June 20, 2pm EST/11am PST Register at bit.ly/SafetySmear

Your Kufiyya scares me: Weaponizing Safety as Zionist Smear Tactic Webinar with Cynthia Franklin, Maura Finkelstein, & Jennifer Mogannam

Since October 2023, Zionist smear campaigns have appropriated and weaponized the already fraught discourse about campus safety with renewed vigor, and in increasingly dangerous ways that include kidnapping by ICE agents, threats of deportation, expulsions, and firing. Interpreting any expression of solidarity with Palestine as a threat, conflating “safety” and “comfort,”  these campaigns push for increased surveillance, harsh repression, and swift punishment of anyone who is accused of creating “unsafety.”

While these smear campaigns tend to target specific individuals, their impacts radiate and create extreme unsafety for the most vulnerable people on college campuses, especially Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, undocumented, and immigrant students, faculty, and staff. In the name of [often Jewish] safety, these Zionist smear campaigns deflect attention from the most outrageous example of the lack of safety — the US-funded Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Register at bit.ly/SafetySmear