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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/marc-lamont-hill-politically-lynched-telling-truth-about-palestine">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/marc-lamont-hill-politically-lynched-telling-truth-about-palestine</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Marc Lamont Hill politically lynched
for telling truth about Palestine</h1>
<br>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah">Ali
Abunimah</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-11-30T13:41:11+00:00">30 November 2018</span></span>
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<div class="content">
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<article>
<p><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/marc-lamont-hill">Marc
Lamont Hill</a> gave a beautiful speech at a United
Nations <a
href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/gapal1417.doc.htm">event</a>
marking the International Day of Solidarity with the
Palestinian People this week.</p>
<p>For this, the Temple University professor and
long-time advocate for Palestinian rights has been the
target of an orchestrated political lynching by Israel
lobby groups.</p>
<p>Smeared as an anti-Semite and <a
href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/is-cnn-now-just-ok-with-genocidal-rhetoric-aimed-at-jews">grotesquely
and falsely accused</a> of calling for genocide
against Jews, Hill was fired from his role as a
political commentator for CNN.</p>
<p>The <a
href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/exclusive-cnn-fires-marc-lamont-hill-following-israel-comments/">same</a>
Israel lobby operatives who bullied CNN into ending
Hill’s contract are also <a
href="https://twitter.com/NCYIYoungIsrael/status/1067938412295069696">demanding</a>
that he be fired from his teaching position.</p>
<p>The university has <a
href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/29/marc-lamont-hill-keeps-temple-university-professor/">rebuffed</a>
these calls, citing Hill’s “constitutionally protected
right to express his opinion as a private citizen.”</p>
<p>The accusations against Marc Lamont Hill are outright
lies promoted by <a
href="https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1068216460269383680">high-level</a>
<a
href="https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1068306176633376768">operatives</a>
of the Israel lobby in their latest effort to silence
and punish anyone who dares speak out in support of
Palestinian equality and freedom from Israel’s brutal
regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and
apartheid.</p>
<p>They perfectly match the kind of smear and sabotage
tactics revealed in the censored Al Jazeera
documentary on the US Israel lobby that was recently <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876">published
in full by The Electronic Intifada</a>.</p>
<p>Israel and its lobby see <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/black-palestine">solidarity</a>
for Palestine from Black people as a <a
href="https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/09/05/censored-documentary-exposes-the-israeli-governments-attack-on-black-lives-matter/">particularly
dangerous threat</a> to be combatted with <a
href="https://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/pro-israel-groups-smear-movement-black-lives-its-solidarity-palestine">special
zeal</a>. It is no wonder that <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jackie-walker">Jackie
Walker</a>, a Black Jewish anti-Zionist activist in
Britain’s Labour Party, has likened the years-long
smear campaign targeted at her by the Israel lobby to
a <a href="https://jackiewalker.org/">lynching</a>.</p>
<p>At the top of this page is the full video of Hill’s
UN speech, published by the anti-Palestinian group <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/un-watch">UN
Watch</a>, no doubt in an effort to embarrass him.</p>
<p>You can also read a <a
href="http://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/38202">transcript</a>.</p>
<p>Anyone familiar with Israel lobby defamation
campaigns will not be surprised to learn that there is
not one word of bigotry and of course nothing that can
remotely be construed as a call for genocide.</p>
<h2>Real solidarity</h2>
<p>Rather, Marc Lamont Hill commits an even more
unforgivable thought crime in the eyes of Israel and
its lobby: he calls for effective solidarity with the
Palestinian people on the basis that the full range of
rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights should apply to them no less than to any other
people.</p>
<p>Hill also draws on the Black history of struggle
against American state racism as a source of
inspiration for that solidarity. His own words are
worth quoting at length:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As a Black American, my understanding of action and
solidarity action is rooted in our own tradition of
struggle. As Black Americans resisted slavery, as
well as Jim Crow laws that transformed us from a
slave state to an apartheid state, we did so through
multiple tactics and strategies. It is this array of
tactics that I appeal to as I advocate for concrete
action from all of us in this room.</p>
<p>Solidarity from the international community demands
that we embrace boycotts, divestment, and sanctions
as a critical means by which to hold Israel
accountable for its treatment of Palestinian people.
