Over the weekend, I traveled to UC Berkeley to deliver a paper at an Islamophobia academic conference. This was the 10th anniversary of the event (I spoke at last year’s as well) hosted by the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project. The series was founded by Prof. Hatem Bazian, who also co-founded Zaytuna College, the first U.S. undergraduate college for Islamic studies.
As the title of the conference was, Virtual Internment: Islamophobia, Surveillance and Unequal Citizenship, I decided to focus on my research on Israeli surveillance, cyber-hacking, and related products of the Israeli national security state. Thanks to Ronnie Barkan for editing my talk so that I can make it available here. It’s about 32 minutes long.
I’d be grateful if you’d also promote it to your social media accounts and via e mail.
Linda Sarsour ran afoul of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs after she blood libeled Israel. Israel pushed back.
“The same tear gas that is used in Al Quds [Jerusalem] to tear gas Palestinians is the same tear gas and the same tear gas company that tear gassed African-Americans in Ferguson. The exact same company. The same militarized police forces that shoot unarmed black people and do this crowd control like what happened in Ferguson—where do the police chiefs, these people, get trained at? In Israel. We, brothers and sisters in Islam, be we black … or lighter skinned, … we have a common concern, we have a common struggle.”–Linda Sarsour
@ Eunice: First, you have published three comments within 6 hrs. In such circumstances I invoke a comment rule that in any 24 hr period you may only publish three comments–no more. Adhere to this rule in future.
I object to that characterization. It assumes that Sarsour did something to actually justify “falling afoul” of the Israeli spook agency. She did not. If you claim Sarsour “blood-libelled Israel” you don’t know what a blood libel is. Linda Sarsour has NEVER said anything about Israel that wasn’t 100% true, including the passage you quote.
What threatens you about Sarsour is that she is uniting minorities throughout America against Israel. For that, Israel has only itself to blame.
Another comment rule I have is that you may not level claims that aren’t supported by facts or credible evidence. Accusing Sarsour of a blood libel violates my comment rules. Do not do this again.
As for Canary Mission, they just exposed an anti-Semitic medical resident who threatened, ‘…to give all Jews the wrong medicine’.
https://forward.com/fast-forward/421973/lara-kollab-canary-mission-kern-medical-center-anti-semitic-jews/
Canary Mission’s expose of this doctor was a good thing, right?
@ Eunice: NOTHING Canary Mission does is a good thing. Nothing. Not even this. Canary Mission is an Islamophobic, Arabophobic organization which feasts on hatred. Defend it at your peril.
And BTW, China, not Israel, is the industrial sized snooper and seller of state surveillance equipment, and it’s China that’s massively surveilling it’s Muslim population and putting 1,000,000 of Uigars in concentration/re-education camps.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/technology/ecuador-surveillance-cameras-police-government.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
@ Eunice: Take a look at this blog. Is it devoted to China? Or Israel? Trying to divert attention from Israel by pointing to China as a worse violator or human rights is a tired, useless hasbara tactic. If I wanted to write a blog about China, I would. I’m Jewish, not Chinese. So this blog deals with Israel.
BTW, can you point to any articles or extended pieces you’ve published criticizing China for its human rights policies? Or do you just cynically try to piggyback on China’s excesses in order to divert attention from Israel’s?
You are apparently the new hasbaroid sent by Hasbara Central to replace those who’ve come before you (I can’t even remember the name of the last one, there have been so many). I predict your time here is short.
[comment deleted: I noted clearly that you were only permitted 3 comments in any 24 hour period. You just tried to publish your fourth, hence it has been deleted. Review the comment rules for the site and make sure that you follow them, especially when I have specifically described them to you.
I don’t see a problem with canary mission whatsoever.
Why can you publish names of people based on your sources and canary mission can’t publish statements or actions made by activists?
What they publish is true, with their interpretation. Just like your interpret in your analysis and publications.
Richard.. Your firm disciplining of these sometimes subtle attempts to defend an Israel that no longer exists as a very special democracy are laudatory.
These are little inexperienced children much like those who defend Trump’s
anti democratic actions in our country. We call them ” low information supporters”. How many of these individuals have any real “skin in the game” of Jewish hinbtory and Israel?
My ” skin has been burned ” by that history. As a veteran of the U.S Army Air Corps in WW II I came out of that conflict to find that my Aunt and two young nephews had been incinerated in Auchwitz and their father, my uncle Nandor was a slave laborer for the Wehmacht.
I looked at Israe, at thar time. as a breacon of the liberation of the Jews of REurope build a democratic state as as example in the backward middle east. Instead Israel has become a complicit state with the beheading Saudis and close friends with all of the proto fascists in Europe like Orban of Hungary and the Polish autocrats. Israel has also become the purveyer of political anti democratic policies in our country.
Keep up the good work Richard and don’t relax the discipline.
Just watched/listened to your carefully written speech. I can not get used to what Israel has become, what behavior goes on from the top, getting worse and entrenched as normal, and in the name of the Jewish people. Some, maybe most of us, seem to acquiesce to this mindlessly, or not wanting to know.. Nadler, so righteous otherwise.. I do not think things will change, will reverse.This is not the Israel that was dreamt of by many at the beginning after the war. So it’s an enduring disappointment to those of us that still think there is a need for a homeland for Jews. Ironically this need is exacerbated,proven, by Israel’s behavior which exacerbates anti-Semitism.
It does seem a lost cause to fight for change. But it is important keep reminding people, holing a light to what is right and what is wrong, that there are those who will not accept this ever.
Thanks for your report and your chutzpah.