Dear Glenn, take a good look around you.
After a long career defending free speech and transparency in government, Glenn Greenwald is whitewashing the pro-Palestine movement's violent and terroristic elements.
One of the icons of investigative journalism and civil liberties is reporter Glenn Greenwald, formerly of The Guardian. Throughout his career, Greenwald has been a pro-Palestine advocate. In recent weeks he has made pronouncements on the topic that I take issue with. Here is the letter I sent him.
Dear Glenn Greenwald,
You are an icon among critics of America's corrupt national security establishment and deservedly so. Your role in facilitating the Edward Snowden leaks was one of the greatest journalistic coups in history. I think we owe a debt of gratitude to you for this. Other writers like myself could only dream of such an exposé, and I am aware also of the risk that it involved. I think you bring an earnest dedication to the truth as you see it in all of your work, but in a recent tweet you lashed out and complained that despite years of hard work defending civil liberties, transparency, and freedom of speech a significant portion of your audience is turning against you out of an irrational devotion to Israel. I do not write on their behalf, because I still believe you offer valuable perspectives even in areas where we disagree. The Israel-Gaza War has re-opened numerous rifts in politics and media that had been dormant for some time. I don't want to retreat into an echo chamber, so please hear me out.
Yes there are those that are shutting you off, perhaps by applying a "guilt by association" judgment. You are often grouped into the so-called anti-imperialist left owing to progressive socialist economic beliefs and opposition to US hegemony and intervention overseas. One issue that has been the crown jewel of the anti-imperialist left is the Palestinian struggle against Israel. Like your cohorts, you tend to be squarely on the side of the Palestinians, regardless of the situation causing critics to label you a "self-hating Jew". I don't think that's a fair way to address an argument. Even though we're both Jewish, I have no idea where your identity fits into your worldview. Nevertheless, I think that your antipathy for Israel and Zionism has led you to take a callous attitude toward an element of the pro-Palestine movement that is violent and anti-free speech. Many have assumed that to support Israel's fight against terror one must be blind to the suffering of Palestinian children and other innocents. I can only speak for myself, but you are wrong. I don't see the life of any innocent as just a statistic whether he/she is Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Hindu or none of these.
Here is a major area where I struggle to understand your perspective: On many college campuses it is inhospitable or even impossible to argue the pro-Israel side, which is why it is so baffling that you think Jewish students are wrong to sound the alarm on the unhealthy hate culture on college campuses. Specifically you echoed a Michael Tracey tweet from November 14 where he derides a Jewish student interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN on the issue of unsafe campus environments.
I will briefly outline why I believe so many students in western countries sympathize with Gaza and the Palestinians and state their perspective. Bear in mind this isn't an endorsement or condemnation, but rather my distillation of it. In order to debate a viewpoint's merits it must first be defined. I'll call the pro-Palestine position the null hypothesis and the pro-Israel one the alternate hypothesis:
H0: The struggle for Palestine is meant to rectify a continuing historical injustice of the abuse of Arab inhabitants of what became the State of Israel not just by Jewish Israelis but by British imperial authorities before them. The Zionist foundation of Israel included an organized campaign of intimidation against them that led to the expulsion of many Arabs in 1948 - the Nakba (catastrophe) and furthermore the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 - the Naksa (setback). Israel's system for control and suppression of Palestinian Arabs is racist, and akin to the South African apartheid regime. All means of overcoming this are legitimate until Israel ceases to oppress the Palestinians and the refugees from those conflicts may return to the entire territory of historical pre-1948 Palestine, and accusations of "terrorism" are justifications of that system and its abuses.
H1: The counterargument to this, summarized in even briefer form, is that Israel's right to a state was legitimized in the 1947 UN Partition plan along with other previous proposals such as the 1936 Peel Commission plan, and that Palestinian suffering is more a result of the refusal of their representatives and leaders to accept any compromise and opt for war at every turn.
Most debates about Israel and Palestine will invoke versions of these two conflicting viewpoints. However only one of them is truly welcome on college campuses, and admittedly the pro-Palestine side has been winning the battle in terms of organization, symbolism and communication. Israel friendly campus activism has been so clumsy and monolithic, that frankly I've always preferred just to write my own opinions and stay apart from the organized efforts. I also have never agreed with Israeli government policy on a variety of issues, whether on receiving US foreign aid which I believe compromises its independence, vaccine mandates, freedom of speech, or a recent idea where they have floated having western nations absorb Gaza refugees.
