Summary
Author of Chapter 29 of From the River to the Sea, “The war on Gaza and the war on free speech” (2 November 2023), cataloguing the dismissal, suspension and prosecution of people in Europe and North America who spoke for Palestine after 7 October 2023, and arguing that protest and boycott — defended by documenting suppression — are the effective response (From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, lines 2226-2266). The contributors list describes her as Distinguished Professor of Comparative Poetics and Global Politics at SOAS, University of London, and author of Erasing Palestine (Verso, 2023) and, with Malaka Shwaikh, Prison Hunger Strikes in Palestine (2023) (line 2465).
Details
- Her cases include the suspended London Underground driver who led a “free Palestine” chant on 24 October 2023, the fired Artforum editor-in-chief David Velasco, the Dublin Wix employee fired over an Instagram post, and rescinded US law-firm job offers (lines 2234-2246).
- She dates the UK criminalisation of Palestine solidarity to 2016, when the UK adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism (line 2248).
- The US arms package running 2017-2028 comprises 14 billion proposed by Biden; State Department official Josh Paul resigned on 18 October 2023 when it became clear there would be no adequate human-rights scrutiny of transfers to Israel (lines 2254-2256).
- Her conclusion: “Documentation is an act of resistance, because it makes visible what the censors want to hide” (line 2262), and suppression should be reported to the European Legal Support Center or Palestine Legal (line 2266).
Related pages
From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism, Palestine Legal, BDS movement