THE ABSURD TIMES
[Ed. Note: before this discussion, let's dispense with the notion of TREASON. Courts have decided that "enemy" as used in the definition applies only to entities mention in a declaration of war. The last such declaration was in 1942 against Japan.]
First Amendment
By
Czar Donic
We should be glad to have it and it supersedes any other laws to the contrary. I know of British writers, for example, who publish here rather than even in England to avoid foolish litigation.
The United States brought on the overthrow of India by Ghandi. It brought on upon itself the civil rights marches by Martin Luther King. And now it is bringing on upon itself further action, at the urging of Zionist forces here. Let me explain.
Recently, our President stated that the border wall with Mexico was necessary for our sovereignty as a nation. That wall would cost 30 to 40 billion dollars and have no effect. However, our yearly aid to Israel is far more than that. How could we spend so much money on a foreign government and not on our own country? We must end aid to Israel for that year and deflect the money to construction of the wall – otherwise, we would have no country and thus be unable to support any other country. That is, if we swallow the bile fed to us by this administration and the individual states.
This sounds strange, but it was the war against Mexico that brought about Henry David Thoreau's essay ON CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. The one key statement he made in that brilliant and inspiring essay was that at the very least one can stop supporting an oppressive action. Irish soldiers in President Polk's army saw such oppression at that time that they joined the Mexican army. Thoreau refused to pay his pole tax and was eventually put into the town jail. The tax was paid for him and he went on with his original mission of leading citizens in a hunt for huckleberries. He also wrote that essay that inspired the later leaders of such movements in later times, either directly or indirectly.
Right now, 26 States have adopted laws against the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement which is designed to call attention to the vicious and cruel Zionist policies of the current occupation force between the Jordan River and the Sea, currently called Israel. The very least activity one can make is not to knowingly buy any product that is produced in that "country", such as it is. But now, even that small effort is being made illegal in those states. The following interviews explain it and also give more detail as to what is happening. Later, we will again post a copy of Thoreau's original essay in its entirety – it may be awhile, but after all, it was written in the mid-nineteenth century. Surely, it is time for us to at least advance to that level of responsibility by now.
Perhaps we need to go back to the eighteenth century and the Bill of Rights – in this case, the First Amendment. Individual states are now adopting laws that are in clear violation of that amendment At any rate, enough of me. Here is more detail:
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"A Palestinian-American speech pathologist in Austin, Texas, has filed a federal lawsuit for losing her job after refusing to sign a pro-Israel oath. Bahia Amawi is an Arabic-speaking child language specialist who had worked for nine years in the Pflugerville Independent School District. But she lost her job last year after she declined to sign a pledge that she would "not boycott Israel during the term of the contract" and that she would not take any action that is "intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel." We speak with Bahia Amawi and Gadeir Abbas, senior litigation attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He is representing Amawi in her lawsuit against the Pflugerville Independent School District and the state of Texas.
Twenty-six states have laws preventing state agencies from contracting with companies or individuals aligned with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. BDS is an international campaign to pressure Israel to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights. However, its opponents say BDS is a thinly disguised anti-Semitic attempt to debilitate or even destroy Israel. We speak with Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one of the founding editors of The Intercept. His latest piece is headlined "A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States—So She Lost Her Job."
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, one of the founding editors of The Intercept, his latest piece headlined "A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States—So She Lost Her Job."
Glenn, why don't you talk about, you know, exposing this story nationally? But we're talking about the law in Texas. In fact, more than half the states in the United States have a contract like she was being forced to sign, if she wanted to keep her job as a speech pathologist.
GLENN GREENWALD: So, there are 26 states in the U.S. that have some version of this Texas law. They're not all as severe as the one in Texas, though many of them are. Others have various kinds of restrictions on people who boycott Israel, prohibiting the expenditure of any funds to invest in companies, for example, or in pension funds, that have companies that invest—that advocate a boycott of Israel. They all have one thing in common, which is that they impose limitations on the opportunities and abilities of private citizens or private companies that support or participate in the boycott of Israel.
