Saeed Khan presents the background paper for the 2024 IHRC and SACC Islamophobia conference. With civil and political spaces shrinking world-wide, Muslims as political agents find themselves pushed to the margins and disappeared from all forms of social engagement.
The onslaught and genocide on Gaza has brought into specific relief the forces that have mobilized in many Western countries to stifle and squash any expressions of solidarity with the Palestinians as well as any appeals to humanitarian measures and adherence to international law. Such forces have manifested themselves through political and legal/judicial means but have also occurred in social/cultural and academic spaces. While not always explicitly singling out or targeting Muslim voices, the objective appears to be focused on Muslims. In countries like the US, UK, France and Germany, pre-existing sentiments of Islamophobia have gained new and bolder currency, with suppressions of free speech, press and the right to assemble and protest coming from both the public and private sectors. Selective outrage accompanies selective enforcement of laws and regulations under the guise of maintaining order, security and protecting allegedly unsafe communities. The net result is the chilling effect on Muslims being full and equal participants in the public sphere, restricted not only for what they profess and practice, but also for their mere presence in society.
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme legal authority of American society. It assumes a near sacrosanct position in the nation’s civil life. Paramount in the interests and focus of the citizenry are the protections embodied in the Bill of Rights, the first ten of twenty-seven Amendments to the Constitution. Of these, the First Amendment holds a special place in the rights that it confers upon the people; these are the right to free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of the press and the right to the free exercise of religion.
It is an important proviso that these rights are protections from governmental interference in these areas. Many Americans erroneously think that their freedom of speech is protected from private sector limitations. Corporations and other such entities are, by and large, free to impinge upon the free speech rights of individuals, but at the same time, could offer greater protections of speech than might be afforded by government action.
Since October 7, 2023, there have been several examples of the impingement of speech and expression that is critical of Israeli policy and action in Gaza, as well as pronouncements that are viewed as unacceptably pro-Palestinian. The United States Department of State, the key, outward facing American agency for foreign policy and diplomacy, has dispensed with any pretense of impartiality or balance vis-à-vis the Gaza conflict. Secretary Antony Blinken has echoed the Biden Administration’s position time and again that the conflict is the fault of Hamas, with little to no criticism of the Israeli government, despite world opinion, officially and otherwise, stating to the contrary. Blinken has preemptively attempted to discredit and delegitimize international institutions, many created and controlled by the United States itself, as he did when the Republic of South Africa lodged its complaint in December 2023 with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging Israeli genocide in its prosecution of the Gaza conflict. But Blinken’s public pronouncements were merely reflective of what appears to be official policy within the State Department that suggests a conspiracy of silence. Censorship of any actions by Israel that would be regarded as criminal appears to be pervasive within the agency. Allegations from current and former State Department officials suggest that official reports documenting Israeli crimes have been doctored and/or redacted prior to publication as a way to shield Israel from criticism as well as protect the US government from having to enforce existing laws against Israel as it would be obliged to do and has done with other countries committing similarly egregious acts. In addition, these allegations describe recriminations for those who would dare to disclose such improprieties.
The American executive branch of government has proven to be willing to suppress speech, in violation of its own commitment to defend the Constitution, including the First Amendment freedom of speech, to shield Israel from scrutiny, often with the flimsy excuse, if given at all, of national security. But the legislative branch has shown itself to be just as dismissive of free speech, in fact, seeking to publish those who would dare exercise their right to use it. When the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials for perpetrating alleged war crimes, Republican members of Congress threatened to defund the United Nations, en masse, in a punitive measure. In fact, Netanyahu excoriated the Biden Administration for declining to support such congressional action.
The US Congress also showed its lack of commitment to free speech when congressional committees subpoenaed and summoned several university presidents to testify about allegations that they were permissive in allowing antisemitism to fester on their respective campuses. Presidents from some of the leading American universities like the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University were harangued by hostile, inquisition-like and loaded questions as to whether they felt that certain statements made by pro-Palestinian protesters were antisemitic; these included the prominent chant, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.” When these presidents fumbled through their responses that these were not necessarily antisemitic, not to mention, legally protected forms of speech, they were demonized by politicians and media figures alike, leading some to resign their appointments.
Suppression of speech, particularly speech critical of Israel, is not confined to the US federal government; state legislatures have joined the defense of Israel even at the expense of stated American values and principles. States like Texas have enacted laws requiring entities seeking to do business with the State of Texas to sign pledges that they do not and will not participate in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that calls for shunning Israeli entities due to their complicity in furthering the occupation of Palestinian land and the suppression of Palestinian people. That one can boycott any other country in the world and ostensibly even US companies but is restricted from doing so if it is Israel highlights a bizarre and warped sense of the parameters of acceptable expression in the minds of a good number of American politicians.
