Before college, Fouad Abu-Hijleh, 25, didn’t know a world where it was wrong to support Palestinians.
Abu-Hijleh is a descendant of refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, when, after the creation of Israel, some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes by armed Jewish groups, in what Palestinians have since called an al- Nakba or “the catastrophe”.
His family eventually settled in neighboring Jordan, where he grew up with other Palestinian refugees.
But at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Abu-Hijleh found his name on an anonymously run website dedicated to blacklisting those he believes to be anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, for being quoted in an article by news — despite having requested that his name not be used.
A CNN does not name the site because it reveals the identities of students and other individuals without their consent.
He said he was constantly looking over his shoulder as he applied to medical school and has not visited the West Bank since, for fear of prolonged interrogations and trouble at the border.
He’s also not the only one to find his personal information detailed for the world to see: This week, a truck with posters drove near the Harvard University campus displaying the names and photographs of Harvard students whose organizations signed a statement blaming Israel alone. by Hamas’ deadly attacks.
A conservative nonprofit said it organized the truck with virtual billboards, names and images of students, with a banner that reads: “Harvard’s Top Anti-Semites.”
Palestinian human rights activists say doxxing is nothing new. They told the CNN who feared losing jobs and suffering psychological harm for advocating fair treatment of Palestinians under occupation – or simply for being Palestinian themselves.
Doxxing is the disclosure of personal information without a person’s consent, often with malicious intent, according to the International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media and Communication.
The site posted photos of Abu-Hijleh that he himself had not posted online, his professional history and even the name he uses on Facebook.
His page kept updating, as if someone was following his every move. It continues to be one of the first pages that comes up when you Google his name.
“It was a shock to read, especially for a private person,” Abu-Hijleh said. “Seeing so much written about me on a website so full of hate and misinformation was very disheartening.”
A CNN reached out to the site for comment.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a pressure cooker on college campuses. But tensions reached new levels after last week’s Hamas attacks, which killed more than 1,300 people in Israel.
Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have killed at least 1,900 people and trapped Palestinians, including Palestinian Americans, on the territory Israel has warned about 1.1 million people to evacuate to southern Gaza, although the UN has described the order as “impossible” .
“Doxxing and blacklisting have for years been a prominent tactic of Israel advocacy groups to suppress pro-Palestinian political expression and increase the risks of involvement in organizing and defending Palestine,” Dylan Saba, attorney at Palestine Legal, an organization that provides legal assistance to those who support Palestinian rights, he said.
“It’s extremely distressing for people,” Saba said. “People receive death threats, personal threats and face negative consequences in terms of employment.”
Lena Ghrama, a student at the City University of New York School of Law, had her photos and tweets published on the same site, although her social media has been private for years without a profile photo.
“They even posted an hour-long protest that I attended, and I don’t go to protests very often. But the one time I did it last year, they managed to find me,” Ghrama said.
Ghrama, who led Students for Justice in Palestine when he was a student, said anything remotely in support of Palestine has been documented, although “it’s nothing I’m not proud of and nothing I’m ashamed of.”
Ghrama, a Yemeni-American Muslim of Jewish lineage, grew up in a mixed Brooklyn community.
“We coexist with each other,” she said of her relationship with New York’s Jewish community. “This is a strictly humanitarian issue that I feel it is my responsibility to speak out about.”
Harvard Hillel, the university’s Jewish student organization, condemned the conservative nonprofit’s truck of billboards and attempts to intimidate signers. Harvard Executive Vice President Meredith Weenick said the school “does not tolerate or ignore threats or acts of harassment or violence.”
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance states that anti-Semitism can manifest itself as “an attack on the State of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collective.
However, criticism of Israel similar to that made against any other country cannot be considered anti-Semitic.” Activists argued that speaking out about Israeli policies should not be confused with anti-Semitism.
See also: Biden pushes to send support to Israel and Ukraine
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