I think the most extreme example, Amy, that actually stuns me the most, is Andrew Cuomo in New York, who in 2016 issued an executive order, because he couldn't get it passed through the Legislature, barring New York state agencies from doing business with companies that boycott Israel. And he actually ordered them to compile a public list, that would be published on a website, of any companies that were found to be boycotting Israel—yes, I can.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Glenn, if you could talk further about: How public do you have to be to be in violation of the law? If you say to a friend you're not going to buy a product from Israel because you don't want to support the occupation by the Israeli state of the Occupied Territories? Do you have to be a card-carrying member, if they have cards of BDS, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement? What would lead you—how would a law like Texas's—when would they say you have violated the law?
GLENN GREENWALD: So, I'm not sure if you were able to hear that last answer, the end of it. I was talking about the law—
AMY GOODMAN: We heard you.
GLENN GREENWALD: —imposed, yeah, by Andrew Cuomo in New York, where he ordered the agencies to use public information to compile a list of companies who said they were boycotting.
In the case of Texas, they're really just relying on the word of the contractor. So, Bahia or others could just lie and say, "I promise not to boycott Israel," even though they really are. Presumably, you could get someone fired if you find out that they really are supporting the boycott of Israel.
And the point I was making about New York and other states is that, at the same time that, for example, Governor Cuomo ordered a boycott—or, barred a boycott of Israel, two months earlier, he ordered his state employees to boycott North Carolina in protest of an anti-LGBT law that that state had adopted. So, in Andrew Cuomo's worldview and the worldview of Texas, you're allowed to boycott other American states and harm American businesses and be employed; you're just not allowed to harm or boycott this one foreign country, Israel. You can boycott Canada or Russia or anybody else. It's just special protection for Israel, that not even American businesses enjoy. That's what makes it so shocking.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Glenn, this prospect of, the possibility of an omnibus budget bill being passed with a similar legislation at the national level, could you talk about that and how little attention it's gotten?
GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah. So, last year, a Democratic senator from Maryland, Benjamin Cardin, who's one of the most loyal AIPACsupporters, introduced a bill that would actually make it a crime, a felony, to participate in an international boycott of Israel. And it attracted 43 co-sponsors—29 Republicans, 14 Democrats. And the ACLUscreamed and yelled about this. They issued warnings saying this is one of the gravest threats to free speech they had ever seen. A bunch of Democratic senators who had co-sponsored it, like Kirsten Gillibrand and other, withdrew their support.
But now Cardin is back with a somewhat watered-down version, but still very threatening, that's designed to uphold the state laws and also to allow financial penalties on the federal level for anyone participating in a boycott. He's trying to sneak it through a bill that has to be passed, the lame-duck budget bill, so there's no separate vote on this. He would just sneak it in there. And the ACLU is trying to do everything they can to warn people of the grave threat posed by Senator Cardin and his allies to make it a federal crime to participate in the boycott of Israel.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, the very act of getting all of this legislation passed to prevent people from participating in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement seems to indicate that there is a growing fear that the movement is having an impact.
GLENN GREENWALD: Of course. It is having an impact. In fact, we now have two members of Congress, newly elected members of Congress, who are the first Muslim women to be elected to the Congress. They're celebrated stars of the Democratic Party. And they both explicitly support the boycott of Israel. So, you have some members of the Democratic Party, like Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, who say that boycotting Israel is anti-Semitic. But now you have this new generation of Democrats who are much more critical of Israel, including two who support the boycott. It's spread on U.S. campuses. It's spreading throughout Western Europe. There are Jewish groups who are so offended by the occupation that they now support the boycott of Israel.
So you're absolutely right, Juan. The reason why there's a worldwide effort to criminalize and suppress and punish it is precisely because they worry that the same thing will happen to Israel as what happened to the apartheid regime in the 1980s in South Africa when they were targeted with an identical boycott, which is the regime and the repression finally fell. And that's what they're most concerned about.
