2019, as IAM reported “The Campus War Against Israel“ that, over the years, the academy has become a prominent venue for anti-Israel activity. Arab oil-wealthy states invested large sums of money in Western Universities to buy influence. With the Middle East Centers or Islamic Centers, it allowed them to teach a revision of history, tainting Israel in a negative light and influencing who would be invited to teach and research in the social sciences. Staunch enemies of Israel were recruited, as well as Israelis who are critics of Israel.
As IAM reported, in addition to the Qatari direct involvement, some Jewish American scholars have also been involved in the indirect anti-Israel Qatari campaign on campus. Using Jewish academics is known as “tokenism” to deflect accusations of anti-Semitism. As can be expected, the “tokenists” ignore human rights abuses in Iran and the Arab States but highlight the alleged misconduct of Israel. For example, a Jewish anti-Israel scholar named Rebecca L. Stein, an associate professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, who signed a “call for divestment and pressure against Israeli apartheid,” has also been engaged in a program intending to defame Israel through scholarships. The program is a collaboration between the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (known as the Doha Institute) in Qatar and Birzeit University (BZU). The Arab Center is headed by former MK Azmi Bishara, who sought refuge in Qatar after escaping allegations of spying for Hezbollah. The program created a Master’s degree in Israel Studies, which began operating in 2015.
The program’s purpose was to “produce Palestinian knowledge of Israeli society” aimed at “fundamentally remaking the dominant paradigm of Israel Studies as it has been configured in the United States and increasingly in Great Britain, with its proud ‘advocacy’ mandate on behalf of the Israeli state. Birzeit’s program turns this paradigm inside out, providing students with a radical alternative.” The idea began informally in 2010 in conversations between the President and the faculty of Birzeit with the Ramallah-based Institute for Palestine Studies. The faculty disagreed on the new program’s name – with some wanting to call it “settler-colonial studies “and others preferring “Israel Studies,” The Palestinian Ministry of Education approved the latter title, and the funding was secured from Qatar.
The program encouraged students to pursue Ph.D. at Western universities to produce anti-Israel scholarships. One such student was Izz Al-Deen Araj. During his MA studies, he “started to think about Israel as a settler-colonial society, not [merely] as soldiers…We understand the conflict through one model: settler-colonialism or apartheid.” When another student, Marah Khalifeh, began the program, “Israel was something abstract: the enemy, the colonizer.” Now, with the “in-depth knowledge about Israeli society…It’s part of knowing your enemy, part of the knowledge of resistance.” According to Khalife, “It’s all about the type of knowledge we are trying to produce. We are trying to produce a Palestinian knowledge of Israeli society… to create our own tools.”
In 2019, IAM ended its post by asking: When will the West take notice of the war against Israel on its campuses?
The wave of protest following the Hamas attack on Israel shows clearly that the West did not take notice of the highly antisemitic and radically biased anti-Israel education that generations of students have received. To avoid repeating the chaos, the universities have to take a closer look at what their students are being taught.
REFERENCES:
US advocacy groups back Palestine solidarity campus protests amid Gaza war
Nearly 190 advocacy organisations laud students’ ‘courage’ amid ongoing crackdown on encampments across US universities.
By Ali Harb
Published On 29 Apr 202429 Apr 2024
Washington, DC – Dozens of faith, civil rights and progressive groups in the United States have expressed solidarity with university students protesting against US support for Israel amid the war on Gaza.
The groups – which include the Working Families Party, IfNotNow Movement, Sunrise Movement, Movement for Black Lives, and Gen-Z for Change – lauded the student protesters in a joint statement on Monday.
“We commend the students who are exercising their right to protest peacefully despite an overwhelming atmosphere of pressure, intimidation and retaliation, to raise awareness about Israel’s assault on Gaza – with US weapons and funding,” the organisations said.
“These students have come forth with clear demands that their universities divest from corporations profiting from Israeli occupation, and demanding safe environments for Palestinians across their campuses.”
