[News] The FBI Is Using Unvetted, Right-Wing Blacklists to Question Activists About Their Support for Palestine

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://theintercept.com/2018/06/24/students-for-justice-in-palestine-fbi-sjp/ 



  The FBI Is Using Unvetted, Right-Wing Blacklists to Question Activists
  About Their Support for Palestine

Alex Kane - June 24, 2018
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In two of the interviews, including Aburas’s, the FBI referenced Canary 
Mission, an anonymously run, right-wing website that compiles dossiers 
on activists who organize for Palestinian human rights on U.S. college 
campuses, claiming — without evidence — that the students have ties to 
terrorism in an effort to make them unemployable.

Advocates for Palestinian human rights have in recent years triggered a 
national conversation about the seemingly unconditional U.S. military 
and financial support for the Israeli government. The work of these 
advocates has drawn increasingly hostile tactics from far-right groups 
who wish to silence them, and the FBI interviews underscore the power of 
those groups — whose false claims are now apparently informing 
government action.

Civil liberties advocates are alarmed by the interviews, which they say 
intimidate political organizers, chill constitutionally protected 
speech, and are just the latest manifestation of a 50-year history of 
U.S. government scrutiny of pro-Palestine activists. That the FBI is 
relying on information from the likes of Canary Mission creates even 
more cause for concern, because it signals that federal law enforcement 
is relying on unvetted blacklists designed to shut down criticism of 
Israel and smear students voicing pro-Palestinian political opinions.

“This is where Islamophobic, ‘alt-right,’ Zionist harassers in the 
private sphere intersect with government suppression — your worst 
nightmare of the government and its law enforcement apparatus, which is 
already in widespread violation of basic civil rights, responding to the 
most racist elements of society demanding a crackdown on political 
expression,” said Liz Jackson, a staff attorney at Palestine Legal, a 
group that assists students interviewed by law enforcement about Palestine.

_When the FBI_ approached Aburas two years ago, they had concerns about 
two of his Facebook posts that Canary Mission had shared on its Twitter 
account. In the first, published during a punishing Israeli assault on 
Gaza in 2014 that killed 500 Palestinian children, Aburas wrote: “We are 
all RESISTANCE ! We are all #hamas ! We are all HUMAN !” (Aburas told 
The Intercept in an interview that he is not a supporter of Hamas — the 
armed Palestinian political faction that has waged attacks on Israel 
because of its military occupation of Palestinian land — but rather, 
wanted to show support for Palestinians in Gaza, who were labeled as 
“Hamas members” in Israeli talking points to justify the killing of 
civilians during the war.) In an October 2015 post, he wrote in support 
of a Palestinian uprising against Israel. Those messages are First 
Amendment-protected speech.

Emails obtained by The Intercept reveal that Canary Mission alerted 
Seton Hall to Aburas’s words in June 2016. Patrick Linfante, associate 
vice president for public safety at the law school, then immediately 
alerted the FBI. (A Canary Mission spokesperson told The Intercept that, 
while the group is not surprised that the FBI is looking into “cases of 
vile anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry,” it does not send tips to 
the FBI.)

Asked why the law school contacted the FBI about the political opinions 
of a student, Seton Hall University spokesperson Laurie Pine said that 
the law school “respects the rights of its students to express their own 
personal opinions, political or otherwise, in the classroom, in the 
public square, or on social media.” However, she added, “because the 
safety and well-being of our students are always our paramount concern, 
the University has an obligation to report activity it views as a 
potential threat and to cooperate with the authorities. Students have 
the right to refuse to meet with the authorities should they so choose.” 
Pine did not explain what “potential threat” Aburas posed to the school.

    “I googled Aburas and found plenty of info regarding his open
    support of Palestine, freedom for Palestine and his contempt for
    Israel.”

In a June 13, 2016, email about Aburas to other school employees, 
Linfante wrote: “See the attached tweet from Canary Mission to Seton 
Hall advising that one of our Law School students openly identifies with 
Hamas terrorists…Records indicate that he is currently registered this 
summer and the coming fall semester at the [law school]. I am sure the 
[law school]  is aware or (they should be) of Mr. Aburas and his 
political positions. I googled Aburas and found plenty of info regarding 
his open support of Palestine, freedom for Palestine and his contempt 
for Israel.”

