Anti-Palestinianism

So for this episode, I want to read those remarks that I gave at this event.

And then I'll explain why that accusation that was leveled against me is so insidious and harmful and outrageous and is part of a broader problem of rampant anti-Palestinian racism in the United States.

Okay, here are the remarks I made at that event.

Thank you all for attending this panel.

Again, I was accused of downplaying anti-Semitism, and I was also likened to neo-Nazis.

Why? For citing the report by the AAUP.

In case people don't know, this is a very insidious trope of anti-Palestinian racism, often leveled at Palestinians.

The idea that Palestinians are inherently anti-Semitic, that they are akin to Nazis, that their identity is not a national one similar to every other nationality, but that Palestinian is a type of ideology centered on the hatred of Jews.

Sorry, I'll just start with you.

Tell me a little bit about the idea behind writing this book, Anti-Palestinianism, why you felt that this was important and necessary to put out to the world.

You can imagine it came out of our experience, our collective, our individual experience, our family experience, our collective experience in the US in the past many years, but obviously in an especially focused way since the genocide in Gaza began in October 2023.

And the experience is that of those of us who support Palestinian rights, or let's say who oppose the genocide in Gaza, are instantly accused of anti-Semitism.

I don't think that like these readers of the Australian or the Murdoch Press like care about anti-Semitism or Jewish people.

It's just that in many ways, like for them, Israel has become a way and support for Israel has become a way for them to to engage in the form of racism they want to engage in, which is anti-migrant racism, which is anti-Arab racism, anti-Palestinian racism.

This provides them with this avenue to do so under the banner of fighting anti-Semitism.

And so, yeah, I think for a lot of these guys, this is...

You're abusing all these things in order to propagate racism.

a vicious support for what we would call anti-Palestinianism or support for apartheid and genocide and so on.

He should have been much more aggressive.

That's all in retrospect.