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Countering Repression of Palestine Solidarity in the US & Europe
80 Plays1 year ago
Layla Kattermann (European Legal Support Center) and Diala Shamas (Center for Constitutional Rights) join host Yara Hawari to discuss the crackdown on pro-Palestine solidarity across the US and Europe and ways their organizations are working to resist state repression against activists.
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Transcript
Understanding Your Rights and Opposing Oppression
00:00:00
Speaker
One should know their rights. Their current oppression is usually unconstitutional and unlawful. The police certainly is exercising unlawful conduct. I tell people, don't stop speaking out. Don't stop opposing genocide. You are on the right side of history, even though it doesn't feel that way oftentimes.
The Context of Conflict: Hamas, Israeli Actions, and Global Reactions
00:00:27
Speaker
From Ashabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, I am Yara Hawari, and this is Rethinking Palestine.
00:00:38
Speaker
On October 7, 2023, Hamas's military wing, the Qassan Brigade, launched a guerrilla operation beyond the Israeli military fences that encircle Gaza, killing an estimated 1,400 Israelis. Since then, the Israeli regime has embarked on a renewed bombardment campaign and has intensified the siege of Gaza,
00:00:58
Speaker
as well as increasing repression in the West Bank and across colonized Palestine. At the time of recording, the Gaza Strip was still under Israeli regime bombardment. The number of Palestinians killed are over 5,000 with at least 2,000 of them children, and the number is still climbing. Many people are still missing, trapped under the rubble of their own homes. This is an ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
00:01:23
Speaker
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people around the world have hit the streets in their hometowns, declaring solidarity with the Palestinian people. Organizations and groups have also put out statements condemning the Israeli regime, not only for its most recent onslaught, but also for its decades-long colonial occupation of Palestine.
00:01:41
Speaker
Yet this widespread international solidarity has been facing repression and a Norwellian crackdown from governments and various different actors. Joining me to discuss what this repression looks like and how we can challenge it are two guests.
Meet the Experts: Leila Kateman and Diyela Sharma
00:01:56
Speaker
Firstly, Leila Kateman, the monitor project manager for the European Legal Support Centre.
00:02:01
Speaker
Leila studied international studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands and specialised in the Middle East, focusing on the media discourse surrounding Palestine and Israeli regime disinformation. Leila is also co-founder of the National Student Coalition for Palestine in the Netherlands.
00:02:18
Speaker
And secondly, Diyela Sharma, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she works on challenging government and law enforcement abuses perpetrated under the guise of national security in the US and abroad. Prior to joining the Center for Constitutional Rights, she taught and supervised legal clinics at Stanford Law School and CUNY Law School.
00:02:37
Speaker
She also represents and advises social justice and human rights advocates as they face repressions at the hands of the state and private actors, particularly in regards to Palestine. Thank you to both of you for joining me on this episode of Rethinking Palestine. Let's start off with an overview of what we have been seeing in the way of repression of Palestinian solidarity activism.
Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations in Europe: Suppression Tactics
00:03:00
Speaker
Leila, perhaps we can begin with you. What has this looked like in Europe?
00:03:04
Speaker
The kind of repression we're currently seeing in Europe is the manifestation of its decades-long attempt to connect the Palestinian identity and experience to terrorism and anti-Semitism. Although the right to protest is considered an important right in Europe and demonstrations are an indicator of a healthy democratic system, several countries such as Germany, France and Austria are violating that right by banning pro-Palestine demonstrations.
00:03:29
Speaker
In Germany, not only are protests being banned, but activists are also being harassed by the police for wearing a coffee or holding a Palestinian flag. It is also turning into surveillance. We have also witnessed police violence and the arrests for showing solidarity with Palestine.
00:03:45
Speaker
In Berlin alone, actually, we have counted 600 detentions since the 11th to the 20th of October. It has been the worst in Berlin, where, for example, the Berlin Senate for Education, Youth and Families sent a letter to all Berlin school authorities and supervisors asking to ban coffee in schools, among other things.
00:04:06
Speaker
But these other things are any demonstrations, demonstrations of activities or expressions of opinion and support of Palestine. So wearing relevant clothing, having stickers with texts like Free Palestine, wearing the map of Palestine.
00:04:26
Speaker
on a necklace, using expressions such as for Palestine. They have not only been asked to ban such activities on school premises, but also to notify the police when that happens, which even includes primary schools. In one primary school, the school director is actually suspended for not complying with this ban. Even in France, which is considered the place for protests, the French have also banned protests.
