Suppressing Dissent

An urgent and compelling read, this collection of essays dismantles the false promise that repression can ever guarantee safety. A must-read that envisions a future grounded in the self-determination and human rights of both Palestinians and Israelis.

There is perhaps no more important way of expressing disagreement, disappointment, insight, the experience of pain, and calling for justice than through dissent. This is how political systems are corrected. This is how oppressed/repressed/suppressed communities are heard and eventually liberated. Unfortunately, this is also why those who engage in dissent are targeted, harassed and killed. The path to freedom and an improvement of the human condition sits at the intersection of dissent and repression. Nowhere is this more important to explore than in Palestine–Israel and Suppressing Dissent is a much-needed reflection on how neglected forms of repression, which target individuals and organizations throughout the world, operate. The book clearly reveals that to understand struggles and counter-struggles within individual nation-states one must understand struggles and counter-struggles throughout the world.

Democracy is under threat around the world, as illiberal governments cooperate to develop and refine their tools of repression. This incredibly timely book sounds the alarm about efforts by the Israeli government to export its repression of Palestinian rights to the United States, with implications for political dissent and activism globally. Anyone who cares about the future of democracy should pay attention.

No issue since the Cold War has tested our society’s commitment to free expression like the Palestine–Israel conflict. This timely anthology – examining censorship campaigns against dissidents and civil society groups in the United States, Israel, and Palestine, and the Arab world – is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the tactics of McCarthyism have been refurbished for the globalized twenty-first century.

Repressing speech is never the end of a problem, but rather the beginning of a bigger one. This volume clearly shows that creation of a bigger problem for Israel and Palestine, a region desperately in need of dialogue not imposed silence. Suppressing Dissent fills a gap in the policy community’s understanding of how shutting down discussion only fuels anger, limits cooperation, and undermines possibilities for peace.

This comprehensive collection unpacks how policy on an issue ever more central to US and global security has often been precooked by the delimiting and even criminalization of open discourse and debate. For anyone trying to figure out the appalling policy outcomes and American complicity in war crimes, this collection is a good place to start.