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Scenes of zip-tied men laying in lines across a mosque floor and women holding their bloodied hijabs haunted the news cycle last Wednesday morning.
Thousands of Palestinian men, women and children gathered in the Al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem to worship during Islam’s holiest month, Ramadan. The peace was disrupted when heavily armed Israeli Occupation Forces stormed the prayer hall, launching stun grenades, throwing tear gas and brutally assaulting worshippers with batons. Over 350 were arrested and many more were injured.
The Emory Wheel’s Editorial Board published an editorial in 2019 that reprimanded Emory University for its poor engagement with the topic of Israel and Palestine following a forced eviction demonstration by the Emory Students for Justice (ESJP) in Palestine. The Board wrote that ESJP alienated people by not being equipped for the response to this demonstration. As Palestinians suffer from the brutal occupation, we still continue to police the way the diaspora advocates for the freedom of their homeland. The extreme reactions of right-wing groups are not the responsibility of Palestinians to account for, but instead something we should all be critical of. There should be more support for Palestinian protests movements and unequivocal critique of the ways in which institutions like Emory are so quick to ignore them.
While there has been a steady increase in discourse on Israel’s crimes in Palestine, there still remains massive suppression of support for the cause, especially in academic institutions. A New York University student who wrote “F*** Israel” on a piece of trash in early 2023 was fired and investigated by the University on counts of vandalism and anti-Semitism. Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of the Human Rights Watch (HRW), was denied a fellowship to Harvard University’s Kennedy School for his criticism of Israel during his time at the HRW.
Outright suppression is not the only avenue in which conversations of Palestinian struggles are halted; they suffer from silence as well. Emory University exemplifies this silence in the way they approach this issue — which is, more often than not, from a place of political neutrality. Emory ardently supports conversations on reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa, but fails to support the liberation of a modern day people struggling under occupation and apartheid in the 21st century.
Even beyond the confines of academia, pro-Palestine sentiments are punished with fervor. In 2022, a Google employee resigned following pressure from management after her participation in protests against the company’s $1.2 billion cloud project with the Israeli government. Even globally-renowned supermodel Bella Hadid has come forth to speak on how her more recent vocal support of Palestine has cost her career opportunities.
The variability of how institutions or places of work respond to pro-Palestine sentiment is something that keeps so many activists fearful of repercussions for their political views and, in the case of Palestinians, lived experiences. Canary Mission is a website that is well known for collecting profiles on student activists, professors and other Palestine advocates and labeling them all as anti-Semites, racists or even supporters of terrorism. Activists remain fearful of the day they end up on the site, which often follows with issues to admission into school, job prospects and even simply the ability to engage in free speech. If protecting the safety of students and faculty is a priority for universities, then they should firmly dispel rumors that Palestine activism is anti-Semitism. But, if the goal of universities is to also promote learning, truth and change, then they need to unequivocally support Palestinian liberation.
There is a dangerous precedent that equates criticism of a settler-colonial state to criticism of a rich, vibrant faith. Just as criticizing Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations is not Islamophobic, actively protesting Israeli apartheid is not anti-Semitic. Jewish people have endured unimaginable trauma at the hands of ethnic cleansing campaigns, and to say that Israel’s existence as an ethnostate represents all of Judaism is an insult to that history.
But as suppression of Palestinian advocacy persists in the United States, Palestinians themselves continue to resist a brutal occupation. Ramadan, a month of togetherness, spirituality and gratitude, is once again wrought with violence for Palestinian Muslims. The Al-Aqsa raid was just a continuation of a long cruel tradition of violence that Israel has perpetuated against Palestinians every Ramadan since 2014.
Like clockwork, there have been attempts to paint this violence as equal on both sides, despite the fact that Israel has received approximately $158 billion from the U.S. alone in missile defense funding. Conflating Palestinian defensive attacks as equal to the military might of Israel’s bombing campaigns is not only untrue, it is intentionally misleading. While loss of Israeli life is unfortunate during these periods of escalation, the disproportionate loss of Palestinian lives is almost never given the same importance or grief. Instead, they are villainized for defending their homes, in life and in death.
This violence won’t stop until there is a shift in the culture that finally sees Palestinians as victims of ongoing colonization and not religious extremists itching for a fight. The normalization of human rights abuses won’t end until we learn from the mistakes of history and actually take action instead of reflecting on the past with regrets and what ifs. That shift must start now, and it must start within our own academic institutions.
It is crucial that universities protect students who advocate for Palestine from wolf cries of anti-Semitism. As students, it is imperative that we remain critical of the discourse surrounding this issue and understand it for what it is: not a conflict, but an indigenous people’s struggle for freedom. Supporting your local Students for Justice in Palestine is a great way to engage in education and advocacy for the cause. Other organizations that are doing incredible work on this issue also include Palestine Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Palestine Legal, the last of which specifically helps students who have been unfairly targeted for their Palestine activism.
If you are not Palestinian, speak up for your Palestinian classmates and co-workers who may not always be able to afford sticking their necks out in fear of what may happen to them here, or what may become of their families back home.
To support Palestinians back home, demand that your representatives end exorbitant U.S. funding of Israel’s military forces and donate to organizations like Anera that provide support to people on the ground.
Let’s move past policing the way oppressed people protest, and instead support their movement for the freedom to exist as they are, from the river to the sea.
Nushrat Nur (MPH ‘23) is a student at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.
