A law professor at the University of Chicago has expressed concern over the dismissal of several writers and editors for opposing Israeli policy, saying the rules are changing before our eyes.
“It feels like a new McCarthyism. We’ll see what happens, but the Anti-Defamation League writing letters to college presidents suggesting they investigate student activists for support of terrorism, the number of official or quasi-official letters expressing concern about speech, and then the firings – it all feels like a suppression of speech that we haven’t seen in a long time,” Genevieve Lakier told the US news website Politico.
Recently, many editors and writers in the US have been fired for speaking out against Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
Several university students who said Israel was committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza have also had their job offers withdrawn.
Palestine Legal, a US-based advocacy group to which Lakier belongs, said it had responded to more than 260 cases of people’s “livelihoods or careers” being targeted because of their anti-Israel views.
Lakier expressed deep concern about the pressure on freedom of expression in the country.
“Universities have been under threat for a long time. We have seen that there are laws that impose sanctions on those involved in boycott campaigns against Israel, some of which have been repealed, some of which have not,” she said.
The Israeli army has stepped up its air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip, which has been under relentless bombardment since the Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise offensive on 7 October.
The number of Palestinians killed in Israeli bombardments in Gaza has risen to 9,770, the blockaded enclave’s health ministry said on Sunday.
“The death toll as a result of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since 7 October is 9,770, including 4,800 children and 2,550 women,” the ministry said in a statement.
Some 1,540 Israelis have been killed.