Israel’s supporters seek to restrict the freedom
of speech of America’s academics
Iymen Chehade
April 19, 2014 Updated: April 19, 2014
13:45:00
weekend eye
The Israeli occupation is not only a physical occupation of Palestine but it is also an occupation of the
mind, specifically on college campuses in the United States. Pro-Israel supporters have sought to limit the discussion
to frame the conflict to Americans in a particular way.
The growing success of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement(BDS)
has alarmed pro-Israel supporters to the point that they have sought to
restrict one of the most cherished American values, that of free speech.
Groups and individuals have targeted
organisations and professors on university campuses around the US, seeking to intimidate them into silence. They have also
pushed for legislation on the state and federal levels that would target the
academic freedom of pro-Palestinian professors and universities.
As a historian of Palestine and as someone active in public policy around the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I have personally witnessed and experienced these
attempts at silencing. Most recently, my course at Chicago’s Columbia College was targeted.
In October 2013, I showed the Academy
Award-nominated film Five Broken Cameras in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
course I teach. The film documents the weekly protests in the West Bank village
of Bil’in. Since 2005, Israel has constructed a wall cutting through
the village, stealing much of the land for Israeli settlers.
Shortly after showing the film to my class, I
received an email from the Humanities History and Social Sciences Department
requesting a 30-minute meeting with Dr Steven Corey, my chair, regarding a
student concern.
At the meeting, I was informed by the chair that
an unnamed student had said that I was “biased” for showing the film and
counselled me on the need for “balance” in my class. “Balance” has been a
frequent demand by Zionists to present Israel’s violent occupation of
the Palestinians as somehow symmetric with Palestinian resistance.
When I asked why he did not ask the student to
come to speak to me, he went on to say that when he was at college, he found a
particular African-American professor to be unapproachable due to the anger he
showed towards white students.
I pointed out to Corey that I was open to my
students and I do not show hostility or anger based on students’ backgrounds or
perspectives. He continued the conversation with a request for my college
transcripts, stating that he wanted to “make sure that professors were teaching
what they are supposed to be teaching” despite the fact that I have worked at Columbia for years and I am the one who designed and created the
course.
A few days after the meeting and within two
hours of registration beginning, one of the sections of the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict course was eliminated.
The actions that the college took to remove the
class are not surprising given the historic and continuous anti-Palestinian
bias at Columbia and at other campuses around the United States.
That bias manifests itself in many ways, from
the need for “balance” (a requirement not asked of professors covering other
conflicts), to pressuring university departments to shut down discussion of the
topic, to intimidation of academics who are not seen to follow the line.
Soon after the cancellation of the class, my
union filed a grievance, claiming a violation of academic freedom. Columbia’s
own statement on academic freedom ensures that “all faculty members are
protected against institutional discipline or restraint in their discussion of
relevant matters in the classroom, exploration of self-chosen avenues of
scholarship, research and creative expression, and speaking and writing as
public citizens.”
Not surprisingly the grievance was rejected,
since the college itself decides on its own whether there was a breach of
academic freedom.
Columbia is not the only place in America where anti-Palestinian bias is rampant. In March, a
chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine was suspended at Boston’s Northeastern University after members slipped mock eviction notices under dorm
rooms to students to bring to light Israel’s continuous policy of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
and the confiscation of their property.
In March, the SJP at Barnard College in New
York put up a banner
entitled Stand for Justice-Stand for Palestine as part of Israeli Apartheid Week, a global week of action
supported by millions who are in solidarity with Palestine. Barnard College took down the banner yielding to pressure that it
“inadvertently gave the impression that the College sanctions and supports
these events”.
The pressure extends beyond universities. After
the American Studies Association passed a resolution calling for the boycott of
Israeli academic institutions in December of 2013, there has been a backlash by
Zionists to pass bills on the federal and state levels that would punish
universities if they or their faculty support a boycott of Israel.
In one of a series of bills proposed by
lawmakers around the country, Illinois State Senate Bill 3017 would obstruct
the academic freedom of universities and professors and impose the will of
Zionists who are threatened by the growing movement to boycott, divest, and
sanction Israel until it conforms to international law.
However, they are fighting in retreat. Despite
the many attempts to deny Palestinians their voice, more than 7,000 people
signed a petition to restore the second section of my class.
The American Association of University
Professors (AAUP) conducted an independent investigation and found that Columbia had violated my academic freedom.
As Dr Peter Kirstein states in the AAUP finding:
“Professor Chehade has the academic freedom protection to present material in
his own name in a course and articulate opinions in class.”
On March 31, Columbia
College restored my class and I now have two sections in the
autumn term. The Northeastern and Bernard SJPs have garnered thousands of
supporters and Bill 3017 was withdrawn from the Illinois State Senate in April.
Supporters of Palestine are being heard, now more than ever in the United States. The BDS movement, in particular, has pushed back against the
occupation and its supporters. There is also a greater awareness among
supporters of Palestine of their ability to push back, and to organise. Without
such widespread support, my voice, and in particular the ability of my students
to gain a genuine education on the topic would have been silenced.
While there is an occupation in Palestine, there is also an occupation of the mind here in America.
Many Americans simply do not know the extent to
which they are responsible for the subjugation of the Palestinians as a result
of the financial, diplomatic and military support the US government provides to the state of Israel.
Thus, just as the Palestinians are resisting
occupation in Palestine, there is growing American resistance to Israel’s criminal policies at academic and other institutions
around the US.
In 2004, Palestinian civil society issued a call
for the boycott, divestment, and sanctioning of the state of Israel until it
complies with international law by ending the illegal occupation, providing
full rights and equality for the Palestinians inside of Israel, and respecting
the right of return for Palestinian refugees in accordance with United Nations
Resolution 194.
The movement is growing in America, in Europe and in the Arab world. It is a true grassroots movement.
But it is essential that governments, including Arab governments, are also part
of this movement so that they are on the right side of history.
Iymen Chehade is a lecturer in Middle Eastern
history at Columbia College in Chicago. He is active in the area of public policy and human
rights regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
