Radhika Sainath's Op-Ed on Cancel Culture & Palestine

Senior staff attorney Radhika Sainath published an op-ed in Jacobin on how cancel culture intersects with "the Palestine Exception to free speech," a phenomenon that is magnified at this time of increasing censorship of advocacy for Palestinian rights:

There’s a lot of talk these days about the liberal and right-wing hypocrisy around cancel culture and how Palestine exemplifies it. In 2015, Palestine Legal (where I work) and the Center for Constitutional Rights published a report calling it the Palestine exception to free speech. Is there a “Palestine exception”? Is Palestine the “real” cancel culture? Or is it something worse?

As Palestinians unite in unprecedented uprisings against Israel’s ethnic cleansing and apartheid, students, professors, grassroots activists, and pretty much anyone with a conscience are speaking out against US support for Israeli war crimes.

And here at Palestine Legal, our phones are buzzing with reports of censorship and attempted censorship, each of which may look like an isolated incident of cancel culture, but together paint a picture of systematic repression.

In the past week, one person told us how Facebook blocked her for thirty days for a reply post stating that “Israel esta hacienda terrorism por racismo . . . matando ninos y mujeres y mintiendo q eran terrorists” (Israel was engaging in racist terrorism . . . killing children and women and lying by saying they were terrorists) — while it kept the original post calling Palestinians killed in Gaza “terroristas.” We learned Venmo donations with the word Palestine are being blocked, but language suggesting money is going to “Israeli cluster bombs” and “IDF chemical weapons” is going straight through without issue. And that’s not to mention the hundreds of reports groups like Access Now and 7almeh have received of social media companies suspending accounts and blocking hashtags of users reporting Israeli Army violence.

It’s not just Big Tech that’s censoring support for Palestine.

People with family in Palestine have reported losing their jobs or having their jobs threatened over social media posts voicing objections to Israel’s eviction, discrimination, or killing of their family members.