Congressman to introduce bill to silence US pro-Palestine movements
4 Min Read
The bill's title refers to pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University, which have gotten widespread media coverage and provoked false charges of anti-Semitism by supporters of "Israel."
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Students protesting against the war on Gaza stand next to a Palestinian flag and tents at an encampment in Harvard Yard, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Thursday, April 25, 2024 (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Po-Israeli Congressmembers have run out of ways to silence pro-Palestine movements on college campuses in the US and have thus resorted to punishing them for alleged antisemitism.
Israeli lobbyists and the Israeli government are relentlessly pressuring US government officials to take more action against such movements in an effort to silence the criticism targeted towards "Israel" and demands to divest from the occupation.
Democratic US Congressman Ritchie Torres announced on Friday that he will introduce legislation to establish so-called anti-Semitism monitors for federally financed institutions in the United States, amid growing pro-Palestine demonstrations on campuses around the country.
The proposal, College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability (COLUMBIA) Act, would allow the US Education Department to deploy anti-Semitism monitors to federally funded higher education institutions, Torres reported.
The bill's title refers to pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University, which have gotten widespread media coverage and provoked false charges of anti-Semitism by supporters of "Israel."
Jews stand with the Palestinian people.
— Torah Judaism (@TorahJudaism) April 25, 2024
Jews united against Zionism.
Palestine WILL WIN 🇵🇸
PALESTINE WILL BE FREE 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/CmDT2cyZ0x
The name of the proposed bill seems to be out of this world, as pro-Palestine Jewish activists and organizations have been at the forefront of the US campuses' activism demanding an immediate ceasefire.
Torres stated that the last week at Columbia was not "an isolated incident," citing that it was the straw that broke the camel’s back — and I am prepared to do something about it," urging his colleagues to join him.
The university anti-Semitism monitors would be funded by the monitored school, according to the statement, and institutions that do not comply with the monitoring would forfeit government funds.
The US Congressman must have forgotten one of the most important tenets of the US Constitution which backs and protects freedom of speech and expression.
Read more: US students pro-Palestine protests show falsity of US democracy: YAF
Destroying every single university in Gaza was not enough for the Israeli occupation, now it is time to ensure universities in the US abide by their commands.
Students have been arrested en masse for protesting against the occupation's cruelty and administration officials have gone from free-speech advocates to authoritarian maniacs.
سرکوب و برخورد خشن پلیس و نیروهای امنیتی آمریکا با اساتید و دانشجویان معترض به نسل‌کُشی و جنایات جنگی رژیم اسراييل در دانشگاه‌های مختلف این کشور، عمیقا مورد نگرانی و انزجار افکار عمومی جهان است.
— H.Amirabdollahian امیرعبداللهیان (@Amirabdolahian) April 25, 2024
این سرکوب، در راستای تداوم حمایت و پشتیبانی تمام عیار واشنگتن از رژیم اسراييل بوده… pic.twitter.com/vPg9bFp3Gm
The charges of anti-semitism have been rampant in US media in an attempt to silence pro-Palestine positions or any denunciation of the war on Gaza unleashed by the Israeli occupation.
On Thursday, independent Jewish US Senator Bernie Sanders stated that opposing Israeli government policy in the Gaza Strip is not anti-Semitic. Obviously so, for he would be an antisemite himself as he has criticized "Israel" in the past.
Antisemitism coming from semites
The most blatant part of this moral dishonesty is the fact that the American officials calling for the silencing of such protests under the false accusation of antisemitism are forgetting a large number of these students participating are actually Jewish.
Many Jewish people among the protesters refuted these claims and criticized officials who are conflating it with being against Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Speaking with AFP, a Jewish 33-year-old graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin said, "People are here in support of Palestinian people from all different backgrounds... [compelled by] their general sense of justice."
Spent the first night of Passover at the student seder in the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia.
— Simone Zimmerman (@simonerzim) April 23, 2024
The Jewish flank of the Palestine solidarity movement is growing and it is so beautiful to behold.
Judge for yourself how unsafe these Jewish students look. pic.twitter.com/DN93lvR7SU
Late on April 25, Columbia University went back on an overnight deadline set for pro-Palestine protesters to leave their encampment, amid more college campuses in the United States attempting to stop such protests from taking place.
US police made large-scale arrests in universities all over the country, and even used chemical irritants and tasers to stop the protesters who are expressing solidarity for Palestine.
Columbia University is still the center of the student protest movement as it is where these protests began.
Students from Georgetown University and George Washington University (GW) in Washington launched a solidarity encampment on the GW campus on April 25.
New York University and Yale, whose protesters were also arrested earlier this wake, witnessed protests and encampments alongside Harvard, Brown University, MIT, the University of Michigan, and elsewhere.
As protesters have flooded the buildings of California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, it said that its campus will possibly stay closed until next week.