00:04:56
Speaker
in cities like Paris and Toulouse. People have not sticked to these demonstration bands. They still went on the street, not only in France, but also in Germany, which has caused a lot of upheaval in the media, as well as a lot of police brutality, which were trying to break
00:05:17
Speaker
of these demonstrations. Other forms of repression also include smear campaigns, online deplatforming, refusal, withdrawal of use of venues, cancellations of events, disinvitations, threat of legal action, some people have been fined for having a Palestine flag or umbrella with the coffee on it.
00:05:37
Speaker
And of course, there's also loss of employment or suspensions from positions from political parties or municipalities, et cetera, for expressing solidarity with Palestine. The current racist arguments used to justify the repression is not surprising, considering the rise of far-right parties in Europe, which have consistently dehumanized migrants, refugees, and Muslims in European foreign and internal politics. But the attack on Palestinians is currently very, very visible.
00:06:07
Speaker
Diana, what has this looked like in the US? In
Repression of Palestinian Solidarity in the US
00:06:11
Speaker
the US, we've seen a range of incidents of repression, everything from state repression to private repression.
00:06:19
Speaker
So on the state side, we're seeing law enforcement, including the FBI, approach people for questioning, so-called voluntary interviews. The incidents that I've heard of are all Palestinians, including people who might have immigration concerns or where they're leveraging their immigration status to try to get them to speak with them.
00:06:43
Speaker
We've also seen local police departments circulate notices indicating that they're going to be doing special monitoring or surveillance of pro-Palestine protests. We, of course, saw this from the highest levels of government. Biden, in his speech, said that he was instructing law enforcement to monitor the situation closely, and he was referring to people who were speaking out
00:07:09
Speaker
about Palestine. I mean, that's how we all understood those remarks. We've also had, here in New York City, the mayor essentially equate protesters who were marching and speaking out in support of Palestinian rights with support for terrorism.
00:07:27
Speaker
We've seen that across the board, different elected officials across city, state, and federal electeds too. So it's really concerning when you have this kind of huge power imbalance. You have members of Congress and elected officials talking about student groups, naming individual students, citing student organization statements. That feels really unprecedented.
00:07:55
Speaker
And then there's a private repression. We've seen this really kind of at frightening levels. There have been campaigns to target and shut down events. This weekend, we were all supposed to be gathering at the conference put on and hosted by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. But the Hilton Hotel received so many threats that they ended up canceling the event. We've also seen
00:08:24
Speaker
a surge in hate crimes. Of course, everybody's heard at this point of Badia, the 60 year old in Chicago who was stabbed to death 23 times because he's Palestinian. And then we've also seen and this is what I think we're seeing a lot of coverage of
00:08:41
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is the sort of professional consequences. We're seeing the doxing, which means the posting of information, private information, identifying information of people who are speaking out.
00:08:56
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in support of Palestinian rights or who are speaking out against the genocide, against the Palestinians in Gaza, suffering a range of professional consequences, getting fired from their jobs. We've seen that happen at academic institutions, at hospitals.
00:09:12
Speaker
been in touch with a therapist who's been fired because they posted something on their social media. And that's really happening at a scale that we don't even fully grasp yet. I think it's happening across the country. Another example of the doxing is we've seen these Israel-aligned organizations pay for trucks to project the faces and names of students on campuses
00:09:42
Speaker
that have signed statements condemning Israeli atrocities in Gaza. So these are acts of intimidation. They're intended to have mental health consequences as well as professional consequences. And these
Historical Context and Modern Repression Mechanisms
00:10:00
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same organizations as well as individuals are
00:10:03
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emailing, calling employers, and demanding that their employees face consequences as a result of their speech in support of Palestinian life and rights. The scale of this is still to be seen, but
00:10:22
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we noticed that some of the most of the targets of a lot of this kind of private doxing and targeting and private repression are not only Palestinians and Arabs and Muslims but people of color. The most kind of public example of this is the NYU student Raina Workman who has drawn the full
00:10:48
Speaker
I guess the full force of condemnation from the university as well as public officials and newspapers. And I think it's not a coincidence that the folks who are standing in solidarity with Palestinians are also from marginalized groups themselves and are facing the brunt of this repression. So there's a lot of people that feel like this kind of repression is unprecedented. Do you think that's the case? And if so, why?
00:11:18
Speaker
No, I don't think it is unprecedented. The repression of the Palestine solidarity movement or Palestinian rights advocacy did not start with the latest bombardment of Gaza. The ELC has been monitoring Europe's crackdown on Palestine solidarity since 2019. The silencing of Palestinian human rights advocacy, which violates the freedom of expression, assembly and association, the three freedoms that are fundamental in opening civic space,
00:11:43
Speaker
is not only violated for Palestinians, but also of anyone expressing solidarity with the Palestinian cause. And it is currently being, I mean not only currently, but especially now, justified with a racist depiction of Palestinian voices and advocates as terrorist threats and being inherently anti-Semitic.