The signatories also included the Arab American Institute, MPower Change Action Fund, Greenpeace USA and Justice Democrats.
The statement, backed by nearly 190 groups, highlights the growing progressive support for the campus protest movement as it enters its third week, despite crackdowns by university administrators and law enforcement agencies.
While students have been protesting the war on Gaza since its outbreak on October 7, the new wave of demonstrations – marked by protesters setting up encampments on their campuses – has gripped the country and made international headlines.
The students are calling for their universities to disclose their investments and end ties with firms involved with the Israeli military.
‘Violent response’
The protests started to gain momentum earlier in April at Columbia University in New York, where students continue to face arrests after the college administration called on police to clear their encampments.
Still, similar protests have sprung up across the US, as well as in other countries.
Hundreds of students have been arrested in the US so far with footage emerging of students, professors and journalists being violently detained by officers on various campuses.
“As we stand in solidarity with the students protesting in encampments across the country, we reaffirm our commitment to amplifying their voices, condemn the university administration officials’ violent response to their activism, and demand that universities remove the presence of police and other militarized forces from their campuses,” the advocacy groups said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik released a statement calling on the student protesters to “voluntarily disperse”.
“We are consulting with a broader group in our community to explore alternative internal options to end this crisis as soon as possible,” Shafik said.
She accused the encampment of creating an “unwelcoming environment” for Jewish students and faculty. But student protesters have rejected accusations of anti-Semitism, underscoring that many of the organisers engaged in the demonstrations are themselves Jewish.
“While the University will not divest from Israel, the University offered to develop an expedited timeline for review of new proposals from the students by the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing, the body that considers divestment matters,” Shafik added.
Her statement failed to mention Palestinians or the anti-Arab and Islamophobic bigotry that demonstrators have reported receiving from counterprotesters.
Columbia later issued a threat to suspend and take disciplinary actions against students if they do not clear the encampment by Monday afternoon. The university had set previous deadlines to end the protests, which the students appeared to ignore.
Political backlash
The crackdown on protesters and faculty members who support them has raised concerns about academic freedom and free speech on US campuses.
On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued an open letter to public and private universities, warning them against violating the rights of protesters. The First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees freedom of assembly and speech.
“As you fashion responses to the activism of your students (and faculty and staff), it is essential that you not sacrifice principles of academic freedom and free speech that are core to the educational mission of your respected institution,” it read.
The ACLU also urged campus leaders to resist “pressures placed on them by politicians seeking to exploit campus tensions to advance their own notoriety or partisan agendas”.
Politicians from both major parties have condemned student demonstrators and accused them of anti-Semitism.
“I don’t care what your demands are. Get the hell out of our community and never come back. Those are my demands,” Republican Congressman Brandon Williams wrote in a social media post on Monday in response to protesters at Syracuse University in central New York state. “And the clock is ticking.”
Last month, Williams introduced a bill titled “Respecting the First Amendment on Campus Act”.
‘They risk everything’
Amid this backlash, the dozens of progressive groups who voiced support for the students on Monday said the students’ “courage and determination in the face of adversity inspire us all to take action and speak out against injustice wherever it occurs”.
“As they risk everything right now, it is critical that all of us do everything we can to support them.”
Student organisers have stressed that their protests aim to spread awareness about the abuses in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 34,400 people and imposed a severe blockade on the territory, bringing it to the verge of starvation.
They have warned that the politicians’ focus on them aims to distract from Israeli atrocities and US support for the war.
“Part of the reactionary response to this is to treat the campus protest itself as the problem, as the crisis – as opposed to as a response to a crisis that we should be paying attention to,” Eman Abdelhadi, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, told Al Jazeera last week.
“But I don’t think the movement itself is a distraction in the sense that the students themselves have been steadfast in turning the camera back towards Gaza.”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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https://www.mpowerchange.org/gazastudentprotestsStatement in solidarity with student protests for Gaza
We, the undersigned organizations, stand in solidarity with the students nationwide and globally who are bravely protesting in encampments and otherwise to condemn Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza–actions which human rights organizations, a federal U.S. court, and the International Court of Justice have said “plausibly” constitute genocide.