While the First Amendment of the US Constitution is quite explicit in its declaration that “Congress Shall Make No Law” that would restrict free speech, thus curbing government efforts of suppression, the notion of free speech, expression and association are considered to be hallowed rights that extend well beyond preventing limits by the public sector. Private entities, though within their rights to place certain boundaries on expression, do so in a measured way for fear of being branded as unduly oppressive and, ironically, “un-American.” Yet, the Gaza conflict has unleashed a series of efforts, by institutions and individuals alike, to restrict and punish those who would dare to exercise their right to speak out against injustice. Brandeis University, a Jewish-sponsored private university, with an undergraduate student population that is 35% Jewish, was established in 1948 in Massachusetts, and named, with some irony, after the great Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. It was Brandeis who believed that “more speech, not established silence,” was critical to a functional democracy. But his eponymous institution apparently had other ideas. In November 2023, Brandeis banned the campus chapter of Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP), claiming the organization engaged in hate speech and alleging that is openly supported HAMAS. There has been no evidence that SJP supports HAMAS, and hate speech, no matter how odious it might be, is protected speech if it does not encourage violence.
Other Jewish organizations have targeted the speech rights of SJP members, as well as their right to assembly and association. In October 2023, the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded in 1913, with the stated mission to combat antisemitism, bigotry and discrimination, but also known for its pro-Israel advocacy, has sought to suspend SJP chapters at universities across the United States under the pretense that SJP supports HAMAS, and thus is lending material support to a terrorist organization, as the US government has designated HAMAS. SJP is not subject to any government scrutiny or indictment based on such a claim, but it has not deterred the ADL from disparaging SJP in an effort to suppress its giving visibility to Israeli atrocities and crimes, including bringing attention to the ICJ determinations and ICC actions against Israel and Israeli officials, on the various college campuses where it is present.
In May 2024, the ADL also filed a Title VI civil rights complaint, along with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law against the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, claiming the university had “failed to address the severe discrimination and harassment of Jewish and Israeli students, which fostered a hostile antisemitic environment.” One of the ADL’s complaints included their outrage that the university had issued a statement condemning both antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus, this from an organization whose name gives the impression that it fights against bigotry of all types.
The assertive push, by organizations like ADL and others, to have the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of antisemitism adopted as official policy at both private and public sector entities poses one of the most serious threats to free speech. While the deployment of such regulation does serve an important purpose in helping prevent anti-Jewish bigotry, the definition is far broader in its scope of suppressing speech, to include any criticism of Israel and Israeli policy. This chilling effect on expression has been suspected as intentional, to prevent otherwise legitimate critique and condemnation of Israel in any capacity by branding the speaker with the stigma of being accused of antisemitism.
One of the latest terms to enter the lexicon is “doxing,” which is to provide revealing, identifying information about someone to the public, often by way of the internet and/or social media. While not technically illegal, doxing can be highly intrusive and damaging to one’s reputation and career. Since October 2023, doxing has become a weapon of choice of those seeking to suppress any criticism of Israel. On several university campuses across the United States, pro-Palestinian students have found their names, addresses and faces plastered on the side of vans that have been driven around their campuses, as a way to expose and ostensibly shame them as antisemites. Many of these students are Arab and Muslim. This form of harassment has in many cases led to the intended goal of chilling otherwise protected and legal speech by causing people to have second thoughts about whether it is wise to risk such unfair attention, exposure and even potential threats to their life and livelihood.
The doxing does not remain confined to a single campus, as these images, suggesting a concerted, coordinated national effort, are posted virally on social media. Several prominent and influential voices, including powerful alumni of universities went so far as to demand that anyone who had lodged any form of opposition to Israeli actions, including simply signing a letter condemning Israel and calling for a ceasefire, should have lucrative job offers rescinded or be denied employment altogether. This included frequent and vociferous calls by Harvard alum and billionaire hedge fund manager, Bill Ackman, who was also quick to take credit for the resignation of Harvard’s first black female president, Claudine Gay. Hundreds of students who had been exercising their rights to speak out against Israeli atrocities found themselves paralyzed by the fear of recrimination that could affect their lives after graduation, as their social media accounts were being meticulously vetted for any possible, incriminating statements or associations. Again, in the vast majority of cases, none of the statements approached anything close to proscribed, illegal or even threatening speech; it was sufficient that they questioned Israel at all.
