By Naba’a Richard Muhammad
Special to Texas Metro News
The images are jarring and the explanations are worst as mainstream media demonizes students who have been standing against the destruction of Gaza and the genocide against Palestinians. Don’t believe what you see and what you hear.
Students are being targeted, abused, arrested, beaten, criminalized, threatened and largely erased from corporate media coverage. Why? It’s part of efforts by Jewish groups and Zionists to protect Israel at all costs and wipe out dissent. Anti-genocide protesters are painted as violent lawbreakers who are terrorizing Jewish students and wreaking havoc at colleges and universities.
Here’s some things you aren’t hearing but need to be looking for and paying attention to. Don’t expect White-owned and corporate-owned media to tell this story:
UCLA is a prime example of the pogrom against students. Democracy Now May 2 offered truth about terror inflicted “where police in riot gear began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday, using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas, and arresting dozens of students. The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods and fireworks attacked students at the encampment.”
UCLA students said neither LAPD nor campus cops did anything and the Zionists were allowed to rampage peaceful demonstrators for hours. Violence isn’t coming from pro-Palestinian students. But these same young people are used as scapegoats to justify police repression and ending free speech on campus.
UCLA’s chapter of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine noted “a self-professed Zionist mob—joined by white supremacists—in Halloween masks attacked the protective boundaries of the camp, threw objects and launched fireworks at students and over their tents, assaulted students with plywood, bear mace and pepper spray, and physically attacked student and faculty protesters, as well as journalists—including student journalists from the Daily Bruin.”
Students “were subjected to night before last with the counterprotesters, the violence that they have endured night after night after night, the complaints that they have lodged and that have been ignored by the university administration, all of the ways in which they were failed by the university administration,” the Faculty for Justice in Palestine added April 30.
Where were the police? “They were nowhere to be found. We actually walked up to a few campus security afterwards asking for help, as one of my peers was crying and having a breakdown, and I was trying to help the other two as well. And they were not able to help us with anything. They didn’t know what to do. And, in fact, we had documented that campus security, when faced with threats—these are private security guards handled by the campus, before the actual police had even come on campus—they would run away when they—or hide in buildings, and deny reporters access to those buildings, when they were afraid of what they saw on the scene and on the site when they got too violent,” Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri, a UCLA student journalist, told Democracy Now.
According to the Associated Press, as of May 2, some 2,200 had been arrested from Columbia University in New York to UCLA. Look for that number to increase with President Biden’s call for law and order on campus and drive-by support for free speech that is supposed to be an American right.
The House has passed legislation to threaten academic freedom and curtail and virtually end campus criticism of Israel through antisemitism monitors connected to but not employed by the Education Dept. and changing the definition of antisemitism. These and other actions have caught international notice. UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan warned “heads are rolling” at top universities. “The Gaza crisis is truly becoming a global crisis of the freedom of expression,” cautioned Ms. Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. “This is going to have huge repercussions for a long time to come.” Rep. Mike Lawler (R–N.Y.), a main sponsor of the bill, the COLUMBIA Act, vowed, “Rising antisemitism on our college campuses is a major concern and we must act to ensure the safety of students. … If colleges will not step up to protect their students, Congress must act.”
According to Change.org, “Over the last few weeks, more and more colleges and universities across the U.S. have seen pro-Palestine student demonstrations. In turn, more and more schools have been accused of suppressing speech and using police to crack down, resulting in violence that has injured hundreds of students. Those students say that police officers escalated what was otherwise peaceful protesting protected by the first amendment, and that the administrators responsible for the crackdowns should be held accountable for violating their right to protest.” These petitions include calls for many university presidents to resign, respect for free speech and ending expulsion and other student punishments.
“The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and freedom of assembly—and for generations, students at campuses have protested and changed the course of history. The violence by police and academic administrators against peaceful protesters on campuses is shameful and wrong, and ensuring students have the literal and metaphorical space to make their opinions known is not a crime,” said one petition.
UCLA isn’t the only place where pro-Palestinian students have been besieged. At the University of Chicago, “fraternity brothers marched to the encampment, which had hundreds of people, carrying American flags, chanting ‘USA, USA!’ as Muslim students gathered for prayers. A line of cops formed between the groups,” reported the Chicago Tribune May 2.
Jewish and Zionists are organizing attacks on students, free speech and raising money on the backs of their campaigns. The American Jewish Committee used fear mongering to solicit donations. “AJC has been on the ground supporting Jewish and pro-Israel students and lifting up Jewish voices in the face of dangerous Jew-hatred,” it said. There is plenty of money in hyping fear when those who have real fear are diminished and brutalized.
Don’t expect these attacks, lies and slander to slow down. Jewish and Zionist groups are not going to stop. Look for continued and overwhelming political force, big money influence and every force Zionists and Jewish groups can muster to be used. They see public opinion in support of Israel falling especially among young people. Jonathan Greenblatt, the anti-Black head of the ADL, has described what is happening as a Tik Tok problem: Young people seeking answers outside of regular media and condemning past wrongs in Palestine that America has supported and bankrolled. These groups aren’t going to fight fair and they have no mercy. Just ask the Jewish students who have been bullied, disowned, handcuffed and declared the enemy because they want the slaughter in Palestine to stop.
Naba’a Muhammad, award winning Final Call editor, is host of “Straight Words With Naba’a Richard Muhammad, Bj Murphy and James G. Muhammad,” which airs live Tuesdays, 9 p.m. to Midnight Central Time on WVON AM 1690 Black Talk Radio Chicago and is livestreamed at the I Heart Radio app and WVON.com. Get more of his writing and content at straightwords.com.