We commend the students who are exercising their right to protest peacefully despite an overwhelming atmosphere of pressure, intimidation and retaliation, to raise awareness about Israel’s assault on Gaza – with U.S. weapons and funding. These students have come forth with clear demands that their universities divest from corporations profiting from Israeli occupation, and demanding safe environments for Palestinians across their campuses. The students’ courage and determination in the face of adversity inspire us all to take action and speak out against injustice wherever it occurs. As they risk everything right now, it is critical that all of us do everything we can to support them.
We join them in calling for an immediate and lasting ceasefire and an end to the U.S. government’s and institutions’ role in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
As we stand in solidarity with the students protesting in encampments across the country, we reaffirm our commitment to amplifying their voices, condemn the university administration officials’ violent response to their activism, and demand that universities remove the presence of police and other militarized forces from their campuses.
In solidarity,
350.org US 18 Million Rising 198 methods Adalah Justice Project Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association AF3IRM Afghans For A Better Tomorrow Al-Haq Alliance of Baptists American Baptist Churches USA American Baptist Churches Palestine Israel Network American Friends Service Committee American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) American Muslim Bar Association American Muslim Community Foundation American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action) Arab American Civic Council Arab American Institute Asian American Advocacy Fund Better to Speak Beyt Tikkun: A Synagogue without Walls Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU) Blue Future Borderlands for Equity Borderlands Resource Initiative Breach Collective Brooklyn For Peace CAIR Action CAIR California CAIR Minnesota CAIR Oklahoma CAIR-WA California Coalition for Women Prisoners Cameroon American Council Carceral Tech Resistance Network Ceasefire Democrats Ceasefire Now NJ Center for Constitutional Rights Center for Popular Democracy Action Center for Protest Law & Litigation @ Partnership for Civil Justice Fund Chicago Area Peace Action Chicago Faith Coalition on Middle East Policy Christians for a Free Palestine Civic Ark Civil Liberties Defense Center Clockshop CommonDefense.us Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP) Council on American-Islamic Relations CWA-News Guild Local 38010 Defending Rights & Dissent Delaware Democratic Socialists of America Delawareans for Palestinian Human Rights Detention Watch Network Disciples Palestine Israel Network Diverse & Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM) Doctors Against Genocide Dream Defenders Dutch Scholars for Palestine Eindhoven Students 4 Palestine Emgage Action En Conjunto Episcopal Peace Fellowship-Palestine Israel Network Faith for Black Lives Faith in Texas Fellowship of Reconciliation Fight for the Future For All Freedom Farm Community Freedom Oklahoma Freedom To Thrive Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) Future Coalition Gen-Z for Change Gender Justice Action and Gender Justice Get Free Global Campaign to Reclaim People's Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power & Stop Impunity Green Mountain Solidarity With Palestine Green New Deal Network Greenpeace USA Hawai'i for Palestine Health Justice Commons Helena (Montana) Service for Peace and Justice Highlander Research and Education Center Hindus for Human Rights Historians for Peace and Democracy Human Dignity Project (THDP) IfNotNow Movement IfNotNow New Jersey Immigrant Defense Project Immigrant Justice Network Immigrants Act Now Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) Indiana Center for Middle East Peace Institute for Policy Studies New Internationalism Project Interfaith Ceasefire International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network International Mayan League InterReligious Task Force on Central America Iowans For Palestine Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Islamophobia Studies Center Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Jewish Voice for Peace Jewish Voice for Peace-Hawai’i Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) Just Foreign Policy Justice Democrats Just Futures Law Justice for All Kairos USA Libyan American Alliance LittleSis / Public Accountability Initiative Living Water Inclusive Catholic Community Long Island Progressive Coalition Make the Road Nevada Malaya Georgia Massachusetts Peace Action Mennonite Action Mennonite Action WA Migrant Roots Media Minnesota Peace Project Mondoweiss Movement for Black Lives MPower Change Action Fund MSA West Muslim Advocates Muslim Community Network Muslim Counterpublics Lab Muslim Power Building Project Muslims for Just Futures Muslims for Progressive Values National Arab American Women’s Association (NAAWA) National