AMY GOODMAN: Glenn, I wanted to read the beginning of a piece just out by University Michigan professor Juan Cole. He writes—and he's writing about Airbnb. He says, "The living space-sharing company Airbnb on Monday denied an allegation by the Israeli tourism minister that it had suspended its delisting of apartments in Israeli squatter settlements (which are Jewish-only) in the Palestinian West Bank. Airbnb has to boycott the Israeli squatter settlements because they are illegal. The European Union has for some time imposed some sorts of boycott on settlement institutions, and requires the labeling of settler goods, and a full economic boycott is under consideration in countries like Ireland."
He goes on to say, "The argument sometimes heard is that Airbnb is treating the squatters differently than it does other disputed territories. It is a stupid argument and quite dishonest," writes Professor Cole. "There aren't any other countries that are keeping 5 million people stateless and without citizenship in a state, and gradually usurping all their rights and property."
Can you talk about this? For example, Airbnb?
GLENN GREENWALD: The Airbnb case is really interesting, because they didn't say they were going to delist all apartments or properties in Israel proper; they said only in the occupied territory of the West Bank, which the U.N., at the end of 2016, ruled was an illegal occupation. And one of the interesting things about the Texas law that makes it so offensive is it not only bars people from boycotting companies in Israel, but also Israeli companies in the West Bank. You're not even allowed to do the milder, more mainstream version of the boycott aimed just at the illegal settlements in the West Bank that even the U.N. said was illegal.
And now there's a dispute: Has Airbnb really caved in to the pressure and reversed their policy? Israel says they have; Airbnb is denying it. But that's where these laws that we've been just talking about come into play and are so pernicious. Imagine if you're an Airbnb executive. You could stand to lose a lot of state business, because there's so many laws now in so many states—and it might be national—barring governments from entering into contracts with you as a company if you in any way boycott Israel. And this is the coordination that they're trying to impose to prevent this kind of boycott from succeeding.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break and then ask you to stay with us, Glenn. But we're going to be joined by Marc Lamont Hill. Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, one of the founding editors of The Intercept. We'll link to his piece, "A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States—So She Lost Her Job." This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
Less than a month after CNN fired Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill for giving a speech at the United Nations supporting Palestinian rights, we speak with him about the international attention his comments have received, academic freedom and why he feels it's more important than ever to speak out about Israeli human rights abuses. Marc Lamont Hill is a professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University. He is the author of several books, including "Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond." We also speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, whose recent piece is titled "CNN Submits to Right-Wing Outrage Mob, Fires Marc Lamont Hill Due to His 'Offensive' Defense of Palestinians at the U.N."
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to look at the ongoing controversy surrounding CNN contributor and Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill, nearly a month after CNN fired him for giving a speech at the United Nations supporting Palestinian rights.
MARC LAMONT HILL: So, as we stand here on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the tragic commemoration of the Nakba, we have an opportunity to not just offer solidarity in words, but to commit to political action, grassroots action, local action and international action, that will give us what justice requires—and that is a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. Thank you for your time.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Marc Lamont Hill speaking at the U.N. on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in November. Just one day later, CNN dropped him as a commentator, after conservatives and pro-Israel groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League, condemned his comments, calling them anti-Semitic. Temple University's Board of Trustees also criticized Lamont Hill's remarks, but the university has said his speech was protected by the First Amendment and that he will remain a professor.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we are joined now by Marc Lamont Hill, professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University in Philadelphia, the author of several books, including Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond.
Marc, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about what you said at the United Nations at this annual event and the fallout from it, your firing by CNN?
MARC LAMONT HILL: Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here. And I encourage everyone to watch the full remarks. I think in a moment of sound bites and 140 or 80 characters, sometimes we can get reduced to small snippets and not get context and texture.
