[News] Student activists at San Francisco State, UC Irvine facing repression
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Jul 13 15:48:56 EDT 2017
*/2 Articles follow/*
https://palestineinamerica.com/2016/07/student-activism-repression/
Student activists at San Francisco State, UC Irvine facing repression
July 11, 2016
Written By: Omar Zahzah
*An Escalating Backlash*
The crackdown on pro-Palestine activism in the United States has reached
a fever pitch. Early last month, New York Governor Cuomo signed an
executive order
<http://www.salon.com/2016/06/05/ny_gov_cuomo_signing_unconstitutional_mccarthyite_pro_israel_exec_order_punishing_bds_boycott_movement/>calling
for the creation of a blacklist of institutions and individuals that
support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
<https://bdsmovement.net/call>(BDS) against Israel, and the denial of
state funding to organizations that have participated in and/or support
BDS activity. Though they may seem extreme, Cuomo’s actions actually
converge
<http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/06/10/new-york-governor-cuomos-anti-bds-executive-order-akin-to-ny-ca-bills/>with
the introduction of similar legislation in state legislatures across
the country <http://palestinelegal.org/legislation/>. As recently
reported by the /Electronic Intifada, /the spate of anti-BDS legislation
in the U.S. and the United Kingdom (U.K.) is the result of a concerted
effort
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-quietly-pushed-anti-bds-legislation-us-uk>by
the Israeli foreign ministry and sympathetic lobbying groups,
constituting the latest strategy to counter the spread of international
support for BDS.
In addition to increasingly intervening in U.S. politics, Israeli
officials and domestic Zionist organizations are also turning their
focus to American university campuses, even as university
administrations display increasing hostility towards pro-Palestine
activism. Amidst this escalating backlash, student activists now more
than ever are in vital need of support, a reality with which several
years with Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA has made me all too
familiar.
*Student Activists Especially Vulnerable*
Two recent cases in particular show that students who dare to engage in
direct action decrying Israeli settler colonialism
<https://rabbibrant.com/2016/04/02/yes-zionism-is-settler-colonialism/>and
ethnic cleansing
<http://mondoweiss.net/2014/10/ethnic-cleansing-israeli/>are especially
vulnerable to the rising opposition to Palestine activism.
On April 6th, along with a coalition of other student groups, the
General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS)
<https://www.facebook.com/GeneralUnionofPalestineStudents/> protested
<https://www.rt.com/usa/338794-protest-palestine-israel-mayor/>a speech
given by Nir Barakat, the mayor of occupied
<http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories>Jerusalem.
The event was hosted by San Francisco State’s Hillel. Following the
action, San Francisco State president Les Wong sent out a statement
<http://news.sfsu.edu/announcements/message-president-wong-civil-discourse>expressing
concern for the “state of civil discourse” on the San Francisco State
campus and promising an investigation. Many media outlets were swift to
cast the protest in a negative
<http://goldengatexpress.org/2016/04/07/general-union-of-palestine-students-storm-meeting-with-jerusalem-mayor/>
light
<http://goldengatexpress.org/2016/04/07/general-union-of-palestine-students-storm-meeting-with-jerusalem-mayor/>,
often mirroring Wong’s tone in describing it as an assault on free
speech
<https://www.thefire.org/san-francisco-state-student-protesters-disrupt-speech-by-jerusalem-mayor/>.SF
State Hillel similarly claimed in a blog entry
<http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=43cc9296a4418f8febe1ddc45&id=8179c9540d>that
Barakat was “shouted down” by the protesters and “prevented from
speaking,” despite the fact that even articles condemning the
demonstration observe that Barakat continued his talk
<http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Anti-Israel-protesters-crash-Jerusalem-mayor-Barkats-speech-in-San-Francisco-450543>,
even if he needed to adjust accordingly.
“We protested Mayor Barkat because of his role as an Israeli official,
who enforces violence and occupation against our communities on a daily
basis…Providing a platform for Barkat on our campus erases the violent
and brutal realities faced by Palestinians,” GUPS wrote in a statement
<http://mondoweiss.net/2016/05/protested-jerusalem-university/>.
GUPS’ statement goes on to enumerate several examples of policies
supported or implemented by Barakat that amount to ethnic cleansing and
apartheid
<http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-makdisi-israel-apartheid-20140518-story.html>,
including the demolition of Palestinian homes, continued expansion of
settlements (or, as some of us more accurately term them, colonies
<http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32707-call-israeli-settlements-what-they-are-colonies>)
in East Jerusalem, denial of Palestinian access to education and the
right to own property, and measures taken to ensure that the Palestinian
presence in Jerusalem does not exceed 30 percent of the total population
by the year 2020. As GUPS’ statement makes clear, for Palestinian
students and all who acted in solidarity, Barakat’s appearance was not
simply about a distasteful perspective—it was about the presence of a
figure whose actions are part of the cause of ongoing and systematic
violence and dispossession of Palestinians. Framing the issue as simply
a matter of challenged speech erases the disparity in power between
Barakat and Palestinian students, whose families and communities suffer
constantly under the violent and racist practices of the Israeli state.
