Setting The Record Straight

Campus Watch corrects false allegations made against it.

Response to:

Why Are Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi and the AMED Program Under Attack at SFSU?
by Ruba Akkad and Harry Soloway
Mondoweiss
February 1, 2022

Categories:
False allegations of attacking professors who criticize Israel
False allegations of suppressing free speech
False allegations of being a Zionist organization
Misc. Corrections
False accusations of being part of a lobby or conspiracy

Original text from Why Are Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi and the AMED Program Under Attack at SFSU?:

At least ten self-identified Zionist groups including Campus Watch/ME Forum, Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), Hillel International, Canary Mission, StandWithUs, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the Lawfare Project have pressured SFSU administration to reduce the reach of AMED's influence. . . . Through misleading charges of antisemitism, and attempting to detach Palestine from liberation contexts and histories, Zionists provide SFSU with the messaging to justify censoring and silencing Palestinian activism. They actively seek to shut down justice-centered education from any sites of critical pedagogy, including Ethnic Studies programs and especially AMED Studies.

Campus Watch Responds:

It must be tiresome, coming to the defense of someone as self-destructive as Rabab Abdulhadi, senior scholar and former director of San Francisco State University (SFSU)'s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative (AMED). We know of no other professor who combines ineptitude, ingratitude, and ingrained hatred in such heaping measures – yet who, after repeatedly savaging (and suing) her employer, her profession, and the truth, retains her image as the posterchild for academic victimization.

As their latest tirade proves (again), Abdulhadi's tireless apologists at Mondoweiss are no better at discerning truth, adhering to high standards, or conducting simple research than The Most Victimized Person on Earth herself. So, for the record, again: Campus Watch and the Middle East Forum are not "self-identified Zionist groups." Where do the authors think this supposed self-identification occurs? Here's a hint: it doesn't. As for our opinion of AMED, we are opposed to any and all individuals or programs that celebrate vulgar antisemitism, hatred, violence, and politicized scholarship and teaching for the rigorous pursuit of truth conducted in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

Moving along to Abdulhadi's conception of "Palestinian activism" and "liberation contexts": Given the brevity of human life, we won't attempt a comprehensive demonstration of how she uses her position to whitewash terrorism and other evils. We'll just note for the record her antisemitism, her glorification of terrorists, and her signing an MOU with Hamas-hub An-Najah University. She declared that "Zionists are NOT welcomed on our campus," used taxpayer dollars to help American terrorists meet with Palestinian radicals, and invited convicted terrorist Leila Khaled to speak to her students via Zoom.

All this (and more) disprove Mondoweiss's claim that "Zionists provide SFSU with the messaging to justify censoring and silencing Palestinian activism." To the contrary, Abdulhadi's own rancid record provides the SFSU administration with all the evidence it needs to hold her accountable. That Abdulhadi's bosses continue to tolerate her inexcusable behavior proves their own moral and intellectual corruption as well as how little her media fan club has to worry about.

By Winfield Myers, director of academic affairs at the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project.