On October 25, 2023 the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law[1] published an open letter to college and university presidents. In it, they asked administrators to investigate their campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) for potential violations, including “whether they have improper funding sources, have violated the school code of conduct, have violated state or federal laws, and/or are providing material support to Hamas.”[2] The letter, which made baseless accusations against campus activists, encouraged universities to take actions that could potentially violate their students’ constitutional rights.
This incident is one of many mentioned in Palestine Legal’s May 2024 report, Reverberations of October 7th: Mobilization Against Genocide Undeterred by Peak Anti-Palestinian Repression. The report details state and non-state actors’ efforts to repress Palestine solidarity activism and expression from October 7, 2023, through December 31, 2023. As Palestine Legal notes, “The last three months of 2023 witnessed a harrowing level of attacks on Palestine advocacy at a time when it was most needed to stop an unfolding genocide.”[3] In that time, Palestine Legal received 1,037 requests for legal support—almost five times the number the organization received in all of 2022. Nearly half of the requests—specifically, 478—were related to universities’ crackdowns on student organizing, along with 383 reports regarding “employment concerns,” including 124 reports about employment terminations; 268 reports about doxing; and 73 reports about K–12 education.
Schools, universities, and workplaces were not the only places engaged in anti-Palestinian repression. Their efforts were accompanied by laws designed to criminalize Palestine solidarity.[4] During the same three-month period, Palestine Legal reported that legislators introduced 33 new federal and state-level bills and resolutions targeting Palestine solidarity activism—many of which are based on U.S. anti-terror legislation rooted in anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic sentiments. Palestine Legal’s report highlights two federal bills and a resolution that would target Palestinian immigrants or immigrants who express support for Palestine. These proposals would prevent DHS and the State Department from issuing immigrant or nonimmigrant visas to Palestinian nationals; enable the President to deport foreign nationals who participated in pro-Palestine protests; and determine those who “endorsed or espoused terrorist activities”[5] by Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups to be “engaged in terrorist activity.”[6] The bills quell dissent, chill speech, and target groups with the least legal protections.
Accusing student organizations of receiving illicit funding or supporting terrorism gives law enforcement the permission to do what Israel’s military forces do to Gaza’s people—to invade, detain, condemn, brutalize, and possibly maim them. Weaponized accusations of antisemitism, along with anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Muslim bigotry, are tools for state and social actors to normalize the brutalization and criminalization of Palestine solidarity activists and dissenters in general. But as the report argues, despite increasing repression, the pro-Palestinian movement remained “intent on making visible a situation of extreme oppression that the U.S. government and media purposely keep from full view, and on shifting the status quo that enables it.”[7]
Palestine Legal’s contribution to these efforts connects the assault on Palestine solidarity activism to other domestic and global liberation struggles. They affirm that “We are confident history will judge our movement in the same light as civil rights, anti-apartheid, and other justice movements before it, despite the fierce repression they, too, faced in challenging racist and apartheid systems.”[8] As the report makes clear, today it is Palestinians and their allies who empower others to imagine and realize a better world.
State and social repression indicates a movement’s power. As Palestine Legal’s report about efforts to stop the largest mass mobilization for Palestine in U.S. history shows, pro-Palestine solidarity is no longer a “fringe” concern—it has become central to conversations about U.S. imperialism, capitalism, education, and society. While the report presents important data about the frequency and methods of anti-Palestinian suppression, it also offers an important strategic insight from student organizers facing such attacks: that “repression is evidence of our power.”[9]
Indeed, if there is repression, there will be resistance; and where there is resistance, there is power.
Endnotes
[1] The ADL and Brandeis Center claim that they protect Jewish communities from antisemitism while using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. This definition allows institutions to criminalize and censor those expressing support for Palestine, and is the basis of U.S. anti-terror legislation. Refer to Alice Speri, “How the ADL’s Anti-Palestinian Advocacy Helped Shape U.S. Terror Laws,” The Intercept, February 21, 2024, https://theintercept.com/2024/02/21/adl-palestine-terrorism-legislation/.
[2] Spencer Ackerman, “The ADL Is Defaming Palestinian Students as Terrorist Supporters,” The Nation, October 31, 2023, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/adl-palestine-terrorism-letter/.
[3] Reverberations of October 7th: Mobilization Against Genocide Undeterred by Peak Anti-Palestinian Repression, Palestine Legal, May 2024, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/548748b1e4b083fc03ebf70e/t/664fbc07860df7037ba81300/1716501546613/Pal+Legal+Report+Reverberations+of+Oct+7th, 48.
[4] Reverberations, 43–44.
[5] August Pfluger, “H.R.6200 - Terrorist Inadmissibility Codification Act,” Congress.gov, November 2, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6200/text.
[6] Reverberations, 47.
[7] Reverberations, 48.
[8]Reverberations, 7.
[9] Dissenters (@wearedissenters) and National Students for Justice in Palestine (@nationalsjp), “Repression Is Evidence of Our Power,” Instagram, November 22, 2023, https://www.instagram.com/p/Cz9VG-KJCb_/?img_index=1, quoted in report.