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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Wednesday, September 28, 2016
1,000 scholars condemn pro-Israel blacklist site
Israel advocates are attempting to stifle Palestine solidarity activism on US campuses. ZUMA Press/Newscom
Nora Barrows-Friedman-27 September 2016
More than 1,000 members of faculty have condemned a website that blacklists students and educators who criticize Israel.
“We reject the McCarthyist tactics used by Canary Mission,” the scholars say in a statement initiated by students.
“We urge our fellow admissions faculty, as well as university
administrators, prospective employers and all others, to join us in …
standing against such bullying and attempts to shut down civic
engagement and freedom of speech,” the scholars add.
The aim of the shadowy website, Canary Mission, is to punish students for their activism by harming their future academic and professional careers.
Its anonymous administrators contact potential employers and graduate
student admissions committees, claiming that the students are engaged in
anti-Semitic bigotry and sympathy towards terrorism.
The site is part of an increasing wave of tactics by right-wing groups on US campuses intending to silence criticism of Israel.
While Canary Mission’s creators hide behind anonymity, notorious Islamophobic demagogue Daniel Pipes hasadmitted to journalists Max
Blumenthal and Julia Carmel that he knows who is responsible for the
site. Pipes also acted as a go-between, conveying comments he said came
from Canary Mission’s administrators to the journalists.
The statement is “a reassurance to students that faculty have their back on this,” said Cynthia Franklin, an English professor at the University of Hawai’i.
“I really think it is incumbent on faculty to stand strongly in support
of students and to do that in a very visible way, especially those of us
with tenure,” Franklin told The Electronic Intifada.
Franklin helped author the statement along with other scholars, students and members of Jewish Voice for Peace.
“JVP advises potential employers, university administrators and other
outside parties to disregard Canary Mission because it is not a
legitimate source for student or faculty recommendation or evaluation,”
the group has previously said.
“Going to continue”
While some students have felt a chilling effect on their public activism
after being targeted by Canary Mission, others are speaking out.
“There’s been a split between graduate students who are so appalled by
the ugliness of these tactics who are willing to say, ‘we’re not going
to be silenced by this’ and those who have family in Palestine who worry
that they will not be able to get home,” said Franklin, who is also a
member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine.
Recent graduate Sumaya Awad told The Electronic Intifada that “without
any collective struggle against this site, and other blacklists that
exist that are continuing to target people, this harassment and
intimidation is just going to continue.”
Awad, a founding member of Students for Justice in Palestine at Williams
College, told The Electronic Intifada that she faced backlash “from the
very start” both by the administration and various Israel-aligned
groups on campus.
“I found out I was targeted by Canary Mission midway through my senior
year,” she said. “I scrolled through my profile, which very meticulously
documented every single political activity I participated in at
Williams and [previously] at Columbia University.”
“I was very proud of all these things I had done,” she said. “But then
the very real world effects of Canary Mission started to sink in.”
The first thing that comes up on a search of her name is her Canary Mission profile, Awad said.
She added that as a visible Muslim without US citizenship, she was
overcome with “constant dread” over the profile and how it could impact
her student or visa status.
“It was pretty terrifying that this is the first thing that employers
would see if they googled me,” Awad said, “we’re already living in a
world ravaged with Islamophobia and discrimination.”
But Awad is pleased to be part of a fight back: “This is the way to
combat this site and other sites of this sort … whether they are
targeting Black Lives Matter activists or Muslims.”
“A threatening place”
David Lloyd, a professor at the University of California at Riverside,
told The Electronic Intifada that some students have faced attacks by
anonymous users of the website who have threatened them with violence
and sexual assault.
“For women students in particular, this is a very threatening place to end up,” he said.
The website’s creators are “covered by their anonymity and they’re
attacking people who have had the courage to speak out on a
controversial issue,” Lloyd added.
“Far from repelling graduate admissions committees or potential
employers, the fact of someone’s engagement with social justice issues
would actually be a sign of the very qualities one wants to include in a
graduate program,” Lloyd said.
As Palestine solidarity activism and the boycott, divestment and
sanctions movement continue to gain support, Awad said that the
existence of sites like Canary Mission proves that activists are
creating a threat for Israel-aligned groups:
“Their fear is what’s causing them to react this way. It should be a
push for us to continue the struggle forward, to continue connecting it
to the different movements that already exist in the US and elsewhere.”