Last week Cecilia Culver delivered a speech to her graduating class at George Washington University and she took the opportunity to speak out against the atrocities being committed by Israel in Gaza, calling it flatly what it is, a genocide and Israel an apartheid state. It received a deservedly rousing reception and standing ovation from the assembled audience and is well worth listening to.

Needless to say, university officials were not pleased.

University officials later said Culver had not followed her pre-approved remarks. They later announced she would be barred from campus and university-sponsored events.

“The speaker’s conduct during Saturday’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences celebration event was inappropriate and dishonest: the speaker submitted and recited in rehearsal very different remarks than those she delivered at the ceremony,” the school said in a statement. “The speaker has been barred from all GW’s campuses and sponsored events elsewhere.”

GWU also issued an apology, saying the speech had disrupted what was meant to be a celebratory occasion.

The incident has since gone viral, with one video of the speech gaining more than 1 million views. Many have praised Culver for taking a stand on behalf of Palestinians, but others have criticized her for “politicizing” a graduation ceremony.

At the event, many graduates loudly applauded and cheered for Culver, with several giving her a standing ovation. Associate dean Kavita Daiya also acknowledged her speech, saying the college supports diverse perspectives. Culver was also receiving a distinguished scholar award at the ceremony.

Culver said in an interview with The GW Hatchet that “there was just never any point where I was not going to say something”.

Universities have been under great pressure from Trump and his gang to suppress any and all criticisms of Israel so it does not surprise me in the least that she deviated from the script of the talk she had given to them because she had to have known that they would not allow her to speak at all. In fact, this brings me to a pet peeve of mine, the terrible practice of some institutions requiring pre-approval of the remarks of an invited speaker. When you invite a speaker, you are doing so because you think that they have something new and interesting to say. If you want to limit their remarks, then you might as well write and give the speech yourself. I have been invited to give a huge number of talks and I have never been asked to give the organizers the right of pre-approval. If I had been asked, I have refused. This kind of thing is usually only done with student speakers and is emblematic of the patronizing attitude taken towards them, that they cannot be trusted to be ‘responsible’, which is code for toeing the party line. Rather than condemning Culver, kudos to her for outsmarting them.

The university’s claim that she was being ‘dishonest’ is predictable but what is also predictable is that this is exactly what happens when you try to suppress viewpoints you do not like. People will find alternative ways of getting the word out. Banning her from the campus and GWU events for speaking about major crimes being carried out today, and in which the university and the US is complicit, is not only petty, it shows that the university would prefer its students to hear the usual pablum that is doled out at these ceremonial events rather than the truth.

What is also noteworthy is the enthusiastic response Culver got from her fellow students. GWU is not known as a hotbed of radical thought. It is very much mainstream. So the wild applause shows that the efforts to hide the truth about the events in Gaza and to suppress criticisms of Israel and its allies have failed. The US is largely alone in the world in its uncritical support for the Israeli regime of Benjamin Netanyahu and his genocidal war. European governments are being urged to recognize a Palestinian state.

Ministers are under pressure from inside and outside Labour to recognise Palestinian statehood at a UN conference next month, with party grandees arguing it would bolster prospects for peace and demonstrate moral leadership amid escalating tensions.

Alf Dubs, the veteran Labour peer and Holocaust survivor, said the symbolic recognition of a Palestinian state would offer Palestinians “the self-respect they’d have if they had a proper state,” and provide them a stronger footing in any future peace negotiations.

“Even if it doesn’t lead to anything immediately, it would still give Palestinians a better standing,” Lord Dubs said. “Symbols matter.”
…

The conference is seen as a potential moment when states such as France and the UK that have yet to recognise Palestine take what would be a momentous diplomatic step.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, indicated last month that Paris may recognise Palestine, joining 147 other countries, but said he wanted to do so at a UN conference in New York in June as part of a wider process.

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has confirmed to parliament he has been in discussions with the French about recognition, but also said he would not simply support a gesture with no practical impact.

The Guardian reported last week that the British view is that France was very likely to decide the time was not right to make the announcement. The UK’s official position is that it will recognise a Palestinian state, but only at the point of maximum impact.

The pressure has been building within Labour’s parliamentary ranks as 69 MPs and six peers earlier this month signed a joint letter urging the prime minister to seize what they described as a “unique window of opportunity” to recognise Palestinian statehood.

It used to be the case that accusing someone of antisemitism, or the fear that one might be labeled as such, was enough to suppress criticisms of Israel. For the Trump regime, screaming “antisemitism” has become the tool they use to attack people and groups and nations, and “fighting antisemitism” been used to trample all over basic rights. It is clear that, for example, the strong stance that the South African government has taken against Israel’s war crimes and genocide in Gaza, including referring them to the International Criminal Court, added to Trump’s hostility and provided an impetus for his disgraceful performance and bogus claims when that country’s leader Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House.

But the charge of antisemitism has been so promiscuously used by rightwing supporters of Israel against all legitimate criticisms that it has lost its sting. This is dangerous because antisemitism undoubtedly exists and is pernicious and needs to be combated. But by using the term so expansively so that so many are placed under that umbrella, it enables the actual antisemites, even those in Trump’s coterie, to hide in plain sight.