Anti-Palestinianism during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war

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Following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the outbreak of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, there has been a surge of anti-Palestinianism, anti-Arab racism, and Islamophobia around the world. Palestinians have expressed concerns over increased anti-Palestinianism in mass media and anti-Palestinian hate crimes.[1][2] Human rights groups have noted an increase in anti-Palestinian hate speech and incitement to violence against Palestinians.[3]

Asia

Bahrain

In October 2023, a doctor of Indian descent in Bahrain was fired from the Royal Bahrain Hospital for anti-Palestinian tweets that were deemed "offensive to our society" by the hospital.[4]

India

A large amount of anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic, pro-Israeli propaganda and disinformation has emerged from India during the war, especially among the Hindu nationalists. Anti-Palestinian disinformation from India often comes from supporters of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.[5][6]

Europe

France

The interior minister of France ordered local authorities to ban all pro-Palestinian protests.[7] French journalist Alain Gresh has said that Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party has a "very strong anti-Palestinian position".[8]

Germany

See also: Anti-Palestinianism in Germany

Germany banned the display of a number of Palestinian symbols such as the Palestinian flag and the keffiyeh, including at schools.[9][10] Palestinians in Germany described facing repression from authorities when they attempted to protest in support of Palestine, being subject to crackdowns, arrests and possible racial profiling.[11][12] On 18 October, a video of German police stomping out a candlelight vigil for dead Palestinians was seen circulating on social media.[13] Pro-Palestinian protesters in Neukölln were faced with displays of excessive force, including the use of pepper spray and water cannons. Hanno Hauenstein of The Nation described "a climate of fear" in the country created by the Israel–Hamas war, exacerbated by "hard-line" actions from the government.[14] One Palestinian human rights advocate called Germany's response to these protests as "McCarthyism in the purest sense",[13] and a protester told Al Jazeera English that she was unsure "whether we actually have freedom of speech in Germany [regarding Palestine]".[15]

In response to these restrictions, human rights organizations urged authorities to ensure and enable the right of all individuals to express their opinions and peacefully assemble.[16][17] Germany also faced criticism from Muslim countries such as Indonesia, who argued that they were preventing peaceful protesters from publicly showing support for Palestinians.[18]

On 13 October, Litprom abruptly cancelled a LiBeraturpreis [de] for Palestinian author Adania Shibli for her book Minor Detail, a novel partly based on the true story of a rape and murder of a Palestinian girl in 1949 by Israeli soldiers; it was originally set to be given at the Frankfurt Book Fair on 20 October.[19][20] Following this, more than 1,000 authors and publishers – including Colm Tóibín, Hisham Matar, Kamila Shamsie and William Dalrymple, as well as Nobel prize winners Abdulrazak Gurnah, Annie Ernaux and Olga Tokarczuk – signed an open letter criticized this decision, saying that the Book Fair had “a responsibility to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down”.[21][22]

On 13 November, an Afrofuturism exhibition by curator Anaïs Duplan was suspended by Museum Folkwang after they expressed support for Palestine and "personally tak[ing] sides with the BDS campaign" on Instagram.[23][24]

On 14 November, Indian poet Ranjit Hoskote resigned from his position at the curator-finding committee of Documenta after the exhibition publicly criticized him for signing a BDS India letter in 2019, calling it "explicitly anti-Semitic".[25] The letter in question had denounced a "Zionism and Hindutva" event hosted by the Israeli consulate in Mumbai [he] and co-organized by the Indo-Israel Friendship Association; the letter also called Israel an "apartheid state" engaging in "settler colonialism".[26] Over the following two days, the entire committee resigned, citing the social climate created by the Israel–Hamas war in an open letter, and Documenta's "unchallenged media and public discrediting" of Hoskote in particular.[27][28]

United Kingdom

Since the war, Islamophobic hate crimes increased by 140% in London.[29] According to British journalists Peter Oborne and Imran Mulla, "Britain has experienced an epidemic of almost unchallenged anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Muslim bigotry" since the war began. Oborne and Mulla have accused Home Secretary Suella Braverman for being "inexcusably silent" on anti-Palestinianism and Islamophobia.[30]

Former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman stated that waving Palestinian flags in public "may not be legitimate".[31]

Middle East

For broader coverage of this topic, see Israeli settler violence and Mass arrests of Palestinians during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war.

Israel

Palestinian students attending the Netanya Academic College in central Israel were trapped in their dorms after a large Israeli crowd gathered in front of the building chanting "death to Arabs" and attempted to break into the building. The crowd accused them of disrupting an earlier Shabbat prayer service at a Chabad synagogue by playing loud Arabic music and hurling two eggs. The allegations had been reviewed and investigated by police who had ruled out the students involvement.[32] Additional Palestinian students are reportedly facing suspensions after receiving emails accusing them of "supporting terrorism" due to posts condemning the continued attacks of the Israeli military on Gazan citizens.[33]

Since the outbreak of the war in early October, reportedly thousands of Palestinians have been arrested and detained in Israel and the occupied West Bank.[34] Many of those imprisoned alleged that they were tortured or otherwise mistreated while detained in military prison facilities, while the International Committee of the Red Cross stated they were repeatedly denied access to arrestees, who Israeli officials had classified as "enemy non-combatants". On November 3, Israel reportedly deported 3,200 Palestinian workers into the Gaza Strip, with the UN Human Rights Office expressing their concern over the status of the deportees and indicated they were being sent into an incredible dangerous situation.[35]

A video posted of young Israeli children drew outrage online after being posted on November 19, 2023, by the Israeli state broadcaster Kan News aired it under the title We'll annihilate everyone in Gaza. The video has since been deleted, but showed the children singing an old song written by Israeli poet Haim Gouri after the 1948 war, that had been amended to reference Gaza. While some debate has been raised about the translation of some of the words, some of the Google translated lyrics have been posted as, In another year there will be nothing left, And we will return safely to our home within a year, We will eliminate them all, And then return to plowing our Fields.[36][37]

