Palestine and "Free Speech" Hypocrisy

There was no pretense around the idea of ‘free speech’ in a theocracy like Saudi Arabia, where I grew up. There simply wasn’t any freedom to speak your mind—and no one was trying to make you believe otherwise. 

Everything was censored: movies, music, cartoons, magazines, books. 

The ‘Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,’ colloquially known as the ‘morality police’ would prowl the city streets making sure no strands of hair were escaping from women’s headscarves, no extra-marital mingling of the sexes was occurring and no devil music was being sold in the stores.

It sounds like an over the top Orwellian caricature, but it was reality when I was growing up in the pre-smartphone era. The morality police have taken more of a backseat however, since Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud took control. MBS has made some significant changes to Saudi society, shifting from overtly theocratic oppression to a style more palatable to Western sensibilities and more in line with his pursuit of broader international influence. With superficial changes limiting the rigid Wahhabist impact on the cultural sphere, things once unheard of like concerts and movie theatres have become commonplace. 

But beneath these cosmetic transformations, core issues like freedom of speech and human rights remain as oppressive as before. Accusations of artwashing and sportswashing often levelled at The Kingdom seem to be well-deserved. But these laundering tactics appear to have worked on some, like far-right commentator Douglas Murray who in the midst of an anti-Palestinian ‘look how backwards these people are’ rant to Bari Weiss took the time to praise the pop concerts in Saudi Arabia and spoke of a ‘civilizational G-spot between Riyadh and Berkeley’. Douglas and Bari did not mention that Saudi Arabia broke beheading records that year.  

Spending my formative days in a place where models (on even something as mild as Ikea catalogues) had their arms blacked out and where song titles were sometimes redacted on the back of an album cover, has made me value freedom of speech a great deal. As a writer, podcaster, illustrator, and a non-believer of Muslim background I remind myself not to take these things for granted as I have regularly received threats for my work from conservatives around the world. I firmly believe the freedom to express ourselves is a vital part of a healthy democracy and a healthy international community. I thought these values were shared by many in the West, but the suppression of pro-Palestine speech and peaceful protest I’ve seen since October 7, 2023 has shattered any such illusion I might have had. The hypocrisy coming from the otherwise incredibly loud Free Speech Culture Warriors has been staggering. 

These are people who have framed a manufactured ‘campus wokeness’ problem as ‘The new Red Scare’ and ‘The New Puritans’, compared ‘cancel culture’ (criticism) to the mafia, witch burnings, and witch trials, and equated admittedly cringe ways of acknowledging racism to Maoist struggle sessions. 

Often the people speaking up most passionately and frequently about the ‘free speech injustices’ faced by transphobes and users of racial slurs—those who have framed throwing milkshakes and glitter at fascists as ‘mock assassinations’ are also quick to fantasize about police death squads or state clampdowns on Antifa. Others who have happily defended Elon’s Nazi salute or excused it not being what we can plainly see it is, spend much of their time policing the boundaries of acceptable discourse on whatever the right is offended by on any given day: diversity, equality, gender fluidity, white fragility, but especially Israel and Palestine. Figures like Bari Weiss have long been known for working to silence criticism of the Israeli government while simultaneously building lucrative careers as principled free speech advocates.

The non-left, for as long as I can remember, has failed to live up to its declared standards on free speech. Repeatedly, we see patterns of trivializing genuine overreach by the state and exaggerating threats from college kids. The right and so-called moderate center have framed trigger warnings, the deplatforming of far right speakers, peaceful protests, criticism of offensive Halloween costumes as urgent free speech crises. Meanwhile, they downplay the actual stifling of speech and expression through book bans, word bans, drag show bans, etc. Valuing free speech on the left has never meant freedom from reasonable consequences. Protests and boycotts are also a method of exercising one’s speech, criticism is not censorship; no one is owed a platform. It’s unfortunate this needs to be said at all. 

While the right has always held double standards on this issue, we have undoubtedly reached a new level of authoritarianism since Trump’s re-election. This should have awakened the hypocrites and the Western institutions who have built-in exceptions on Palestine. 