Similarly, on May 18th, a coalition of student organizations at
University of California Irvine (UCI) made up of Students for Justice in
Palestine (SJP), the Black Student Union (BSU), the Muslim Student Union
(MSU), Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MeCHa), La Resilencia
Trans/Queer de UCI, American Indian Student Association (AISA), Asian
Pacific Student Association (APSA), and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
protested a film screening put on by UCI’s Students Supporting Israel
that included a panel of IDF soldiers. The purpose of the demonstration
was both to express outrage at the normalized violence
<http://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201605_occupations_fig_leaf>perpetrated
by the Israeli military against Palestinians as well as to denounce the
exporting
<http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/gaza-testing-ground-israeli-military-technology-628438934>of
Israeli military technology and surveillance and suppression tactics
<http://thefreethoughtproject.com/u-s-police-routinely-travel-israel-learn-methods-brutality-repression/>honed
in the occupied territories to U.S. police forces and foreign governments.
“The connections between the Israeli Defense Forces and military,
colonial, and genocidal regimes all over the world are numerous. Not
only do police departments in the U.S. send police delegations to train
in Israel, but weapons trade and marketing–especially after the siege on
Gaza in 2014–allows Israel to demonstrate the ‘effectiveness’ of its
violent military technologies in order to market it to other
nations/regimes. … For opposing students to claim to feel unsafe at the
presence of protesters is incomparable to the fear and vulnerability of
Palestinians who face violence at gunpoint by [Israeli Occupation
Forces] and who are facing systematic genocide, ethnic cleansing and
erasure as a part of their colonization of Palestinian land,” UC
Irvine’s Students for Justice in Palestine wrote in a statement
<https://ucisjp.wordpress.com/>following the protest.
In what Palestine Legal has described
<http://palestinelegal.org/news/2016/6/9/suppression-at-uc-irvine-follows-predictable-pattern>as
a “predictable pattern,” Zionist organizations made false accusations
against the protesters, calling
<http://zoa.org/2016/06/10325264-zoa-and-lawfare-project-letter-to-uc-irvine-chancellor-requesting-investigation-of-campus-anti-semitic-incident/>for
disciplinary action and criminal investigation and the media
mischaracterized
<http://www.ocregister.com/articles/israeli-716561-israel-uci.html>the
demonstration. Administration has referred the case to the District
Attorney
<https://theintercept.com/2016/06/23/students-in-california-might-face-criminal-investigation-for-protesting-film-on-israeli-army/>—a
measure UCI administration had previously pursued
<http://palestinelegal.org/news/2016/6/23/uc-irvine-moves-to-criminalize-student-protest-of-israeli-soldiers-again>against
the 11 Muslim students who challenged a speech by then-Israeli
ambassador Michael Oren—and are considering banning Students for Justice
in Palestine. As with SF State President Les Wong, UC Irvine Chancellor
Howard Gillman issued a statement
<http://chancellor.uci.edu/engagement/campus-communications/2016/160519-ssi-incident.html>claiming
that the protest had “crossed the lines of civility.” Gilman’s statement
reiterated the false charges raised by Zionist organizations, including
that student protesters had blocked exits, though these charges were
disputed
<http://www.nlg-la.org/article/nlg-contests-allegations-made-uci-chancellor-and-others>by
legal observers working with the National Lawyers Guild
<https://www.nlg.org/about>who were present at the demonstration.
The outcome in both situations remains uncertain.
*“Civility”*
As most recently evidenced by the Steven Salaita affair
<http://www.salon.com/2015/06/18/a_win_for_academic_freedom_steven_salaita_awarded_back_to_back_victories_against_university_that_fired_him/>,
“civility,” a colonial and racializing
<https://shadowproof.com/2014/10/09/fired-professor-steven-salaitas-speech-on-israel-civility-academic-freedom-at-columbia-college-chicago/>concept
that privileges tone over content and establishes a rubric for etiquette
by creating a contrast with a savage and non-white Other, has become a
very popular framework for administrators in an increasingly
corporatized university system to use in taking issue with student and
faculty dissent. “Civility” allows for proponents of an allegedly
all-encompassing freedom of speech to conveniently falter in their
enthusiasm when the object of criticism is considered off-limits—in this
case, Palestinian oppression and dispossession, and the entrenchment of
Israeli military and surveillance strategies in globalizing systems of
racialized state violence, surveillance and white supremacy. “Civility”
can magically transform groups of vulnerable black, brown, undocumented,
queer and trans students standing up to powerful politicians and
soldiers responsible for the implementation of violent and racist
policies of military occupation and ethnic cleansing into an “angry
mob,” and divert what should be righteous indignation at the brutality
endured by a colonized population into patronizing /tut-tutting/about
the means of protest.
The framework of “civility” also obscures the way (as both GUPS and SJP
UCI demonstrate in their statements) that “ideas” put forward by Barakat
and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) are actually extensions of violent
acts of systemic erasure. For Palestinian students, every word spoken
carried with it the weight of further harm to their families and
communities.
