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Editor’s note:Since the barbaric Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7^th, American universities have become an undeniable locus of Jew hatred within our nation. Much attention has deservedly been paid to the radical campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine who call for the genocide of the Jews and cheer the terrorists of Hamas. What has received less attention—but should in fact rank as the universities’ worst offense—is the Jew hatred promoted by official departments and institutes of the universities themselves. In the case of our campuses, Jew hatred is “the call coming from inside the house.”

The Freedom Center is exposing these academic institutes and programs as “The Top Ten Jew-Hating Academic Departments” in a new report. We will be publishing one school per day as a series on Frontpage. The Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is #6 on our list.

The Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill has repeatedly abdicated its responsibility to conduct legitimate scholarship and the free exchange of ideas by inviting rabid Jew-haters and Hamas propagandists to campus.

On November 28, 2023, less than two months after Hamas indiscriminately slaughtered and mutilated over 1200 Israeli civilians and took several hundred more hostage, the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies co-hosted an event with other university departments titled  “No Peace Without Justice: A Round-Table Talk about Social Justice in Palestine.” Speakers at this official university-sponsored event had zero compunction about celebrating Hamas’s mass-slaughter and announcing their ultimate goal—to see Israel annihilated.

Dr. Rania Masri, an invited speaker at the event, declared: “Oct. 7 for many of us from the region was a beautiful day. It was the day in which we saw that, we saw our brothers, we saw our fathers, we saw men break out of a concentration camp.”

She went on to heap praise on Hamas and their paragliders who have become a symbol of terror for Jews and Israelis: “So for many of us, the question is, how did they learn that? How did they develop those paratroopers? Where did they get those skills? How, how, after a hundred years of having a military boot on your neck, could you still develop the technique and the resilience to literally fly? That is what Oct. 7 means to many of us. And I just want to be very frank about it and not be in the least bit apologetic of the violence of the oppressed or the occupied.”

Instead of condemning Dr. Masri’s words, other speakers voiced their agreement with the Reverend Mark Davidson proclaiming, “I agree with everything my colleagues have said” and UNC doctoral student Kylie Broderick, who also served as a panelist, nodding along to Masri’s statements.

Lest celebrating October 7th wasn’t a clear enough signal of Jew-hatred, Masri labeled Zionism a “cancer,” and called President Biden a “racist Zionist.” “Let us demand the eradication of Zionism. Let us have that be our goal,” Masri declared, promoting the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.

A film screened at the event, titled “Gaza Concentration Camp,” backed up Masri’s narrative, stating that on Oct. 7, “Palestinians didn’t break through a border to enter Israel. They destroyed a fence separating them from the homes they were forced out of.” The film failed to mention the brutal slaughter, rape, and maiming of innocent civilians that followed.

According to The Algemeiner which covered the event, “There were seven panelists, two moderators, and UNC professors present. No one appeared concerned by what Masri said, or challenged her. Further, the absence of a question and answer period meant that nothing could be challenged by audience members.”

Other recent events hosted by the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies have brought prominent anti-Semites to campus, including Princeton Professor Cornel West who spoke at the university on January 30, 2024 for a special event titled “Intertwined Histories of Social Justice within Middle Eastern American and African American Communities: A Conversation with Dr. Cornel West.” West has dismissed the Jews’ historic claim to the land of Israel, stating that “Jews jumped out of the burning buildings of Europe in a Jew-hating Europe led by a gangster named Hitler, right? They landed on the backs of some Arabs in 1948 when they founded their state.” West has also equated the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with the terrorist group Hamas and claimed that Israel’s defensive actions during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 showed “Israeli state terrorism in action and its Jewish racism in motion.”

One of the Center’s most prominent voices is that of Dr. Nadia Yaqub, author of several books on Palestinian filmmaking. Yaqub is a supporter of the genocidal BDS movement against Israel and has repeatedly demonized and delegitimized Israel, claiming that the actions of the world’s only Jewish state are comparable to the Nazis during the Holocaust:  “Israel’s repeated and disproportional attacks on Palestinian and other Arab civilians are rooted in a worldview that is very similar to that which produced the genocide against European Jews.”

The Center’s failure to the truth and its Jewish students can also be seen in its message to students and faculty following Hamas’s October 7^th massacre against Israeli civilians. Instead of condemning Hamas and its barbaric atrocities, the Center merely spouted platitudes about how

“The events in Israel/Palestine over the past few days have been terrifying” and how “we extend our sympathy to everyone in our community who is feeling grief and pain at this time.”  Rather than decry Hamas as the aggressor, the Center stated that “We also recognize that this is not an isolated incident and must be understood within the context of a history that stretches back 100 years” and “To that end, we will be holding listening sessions, roundtables, and/or teach-ins in the coming weeks for those interested.”

This statement is a complete moral and intellectual failure on the part of the Center. Instead of having the courage to call out Hamas’s barbarism, the Center attempts to put the rape and mutilation of women and the slaughter of children in “context.”  For its dismal record of truth-telling about Israel and promotion of Jew-hating speakers and events, the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill is among the worst Jew-hating academic departments at American universities.

Previous articles in series:

[1] ‘Jew-Hating’ Asian American Studies Program Exposed at Northwestern University.

[2] UIUC’s Department of Latino Studies Endorses ‘Jew Hatred’.

[3] U. Maryland Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: A Case Study in ‘Jew Hatred’.

[4] University of Colorado-Boulder Ethnic Studies Department: Shilling for Hamas.