Bir Zeit Prof: Columbus Colonized America, Israel to Blame

Abdul Rahim al-Shaikh

What could possibly connect Israel’s founding in 1948 and Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America in 1492? According to Bir Zeit University professor Abdul Rahim al-Shaikh, who, in a recent talk at Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies, peddled the academic theory of “intersectionality,” the two historical events form “an intersection between the conquest of America and the conquest of Palestine.” Campus Watch contributor Mara Schiffren’s report on al-Shaikh’s lecture appears today at the Algemeiner:

Al-Shaikh is an associate professor of philosophy and cultural studies at Bir Zeit University, and a Fulbright Visiting Senior Scholar at CPS. The audience of approximately sixty people continued to trickle into one of the smaller semi-circular lecture halls in Jerome Greene Hall, even as al-Shaikh began. He opened with the aforementioned “intersection” between 1492 and the Zionist return to the land of Israel in the mid-nineteenth century. . . . By employing the magic of intersectionality, al-Shaikh blamed Israel for an event that took place 350 years before its rebirth.

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Columbia University

Cinnamon Stillwell

Cinnamon Stillwell analyzes Middle East studies academia in West Coast colleges and universities for Campus Watch. A San Francisco Bay Area native and graduate of San Francisco State University, she is a columnist, blogger, and social media analyst. Ms. Stillwell, a former contributing political columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, has written on a wide variety of topics, including the political atmosphere in American higher education, and has appeared as a guest on television and talk radio.