[Civil rights groups say critics of the Israeli assault on Gaza
have lost jobs and students who support Palestine have been
blacklisted ]
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‘MCCARTHYITE BACKLASH’: RESPONSE TO CRITICISM OF ISRAEL ALARMS
RIGHTS GROUPS  
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Chris McGreal
October 30, 2023
Guardian
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_ Civil rights groups say critics of the Israeli assault on Gaza have
lost jobs and students who support Palestine have been blacklisted _

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Civil rights groups in the US have warned of a “wave of McCarthyite
backlash” against criticism of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza after
Americans expressing support for the Palestinians have been sacked,
faced threats of violence and hounded by pro-Israel groups.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has warned of
the “continued criminalisation of advocacy for Palestinian rights”
and described an “increasing tide of anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab
attacks in the US” following the Hamas cross-border attack in which
about 1,400 Israelis were killed and more than 200 abducted.

Palestine Legal, a Chicago-based civil rights group, said it had
received hundreds of requests for legal assistance from people who
have lost their jobs, been threatened with dismissal or faced other
sanctions for speaking out in support of Palestinians.

Some of the more high-profile instances include executives at Wall
Street financial firms pledging to blacklist students who sign
statements in support of Palestinians.

The editor of the scientific journal eLife, Michael Eisen, was forced
out of his job
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reposting an article from the satirical magazine the Onion challenging
the view that people should not criticise Israeli actions unless they
first condemn Hamas. The Onion headline
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“Dying Gazans Criticized for Not Using Last Words to Condemn
Hamas”.

Hundreds of academics signed an open letter
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the dismissal was an offence to free speech.

Paddy Cosgrave, the chief executive of a major global technology
conference, was forced to resign as head of his own company after
leading tech firms, including Meta, Google, Intel and Amazon, pulled
out of the annual Web Summit gathering in Lisbon next month after he
posted on X (formerly Twitter): “War crimes are war crimes even when
committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are.”

David Marcus, a former Facebook executive, criticised
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for not condemning Hamas and said he “chose to support
terrorists”.

“As such I’ll never attend/sponsor/speak at any of your events
again,” Marcus said on X.

Cosgrave apologised but the scale of the boycott forced him out.

A leading Hollywood talent agent, Maha Dakhil, whose clients include
Tom Cruise, Natalie Portman and Reese Witherspoon, was removed from
her company’s board after sharing an Instagram post accusing Israel
of genocide in Gaza.

Dakhil apologised for reposting “hurtful language” and said she
was “grateful to Jewish friends and colleagues who pointed out the
implications and further educated me”.

In New York, the 92NY arts centre called off a series of book talks
after several writers withdrew in solidarity with an author whose
reading was cancelled because he criticised Israel.

The venue, which was founded as the Young Men’s Hebrew Association
150 years ago, called off the talk by the Pulitzer prize-winning
novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen at the 92NY’s poetry centre after he
signed an open letter
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the London Review of Books calling for an immediate ceasefire and
accusing Israel of “unprecedented and indiscriminate violence” and
“grave crimes against humanity” in Gaza.

“Given the public comments by the invited author on Israel and this
moment, we felt the responsible course of action was to postpone the
event while we take some time to determine how best to use our
platform and support the entire 92NY community,” the management
said.

Several other writers pulled out of events at the 92NY in protest and
some of the poetry centre’s staff resigned over the cancellation.

A New York museum, El Museo del Barrio, rejected an artwork
commissioned for its annual Day of the Dead celebrations because it
included a Palestinian flag and called off a fundraiser at which the
piece was to be unveiled. The museum said the flag politicised the
artwork but the artists said
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work included other political elements including a denunciation of the
police.

Rights groups have also warned of a growing climate of official
hostility.

Hundreds of lawyers and legal organisations have signed an open
letter
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on the US authorities to protect the rights of Americans to criticise
Israel’s assault on Gaza.

“Elected officials have irresponsibly accused protesters for
Palestinian rights of antisemitism and support for terrorism, and
called for the mobilization of law enforcement resources to police
them, contributing to racist fear-mongering. This portends a dangerous
reignition of ‘war on terror’ policies that led to extreme state
repression and constitutional rights violations against Arab, Muslim
and other communities of color,” the letter says.

“The hundreds of incidents happening across the country signal a
much broader effort to criminalize dissent, justify censorship and
incite anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim harassment, doxing,
and vigilantism against Palestinians and their allies.”

On Friday, the US Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning
“anti-Israel, pro-Hamas student groups” after demonstrations on
university campuses, some of which included antisemitic language and
chants praising the Hamas attack. But many others have been in
solidarity with Palestinian civilians under Israeli bombardment in
Gaza.

The ADC condemned the resolution as a “blatant attempt to silence,
demonize, and criminalize legitimate criticism and dissent surrounding
Israel’s occupation and war on Gaza”.

“By conflating criticism of Israel with support for Hamas and
antisemitism, this resolution threatens the very fabric of freedom of
speech in American institutions of higher learning,” it said.

“This resolution is not only misleading but eerily reminiscent of
the McCarthy-era and post-9/11 tactics designed to suppress differing
opinions and stifle discourse.”

The ADC also accused American politicians of selective condemnation of
violent language.

“While the Senate seems overly preoccupied with what students are
saying, they’re deafeningly silent about genocidal statements from
those in positions of power: Israel’s defense minister’s
dehumanizing reference to Palestinians as ‘human animals’, the
threats from an Israeli major general of total destruction, Senator
Lindsey Graham’s callous statement that Israel should ‘level the
place’ and Representative Max Miller’s outrageous demand for Gaza
to be transformed into a parking lot with its inhabitants
displaced.”

_Chris McGreal writes for Guardian US and is a former Guardian
correspondent in Washington, Johannesburg and Jerusalem. He is the
author of American Overdose, The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts_

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* McCarthyism
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* Free Speech
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* Israel
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* Gaza
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* Hamas
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