*A Familiar Tactic*
Charlotte Silver documented
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-are-university-heads-racing-slander-protesters/17061>how
President Wong’s response followed a phone conversation with Rabbi
Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a pro-Israel lobbying group,
and that the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), another lobbying
group that recently called
<http://palestinelegal.org/news/2016/3/30/statement-banning-sjp-from-cuny-would-be-unconstitutional>for
SJP to be investigated and banned from CUNY campuses on false
accusations of anti-Semitism, is now urging administration at UC Irvine
to take action against SJP. And, in a breakthrough report
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lawfare-group-plans-massive-punishments-activists?utm_content=buffer81508&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer>,
Ali Abunimah reveals how admissions from Brooke Goldstein of the Lawfare
Project at an anti-BDS conference in early June “[cast] the latest
attacks by pro-Israel groups on Palestine solidarity activists at UC
Irvine and San Francisco State University in a new light . . . Goldstein
said her group was encouraging Jewish students on those campuses to file
police complaints against Palestine solidarity activists, ‘so we can
pressure the [district attorney] to bring criminal charges against those
students, just like was done with Michael Oren’s speech.’” These
revelations should quell any serious doubt of a coordinated and
far-reaching effort to shut down campus activism for Palestine. Sadly,
as already revealed in the cases of San Francisco State and UC Irvine,
it will be students who bear the brunt of this repressive campaign. //
Nearly four years of involvement with SJP UCLA has allowed me to see
first-hand that this state of affairs is far from anomalous: consistent
outside pressure from Zionist groups can often lead to serious
ramifications for students who engage in Palestine activism. In June
2014, in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the
Armenian Student Association (ASA), SJP at UCLA circulated a non-binding
ethics pledge
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QG-honFOsbKDk5eQ6X5mMM2TTJBgseYOKM6VC6psq-8/viewform>for
student politicians to sign promising on good faith not to accept free
or sponsored trips from lobbying groups with a history of discriminatory
behavior. Working with six other pro-Israel organizations, the AMCHA
Initiative initiated a campaign
<http://www.amchainitiative.org/amcha-demands-ucla-stop-horrendous-bullying-of-jewish-students/>to
pressure UCLA administration to take action against SJP UCLA and casting
the impetus for the ethics pledge (as well as earlier Judicial Board
charges filed by SJP against student representatives we believed had a
conflict of interest
<http://www.sjpbruins.com/news--opinion/the-israel-lobbys-use-of-free-trips-to-sway-ucla-student-government>when
voting for a divestment resolution presented in February of that year)
as rooted in anti-Semitism and terrorist sympathies. The ethics pledge
garnered condemnation
<http://dailybruin.com/2014/05/16/students-respond-to-criticisms-joint-ethics-statement-by-block-napolitano/>from
both UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and UC President (and former Head of
Homeland Security) Janet Napolitano, and the Los Angeles City Council
even considered
<http://mondoweiss.net/2014/06/denounce-activists-critiquing/>a
resolution
<https://www.scribd.com/doc/227571013/LA-City-Council-Resolution-on-USAC-Ethics-Statement>criticizing
the ethics pledge and calling on the UC Regents to intervene more
directly in campus affairs by instituting harsher punishments for
actions such as the ethics pledge, which included consulting law
enforcement “where appropriate.” Though this resolution was ultimately
tabled, the chilling effect of having a legislative body consider taking
action against your campus activist group by calling on administration
to refer you to the police cannot be overstated.
More recently, the AMCHA Initiative pushed for the UC Regents
<https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/reflections-on-the-uc-regents-meeting/>to
adopt the State Department Definition
<http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/fs/2010/122352.htm>of anti-Semitism, a
move that would have stigmatized virtually all student organizing for
Palestine as this definition does not distinguish
<http://static1.squarespace.com/static/548748b1e4b083fc03ebf70e/t/55a0073ce4b00bbec50d8063/1436550972939/FAQ+onDefinition+of+Anti-Semitism-3-9-15.pdf>between
criticism of Israeli policy and genuine anti-Semitism. The UC Regents
abandoned the State Department definition following considerable
criticism
<http://www.salon.com/2015/07/26/a_win_for_activists_in_university_of_californias_anti_semitism_debate/>.
However, they later drafted a “Statement of Principles Against
Intolerance” that in its earliest stages directly linked anti-Zionism
with anti-Semitism (a conflation that would have been just as damaging
as the adoption of the State Department definition), but which was later
amended
<http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-regents-intolerance-20160322-story.html>following
further outcry to condemn instead “anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism.”
Yet this change has not stopped the racist and Islamophobic
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/us-university-lecturers-shocking-hate-speech-against-arab-muslim>AMCHA
Initiative co-founder Tammi Rossman-Benjamin from citing the Regents’
“Statement of Principles” in a recent letter
<http://www.stopthejewhatredoncampus.org/news/36-advocacy-groups-uc-irvine-chancellor-gillman-what-your-plan-implementing-regents-principles>to
Chancellor Gillman making false and inciting allegations about UCI SJP
and asking for him to make clear how he “intends to implement” the
Regents’ statement—not so subtle code for sanctioning SJP.
