Rahul Saksena's Op-ed in The Hill
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The following piece was published in The Hill on February 12, 2017. Click here to view the full article.
Palestinians deserve justice too
By Rahul Saksena
President Trump and his team have taken hard-right positions – and now executive action – on issue after issue, and a cross-movement resistance is emerging.
Activists are rising up against the Muslim ban, anti-black and anti-immigrant policies, attacks on women’s rights and trans rights, the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines, efforts to privatize education and deregulate Wall Street, climate change denial, and more. Resistors view these not as distinct movements but as interconnected struggles.
The power to resist relies on our right to dissent. We must safeguard that right and vigorously oppose any effort to censor or suppress it.
Those who organize for Palestinian freedom are well-versed in the suppression of dissent, and will tell you that free speech is often squashed when government officials are united with powerful interest groups in their disdain for certain political views.
In recent years, for example, as support for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns for Palestinian rights has grown, Israeli advocacy groups have turned to politicians to shut down dissent and to suppress any activism critical of Israel.