Images of detained activist Mahmoud Khalil and messages against Middle East violence alternated on the concrete facade of Brattle Square businesses Tuesday in Cambridge during a small protest by Massachusetts Peace Action and other organizations.
The idea, organizers said, was not just to object to the threat presented by the Donald Trump administration against lawful protest and immigration, but to pick up the work of student protesters daunted by the ominous messages being sent by the White House.
“There’s so much pressure on the students right now. Students are the heart of this movement, so by silencing them it really kills the movement. So we just have to do something to kind of take that pressure off of them,” said Randy Wurster, a volunteer at Massachusetts peace action.
Khalil is a Columbia University graduate student of Palestinian descent whom the Trump administration wants to deport for leading pro-Palestinian protests – despite government admissions that Khalil has broken no laws. Despite that, he is the first “of many to come,” Trump said March 10.
Camps sprang up at Harvard, MIT and Tufts last spring in reaction Middle East violence. When college administrators grew impatient with the camps, influenced in part by political efforts to paint the protests as antisemitic, members of the Harvard and MIT communities who resisted being shutdown drew suspensions and other punishments. Some were barred from graduations.
Now a clampdown on protest has become an obsession of the federal government, organizers said, and what’s happening to Khalil may be just the beginning.
“Clearly Trump will be working with Netanyahu to make sure that the campuses don’t protest,” organizer Paul Shannon said, referring to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Shannon noted that Harvard had decided to adopt a definition of antisemitism – one used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association – that doesn’t allow for criticism of the nation or government of Israel or the policy of Zionism.
“If you say certain things about Zionism being destructive or Zionism being racist, or if you say Israel is an apartheid society, that makes you antisemitic and now you’re violating Harvard’s policy,” Shannon said. “Of course, the irony of the whole thing is that half or more of the people we work with to protest Israel are Jews.”
The protest on the plaza in Harvard Square – as reflected in the projections above the Bluestone Lane coffee shop – changed midday Tuesday with the news that Israel had broken a cease-fire to bomb Gaza. Palestinian officials said more than 400 people were killed.
Only small numbers were gathered as the protest got underway, though.
“We’re all trying to do our best. We’ve been at it for a year and a half, and we’re not getting the results,” Wurster said. “We need more people to get involved.”
It makes the sidelining of academic protesters particularly painful, organizers said, but they understood why campuses are seeing less political activism.
Students under Trump, Wurster said, feel “they either have to risk their entire future or not protest.”
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
Free Mahmoud Khalil
Israel’s actions in Gaza are terrible and Benjamin Netanyahu and his government deserve plenty of criticism. And I agree that Mahmoud Khalil should be allowed to protest peacefully at Columbia.
But it’s also true that people such as Paul Shannon appear unable to criticize Israel without slipping into antisemitism. Zionism and the “policy of Zionism” is simply the idea that Israel should exist as a Jewish state. So when we criticize Zionism, we are not criticizing Israel’s policies, we are criticizing Israel’s existence.
Dozens of countries deserve criticism for human rights issues today, including Israel and most (all?) of its neighbors. But when only one of those countries is asked to justify its right to exist at all, that’s antisemitic.
Respectfully, Peter, I have to disagree. The Jewish people are diverse in culture and in politics. Zionism is a specific political ideology, itself with multiple forms. So Zionism and Judaism are not equivalent. I too stand firmly against Zionism, while supporting the rights of Jewish people everywhere to self determination. And in fact, you see many left-of-center Jewish communities in Israel who oppose Zionism as well, who also oppose Netenyahu’s war crimes, and who support political freedoms for ALL Israelis – Jewish or Muslim.
This idea that opposing Israeli government policy is antisemitic is repeated over and over in the American media but it is false.
Khalil did nothing wrong. He is a political prisoner, and we must fight for his freedom!