*Means of Support*
As my own experiences with SJP UCLA taught me, what has befallen
protesters at SF State and UC Irvine is not exceptional: Zionist
organizations are aggressively intervening in campus affairs in an
ongoing attempt to stamp out pro-Palestine activity.
Given that Palestine activism is often grassroots, it is all the more
imperative for all who advocate for Palestinian freedom and
self-determination to come together in lending our support to the
student activists who put themselves at great personal risk to denounce
Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. Two simple yet
nevertheless crucial displays of such support would be to sign the
action alert
<https://org.salsalabs.com/o/301/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=20010>circulated
by Jewish Voice for Peace
<https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/mission/>(JVP) urging the Orange County
District Attorney not to prosecute the student activists at UC Irvine,
as well as contacting both SF State President Les Wong
<http://president.sfsu.edu/>and UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman
<http://chancellor.uci.edu/about/>and calling on them to end the
proceedings against members of GUPS and SJP, respectively. “Civility”
should not be a binding criterion for circumscribing political activism,
and pressure from external organizations should not determine students’
ability to advocate for a just cause.
July 11, 2016
Written By: Omar Zahzah
About Omar Zahzah
Omar Zahzah is a PhD student in comparative literature at UCLA of
Lebanese Palestinian origin as well as a member of Students for Justice
in Palestine (SJP) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM).
/*_____________________________________________________*/
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/07/struggling-francisco-university/
Struggling for justice at San Francisco State University
Saliem Shehadeh - July 13, 2017
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Students, staff, and faculty at San Francisco State University are under
investigation by the university on trumped up charges of anti-Semitism
brought forth by San Francisco Hillel. This is the latest in a long
history of accusations made against Palestinians and Palestinian
advocates at SFSU by the pro-Israel organization. Pro-Israel groups have
time and again sought criminal and punitive charges for political and
scholarly expressions critical of Israel on college campuses
constituting assaults on civil liberties and anti-colonial struggles.
One of the more famous cases includes the Irvine 11 in which the Orange
County District Attorney’s Office charged students who protested a
speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on UC Irvine campus with two
misdemeanors
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/irvine-11-appeals-filed-defense-lawyers-say-convictions-were>.
And most recently, pro-Israel legal organizations have brought a civil
rights based lawsuit alleging the institutionalization of anti-Semitism
on SFSU campus and blaming a slew of defendants including top-level SFSU
administrators, staff, and Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi the founding director of
the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies program and the
longtime advisor to the General Union of Palestine Students on campus.
The Lawfare Project and the law firm of Winston & Strawn who brought
filed the lawsuit on behalf of three SF Hillel students is similar in
nature to a 2011 lawsuit alleging an “anti-Semitic climate at UC
Berkeley.” US District Judge Richard Seeborg dismissed the lawsuit as
its accusations presented no coherent or plausible argument
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/judge-dismisses-claims-anti-semitic-climate-uc-berkeley/10780>.
Such episodes highlight the willingness and strategy of pro-Israel
organizations to legally harass Palestinians advocacy on campuses and to
attack knowledge production rooted in social justice and anti-colonial
principles.
The latest allegations of anti-Semitism by Hillel were made in reaction
to the organization not receiving a table at a “Know Your Rights” (KYR)
Fair held in February of 2017 at SFSU. The purpose of the Fair was
consistent from its inception: to outreach to groups vulnerable in the
new political climate, with a focus on Arab and Muslim, LGTBQ, and
Undocumented communities. Participating at the fair included Palestine
Legal, La Raza Centro Legal and ACLU, it featured one-on-one interface
among Fair participants, self-defense training led by Girl Army, and
legal advice panels to educate students on community efforts combatting
Trump’s Executive Orders. Jewish Voice for Peace participated in the
Fair, among the over 20 participating organizations, where they reached
out to Jewish students (some of whom were members of Hillel) in the
potential makings of a JVP chapter at SFSU. Despite this reality, Hillel
continues to allege that Jews were excluded from the fair and that the
Fair organizers not making room for Hillel at the already over-booked
event was an act of religious discrimination. I, being one of the
organizers of the Fair, have stated at every occasion that no such
discrimination has taken place. There is no evidence to support such
claims, and in fact, the evidence proves that such claims are false.
Instead, Hillel has fabricated a storyline in which the Fair organizers
changed the description of the Fair to the exclusion of pro-Israel and
Zionist organizations. /Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism./**I reject
Hillel’s or any other definition of anti-Semitism which equates
criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish hatred. The literature (and we’re
at an academic institution where knowledge is paramount) is full of
debates on what anti-Semitism constitutes and how it should not be used
to stifle political criticism of Israel. If this is the definition of
anti-Semitism which is being used to determine the merits of Hillel’s
complaint, then the university is in violation of the First Amendment
and ignoring volumes of scholarship.
