Some U.S. Professors Praise Hamas’s October 7 Terror Attacks

Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre of 1,400 people in Israel, U.S.-based anti-Israel activists and organizations have justified, excused and even venerated the terror group’s actions that day, some using overtly antisemitic rhetoric. That includes a number of U.S. university professors, some of whom have expressed inflammatory views, celebrating Hamas’s actions on October 7 as “heroic” or an “achievement” and calling for “Zionists” to remove themselves from Israel or suggesting they should be physically assaulted.  

Professors at several American universities have expressed these sentiments at anti-Israel rallies, on social media and in published essays. For some, their arguments are rooted in the false notion that Israelis are foreign settler-colonizers no different from 19th century European colonists in Africa and the Middle East, and as such, Israelis do not have the right to safety and security. Some professors cheered Hamas for putatively shifting the balance of power in the Middle East and bringing Palestinians closer to gaining control of Israel. In their view, Israel does not have the right to exist, and any kind of action taken to end its existence is justified.  

At least one professor has taken a leave of absence, and another resigned following their statements. 

Examples of this rhetoric: 

Updated November 21, 2023: 

Osman Umarji, a Lecturer at the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine:

• During a lecture on November 10, Umarji stated: "The Zionists have been exposed for the criminals and blood-thirsty animals that they are. This is a gift from Allah to the world." He also remarked: "This is a chance for us. Allah is giving us a golden opportunity. Every now and then, with His divine wisdom, He sends reminders to us, whether it was 9/11 or the Second Intifada, or some other issue that is waking the Muslims' spirit."

Updated November 17, 2023: 

Bikrum Gill, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech, on a November 12 webinar organized by Democratic Socialists of America's International Committee: 

• He stated that Hezbollah terrorism is "a form of anti-imperialism that unfortunately the Western left shies away from too much. This is Iran and North Korea working together to build a weapons production capacity that can challenge at an international scale." 

• "We must refuse those who demand that we condemn Palestinian violence" 

Sean Malloy is an Associate Professor of History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) at University of California, Merced. He is also on the advisory board of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, an anti-Zionist collective of professors across academic spaces. In April of 2021, Malloy was slated to speak on a Zoom panel at San Francisco State University with Leila Khaled, a longtime active member of the U.S. State Department-designated terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). However, as confirmed by an Eventbrite spokesperson, the event was taken down due to violation of Terms of Service. 

He reposted the following tweets which undermined or glorified the horrific events of October 7: 

• Nora Barrows-Friedman @norabf, October 7: “Liberals think “free Palestine” means it should only happen by appealing to the morality of Israelis & hoping they stop doing an apartheid; instead of what Palestinians are doing, whether it’s BDS or armed struggle or bravely paragliding over the fence to capture Israeli soldiers” 

 

• @dunksdeux, October 7: “imagine you’re drinking a $18 sparkling water called Butterfly Mist, rolling on the worst molly ever stamped, and listening to EDM from the bush administration when Hamas guys start dropping out of the sky. thats the kind of shit that in the old testament meant god is mad at you” 

 

• @pissboymcgee, October 7: “did some people just think Palestine had to like file paperwork or something to be freed, this is what oppressed fighting the oppressor looks like” 

 

• Karim Wafa Al-Hussaini @DrKarimWafa, October 9: “it’s always “let’s decolonize” until it’s actually time to do it and y’all suddenly cry out “oh no... not like that” 

 

Danny Shaw, Adjunct Lecturer of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Race, Ethnicity, Class and Gender at the City University of New York:   

•  At a Sunday, October 15, 2023, rally, Shaw reportedly shouted, “Zionism is a trap. Go back to your true history. Go back to Yiddish land! …. This is not Israel vs. Hamas. This is a Zionist extermination campaign that began in 1948.” 

• Shaw has tweeted numerous denigrating comments about Zionism in the wake of the Hamas massacres, posting on October 16 that “Zi^nists are straight Babylon swine. We need to protest their neighborhoods. Where is your humanity? Why are you racist arrogant bullies? You think you are better than others? Zionism is beyond a mental illness. It's a genocidal disease. #Israel #gaza #gaza_genocide” and later that day, “Zionist[s are] the most despicable form of human being.”

