Subscribe Today
Request a Clip
In a November 14, 2024, panel titled "Manufacturing the Pogrom that Wasn't," hosted by the Palestine in Context Project on Jadalyya's YouTube channel, American media critic and former Al-Jazeera (Qatar) employee Sana Saeed criticized the "narrative of antisemitism" that emerged following the October 7 attacks. She called it a "shocking example" of how antisemitism is being "manufactured" and "weaponized" to distract from Israel's alleged "extermination of Palestinians in north Gaza." Saeed argued that accusations of antisemitism over the attack on Israeli soccer fans were part of a broader narrative portraying Jews as "the perpetual victims" of Arabs, with Israel framed as the only safe state. She expressed shock at the media's "audacity" in fabricating this story, suggesting that antisemitism is increasingly being used not to protect Jewish people, but to justify Israel's "unfettered violence" against Arabs and Muslims.
The panel was moderated by Bassam Haddad, an assistant professor at George Mason University business school and a faculty member at the Arab Studies Institute (ASI) at the university, and Laila Al-Arian, an American journalist with Al-Jazeera and daughter of Sami Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida who was convicted in 2006 on terrorism-related charges and subsequently deported from the U.S. According to its website, Jadaliyya is affiliated with the Arab Studies Institute (ASI) at George Mason University and its MA program. The Palestine in Context Project is connected to numerous academic institutions, including Georgetown, Rutgers, Birzeit University, Harvard, Brown, University of Chicago, Columbia, and several others.
Bassam Haddad: "We are today going to be discussing the very important topic that has been in the media, social media and beyond. We are titling 'Amsterdamned,' basically the pogrom that wasn't. Why did the media lie?"
[...]
Sana Saeed: "I'm still really... shocked at the audacity that was displayed by the news media in, really just, there's no other word to use it other than fabricating this story. It is completely fabricated.
[...]
"Right, it's this idea that Israelis, and those Jews, right, because they're always being conflated, are always victimized. That there is no place for them to be safe other than in Israel, and even then they're constantly fighting these scary Arab mobs.
[...]
"The Jews are the perpetual victims of the scary Arabs.
[...]
"It is such a shocking example of something we have seen, especially over the last 14 months. Which is... and especially this narrative, this manufacturing of antisemitism. That's not to say, right, before anyone clips this and says: 'Oh my god, what's Sana saying,' that's not to say that there is no such thing as antisemitism or anything of that sort, but we have to be real about how antisemitism has been weaponized, not only over the last 14 months but the last couple decades at least, in order to silence and suppress and repress critics of the state of Israel.
[...]
"And so what we see is that this narrative about antisemitism becomes less about the question of the structural safety of Jewish people, the physical safety of Jewish people, and more about – and again this is the way that it is presented to us – more about the right of Jewish people, again being conflated with Israelis, but the right of Jewish people to unfettered violence, to unregulated violence, specifically against Arabs and Muslims. That is what this has become about and, which is why as soon as October 7th happens and Israel begins its campaign of genocide on the night of October 7th into October 8th, very, very, very quickly within 24 to 48 hours we start seeing the narrative of antisemitism emerge.
[...]
"But whenever there is extra attention being paid to the atrocities being committed by Israel, we see the antisemitic narrative pop up again. Let's not forget the context in which this story, the Amsterdam story, is being manufactured. It has been over... it's been a month and a half since Israel began its total siege of North Gaza, right, which has been the total extermination of Palestinians in North Gaza."
Haddad: "This is a wonderful distraction."
Saeed: "And it's a perfect distraction."
Latest Clips