I gave a speech at the U.N., and I was attempting to offer a framework of human rights and to use that as a lens through which to make sense of, to analyze what was going on in the state of Israel, what was going on in the West Bank, what is going on throughout the diaspora, and to make an appeal for the plight of Palestinians, which was the theme of the day. Throughout the speech, again, I juxtaposed particular human rights issues or particular promises from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 to the realities of Palestinians on the ground. And at the end of that speech, I also called for a free Palestine, and I used the phrase "from the river to the sea." In terms of calling for a free Palestine from the river to the sea, I was specifically calling or speaking to my belief that a one-state solution is the most fair, just and workable possibility right now. Throughout the speech, I talked about the need for redrawing the border, the pre-'67 borders. I talked about full citizenship rights and full equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, what Israelis will call Arab citizens of Israel. And I called for other kind of international measures, as well, to respond to injustice.
At no point in the speech did I call for the destruction of Israel. At no point in the speech did I call for violence against Jewish brothers and sisters, both in Israel or around the world. That was not my content. That was not my intent. That was not the spirit of the speech. And I think, in fact, the spirit of the speech contradicts what people say that I was saying. Of course, I never want to do harm. I never want to create any sense of pain or fear or anxiety among anyone, but particularly the people I was talking about, and I mean specifically citizens of Israel or Jews throughout the diaspora. Everyone deserves to live with safety, security, self-determination and peace. Jews are no exception to that. And so, I certainly didn't mean that in the speech, but I did call for a free Palestine. And a one-state solution, for me, is the way to do that. Many people responded, however, and were frustrated by that or said that I was somehow secretly dog-whistling for violence. I found that a bit hard to believe. But again, part of why I'm here is to talk through that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Marc, the immediate response of CNN to your remarks, could you talk about their interaction with you? Also, there's a long history of solidarity between African-American human rights advocates here and the Palestinian movement, so this should—the fact that you were expressing this kind of solidarity should come as no surprise, even to the people who employed you at CNN.
MARC LAMONT HILL: Yeah. My conversation with CNN was relatively brief. I received a phone call, and I was told that the speech didn't match their values. I pressed a bit to find out what those values were or what part of the speech didn't match said values. I didn't get a clear answer. I didn't get an answer at all, just the repeated refrain, "This doesn't match our values," at which point we concluded the call. There wasn't like a long, drawn-out argument. There was no antagonistic anything. They made a decision, and I moved on.
But, yes, there is absolutely a long tradition of black support for Palestinians. There's a long support of black internationalism. And if we're going to be honest, there has been a long and deep support of African Americans and blacks throughout the diaspora for the state of Israel. So, we can't ignore that history, either. But it's a long and complicated story. But I think, in the last 51 years, I would say, since the Six-Day War, we've seen the black left, for sure, engage in a kind of internationalism that looks for solidarity not just in Palestine, but with movements in Africa, movements in Latin America, in attempt to really shore up a base and a community of freedom fighters that understand that inequality and injustice is not local, but it's a transnational experience, and in order to redress any problems we have, we have to look internationally. That's what Malcolm X was attempting to do. That's what Martin King was doing toward the end of his life. That's what the Black Panthers were doing. And when we look at current movements, like Black Lives Matter, one of the first things that I found impressive about the Black Lives Matter movement was the fact that they were looking internationally.
AMY GOODMAN: While the president of Temple University has defended your right to free speech, the school's Board of Trustees has condemned your remarks. They said, quote, "That speech included a statement that many regard as promoting violence, the phrase 'from the river to the sea,' which has been used by anti-Israel terror groups and widely perceived as language that threatens the existence of the State of Israel. The members of the Board of Trustees of Temple University … hereby state their disappointment, displeasure, and disagreement with Professor Hill's comments." That, the statement from Temple. Professor Marc Lamont Hill, if you could respond? And talk about what happened, after you were fired from CNN, at Temple, what they said.
MARC LAMONT HILL: Well, I think the statements from Temple have been fairly public, and they've been sort of litigated in the press a great deal.