Iranian American Council National Lawyers Guild National Lawyers Guild – St. Louis Chapter National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) National Partnership for New Americans New Hampshire Veterans for Peace New York City Veterans For Peace The New Justice Project Minnesota NH Peace Action North American Students of Cooperation No Separate Justice North Carolina Peace Action The Oakland Institute Office of Peace, Justice, and Ecological Integrity/Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth Our Revolution Palestine American League Palestine Legal Palestinian American Community Center Palestinian American Organizations Network (PAON) Palestinian Feminist Collective Partners for Palestine Pax Christi New Jersey Pax Christi New York State Pax Christi Pacific Northwest Pax Christi USA Peace Action Peace Action New York State Peace, Justice, Sustainability NOW! Pediatricians for Palestine People’s Action PeoplesHub Poverty Project at the Institute for Policy Studies Presbyterian Church (USA), Office of Public Witness Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Project ANAR Project South Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice Reparation Education Project Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment Rise for Palestine Rising Majority Rising Tide North America Rochester Committee on Latin America RootsAction Education Fund Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestinian Rights Sound Vision Starr King School for the Ministry Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine at the University of Hawai’i (SFJP) Sunrise Movement Sur Legal Collaborative TakeAction Minnesota Tech Justice Law Project The Gathering for Justice The Hague Peace Projects The Social Justice Center The Uncommitted National Movement The Whatcom Peace and Justice Center Transnational Institute UndocuBlack Network Unitarian Universalist Association Unitarian Universalist Church of the Larger Fellowship Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry of North Carolina Unitarian Universalist Mass Action Unitarian Universalist Peace Ministry Network Unitarian Universalist Service Committee Unitarian Universalist Young Adults for Climate Justice (UUYACJ) Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR) United Voices for America Until Freedom US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Veterans For Peace We Are All America Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press Working Families Party World BEYOND War Young Democrats of America Black Caucus Young Democrats of America Environmental Caucus Youth Leadership Institute
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Open Letter to College and University Presidents on Student Protests
Academic freedom and free speech are essential. Universities must protect them.
By Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director
David Cole, ACLU Legal Director
April 26, 2024
Dear College and University Presidents:
We write in response to the recent protests that have spread across our nation’s university and college campuses, and the disturbing arrests that have followed. We understand that as leaders of your campus communities, it can be extraordinarily difficult to navigate the pressures you face from politicians, donors, and faculty and students alike. You also have legal obligations to combat discrimination and a responsibility to maintain order. But as you fashion responses to the activism of your students (and faculty and staff), it is essential that you not sacrifice principles of academic freedom and free speech that are core to the educational mission of your respected institution.
The ACLU helped establish the right to protest as a central pillar of the First Amendment. We have defended those principles for more than a century. The First Amendment compels public universities and colleges to respect free speech rights. And while the Constitution does not apply directly to private institutions, academic freedom and free inquiry require that similar principles guide private universities. We approach this moment with appreciation for the challenges you confront. In the spirit of offering constructive solutions for a way forward, we offer five basic guardrails to ensure freedom of speech and academic freedom while protecting against discriminatory harassment and disruptive conduct.
Schools must not single out particular viewpoints for censorship, discipline, or disproportionate punishment
First, university administrators must not single out particular viewpoints — however offensive they may be to some members of the community — for censorship, discipline, or disproportionate punishment. Viewpoint neutrality is essential. Harassment directed at individuals because of their race, ethnicity, or religion is not, of course, permissible. But general calls for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea,” or defenses of Israel’s assault on Gaza, even if many listeners find these messages deeply offensive, cannot be prohibited or punished by a university that respects free speech principles.
