Hatem Bazian |
When “interfaith dialogue,” “Islamophobia,” boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS), and academia collide, there’s a good chance that Friends of Sabeel – North America (FOSNA) will be involved. Case in point: FOSNA, the “voice of the Palestinian Christians,” recently held a conference with the title, “Voices for Justice & Peace in the Holy Land” that encompassed all four factors. It took place at co-host Christ the King Catholic Church in Pleasant Hill, California, a massive complex with plenty of room for the workshops that made up the bulk of the conference. Tables displayed with anti-Israel books, leaflets, flyers, and T-shirts lined the walls of the cafeteria; approximately 100 people attended, many sporting keffiyehs, including a tall woman wearing a patchwork-style dress composed entirely of the scarves. Radical chic was all the rage.
Hatem Bazian—a senior lecturer in the department of Near Eastern studies, director of the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley, and a regular at Sabeel conferences and other “interfaith” events—led the workshop titled “American Muslims and the Palestinian struggle for liberation.” It focused on the alleged connection between “Islamophobia,” counterterrorism, and the pro-Israel movement.
