Montgomery College Retaliates for Discussion on Palestine and Africa

Fellow human rights activist Bob Griss wrote the letter below. There's also an online petition about this controversy. This is what a nonviolent campaign looks like during a time of genocide and repression. We will not be silenced, and we will persist. –Steven Sellers Lapham

March 19, 2024

Jermaine F. Williams, President, Montgomery College, Maryland

Dear President Williams:

First, they opposed the right to vote after white-washing slavery since 1619, during which it was illegal to teach African-Americans to read and write for at least 200 years, and after ethnic cleansing of Native Americans to steal their land and resources, and destroy their culture;

Then, they opposed non-discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and religion until at least 1964, thanks to the courage of the freedom riders, civil rights advocates, and Black Panthers, etc.;

Then, they opposed the right to protest genocide in Palestine where the US is the primary funder, supplier of advanced weapons and diplomatic cover to block the United Nations from safeguarding international law;

But by that time, colleges had condemned and expelled faculty and student critics of Jewish Zionism, and the students became active recruits for Christian nationalism and Jewish Zionism, ready to fight the next war, and one after that, for the US empire.

Beware-- Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Pakistan, Venezuela, Haiti, North Korea, Niger, Burkina Faso, or the next country that dares to resist American sanctions, bribes, or threats to its national sovereignty.

Here in Montgomery County, Maryland, this is the glide path that Montgomery College President Jermaine Williams has embarked on by condemning Professor Gus Griffin, for organizing a virtual panel discussion through a Montgomery College zoom account, which expressed viewpoints critical of Israel supported by the International Court of Justice, the overwhelming majority of Member States in the UN General Assembly, and human rights groups around the world (including B’tselem in Israel).

With self-described "Zionists", like Biden and Trump, eager to provide Israel with billions of dollars to protect themselves from Palestinians who don’t even have a professional army (much less nuclear weapons like Israel), and their Jewish American apologists, like JCRC, AIPAC, and the ADL, lobbying behind the scenes in Montgomery County, Maryland, one of the most important test grounds for subversive Zionist influence in the US, how could Montgomery College be expected to tolerate, much less encourage, a public debate about 75 years of Zionist apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide which Israel is conducting in full view of the rest of the world?

Hiding behind the facade of academic freedom and “free speech”, Dr. Jermaine Williams, as president of Montgomery Community College, which received $148 million from county taxpayers and $58 million from state aid this year, seems intent on intimidating critics of Israel by condemning Professor Gus Griffin, a member of the national steering committee of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine Network, which endorses the nonviolent strategy of BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), and opposes Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza’s total population where 70 percent of the victims are children and women. Dr. Williams alleges that some members of the panel organized by Griffin used “inflammatory” language that threatened the safety of students, faculty, and staff in the way they characterized Israel’s genocide.

Reminiscent of the Congressional witch-hunt which recently tarred and feathered the presidents of Harvard University and University of Pennsylvania for allowing free speech at their esteemed universities, and the shameless efforts of Governor DeSantis to censor as “hate speech” the teaching about slavery in Florida public schools, which might make white students feel uncomfortable, the president of Montgomery Community College seeks to ban free speech that analyzes the history of Zionism in Israel, which American Jews and everyone else needs to understand to restore the peaceful co-existence that existed in Palestine before Zionist Jews resorted to terrorism to create an apartheid state in violation of multiple UN resolutions.

What Zionists, like JCRC, don’t want Americans to know is that Israel’s genocidal collective punishment of Palestinians is not about protecting Israelis and all Jews from “anti-Semitism”, and that the growing global support for opposition to Zionism is not about destroying Israel, but restoring democracy by ending its apartheid state. Although Jewish Zionists often claim that chants like “From the River to the Sea” is a legitimate aspirational goal for Israel’s annexation of “Occupied Palestinian territories”, when the same words are chanted by Palestinians it is interpreted as the annihilation of Israel and Jews around the world.

Jewish Zionists in Maryland have also been trying to block the participation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Maryland’s Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention, after having gotten the Montgomery County Council to unanimously pass an advisory resolution criminalizing criticisms of Israeli apartheid as “anti-Semitic” under the guise of honoring the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Teachers in Montgomery County public schools have also been placed on administrative leave by MCPS for expressing any support for Palestinian rights.

These strategies are similar to the incremental steps which rapidly led to the Nazi holocaust of European Jews who were stigmatized and treated as subhumans and terrorists in preparing the public’s acceptance for their annihilation. As authoritarianism sweeps the US and other countries in economic and political decline, this is the time for colleges and universities to redouble their commitment to academic freedom and free speech to counter the political pressure to blame scapegoats.

Sincerely,

Bob Griss, Potomac, MD. Retired sociologist and Jewish American who pioneered civil rights approaches to health care in the US, and is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. Email: Bgrisscdh@aol.com