From my perspective, academic freedom means that we have the right to engage in public discourse, the right to engage certainly in academic discourse, about issues that are of great importance, both long-term and short-term, both historical issues and current issues, both domestic issues and foreign issues, both popular issues and unpopular issues, and popular ideas and unpopular ideas. And so, I imagine Temple University, or any university in the United States, as a space for academics to trade in ideas, and sometimes they're unpopular or controversial ideas. And I think that any attempt to intimidate or threaten or undermine academic freedom can set us on a very dangerous course. And that concerns me, not for me personally, and this isn't specifically about Temple University, but the broader academic climate that we see. The fact that it happened at Temple University was alarming to me, but ultimately they made a decision not to give me any penalty or any punishment, which I think was the right choice.
But I think a statement of condemnation—I respectfully disagree with the board, but the board has its right to do what it wants to do. I simply disagree with it. I think that, also, to send a message apologizing, or, rather, condemning my particular remarks, without condemning any other remarks that have been made by any other university professor at the school, including some folk very close to home who have also made controversial remarks, I think, also sets a very specific precedent. So, again, I respectfully disagree with the university. The board, as private citizens, have their right to respond to my statements and to analyze or critique my statements. And I have a right to offer mine. And I'm just going to move forward and attempt to do careful, principled and disciplined work, as I've tried to do my entire career.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Marc, in your speech, you also raise criticisms of progressives in the United States for their failure to speak out at times on the issues of Israel and Palestine. Could you talk about that, as well?
MARC LAMONT HILL: Yeah. This idea of being progressive except for Palestine is something that can be problematic. I think that if we worry about injustice, we have to be concerned with injustice across the board. Doesn't mean that everybody has to target Palestine as the issue. There are many issues on the board that we have to take seriously. But if you have a position on Palestine, if you have a position on what we call the conflict, then I think to be silent on that issue—or if your position on Israel-Palestine stands in such sharp contrast to all your other ideological positions, I think that's where we get a very, very—we enter a very problematic space.
If I'm interested—if I'm outraged by gentrification, if I'm outraged by the separation of families, if I'm outraged by redlining, if I'm outraged by all of these kind of domestic issues, or even American border issues, then I can't—I have to be able to take that same outrage to every part of the world. And again, it doesn't mean that we only focus on Israel, of course. I have spent a great deal of my time, particularly when I was at Huffington Post, looking at Syria, looking at Yemen more recently. I have written considerably about Saudi Arabia, because I am deeply concerned. Egypt is complicit in Palestinian suffering, as well. So, I have to look across the board, but Israel can't be an exception. Palestine can't be an exception.
And too often in the progressive movement we have folk like Hillary Clinton who will emerge and paint themselves as a progressive figure, but resist any—forgive my earpiece falling—but will resist any criticism of the Israeli state. And I think that that becomes dangerous. We have to be consistent. We have to be morally and ethically consistent.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to the comment of Jewish Voice for Peace, who criticized CNN for firing you, Professor Lamont Hill. Jewish Voice for Peace said in a statement, "Who gets to talk about Israel/Palestine? Apparently Rick Santorum? A man who egregiously claimed that there are 'no Palestinians in the West Bank.' That's ludicrous. By firing Dr. Hill, we believe CNN is discriminating against a commentator who spoke up for Palestinian rights. They should make it right and reinstate him." Before we go back to you, Professor Hill, I wanted to bring Glenn Greenwald, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, back into this conversation. Glenn, you wrote about Marc's firing, saying CNN submitted to right-wing outrage mob. Respond.
GLENN GREENWALD: One of the things I found most appalling and disturbing about Marc's firing, aside from the fact that it was just a blatant act of censorship by a news outlet that's supposed to allow an airing of a wide range of views, is that so many of the right-wing pundits and news outlets, like Fox News, that love to pretend to be defenders of free speech and throw a 3-week-long fit if a sophomore at Oberlin boos a professor that they like, said nothing about Marc's firing, just like they refuse to cover the story you covered in the first part of your show about this Israel oath resulting in people's firing. That's very disappointing that so few, not just right-wing pundits, but also even centrist and mainstream Democrats, were willing to speak up on Marc's behalf, because of what he said, that there's so much fear about the Israel issue when it comes to mainstream liberalism.
