Statement of support for SFSU

December 13, 2013

President Leslie Wong
San Francisco State University

The American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a national education and advocacy organization whose mission is to educate the public about Palestine and its rich cultural and historical heritage, is writing to you today to express our extreme concern over the false and spurious accusations by an outside organization with a political agenda against student groups on your campus. The AMCHA Initiative and its founder Tammi Benjamin have amassed a long record of filing false charges of anti-Semitism against students and professors throughout California across the country in attempts to silence their discussions critical of Israeli policies. The organization and Benjamin are well known for conflating constitutionally protected political speech with hate speech. They are known to use these intimidating tactics in attempts to silence Arab and Muslims students and others who are stating political views different from their own.

It is important to note that all complaints filed by the AMCHA Initiative against several universities in California have been dismissed or ignored.

We are also concerned about your comments regarding the Nov. 7 sixth anniversary commemoration of the Palestine Cultural Mural and the late Professor Edward Said. We urge you not to be swayed by a politically motivated organization, whose actions have produced a chilling effect on free speech on campuses across the country. While we agree that students must be protected from racial and religious discrimination and bigotry on campus, we also assert that these rights extend as well to Arab and Muslim students. When a university allows itself to be influenced by an organization such as the AMCHA Initiative, it creates an atmosphere on campus where Arab and Muslim students feel silenced and unrepresented in campus life.

A campus environment is one where ideas must be allowed to be exchanged freely, no matter how uncomfortable some may find them. This is the rich and proud heritage of American university life. We must fight all attempts to weaken this environment to serve the political agenda of outside organizations.

AMP stands wholly and firmly with the members of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Initiative (AMED) and the General Union of Palestine Students (GUSP) and Professor Rabab Abdulhadi against these false attacks meant to silence them. Furthermore, we assert that the most recent charges against GUSP and one of its members is false and misrepresentative. In fact, the language you have called “incendiary” was not made by these groups at all but by indigenous groups at an event that took place earlier that month, referring to the historic genocide of indigenous people in the Americas. Benjamin took these comments out of context and misrepresented them for her own political aims. Her charges of anti-Semitism are outrageous and unacceptable. You may disagree with the sentiment, and we do not adopt the language in question, but in the spirit of Edward Said, the context is clearly about resisting occupation, not about anti-Semitism.

As a Muslim organization working to raise awareness about Palestine in the United States, we are often the target of smear campaigns by Benjamin and other organization such as the Anti-Defamation League and Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative. That’s why it is so important to us to convey to you the urgency of this matter. In order for our democracy to flourish and in order to help guide students to develop into meaningful contributors to American society we must stand by them in these formative years and not cave into pressure to silence them.

AMP encourages you and San Francisco State University to stand by these student groups and to protect them from the harassing and silencing campaigns by Benjamin and the AMCHA Initiative.

Sincerely,

Dr. Hatem Bazian
Chairman
American Muslims for Palestine
Senior Lecturer, UC Berkeley