However, your response to the MIT student lamenting her situation was dismissive, calling her "extremely privileged" and claiming that if she had belonged to any other ethnic group besides the Jews she would be the target of "endless mockery". Whether she is "privileged" is irrelevant to the topic. College campuses today are notorious for being deeply intolerant to free speech, and this topic is only one dimension of that. Recently the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) published its list of worst colleges for free speech. Ranked second was the University of Pennsylvania, which was cited for deplatforming speakers like ICE Director Tom Homan, and sanctions against faculty like law professor Amy Wax who expressed controversial opinions on race and academic achievement. One event that did go ahead was the Penn Writes Palestine festival in September, an event that donors wished to ban for its negative viewpoints on Israel. Despite that pressure, Penn allowed the festival to go ahead. When free speech has been directed against Israel college administrators have generally tolerated it, and they are correct to do so as long as it is limited to speech and not violence, coercion, or direct incitement. There are of course a number of examples where pro-Palestine groups do have their 1st Amendment rights violated. FIRE is also fighting on behalf of Palestinian solidarity groups that have been disbanded by either state or academic bodies in states like Florida, and I applaud them for it. At Hunter College in Manhattan the screening of Israelism, a film by anti-Israel Jewish American activists, was cancelled by school administrators after a public outcry. I also am against the cancellation of a speaking event by Rep. Rashida Tlaib at Arizona State University. As for the dropping of Susan Sarandon from her talent agency, I can only reiterate the same point: I find here opinions despicable, but I believe she has the right to express them. I feel the same way about anti-Arab bigots like Stuart Seldowitz. I don't approve of any violation of the First Amendment, not only because it is wrong but also because it often serves to lend credence to otherwise terrible ideas.
On the other side, Mr. Greenwald, Jewish students on campus are "feeling" threatened because they are threatened. When it comes to the Palestinian cause the culture of militancy sympathy for terroristic acts, is far from rare. The First Amendment protects speech, however the actions of this movement often cross the line from speech to vandalism or even violence. Below is a catalog of such incidents:
In 2022 Sayed Quraishi, a University of Illinois student, was arrested after throwing a rock at pro-Israel students during a rally by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the campus's Hillel Jewish life center.
In February 2023 two guest speakers at Tufts University, an Israeli and a Palestinian, were disrupted using loud music and mercilessly heckled while attempting to deliver a talk on intercommunal dialog.
In March Tabia Lee, an administrator at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, CA, was fired from her job after attempting to insert Jewish inclusive programming into her college's DEI curriculum, among other reforms. Lee's identity as a black woman was used by opponents to brand her a traitor for white supremacy.
In 2015 guest law lecturer Moshe Halbertal was shouted down at the University of Minnesota by pro-Palestine protesters who continually disrupted his talk.
On Nov. 15, 2023 students at George Washington University vandalized a truck near their campus advertising an anti-Hamas message.
Following the Oct. 7 attacks, a lecturer at Stanford University separated Jewish students within his class section and forced them to place their belongings on one side of the room before condemning Israel as a colonizer and justifying Hamas's actions.
A student at UMass Amherst assaulted a flag bearing student at a pro-Israel vigil and stole his flag, which he proceeded to spit on and destory.
A UC Davis professor threatened Israelis with death, home invasions, and kidnappings.
On Oct. 14 at the University of Florida in Gainesville pro-Palestine activists mounted a "Day of Resistance" and with the help of campus police impeded counterprotesters from filming the event.
Rutgers University's Student Bar Association voted to impeach two Jewish board members for expressing their displeasure with its pro-Hamas proclamations following the Oct. 7 attacks.
A Cornell University student was arrested after making terroristic threats via social media against Jewish students following Oct. 7.
On Oct. 15 Maxwell Friedman, a pro-Palestine Columbia University student, was arrested for assaulting an Israeli student with a stick.
In addition to college campuses, there are incidents of vandalism, violence, or other coercion by anti-Israel offenders off campus.
