CUNY Law School Defends Death Threat by Palestinian Activist

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Nerdeen Kiswani is a Palestinian student at CUNY Law School, who put out a video showing her approaching, with a flaming lighter, a figure wearing a shirt with an IDF logo, and threatening to set the shirt – and therefore the person wearing the shirt – on fire. The Law School Dean Mary Lu Bilek initially condemned this as an act of antisemitism; after pro-Palestinian students protested that condemnation, the Interim Dean, Professor Eduardo Capulong, issued a remark claiming that there was no cause to discipline Nerdeen Kiswani, who was only exercising her “free speech rights.”

The unedifying tale is here: “CUNY Law School Dean Defends ‘Free Speech Rights’ of Pro-Palestinian Activist at Center of IDF Sweatshirt Row,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, July 2, 2021:

The Dean of the City University of New York School of Law spoke out on Wednesday to defend the “free speech rights” of Nerdeen Kiswani, a student and pro-Palestinian activist who has previously drawn controversy over a video in which she appeared to threaten to set fire to a man wearing an IDF sweatshirt.

Kiswani didn’t “appear” to threaten – she did threaten. Weasel words will not do.

In a statement, Interim Dean and Professor Eduardo R.C. Capulong said school officials “have found no cause to discipline” Nerdeen Kiswani, a law student who founded the NYC-based Palestinian activist group Within Our Lifetime.

“‘Criticism of Israel is protected speech’ and should not be tarred as antisemitic,” Capulong said, citing a 2016 report by the CUNY Board of Trustees. “The Law School supports the free speech rights of Nerdeen Kiswani, other Palestinian students, and their Jewish and non-Jewish allies, who have been vilified for their activism.”

Criticism of Israel, if it is grossly unfair, holding the country to standards no other country is expected to meet, can indeed be antisemitic. Not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but a great deal of it is. If grotesque charges, without the slightest supporting evidence, are continually made against the Jewish state and its people, we should not hesitate to call those making them “antisemitic.” Does Dean Capulong expect us to believe, just as he does, that “all criticism of Israel is protected speech”?

And does making a video in which Nerdeen Kiswani is holding a flaming lighter in her hand, and approaching a man wearing a shirt with an IDF logo, and threatening to set his shirt, and therefore him, alight, really constitute nothing more than a protected exercise of free speech? What is the “speech” that Kiswani is uttering? Is it that she finds Israeli policies abhorrent? That she believes the Palestinians are oppressed by Israeli Jews? Isn’t it, rather, a clear threat of violence – “setting on fire” someone’s sweatshirt — directed at those who are, or who support, Israelis? And such death threats are both crimes in themselves, and are likely to incite “imminent lawless action” by others, so they are not, according to the Supreme Court in Brandenberg v. Ohio (1969), 395 U.S. 444, protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Dean Capulong surely knows that uttering that kind of threat, and posting it on social media, is unprotected speech. But he was too worried about he ferocity of the Kiswani supporters to set them straight as he ought to have, explaining clearly why saying “I hate your shirt. I’m gonna set it on fire. I’m serious!” as you hold a flaming lighter and motion toward a man wearing a sweatshirt with an IDF logo, can reasonably be interpreted as a death threat – which is a crime. And it is also an incitement to “imminent lawless action” by others who may be inspired by the video, and thus, according to the doctrine first enunciated by the Supreme Court in Brandenberg v. Ohio (1969), is not protected speech.

“CUNY Law is a diverse community with differing political beliefs,” he continued. “But we are united in opposing all forms of racism, including anti-Palestinianism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia; we condemn anti-Palestinian, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and other racist violence; we recognize and respect one another’s right to be a part of our community; and we have found no cause to discipline Ms. Kiswani, who remains in good standing with our institution.”

Dean Capulong’s list of “forms of racism” shows his mental confusion. “Anti-Palestinianism,” whatever it is – I presume it means being opposed to Palestinian political claims, such as the need to make war on, and even destroy (see, e.g., the Hamas Charter), the Jewish state – is not “racism.” Palestinian Arabs are not a race, we have to keep reminding all the dean-capulongs of this world, and articulate opposition to their political claims against the Jewish state is protected speech.

As for “antisemitism,” that is not only directed at “the Jews” as a race, but is the “oldest hatred,” the quintessential form of racism both in Western Christendom, and in the Muslim East. This pathological hatred, a kind of delirium, is directed at Jews merely for being Jews; they need not act in any particular way to earn this hatred, but can be anything or its opposite — for example, they may be hated as capitalists who rule the world or as communists determined to overthrow capitalism — and there is nothing Jews can do to placate the antisemites, whose hate is unassuageable.

