Leila Khaled reflects on her lifetime of resistance, the significance of October 7 for the global solidarity movement, and the way forward for Palestinian liberation.
The organizers of the Open Classroom event, “Whose Narratives? What Free Speech for Palestine” say they had their right to free speech silenced by private tech companies Zoom, Facebook, and Eventbrite when the companies bowed to the fraudulent threat of prosecution. Now the organizers are calling on supporters to demand an end to corporate control of academia and an end to Israel lobby censorship and bullying.
On April 12 Facebook removed the event page for a panel on Palestine. The next day the tech company shut down the page for the academic program, the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies program at San Francisco State University, that sponsored it.
In an article characterizing pro-Palestinian campus activists as “strident” and given to hatred and orthodoxy, the New York Times leaves out any substantive, visceral description of the crimes that motivate these activists: recent apartheid declarations by a leading Israeli human rights group and the Columbia College student body.
Two resolutions designed to crack down on pro-Palestine activism at Butler University failed to pass the Student Government Association.
Fallout continues over Zoom’s censorship of a San Francisco State University academic forum featuring Leila Khaled. “Zoom should not be allowed to interfere with nor have any power over the content of our curriculum and classrooms,” Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi tells Mondoweiss.
If digital platforms continue to have the power to dictate the terms of the conversation we can only expect a further restriction of what Palestinian scholar Edward Said called “permission to narrate”. As Palestinian feminists, we know the stakes of this moment all too well.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s withdrawal last Friday from an October memorial to Yitzhak Rabin is an act of irreverence for an Israeli leader we’ve not seen before at her political level; and the drama has roiled the pro-Israel community. Even the Biden campaign spoke up, an aide saying that AOC’s decision was “problematic” for the Democratic Party.
For the last couple years, we’ve heard a lot about the perils of “Cancel Culture” and the free speech crisis that has plagued our universities, but it’s very clear that this alleged problem only applies to certain viewpoints. The people who push these narratives don’t care if Palestinians or advocates for Palestine are literally silenced.
Zoom has announced that it will deny its services to San Francisco State University today and block an online panel featuring Leila Khaled from happening with its software. Pro-Israel groups, including the Act.IL app which is partially funded by the Israeli government, are taking credit for helping cancel the event.