The response, or lack thereof, to the current climate of silencing, from those who argued that campuses were meant to be a space for encountering uncomfortable and challenging viewpoints has been shocking. Those who claimed that safe spaces were an oppressive obstacle are now at best non-vocal about and at worst supportive of legal residents being unlawfully detained for their speech and political views. The infamous Harper’s letter signatories who lamented an allegedly illiberal left hell-bent on stifling the ‘free exchange of information and ideas’ are drafting no such letter now nor speaking out with the same zeal about the excessive clampdowns on speech by the state. Their concern about “calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought” simply do not seem to apply in the present chaos. Steven Pinker tweeted an article doubling down on the anti-woke narrative which predictably minimizes the actions of the government, and frames state censorship as comparable to the imagined ‘campus wokeness’ problem,

We decry state censorship while ignoring a comparable threat to free expression on campuses: the crushing pressure inside many colleges and universities to conform with dominant political views. (Emphasis mine)

It’s important to remind ourselves what we’re actually talking about here, comparing the pressure to be less racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic to the state snatching people off the streets for their views. The article also says,

Colleges and universities are right to invoke academic freedom as an essential bulwark against government interference. But it is difficult not to greet this opportunistic defense of academic freedom cynically when it is voiced by those who have been indifferent or antagonistic to it when it has been cited by their political adversaries. Many of those who seek the protection of academic freedom today once denounced it as a tool of oppression. Likewise, few sounded this alarm when universities canceled conservative speakers.

Canceling conservative speakers from an event where many students reject or oppose them is not remotely in the same realm as what is being done to students who dared to speak out on Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Independent human rights organization Euro-Med Monitor has said that Israel’s brutality in Gaza surpasses all recent forms of terrorism. In a statement put out on April 3, 2025, the non-profit warned that Israel’s actions,

… embody the conduct of existing terrorist organizations, even surpassing them in brutality and disregard for human life, and bear no resemblance to the conduct of a state bound by international law.

Doctoral students on valid visas, green card holders, scholars invited by the US government are being taken in broad daylight for opposing such conduct. And those who objected to minor inconveniences like trigger warnings are now busy crafting face-saving narratives—insisting they did not miss the mark entirely, by putting social justice in their crosshairs. 

Turkish PhD student from Tufts university, Rumeysa Ozturk had her visa revoked without notice. She was detained by masked immigration agents in plain clothes who did not clearly identify themselves and put her in an unmarked van. This would feel like an abduction to anyone. The recorder of the video clip that made this case famous audibly questioned whether he was witnessing a kidnapping.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley recently posted an update about Ozturk, stating that she had suffered three separate asthma attacks while in custody. 

She has not received her required asthma medications—a violation of her fundamental right to medical care.

This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is a damning moral and legal failure.

Another update about Ozturk states that she has had the unpleasant experience of a facility nurse removing her hijab without her consent. She’s also had another asthma attack, which continues to go untreated. On April 14, the Washington Post reported that even before Ozturk was detained, “… the State Department determined that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities,” and “The finding said Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not have sufficient grounds for revoking Ozturk’s visa …

I can’t imagine what the anti-woke warriors in academia would say if this was the fate of one of their canceled conservative speakers under the Democrats. 

Ozturk’s case is one of many in a flood of detainments of students linked to pro-Palestine speech or activism. She was accused of supporting Hamas or Hamas-aligned activities, just like Mahmoud Khalil. No proof was provided; in fact the administration even acknowledged in some cases that they have broken no law or that a person has been marked for deportation not because of anything based in fact, but because of expected beliefs. They are making no attempts to conceal the fact that this is persecution for assumed political beliefs—the belief that the US-backed Israeli genocide must stop, to be precise. They are hunting students who are here legally for thoughtcrimes and pre-thoughtcrimes, any principled free speech advocate should be appalled. 

For all their talk of doing this in the service of combating antisemitism, Trump and Rubio used an obscure law which targeted Jews in the past, to try and deport Mahmoud Khalil. Politico explains,

The McCarran-Walter Act was designed primarily to detain, deport and otherwise bar entry visas to communists. But while it did not mention Jews specifically, its practical function barred the immigration of many European Jews from entering the United States. Its author, Pat McCarran, a conservative Democrat from Nevada, was a dogged antisemite who likely intended the legislation to keep the United States safe not just from communists, but from Jews.

