“…There should be no question about genocide being bad, or about denying us our constitutional rights being bad. The only reason there are debates is because of the conflation that happens using three main buzzwords that we have to be very careful about.
The first is “HAMAS” – and these are the same words that justify the genocide, to begin with, the same words that shut down the rightful and peaceful student protests that are an American pastime since Vietnam, and before and after, and that are attempting to shut down this resolution. So the first is “Hamas” – just throw that word out everything falls apart. There’s no more logic, there’s no more debate.
The second is “ANTISEMITISM,” now obviously again, we all, including CAIR-Chicago agree that bigotry against Jews is a bad thing, and we all stand against that, but the problem is when you say that criticism of Israel and its government and military is antisemitic therefore there should be no more discussion on the matter, shut it down. That’s what put Mahmud Khalil in the cell that he’s in right now. It is that very same card canard that was used.
Lastly, we’re talking about “TERRORISM” and again with terrorism there are objective legal standards, but this word is thrown around willy-nilly. It is rhetorical oftentimes in its definition. It is extremely dangerous for us to even allow a conversation to happen in that space unless it is a legal conversation with legal standards of that definition. In the case of Mahmud Khalil, he was never charged with terrorism because there’s no evidence of his connection as such: we’re talking about material support which means goods, services, or information. No evidence of any of that, so what you’re left with is the rhetorical side which is subjective and can’t be proven or disproven, well because it’s rhetorical in nature.
So, in any further conversations we are having as leaders in this space, I want us to be very clear about how these concepts and words are thrown around to “terrorize,” if I may say, and intimidate us into silence…”
PART 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45YgIPXlUB0
