For 80 days, Israel has been waging war against the Palestinians in Gaza with the full diplomatic, economic and military support of the US government. The Israeli army killed 21,000 people, carried out what legal experts consider genocide, and committed countless other war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Yet growing moral outrage in the United States and around the world is met with dangerous smear campaigns that use racism as a weapon to silence the Palestinian freedom movement.
Fueled and fueled by Islamophobia and anti-Palestinism, extreme rhetoric has encouraged unprecedented violations of the civil rights of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Americans, and even deadly violence against members of these communities.
But the negative repercussions of this fanatical repression are not limited to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims; rather, they threaten the fundamental moral and civic values that constitute the foundation of democracy.
Slander and witch hunt
Over the past two and a half months, we have seen massive street protests, open letters of condemnation, public resignations of officials and other protest actions aimed at demanding a ceasefire, equal rights for Palestinians and accountability for war crimes.
But this mobilization has been countered by attempts to portray the pro-Palestinian movement and any criticism of the Israeli genocide as “anti-Semitic” and supportive of violence or terrorism.
While these tactics are not new, this campaign has expanded in scale and scope to the point that it resembles a McCarthyite witch hunt, relentlessly targeting Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslim Americans in particular, as well as allies who opposed the U.S.-funded project. violence and Israel’s apartheid policy.
Since October, thousands of people have been victims of this vast defamation campaign. On American college campuses, student activists have been disciplined by administrators, their student groups banned, doxxed on the Internet, their faces and names posted on bulletin boards with false captions and defamatory and lost their job offers.
Other opponents of the genocide have been forced to remain silent, faced threats, intimidation and harassment online and in the streets, and suffered economic repercussions, including loss of employment.
But this persecution has not been limited to the private sector and online spaces; it has also extended into the corridors of power.
In November, a hearing was held in the US Congress during which “witnesses” falsely claimed that US-registered charities, including those of which I am the director – American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action) – “provide support” to Palestinian resistance groups.
These false allegations extend to the absurd claim that these organizations called for “genocide against Israel.”
Members of Congress who spoke out against Israeli atrocities or simply met with their constituents as part of the annual “Palestine Advocacy Days” were also named and shamed during the hearing.
These malicious “testimonies” seek to make our political contributions and voices toxic in the halls of power by spreading lies and promoting Islamophobic tropes that build on decades of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim bias. .
It’s one thing to combat smear and misinformation in the media, but it’s another – and fundamentally more troubling – to be attacked by false accusations in Congress. The fact that these testimonies containing false and bigoted claims were allowed shows the complete failure of our public institutions to protect Americans’ right to dissent at a time when our tax dollars are being used to support the Israeli genocide Gaza.
Islamophobia and violence
These defamatory and repressive tactics have dangerous consequences. They fuel hatred and encourage people to act on it.
According to the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, hate speech against Muslims has increased by 417% since the start of the war.
Civil rights groups like Palestine Legal and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have also reported an unprecedented number of anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim attacks and complaints of discriminatory incidents over the past two months. . They saw an increase of more than 200 percent from the previous year, and this is probably an underestimated figure.
There were not only verbal attacks and harassment, but also fatal physical violence. On October 14, Wadea al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American child, was stabbed 26 times with a military knife by a man who shouted: “You Muslims must die”; his mother was stabbed a dozen times but survived.
On November 25, three Palestinian students were shot because they spoke Arabic and wore kaffiyehs; all three were shot and wounded, and one is now paralyzed from the chest down.
A member of our own team, Neveen Ayesh, was shot to death in her car and her home burglarized on November 11.
In addition to inciting violence and intimidation against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Americans, smear campaigns are reinvigorating the post-9/11 atmosphere of suspicion, mass surveillance, and collective victimization.
For decades, we have worked to expose the racism and double standards of successive presidential administrations and their anti-Muslim policies – from watch lists and entrapment schemes to registries and bans.
We have demonstrated the waste of millions of public funds on programs and initiatives that targeted and deeply traumatized our communities, but produced no results in terms of “improving national security.” We fought to ensure that no community was disproportionately policed, regardless of their appearance or background.
As pro-Israel groups wage a war of smear against our communities in order to cover up and distract public attention from Israeli crimes in Gaza, we risk losing this progress toward an inclusive, anti-racist democracy, as smear and lies trump the truth.
This is why we call on the media, politicians and progressive leaders to be vigilant against anti-Arab and anti-Muslim clichés that present our communities as extensions of governments or political groups in the Middle East, portray us as inherently suspicious and, therefore, put us in danger.
There are three important ways to counter this smear campaign. First, we must recognize the long history of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism and Islamophobia in the United States and elsewhere, alongside other racism and criminalization.
Second, we must protect the right of individuals to defend Palestinian rights and challenge attempts to impose a Palestinian exception to freedom of expression.
And third, we must echo our pro-peace Jewish allies in demanding that criticism of Israel and Zionism not be confused with anti-Semitism. Our common fight against anti-Semitism must not be used as a weapon to fuel Islamophobia and censor voices for justice in Palestine. This issue must become a central and urgent part of any anti-racist and progressive agenda – otherwise we risk allowing everyone’s right to free speech to be compromised.
History teaches us that campaigns of repression, slander and sectarian attacks may begin against minority groups like Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, but they do not stop there. These efforts create the social and legal model for the repression of all political dissent.
This is why we, American Muslims, and all voices supporting the rights of the Palestinian people, must act together as a bulwark against attempts to replicate the dark eras of history – when the murder and victimization of racialized “others” was justified, and when the truth has been lost due to warmongering propaganda.
Our ability to defend the right of Palestinians to protest genocide – and the right of corporate entities to stand with them – is a fundamental test of our commitment to justice, equal rights and freedom for everyone. We cannot compromise on these values.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.