Academic journals have long been held to be the bastions of academic freedom, allowing scholars to present ideas that may be provocative, even polemical. Apparently, even such assumptions are being subjected to reconsideration of late, especially at some of academe’s most prestigious publications. In November 2023, the board of the Harvard Law Review voted not to publish “The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine,” written by Harvard Law School doctoral student and human rights attorney, Rabea Eghbariah, a human rights attorney. The article was a well-researched, peer-reviewed article that assessed a legal framework in examining the ongoing Gaza conflict and beyond. Due to a barrage of criticism and allegations of allegedly promoting antisemitism, the Harvard Law Review relented and decided to use prior restraint to prevent the article from being published. When the Columbia Law Review decided to take Eghbariah’s article and publish it in their own journal, its Board of Directors took the unprecedented step of shutting down the journal’s website, solely to prevent readers from gaining access to it. This naked censorship was finally reversed only when the Board responded to the outrage shown by the journal’s student editors who were angered by both the Board’s actions as well as its decision to override the editors’ decision-making authority.
Such suppression of any voices considered dangerous, i.e. speaking truth to power on Israel, gains the opprobrium and venom of groups and individuals bent on destroying careers and reputations. At Columbia University, noted scholar Joseph Massad has faced a sustained campaign of demonization and calls for termination and even criminal prosecution simply for challenging the mainstream narrative of Israel. Across the United States, such efforts target academics, including Palestinian scholars like Hatem Bazian at the University of California, Berkeley and even others, like Anne Norton at the University of Pennsylvania.
Police action is perhaps the most obvious manifestation of state authority, which sometimes descends into authoritarian action. Under the often-false flag of maintaining public order, law enforcement officials have taken to selectively enforcing speech based demonstrations, irrespective of whether they are peaceful. More recently and disturbingly, police forces have been summoned by institutions not only to crack down on peaceful protesters and demonstrations, but have stood idly by as counter protesters have used violence against pro-Palestinian activists. Such an incident occurred in the spring of 2024 on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Dispatched upon the request of university administration, the police forces did nothing to protect peaceful protesters from the onslaught of a well-organized, well-funded pro-Zionist mob assaulting the demonstrators and destroying their encampment. The police made no arrests of the counter protesters, who had conveniently left the scene before the police intervened in any capacity. Violent use of force by police authorities was also used on campuses including Columbia, the University of Michigan to violently suppress peaceful exercise of speech, assembly and association. These universities saw over 3,100 arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters, a number far larger than the arrests made during the anti-war protests in the Vietnam era, a far longer and larger conflict.
Private entities may have within their purview the right and ability to restrict speech otherwise deemed legal and permissible by the state, but when their reach and dominance is expansive, such restrictions become problematic. Such is the current situation with several significant social media outlets. Meta, formerly Facebook, and founded by Marc Zuckerberg, has diversified beyond its original platform to also include such widely subscribed applications like WhatsApp and Instagram. Many users complain that their posts are being censored and restricted as to who can view and engage with them, in a practice called shadow-banning, or even having their accounts suspended for varying periods of time. It has long been suspected, and now confirmed by company statements, that Meta will remove posts that seemingly “attack” Zionists if, in its own determination, such messages appear to be veiled attacks on Jews as a whole. Of course, this includes any criticism, well founded or not, and serves to only impact one community, whereas other forms of blatant hate speech, especially that which is Islamophobic in nature and content, is allowed to be broadcast freely over Meta’s various apps. Similar restrictive measures are also underway at X, formerly Twitter, where current owner and self-declared advocate of free expression Elon Musk has warned of punitive action against anyone that impugns Israel.
The United States is hardly the only country that has demonstrated, both by state action and by civil society, an ambivalence or disdain for upholding its own stated values of free expression. France has a particularly long history of exposing its hypocrisy at the expense of its Muslim community, with its long established Islamophobic policies under the guise of laïcité. Muslims are adversely affected everyday through the denial of their religious freedom, in the classroom and in employment situations. The hijab is prohibited to the extent that even the French national team at the 2024 Summer Olympics, hosted in Paris, was banned from wearing it, despite other teams being allowed that right. Since October 2023, pro-Palestinian street demonstrations have been criminalized, though intrepid protesters have risked arrest and punishment, defying the authorities to stage them.
Ironically, France claims its rationale to suppress Muslim expression, be it religious or political, is because French “traditional values” are under threat. It is incredulous but unsurprising to assess the French explanation of suppressing “traditional values” like free speech and assembly, hallmark principles that spawned a revolution 250 years ago, when its Muslim citizens are asserting them, as a means to apparently save French society in the process from some other perceived affront to it. This, despite one of the high priests of the Enlightenment, the French critic Voltaire having stated, “I hate what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That dispensation has not applied to the Muslim community of France for several decades, and the current conflict in Gaza has exposed this contradiction even further.
