MARC LAMONT HILL SPEECH AT "NOT BACKING DOWN" PALESTINIAN RIGHTS PANEL AT UMASS

Professor and political commentator Marc Lamont Hill delivers opening remarks at the "Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech & the Battle for Palestinian Rights" panel held at UMass-Amherst on May 4, 2019. In his remarks, Hill talks about being fired by CNN for comments he made in defense of Palestinian human rights and makes an impassioned case for seeing the fight for Palestinian rights through the lens of the civil rights movement in the U.S.

The panel, which focused on the increasingly vitriolic backlash against pro-Palestinian voices, was held in front of a capacity crowd despite a fierce attempt by right-wing groups to brand the event as anti-Semitic and shut it down.

Other panelists included: legendary rocker Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, who has been repeatedly vilified as an “anti-Semite” for his criticisms of Israel’s human rights abuses and his calls for a cultural boycott of Israel; Palestinian-American political activist Linda Sarsour, who was recently targeted by a private Israeli intelligence firm as part of a coordinated U.S. campaign to prevent her from speaking out against Israeli policies on American college campuses; and Nation magazine sports editor and author Dave Zirin, a frequent contributor to MSNBC and ESPN who has been called a “self-hating Jew” for his criticisms of Israeli human rights abuses.

The panel was introduced by UMass professor Sut Jhally, the Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation in Northampton, MA, which organized the event. It was moderated by Vijay Prashad, a journalist and historian who appears regularly on Democracy Now! and is the author or editor of over 30 books, including Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation.

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