00:12:02
Speaker
I'd say that by inscribing the other as a barbaric threat and the self as a moral security, the strategy promoted by Europe to counter Palestine's solidarity has made Europeans think in the terms of George Orwell's 1984 Newspeak, where the objective of Newspeak was to invent new words and strip undesirable ones from their unorthodox meaning. That is to say, the language used by European media, politicians and police orders, which currently justify this repression
00:12:30
Speaker
or are used to justify this repression, is aimed at making a thought diverging from the colonial mainstream narratives literally unthinkable. At the moment we see a very strong effort of European politicians and media to socialize Europeans to think and act on Palestine in a way that echoes the us versus them and civilized versus uncivilized dichotomy of 9-11.
00:12:56
Speaker
However, the mechanisms and tactics used to silence criticism of Israel today are not as visible as imprisonments and murders of dissidents were in the past. So, instead, Israel and Europe practice something that Yasbir Kaur calls the right to maim, meaning the right to permanently damage or disable a people's physical, psychological and organizational strength.
00:13:19
Speaker
So Israel attempts to disable more Palestinians than it kills, such as in the March of Return, and Europe attempts to damage more civil societies than it shut down. However, what is different now
00:13:31
Speaker
is that several European states are actually actively shutting down civil societies and criminalizing solidarity groups such as Samidoum, as well as widely used slogans like from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. But what is happening right now might be unprecedented in terms of its criminalization, but at the same time it is the continuation of a trend that
00:13:53
Speaker
that Europe has been working on for five years, such as the implementation of the IHRA definition or anti-BDS motions, which all now are, of course,
Established Infrastructure Against Palestinian Speech
00:14:05
Speaker
blowing up in the face of the Palestine Solidarity Movement.
00:14:11
Speaker
Well, I think there's a question of like quality and scale. I think it's not unprecedented to the extent that we have seen all of these avenues of repression for a very long time. We've seen, you know, law enforcement and target Palestine advocates. We've seen campus suppression of activism. We published a report called the Palestine exception to free speech many, many years ago documenting this.
00:14:34
Speaker
But I do think that the scale is unprecedented. I know from conversations with Palestine Legal, who've been doing the main organization in the US that supports advocates for Palestinian rights when they face instances of suppression.
00:14:50
Speaker
they've never seen these kinds of numbers coming in. And I think the way to understand this, it's helpful to think of the sort of architecture of repression. Over at least a decade, there's been the building of this kind of infrastructure
00:15:08
Speaker
to repress Palestine speech and advocacy, whether it's through the passing of legislation, whether it's through the development of these kind of theories of anti-Semitism or support for terrorism, whether it's the funding and development of organizations like
00:15:25
Speaker
the Lawfare Project or Shirat Hadin. So that's the architecture. And then in a moment like this, it's like you can just flip a switch and activate it all at once. So it's the same. It's all of the same features, but at a scale that does really feel unprecedented. But these are machines that have become very well-oiled in many ways over a long period of time.
00:15:53
Speaker
And I would say the only silver lining is because this has been a longer process, this didn't all just start yesterday, we also have institutions and professionals who are able to jump in in this moment of crisis and provide a line of defense. And I'm here referring to organizations like Palestine Legal and the huge network of attorneys that they've built up. Our own organization, CCR, is also able to step in
00:16:22
Speaker
We are able to meet this moment, but there's also a dire need to kind of expand and handle an unprecedented caseload. If you're enjoying this podcast, please visit our website al-shabaka.org where you will find more Palestinian policy analysis and where you can join our mailing list and donate to support our work.
00:16:48
Speaker
So what kind of work have the European Legal Support Centre been involved in, in light of this repression? So we
Legal Approaches to Defend Solidarity Movements
00:16:56
Speaker
are movement lawyers, so we are accountable to Palestinian civil society organizations and the Palestine Solidarity movements. We use the law in a pragmatic way, so we're aware of its critical aspects, which usually make law an exploitative tool. So we acknowledge that law is used as a tool of oppression, but we also see law as a tool of resistance that can mobilize people. We have three pillars at the ELC,
00:17:18
Speaker
defend, monitor and advocacy. The defend pillar works as a filter between clients and lawyers. So we offer co-counseling and expertise and also help clients to make campaigns for cases. We have two
00:17:36
Speaker
approaches to cases, so we have offensive cases, which is aimed at holding the actors accountable, such as, for example, the case of Anna Eunice, where an organization in Germany called RIAS, which monitors antisemitism, adopted the IHRA and has been monitoring Palestinian activists. They made a secret dossier about Anna, portraying her as antisemitic, and she was disinvited from several events.
