Fear pitch…Muna Khan
MY friend and I have been consumed with news of the arrests of legal residents in the US for their pro-Palestine views. That in itself is not a crime hello freedom of speech but the manner in which anything can be defined as antisemitic is hugely problematic. If anything, antisemitism needs a new definition one that safeguards the Jewish community, for example, without trampling on everyone elses rights to justice.
Antisemitism is increasingly being used as a political tool to squash dissent under the pretence of protecting minorities. Everyone but the Donald Trump administration and Europe can see through this. Yet, since the Hamas attack on Israel, we have seen an uptick in smear campaigns against anyone who dares criticise Israel. The lengths that vilification campaigns will go to is mind-boggling, as the high-profile arrests of Mahmoud Khalil, Romeysa Ozturk, Momodou Taal and Yunseo Chung prove. And we all suspect this is just the beginning because Trump is a master fear-monger.
Since being ousted from office, he has spent his time telling Americans to fear just about everybody but themselves. This includes but is not limited to students and academics who support terrorist Hamas. Hes begun to act on his threats to censure, and everyone is panicking. Pakistani parents of university students are wondering whether their child should come home for the summer lest they are not allowed back in. A colleague is worried about travelling to the US on a valid visa. There are many stories on social media about valid visa holders being denied entry into the US, but they are difficult to corroborate.
Trumpism may well trump the Red Scare eras.
Heres something we can verify: groups like Canary Mission are targeting and outing students, academics, medical professionals and organisations for their pro-Palestine views. Its being done in the name of safety. Log onto their website and look up universities to find bios of young students and academics crimes; ie, when and where they said what about Palestine. It is a smear campaign aimed at jeopardising their future. They can have their names removed if they publicly seek forgiveness, after which they become ex-Canary, as if they had a choice in being on that site. This group is credited as being behind the arrest of Khalil and Ozturk. This Zionist blacklist, as TRT rightly referred to it, is not being challenged. They are publishing names and images of students whose crime was to chant pro-Palestine slogans. How can we call this antisemitism?
Its easy for me to call for more organisations to band together and put up a collective resistance to challenge the idea that allows Canary Mission to function. I, too, fear the consequences in Pakistan of dissent, thanks to Peca. Trump knows how fear makes you insecure. He said in a 2016 interview that Real power is fear. But Trump isnt really an anomaly.
Hes from a country which, after all, created a House Un-American Activities Committee in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and rebel activities on the part of private citizens, public employees and organisations suspected of having communist ties. Senator Joseph McCarthy spearheaded a campaign against government employees he thought had ties to communists the label McCarthyism is a reference to one of the most repressive periods in US history. Although HUACs influence decreased by the 1960s, it was formally dissolved only in 1975.
America is entering an era of Trumpism which may well trump the Red Scare eras. While McCarthyism prevailed in the name of national security above personal freedoms, Trump is choosing Israel over personal freedoms. Everyone is caving in to his scare tactics.
Isaac Stanley-Becker wrote in the Atlantic last week that the fear coursing through [universities, law firms, and federal workers] in recent weeks is a defining feature of authoritarian societies.
It explains why Columbia gave in to Trumps demands to overhaul its Middle Eastern Studies department, along with banning face coverings and tightening campus policing, after which they received $400 million in federal funding. This is appeasement plain and simple and legal firms have also done it in a bid to avoid Trump punishing them for representing his opponents. Hes already threatened to use executive orders against firms that practise frivolous lawsuits.
Everyone is running scared. I dont know where the chips will fall, but the victim is free speech everywhere. We should listen to Kenneth Stern, who was the lead drafter of the working definition of antisemitism in 2004. Five years ago, he wrote in The Guardian that the term was being weaponised by rightwing Jews and to quash pro-Palestinian voices. Perhaps collective action should be redirected to a new definition and one that doesnt give Israel and its supporters a pass to do as they wish.
Courtesy Dawn