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

Imagine, just imagine, this American-Israeli’s shock upon receiving a “Linkedin”(and FB “friend”) request from Hatem Bazian, an Islamist, revolutionary, anti-Zionist, anti-semitic and anti-western prof! Did you ever? Does this prof not get the meaning of Zionist and Conservative? Hmm. Surely he must have had a reason to seek out said “friendship” and “connection”. You think?

And while messages sent this way vary, ranging from effusive praise for all the heavy lifting (duly appreciated), to being smitten and having a crush… but let’s not digress, others send non-mistakable threats. Alas, there are also those (quite a few) who attempt to slither in between the cracks. Let’s call them the “invisible stalkers”!

Enter: Hatem Bazian

Now, Hatem is a fella who is laser-focused on Israel’s destruction, and being a “Palestinian” certainly fuels his fire. However, it is not the only requirement for said jihadi fervor. As such, his entire career is based upon methods which effectuate the destruction of Israel and America. He is deadly serious. His specialty, Islamic Studies, is tailor made for said career path. What a guy.

But in order to make sure that others in the academic arena jump on board, it is mandatory for Hatem’s like-minded crew to incite, incite and incite. Therefore, certain “weapons” are chosen, and they work like a charm. However, first we must separate the groupings; those who are already indoctrinated, from those who still require prodding, be they students or fellow profs.

Consider: the cesspool which passes for American (western) academia is more than a breeding ground:

Cesspool One:

IF U.S. academia is not a cesspool, then what else qualifies: anti-semitism on college campuses is the last acceptable prejudice! No other group, be they Islamists, feministas, gays/transgenders, Blacks, Hispanics etc, etc are “touchable”. Not so with the “Joos”. How can this be?

Cesspool Two: 

To be sure, without the likes of said jihadi prof(s), the following exhortations on U.S. campuses would be verboten: Israeli soldiers are “guilty”, as charged, for NOT raping “Palestinian” women! Yes, their twisted hatred knows no bounds. Vermin. Scum of the earth.

Cesspool Three:

To wit, is it any exaggeration to posit: the death – or the survival – of the west runs through western academia. U.S. campuses in the forefront!

On the other hand, there are some on U.S. campuses who do NOT require prodding, they are more than primed to come in for the kill. Instructively, let’s recall this OVERT criminal threat, one which should have – if the police were not in Islamic pockets, and American academia was not such a cesspool – landed this “student” jihadi in jail, but didn’t: “BOLO ALERT”, Mohammad Hammad GUPS student leader brandishes knife, wages threats to kill Jews/Israelis!

One of many similar violent Social Media messages allegedly sent by SFSU student and General Palestine Student Union president
Photo Credit: AMCHA Iniative

Back in December, The Jewish Press ran a story about Mohammad Hammad, the San Francisco State University student and president of SFSU’s General Union of Palestine Students.

Hammad had posted a picture and a message on the social media site Tumblr, which shows Hammad with a knife, beneath which is the caption, “I seriously can not get over how much I love this blade. It is the sharpest thing I own and cuts through everything like butter and just holding it makes me want to stab an Israeli soldier.”

The California-based AMCHA Initiative, which brought Hammad’s original threats to the public’s attention, released another statement today. This statement links to many more violent and threatening statements by Hammad which he made after the one that was the original focus of the group’s concern. The AMCHA Initiative is dedicated to documenting, exposing and eradicating anti-Semitism on American campuses.

In its Feb. 18 statement, AMCHA said that although its documentation of Hammad’s violent postings had been submitted to SFSU president Leslie Wong in mid-January, there had been no response.

Because Wong had not responded to AMCHA’s documentations, and due to serious concern about the health and safety of SFSU students, earlier on the day it released its statement, AMCHA alerted San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr, and the San Francisco District Attorney, George Gascòn, about Hammad’s violent predilection. They also provided copies of the many threatening and hostile public statements issued by Hammad.

The lurid messages continued right through November 22, when the student posted a public message in which he wrote:

You know what?

Israelis ARE colonizers, there is literally no way around it

And you know what else?