00:18:03
Speaker
So we suit them for the violation of privacy laws. Then there's also another offensive case, which is the BT3P Collective, a lawsuit against the German Bundestag against the anti-BDS motion with lawyer Ahmed Abed.
00:18:19
Speaker
In that regard, we already won dozens of cases which defies the legality of that motion. And then, of course, there's defensive cases where we deal with the damage made of the repression. I personally work in the monitor sector, where we have collected over 700 incidents of repression in the last three years, and that is excluding more than 100 incidents that we have collected since October 7.
00:18:47
Speaker
Diala, you began talking a little bit about the work that you and your organization have been involved in. Can you expand upon that for us? Just in the past couple of weeks, we've all been in rapid response mode. It's very hard to strike this balance of focusing on repression and making sure that people are protected as they speak out.
00:19:13
Speaker
and also not lose the focus on what's happening in Gaza and in Palestine. And so I think the first thing I would say is we've been really focused on trying to offer
00:19:28
Speaker
language and analysis as well as, yeah, legal analysis about what Israel is doing against the Palestinian people in President. We, for example, offered legal analysis that supports what everybody is saying, which is what Israel is doing with genocide.
00:19:48
Speaker
against the people in Gaza, but also laying out U.S. complicity. So we don't want to lose sight of really the focus here, which is calls to support Palestinians in Palestine. But at the same time, we have to step up our work to support those who are doing the important advocacy in the U.S. So we've been in rapid response mode representing individuals who've been contacted by the FBI for questioning.
Rapid Legal Responses in the US: Advocacy and Support
00:20:14
Speaker
We have
00:20:15
Speaker
been fielding calls from people across the country who are dealing with consequences in their workplace for speaking out against Palestine. I know Palestine Legal is really holding a lot of this and they've been building out an attorney's network. A lot of employment law experts are needed right now, a lot of
00:20:39
Speaker
advice on how to handle incidents of doxxing, both in terms of your personal safety as well as your online reputation. It's sort of an all hands on deck situation and it has been really great to see so many people within the legal community reach out and ask how they can support. And so the network is growing to meet that need.
00:21:03
Speaker
What kind of advice would you give people and groups who are organizing at the moment and who might be feeling apprehensive or fearful in light of all of this? My main advice is not to be intimidated. The allegations and accusations that the media and so on use against the Palestine Solidarity Movement are nothing new.
00:21:24
Speaker
I think we should be confident enough in encountering them. There's also a big defiance achievable through numbers. The demonstration bans in Berlin, although the police really tries their best to prevent any
00:21:41
Speaker
assembly or protest from happening. When there's a lot of numbers, they can't do much. So even though there's a demonstration ban in Germany and there was one in France, people still went on the streets and huge numbers, so huge that the police couldn't do anything. Of course, they can still be violent, but people stick together and march regardless. And apart from that, I think it is the time to speak up
00:22:07
Speaker
and out more than like to speak out against what is happening more than ever before. A lot of people are. It is, I think also the time to join forces. So to become, to like connect with other people at whether your place of employment or study or elsewhere, which share the same passion or will to do something about it and to organize together. Smear campaigns, for example, which targets a person
00:22:37
Speaker
usually aim to isolate a person from society. It is always easier to attack one person than a group. So there's definitely strength in numbers when it comes to defying the current repression. I think
Organizing and Speaking Out: Practical Advice
00:22:50
Speaker
the first thing I'd say is we have to remind ourselves that
00:22:53
Speaker
Although we're seeing this unprecedented repression, we're also seeing an unprecedented amount of solidarity and people speaking out against what's happening to Palestinians and Gaza right now. And we've always said this, you know, the rise in repression is in direct correlation with the growing movement for Palestinian rights.
00:23:13
Speaker
Concretely, I tell people, don't stop speaking out. Don't stop opposing genocide. You are on the right side of history, even though it doesn't feel that way oftentimes. I also tell folks to be cautious. We're all really angry and outraged.
00:23:32
Speaker
are experiencing a sense of abandonment. We're all, you know, watching these images on our screens of just some of the most horrific scenes, right? It's really hard to sort of stay to be our best selves in that moment. It is a moment of rage, of frustration, of sadness. And also that's when we most see lapses in judgment. So I think
00:23:59
Speaker
I think keeping that in mind as we see rises in repression is really important. We can't, as Palestinians, as advocates for Palestinian rights, afford the luxury of a lapse in judgment.
