July 4
GUEST: Rabab Abdulhadi, founding Director/Senior Scholar in Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies and Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, talks about her widely published anthologies and how the Israel Lobby has attempted to destroy her freedom of speech on Palestinian rights.“Do not be silent,” says professor Rabab Abdulhadi
In the decades long fight for Palestinian rights, there are those who have never given up. In fact, giving up is not an option for them, since doing so would weaken the whole. Palestinian rights is based on the hope that one day Israel will end its imperialist theocracy and replace it by a democratic system that transcends racism and violence. Those working for a just peace have to believe it is possible.
Dr. Abdulhadi has sacrificed so much to keep focusing on Palestine. She could have explored human rights violations in other parts of the world. She could have made peace with the Israeli Lobby by talking about enemies coming together to understand each other. She could have given up on equality in the Holy Land.
Dr. Abdulhadi describes the fascist mechanisms of the Israeli Lobby, as well as its tendency to use distortions and threats of violence. We must understand that Zionism is a threat to our Constitutional rights. Laws criminalizing the boycott of Israel are no different than what went on during the McCarthy Era. Careers were destroyed and people were put in jail, all for expressing a political point of view not favored by the state. Dr. Abdulhadi knows her U.S. history, and makes the connections between Jim Crow America and apartheid Israel. The fight for human rights is universal, and any exceptionalism must be rejected.
We can't in good conscience be for Black Lives Matter and not for Palestinian rights. There is no chosen people when it comes to human rights.