My heroes have always killed colonizers

I literally see nothing wrong with this

and my only regret is that not all colonizers were killed

HMM

In Hammad’s other violence-glorifying posts, he targeted not only members of the IDF and all Israelis, but anyone who is pro-Israel, as well as American soldiers. He also posted several more general paeans to murder, decapitation and depraved violence.

Something that AMCHA found particularly troubling was that Hammad revealed his excitement about being made the president of SFSU’s General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS), because then, he wrote, he hopes “to radicalize half of our population and bring them back with me as fighters.”

And it is under the proverbial terror wings of the likes of Hatem Bazian, “Islamophobia”, the made up out of whole cloth stealth, jihadi weapon, is sharpened to come in for the kill!

Berkeley Prof: Terrorists Good, ‘Islamophobia’ Bad

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 aregular 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.

We have a total of 4,300 cases; ninety percent are Palestinian [and] regarding ‘material support for terrorism.’ . . . Right now we are in the middle of planning another appeal on the Holy Land Foundation case, which already has cost us $5 million.

However, AMP does not officially engage in legal advocacy, but, rather, “educational” efforts, rendering Bazian’s claims, particularly the inflated figure of “4,300 cases,” suspect. Bazian sits on the board of directors of the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), which filed a motion to vacate the prison sentences of the five Holy Land Foundation defendants in late 2013. He may have had this in mind when he made the above statement, but his numbers still don’t add up, as MLFA lists only 48 cases wherein they are involved. Bazian should either verify the existence of the alleged 4,300 cases or to stop repeating this falsehood to the public.

Bazian also outlined AMP’s specific efforts to “put Palestine back on the agenda,” including anti-Israel bus ad campaigns, “Nakba commemorations” (radicals use the word “Nakba,” Arabic for catastrophe, to describe Israel’s founding), and “coalition building” with the anti-Israel groups Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. Perhaps most ominously, he noted that, “We are designing a curriculum for use in 475 Muslim schools to address Palestinian issues,” a promise that was echoed by speakers at a recent AMP fundraising dinner in Chicago. Given that anti-Israel and Islamist propaganda masquerading as education has already infiltrated American public schools, Bazian’s pledge should not be taken lightly.

Bazian, who is listed in the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center’s “Muslim 500: The World’s Most Influential Muslims,” claimed that there is a coordinated attempt in the U.S. to “demonize Muslims and create a reflexive hate, and [to] keep them out of civil society.” These efforts, “gain more sympathizers for Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.” He included “pro-Israeli groups” among the “major Islamophobic producers,” claiming that their goal was stop “debate” on “the Palestinian issue.” If that were the case, they certainly aren’t succeeding on college campuses where anti-Israel academics and activists dominate the debate.

Bazian singled out Investigative Project on Terrorism founder Steven Emerson and Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes as leading figures in the “Islamophobia industry.” In fact, both focus their work on the danger of Islamism, not Islam. Bazian accused Pipes of being “committed to the demonization of Muslims,” ignoring Pipes’s years-long contention that “radical Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution.”

Whether vilifying Israel’s supporters, advocating for Islamists and terrorists, drumming up unfounded fears of “Islamophobia,” bragging about nonexistent accomplishments, or slandering critics, Bazian’s calumnies were legion. And that is exactly what many have to come to expect from the ranks of Middle East studies. When “scholars” become nothing but political activists, truth is the first casualty.

As demonstrated, there is nothing new under the sun, re the cesspool which qualifies as western academia, particularly in the “land of the free, the home of the brave”. You know, the nation which has become as non-free as can be, at least for those who refuse to obey the radical, revolutionary, leftist, Islamist line! The rest are given a wide berth to create as much incitement, hatred and intifada-like chaos as possible. America, a nation which now tolerates – really embraces – the intolerant and corrals students into “free speech zones”!

Thus, UCLA is emblematic of academia’s cesspool: UCLA responds to shocking anti-Israel pledge for student go’t candidates! Academia gone mad…wild…

In any case, as is said, the proof is in the pudding, and this one is beyond the pale:

At an April 10, 2004 anti-war rally in San Francisco, Bazian told the cheering crowd, “we’re sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here.” He added: “They’re gonna say, ‘some Palestinian being too radical’ — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet!”

Hi Adina,

I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Hatem Bazian

Professor at UC Berkeley