 

 

Joseph Massad, Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University: 

• Massad wrote in an Electronic Intifada op ed on October 8: “Perhaps the major achievement of the resistance in the temporary takeover of these settler-colonies is the death blow to any confidence that Israeli colonists had in their military and its ability to protect them.” 

Rabab Abdulhadi, Professor and Founding Director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies Program at San Francisco State University: 

• On October 7, she quote-tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar, criticizing Rep. Omar’s condemnation of the attacks: “Seriously @IlhanMN? ‘Senseless’ #PalestineUnderAttack are merely defending themselves. Are you saying that #Palestinians should be exceptionalized from the right to defend themselves against colonial & racist violence? Check your facts! #FreePalestine #IsraeliCrimes.”  

• On October 7, Abdulhadi tweeted, “It's worth remembering how vicious colonists act when the colonized dare #breakTheirChains from #Palestine, #Algeria #Vietnam ... to #TurtleIsland. No innocent bystanders here. Demand Immediate accountability for #IsraeliCrimes. #BDS.”  

 

Russell Rickford, Associate Professor of History at Cornell University: 

• Rickford deliveredan inflammatory speech at an off-campus protest on October 15, 2023, saying, "What has Hamas done? Hamas has shifted the balance of power. Hamas has punctured the illusion of invincibility. That's what they've done. You don't have to be a Hamas supporter to recognize that. Hamas has changed the terms of the debate. Israeli officials are right, nothing will be the same again. Nothing will be the same again. Hamas has challenged the monopoly of violence.” He continued, “And in those first few hours -- even as horrific acts were being carried out, many of which [inaudible]...there were many thousands of goodwill, many Palestinians, conscious, who abhor violence -- as do you, as do I -- who abhor the targeting of civilians -- as do you, as do I -- who were able to breathe! They were able to breathe, for the first time in years! It was exhilarating. It was exhilarating, it was energizing. And if they weren't exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence..." He has since apologized for his “horrible choice of words” and took a leave of absence.  

Asad Abukhalil, Professor of Political Science at California State University, Stanislaus: 

• Abukhalil tweeted on October 7: “Palestine has never been as within reach” and “Arabs will be magnanimous in victory against Israel. Arabs won’t treat the defeated the way Israel has treated Arabs since 1948.  The return of the refugees to their homes in Palestine will be orderly.” 

 

Jemma DeCristo, Assistant Professor of American Studies at University of California, Davis: 

• In numerous tweets she claimed that anti-Israel activists should start “putting hands” on journalists who “misrepresent” the situation. On October 10, 2023 she tweeted that these “zionist journalists” have “houses w addresses, kids in school... they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.” She ended one tweet with emojis of a knife, an axe and drops of blood.  

 

Eman Abdelhadi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Human Development at University of Chicago: 

• She tweeted on the morning of October 7, “Morning Freedom” with a Palestinian flag emoji.  

 

Nina Farnia, Assistant Professor at Albany Law School:  

• On the morning of October 7, she tweeted that Palestinians are “tearing down the walls of colonialism & apartheid,” and that “Palestinians are a beacon for us all.” This tweet has since been deleted.  

 

Zareena Grewal, Associate Professor of American Studies, Ethnicity, Race, & Migration and Religious Studies at Yale University: 

• On October 7, she responded, “Settlers are not civilians. This is not hard” to the tweet, “Civilians are civilians are civilians.” In another tweet that day, she wrote, “Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle, solidarity.” 

 

Ambereen Dadabhoy, Associate Professor of Literature at Harvey Mudd College: 

• On October 7, she tweeted: “The people of Gaza are the rebels that the west imagines themselves to be, while they are the ’evil empire,’ intent on annihilating them. This is the real heroism and resistance.”  

 

Laura Mullen, former Professor and Chair of Humanities in Literature and Creative Writing and the National Endowment for the Arts and MacDowell Fellow at Wake Forest University:  

• "So it's kind of a Duh but if you turn me out of my house plow my olive grove and confine what's left of my family to the small, impoverished state you run as an open air prison I could be tempted to shoot up your dance party yeah. even knowing you will scorch the earth." (Mullen has since resigned, due to alleged threats to her safety. Barry Trachtenberg, the Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest, called the tweet” callous” but also criticized the university’s handling of the controversy.)