Responding to that email, Lenihan, the security manager, wrote: “Pat 
does not feel that this is an immediate cause for concern but we should 
keep this student on our radar.”

The FBI and New Jersey police followed-up with Aburas on September 27, 
four months after Seton Hall had alerted law enforcement about the 
Facebook posts. Lenihan said in an email obtained by The Intercept that 
Aburas’s postings were being re-examined by law enforcement because of 
the September 2016 pressure-cooker bomb attack carried out in Manhattan 
by a New Jersey man.

According to Aburas, the law enforcement officers who questioned him 
were particularly concerned about what they saw as his support for Hamas 
and his organizing with Students for Justice in Palestine.

“They were asking me questions about connections to terrorism,” said 
Aburas. He said they asked him, “Do you know or sponsor any 
organizations outside the U.S.?” He added, “They asked me if I would 
stand with the United States.”

The law enforcement scrutiny came as no surprise to him.

As “a Muslim man living in America, coming from a Palestinian 
background,” Aburas said, “I don’t want to say I got used to it, but I 
did get used to it. It’s normal. We’re always going to be spied on.”

The other FBI interviews of organizers for Palestinian rights have 
carried similar threads. A University of Chicago student, who asked not 
to be named, was questioned in April 2018 based in part on Canary 
Mission propaganda. In another instance in 2014, FBI agents wanted to 
question Palestinian-American activist Huwaida Arraf because 
StoptheISM.com, another right-wing website, claimed without evidence 
that Arraf and the group she co-founded, the International Solidarity 
Movement, support terrorism. (The ISM is a group of foreign volunteers 
in the occupied Palestinian territories who support Palestinian action 
against the Israeli occupation. Arraf was not home when FBI agents came 
to her apartment in Albany, New York, but her lawyer later spoke with 
the FBI on her behalf.) And in two of the interviews, the FBI brought up 
Hamas.

FBI spokesperson Kelsey Pietranton did not directly answer questions 
about the questioning of activists who organize around Palestine. In a 
statement to The Intercept, she said that the agency “relies on the 
American people to provide tips and information regarding criminal 
activity and possible threats to our nation’s security,” and that these 
“allegations are reviewed by the FBI for their merit, with consideration 
of any applicable federal laws — which does not necessarily result in 
the opening of an investigation. When warranted, we take all appropriate 
actions, including seeking further information and conducting 
interviews. Regardless, the FBI only investigates activity which may 
constitute a federal crime or pose a threat to national security. Our 
focus is not on membership in particular groups but on criminal 
activity. The FBI cannot initiate an investigation based solely on an 
individual’s exercise of their First Amendment rights.”

_If the FBI_ was concerned about criminal activity among the student 
activists, its agents made no indication of that in the interviews. They 
did, however, ask questions that echoed far-right propaganda about 
unproven links between pro-Palestine activist groups and militant groups.

In the two interviews that touched on Hamas, FBI agents asked students 
about how Students for Justice in Palestine fundraised. In February 
2018, FBI agents questioned a student at the University of California, 
Los Angeles, who requested anonymity. An agent asked if money from SJP 
was “funneled” to organizations in the Middle East. (SJPs typically 
fundraise through activities like bake sales and give that money back to 
the organization to pay speakers and organize events.) The FBI agent 
also asked if the student knew anyone who “aligned with Hamas.”

    “It left me with a sense of loss of privacy.”

“I felt really scared about the entire experience. If anything, it left 
me with a sense of loss of privacy. It was invasive,” the UCLA student 
said. “It’s really scary to think that doing this work can result in a 
visit from a federal agency when all you’re really doing is exercising 
your right to free speech.”

The line of questioning that the FBI pursued in California echoes a 
theory advanced by right-wing activists that SJP is linked to Hamas, a 
U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, because of SJP’s ties to 
American Muslims for Palestine.

The theory has its roots in post-9/11 law enforcement scrutiny of 
Muslim-run charities that did humanitarian work in Palestine. These 
investigations are usually prompted by the legal bar on “material 
support” to terrorism — a broad law that prohibits not only giving cash 
to foreign terrorist groups, but also speech that encourages militant 
groups to engage in peaceful activism and the provision of humanitarian 
aid in areas controlled by militant groups. Civil liberties activists 
say the law chills free speech and political organizing and has ensnared 
Muslim-Americans who never gave money for or carried out a violent act.

