Gaza First Amendment Alert
Judiciary Committee exploits antisemitism to silence protests; university updates across the country; U.S. declined to sanction Israeli military units over abuse finding
Judiciary Committee exploits antisemitism to silence protests
The Senate Judiciary Committee hosted a hearing on Wednesday, March 5, called “Never to be Silent: Stemming the Tide of Antisemitism in America,” a thinly disguised attack on student protesters, campus activism, and the pro-Palestine movement at large. DRAD has joined with leading groups like Jewish Voices for Peace in condemning this shameful ploy that both seeks to silence these protesters with false smears of antisemitism and fails to address obvious anti-Jewish prejudice proliferating on the right.
Republicans and Democrats on the committee alike routinely equated criticism of Israel and its genocidal campaign in Gaza with antisemitism. Once again Democrats failed to call out the Trump administration for its own demonstrative antisemitism. Furthermore the administration continues to promote the views of (DOGE Head, SpaceX and X owner) Elon Musk, who frequently shares extreme anti-Jewish conspiracy theories on a global platform. The purpose of this political theater was clear: to smear, and to silence, anyone who dares speak out against the U.S. government for enabling the ethnic cleansing of innocents in Palestine.
Committee members and the witnesses repeatedly attempted to incite fear over pro-Palestinian groups leading protests in major cities and on college campuses across the United States. In his first month in office, President Trump signed an executive order announcing “additional measures to combat antisemitism,” including the creation of a new Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. He followed with threats to revoke foreign student visas and tax-exempt status from nonprofit groups who oppose the administration’s support for Israel. We learned yesterday that the State Department will begin using AI in a “Catch and Revoke” campaign to locate and expel student visa holders and other foreigners who they claim support Hamas.
Last month, the head of the Task Force threatened federal indictments and jail time for student protesters, saying, “You see all these disorderly demonstrations, supporting Hamas and trying to intimidate Jews? We are going to put these people in jail—not for 24 hours, but for years.”
University updates across the country
College campuses have been focal points of major demonstrations and protests for the duration of Israel’s genocide in Gaza — and therefore the primary targets of crackdowns and repression Universities across the U.S. have seen massive student occupations in opposition to the genocide that recall anti-apartheid demonstrations in the 1980s and Vietnam War protests in the ‘60s, and leaders in both parties have overseen a commensurate crackdown, an enormous effort to dismantle this growing network of pro-Palestine support. Here are some of the latest stories on U.S. campuses:
UNC State School System restricts protest: The Board of Governors for the statewide University of North Carolina school system has approved new policies which require permits for protesting, create a system to monitor protesters from one school to the next, and ban camping out in protest altogether. Students have decried the new moves as “unconstitutional” threats to their freedom of speech.
NY Governor intervenes in CUNY hiring: The faculty union at the City University of New York have written a letter to New York Governor Kathy Hochul warning that her efforts to interfere in the hiring of a Palestine Studies professor infringe on the school’s academic freedom. “It is an overreach of authority to rule an entire area of academic study out of bounds,” the faculty write.
Cases dropped against PSU protesters: Criminal charges have been dropped for six protesters at a pro-Palestine demonstration last year on the campus of Portland State University after defense attorneys discovered the local police had collected and held video footage of the protest in violation of Oregon state law.
Barnard College occupied over expulsions: Pro-Palestine demonstrators occupied a building on Barnard College in New York City for the second time in two weeks, calling on the school to reinstate three students expelled over their protests against the genocide in Gaza. One student was expelled after last spring’s occupation of (Barnard affiliate) Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, which police violently dispersed, and two were expelled last month for interrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class. Following the most recent expulsions, dozens of demonstrators occupied Barnard’s Milbank Hall on Feb. 27, and the library lobby this week.
While demonstrators were initially given written confirmation that they wouldn’t be disciplined for their protest, Barnard President Laura Rosenbury published an op-ed the following day entitled, “When Student Protest Goes Too Far,” in which she threatened that the school will “vigorously pursue discipline and other remedies against those who forcibly and illegitimately entered the building, damaged or destroyed property, disregarded our community expectations and violated many policies and rules.”
U.S. declined to sanction Israeli military units over abuse finding
The Washington Post reports that in October 2024, the State Department wrote twice to the Biden administration recommending the U.S. stop funding multiple Israeli military units over their abuses of Palestinian detainees. These reports follow widespread documentation of physical and sexual violence against Palestinians detained by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since the start of the conflict, as well as months of public debate over the U.S.’s failure to abide by its own policy, the Leahy Law which prohibits the U.S. from assisting foreign armed forces that have been credibly accused of human rights violations.
The State Dept. specifically addressed funding of Israel’s ‘Force 100,’ a military police unit, and ‘Force 504,’ a military interrogation unit, for their participation in the abuse of Palestinian detainees.
Biden administration officials repeatedly defended the ongoing funding of Israel’s genocide by stonewalling questions from the public and press over these types of investigations. State Department and White House spokespeople repeatedly suggested that reporters and protesters needed to wait until these inquiries concluded before deciding how to act. But as former officials explained to the Post, the Leahy Law was explicitly written to avoid this type of stalling: the law merely requires credible accusations, not criminal convictions, of abuse for funding to be halted:
“[The Leahy law is] crystal clear that you don’t wait and see if accountability is forthcoming; you suspend aid to the unit that committed the violation, and you lift the restriction later if the perpetrators are brought to justice.”
Sanctioning the IDF would have been the first successful implementation of the Leahy Law, which was introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy in 1997.
That’s all for this Gaza First Amendment Alert. Sign up for future updates here.