Charges of Domestic Terrorism Used Against Advocates for Palestinian Liberation
New York State legislators, from Queens, in New York City, have introduced a bill making blocking highways and streets an act of domestic terrorism. "Streets" is broadly defined to include driveways, sidewalks, alleys, and similar places people might protest. The bill is in direct response to the many New York City actions in support of Palestine, where bridges, tunnels and streets have been blocked. The actions are widely supported by New Yorkers and have played an important role in popularizing the Palestinian resistance and gaining support for the demand for Ceasefire Now!
Florida is also trying to charge students defending Palestine with providing "material support" to terrorists, simply for expressing support for the resistance. The state of Georgia is doing the same for those protesting building of the massive Cop City -- a police training ground for urban warfare.
A
recent white paper brings to the fore that in the U.S., at the
federal
level, laws permitting laying charges of terrorism have long
been
directed against the Palestinians and support for them. Anti-Palestinian
at
the Core: The Origins and Growing Dangers of U.S.
Antiterrorism Law shows
how core features of U.S. terrorism laws were driven by
anti-Palestinian agendas from the beginning. Such laws have been
pushed
by wealthy U.S. Zionist forces and their aligned groups using
periods
of resistance to brand Palestinians as "terrorists," at times
the U.S.
and Israel are engaging in
state terrorism and genocide, as is occurring today. They show
how,
over time, these legal mechanisms, shaped by U.S. backing and
funding
of Israel, were expanded to repress other protest movements,
including
those against U.S. genocide inside the country, police killings,
protecting water and land
against pipelines, and more.
A "white paper" is a research-based report which offers a focused description of a complex topic and presents the point of view of the author or body represented by the author. The purpose of a white paper is to give readers understanding of an issue, which in turn helps them solve a problem or make a decision. A white paper differs from a research report designed to merely present facts, analyses and outcomes by appealing to readers to take a position.
This white paper points out that since October 2023 there has been an upsurge in attempts to crack down on advocacy for Palestine in the United States, including demands to weaponize terrorism laws against student activists. These efforts are a dangerous attack on constitutionally protected speech and association. They also represent the culmination of a decades-long campaign by Zionist-aligned organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), to expand U.S. anti-terrorism law to turn it against advocates for Palestinian liberation.
So too in Canada, political police linked to the so-called Five-Eyes Intelligence Agencies (U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) under U.S. command and to Israeli lobbying in Canada itself, are also working to characterize criticism of Israel and support for the just cause of the Palestinian people as "anti-Semitism," "hate" and terrorism. Their aim is also to get laws changed to criminalize advocates of a just solution which recognizes the rights of the Palestinian people. Merciless defamation, firings and criminalization take place with impunity against which Canadian and U.S. students and youth with the support of people from all walks of life, are courageously fighting.
The U.S. publishers of this white paper say: "Telling this story is critical right now to prevent those seeking to silence Palestinian advocates from exploiting the current crisis, Israel's U.S.-backed genocide. In the face of unprecedented popular criticism of Israel in the United States, Israel-aligned groups are working overtime to weaponize U.S. anti-terrorism law to both criminalize a growing movement calling for justice in Palestine and to isolate Palestinians further."
The paper also has significance today, given the brutal attacks on refugees by the U.S., Israel, France, Britain and others, as it shows that anti-terrorism legislation in the U.S. is incorporated into anti-immigrant laws. For example, in 1990, Congress for the first time made terrorism a formal basis for exclusion and deportation from the United States, in an amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act. As the paper brings out, "The same statute also declared that any 'officer, official, representative, or spokesman' of the PLO would automatically be considered as engaging in terrorist activity." Over the following decades Congress dramatically expanded the terrorism provisions of immigration laws, including adding "material support" for terrorism, a charge being used against students and others today.
The paper reconstructs the "history of a joint U.S.-Israeli effort to suppress Palestinian opposition to Israel's colonization of Palestine whether diplomatic, armed struggle, or other forms of protest. Key findings include that the earliest mention of 'terrorism' in a federal statute, in 1969, dealt specifically with restricting humanitarian aid to Palestinians and inaugurated a pattern of rendering Palestinians synonymous with terrorism. Furthermore, the first and only time Congress has labeled a non-state group a terrorist organization was in a 1987 law aimed at the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Understanding this historical context has important strategic implications for advocates seeking to challenge this fresh wave of anti-Palestinian repression."
In order to stop the use and expansion of anti-terrorism laws, this white paper encourages decision-makers to:
- Publicly affirm the constitutional rights of Palestine advocates against malicious efforts to undermine them;
- Reject efforts to expand terrorism laws to criminalize advocacy for Palestinian rights;
- Cease treating organizations like the ADL as credible sources of information on these issues.
The full document is available here.
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 17 - March 12, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS541712.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca