New Western foreign policy: Censorship.
The Israeli Apartheid Week, an initiative aiming at making people aware of the apartheid policies Israel has against the Palestinian population (both in Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip), is now taking place in many countries all around the world, such as in the UK, France, Italy, the US, South Africa and so on.
Unfortunately, though, not everywhere it is easy to organize such an event. You may wonder why, given that the Israeli Apartheid Week constitutes a series of conferences, debates, mobilizing campaigns, organized by the civil society and that hosts not only Palestinian activists and western militants, but also Israeli academics. The reason is simple. Two intervening factors do not allow a serious, even-handed and above all needed debate on Israel and Palestine: European and American condescendence towards Israel dominant discourse and the power of the Israel lobby.
Some remarkable events drew my attention and need to be explained.
On February 16, Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian having written many books concerning the so- called Palestinian question, has been prevented by the Italian PUBLIC university Roma 3 from having a debate, in which he had to talk about the use and abuse of identity in Europe and the Middle East, at the Center for Italian and French studies. The university told Pappe and the organizers that the event had to be cancelled for procedural issues, though it has been perceived by Pappe and the organizers themselves as a “Zionist intimidation” and as one of the endless attempts to silence any critical discourse over Israel and its policies.
Not surprisingly, indeed, on the 13th of February, an article appeared on the website Informazione Corretta (a website aiming at giving an “impartial” version of what happens in Israel and the Middle East according to the founders) announced with satisfaction that thanks to the “roman friends” the debate (that they defined “full of hatred”) in the venues of the university had been cancelled. The article does not specify who those “roman friends” were , though a letter of protest addressed by Pappe and the organizers to the university argues that the Israeli ambassador in Rome and the always busy Israel lobbies exercised a massive pressure on the university. Eventually, the event took place anyway but in an inappropriate venue, given the number of participants who attended the conference.
That same university has also revoked the authorization to screen the documentary The Fading Valley by the Israeli director Irit Gal, dealing with water issues in Palestine, that was planned for the 27th of February. It is not so well reknown, but put it simply, Israel steals, illegaly, most of Palestinian water resources leaving Palestinian without water, which in turn obliges them to purchase it, at high costs, from the Israeli water company Mekorot. The screening was organized by the No Acea Mekorot Committee, that tries to end the agreement between Mekorot and the the Rome’s water utility Acea. The Committee reports that the university cancelled the event because it received a phone call by the Israeli Embassy in Rome.
Even more sad is what happened, last November, in the Museo della Resistenza, della Deportazione, della Guerra, dei Diritti e della Libertà, in Turin. The Museum, indeed, was hosting an exhibition, organized by the UNRWA, aimed at shedding light on the Palestinian plight since 1948. The Jewish community in Turin not only expressed its disagreement with the exhibition, by saying that it was organized by an anti- Semite organization such as the UNRWA, but it also threatened to withdraw from the Museum. The exhibition has not been withdrawn from the Museum, though the latter had to post a notice on its website to give voice to the discontent of the Jewish community. Additionally, the events scheduled during the exhibition, namely a roundtable, involving also the participation of a member designated by the Jewish community, and a reading of the poems of Mahmoud Darwish, have been canceled as well, because of the same pressures.
Let’s now turn to another country I’m particularly concerned with. France. The reason for that is that I’m living here and the more time I spend here the more I realized how hypocritical France and its society are.
Last week I had the chance to attend a conference- debate organized by the association AFPS, that managed to invite in Paris Max Blumenthal, who is, as he defines himself, an “American, white, Jewish”. He exercises the profession of journalist and writer and he is also a militant of the BDS campaign. The association had also managed to organize the same conference in the venues of the University of Paris 8/ Saint Denis, in collaboration with the students of the said university. The topic he has addressed in the first conference, held on the 3rd of March, was about the last attack against the Gaza Strip, that he had the chance to document. The second conference, that had to take place in Paris 8 on the 9th of March, was titled “Israel apartheid is real” and it was supposed to be attended also by a Palestinian activist, Bilal Afandi.
Whereas the first conference took normally place in the venues of an associative organization, the one to be held at the university found many obstacles on its way to take place. Indeed, after a first approval by the university, the organizers and Blumenthal were finally told that the conference couldn’t be held. After an arm wrestling between the students and the university, the conference was then approved. Though, just few days before, the university notified the organizers about the cancellation of the conference, due to logistic problems, such as the lack of an appropriate venue, and other problems, such as the presence of a controversial speaker and the risk for disorders. As Blumenthal had argued in the first conference, he was not surprised of such a decision, given that the obscurantist powers are always at work to silence debate.
Be that as it may, few hours ago I’ve been made aware that the conference took place in any case, probably because of massive pressure from students and the civil society.
Though, this doesn’t make me happier. Yes, the conference took place, but the organizers and the speakers had to fight and to resist in order to exercise their legitimate right to express their opinions in a country that proclaims itself the mother of the revolution and the keeper of freedom of speech and of expression.
We are assisting to creepy forms of censorship across Europe where, in the words of Ilan Pappe, “Ridiculing the prophet Muhammad in cartoon is the litmus test for a society that cherishes freedom of speech; however an open candid conversation about Israel and Palestine is disallowed as an incitement”.
I’ll let you judgning whether or not censorship is the current (and cheaper) Western foreign policy towards the Middle East, for me it is a kind of.
Not only Palestinian lives are not worthy to be lived and grieved when they are violently stolen, but none is even allowed to criticize governmental policies, in our case the Israeli ones, without being accused of anti- Semitism. The most disturbing thing is not that the Israel lobby tries to silence every candid debate about Israel/Palestine (indeed they act as every other interest groups), but the fact that European countries and institutions succumb to these unabated pressures.
The fact that public universities, the venues par excellence of public discussions and freedom of speech, accept the Israeli rhetoric and obey to these heinous power dynamics is terribly worrisome for our times. Indeed, they foster the Israeli rhetoric, endorsed by all the Western governments, concerning the Palestine/ Israel conflict, presented as a “clash of civilization” (where it is absolutely not the case) and whose only aim is radicalization.
This dominant rhetoric has not only the effect of producing (willful) misunderstanding on Palestine and Palestinians, but has also detrimental effects on the Arab countries and Arab communities living in Europe and more broadly in the West. Indeed, afraid of being condemned of anti- Semitism, of hate against the West and radicalized opinions, Arabs feel prevented from publicly expressing any kind of disagreement against discriminatory, biased and partial politics and measures.
Almost one month after the attacks on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, Europe and the West in general should engage in a serious and deep reflection of what they mean for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And, if the conclusion will be that only the opinions in line with the dominant discourse are worthy and legitimate to be expressed in public, then, for intellectual honesty, they should declare that. If there’s a double standard, as it is the case, then there’s nothing more heinous than hiding behind speeches that substantially mean anything.
In the meanwhile, it is up to us to fight censorship and obscurantism with all the energy we have. Not only for Palestinians, but also for ourselves.
Sources
http://www.museodiffusotorino.it/ArchivioNews/1222/comunicato-del-museo
http://www.informazionecorretta.com/main.php?mediaId=0&sez=440&id=57187
Paris university reverses decision, allows Israeli apartheid event with Blumenthal
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