The Shocking Support Of Hamas From US Academia

Just one day after the 50th anniversary of the surprise Arab attack on Israel that launched the 1973 Yom Kippur War, jihadists from Gaza's Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations unleashed another surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Amid rape outrages, at least dozens taken hostage, hundreds dead and thousands wounded in Israel, numerous anti-Israel academics in Middle East studies have opened a second Twitter/X front in the terrorist war against the Jewish state.

While Israeli writer Lazar Berman speculated that "October 7, 2023 saw the most Jews slaughtered in a single day since the Holocaust," San Francisco State University associate professor of ethnic studies Rabab Abdulhadi fell in line behind the genocidal terrorists, tweeting that Hamas members "are merely defending themselves ... against colonial & racist violence."

Zaytuna College professor of Islamic law and theology and the University of California Berkeley (UCB) lecturer and chair of UCB's Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project Hatem Bazian gave the terrorists support from America's left coast.

He tweeted: "Palestinians are calling for freedom, dignity and true expression of solidarity!" Befitting his vicious and longstanding antisemitism, his tweet included an advertisement for a forthcoming rally organized by his vile creation, the Hamas-aligned American Muslims for Palestine.

UCB history professor Ussama Makdisi picked up on the theme of victimized Palestinians suffering under Israeli repression.

"The West simply does not count Arab Palestinians as equal human beings," he tweeted to justify terrorist atrocities. Thus, "Palestinians turn to armed struggle in face of massive Western-funded & backed oppression. Then the West condemns them."

Rutgers University assistant professor of Africana Studies Noura Erakat, who believes Israel's mere existence is criminal, sang the same pro-terrorist tune.

"Any condemnation of violence is vapid if it does not begin & end with a condemnation of Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, and occupation," she tweeted. 

"Any shock in response to this multi-scalar attack reflects an expectation that those Palestinians die quietly and a complicity in their strangulation," she added, effectively blaming the victims of the terrorists she supports.

Georgetown University's Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization Jonathan Brown mocked the fears of British broadcaster Rachel Riley, whose mother was Jewish.

"I just passed two cars in West London driving with Palestinian flags flying from each window, bouncing up and down in their cars, seemingly celebrating like they were having a party," Riley tweeted.

Not alone among Britons disturbed by such displays of a flag that has stood for so much terrorism, she spoke of "a dangerous and terrifying time for all Jews around the world."

Brown responded by sneering about an "emergency regulation: no flags in cars and bouncing!" London Jews currently experiencing Muslim antisemitism might not find this so funny. 

Self-proclaimed interfaith guru and all-around peacemaker Craig Considine, a Rice University sociology lecturer, responded to Hamas ravages with his own peace proposals reflecting his longstanding animus against Israel.

"One state is the solution," he tweeted, as if Jews and other Israeli citizens could ever abandon their security forces and share a unitary state with an Arab population that birthed Hamas.

"Israel must end the occupation now," he added, ignoring that Israel in 2005 withdrew its forces from the Gaza Strip, where Hamas later bloodily seized power and developed a terrorist infrastructure. Israel must also end "its settler colonialism," he proclaimed, using a propagandistic phrase that delegitimizes the settlement of Jews in their ancestral homeland. 

Such tweets demonstrate that Israel faces not just bloody battles against terrorists, but also profound propaganda struggles around the world, particularly from academics who engage in discursive terrorism of their own.

While Israel fights for survival, a battle for public opinion often heavily stacked against it seeks to constrain the environment in which Israel can maneuver. The latest carnage and the incessant academic apologetics for Israel's would-be destroyers demonstrate yet again why Americans should examine the purposes and purse strings of Middle East studies.

Meanwhile, nearly thirty Harvard student associations, including the Harvard Islamic Society, the Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Caucus, and the Society for Arab Students, released a public statement declaring that they collectively "hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence."

A national pro-Palestine student organization is calling for a "day of resistance" on college campuses Thursday in support of brutal terrorist attacks on Israel, emphasizing that they are not only in solidarity with Palestine, they are "PART of this movement."

A toolkit released by the national Students for Justice in Palestine calls for the student movement for "Palestine liberation" to organize a national day of resistance on college campuses across the U.S. and Canada. 

"We as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement," the toolkit messaging says in bold. "This is a moment of mobilization for all Palestinians. We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground."

At least six chapters have already announced such events for Oct. 12, according to the Anti-Defamation League: Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Butler University in Indiana, University of Louisville in Kentucky, University of Binghamton in New York and the University of Virginia.

"We must continue to resist directly, through dismantling Zionism and wielding the political power that our organizations hold on our campuses and in our communities," the Students for Justice in Palestine toolkit says. "We are asking chapters to host demonstrations on campus/in their community in support of our resistance in Palestine and the national liberation struggle--one which they play a critical role in actualizing."

If a protest is not possible, the national Students for Justice in Palestine encourages other forms of engagement, such as a sit-in, "disruption" or "educational event."

The national Students for Justice in Palestine messaging states that "when people are occupied, resistance is justified."

"Normalize the resistance," the messaging says, urging students to describe the current events as a "struggle for national liberation," rather than a war or a conflict.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestine groups at universities such as George Washington University in Washington, D.C., are expressing support for Palestine without acknowledging the atrocities that the terrorists have committed in Israel.

"This past weekend we witnessed them break free, tearing down the prison walls, and making it known to the world: WE WILL BE CAGED NO LONGER," says a statement from GW Students for Justice in Palestine. That statement praises the invasion as "history in the making" and "the beginning of a new era in our struggle."

"GW Students for Justice in Palestine maintains unwavering support for our people's resistance, in all its forms," the statement says. "Every single act of resistance moves us closer to the liberation of our homeland. We will never capitulate to the colonizer or his sympathizers, and we stand firm and steadfast in support of our people's right to resist. We call upon all our people and those in solidarity with us to join us in this struggle."

Jewish Insider editor-in-chief Josh Kraushaar reacted to the student statement by calling it a "look at the intellectual/moral climate on top college campuses."

Lawyer and commentator Erielle Davidson tweeted: "My skin is crawling at the thought that American universities allow bloodthirsty freaks to carry their degrees. GW has a high Jewish population. Despicable."

And Israeli television anchor Lidar Grave-Lazi said in a social media post that "the world is finally opening its eyes to see the true face of the 'Pro-Palestinian' movement."

"It is not about human rights," she said. "It is about brutality, barbarism, hatred and the annihilation of Israel. Unfortunately, they have infiltrated college campuses across the U.S. and not enough is being done to counter their hatred. Just look to @Harvard's deafening silence. Anyone who is civilized and has a shred of humanity should condemn such statements and call them out for what they truly are."

Victoria Coates, vice president of The Heritage Foundation's Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, told The Daily Signal on Tuesday that "the corrosive antisemitism that infects American higher education today has been on ugly display since the terrorist attacks against Israel over the weekend."

"Instead of denouncing the genocidal Hamas terrorists who hunted, tortured, murdered and took Jews hostage, all too many in academia have come out in favor of their depraved and savage rampage as if it were somehow legitimate because the victims were Jews," Coates said.

Originally published at The Daily Signal - reposted with permission.