Act For Palestine Foundation hosted Sunday, August 27th, 2023, Dr. Rabab Abdul Hadi, whose course highlighting Palestine was cancelled by San Francisco University.
In a Twitter talk entitled “Hidden Battle: Intellectual and Cultural Discrimination against Palestinians in U.S universities”, Abdul Hadi said that San Francisco University’s hostility against Palestinian professors and curricula has been on the rise. Previously, the leading U.S. University also held off AMED course on Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas.
“Although my course “Palestine: ethnic studies perspective” is highly popular and the sole University course spotting light on Palestine, the University has refused to include it in its educational plan,” added Abdul Hadi.
San Francisco kept dodging the issue, yet Abdul Hadi laid emphasis behind this abolition on “Zionist calls aiming at silencing Palestinian voices in the world”.
Abdul Hadi, who has been working for the university since 2009, has faced a wave of smearing and harassment with loud unstoppable threats to undergo disciplinary measures in the bid to pressure her not to teach any courses featuring Palestine, justice and struggle.
“Over the past years, the university administration spared no effort to dismantle this course and rule it out,” shared Abdul Hadi.
Long Record of Incitement
Israeli-led campaigns against pro-Palestine activists, concerts, and other cultural and intellectual activities play a major role in the downfall of many.
Months ago, the Israeli lobby led antisemitic campaigns to remove the rock legend Roger Waters from public life, bringing forth some misleading claims that “his performances are not joust concerts but political rallies.”
Israel’s rage for Waters started particularly after his name appeared in the “Palestinian victims of Israel” catalogue.
Waters said in a statement that “Israeli-led campaigns are bad faith attacks from those who want to smear and silence me because they disagree with my political views.”
A Clear Bias
Outrage went viral on social media, condemning San Francisco’s attack on and suppression of the Palestinian professor and writer Rabab Abdel Hadi.
San Francisco’s move has been assessed by various parties as “A clear bias by the university administration towards Israel and the Zionist lobby organizations”.
San Francisco State University’s Academic Program for Arab and Muslim Diaspora Communities, founded and run by Professor Rabab in 2007, said this is an “arbitrary” measure against the well-versed professor.
They pointed out in a statement that the university has registered the name of another fellow to teach the subject “Colonialism, Imperialism and Resistance”, which Dr. Rabab designed and taught since 1999.
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