Hillel not receiving a table at the event was a unanimous and consensus
decision based on Hillel’s conduct and table capacity. The discussion
and decision took place over email and during two meetings. It was given
ample time to raise points, concerns and to address those points or
concerns. Our adherence to shared governance and accordance with
horizontal leadership style was reaffirmed the day of the Fair when a
paid staff member of Hillel attempted to “negotiate” his way into the
Fair by cornering one of the Fair organizers and attempting to force
them into making a unilateral decision displacing already booked
organizations for the benefit of Hillel. This is the same Hillel staff
member who made false claims that the organizers had invited Hillel on
the basis that he received an email /forwarded /to them by an
unaffiliated organization who was in fact invited. Attempting to hide
their blunder, Hillel removed the sender’s address before submitting it
as evidence, but us having the original email were quickly able to prove
Hillel’s tampering of evidence. This is the same staff member of Hillel
who told university investigators that he had no intention of discussing
Israel at the Fair. This is not a credible statement given that his job
title, as the SF Hillel website
<http://www.sfhillel.org/our-professional-team.html>confirms, is “Israel
Engagement Associate.” Lastly, this is the same individual who told one
of the Fair organizers that even if Hillel had a table, Hillel would
have a very limited/ no participation in the Fair because they were
already otherwise committed to tabling on the University quad for Jewish
Heritage Week. His misrepresentations and actions are only relevant to
point out that his statements are dishonest; despite this, the
university has based their investigation on the accusations brought
forth by this Hillel staff member.
Further, GUPS and other Arab groups noted that they would pull out of
the Fair if Hillel was given a table. This guardedness is a defense
tactic, one in which we avoid the same organization that harasses and
seeks to criminalize us, one that does so with the complicity and
involvement of the university. University administrators who were made
aware of the potential pull-out noted their indifference if GUPS and
other Arab groups did not attend the Fair. This is a racist reflection
of the impression that Palestinian and Arab voices are disposable. The
absence of Palestinian and Arab organizations would have destroyed the
very event that was intended to make them a focal point and it is
alarming to learn that the administration would so easily dispose of
them. University prejudice against Palestinians is also seen in that
every single public General Union of Palestine Students event is
monitored by university administrators in the Office of Student Services
who have tightened the screws on GUPS activities. All of these
administrators have a visibly and publicly friendly relationship with
the Hillel director Ollie Ben.
SFSU Top-Level Administrators Interfering with the Investigation
From the beginning, the university has treated us with the utmost
disrespect by violating our due process and through the consistent
oddities in the manner the university has carried out the investigation.
The allegations against the KYR committee were not made formally in
writing, rather, members from SF Hillel’s paid-staff met with Vice
President Luoluo Hong whom they have a very public friendly relationship
with and who oversees a number of university departments including the
Title IX Coordinator/ Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation
Administrator. After one of their meetings, VP Hong issued formal
allegations against the Fair organizers on March 10, 2017, two weeks
after the Fair took place on February 28, 2017. For weeks the university
made little to no progress on the investigation, that is until the
Jewish Studies program at SFSU and SF Hillel made claims of
institutional anti-Semitism at SFSU and cited the KYR Fair as a point of
evidence. In response, SFSU President Leslie Wong issued a campus-wide
statement shifting attention away from university administrators and
onto Palestinians and the KYR Fair organizers promising a forceful
investigation and affirming anti-Semitic activity on campus by
Palestinian advocates. This new position from Wong is in stark contrast
to multiple university investigations that proved those claims false.
Within the week, the university added a second investigator onto the
case in the middle of the investigation, another oddity itself. The
co-investigator admitted as much when he noted that in his time at SFSU
he held the role of co-investigator a ballpark of ten times and that
those were usually for the purpose of training new investigators. As
there was no training involved, the move was a clear attempt to
politically side with pressure from pro-Israel communities. This display
was repeated in an SF State News announcement
<https://news.sfsu.edu/announcements/san-francisco-state-university-statement-disputing-lawsuit-affirming-commitment>dated
June 20, 2017, responding to a lawsuit brought forth by The Lawfare
Project on formal allegations of institutionalized anti-Semitism. When
such displays are made by the University President, they are reminiscent
of subtle discursive tactics prejudging the outcome and a “guilty
verdict”. It is widely known that bosses and managers engage in such
tactics, as former FBI Director James Comey made clear in the latest
Congressional hearings concerning Russian interference.