“Islamophobia,” which Dean Capulong also lists as a “form of racism,” is nothing of the sort. Muslims, again, are not a race. “Islamophobia” has nothing to do with racism. The word “Islamophobia” was recently invented so as to undermine all criticism of Islam, including the most sober and measured criticism, that based on a study of the texts and teachings of the faith. It’s a word that should apply only to “an irrational fear or hatred of Islam,” but it is now applied to all forms of “rational fear or dislike of Islam.” It’s a word intended to shut down all legitimate islamocriticism.

In September, a video emerged online appearing to show Kiswani holding a flaming lighter near the stomach of a man wearing a sweatshirt displaying the logo of the Israeli military, and saying “I hate your shirt. I’m gonna set it on fire. I’m serious!”…

The video was genuine – that is, the sentiment expressed was not a a joke but heartfelt, to convey Nerdeen Kiswani’s murderous hatred of Israelis. If the sweatshirt were set on fire, presumably its wearer would be in mortal danger. This was clearly meant as a death threat directed not only at the wearer of the sweatshirt, but at all those who share his sentiment of support for the IDF.

The school initially condemned the incident, saying, “CUNY School of Law stands against hate and antisemitism.”

But after a backlash, then-Dean Mary Lu Bilek apologized for the school’s denunciation, saying that Kiswani had simply “exercised her First Amendment right to express her opinion.”

The Law School’s Wednesday statement came amid a “#WeStandWithNerdeen” campaign promoted by the CUNY Law School Student Government, which included a petition calling on the institution to publicly support Kiswani.

“By continuing to be a bystander to the racist smears directed at Nerdeen, CUNY School of Law lends this institution to the cause of denying and continuing the occupation of Palestine and the genocide of the people of Palestine and has implicated itself in actively perpetuating violence against its own student,” the petition said.

The “racist smears directed at Nerdeen” do not exist. The complaint against her was not because she was a Muslim, but because she had made an unambiguous threat of violence – a death threat – to all those who wear clothing identifying them as supporters of the IDF. And what is this preposterous charge about CUNY “actively perpetuating violence against its own student”? There was no violence visited upon Nerdeen Kiswani. There was no violence threatened against Nerdeen Kiswani. The petitioners running the “#WeStandWithNerdeen” campaign should be asked to give evidence that CUNY has been “actively perpetuating violence” – “perpetuating” means that violence against Kiswani has already been inflicted and its continuance is being actively promoted by CUNY. That’s quite a charge. If CUNY were run by sensible folk, the law school would be suing the organizers of #WeStandWithNerdeen, and possibly Nerdeen Kiswani herself, if she were responsible for composing their petition, for defamation.

Kiswani celebrated Capulong’s statement in an Instagram post on Thursday, thanking efforts by the CUNY Law Student Government, Jewish Law Students Association, and CUNY Law Students for Justice in Palestine.

“I appreciate the University standing with me as their student, as they always should have,” she said. “However, it cannot be and is not just about me.”

She continued, “We also have to acknowledge what is happening in Palestine, how Palestinians are being systematically subjected to genocide and colonization, especially during such an escalated moment. Zionist colonial violence must be condemned. It’s not just an issue of free speech, we must also firmly stand against the oppression of the Palestinian people.”

Nerdeeen Kiswani is not only not going to be expelled for posted what can reasonably be interpreted as a death threat, but is being positively celebrated (for the usual “speaking truth to power,” dontcha know?) with the #WeStandWithNerdeen” campaign promoted by the CUNY Law School Student Government, which included a petition calling on the institution to publicly support Kiswani. The farce is complete. Someone who has made a death threat is not only not expelled, but made into a hero, a fighter demanding justice for the persecuted Palestinians. She gets the last meretricious word, piling up one falsehood after another to smear the Jewish state.

Palestinians, she claims, are being systematically subjected to “genocide”? If so, then why has the population both of Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Arabs grown so enormously over the last few decades faster than the number of Israeli Jews? What kind of “genocide” is that? And if the Israelis are dead set on committing “genocide” of the “Palestinians,” why do they insist on providing the very best medical treatment not only to all of the Israeli Arabs, but to all the Palestinian Arabs they treat, and even, for some particularly difficult medical cases that are brought to them, to Arabs from elsewhere in the region?

First published in Jihad Watch.