The use of such laws should alarm everyone who cares about actual antisemitism. Despite there being no proof of or even allegations of illegal activity, on April 11, 2025 a Louisiana immigration judge ruled that Khalil can be deported. Khalil’s wife Noor Abdalla, said in a statement, “My husband is a political prisoner who is being deprived of his rights because he believes Palestinians deserve equal dignity and freedom …”

Another highly concerning aspect of these unjust detainments is that pro-Israel groups like Betar have also been collaborating with ICE and sending deportation lists of pro-Palestine students they want removed, dangerously smearing protesters as ‘Hamas sympathizers’ and ‘jihadis.’ They have also begun demanding that naturalized citizens of Middle Eastern descent have their citizenship revoked over support for Palestine and claim they have engaged with the State Department on this matter, providing information on specific people. The group also proudly supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and has openly called for more blood, specifically in response to a list of Palestinian babies killed by Israel before they reached their first birthday. Until recently Betar US was led by Ross Glick, who has faced revenge porn related charges (but denies this). They don’t limit their targets to non-Jewish people though. On April 3, 2025 Betar put out a statement saying, 

We confirm that from Israel we have submitted a list of names of Diaspora Jews who we recommend be banned from Israel to numerous Israeli government leaders. 

Any nation must keep enemies away from their country particularly during a time of war …

Khalil and Ozturk’s cases are egregious enough to have sparked a public outcry, but the calls for violence and harassment from pro-Israel groups like Betar US and Canary Mission go mostly unrecognized. Canary Mission is known for compiling doxxing lists of Pro-Palestine Students, which is what appears to have put Ozturk on the Trump administration’s radar. Coincidentally, there are even high-level DHS memos which use identical language to the Canary Mission profile on Ozturk.

Another such group, also known for doxxing pro-Palestine students and maintaining an ‘antisemite of the week’ feature on its website has taken things to a level of absurdity we would expect to see in The Onion. They have targeted beloved children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel, claiming she is “being remunerated to disseminate Hamas-aligned propaganda to her millions of followers” providing no evidence other than her posts showing concern for the malnourished children of Gaza. The organization has formally requested that the Department of Justice investigate this matter. Working in tandem with the Trump administration’s agenda such groups continue to intimidate and threaten even high profile public figures like Ms. Rachel, and worse still, they help deport or detain vulnerable students for their speech. 

Despite bold claims, the administration has been unable to show any ties to Hamas or vandalism by Khalil or by Ozturk. In Ozturk’s case, her co-authoring an exceptionally mild op-ed (highlighted in Canary Mission’s profile on her) for the school paper might be the real reason she was detained without warning or due process. Nothing related to Hamas was mentioned in the piece. The writers were just asking for their university to acknowledge the genocide of Palestinians and divest from companies with ties to Israel. 

Behind much of this cruelty and chaos is US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who himself has spent years fearmongering about ‘cancel culture’ and a supposed lack of free speech. But since he gained power over such affairs, he has been personally responsible for unprecedented crackdowns on student speech. He has referred to students who were critical of Israel’s actions as ‘lunatics,’ saying they have revoked up to 300 visas, at a recent press conference. 

It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.

It’s important to keep in mind that when Rubio says ‘take away their visas,’ he means on a whim, with no warning, no due process, no charges, no proof provided that these students are aligned with Hamas. It could be as minor as attending a protest or writing an op-ed or even less in some cases. Even proximity to a protest objecting to Israel’s mass violence is enough.

Breakthrough News put out a clip on Twitter of Rubio in 2022 saying, 

Every single person in this room and the overwhelming majority of people that you know are one word away, it doesn’t matter if you are 13 years old when you said it, you’re one word, you’re one statement, one retweet, you’re one ‘like’ away from destroying your life. There are kids in America that have had their admissions to a college revoked, there are now certain things you are not allowed to say on a college campus.

This clip was placed alongside another, more recent clip from 2025, of a journalist asking Rubio about the detainment of Rumeysa Ozturk, asking whether it was linked to her writing the opinion piece about Gaza. The journalist requested that Rubio help people understand what she did precisely, what specific action led to her visa being revoked, to which he casually replied; 

Oh we revoked her visa, we gave you a visa to come and study, not to become a social activist.