We were not made aware of the evidence and the specificities of the
allegations against us until Monday, June 26, 2017. This is over four
months after we received notice from VP Hong on March 10, 2017, to
appear for interrogation. And, on March 1, a member of the university’s
staff asked the Fair organizers for a comprehensive list of all emails
sent from our private accounts about the planning of the Fair, 10 days
before a formal investigation was authorized. Having not been presented
with specificities of the allegations nor with their scope of evidence,
we have been forced to respond solely based on speculation for the
majority of the investigation. This is just days before the hard
deadline of July 13, 2017, set by California State University Chancellor
Executive Order <https://www.calstate.edu/eo/EO-1097-rev-10-5-16.pdf>for
timely response to investigate and to present findings. The
investigators set into place a scheduling system that has prohibited us
from preparing the most basic defense and our access to the “evidence”
brought against us until the latest opportunity. When we requested
sufficient time to respond to the allegations, the university
investigator did not accommodate the request and noted the quickly
approaching deadline. While the deadline in the governing Executive
Order was presented as neutral and immutable, I interpret the inflexible
approach as an intimidation tactic, disparate treatment, and
discrimination against Palestinians and advocacy for justice in
Palestine. It is commonly known that the university violates its own
deadlines routinely. For example, it has kept on the back burner and
lacked follow up with Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi’s grievance filed against SFSU
in February of 2017, in which she offers evidence to the systemic
hostile and unsafe work and study environment for Palestinians and the
physical threats and administrative retaliation against her. But in the
KYR case, the deadlines are strict, in what is believed to be a response
to public political pressure to punish the organizers of the Fair. And
in doing so, the university is engaged in discriminatory application of
the Executive Order.
Such disparate treatment of Palestinians by SFSU’s investigators is both
well documented and patterned, all of which found that SF Hillel’s and
other pro-Israel organizations accusations are baseless. In the spring
of 2016, two members of the General Union of Palestine Students were
formally investigated by SFSU’s Office of Student Conduct for their
participation in the protest of Barkat. They were the only two students
investigated of the over 20 protesting, on allegations which included
threatening Jewish students. After having completed the in-house
university investigation which held possible suspension or expulsion for
the students, the university hired an independent law firm to conduct
yet another investigation, this too holding possible punitive measures
to the students’ academic standing. In 2014, the university investigated
Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi’s financial records of five years of her
international travel in three redundant investigations after pro-Israel
groups led by The AMCHA Initiative accused her of misusing university
funds to support anti-Semitism and terrorism. In 2013, the former GUPS
president had his information released to investigations conducted by
the FBI, the Joint Terrorist Task Force, the Israeli Consulate, the SFSU
Police Department and the San Francisco Police Department after The
AMCHA Initiative, SFSU Jewish Studies and SF Hillel accused the
Palestinian student of threatening the lives of Jewish students. And in
2002, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office investigated two
Palestinian students on request of SFSU after they were accused of
anti-Semitism during a pro-Israel rally on campus put together by SF
Hillel during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Every single one of these
investigations found no merit to the allegations of terrorism or
anti-Semitism alleged by SF Hillel and cleared the names of the
Palestinians accused. Despite having their names cleared, the smear
campaigns based on false allegations remain a stain on their character.
Further, SFSU has been a willing participant and has enabled such
harassment and bullying tactics to be practiced with impunity against
Palestinians. This is a nation-wide trend as Palestinian faculty,
students, and their allies across college campus have been targeted in a
similar manner, many times by the same organizations.
Evidence of Hillel’s Conduct threatening students’ and faculty rights
SF Hillel was not issued a table at the Fair by the organizers after
discussion of Hillel and its ill fit in the mission of the Fair. Our
intent in organizing the KYR fair was to provide resources and
information for vulnerable communities to protect themselves. Providing
a table to Hillel, whose conduct has threatened the safety of campus
Palestinians and other advocates for justice in Palestine, is akin to
giving a table to ICE at a gathering of undocumented communities, or
having the Ferguson Police Chief table at an event discussing police
brutality against black teenagers. The committee acknowledged, by
consensus, that there was no table for Hillel given the strain on
capacity and the clear problems with Hillel’s presence at a table based
on Hillel’s conduct.
The objections to Hillel were always, and are still, about the
organization’s conduct threatening students’ rights. It was in no way an
issue of religious discrimination nor retaliation. Hillel’s threatening
conduct is most evident in the way that Hillel made false accusations
against Palestinian students and our allies alleging that protesters
threatened Jewish students during the 2016 protest of a campus visit by
Nir Barkat, the mayor of occupied Jerusalem and an architect of
apartheid, colonialism, and displacement in the city. Hillel broadcast
false allegations that protesters were violent and anti-Semitic.
Hillel’s accusations were not only factually incorrect, but they are
allegations rooted in Islamophobic fear mongering and racist Orientalist
tropes of Palestinians as savages. Hillel’s public allegations against
the protesters were proven false by testimonies from the University
Police Department, by an in-house university investigation, and by the
external investigation of a law firmcontracted by the university. And
yet, the stain and trauma of these allegations continue to follow SFSU
students in their academic and professional pursuits, threatening
student’s rights to speak, to study, and to even organize for our own
protection in this political climate. Indicative of this is the means in
which these false claims were circulated by Islamophobic, racist and
anti-Palestinian organizations including Canary Mission and David
Horowitz who on October 14thand May 3rdplastered posters
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/racist-group-launches-national-offensive-us-campuses>around
campus that targeted Dr. Abdulhadi, GUPS,
<https://medium.com/@sfsugups415/immediate-sfsu-response-required-against-islamophobia-anti-arab-racism-and-hostility-to-palestine-300590ea0e77>Palestinian
student advocates, Muslim students, Palestinian community leaders, and
the organizations Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for
Peace.
