This is important. Tomorrow night at Rutgers, the New Jersey state university, Palestinian solidarity groups are exercising their right to assembly and free speech by gathering to raise money for the US boat to Gaza-- which seeks to aid the 1.5 million people living in an open-air prison, with few political rights. The ADL is smearing the event as an aid to terrorism, inside a public university. Below is reporting from the north Jersey newspaper, followed by the flyer for the event.
Patricia Alex at the Record reports:
The event, sponsored by a group called BAKA: Students United for Middle Eastern Justice, was advertised as a halal buffet followed by speakers in support of U.S. to Gaza, which describes itself as a coalition of organizations and individuals...
BAKA received $2,494 from mandatory fees collected from all students to stage the event, which will be held at the university-owned Busch Campus Center.
“We are deeply concerned that a state-supported university could support an organization that could commit a belligerent act against one of our allies,” said Etzion Neuer, regional director of the state Anti-Defamation League based in Teaneck. “This is not about free speech, it’s about potentially illegal activity.”
Hoda Mitwally, a Rutgers senior and an executive board member of BAKA, said her group was raising money for a humanitarian mission with the blessing of the Rutgers University Student Assembly, the university’s student government.
“We are not bringing weapons, we are not bringing anybody who plans to use violence,” she said. “This is a humanitarian mission. They are framing this as though we were planning some sort of terrorist action or something suspicious, and we strongly denounce that. These are smear remarks intented to discredit our organization and our mission.”
The illegal activity is Israel’s, maintaining the blockade of Gaza.
Neuer’s hyperbole about a planned ‘belligerent act’ is a prelude to labeling Gaza activists as ‘terrorists,’ which would pre-emptively suspend their civil rights and those of their supporters.
This is not an idle threat: Americans have been sent to prison for supporting Muslim charities which were retroactively labeled (correctly or not) as terrorism sponsors.
Of course, pro-settler groups face no such risk, with their insider agent Stuart ‘Scourge of the Gazans’ Levey at the Treasury ensuring that Israeli interests get a free pass from scrutiny, even as their activities violate international law and long-standing U.S. policy.
Don’t we all miss the good old days, when the ADL merely smeared its opponents as antisemites? Having worn out that old slur by promiscuous overuse, the ADL’s kneecappers now find ‘terrorist’ a far more legally effective form of slander.
The recent SCOTUS decision Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project was directly about assistance to the PKK Kurdish rebels and the Tamil Tigers, but indirectly about aid to Hamas (who are mentioned in passing three times in the Opinion of the Court, where it refers to amici briefs from the ADL and others). The rationale for the decision — which dangerously expands the scope of what can be considered criminal material aid to terrorist organizations — is deference to the executive branch, which has declared the PKK and the Tamil Tigers terrorist organizations. Since the executive branch has also declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization, that rationale would also apply to aid to Hamas.
Oh, and the Executive Director of the ADL, who is a lawyer, appeared on RT Television in a debate on the Humanitarian Law Project decision a few days after it was made, defending the decision. It was obvious from what he said that Hamas was what was on his mind.
The ADL is running out of gas with their fearless leader.