Israel, a tiny country the size of New Jersey, is the only state in the Middle East that substantially recognizes individual rights, such as legal equality for men and women, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the freedom to engage in same-sex relationships. Compared to its neighbors—Islamic dictatorships that trample rights and violently oppress their populations—Israel is an oasis of enlightenment and liberty. Yet many American and European professors increasingly show support for anti-Israel movements and tyrannical regimes that aim to erase Israel from the map.

Iran is among the most brutal. According to the U.S. State Department, “The Islamic regime in Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” and the “regime elites squander the people’s resources and opportunities, while suppressing freedom and basic human rights.”1 As of this writing, for more than a month Iranian “security forces” have been violently cracking down on widespread protests, which sprang up after the regime’s so-called morality police reportedly killed a young woman for not wearing a hijab correctly.2

Iranian leaders call for “death to Israel,” “death to England,” and “death to America.”3 They fund terrorist groups that wreak havoc in countries neighboring Israel, forming a “ring of fire” around it with the goal of annihilating the tiny democratic republic.4

Yet according to the academic watchdog group Canary Mission, which documents people and groups promoting hatred of the United States and Israel, more than eight hundred professors on North American campuses participate, to varying degrees, in efforts to undermine Israel. So do many in Europe. Among the most vocal anti-Israel professors are David Miller, recently fired from the University of Bristol; Amin Husain at New York University (NYU); and Marc Lamont Hill at Temple University. They are working to erode Israel’s stability, credibility, and security. This despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that Israel is a vital partner and strategic ally of the West.

Miller, previously a tenured professor who served as chair of Bristol’s sociology department, has spent years maligning Israel by advancing conspiracy theories in the classroom and via articles, social media, a website, and a talk show. In his quest to delegitimize the country—which he calls “a violent, racist foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”—he has claimed, for instance, that British Jewish students are “being used as political pawns.”5 Without evidence, he accuses these students of being “constitutionally bound to promoting Israel and campaigns to silence critics of Zionism or the State of Israel on British campuses.”6 To achieve his goal, Miller advocates prohibiting pro-Israel groups from exercising their right to assemble, saying, for example, that Israel “depends for its lifeblood on the transnational Zionist movement. To dismantle the regime, every single Zionist organisation, the world over, needs to be ended. Every. Single. One.”7 (Zionism is the belief in and support of a Jewish homeland.)8

Miller also holds that “the world owes [Iran] a debt,” supposedly for defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).9 In fact, although Miller accuses others of “being used . . . by a violent, racist foreign regime,” it turns out that he is: Twitter recently labeled his account (and all of his tweets) as “Iran state-affiliated media” after concluding that the Iranian “state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.”10 Likewise for Miller’s anti-Israel propaganda talk show Palestine Declassified (hosted by former British Member of Parliament Chris Williamson, whose account also has been identified by Twitter as being “Iran state-media affiliated”).

NYU Professor Amin Husain holds that Israel is guilty of “colonialism/war crimes/apartheid/ethnic cleansing/military occupation,” and he has called to “free Palestine,” and “abolish the settler state.”11 Thus, he supports boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning (BDS) Israel via a scheme of financial, social, and cultural isolation meant to destroy the country. Husain, who teaches “Art, Activism, and Beyond,” has no qualms about appealing to violence. In January 2020, his organization Decolonize this Place encouraged followers to destroy subway turnstiles and to graffiti derogatory statements throughout New York City, leading to an estimated $100,000 in damage and stranding thousands of commuters.12 A founder of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, he viewed the massive protests as supporting his anti-Israel agenda, saying that he “purposely didn’t push the Palestinian issue front and center because I knew what I was doing in Wall Street was helping Palestine.”13 Given his ideas and methods, it is perhaps  not surprising that he also encourages globalizing the Intifada, that is, the waves of Islamic terror attacks that have taken the lives of thousands of Israelis and maimed many more.14

Temple University Professor Marc Lamont Hill holds that the United States and Israel are kingpins of an authoritarian “global system that we have to dismantle.”15 He boasts about his tattoo lionizing Palestinian violence against Jews and laments Israel’s ability to defend itself against the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas, saying, for instance, that Israel’s Iron Dome (which neutralizes Hamas’s rockets in the air) “takes away all of Hamas’s military leverage.”16