While Hillel expressed a condemnation of the David Horowitz posters, it
never retracted its false accusations against students. As a result,
students who were already scheduled to table at the KYR Fair, and many
other students, were publicly smeared, cyber-bullied, harassed,
threatened with violence and rape, and stalked on campus and off-campus.
The university has refused to press charges or even to conduct an
investigation into how and why these posters were allowed to be put up
and stay up on our campus. The organizers of the Fair understood that
many students, faculty members, and organizations have been victimized
by Hillel’s lies. To force us to sit side-by-side to our oppressors
cannot be done in clear consciousness, violates principles of
restorative justice, and would vastly endanger students and faculty members.
Dr. Abdulhadi was also smeared by such lies due to her many campus roles
including faculty adviser to GUPS and other student organizers on
campus, and the director of the AMED program. AMED also tabled at the
KYR Fair, sitting alongside GUPS and JVP, as AMED is the is the only
academic program on SFSU campus whose mission is to combat Islamophobia
and anti-Arab discrimination. Framing her scholarship and activism under
the principles of an “indivisibility of justice
<http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/4220>” in all her classes, Dr.
Abdulhadi teaches how to defy anti-Semitism. She presents diverse Jewish
experiences that challenge the monolithic construction of Jews across
time, place and contemporary times, and that differentiate between
Judaism, Jewishness, Israel, and Zionism. At the AMED Studies table
(which I staffed), I included a list of all the classes that AMED offers
as well as T-shirts depicting the Palestinian Cultural Mural (also known
as the Edward Said Mural) on SFSU campus, our pride and joy. I
intentionally requested that JVP sit at the table between the General
Union of Palestine Students and that of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities
and Diasporas Studies to both enjoy the presence of the community
organization with whom we closely work, and to symbolically show
Palestinian-Jewish solidarity.
Hillel’s accusations of anti-Semitism are the same ones used in the
aforementioned lawsuit brought forth by The Lawfare Project. Adding
insult to injury, Hillel students have actually added additional false
accusations against those protesting Barkat
<http://thelawfareproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SFSU-Federal-Complaint.pdf>.
They now claim that GUPS students “adjust[ed] their head coverings in a
threatening manner,” and that “one of them [protestors] would eventually
try to use a weapon on those of us who attended the event to hear the
[occupied] Jerusalem Mayor speak.” Such racist and Islamophobic
perceptions of Arabs and Palestinians is not a new phenomenon by
White-identifying groups, which Hillel’s predominately Ashkenazi Jewish
demographic is. Such prejudices remind us of racist fear mongering of
Black men wearing hoodies, articulated in the hunting down and murder of
Trayvon Martin. Anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia have resulted in the
mass incarceration and deportation of, and, most recently, the third
reiteration of a Travel Ban against Arabs and Muslims exacerbated by the
fear mongering generated after the attacks on the East Coast on
September 11, 2001, and Palestinian struggles for liberation during the
Intifadas.
Hillel’s claims were and continue to be /public/fabrications, blatant
lies that have led to death threats, threats of rape, and stalking
against students and faculty. And here is where the university
misinterprets genuine concern that any and all interactions with Hillel
results in such smearing, a smearing that comes with consequences that
threaten the safety of those targeted. Their racist impressions of
Palestinians along with their deliberate conflation of anti-Zionism and
critique of Israel with anti-Semitism has resulted in a calculated
attack on civil liberties as its attempts to criminalize anti-Zionist
political ideologies. In non-normalizing with Hillel, campus community
organizers are protecting ourselves from an organization whose behavior
seeks to target and eliminate those they are in political disagreement
with.
The umbrella organization that SF Hillel is a chapter of, Hillel
International, has a long record of targeting and discriminating against
Palestinians and those who stand with them. The International Guidelines
of Hillel, that all Hillel chapters including SF Hillel, must abide by,
codifies their exclusionary and discriminatory policies. The Hillel
/Standards of Partnership/
<http://www.hillel.org/jewish/hillel-israel/hillel-israel-guidelines>
state:
Hillel will not partner with, house, or host organizations, groups, or
speakers that as a matter of policy or practice:
* Deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state
with secure and recognized borders;
* Delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel;
* Support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State
of Israel;
* Exhibit a pattern of disruptive behavior towards campus events or
guest speakers or foster an atmosphere of incivility.
These policies constitute built-in discrimination and their alignment
with pro-Israel lobby organizations. Hillel International enforces this
policy by threatening litigation and expulsion of chapters who do not
strictly comply. This policy has led to students being excluded and
kicked out of Hillel chapters. There are clear examples of Hillel
excommunicating students and organizations that do not toe Hillel’s line
on Israel, regardless of the issues or communities those organizations
served. Hillel has expelled those who support Boycott, Divestment and
Sanction (BDS) of Israel, protect justice for/in Palestine political
expression or criticize Zionism as a settler-colonial project. Hillel’s
activity centers on Zionist expressions of Judaism and has invested much
political currency and funds into making such articulations mainstream
and part and parcel of hegemonically imaged Jewish-American experiences.