They are not hiding the fact that their free speech concerns were just about their own speech. These freedoms they spoke of did not extend to anyone else, least of all their ideological opponents. Sadly, in pro-Palestine students we have a group that even Democrats are unwilling to loudly fight for given their own track record on trying to silence pro-Palestine students and protests. They laid the groundwork for where we are now. The situation has escalated at such an alarming pace, an expert in the Guardian stated that this has gone beyond all measures we’ve seen before: 

Ramya Krishnan, of the Knight First Amendment Institute, a non-profit legal organization at Columbia University, and lead attorney on one of the cases against Trump’s efforts to deport protesters, compared the current scenario with the McCarthyite anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s.

Even then, “you did not see the government rounding up students and faculty for engaging in political protest”, she said. “I really think this is unprecedented."

Bari Weiss, whom I have already mentioned, is perhaps one of the most widely mocked of these selective Free Speech Warriors. She runs the ironically named The Free Press and hosts a podcast called Honestly, which is full of disinformation. There is a recent episode that frames Mahmoud Khalil as ‘abhorrent’ and claims “he enjoyed the US educational system while advocating for America’s destruction and for a group (Hamas) that seeks the genocide of the Jewish people.” Again, there is no evidence for any of this; in fact there are many Jewish people speaking out about and protesting Khalil’s arrest. 

At the time of writing, Weiss has tweeted once about green card holder Khalil’s outrageous case of being ripped away from his pregnant wife, just for his views. And that single tweet was not a denunciation of this authoritarian government kidnapping, but a link to an article that claims … it’s complicated ok? The law is not clear. Obfuscation is the best Weiss can muster at this time. 

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to the far-right, Weiss suddenly becomes very principled and charitable. She not only enthusiastically defended Elon Musk’s and Steve Bannon’s Nazi salute, calling it an “arm gesture that people are making a fuss about”, but also paid a known racist to write about it in her publication. The very same Bari Weiss happens to find antisemitism everywhere on the left, especially when it comes to criticizing Israel. She is a textbook case of extremely selective concern about antisemitism. But there are many such cases including the president himself, who has dined with outspoken Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. This is the president currently using concerns about antisemitism to strip people of their freedoms, limit speech and ultimately place the blame on Jews for the destruction he is causing. Bannon has also singled out non-MAGA, anti-Zionist American Jews as the number one enemy of Israel. 

On April 8, The Intercept reported that, “Trump appears to be targeting Muslim, non-white students for deportation.” On April 9, NPR stated, “US says it is now monitoring immigrants’ social media for antisemitism.” Around the same time as these alarming reports, both the White House Press Secretary and Trump himself confirmed that they are also looking into sending US citizens to El Salvador. These are extreme escalations, things that happen in authoritarian dictatorships, but now they are present everywhere you look in the US. This is all trending in a very disturbing direction, and it will spill over to the rest of the world. 

Germany already seems to have taken a page out of Trump’s book and is also deporting pro-Palestine EU citizens. Recently, Human Rights Watch has warned of a leaked paper showing that,

Germany’s conservative political parties want to add a clause to Germany’s Nationality Law to allow the country to revoke German nationality from dual nationals if they are deemed ‘supporters of terrorism, antisemites and extremists.’

We’ve already seen how these vague charges of antisemitism, terrorism and extremism have been weaponized to include anyone opposing Israel’s attempted extermination, yet there is no proportionate outrage in response. Certain people who have made free speech their whole identity are nowhere to be found.

While Trump continues on his anti-diversity crusade in the US, Australia’s opposition leader Peter Dutton has also warned schools and universities with ‘woke’ curriculums that there could be crackdowns, as their federal election draws near. This fascist hysteria can soon become a global issue if we don’t recognize it for what it is. 

Right now, it’s DEI offices and Middle East Studies departments that are being targeted in the US, and the most vulnerable groups that are being detained and shipped off to far away prisons. They are first, the non-residents, the black and brown people, the Muslims. But there are already undercurrents of threats to Jewish Americans, and threats to US citizens in general, threats to people around the world—yet the silence of the Free Speech Warriors, those enraged by ‘woke M&Ms’ has never been so deafening.