With the recent release of her book In Our Power: U.S. Students Organize for Justice in Palestine, author, reporter, and activist, Nora Barrows-Friedman examines the impact that U.S students have had in movements and activism pertaining to Palestinian solidarity against Israeli occupation. These protests have been taking place throughout the United States. Chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine have been expanding across college campuses around the country. Many of these protests have been met with disapproval and have even been opposed by campus administrations, due to the controversial framing of efforts to oppose Israeli politics and Zionist movements, both at home and abroad. Barrows-Friedman’s work focuses on student activists, and their stories and experiences of fighting for Palestinian solidarity.
On November 9, 2014, host Mickey Huff interviewed Friedman on Project Censored’s weekly radio show on KPFA Pacifica Radio, on the subject of her new book and the context of the ongoing student movements. Huff and Friedman were joined by UC-Berkley Ph.D. student Kumars Salehi. They addressed current issues that connect the US protests and Israeli politics, such as the shipping blockades of Israel corporations’ ships, importing ammunition to supply US law enforcement, and connections between Israeli and US militarization of police.
Although the student protests have been covered by smaller non-corporate media outlets and across social media, there have been negative distortions made by corporate media. Salehi described his own experience, in which he and fellow students were harassed, threatened, and even brought to the attention of corporate media power-house Fox News, which claimed that such protests were anti-Semitic and harassed Jewish students. By contrast, as Salehi and Barrows-Friedman make clear, these protests aim to protect Palestinians’ human rights while drawing critical attention to the politics of the state of Israel.
Sources:
Nora Barrows-Friedman, How US Students Are Bringing the Israeli Occupation Home,” Electronic Intifada, October 28, 2014, http://electronicintifada.net/content/how-us-students-are-bringing-israeli-occupation-home/13981.
Project Censored Radio Show, KPFA-Pacifica Radio, November 7, 2014, http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/108243.
Student Researcher: Benjamin Chapman (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Nicole Wolfe (Sonoma State University)