'Islamists and Foreign Backers': US Suppresses Its Protesters Following the Lead of Arab Allies

As American student protests in solidarity with Gaza face a crackdown, we're seeing a disturbing trend: narratives and practices reminiscent of justifications used by Arab dictatorships for the violent actions of their security forces are being replicated.

In American media, inflammatory phrases like "Brotherhood," "infiltrators," "foreign-backed," and others are increasingly used to vilify the protesters, justifying the police raids and dispersal of student sit-ins condemning Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Equally striking is the emergence of the term "honorable citizens," used by extremist right-wing supporters of “Israel,” who attacked student camps with fireworks, burning them down in plain view of the police without intervention.

"Honorable citizens" refers to civilian individuals aligned with the authorities appearing wherever opponents gather, verbally and materially attacking them and diverting public attention from the protest's objectives, allowing the police later to intervene and quell the demonstration.

According to observers, these incidents debunk Washington's major fallacy, often employed for intervention in foreign affairs, of "protecting freedoms," exposing the selectiveness of democracy in the country and its purported values.

Six Allegations

The most prominent allegations against the American student movement in political and media circles can be summarized into six accusations.

However, the true aim behind these accusations is to discredit the movement, justify police violence and Zionist groups' aggression against them, and deceive by concealing the real reasons for the protests, which include outrage over the genocide in Gaza and anger at the suppression of their freedoms, as stated by Dr. Khalil al-Anani, a professor of political science in America.

The first of these allegations was accusing the students of "occupying others' property," namely university campuses and buildings, due to them setting up tents in these areas.

The second accusation labeled the students as reckless and then as a group of unruly hooligans whose actions needed to be controlled.

The third allegation shifted to accusing the students of destroying facilities within the university to justify summoning the police and special forces and legitimizing violence against them and their professors.

The fourth allegation was that the protesters sympathized with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Muslim Brotherhood as their supporters.

The fifth was the existence of external agitators who incited the students to protest, alongside internal "left-wing groups," referring to the Congressional Progressive Caucus within the Democratic Party led by figures like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, claiming their goal was to embarrass Joe Biden.

The sixth allegation was the claim that some protesters received money from certain entities (without specifying), evidenced by their indifference to being expelled and their continued protests even after being arrested and released.

It is also ironic that the competing candidates in the U.S. elections (Joe Biden and Donald Trump) and their respective parties (Democratic and Republican) agreed on the necessity of suppressing students who oppose Israeli genocide in Gaza.

This was noted by journalist Samar Jarrah on X, stating: “There is no difference between a Democratic or Republican president when it comes to suppressing pro-Palestinian protests.”

‘Brothers and Terrorists’

On April 29, 2024, Walter Russell Mead, a political science professor, wrote in The Wall Street Journal claiming that supporters of student protests sympathize with the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Many of Joe Biden's critics (including students) oppose not only U.S. strategic cooperation with Israel, but also his administration's close alliance with the authoritarian governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE,” he stated.

They sympathize with the Muslim Brotherhood, the transnational Islamic movement to which Hamas belongs, and blame the United States for the frustration felt by democratic Islamists across the region in the wake of the Arab Spring, according to what he wrote.

Mead accused Hamas supporters on campus of being part of a global alliance of progressive movements advocating for issues like climate change and democracy, hence organizing marches or setting up solidarity camps with Gaza.

Meanwhile, American journalist Cenk Uyghur commented on labeling university students as "terrorists," saying that “Muslims in America are constantly being called terrible names.”

He wondered if he has the right to sue those who criticize Muslims and call them terrorists because this action is illegal and because Muslims' feelings will be hurt or is permissible only when it comes to “Israel.”

Israeli officials also participated in this false media campaign, aiming to brand the students as Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-affiliated.

Kobi Lavie, former head of the Palestinian Affairs Branch in the Israeli Ministry of War, appeared on a television program discussing protests by American university students, stating, "The Muslim Brotherhood is behind the students' protests."

Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations Gilad Erdan alleged that Hamas hides behind protests at American universities like Harvard and Columbia.

