Global North sees surge in violence against Palestinians, those expressing support for Palestinians

As Israel's war on Gaza rages on, killing 3,785 Palestinians and wounding over 12,493 more as per the latest data, so continues the alignment of Western governments and media behind the Israeli offensive.

The brunt of the West’s political and military support for Israel’s devastating offensive on Gaza — including the spread of rhetoric regurgitating without question the smear issued by the Israeli military, along with fear-mongering about Hamas and Palestinian civilians in the strip — is also being borne by Palestinians in the Global North, as well as people of Middle Eastern or North African descent, Muslims and anyone who supports Palestinian liberation.

Reports, just a few examples of which are detailed below, have shown a spike in racially motivated violence, crackdowns on protests, media bans, professional discrimination, harassment, intimidation and death threats, with alleged panic about anti-Semitism often deployed to defend the trend.

In the most disturbing example of racial violence unleashed, a landlord in Illinois, Joseph Czuba, broke into the apartment of a Palestinian-American Muslim family who were his tenants, killing six-year-old Wadea al-Fayoume and severely wounding his mother, Hanaan Shahin, after stabbing them with a military-style knife while screaming “you Muslims must die.” Czuba was arrested and charged with murder and hate crimes.

“Islamophobic rhetoric and anti-Palestinian racism being spread by politicians, media outlets and social media platforms must stop,” said the civil rights group Council on American–Islamic Relations in a statement following the incident. The group has monitored multiple cases of harassment, violence and genocidal calls toward Muslims and Arabs across the United States since the start of the war.

Sportspeople, meanwhile, have faced professional recrimination for speaking out about the situation. In the football world, three players of North African origin have been targeted by major French and German clubs over the past three days. France’s Nice suspended on Wednesday the Algerian Youcef Atal for reposting a video of a Palestinian preacher allegedly calling for violence against Jewish people, which he has deleted since, while Germany’s Mainz 05 suspended Dutch player Anwar El Ghazi on Monday for posting a pro-Palestinian Instagram story. Management at Bayern Munich, meanwhile, are waiting to have “a detailed personal conversation” with Moroccan player Noussair Mazraoui after he returns from duties with his national team over a similar story.

Egyptian swimmer Abdelrahman Sameh has been subject to hate messaging. Sameh clinched on Sunday the gold medal in the men’s 50m butterfly event at the 2023 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup in Greece. Speaking to the media after his win, Sameh told the audience he had received death threats for expressing solidarity with Palestine and that he and his family feared for his life. “Honestly, I don’t know if I should celebrate this or not. My brothers and sisters are being killed in Palestine right now.”

Soon after his comments, posters on social media accused World Aquatics of removing all photos of Sameh from its platforms. He is notably missing from the swimming federation’s Facebook photos documenting the World Cup Athens round, including photos of the medal winners.

Last week, Sameh posted a social media statement that he has since taken down, saying he has been unfairly accused of “promoting terrorism” for expressing support for the Palestinian cause.

In academia, Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad has become a target of harassment and death threats, as well as a public petition demanding his termination and accusing him of “condoning and supporting terrorism” after he wrote an op-ed for Electronic Intifada in which he analyzed Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Flood operation, the Israeli war on Gaza, and their wider effects. In response, hundreds of students and academics have signed a letter of support for Massad and condemnation for the petition and the threats made against him.

A top US law firm, Davis Polk, also rescinded job offers it had sent to three law students at Harvard and Columbia universities after tying them to statements critical of Israel. Without specifying the content of those statements, a company representative described them as being “in direct contravention of our firm’s value system.”

Harvard student organizations had signed a statement following the unprecedented Hamas operation launched on October 7 that situated the incident within the context of the Israeli occupation and held Israel responsible for the unfolding violence. Multiple responses on X from American CEOs openly vowed not to hire any of the signatories.

The complete refusal of pro-Palestinian sentiment comes amid a wave of pro-Israeli rhetoric in the US, where President Joe Biden came out in support of the total elimination of Hamas and pledged substantial military and financial support to Israel. Biden, and before him US State Secretary Antony Blinken, have visited Israel during the conflict in a show of support for its military onslaught on the besieged population of Gaza.

A similar dynamic reigns in the United Kingdom, where British Home Secretary Suella Braverman has instructed police chiefs across England and Wales to treat displays of the Palestinian flag and other pro-Palestinan symbols as a criminal offense, claiming that unrest in the Middle East has previously been used “as a pretext to stir up hatred against British Jews.”

Barverman said that waving pro-Palestinian or pro-Hamas symbols and chanting anti-Israel slogans could amount to public order offenses, according to Sky News, urging officers to use the “full force of the law.” Like the US, the UK has stood unconditionally behind Israel, with the blue and white of the Israeli flag projected onto the House of Parliament, UK military assets were also deployed to the eastern Mediterranean, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is currently on a two-day visit to Israel.

The sentiment has reverberated in the British press, with cartoonist Steve Bell sacked from the Guardian, where he has worked for 40 years, after publishing a cartoon lampooning a warning issued to Gaza’s residents by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Last week, the Israeli leader instructed Gazans to “leave now” from the enclave, which has been under blockade for nearly 16 years and whose residents have been deprived of water, food and power since the start of the Israeli offensive.

Bell, who said he based the cartoon on a 1960s cartoon about the Vietnam war, was fired from the British newspaper after a call from his editors suggesting the drawing contained an anti-Semitic reference.

Bell is not alone in losing work over commentary on the war. Egyptian researcher Patrick Zaki, who faced backlash and cancellations on his book tour in Italy for criticizing Netanyahu’s warning, spoke to Mada Masr of the wider targeting of Arabs and Palestinian rights advocates in Europe. “I may actually have it better than many others who were targeted through their visa applications or work or lost job interviews. I know two people who lost potential jobs in Italy because of this. Protesters were also arrested in France and beaten in Germany,” Zaki says.

French police broke up a pro-Palestinian rally on October 12 with tear gas and water cannons, while at least 24 were arrested after France issued a ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, claiming fear of a rise in anti-semitic attacks triggered by the war on Gaza.

Germany has also seen a wide crackdown on pro-Palestinian solidarity, which included banning Palestinian groups, canceling book events, and dispersing several pro-Palestinan rallies after a protest ban similar to the one in France. Footage on social media showed the German police beating and arresting protesters.

Violent reactions towards any possible pro-Palestinian sentiment are at their highest within Israeli society itself, where a mob sieged and attacked the house of Israeli journalist Israel Fry, calling him a “traitor” for speaking out against the war and the killing of civilians on both sides. Footage circulated on the internet shows the attackers shooting fireworks at Fry’s house, before he was escorted away by the police.