For decades, the voices of Palestinians and those who advocate for Palestinian rights have been stifled-if not outright silenced-in the United States, according to scholars Ussama Makdisi and Saree Makdisi. More recently, activists have been arrested by federal agents merely for writing op-eds, while pro-Palestinian speech in universities as well as media and civic institutions has faced an unprecedented crackdown. How are we to understand this intolerance in the supposed land of the free?
In Anti-Palestinianism, the Makdisis, two of the most prominent Palestinian American scholars in the United States, argue that the phenomenon is not reducible to Islamophobia or to general anti-Arab animus. Rather, they show that anti-Palestinianism constitutes a distinct form of bias rooted in the specific historical and political circumstances of Palestine and Israel-it is an attempt to deny the Palestinian story altogether through an unprecedented system of assumptions, norms, rules, and even laws. Drawing on a vast array of historical examples, the Makdisis have produced an essential work that gives language and clarity to the limits of American inclusion.