Statement on Trump’s Silencing of Palestine Advocacy

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Palestine Legal director Dima Khalidi made the following comment in response to reports that President Donald Trump will be signing an executive order Wednesday, December 11, directing government agencies, including the Department of Education and the Department of Justice, to employ a distorted definition of antisemitism designed to shield Israel from criticism, after failed attempts to pass such legislation in Congress:

“This is a baldfaced attempt to silence the movement for Palestinian rights on college campuses - something that has been at the top of the Trump administration’s agenda. We’ve already seen how defining antisemitism to include criticism of Israel serves only to violate the free speech of students and professors who stand for equality and justice for all people by challenging Israel’s apartheid policies and decades of human rights violations. Rather than providing any new protections to Jewish students against the rampant and deadly antisemitism of a resurgent white nationalism, the order described in news reports aims to define the contours of what we can say about Palestine and Israel. We won’t abide, and it will be challenged.”

Read our backgrounder on the redefinition of antisemitism here.