The Guardian on Backlash to Growing Campus Palestine Activism

Michael Ratner Justice Fellow Amira Mattar was featured in a Guardian article addressing the backlash to the growing campus movement for Palestinian liberation.

In turn there has been a sharp increase in attempts to quell the protests, with reports that Palestinian students and their allies have faced harassment online. Palestine Legal, an advocacy group that defends supporters of Palestinian rights, told the Guardian that they had received a marked increase in requests for legal help since the violence flared in Jerusalem.

“In the past two weeks there has been a surge of complaints coming in to us from students whose posts on social media have been censored, who have falsely been accused of antisemitism or have even faced death threats,” a Palestine Legal attorney Amira Mattar, who is herself Palestinian American, said.

Students protesting against Israeli occupation frequently find themselves accosted by a powerful array of well-funded adversaries – some backed by the Israeli government itself – armed with a battery of cyber tools. “There has been an increase this year in blacklisting website activity that encourages doxing online of Palestinians and their allies,” Mattar said.

“The false accusation of antisemitism seeks to distract from what is happening in Palestine,” Mattar said. “Rights advocates are forced to respond to accusations that are irrelevant – it’s not about hatred towards Jewish people, it’s about Palestinians wanting freedom.”