‘Supported from Abroad’

On the other hand, U.S. security forces justified their raids on several universities and assaults on students by claiming that there were "foreign elements" among the students, echoing the statement made by the president of Columbia University as she summoned the police for the second time to evict students from the Hind’s Hall, alleging the presence of “non-students.”

However, the strangest irony was the involvement of far-right Republican Mike Johnson, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, in this story, stating that internal or foreign entities are funding these protests.

Despite being the head of the most important legislative body in the world and the third most important figure in America after the president and vice president, American activists described him as "stupid and evil".

He justified this by saying that the tents of the protesters look similar in shape and that perhaps internal or foreign entities funding these protests have provided them, even calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to intervene and investigate foreign intervention in protests at American universities.

During the press conference held by the New York Police Department in early May 2024 after the expulsion of students from Columbia University, Rebecca Weiner, head of the Intelligence Division at the New York Police Department, blamed "external agitators" for the student protests.

When asked who they were, she refused to name the supposed "strangers" claimed by the New York Police Department to have been apprehended at the protest site on the grounds that they were "not students" behind the protests.

Weiner admitted that the police crackdown on the students was not due to any criminal behavior, but she said they were suppressed because of the extremist language and symbols, which she claimed represented normalization and dissemination of terrorist-associated rhetoric.

Weiner, along with the Mayor of New York Eric Adams, claimed that among these "extremist symbols" that concerned them among the students was the wearing of "headbands associated with foreign terrorist organizations" on campus, referring to the Palestinian keffiyeh.

The Mayor of New York claimed that protesting students in American universities should not raise the flag of another country (Palestine) and make it fly. 

“It’s despicable that schools would allow another country’s flag to fly in our country.”

In response, he countered by posting his picture proudly holding the flag of “Israel” and parading it through the streets of New York.

The "outside agitator," as described by American newspapers including The Intercept in early May 2024, became a subject of ridicule among Americans after the police and officials presented false justifications for cracking down on students.

The Intercept mentioned that the alleged "outside agitators " summoned were the perpetual chaotic boogeymen or terrorist groups that send money to keep student camps filled with the cheapest available tents online, according to the claims of the American police.

It pointed out that the claims of the "foreign agitator" have a long racist legacy, having been used by the racist organization Ku Klux Klan in the 1930s, when it claimed that paid organizers for communists are trying to get blacks into trouble.

The same false narrative was used to defend the crackdown on the protest movement in Atlanta against protesters protesting against the police in the Stop Cop City campaign, and this was a common fixture for politicians across the country during the 2020 uprising and Black protests.

A Silly Conspiracy

The New Republic criticized the New York Police Department's resort to what it called a silly conspiracy theory about the protests at Columbia University to justify the suppression of protesting students, putting them in danger, and promoting false news anchors about the presence of terrorists among the students.

The incitement against the students reached a point where the anchor of the American CBS News channel, Ali Bauman, said that “there are reports of a terrorist's wife among the students at Columbia University, referring to Hamas, and then deleted the post later.”

Also, Deputy Commissioner of the New York Police Tariq Sheppard claimed on MSNBC in early May that they found huge iron chains with the students, justifying the police propaganda against Columbia University students, claiming they were violent, while these chains are sold within Columbia University to secure students' bicycles from theft!

He was embarrassed by a journalist and told him as he displayed the iron chains on television that these are the same chains used by Columbia University to secure students' bicycles.

As part of attempts to demonize and vilify students after describing them as terrorists and foreign-backed, the police resorted to photographing students through artificial intelligence programs to ascertain their identities, as part of an anti-campaign aimed at preventing their employment in America.

Videos emerged of the police removing protesters' masks to identify them, thus targeting them later in the job market and employment.

‘Property Destruction’

One of the charges leveled by the Joe Biden administration and the police against students supporting Gaza, to justify their arrest and violence against them, was "property destruction" and "violent protest."

Joe Biden said in a demonizing speech targeting university students that they engaged in vandalism and trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down universities, and forcibly canceling classes, describing their actions as not peaceful protests.