AMY GOODMAN: Marc Lamont Hill, you have the last word here. If you can talk about what your plans are right now? And are there any behind-the-scenes negotiations going on right now with CNN, the possibility of you coming back?
MARC LAMONT HILL: I haven't been in any conversations with CNN. My plans right now are to continue to do the work that I've been doing, which is activism, which is writing and which is scholarship. I'm open to possibilities, but the key for me is to have a space where we can have a rigorous, honest, principled and humane discussion about everything that's on the table, with Israel-Palestine being no exception.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Marc Lamont Hill, we want to thank you very much for being with us, professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University in Philadelphia, and Glenn Greenwald, speaking to us from Brazil, co-founder of The Intercept.
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Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A Palestinian-American teacher in Austin, Texas, has filed a federal lawsuit for losing her job as a speech pathologist after refusing to sign a pro-Israel oath. Bahia Amawi is an Arabic-speaking child language specialist who had worked for nine years in the Pflugerville Independent School District. But she lost her job last year after she declined to sign a pledge that she, quote, "will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract," unquote, and that she will not take any action that is, quote, "intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel."
AMY GOODMAN: Before filing the lawsuit Monday, Bahia Amawi spoke to The Intercept about what happened to her.
BAHIA AMAWI: The point of boycotting any product that supports Israel is to put pressure on the Israeli government to change its treatment, the inhumane treatment, of the Palestinian people. Having grown up as a Palestinian, I know firsthand the oppression and the struggle that Palestinians face on a daily basis.
You know, I have to set an example for my kids. We've got to stand up for what's the justice and for rights and equal opportunity for everybody and humane conditions. And so, for me, it was an easy decision in that aspect. You know, so I could not sign it. I was forced to depart from my job because I will not sign it, and I cannot return back if I don't sign it.
I have been here in the States for over 30 years. I'm an American citizen. I follow the law. And so, I have the luxury of having these rights, which many people in other countries do not have. It infringed on all my principles and, on top of that, my right to speech and also right to protest. It's baffling that they can throw this down our throats, you know, and decide to protect another country's economy versus protect our constitutional rights.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Last year, Texas became one of 26 states with laws preventing state agencies from contracting with companies or individuals aligned with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. BDS is an international campaign to pressure Israel to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights. However, its opponents say BDS is a thinly disguised anti-Semitic attempt to debilitate or even destroy Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now! reached out to the Pflugerville Independent School District in Texas, which responded with a statement saying it had, quote, "followed state law, which does not allow school districts to hire a contractor unless the contract contains a written verification that the contractor does not boycott Israel and will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract. The plaintiff did not agree to the contract as written; therefore, it was unable to be executed in accordance with Texas law, " unquote.
Well, for more, we go to Austin, Texas, where we're joined by Bahia Amawi. In Chicago, her attorney, Gadeir Abbas, is with us, a senior litigation attorney with CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let's begin with Bahia. Explain exactly what happened and how you noticed what was in this contract. I mean, you've been teaching in this school district—this is a public school, is that right?—for how long?
BAHIA AMAWI: Yes, this is a public school, and I have been contracting with them for around nine years. And every year I get a contract that's exactly a duplicate of the year before. And this year I got it, as well, the contract, at the initial start of my month, which is August, when school begins. And so I signed the initial contract. It was exactly the same as I sign every year.
But then, later on, a few weeks later, my speech coordinator contacted me and said, "Well, Bahia, we have additional papers this year. This is brand new. And we need people to sign it." So, when I received the papers, I looked through it. It was about maybe a stack of four sheets of paper with a bunch of new compliances and new codes. They appeared to be normal, job-related issues, like background history, criminal history, you know, equal opportunity employment, until I came across the one that has nothing to do with my job, which is Code 2270.001 of the Texas Government Code. And that one, I was reading it, and it states that currently—the contractor must affirm that it currently does not or will not boycott Israel, and basically, in short, causing any economic harm. So, that's when I noticed it.
