Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Boston Globe
(LOS ANGELES, CA – 5/29/2024) – – The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today condemned the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce for its recent hearing during which committee members labeled students peacefully protesting the ongoing genocide by the far-right Israeli government as “violent” and conflated the students’ legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
SEE: Rep. Ilhan Omar admonishes UCLA chancellor for campus protest safety measures
The committee held a hearing last week titled, ’Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos,’ during which several university leaders, including UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, were questioned for allowing campuses to “become hostile environment(s)” for Jewish students.
During the hearing, members of the Committee referred to students peacefully protesting Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza as “antisemitic” and “violent.” Such claims of antisemitism against student protesters have been previously used to censor pro-Palestinian advocacy on campuses nationwide and to stifle legitimate criticism of the human rights abuses and war crimes committed by the state of Israel.
In January, the International Court of Justice concluded that Israeli military operations in Gaza are plausible violations of the Genocide Convention, and last week the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor announced the pursuit of arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for their war crimes.
In a statement, CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush said:
“It’s clear that the Committee on Education and Workforce’s recent hearing was not about protecting the Jewish community, but about furthering political objectives by falsely and dangerously conflating legitimate criticism of the Israeli occupation, and support of Palestinian human rights, with antisemitism and weaponizing it to silence anyone speaking out against the genocide being carried out by the far-right Israeli government.
“We have reached eight months of the genocide in Gaza, and it has been well documented that Israel has murdered over 40,000 Palestinian civilians, the overwhelming majority of whom are women and children, and nearly two million more have been displaced and face a humanitarian crisis. Antisemitism is a serious issue that we must address but it is dangerous to conflate legitimate criticism of Israeli war crimes with hate against the Jewish community, as this committee has done with its McCarthy-era style congressional hearing
CAIR-LA sent a letter to Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx and Ranking Member Bobby Scott expressing concern for the hearing’s flawed and misleading premise and condemning the Committee’s conflation of antisemitism with legitimate criticism of the state of Israel. It also urged them to stop the investigation against UCLA Chancellor Block and other university administrators and instead divert resources to investigating the perpetrators of the violent UCLA attacks.
CAIR-LA is Southern California’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice and empower American Muslims.
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CONTACT: CAIR-LA Communications Coordinator Madi Morse-Hameed,mmorse-hameed@cair.com