However, Natasha Lennard, author at The Intercept, wrote in early May, mocking this narrative, saying, "When police attacked student protesters, a lone trash can was the only damaged property I saw around City College of New York."

“I have been reporting on political dissent and violent policing for 15 years, particularly in New York City. Compared to Tuesday night, I have never witnessed, at the scene of a protest, the use of police power so disproportionate to the type of demonstration taking place.”

She criticized the beating and arrest of 200 students at City College of New York by the New York Police Department, and the brutal and humiliating attack on them at Columbia University just because they occupied a building named Hamilton Hall and called it Hind’s Hall after a girl killed by Zionists in Gaza.

“At most, the latest building occupation saw a few broken windowpanes and some furniture moved around.”

“The negligible acts of property damage were not, of course, what was being policed. Nor was the holding of campus space; students have done this before in recent decades without their university administrators inviting the force of militarized police,” she said.

“Instead, it was the protesters’ message that was being handcuffed — the condemnation of Israel and the calls for a free Palestine — and young people’s commitment to it.”

The Intercept published on April 30, 2024, a study on how American TV channels distorted positions on the Gaza war to demonize protesters and opponents of “Israel” in American universities.

It spoke of increasingly clear tendencies that made viewers of American news channels more supportive of Israeli military efforts and less likely to believe that “Israel” was committing war crimes and less concerned about the war in general.

This contrasts with those who get their news from social media, YouTube, or podcast newsletters, who "generally stand with the Palestinians and believe that “Israel” is committing war crimes and genocide, according to The Intercept's study.

Israeli Occupation’s Role

“Israel” was not far from this "reproduction" of accusations directed at American students, which are part of the heritage of Arab authoritarian regimes, but played direct and indirect roles, both politically and in the media, to promote them in suspicious ways.

For example, a professor at Columbia University, who works in the American intelligence department, which has a branch in “Israel,” led a campaign by New York police against university students, as revealed by the investigative website Grayzone on May 2, 2024.

She is Rebecca Weiner, a professor at Columbia University, who also leads the intelligence department at the New York Police Department, which has an office in Tel Aviv.

She was the one who gave the green light to the police attack, claiming that the "students' speeches" and "symbols" they used (such as the Palestinian kufiya and flag) necessitated this violent raid against them.

Weiner is a Jewish supporter of “Israel” and the granddaughter of Stanislaw Ulam, the Polish Jewish mathematician who helped conceive the hydrogen bomb as part of the American Manhattan Project.

She was credited by New York Mayor Eric Adams for spying on the genocide-opposing protesting students and directing the military raid that expelled them from the campus and arresting nearly 300 students inside the university campus.

Columbia University had previously congratulated her on her position in the intelligence department, where she assumed responsibility on July 24, 2023, indicating her relationship with Minouche Shafik, the university's president, and her coordination with her to forcibly disperse and arrest protesting students and professors.

The New York Police Department's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau currently maintains an office in Tel Aviv, “Israel,” and coordinates with Israeli security agencies. Weiner appears to be working as a bridge between the office's branches in “Israel” and New York, according to Grayzone.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participated in incitement against students by accusing them of being like Nazis.

He claimed that anti-Semitism on American campuses “is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s, it’s unconscionable. It has to be stopped.”

On November 26, 2023, as Western protests against the aggression in Gaza and university student participation began, Yedioth Ahronoth revealed a plan devised by the Israeli government and the Zionist lobby targeting university students in America.

The report stated that the aim of this plan is to demonize, defame, and slander protesting students and university students in the U.S. and Europe, alleging they incite hatred against Jews and are anti-Semitic.

The plan involves imposing economic and employment consequences on students who show solidarity with Gaza, and pressuring universities to remove them from their campuses.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth and The Telegraph, the plan claims that funding sources for these students come from countries like Qatar and highlights the rise of Islamic student organizations that challenge Western values.

The Israeli strategy includes publicizing the names of students and faculty members at American universities who support Gaza, aiming to damage their employment prospects.