Like many Palestinians, I have been attacked and punished for criticizing Israel. Now I’m filing a civil rights complaint against my university for encouraging those attacks.

When I call my family in Palestine, my heartbeat pauses as rings go unanswered—only to resume, relieved but shaken, once I hear their voices.

Nearly two weeks into the latest explosion of Israeli violence against occupied Palestinians, the world is finally beginning to understand what we have known for decades: Israel’s settler-colonial violence—the forced cleansing of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah, the rampaging mobs in cities throughout the country, the bombs dropped on captive Gazans—has no place in the 21st century.

Palestinians have been saying this for years. But for us, as for our allies demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians, there are consequences for our speech. As soon as we speak out, we are immediately confronted by a repression machine restricting any criticism of Israel’s foundational and ongoing violence against Palestinians. We are then often punished.

Believe me, I know the consequences firsthand.

In June 2020, I became the subject of an international campaign to unseat me as Student Senate president of Florida State University. I had just made history as the first Palestinian, the first Arab, and the first Muslim to assume that office.

But, alongside other Palestinian student leaders, I was quickly drowned in a sea of animosity and intolerance toward Palestinians.

Pro-Israel students swiftly rummaged through my social media in a cyber-fishing expedition that is now understood as standard procedure when it comes to outspoken young Palestinians. Focusing on a photo of me in Palestine next to a statue of Nelson Mandela, students called my presidency into question because I cursed the Israeli military occupation oppressing my family and that I had lived under.

A campaign to unseat me erupted—with the help of petitions and an Israeli-government-funded app that, much like a video game, rewarded users for making complaints about me to my school. The embedded argument was that Palestinians like me who share experiences of Israeli oppression—like military occupation, apartheid, and inequality under the law—do so out of anti-Jewish and violent intent.

Not much later, my inboxes were filled with racist slurs based on this distortion of Palestinians and their allies. I received messages calling me “dirty ass towelhead” and “monkey ass piece of Arab shit.” I was told I should be castrated immediately and deported to Gaza. I was told that “Muzzlits” like me should be hunted down and killed.

My student body received enormous pressure too, with elected officials in Florida jumping into the mix. Legislators threatened to cut funding to my school. Cities adopted resolutions rebuking me, and the head of the state’s Covid-19 management department demanded my removal while Covid-19 deaths soared in Florida.

Given the scale of the response, the message was clear: Palestinians who challenge our oppression or even speak about violence committed against us and our families will themselves be painted as bullies—just as Palestinians resisting the current round of callous bombardment and dispossession are painted as aggressors.