And right away I sent an email immediately, and I stopped even reading the additional codes. And I sent the email to my speech coordinator telling her, "Listen, I cannot sign this. This is against my principles, against my constitutional rights. And it's also against my moral and ethical values, considering that I am a Palestinian American and I have family that actually live in the Occupied Territories, so it affects me personally, as well." So, it affects me in both ways—as an American citizen and as a Palestinian American, too.
She was kind enough. We have a really good relationship with her. And I've known—like I said, I've known everybody for nine years, so I have a really good relationship with everybody at the school district. And she tried to—"Let me see if I can go around it." After two weeks, she returned back to me and apologized and said, "I'm really sorry, Bahia, but they said they will not pay you if you do not sign this part of the new compliances." And so I kind of had to, you know, forcefully leave at that moment and couldn't return.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Bahia Amawi, now, were you aware that this law had been passed in Texas at all? Had you heard anything in the media about it? And why did you decide then that you needed to seek an attorney's help in challenging this?
BAHIA AMAWI: I did not. I was not aware that this law was passed. I've heard of it in other states, but I did not know it passed in Texas. It kind of went under—you know, undetected, I think. It wasn't something they advertised or talked about much in the media. And I'm not a social media person, so I'm not always online. I have four kids, so I'm very busy with them, so I don't go on Facebook or look up things or anything. So, I really had no awareness of this new law being passed.
And when I saw it, it just was unfair in so many ways. It just was—just did not make sense. It was baffling to me and shocking that my position as a speech therapist, helping kids with their speech and, you know, developing with their communication in the elementary school, effects any economic harm on Israel. So, to me, just nothing made sense at all of this. And it was a violation of everything, violation of my First—my freedom of speech, right to protest, my constitutional right. And so, it was actually a no-brainer. I knew that I had to do something about it. And I didn't want this to grow into something more, which it can possibly, you know, and affect everybody, including my kids when they go to the universities. Who knows if they ask us, you know, in a state university if they have to sign it before registering for classes? You know, it may grow into something more. And I knew I had to do something about it.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to look a little more closely at the language contained in the contract. It asks our guest, Bahia Amawi, to sign a pledge that she does not currently boycott Israel and that she will, quote, "not boycott Israel during the term of the contract." The contract goes on to explain, "'Boycott Israel' means refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israeli-controlled territory, but does not include an action made for ordinary business purposes."
So, let me bring your lawyer into this conversation, Gadeir Abbas. This is one of 26 states that have passed similar laws. In this case, if Bahia was to simply say to a friend, "I am not going to buy something that is made in the Occupied Territories that Israel is selling in the United States," this would make her in violation of the law?
GADEIR ABBAS: Yeah. Bahia would be disqualified from working for any school district in the state that's following this law, simply because she chooses not to buy, for instance, Sabra hummus. So her grocery store decision to not buy Sabra hummus and to buy instead another kind of hummus automatically, under this law, disqualifies her from all public employees—all public employment of all kinds.
And here, Bahia is engaged in core, protected activity that really has a hallowed place in American tradition, from boycotts against British tea, from the Montgomery boycott, from the boycott against apartheid South Africa. Bahia's actions and choices to spend her money in a particular way are expressive conduct that are protected by the First Amendment. And here, Texas, the state of Texas, is siding with a foreign country's policy preferences over the needs of Bahia's students. And let's remember here, in the final analysis, Bahia's students are being deprived of their speech pathologist in exchange for accommodating the policy preferences of a foreign country. That's illegal and objectionable.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, Gadeir Abbas, given that there are 26 states that now have similar laws in place, and legislation that has gotten very little, if any, national attention, it must indicate that there is an intensive lobbying effort going on at the state level, and either by the state of Israel or by lobbying groups employed by groups in defense of the state of Israel. Do you know anything about this lobbying campaign that's been going on?