These protections extend to both students and faculty, and to speech that supports either side of the conflict. Outside the classroom, including on social media, students and professors must be free to express even the most controversial political opinions without fear of discipline or censure. Inside the classroom, speech can be and always has been subject to more restrictive rules to ensure civil dialogue and a robust learning environment. But such rules have no place in a public forum like a campus green. Preserving physical safety on campuses is paramount; but “safety” from ideas or views that one finds offensive is anathema to the very enterprise of the university.
Schools must protect students from discriminatory harassment and violence
Second, both public and private universities are bound by civil rights laws that guarantee all students equal access to education, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. This means that schools can, and indeed must, protect students from discriminatory harassment on the basis of race or national origin, which has been interpreted to include discrimination on the basis of “shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics,” or “citizenship or residency in a country with a dominant religion or distinct religious identity.”
So, while offensive and even racist speech is constitutionally protected, shouting an epithet at a particular student or pinning an offensive sign to their dorm room door can constitute impermissible harassment, not free speech. Antisemitic or anti-Palestinian speech targeted at individuals because of their ethnicity or national origin constitutes invidious discrimination, and cannot be tolerated. Physically intimidating students by blocking their movements or pursuing them aggressively is unprotected conduct, not protected speech. It should go without saying that violence is never an acceptable protest tactic.
Speech that is not targeted at an individual or individuals because of their ethnicity or national origin but merely expresses impassioned views about Israel or Palestine is not discrimination and should be protected. The only exception for such untargeted speech is where it is so severe or pervasive that it denies students equal access to an education — an extremely demanding standard that has almost never been met by pure speech. One can criticize Israel’s actions, even in vituperative terms, without being antisemitic. And by the same token, one can support Israel’s actions in Gaza and condemn Hamas without being anti-Muslim. Administrators must resist the tendency to equate criticism with discrimination. Speech condoning violence can be condemned, to be sure. But it cannot be the basis for punishment, without more.
Schools can announce and enforce reasonable content-neutral protest policies but they must leave ample room for students to express themselves
Third, universities can announce and enforce reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions on protest activity to ensure that essential college functions can continue. Such restrictions must be content neutral, meaning that they do not depend on the substance of what is being communicated, but rather where, when, or how it is being communicated. Protests can be limited to certain areas of campus and certain times of the day, for example. These policies must, however, leave ample room for students to speak to and to be heard by other members of the community. And the rules must not only be content neutral on their face; they must also be applied in a content-neutral manner. If a university has routinely tolerated violations of its rules, and suddenly enforces them harshly in a specific context, singling out particular views for punishment, the fact that the policy is formally neutral on its face does not make viewpoint-based enforcement permissible.
Schools must recognize that armed police on campus can endanger students and are a measure of last resort
Fourth, when enforcement of content-neutral rules may be warranted, college administrators should involve police only as a last resort, after all other efforts have been exhausted. Inviting armed police into a campus protest environment, even a volatile one, can create unacceptable risks for all students and staff. University officials must also be cognizant of the history of law enforcement using inappropriate and excessive force on communities of color, including Black, Brown, and immigrant students. Moreover, arresting peaceful protestors is also likely to escalate, not calm, the tensions on campus — as events of the past week have made abundantly clear.
Schools must resist the pressures placed on them by politicians seeking to exploit campus tensions
Finally, campus leaders must resist the pressures placed on them by politicians seeking to exploit campus tensions to advance their own notoriety or partisan agendas. Recent congressional hearings have featured disgraceful attacks by members of Congress on academic freedom and freedom of speech. Universities must stand up to such intimidation, and defend the principles of academic freedom so essential to their integrity and mission.
The Supreme Court has forcefully rejected the premise that, “because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large.”
“Quite to the contrary,” the court stated, “the vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools.” In keeping with these values, we urge you to resist the temptation to silence students or faculty members because powerful voices deem their views offensive. Instead, we urge you to defend the university’s core mission of encouraging debate, fostering dissent, and preparing the future leaders of our pluralistic society to tolerate even profound differences of opinion.
israel-academia-monitor.com 