Elsewhere in the European continent, similar restrictions on expression have emerged, in some cases, in countries that have had a rather troubled recent history with oppression and authoritarianism. Like France, Germany has criminalized pro-Palestinian demonstrations and gone even further by designating any criticism of Israel as being illegal.
Germany has also taken to suppress speech through its private sector entities. On February 2024, the prestigious Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology announced it was severing ties with world renowned Lebanese-Australian scholar Ghassan Hage allegedly for statements he made regarding Israeli violence in both the current Gaza conflict and over a broader historical arc. The Institute’s actions were seen as a craven capitulation to pressure groups and negative media that had been manufactured initially by a right-wing media outlet. Apparently, research institutions, even ones with the reputation of Max Planck, have been willing to damage their credibility as bastions of academic freedom to protect Israel from criticism that aligns with determinations made by international law.
Great Britain may no longer be part of the European Union, but its policies to restrict free expression show considerable similarity to its continental counterparts. Under the prior Conservative administration of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the government undertook a policy of criminalization and securitization of protests based upon who were the participants and what was the subject of the demonstrations. Home Secretary Suella Braverman affirmed that any pro-Palestinian march was by its nature violent and antisemitic, despite no evidence to support her claims. She authorized the use of force against demonstrators who were merely exercising their right to protest war crimes and genocide. Braverman also threatened those she deemed in violation of her assessments with deportation, irrespective of being British nationals. Interestingly, criticism of her own government would not necessarily subject the speaker to such potential punitive measures.
False charges of antisemitism are not confined to just one British political party. The current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has a long record of hostility toward expression that supports and defends the Palestinian people and cause. Vehemently opposed, until fairly recently, to a ceasefire or any curbs on Israeli aggression in Gaza, Starmer engaged in an internal putsch within his party when he became opposition leader to purge it of those deemed to be antisemitic, including former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Starmer’s vendetta against pro-Palestinian MPs demonstrates yet another, pernicious and anti-democratic measure to suppress the will of the people who overwhelmingly assert their pro-Palestinian sympathies, yet such overtures seeking legislative and policy change are blocked by the party leadership.
As in the United States, academics are hounded and harangued into silence if they dare to speak out in support of Palestine and Palestinians or offer a counternarrative to the Israeli norm. Sociologist David Miller was sacked in 2021 by the University of Bristol
after a disciplinary hearing that determined he “did not meet the standards of behaviour” expected by university staff. Miller was falsely accused of antisemitism for arguing in a lecture that Zionism was a major driver of Islamophobia in the UK. In 2024, Miller was vindicated by an employment tribunal that concluded that he was unfairly and wrongly dismissed by the university, and that his philosophical anti-Zionist beliefs had been improperly suppressed.
So-called democracies across the world face the specter of speech being chilled if it doesn’t align with acceptable narratives. In Australia, the field of diversity, equality and inclusion is facing a threat from those who object to criticism of Israel. Cross-cultural consultant Tasneem Chopra has been the target of a blistering campaign by Zionist activists who are seeking to have her struck off various boards and making her into a pariah for organizations and governmental entities that seek and benefit from her diversity expertise and experience. The self-appointed policemen of social media simply monitor for what they deem to be a questionable posting and then follow a familiar formula of demonization and false charges of antisemitism to render the targeted individual too toxic to all but the most resolute of organizations to defend and support. This form of “Citizen McCarthyism” is practiced in many countries, with an eerie similarity in messaging and tactics: bullying people to impugn them and drain their financial resources fighting the accusations, essentially forcing to them to yield and withdraw from public life.
Western democracies are not alone in the suppression of expression; the world’s largest so-called democracy is actively suppressing the Muslim presence, in the public sphere and beyond. The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has worn its Islamophobia as a badge of honour to garner support and votes. It has proven to be successful as Modi was recently reelected to a third term as leader of the most populous nation on earth, in part by trafficking a highly xenophobic narrative of Muslims as inauthentic Indians and colonizers who were worse than the British. Modi’s political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with its close affiliations to Hindutva and Hindu extremist organizations like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), appear to work in coordination to merge government policy and civil society elements to demonize and discriminate against Muslims, while ignoring or encouraging pogroms that target Islamic sites and communities. These efforts have caused Muslims to fear appearing demonstrably and visibly Muslim for fear of reprisal or even death, affirming the Hindutva objective of removing Muslims from the public sphere.
