George Washington University accused of ‘colluding’ with rightwing pro-Israel group

An Arab professor and lecturer in variety has accused George Washington College of “colluding” with a rightwing pro-Israel group over a federal criticism accusing her of antisemitism.

The group, StandWithUs (SWU), filed a criticism with the US training division’s civil rights workplace claiming that Lara Sheehi, an assistant professor of scientific psychology, discriminated in opposition to Jewish college students by refusing to simply accept their definitions of antisemitism.

The criticism, filed final month, additionally accused Sheehi of hate speech about Israel and Zionism, and alleged that the college did not correctly examine a historical past of complaints in opposition to the professor.

Sheehi, who was born in Lebanon, stated she has been focused by SWU for her activism on behalf of Palestinians exterior of the classroom in an try to silence and intimidate educational opponents of Israeli insurance policies by conflating criticism with antisemitism.

“One solely want have a look at its acknowledged mission to see that it’s a shameless fringe political activist group prosecuting a right-wing pro-Israel agenda,” she wrote in a prolonged protection in Counterpunch.

SWU, based in California 2001, has labored intently with the Israeli overseas ministry, together with to oppose pro-Palestinian boycotts amongst college students. It maintains a workforce of dozens of legal professionals “to battle antisemitism” and criticism of Israel, principally at universities and excessive colleges. The SWU trains college students to report lectures to doc alleged anti-Israel bias.

Though the SWU’s American founder, Roz Rothstein, claims the organisation is nonpartisan, she has expressed assist for the development of unlawful Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and denounced Israeli troopers who criticise the occupation despite the fact that she has not served within the Israeli navy.

A 2015 report by Jewish Voice for Peace recognized SWU as amongst various teams that “intervene on campuses in efforts to muzzle political criticisms of Israeli insurance policies”.

The SWU criticism to the US training division describes a fractious relationship between Sheehi and a few Jewish college students, and claims that in lectures on variety she rejected their definitions of antisemitism whereas accepting how Black and different minority college students outlined racism.

“In a category designed to coach future therapists about completely different identities and sensitise the scholars to bias skilled by these identities, Dr Sheehi singled out the Jewish college students and disadvantaged solely them of a possibility she afforded all different college students – defining their very own id and what it means to expertise discrimination primarily based on that id,” the criticism stated.

The SWU additionally claimed that Sheehi took offence at a pupil’s use of the time period “terrorist assault”, and alleged that she invited a speaker who “demonised Israel” and stated that “acceptable resistance contains throwing stones”. The criticism stated one Jewish pupil was left “crying” and feeling “deeply unsettled and unsafe” by the speak.

Sheehi has accused the SWU of deliberately conflating criticisms of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism. She has additionally accused Jewish and Israeli college students cited within the criticism of utilizing “racist language in opposition to black individuals and Arabs”.

The professor, who’s coauthor of the ebook Psychoanalysis Underneath Occupation: Training Resistance in Palestine, stated she had been “focused particularly as a result of I’m an Arab girl” who advocates for Palestinians. She referred to as on SWU to launch a bootleg recording she believes the group has of her class, saying “the transcript would reveal that I completely and categorically agree that antisemitism is undeniably actual”.

The criticism additionally cites Sheehi’s actions exterior of the classroom together with tweets from her now deleted account that stated “destroy Zionism”, calling the Israeli navy “genocidal fucks” and saying “Israelis can and will probably be merciless”.

Sheehi has defended the tweets as a mirrored image of her anger at Israeli navy actions in Lebanon when she was rising up and her therapy by the hands of the Israeli military whereas conducting analysis within the occupied Palestinian territories.

“My anger, in these tweets, and in what fuels my liberatory fireplace, is justified,” she wrote. “My anger in opposition to an occupying military and occupying state that has stolen a lot from me, my individuals and my Palestinian siblings isn’t contextless, capricious or religiously primarily based. It’s a political anger.”

Sheehi has accused George Washington College of failing to defend her.

“GW has now colluded with StandWithUs’s misrepresentation of my classroom by being silent about various key problems with which they’re effectively conscious and about which they’ve supporting documentation that might have been used to publicly dispel these allegations,” she stated.

The professor is legally represented by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which accused the college of a “prejudicial response” to a criticism it stated is a part of “a bigger marketing campaign that’s politically and ethnically motivated in opposition to Dr Sheehi due to her scholarship and political activism exterior the classroom”.

The college stated in an announcement that it’s “dedicated to conducting such a radical examination by an investigation by a 3rd social gathering” and that it was due to this fact “not prudent” to touch upon the allegations.

It stated the college “strongly condemns antisemitism and hatred, discrimination, and bias in all varieties” however “additionally recognises and helps educational freedom, and the precise of all members of our neighborhood to talk out on problems with public concern, understanding that they aren’t talking on behalf of the college”.