For 80 days, Israel has been waging conflict on the Palestinians in Gaza with full diplomatic, financial and army help from the US authorities. The Israeli military has killed 21,000 folks, finishing up what authorized students agree quantities to a genocide and committing numerous different conflict crimes and crimes towards humanity.
But, rising ethical outrage in the USA and the world over is being met with harmful smear campaigns that weaponise racism to silence the Palestinian freedom motion.
Fuelled by and fuelling Islamophobia and anti-Palestinianism, excessive rhetoric has abetted unprecedented violations of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim American civil rights and even lethal violence towards members of those communities.
However the destructive repercussions of this bigoted repression should not restricted to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims; slightly they threaten elementary ethical and civic values which can be the idea of democracy.
Slander and witch hunts
Over the previous two and a half months, we’ve seen large road demonstrations, open letters of condemnation, public resignations of officers, and different protest actions aimed toward calling for a ceasefire, equal rights for Palestinians, and accountability for conflict crimes.
However this mobilisation has been countered by makes an attempt to painting the pro-Palestinian motion and any critique of Israel’s genocide as “anti-Semitic” and supportive of violence or terrorism.
Whereas these ways should not new, this marketing campaign has expanded in scale and scope to the purpose that it resembles a McCarthyist witch-hunt, relentlessly focusing on Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Individuals particularly, in addition to allies who’ve stood towards the US-funded violence and apartheid insurance policies of Israel.
Since October, 1000’s of people have fallen sufferer to this broad-brush smear marketing campaign. On US college campuses, pupil activists have been disciplined by directors, have had their pupil teams banned, have been doxxed on the web, have had their faces and names plastered on billboards with false, defamatory captions, and have misplaced job provides.
Others who oppose genocide have been pressured to remain silent, confronted threats, encountered intimidation and harassment on-line and within the streets, and endured financial repercussions, together with the lack of employment.
However this persecution has not been restricted to the personal sector and on-line areas; it has additionally prolonged into the halls of energy.
In November, a listening to was held within the US Congress during which “witnesses” falsely alleged that US-registered charities, together with those I’m the director of – American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Individuals for Justice in Palestine Motion (AJP Motion) – are “providing support” to Palestinian resistance teams.
These false allegations prolonged to the absurd declare that these organisations have known as for a “genocide against Israel”.
Members of Congress who’ve spoken out towards Israel’s atrocities or who’ve merely met with their constituents as a part of annual “Palestine Advocacy Days” have been additionally named and shamed in the course of the listening to.
These malevolent “testimonies” search to make our political contributions and voices poisonous within the halls of energy by spreading lies and pushing Islamophobic tropes that depend on a long time of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim biases.
It’s one factor to battle towards slander and misinformation within the media, however it’s one other – and essentially extra troubling – to be attacked with false accusations in Congress. That these testimonies containing false and bigoted claims have been allowed to proceed exhibits the utter failure of our public establishments to guard Individuals’ proper to dissent at a time when our tax {dollars} are getting used to help Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Islamophobia and violence
These defamatory, suppressive ways have harmful penalties. They gasoline hatred and encourage folks to behave upon it.
Based on the New York State Division of Homeland Safety and Emergency Providers, there was a 417 p.c enhance in hate speech towards Muslims because the conflict started.
Civil rights teams like Palestine Authorized and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have additionally reported an unprecedented variety of anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim assaults and discriminatory incident complaints over the previous two months. They’ve seen a greater than 200 p.c enhance in contrast with the earlier yr, and that is doubtless an undercount.
There have been not solely verbal assaults and harassment however lethal bodily violence, as properly. On October 14, Wadea al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian American little one, was stabbed 26 instances with a army knife by a person who was shouting, “You Muslims must die”; his mom was stabbed a dozen instances however survived.
On November 25, three Palestinian college students have been shot for talking Arabic and sporting keffiyehs; all three sustained accidents from gunshot wounds, and one is now paralysed from the chest down.
A member of our personal workers, Neveen Ayesh, was shot at in her automotive and her dwelling was damaged into on November 11.
Other than inciting violence and intimidation towards Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Individuals, the smear campaigns are reinvigorating the post-9/11 ambiance of suspicion, mass surveillance and collective victimisation.
For many years, we’ve labored to reveal the racism and double requirements of successive presidential administrations and their anti-Muslim insurance policies – from the watch lists and entrapment schemes, to the registries and bans.
We now have demonstrated the waste of tens of millions of taxpayer funds for programmes and initiatives which have focused and deeply traumatised our communities, however produced no leads to “improving national security”. We now have fought to make sure that no group is disproportionately policed and surveilled, it doesn’t matter what they seem like or the place they arrive from.
As pro-Israel teams wage a defamation conflict on our communities with a purpose to obfuscate and distract public consideration from Israel’s crimes in Gaza, we threat shedding that progress in the direction of an inclusive, anti-racist democracy, as slander and lies overcome reality.
That’s the reason we name on media retailers, politicians, and progressive leaders to be vigilant about anti-Arab and anti-Muslim tropes that think about our communities as extensions of governments or political teams within the Center East, painting us as inherently suspect, and thereby endanger us.
There are three essential methods to counter this smear marketing campaign. First, we should recognise the lengthy historical past of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism and Islamophobia within the US and elsewhere, alongside different racism and criminalisation.
Second, we should defend the appropriate of people to talk up for Palestinian rights and defy makes an attempt to impose a Palestine exception to free speech.
And third, we should echo our pro-peace Jewish allies in demanding that criticism of Israel and Zionism should not conflated with anti-Semitism. Our frequent battle towards anti-Semitism should not be weaponised to gasoline Islamophobia and censor voices for justice in Palestine. This problem should turn into an pressing, core a part of any anti-racist and progressive agenda – or else we threat permitting anybody’s proper to free speech to be undermined.
Historical past teaches us that campaigns of suppression, slander and bigoted assaults could begin with minority teams like Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, however they don’t cease there. These efforts create the social and authorized template for repression of all political dissent.
That’s the reason, we, American Muslims, and all voices supporting the rights of the Palestinian folks, should act collectively as a bulwark towards makes an attempt to breed darkish eras of historical past – when the homicide and victimisation of racialised “others” was justified, and when the reality was misplaced to war-mongering propaganda.
Our means to uphold the Palestinians’ proper to protest the genocide – and the appropriate of ethical folks to face with them – is a elementary take a look at of our dedication to justice, equal rights and freedom for all. We can’t compromise on these values.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.