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Thread on anti-SJP @FSU4Palestine AstroTurf campaign to try & get @floridastate to adopt @TheIHRA's (Israel lobby) anti-Semitism definition to ensure Palestine solidarity activists are always on defense in what's an already uneven playing field in terms of politics & resources.
This petition lays out a case for a dystopian system where anything but neutral pro-Israel campus groups like Hillel are to lead "mandatory anti-racism training for student gov't members & other university leaders, including a session on antisemitism..." https://www.campusfairness.org/action/?floridastate
The issue at hand are years old anti-Semitic tweets by @FSU4Palestine member & FSU Student Senate President, Ahmad Daraldik, all of which he's sincerely apologized for & since learned a great deal about the scourge of anti-Semitism. Still, pro-Israel orgs want to destroy him.
Ahmed Daraldik was in high school back in 2013.
“When I made that post in 2013 I was in Palestine witnessing death on a daily basis,” Daraldik told http://FSUNews.com in June. “They were not directed to the Jewish community as a whole or at FSU.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-anti-semitism-outcry-florida-state-u-makes-changes-for-jewish-students/
“When I made that post in 2013 I was in Palestine witnessing death on a daily basis,” Daraldik told http://FSUNews.com in June. “They were not directed to the Jewish community as a whole or at FSU.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-anti-semitism-outcry-florida-state-u-makes-changes-for-jewish-students/
Palestinian FSU student, Ahmad Daraldik, has been harassed over anti-Israel social media posts that he made when he was a child living under military occupation, that he's sincerely apologized for, & years prior to rightfully earning his position as @FloridaState SGA Senate.
Daraldik's posts included a video of a Palestinian child being beaten by a soldier & a picture of him next to Nelson Mandela w/ the hashtag #fuckisrael. SGA senators failed in attempting to remove him from his position. Here's a another image of IDF abuse of Palestinian children.
This comes after Daraldik testified as to his pro-Jewish positions as a Senator who proposed to remove a Nazi flag seller from campus. Still, pro-Israel groups have not relented, revealing how disingenuous this AstroTurf smear campaign against Daraldik & @FSU4Palestine really is.
Weaponizing the tragic horrors of the Holocaust & disingenuous claims of anti-semitism in open testimony, Senators backed by AIPAC-cadre campus group, NolePac, & campus affiliates like Christians United for Israel swayed SGA Senate to adopt the IHRA definition as a resolution.
This hearing was conducted even against FSU SGA’s own policies for Senate convenings to allow Florida Democrat State Representatives, Richard Stark and Emily Slosberg, to speak in open testimony that session. Only enrolled students are allowed to testify during these sessions.
This after Florida Senators Randy Fine & Byron Donalds openly spoke against Daraldik, as if he posed a credible threat to commit anti-semitic violence. FSU Pres. John Thrasher has released two statements since in an attempt to marginalize Daraldik & pro-Palestine campus activism.
The fundamental problem with @TheIHRA definition is that it conflates anti-Zionism and Pro-Palestine solidarity with an anti-Semitism that is rooted in classical European white supremacy and hatred towards Semitic or Jewish peoples. #FreePalestine
What's so insidious about this Orwellian rhetoric is that it obliterates words' meaning in the English language: night is day, up is down, & anti-racists are racists. @FSU4Palestine fights racism & ethnocracy in all forms; opposition to exclusionary Zionism is NOT anti-Semitism!
Epic warmonger & spook, Natan Sharansky, is the inspiration for using @TheIHRA definition to delegitimize Ahmed Daraldik & SJP @ FSU. @FSU4Palestine needs to expose & shame those weaponizing IHRA definition to shutdown Palestine solidarity work on campus! https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3257778,00.html
On top of decades of dubious activities, @TheIHRA's Natan Sharansky, played an influential role in convincing Pres. Bush to illegally topple a sovereign Iraq & destabilize the region so badly that generations to come will continue to suffer the effects. https://www.voltairenet.org/article30245.html
"In 1977, a Soviet newspaper alleged that Mr. Sharansky was collaborating with the CIA. Despite denials from every level of the U.S. Government, Mr. Sharansky was found guilty & sentenced to 13 years in prison including solitary confinement & hard labor."
http://archive.jewishagency.org/executive-members/natan-sharansky-honorary-member
http://archive.jewishagency.org/executive-members/natan-sharansky-honorary-member
"In 2006 Natan Sharansky resigned from the Knesset to become Chairman of the new Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem."
Being Sheldon Adelson aligned & a spook speaks for itself! @TheIHRA cheapens fight against anti-Semitism by embracing McCarthyism to fight SJP.
Being Sheldon Adelson aligned & a spook speaks for itself! @TheIHRA cheapens fight against anti-Semitism by embracing McCarthyism to fight SJP.
Fred Kaplan on Sharansky's 2004 book: "Just after Bush won the '04 election, a friend of his gave him an advance copy of Sharansky's book. Bush told several interviewers that do you want to know what my foreign policy is going to be, read this book." @NPR https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18826381
"I was the lead drafter of...the “working definition of antisemitism." It was never intended to be a campus hate speech code, but that’s what Trump’s executive order accomplished. It's an attack on academic freedom & free speech" -Kenneth Stern on IHRA https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive-order-trump-chilling-effect
I was president of @FSU4Palestine in 2013-14 & not only was it not a racist or anti-Semitic org., but exactly the opposite! Trump weaponizing anti-Semitism is about crushing Palestine solidarity work, not fighting anti-Semitism, & sadly the same's true w/ this campaign at FSU.