00:24:08
Speaker
If you're contacted by law enforcement for questioning know that you don't have to speak with them. So this is my little mini know your rights. Um, make sure you just tell them that your lawyer will call them, take their number and reach out to Palestine legal or the center for constitutional rights or your local national lawyers guild chapter or your local care chapter or your local ACLU chapter.
00:24:33
Speaker
There are many resources within the movement to support you in that moment, and that's fine. It's the normal thing to do. In terms of the employment piece of it, if you're being called into a meeting with your employer or your school administration, try to get a consult before going into that meeting, or don't go in alone. And also document everything. Keep writing notes, send yourself emails, something with time stamps of events as they come in, because all of that will probably be useful down the line.
00:25:02
Speaker
if you're experiencing doxing, if you're being harassed online.
00:25:08
Speaker
reach out to Palestine Legal and their network has people who can help with those particular situations. It might also make sense to try to be preemptive and reach out to your employer or your university administration to let them know that that's happening and make sure that they're hearing first from you and not from those who are trying to smear you. And remember you're not alone. Speak out about the repression rather than be silent about it.
00:25:39
Speaker
It's actually really helpful to be doing that. I think historically we've gone back and forth on this question of whether we want to be sort of advertising how difficult it is to speak about Palestinian rights because we don't want to be discouraging folks from doing it. But at this point it's
00:25:56
Speaker
Well, past that point, everybody knows that this is happening. And I think when you speak out, you also draw support and solidarity and also can build organizing. So organizing within your professional network or community. We've seen really inspirational models of artists coming together to support each other. We've seen people in the medical profession offer up
00:26:22
Speaker
and finding employment when someone's lost a job. I think that's kind of the level at which we're seeing solidarity and it's a really important way to be building resilience in these moments of heightened targeting. And just apart from your own organisations, what legal resources would you suggest for people navigating this repression and this moment?
Legal Resources and Rights Awareness
00:26:47
Speaker
There's several Know Your Rights resources available online, also on the website of the ELC, we listed a lot of legal resources for several different countries, so that is accessible to everyone.
00:26:59
Speaker
There's also a lot of collectives of lawyers at the moment, per country, which are actively helping the Palestine Solidarity Movement. But more than anything, one should know their rights. Their current repression is usually unconstitutional and unlawful. The police certainly is exercising unlawful conduct. In those situations, it's always useful to record the police, to register the officer in unit number and to scandalize it. One shouldn't
00:27:29
Speaker
experience such repression and then deal with it alone. It is very helpful to publicize it. Once you do that, people also reach out to you and that's how you can also get a group that will support you. At the moment, people really are helping each other and standing in solidarity with each other against this repression that we're seeing. So it's really important to remember that
00:27:51
Speaker
You're not alone. You can report to us, the ELC. And if any lawyer is listening, please connect with us. And more than anything, just know that there's several ways in which you can fight back and that you shouldn't accept any of this repression.
00:28:08
Speaker
So definitely check out Resources on Palestine Legal's website. They have a range of resources, including things other groups have put out, whether it's law enforcement contacts, doxing, navigating the university campus setting, everything, that sort of thing. If it's specifically regarding state repression, whether it's
00:28:33
Speaker
Federal or local law enforcement. There are a range of organizations that can support you so contact Palestine legal may be able to also refer you and I mentioned your care office your local ACLU Center for constitutional rights if if that's the only thing that you remember in that moment and we can try to find somebody to also refer you Yeah, I mean those are the main
00:28:58
Speaker
legal resources. But I think also to the point of building up our resilience, these are, of course, all the legal resources that we need in the first line of defense. But
00:29:14
Speaker
I'd also be remiss to not mention the importance of kind of taking care of yourself. And I'm not necessarily referring to the sort of self-care mode of that, but remembering to breathe and to remember that you are in community and to reaching out to others within your community because that is actually the thing that allows us to keep going on. These are really, really difficult times. We're all feeling it.
00:29:41
Speaker
but we don't really have a choice other than kind of continuing to speak out that we all need to be doing it right now and the consequences might be dire for us here in the U.S. but they are really of course far worse for the people in Raze as well as all over historic Palestine. I think we'll stop there but thank you to both of you for this really important information and uplifting episode in light of everything that's going on.
00:30:15
Speaker
Rethinking Palestine is brought to you by Ashabaka, the Palestinian policy network. Ashabaka is the only global independent Palestinian think tank whose mission is to produce critical policy analysis and collectively imagine a new policymaking paradigm for Palestine and Palestinians worldwide. For more information or to donate to support our work, visit al-ashabaka.org. And importantly, don't forget to subscribe to Rethinking Palestine, wherever you listen to podcasts.