Gaza in Context: A Collaborative Teach-In Series — Session 28

Weaponizing Antisemitism to Stifle Criticism of Israel

Featuring:
Adam Horowitz
Raz Segal
Shira Robinson

Moderator:

Asli Bali
Bassam Haddad

7 May 2024

Teach-In Session 28

As Israel’s genocidal campaign proceeds unabated in Gaza, world public opinion made a sharp turn against the Jewish State. In response, as the Hamas card ran out of steam, Israel and its supporters, notably in the United States and Germany, have resumed/returned to the last and first resort: weaponizing Antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel. Failing to defend Israel’s action on moral, intellectual, political, or legal grounds, the Antisemitism charge is leveled against critics via political legislation, academic institutions, media outlets, and popular culture in parts of the Western world. We address with our speakers the dangers, harm, and limitations of weaponizing Antisemitism, notably within academic institutions.

Gaza in Context Collaborative Teach-In Series

We are together experiencing a catastrophic unfolding of history as Gaza endures a massive invasion of potentially genocidal proportions. This follows an incessant bombardment of a population increasingly bereft of the necessities of living in response to the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7. The context within which this takes place includes a well-coordinated campaign of misinformation and the unearthing of a multitude of essentialist and reductionist discursive tropes that dehumanize Palestinians as the culprits, despite a context of structural subjugation and Apartheid, now a matter of consensus in the human rights movement.

The co-organizers below are convening weekly teach-ins and conversations on a host of issues that introduce our common university communities, educators, researchers, and students to the history and present of Gaza, in context.

Co-Organizers: Arab Studies Institute, Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, George Mason University’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Program, Rutgers Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Birzeit University Museum, Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Brown University’s Center for Middle East Studies, University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Theory, Brown University’s New Directions in Palestinian Studies, Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies, Georgetown University-Qatar, American University of Cairo’s Alternative Policy Studies, Middle East Studies Association’s Global Academy, University of Chicago’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, CUNY’s Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, University of Illinois Chicago’s Arab american cultural Center, George Mason University’s AbuSulayman’s Center for Global Islamic Studies, University of Illinois Chicago’s Critical Middle East Studies Working Group, George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies, Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies, New York University’s Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies