Legislators Want To Punish Free Speech On Palestine

Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas have all introduced bills that conflate pro-Palestine support with terrorism.

By Juilee Shivalkar and Azadeh Shahshahani, Prism

In the months since Oct. 7, students, organizers, and community members have decried the ongoing genocide in Gaza and called for a free Palestine. There has also been a corresponding increase in Islamophobia and brutal suppression of Palestinian organizing, including intimidation, police brutality, and violence waged against college students who protested Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

The backlash will only continue—and this time, it will impact people nationwide.

Legislators, acting in lockstep with school officials’ efforts to suppress free speech, have spent the last several months introducing bills intended to target pro-Palestine protests. It is no coincidence that many of these bills have been introduced in the South. As W.E.B. Du Bois famously said, “As the South goes, so goes the nation.” Project South has always recognized the U.S. South as an important lever for both oppression and liberation within the U.S., and we know many harmful bills are piloted in Southern states before spreading nationwide.

In response to outpourings of public support for Palestine, state governments have resorted to introducing legislation and enacting policies that target and suppress pro-Palestine advocacy. As one example, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed House Bill 30 into law. The bill incorporates the heavily criticized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism that conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Although there were previous attempts to pass similar versions of the bill in Georgia, this year’s hearing testimony invoked pro-Palestine advocacy to justify the bill, which then passed quickly with bipartisan support. Kemp even invoked Oct. 7 during the bill’s signing, referring to “horrific terrorist attacks” that “claimed the lives of over 1,200 Israelis.”

State legislatures also invoked Oct. 7 as justification to introduce or amend state antiterrorism laws. The use of domestic terrorism laws to target Palestine and pro-Palestine advocacy is not new, as evidenced by a February report highlighting the anti-Palestine animus that underpins a great deal of U.S. antiterrorism law. This year, numerous bills were introduced that reinforce anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant trends. These bills purposefully conflate terrorism with support for Palestine by making unsupported claims about pro-Palestine protests being backed by or representing support for terrorist groups.