GADEIR ABBAS: Well, it's extremely successful. I mean, in Texas, for example, it passed the Legislature almost unanimously, on a bipartisan basis. And yeah, these bills have passed with relatively little controversy. And it's only escalated. Congress right now, it's Ben Cardin, a Democrat, who is pushing to include a criminal version of this state law and the continued resolution that is set to expire on Friday. And so, we might have, by the end of this week, a federal law that criminalizes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and the activity associated with it.
And here, it just goes to show that for some issues—and Israel and Palestine are one of them—that the pro-Palestinian voices, the folks that are advocating for Palestinians to have equal rights, don't have necessarily an ally in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party and really must look to the activists and the movement for Palestinian rights itself to vindicate these basic rights to speak out in favor of Palestinian rights.
AMY GOODMAN: I'd like to turn to Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaking about the anti-BDS legislation last year in May.
GOV. GREG ABBOTT: Israel is one of Texas's largest trading partners. And then, of course, there is the issue about the essential international ally that Israel plays for both the United States and the state of Texas. As a result, any anti-Israel policy is an anti-Texas policy. … Any boycott of Israel is considered to be un-Texan. And Texas is not going to do business with any company that boycotts Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: So that's Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaking about the legislation a year ago. Bahia Amawi, are you an active member of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement?
BAHIA AMAWI: I am not actually an active member of BDS at all. Just personally, for myself, if I'm aware of a product that is—you know, supports Israel or is made in the country, then I just have a personal—I make a personal choice to avoid it, because I don't want to support their ongoing occupation and aggression and subhumane treatment of the Palestinians, that's making me kind of like a silent participant complicit with the whole occupation. So, I actually—I'm not aware of it. I don't even go through and find out the list of things. I just happen to know about it, or, you know, if somehow I found out, then I just avoid it. But other than that, really, I'm not an active member.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what's been the reaction of your fellow employees at the school or other teachers, as well, to this, the results of what's happened to you in this case?
BAHIA AMAWI: Yeah, well, so, when I had to forcefully leave, I notified my co-workers, my co-evaluators. I work on an early childhood team, which are the ones that—usually in association with, and they depend on me to do the Arabic evaluations. So, when I told them, they were kind of shocked, because after nine years, they were like, you know, "Why? What's happening? What's changed all of a sudden?" So that's when I shared with them this new compliance. And they were just disturbed as much as I was, and appalled. And they supported me. And they say, you know, "We understand, and we hope you do pursue and do something about it." So they were very encouraging and very supportive. And they were hoping that I can return eventually, which is my goal.
I want to be able to go back to work again, because there's a need for a speech therapist who speaks Arabic to evaluate students who have Arabic as a second language. It is actually beneficial to be a speech therapist with another language, bilingual in another language. There's such a need all over.
AMY GOODMAN: Gadeir Abbas, is there any reference to any other state, any other country, in this kind of contract that you have to sign, a kind of oath to another country?
GADEIR ABBAS: No, there's no other country that's mentioned in the state of Texas law. There's no other country mentioned in any of these laws in the more than 25 states that have passed them or the executive orders that have been issued by governors. This is only about Israel. And it really is unique in American history to have a law that specifically prevents Americans from boycotting a particular foreign country. I've never seen any kind of historical analog to what we're seeing here.
And the fact of the matter, though, is that free speech rights in the United States are very well protected. And boycott activity, Supreme Court and other courts have held over and over again, is a core expressive action that Bahia and others are welcome and entitled to take. And so, whatever the state of Texas and the governor of Texas believes—obviously, he has cast his lot with Israel rather than Texas citizens like Bahia, who are put in the position of losing their job or advocating for their beliefs—the Constitution is designed, and the Bill of Rights exists, to protect Bahia's right to protest the policies of Israel in the Occupied Territories as she sees fit.
AMY GOODMAN: Gadeir Abbas, we want to thank you for being with us, senior litigation attorney with CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, representing Bahia Amawi in her lawsuit against the Pflugerville Independent School District and the state of Texas."