As such, Jewish organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace and
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network have been cast as fringe
organizations and expelled by Hillel. Hillel is not the only Jewish
organization in the Bay Area, on college campuses or in the world. And
it must be remembered that there has never been a consensus among Jewish
communities on Israel or on Zionism. Jewish communities are *not *a
monolithic unit.
Yet Hillel continues to seek partnership with communities of color and
LGBT organizations who are politically aligned with Israeli political
supremacy. Such groups include the Hindu right, Christian Zionists,
Greek (Sororities and Fraternities) student organizations and Queer
organizations that partner with Israel and its “Pink Washing”
propaganda. Despite this history, Hillel misrepresented itself as LGBTQ
and as an immigrant rights organization when requesting to table at the
Fair. As James Baldwin said, “I can’t believe what you say because I see
what you do.” Tabling space at the Fair was reserved for organizations
whose intersectional social organizing aligned with its social-justice
focus. The KYR Committee was clear in noting that Hillel’s conduct
emboldens injustice and should not be given a platform in a Know Your
Rights Fair for Arabs and Muslims, Latinx communities, undocumented
peoples, and LGBTQ communities.
Pro-Israel Campus Groups’ Smear Tactics
Working closely with on-campus Hillels nationwide is The David Project.
It serves to train pro-Israel students on college campuses as
instigators and has engaged in numerous aggressive campaigns to suppress
dissent on Israel from US campuses, by focusing on smear tactics. The
Hillel staff member who brought the false allegations forward and
attempted to strong-arm his way onto the Fair underwent extensive
training from the David Project while working with them for over a year.
Shedding light on these smear tactics is a report by The David Project’s
executive director, David Bernstein, titled “How to ‘name-and-shame’
without looking like a jerk
<https://www.iccgw.org/2011/06/how-to-name-and-shame-without-looking-like-a-jerk>.”
In addition, as quoted from their white paper on “Israel Advocacy at
America’s Universities and Colleges
<http://www.brandeiscenter.com/images/uploads/resource/ngo/davidproject.pdf>,”
the David Project promotes targeting Palestinian advocates on campus:
“Accusing faculty members who propagandize against Israel of ‘academic
malpractice’ is likely to be a much more effective strategy than
challenging specific allegations of invoking anti-Jewish bigotry.”
This indicates their willingness to use anti-Israel and anti-Semitism
accusations interchangeably, in a deliberate and false conflation of the
two. This distinction is important because anti-Zionism and anti-Israel
politics are legitimate anti-colonial positions and protected civil
liberties while anti-Semitism is hate and oppression. And, the David
Project, in clear terms, reveals that the tactics they use for smearing
are neither anti-Semitic nor an infringement of rights despite their
accusations to the contrary:
Pro-Israel organizations have often cast the challenge on campus as an
assault on Jewish students rather than as a spreading pervasive
negativity toward Israel. Casting the issue in these terms does not jive
with the lived experiences of many Jewish students, who /know they can
identify as Jews and largely not suffer repercussions /(emphasis theirs).
And it’s attached footnote in the handbook.
This was a recurring theme in much of the research we undertook for this
report. There are also numerous public instances of pro-Israel Jewish
students, even at schools with a harsh anti-Israel climate, arguing that
while anti-Jewish outbursts occur and should be taken seriously, they
don’t significantly erode their freedom, even to advocate on behalf of
Israel.
All the while the David Project has named San Francisco State University
one of its priority schools of target in the USA
<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/581769d1e6f2e15be20ca730/t/585044ae2994ca496acaffea/1481655477949/2012-2013+Annual+Report.pdf>;
it is yet another indicator of the targeted harassment we face today.
This harassment largely stems from both public smearing and legal
bullying as the two build off one another but are based on lies and
misrepresentations. Those propagating this harassment are part of a
concerted national effort.
Conclusion
The evidence points to the conclusion that Hillel’s baseless complaint,
in this case, is intended to wash out the grievances that the Arab,
Muslim and Palestinian community have made to SFSU. And the university’s
misconduct of this investigation affirms that /the university is not
able to make an objective decision based on the facts. /The last
university official who conducted an investigation against Palestinian
students, Mr. Osvaldo Del Valle, was promptly “let go” after his
investigation cleared members of the General Union of Palestine Students
of charges of anti-Semitism and other trumped up charges after they
protested a visit by the mayor of occupied Jerusalem, Nir Barkat. This
experience casts doubt on the ability of any employee at SFSU whose
career and employment at SFSU is on the line to fairly investigate
grievances or charges against or by Palestinians. Already, the
university appears to be investigating allegations of which we have not
been notified until the last week of the four-month long investigation.
Apparently, because there is no evidence of anti-Semitism on the part of
the Fair organizing committee in words or deeds, the university has
expanded the scope of the investigation to include additional
allegations of retaliation. All of this underscores our experience of a
systemic and consistent disparate treatment. Instead of protecting
Palestinians on campus, SFSU seeks to penalize us on trumped up and
false charges, this cannot be allowed to continue.
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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