Most notably, in 2001, the Department of Justice shut down the Holy Land 
Foundation, and in 2008 prosecuted and jailed its leaders. Federal 
attorneys convinced a jury that the foundation, which gave money to 
charities in Gaza, supported Hamas because the charities were allegedly 
controlled by Hamas and Palestinians helped by one of the groups had 
associated the aid with Hamas. However, those same relief organizations 
received U.S. government support and prosecutors never alleged that the 
Holy Land Foundation money went to militant attacks or were intended to 
support terrorism. The specific charities in Gaza that the foundation 
supported have never been placed on the U.S. government terrorist list.

But the closure of the foundation, once the largest Muslim-run charity 
in the U.S., and the convictions on charges of support for Hamas have 
cast a long shadow over Muslim political life in the U.S. Accusations of 
support for terrorism now dog any Muslim organization with former ties 
to the foundation.

Right-wing activists have seized on the fact that Muslims with former 
ties to the Holy Land Foundation have fundraised for American Muslims 
for Palestine and sit on its board, and that AMP has supported SJP 
chapters in the U.S.

“SJP is an integral part of the Hamas terrorist network,” David 
Horowitz, the prominent far-right activist who has relentlessly tried to 
link SJP to terrorism, told The Intercept. The student group “is funded 
by Hamas through American Muslims for Palestine,” he added. (Horowitz 
said he has not been in contact with the FBI about SJP.)

But Osama Abuirshaid, AMP’s national policy director, dismissed 
Horowitz’s claims as baseless. He also told The Intercept that while AMP 
gives grants to different SJP chapters — about $10,000 a year — and 
organizes trainings for SJP, AMP has no influence on the student group’s 
internal affairs.

“It’s guilt by association,” said Abuirshaid. “They keep making like 
it’s a conspiracy, and there’s this connection and this hidden agenda. 
It’s all nonsense. There’s nothing. … They’re desperate and trying to 
censor, instead of engage these students in a free debate.”

The FBI’s questions to activists are just the latest example of 
unwarranted harassment and surveillance of Americans who believe in 
Palestinian human rights, said Michael Deutsch, a Chicago-based lawyer 
who has defended many Palestinians from criminal charges in the U.S.

    “People are concerned about raising issues about Palestine in their
    community because they’re afraid they’ll be targeted.”

“There is this continual cloud of potential repression of the 
Palestinian-American community,” he said. “Anytime the FBI is visiting 
people’s homes or their workplaces or placing informants in the mix of 
people who were doing public organizing, it creates a chilling effect of 
people. People are concerned about raising issues about Palestine in 
their community because they’re afraid they’ll be targeted.”

Deutsch has seen this surveillance, which largely focuses on alleged 
links between activists in the U.S. and Palestinian groups abroad, 
escalate into indictments of activists and, in some cases, jail time or 
deportation for those who are not U.S. citizens.

In 2010, for instance, the FBI raided the homes of 23 Midwest-based 
activists and subpoenaed them to give testimony during an investigation 
into any “material support” they gave to the Popular Front for the 
Liberation of Palestine — allegations that stemmed from the testimony of 
an undercover informant. No charges were ever filed against the activists.

But, according to Deutsch, the government probe into Palestine 
solidarity activism eventually led federal agents to Rasmea Odeh, a 
revered Chicago-based Palestinian activist charged with lying to 
immigration authorities because she did not disclose her conviction in 
an Israeli military court on terrorism charges. Odeh, who was deported 
last year to Jordan, says her confession — to setting off a bomb in 
Jerusalem in 1969 that killed two students — was tortured out of her by 
Israeli soldiers.

There is no indication the current wave of FBI interviews is part of an 
investigation that will lead to criminal charges. Still, civil liberties 
advocates warn that the questioning poses a danger to free speech in the 
United States.

“They knock people off their feet in their confidence and their ability 
to just maintain their basic activism and their willingness to speak 
publicly about Palestine,” said Jackson of Palestine Legal, which also 
tracks instances of university suppression of pro-Palestine organizing. 
“Most people will think right away about what they say on social media 
and how many people they say it to. This means they stop speaking 
vocally and passionately about Palestinian suffering.”

-- 
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