In April a Reform Jewish temple in Seattle was vandalized with graffiti that condemned Israel for apartheid. This is especially ironic as Israel critics typically claim their issues are with Zionism, not Judaism or Jews as an ethnoreligious group.
Also in April anti-Israel graffiti was spray painted on a Barcelona synagogue.
On Oct. 25 a Jewish-owned ice cream shop in San Francisco was vandalized with broken windows and graffiti declaring "FREE PALESTEIN" (sic).
A Jewish-owned book store in Toronto was vandalized with red paint smears and lettering that accused the owner of "funding genocide".
A store and truck owned by a Jewish business owner in Montauk, NY were defaced with pro-Palestine grafitti, swastikas and the phrase "jeden die" (sic), an explicit threat.
A Brooklyn, Ohio Jewish cemetery was vandalized with swastikas on headstones.
The 2nd Avenue Deli in Manhattan was defaced with anti-Israel graffiti on Oct. 17.
Jewish pro-Israel demonstrator Paul Kessler was killed during a demonstration in Westlake, CA. A pro-Palestine counter-demonstrator is being charged with involuntary manslaughter for his death.
A masked woman in Flatbush, Brooklyn later identified as Melissa Ugur, was arrested after pepper spraying a Jewish security volunteer who confronted her for ripping posters of Jewish hostages, and then threatened him with a knife.
Pro-Palestine demonstrations have vandalized the barriers around the White House while attempting to scale its fence and the New Mexico office of Sen. Martin Heinrich.
Three activists with Palestine Action US were arrested on Nov. 21 on the roof of a facility of Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems US in Merrimack, NH after vandalizing the building, including breaking windows and spraypainting the building exterior. One of them, Calla Walsh, has been a contributing writer with TeenVogue who encouraged her audience to read the memoirs of domestic terrorists like Assata Shakur. She has encouraged her partisans to rip down the posters of missing hostages.
These are just the incidents of violence and vandalism. I could not even begin to catalog all of the direct threats and calls for violence by pro-Palestine individuals here in the US and around the world. I recognize that there are competing allegations that pro-Israel demonstrators are effectively supporting violence by endorsing continuing the war in Gaza. However if you look at any one of the bullet points that I outlined most of those incidents are not covered under 1st Amendment protections or their home countries' equivalents. Also, it begs explanation how vandalizing synagogues, buildings and Jewish-owned shops actually helps alleviate the suffering of the people of Gaza.
An important question that I'm hoping you and anyone else who reads this asks themselves is: What is the endgame of the pro-Palestine activist movement, beyond just a ceasefire? They have already glorified acts of violence against civilians including women, children, and the elderly before Israel had even mounted a response to October 7. They are playing dumb and rationalizing the use of essential civilian infrastructure like Al-Shifa Hospital for covert military purposes with the consent and willful ignorance of on site media. They are occupying buildings and roadways on the erroneous premise that it will lead to a ceasefire in Gaza, when in reality that depends solely on the decisions of Israel and Gaza's rulers. Some of these actions are textbook examples of free speech, and others are exercises of civil disobedience, but those categories end when someone else's physical safety or property is threatened or harmed. In February, nine months before this round of violence, pro-Palestine activists picketed the AIPAC conference in Washington, DC. Their chants were "There is only one solution, Intifada. . . Revolution!" as well as "We don't want no two states, we want '48 (the whole territory of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza)." Or how about "Long live the Intifada!"? The notion that the pro-Palestine demonstrators are peace activists is ludicrous; it is an irredentist movement that endorses terroristic acts without setting limits. No one needs a translator to understand this, and I think it's legitimate to fear that in the future some will resort to committing violent attacks here and across the world in the name of Free Palestine, or perhaps against it. There are already those who host events that include unrepentant airplane hijacker Leila Khaled, who remains a senior official in the PFLP, the same organization that sent her to hijack two planes in 1969 and 1970. Is it so hard to imagine that admiration may give way to emulation?
I am hoping that the day approaches when we won't see wailing infants every day and stunned civilians picking through rubble in Gaza or in Sderot, and I hope you feel the same way. Every child is one of G-d's creations, I don't care if they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or have no religion at all. I'm not expecting to find common ground on everything with you, Mr. Greenwald, but that doesn't mean I'm not listening. If anything, my ears are more open than yours.
Respectfully yours,
Ray McCoy