How Support for Palestine Became a Hate Crime (Jewish Currents)
“…decisions are influenced by a well-funded ecosystem of Israel advocacy groups that amplify alleged antisemitic incidents in the media and appeal to institutions to punish the accused. ‘The immediate, default media framing is to give credence to the allegation that speech critical of Israel or critical of Zionism is antisemitism,’ said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. ‘This has everybody on the defensive. Nobody wants to be accused of supporting or enabling antisemitism.’ DA offices have received significant pressure from local pro-Israel groups to apply hate crime charges to protest-related incidents—and police and prosecutors have expended significant resources on such cases, even when they involve relatively minor allegations.”