The erasure of Indian Muslims has been codified by legislation, including the notorious CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) Laws, which allow for Indian citizenship to be conferred on Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, but specifically not Muslims. In addition, laws have been passed to erase Muslim contributions from history texts and school curricula. Such measures, along with draconian practices including the bulldozing of Muslim homes, businesses and buildings, follow parallel and similar practices and tactics employed by Israel, a country with which India has developed close ties, especially during the Modi era. Indian persecution and securitization of Muslims in Kashmir has been proven to be coordinated with assistance from Israel security and intelligence entities. India’s posture toward its Muslim population, the largest religious community in the country, has evoked a rare criticism from the US State Department, which expressed concern for religious freedom and the treatment of Muslims within India, due to “the increase in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, demolitions of homes and places of worship of members.” Similar criticism was not leveled against Israel in the report, despite substantial evidence of those conditions occurring there as well.
A primary excuse offered by western democracies for their categorical defense of Israel is that it is an outlier, model democracy in a region of despotism and authoritarian regimes. Such a categorization, notwithstanding in specious probity, is untenable given recent and explicit evidence to show that Israel hardly adheres to supposedly commonly shared values of free expression. On the other hand, perhaps it is precisely the flouting of such values that maintains the affinities of such governments for Israel and its matching policies. On the issue of expression, the Israeli Knesset voted overwhelmingly in 2024 to ban the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera from operating within Israel of Palestine. Al Jazeera has been internationally recognized for its objective coverage of the Gaza conflict. In addition, more than 100 journalists have been killed covering the conflict in Gaza, including several working for Al Jazeera. Despite Israel’s formula of denial and then self-investigation that yields no accountability, independent analysis suggests Israel intentionally targets journalists to suppress coverage of its atrocities in the area. In addition, Israel prohibits international media outlets to operate in Gaza without its permission, usually accompanied by a perfunctory statement about purportedly protecting the safety of reporters in an active combat zone. The Israeli government allows CNN to report from Gaza but the American news agency must first submit all footage to Israeli military censors to approve what can be broadcast, the very definition of press censorship.
Israel is equally oppressive towards its own citizenry for daring to speak the truth on issues regarding Gaza. Former Israeli captive Agam Goldstein-Almog received an avalanche of hate mail and comments from fellow Israelis after acknowledging in interviews that she had received “decent treatment while in captivity.” With few exceptions like the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz, criticism of the government and the military is rare in the Israeli media, with ostracization a likely possibility for Jewish citizens, whereas Arab Israelis are afforded even less space for criticism.
The defining, or self-defining feature of democracies, especially in the West, have been their commitment to the protection and preservation of basic rights of expression, including speech, press, assembly, association and religious freedom. Whether embodied in the US Constitution or codified in the laws and traditions of western societies, these values and rights have long been principles that the West has invoked to distinguish itself from others, even if it did not necessarily encourage or implement them during colonial and imperialist ventures historically. But today, these same stated values are under threat either due to neglect and ambivalence, or through the process of mortgaging them as a way to defend and protect Israel and Israeli policy in Gaza and beyond. In order to staunch even basic criticism of Israeli action, several democracies have criminalized those who dare to speak out and have bullied them into silence, even if it means a retreat from their right to occupy the public sphere.
But Gaza will not be the last issue on which expression will be suppressed, nor will Muslims be the only targets for their efforts to speak truth to power and to call out injustice. The current McCarthyism is in some ways no different to the old McCarthyism that imposed its own reign of terror during part of the Cold War. The new restriction on voices and attempts to erase narratives from public discourse will feel emboldened to train its focus on any group or individual that challenges the status quo of power and authority, be it the state or the increasing dominance of the private, corporate sector. Muslims today happen to represent the most obvious, arguably the most egregious application of the ambivalence toward or willful dismissiveness of protecting expression. In the process, they may also be required to remind the same regimes that seek to erase their visibility and voice that doing so imperils their own societies and makes them indistinguishable from the authoritarian states they purport to despise.
Saeed Khan is Professor of Near East & Asian Studies & Global Studies and Director of Global Studies at Wayne State University, Detroit, USA. He will be co-chairing the 2024 IHRC and SACC Islamophobia Conference which will be held across 14-15 December. Find out more on the IHRC website, and find the proceedings of the previous ten years conferences here. Khan is a regular contributor to The Long View. His most recent publications include “What’s Going on Here? US Experiences of Islamophobia between Obama and Trump“, co-authored with Saied R. Ameli for Islamic Human Rights Commission publications.