This movement, which emerges out of the overwhelming
majority of Palestinian civil society offers a
nonviolent means by which to demand a return to the
pre-1967 borders, full rights for Palestinian
citizens and the right of return as dictated by
international law.</p>
<p>Solidarity demands that we no longer allow
politicians or political parties to remain silent on
the question of Palestine. We can no longer in
particular allow the political left to remain
radical or even progressive on every issue from the
environment to war to the economy. To remain
progressive on every issue except for Palestine.</p>
<p>Contrary to Western mythology, Black resistance to
American apartheid did not come purely through
Gandhi and nonviolence. Rather, slave revolts and
self-defense and tactics otherwise divergent from
Dr. [Martin Luther] King or Mahatma Gandhi were
equally important to preserving safety and attaining
freedom.</p>
<p>We must allow – if we are to operate in true
solidarity with Palestinian people, we must allow
the Palestinian people the same range of opportunity
and political possibility.</p>
<p>If we are standing in solidarity with the
Palestinian people, we must recognize the right of
an occupied people to defend itself. We must
prioritize peace. But we must not romanticize or
fetishize it.</p>
<p>We must advocate and promote nonviolence at every
opportunity, but we cannot endorse a narrow politics
of respectability that shames Palestinians for
resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of
state violence and ethnic cleansing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hill ended his speech with a call for “a free
Palestine from the river to the sea.”</p>
<p>The political lynch mob tried to spin these words as
a genocidal call for the destruction of Israel.</p>
<p>But they are a simple recognition of reality:
historic Palestine – what is today Israel, the
occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip – is not free
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.</p>
<div id="file-72041">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">You can quote me: I call
for the full liberation of Palestine from the
river to the sea, an end to the Israeli Zionist
system of occupation, settler-colonialism and
apartheid, and its replacement with democracy,
equality and justice for Jews, Palestinians and
all in that land. <a
href="https://t.co/E1kHJEv4fM">https://t.co/E1kHJEv4fM</a></p>
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) <a
href="https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1068253246236577793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>As a <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/landmark-un-report-backs-israel-boycott">landmark
UN report</a>– <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/un-official-resigns-after-pressure-withdraw-israel-apartheid-report">quickly
withdrawn</a> under Israel lobby pressure –
documented last year, the entire territory and the
entire Palestinian people are subject to an “apartheid
regime.”</p>
<p>The report found “beyond a reasonable doubt that
Israel is guilty of policies and practices that
constitute the crimes of apartheid” as defined in
international law.</p>
<p>With clarity and courage Marc Lamont Hill rightly
stands by his principled words and we should stand by
him – as many are doing.</p>
<p>Almost 5,000 people have already signed a <a
href="https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/cnn-reverse-firing-of-marc-lamont-hill-for-endorsing-a-one-state-solution-to-israel-palestine-crisis/">petition</a>
demanding that CNN reinstate Hill.</p>
<div id="file-72046">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">I believe in full rights
for all citizens. I believe in safety for all
citizens. I believe in self-determination for
all citizens. This is not an anti-Semitic
position.</p>
— Marc Lamont Hill (@marclamonthill) <a
href="https://twitter.com/marclamonthill/status/1068173051987193856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div id="file-72051">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">My reference to “river to
the sea” was not a call to destroy anything or
anyone. It was a call for justice, both in
Israel and in the West Bank/Gaza. The speech
very clearly and specifically said those things.
No amount of debate will change what I actually
said or what I meant.</p>
— Marc Lamont Hill (@marclamonthill) <a
href="https://twitter.com/marclamonthill/status/1068238076252745728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div id="file-72056">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">This isn’t a case of
throwing rocks and hiding hands. I genuinely
believe in the arguments and principles that I
shared in the speech. I also genuinely want
peace, freedom, and security for everyone. These
are not competing ideals and values.</p>
— Marc Lamont Hill (@marclamonthill) <a
href="https://twitter.com/marclamonthill/status/1068239416823635969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div id="file-72061">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Marc Lamont Hill is an
excellent scholar, a deeply ethical writer, and
a terrific human being. CNN's decision to fire
him is disgraceful and further evidence that
Zionism is incompatible with free speech.</p>
— Steven Salaita (@stevesalaita) <a
href="https://twitter.com/stevesalaita/status/1068269732741169152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div id="file-72101">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Criticizing the actions of
Israel is not anti-semitism. Since when is
advocating for human rights a fireable offense?
