ISTANBUL

Maura Finkelstein, a Jewish professor at Muhlenberg College in the US, was dismissed from her position due to her anti-Zionist social media posts.

She argued that her termination set a dangerous precedent for higher education and freedom of speech in the US.

Finkelstein, who taught anthropology and offered courses on Palestine at the college in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for nine years, described herself as “an anti-Zionist Jew fighting for Palestinian liberation.”

She discussed with Anadolu how she became anti-Zionist, circumstances surrounding her dismissal and the growing pressures on academic freedom in the US.

Despite growing up in a Zionist family, her perspective changed during a classroom debate about the Oslo Peace Accords. She was assigned to represent Palestine.

"I had only ever been taught about Israel. And all of a sudden, I had this incredible opportunity to learn about Palestine, and I took it very seriously," she said. "And what I learned was that the myth of Israel circulated in the United States, the myth of Israel that, Jews in the United States and across the world, celebrated in the wake of the Holocaust, was complete fiction, and that actually it was a colonial project in which Palestinians were experiencing genocide and dispossession because of this entity that was Israel."

Pressure from donors; dismissal process

Finkelstein said she began facing pressure from pro-Israel donors at her school after Oct. 7, 2023. Following the events of Oct. 7, Finkelstein faced three months of extensive investigations into her teaching, research, and publications. But no violations were found.

The incident that led to her termination occurred in January, when she shared on Instagram a post by Palestinian poet Rami Kanazi that said: "Do not normalize Zionism." A student leader at Hillel, a Zionist organization on campus, filed a complaint, claiming that Finkelstein’s anti-Zionist views made the student feel unsafe in class and violated anti-discrimination policies.

“I had never met this student,” said Finkelstein. On Jan. 24, the school decided to terminate her employment without compensation.

Her dismissal is under appeal.

“That (first) appeals process found in favor of the college,” she said. “Now it's a faculty panel (second appeals process), which I'm hoping will rule in my favor because this is a terrifying precedent in higher education and free speech in the United States.”

Zionism and anti-discrimination laws

Finkelstein highlighted the growing push to equate Zionism with Judaism in the US, with efforts to incorporate Zionism into anti-discrimination policies. "These laws protect against discrimination based on inherent characteristics like gender, race and religion," she said. "But some are pushing for Zionism, an ideology, to be included under these protections."

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) criticized Finkelstein’s dismissal, noting that it was the first instance of a tenured professor being dismissed for comments or social media posts related to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

 ‘New and chilling McCarthyism’

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Finkelstein has received numerous hate-filled threats, mostly from Zionist Jews. “I would say that almost all of the hate I've experienced has been coming from Zionist Jews, so basically Jews telling me that I'm not really a Jew, that I'm a monster, that I'm a Nazi,” she said.

She added that universities in the US are “incredibly unequal places,” where some individuals are protected more than others. “For a while, I thought that because I was Jewish, I was protected more than my Palestinian Arab Muslim colleagues who would be easily called antisemite just for mentioning Palestine.”

Finkelstein warned that talking about Palestine in academia has always been dangerous, but that the current crackdown on free speech feels unprecedented.

“The far-right white supremacist-like politicians in the US have weaponized antisemitism in order to shut down all criticism of Israel,” she said.

She cited the dismissal of faculty members, expulsion of students and police intervention on campuses as alarming developments:

“I am an alum of Columbia University and I'm not allowed on campus. It's a pretty chilling new McCarthyism,” she said.

“Israel and the United States are the greatest threats to the global community right now, and Israel is showing us exactly who that state has been since 1948. It's a genocidal settler colonial state that has always been very clear about not just wanting to colonize all of Palestine, but move into Lebanon, move into Syria, move into the Sinai,” she said.

Call for political change in US​​​​​​​

Regarding the upcoming US presidential elections, Finkelstein remarked, “We have two politicians who have both been very clear about wanting to continue genocide,”​​​​​​​ as she urged structural changes to the US political system.

“We need to break down this two-party system that basically creates a hostage situation with voters every four years. There is no good outcome to this election, and I hope that it leads to some kind of larger social uprising shift that can reframe the way in which we think about politics in this country.”

*Writing by Efe Ozkan