Lecture at University of San Francisco, Sept. 26, 2024, that critically examines charges of antisemitism in the U.S. pro-Palestinian movement.
Category: Civil Liberties
Civil Liberties
Gaza War Prompts Attacks on Academic Freedom
Americans for Middle East Understanding, Sept. 28, 2024:
During the wave of campus protests opposing the US-backed war on Gaza and calling for divestment from Israel, students weren’t the only demonstrators to face arrest; supportive faculty members were also caught up in the crackdown… “We are witnessing a new era of McCarthyism where a House committee is using college presidents and professors for political theater… And Columbia isn’t the only university where faculty feel their academic freedoms are being steadily revoked…
Interview: Suppression of Gaza War campus protests, outside agitators charge
“Flashpoints” on KPFA-FM and affiliated stations
(20-minute interview begins at the 13:15 mark):
Dr. Zunes contrasts blatant censorship and violent police suppression of Gaza War campus protests with anti-apartheid protests of the 1980s.
A Dangerous Move to Crack Down on Protests Against Israel
The Progressive, Dec. 4, 2020: Late last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. government finds the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign to be inherently “anti-Semitic.” He pledged to “immediately take steps to identify organizations that engage in hateful BDS conduct and withdraw U.S. government support for such groups”…
Congressional Democrats Supported Violent Force Against Protesters in 2010
Truthout June 19, 2020: Congressional Democrats have begun speaking out against police-perpetrated killings as well as the use of excessive force against protesters and journalists… Democrats have even rejected the notion that if some members of an initially nonviolent crowd fight back when attacked by security forces, it legitimates the targeting of protesters or those recording the incident, much less justifying lethal force. However, 10 years ago this week, a majority of congressional Democrats defended Israel’s killing of 10 passengers and crew on the Mavi Marmara sailing as part of a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the besieged Gaza Strip. The Israelis shot and killed 10 people aboard the ship, including five not resisting… most in the head.
Rescinding a Human Rights Award to Angela Davis Was Cowardly and Unfair
The Progressive, January 10, 2019: The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, which had described activist, author and scholar Angela Davis, professor emeritus at UC Santa Cruz, as “one of the most globally recognized champions of human rights, giving voice to those who are powerless to speak,” before rescinding plans to present her the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award next month.
Trump’s Dangerous Appointment to Key Civil Rights Position: Kenneth Marcus
Banning Palestinian Speaker at Friends Central School
Sa’ed Atshan is generally considered one of the most highly-respected young Quaker scholars in the United States. A graduate of Ramallah Friends School and Swarthmore College with a doctoral degree from Harvard, he is currently an assistant professor in Swarthmore’s Peace and Conflict Studies program. A committed pacifist, he serves on the board of Pendle Hill, is an active member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and has worked with a wide range of organizations in conflict resolution and reconciliation. [More links about this]
Liberal UCSC alumni may pay price for donations
Santa Cruz Sentinel September 29, 2017
It seems that UC Santa Cruz now reserves the right to bring in ultra-conservative speakers as a condition of accepting in-kind donations from those with left-of-center views.
Resistance Builds to Proposed Israeli Boycott Bill
The Progressive & Huffington Post August 1, 2017
A disturbing number of Congressional Democrats have joined their Republican counterparts in co-sponsoring a bill (S. 720/H.R. 1697) effectively criminalizing support for boycotts against Israel or companies doing business in the country or its occupied territories. If passed, the legislation would make it a crime to support or even furnish information about a boycott directed at Israel or the Israeli occupation supported by any entity of the United Nations, the European Union, or other “international governmental organization.” And the penalties are draconian…
Pro-Palestinian activism faces suppression on Catholic campuses
Fordham ban of Palestine group contradicts free speech, Jesuit values
Opposition to Israeli occupation consistent with other human rights struggles
Santa Cruz Sentinel February 6, 2015
In my late teens, I was active in the movement opposing South Africa’s illegal occupation of Namibia, calling for boycotts and divestment of companies supporting the occupation and sanctions against the occupying power. I was involved in similar efforts during the 1990s against the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. These movements played a role in winning these countries their freedom. More recently, I have supported boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. Many of us who have been involved in such campaigns over the years including UC Santa Cruz Professor Emerita Angela Davis, the speaker at this year’s Martin Luther King convocation, now support boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the Israeli occupation…
How the state Assembly tries to limit what I can teach
The Santa Cruz Sentinel & Transnational.org January 25, 2014
In preparing my syllabus for my introductory course on the Middle East this semester, it gives me pause the California Assembly is still on record declaring that discussing certain well-documented historic incidents in modern Middle Eastern history should “not be tolerated in the classroom.”
US government hypocrisy undercuts demand for Snowden’s extradition
Attacks against anti-occupation activism increase
National Catholic Reporter July 22, 2013
A version was also published by the Santa Cruz Sentinel July 12 as “California legislators attack UC anti-occupation activists.”
Banned in Phoenix: How the Arizona State Bar Association Considers Analysis of International Law in the Middle East Too Controversial
Truthout June 25, 2013: No one in the organization’s leadership could explain anything objectionable in the paper, which they had not actually read, but were apparently convinced by a right-wing campaign that I was “anti-Israel” and “anti-American.”
California State Assembly Seeks to Stifle Debate on Israel
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, August 30, 2012.
Republished by Huffington Post,Transnational.org et al.
The California State Assembly has just passed a bipartisan resolution (HR 35) by voice vote which constitutes a serious attack on academic freedom and the rights of students and faculty to raise awareness about human rights abuses by U.S.-backed governments. While purporting to put the legislature on record in opposition of anti-Semitism on state university campuses, it defines anti-Semitism so widely as to include legitimate political activities in opposition to Israeli government policies.
University of California Takes Aim at Human Rights Activists
Truthout 4 May 2012. Also in Rise Up Times and
interviewed on The Scott Horton Show
From the Vietnam War to the Central American revolutions to apartheid South Africa to the East Timor occupation to the invasion of Iraq, university campuses have been an important venue for concerned scholars and activists to raise issues regarding human rights, international law and US foreign policy.