Palestine

Israeli settler violence in the West Bank escalated during the war.[38][39] The United Nations have recorded 222 settler attacks in the West Bank against Palestinians since the 7 October Hamas attacks. At least six Palestinian communities have been fully abandoned due to the violence according to the West Bank Protection Consortium, which was founded by the European Union, and eight people have been killed and sixty-four injured. Settlers have also purposefully burned down ancestral olive trees, covered agricultural land with cement, attacked harvesters and built rock barriers to prevent people from returning to villages and fired upon them with live ammunition if they tried.[40]

On 26 October 2023, a memorial in Jenin for Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist who was killed by an Israeli soldier in 2022, was bulldozed and destroyed by Israel Defense Forces.[41][42] On 14 November 2023, two monuments of PLO leader Yasser Arafat were demolished by the IDF in the West Bank's Tulkarem refugee camp.[43]

North America

Canada

A Montreal author Lauren Wise was recorded during a road rage incident on 10 October, screaming at another driver who had a Palestinian flag displayed on her car window. Wise reportedly rammed her vehicle into the other car, which was being driven by a Tunisian woman and screamed at her that she "should be raped and dragged in the street in front of her kids" due to displaying the flag. Wise was reportedly dropped by her publisher after the video, that she had taunted the recorder to publish and tag her in, was posted to social media.[44]

United States

According to advocates in the tri-state area, Palestinian Americans and Muslim Americans in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut have experienced an increase in verbal and physical attacks since the war began.[45]

In 12 October 2023, a group of men were accused of waving Israeli flags while attacking three men in Brooklyn. The incident is being investigated as an anti-Palestinian hate crime. The incident happened several hours after a man waving a Palestinian flag was attacked in Williamsburg.[46] Two days later, on 14 October, a six year old Palestinian-American boy named Wadea Al-Fayoume was murdered in Illinois. The boy's mother was also choked and stabbed. The attacker, the family's landlord, allegedly shouted "You Muslims must die" during the attack. The incident is being regarded by Illinois authorities as an anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic hate crime.[47] That same day, a Jewish-American man in Farmington Hills, Michigan was arrested and charged with making a threat of terrorism after he posted on social media that he wanted to "go to Dearborn & hunt Palestinians".[48] Dearborn is a city with large Arab and Muslim populations, and is where significant pro-Palestine protests were held in October 2023.[49]

During a discussion in early November about a proposed cease-fire resolution in the Florida state house, Democratic state representative Angie Nixon asked, "We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?" In response, Republican Michelle Salzman responded "All of them". Salzman's comments were condemned by the Council on American Islamic Relations in Florida (CAIR-Florida) who stated that they were a "chilling call for genocide" and had come about through "decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by advocates of Israeli apartheid."[50] On 7 November at Edmonds Playground on DeKalb Avenue a woman identified as 48-year-old Hadasa Bozakkaravani allegedly hurled hot coffee and anti-Islamic statements, calling him a terrorist, at 40-year-old Ashish Prashar who took his 18-month-old son to play. She has been charged with nine separate counts, four of them hate crimes. Bozakkaravani faces assault, reckless endangerment, aggravated harassment and assault on a person under the age of 11, all as hate crimes, according to police.[51]

On 10 November, the parents of a 13-year-old Palestinian student at the Corona del Mar High School in California reported that their son had been suspended due to "threatening remarks to another student", after telling the student who had reportedly been bullying him "Free Palestine", with a district spokesperson calling the remark hate speech. The CAIR-LA condemned the reported incident as a continued perpetuation of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian sentiment.[52][53] On 12 November, Kenneth Ballenegger, co-founder of San Francisco-based investment company Oyster Ventures, said on X (formerly Twitter) that Israel must treat Gaza "like China handles Xinjiang", and advocated for a "Full surveillance state. Re education camps. Sterilizations." Ballenegger was later suspended after public backlash to these remarks, with Yashar Ali describing them as "disgusting genocidal rhetoric".[54] Two videos depicting Stuart Seldowitz emerged showing him harassing a halal cart vendor in the Upper East Side, asking a series of racist and Islamophobic questions, including "Did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?", "What do you think of that – people who use the Quran as a toilet?" and "If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It was enough. It wasn’t enough!" Seldowitz worked in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs and then served as Acting Director of the National Security Council South Asia Directorate during the Obama administration. He was also the Foreign Affairs Chair at Gotham Government Relations, which ended all affiliation with him after the video emerged. The NYPD said it was aware of the videos and monitoring the situation.[55] Seldowitz was taken into custody on the 22 of November, he faces one count of aggravated harassment of race or religion and four counts of stalking as a hate crime.[56]

After actress Melissa Barrera shared multiple Instagram posts in support of Palestinians on November 21, it was announced shortly after that she had been dropped from the upcoming Scream 7 film due to the posts. A spokesperson for Spyglass Media Group, the production company for the franchise issued a statement that their stance was "zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech." Barrera had shared posts about the number of deceased Palestinian children as well as a Philadelphia protest calling for a cease fire, she has also shared links to donate to Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children, and had signed the Artists 4 Ceasefire open letter.[57] About the same day United Talent Agency dropped actress Susan Sarandon as a client after she spoke out at a pro-Palestine rally, where she encouraged others to speak out in support of Palestine and reflected that due to the rising antisemitism many Jewish people "are getting a taste of being Muslim in the United States".[58]

On 25 November, three Palestinian men wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic were harassed and then shot while on their way to a family dinner in Burlington, Vermont.[59]

See also

References

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