Join us in standing in solidarity with Dr. <a
href="https://twitter.com/marclamonthill?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MarcLamontHill</a>:
<a href="https://t.co/5Sd3b1qdBK">https://t.co/5Sd3b1qdBK</a></p>
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) <a
href="https://twitter.com/MarkRuffalo/status/1068519092112388097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
30, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div id="file-72066">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">I'm Black and Jewish and I
agree with everything this article quotes <a
href="https://twitter.com/marclamonthill?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@marclamonthill</a>
as saying in his speech to the UN. <a
href="https://t.co/JFU1oVyYBG">https://t.co/JFU1oVyYBG</a></p>
— Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🙅🏽♀️ 🇧🇧🌈
(@IBJIYONGI) <a
href="https://twitter.com/IBJIYONGI/status/1068225165388066817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div id="file-72096">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">I had the opportunity to
learn from <a
href="https://twitter.com/marclamonthill?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@marclamonthill</a>
this past summer in Jerusalem. Frustrated,
angry, & disappointed at CNN for succumbing
to pressure and firing Marc. Marc is dedicated
to fighting for human rights, democracy, and
just peace FOR ALL. (1/6) <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IStandWithMLH?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IStandWithMLH</a>
<a href="https://t.co/BOMqJy1eFw">pic.twitter.com/BOMqJy1eFw</a></p>
— Will Yetvin (@ZYetvinator) <a
href="https://twitter.com/ZYetvinator/status/1068322391506468864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
30, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div id="file-72071">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">This is a disgrace. <a
href="https://twitter.com/marclamonthill?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@marclamonthill</a>
is a fierce advocate for justice & rights. <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CNN?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CNN</a>
fires him for a speech he gave at the UN. Some
pro-Israel groups protested & CNN buckled.
There is no tolerance for open debate on <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Palestinian?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Palestinian</a>
rights. <a href="https://t.co/OCQBSXFvTd">https://t.co/OCQBSXFvTd</a></p>
— James J. Zogby (@jjz1600) <a
href="https://twitter.com/jjz1600/status/1068283703292555265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div id="file-72076">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">— JewishVoiceForPeace
(@jvplive) <a
href="https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1068299131523715072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
30, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div id="file-72106">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Hi, I'm Jewish. All
solidarity with <a
href="https://twitter.com/marclamonthill?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@marclamonthill</a>.
Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitism. Real
anti-Semitism is the assumption that all Jews
are of one mind and abide - or even endorse -
the horrific mistreatment of Palestinians. Shame
on <a
href="https://twitter.com/CNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CNN</a></p>
— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) <a
href="https://twitter.com/EdgeofSports/status/1068276207156948994?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<h2>Fake support for press freedom</h2>
<p>Earlier this month, CNN and many of its defenders
postured as defenders of press freedom and freedom of
speech after the White House <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/business/media/jim-acosta-press-pass-cnn.html">withdrew</a>
the pass of its correspondent Jim Acosta.</p>
<p>The Acosta affair was a cheap opportunity for pundits
to pose as brave and courageous members of the
#Resistance to Donald Trump.</p>
<p>But when freedom of speech really faces a test – as
it so <a
href="https://ccrjustice.org/the-palestine-exception">frequently
does</a> when it comes to Palestine – don’t expect
to find too many of the same voices demanding that
Hill’s right to ask difficult questions be respected
and protected.</p>
<div id="file-72081">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Mendacious liberal pundits
who make careers of decrying "intolerance" on
"the left" (while studiously ignoring the
persecution of Israel's critics) are more
responsible than anybody for the epidemic of
Zionist suppression.</p>
— Steven Salaita (@stevesalaita) <a
href="https://twitter.com/stevesalaita/status/1068314391584612354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November
30, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>A critically important lesson from CNN’s firing of
Marc Lamont Hill is that mainstream media will
tolerate just about anything, from <a
href="https://blackamericaweb.com/2018/11/28/soledad-obrien-slams-cnn-for-giving-white-supremacists-airtime/">white
supremacy</a> to <a
href="http://www2.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/Bill-Nye-CNN-climate-change-denial-William-Harper.html">climate
denial</a>, but never clear, open and principled
support for Palestinian rights.</p>
<p>That is a systemic problem and it underscores that
only truly independent media free from corporate and
state control can guarantee us the right to speak
freely about Palestine and advocate for its
liberation.</p>
<br>
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