The Nation: Pro-Palestine Activists Are Facing Horrifying Abuse Online

A person wearing a scarf on their head stands among tents as student demonstrators occupy the pro-Palestinian “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the West Lawn of Columbia University on April 24, 2024, in New York City.

(Timothy A. Clary / AFP via Getty Images)

Speaking out for Palestine triggers a torrent of racism, misogyny, and violent sexual threats. “I was terrified that someone would do something to me,” one activist says.

Note: This piece contains disturbing content about sexual harassment and assault.

It started, as it often does, on X. In early October 2023, Maryam Iqbal, then an 18-year-old freshman and pro-Palestinian activist at Barnard, was doxxed. Her X account was flooded with replies calling for her to be subjected to sexual violence. In the same breath, she was told that she supports the rape of Jewish women. People behind their keyboards began describing all the ways they hoped to violate her body.

“They’ll say things like ‘go to Gaza and get raped,’ and they’ll describe in very graphic detail how that would happen. But they’re clearly thinking about it themselves,” Iqbal says. “It’s clearly an expression of their thoughts and fantasies. They want to do it, but they’re like phrasing it as ‘Hamas will do this to you.’”

Iqbal is far from alone in experiencing this kind of hatred. Over and over again, pro-Palestinian activists have found themselves on the receiving end of violent, sexually explicit, racist harassment online. The bile is not limited to student activists or to Muslim or BIPOC women—for instance, Ruth, an attorney and vocal anti-Zionist Jew, says that she has received many misogynistic and antisemitic messages, including people calling her a “Kapo c**t” and a “self-gassing Jew”—she says that these messages are incredibly disturbing, and sadly not the worst that folks get.

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Read the rest at The Nation.