Hill hosts UpFront for Al Jazeera, which, in the words of Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, is a “major exporter of hateful content against the Jewish people, Israel, and the United States.” Al Jazeera is owned by the Qatari government, which, as the Counter Extremism Project observes, “has a long history of supporting the [Muslim] Brotherhood and its offshoots,” including having provided substantial “political and economic support to Hamas.”17 Like other Sharia-based countries, Qatar, a tiny but wealthy Islamic sheikhdom, has an atrocious record of violating individual rights. Since it was awarded the honor of hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, more than six thousand migrant workers have died, and tens of thousands more have suffered under an abusive system in which Qatari employers, supported by the Qatari government, have refused to fully pay migrant workers or honor promised benefits, despite requiring those workers to pay hefty recruitment fees.18 According to one human rights advocacy group, “Qatar recently arrested at least 60 foreign workers who protested going months without pay and deported some of them . . . just three months before Doha hosts the 2022 FIFA World Cup.”19

In sum, many Western professors attack Israel, the only substantially rights-respecting state in the Middle East, while supporting, and in some cases working for, rights-violating dictatorships. Although Israel certainly is not perfect (what nation is?), its detractors magnify any wrongdoing on Israel’s part (or the part of other Western countries) and downplay or ignore malicious attacks against Israel and its citizens. They show more empathy for the actions of terrorists than they do for the people trying to uphold fair and free societies. They applaud the war against Israel that Islamic armies initiated in 1948, and they advocate its annihilation. Perhaps worst of all, they impart these anti-Israel ideas to today’s students, tomorrow’s leaders.

The ideological war against Israel—seeking to replace the most rights-respecting, freest country in the Middle East with another rights-denying Islamic regime—is unjust, anti-civilization, antilife. The leaders of Iran and Qatar restrict speech, criminalize apostasy and homosexuality, and put dissenters to death, among other atrocities.20 No one can rationally support these regimes. When professors do, those who care about freedom and human flourishing should expose their evil and condemn them and the institutions that lend them credibility.

Many Western professors, such as @Tracking_Power, attack Israel, the only substantially rights-respecting state in the Middle East, while supporting, and in some cases working for, rights-violating dictatorships.
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1. “The Islamic Republic of Iran: A Dangerous Regime,” U.S. Department of State, https://2017-2021.state.gov/the-islamic-republic-of-iran-a-dangerous-regime/index.html (accessed October 25, 2022).

2. Jon Hersey, “Iranian Freedom Fighters and the Winds of Reason,” The Objective Standard, October 6, 2022, https://theobjectivestandard.com/2022/10/iranian-freedom-fighters-and-the-winds-of-reason/.

3. “Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei Reaffirms ‘Death to America’ Slogan, Calls to Bring U.S. Leaders to Trial,” MEMRI, July 18, 2015, https://www.memri.org/tv/iranian-supreme-leader-khamenei-reaffirms-death-america-slogan-calls-bring-us-leaders-trial.

4. Uzi Rubin, “Iran’s Missiles and Its Evolving ‘Rings of Fire,’” Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, January 9, 2020, https://besacenter.org/iran-missiles-rings-of-fire.

5. Cnaan Liphshiz, “Nearly 200 Scholars Back UK Lecturer Who Called Jewish Students Israel ‘Pawns,’” Times of Israel, February 22, 2021, https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-200-scholars-back-uk-lecturer-who-called-jewish-students-israel-pawns/.

6. Ben Bloch, Twitter, February 18, 2021, https://twitter.com/realbenbloch/status/1362432493593505796.

7. David Miller, Twitter, June 23, 2022, https://twitter.com/Tracking_Power/status/1539861575053594624.

8. “Zionism,” Anti-Defamation League, May 3, 2022, https://www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/zionism.

9. David Miller, Twitter, October 15, 2022, https://twitter.com/Tracking_Power/status/1581363577805754368.

10. “About government and state-affiliated media account labels on Twitter,” Twitter Help Center, https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated-iran.

11. “Amin Husain,” Canary Mission, https://canarymission.org/professor/Amin_Husain (accessed October 25, 2022).

12. “Amin Husain,” Canary Mission; Jessica Custodio, “Profs Promote Antifa-esque Video Encouraging Followers to ‘F**k Sh*t Up,’” Campus Reform, February 17, 2020, https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=14391; Isabel Vincent, “NYU Professor Founded Anarchist Group That Attacked Subways Last Month,” New York Post, February 15, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/02/15/nyu-professor-founded-anarchist-group-that-attacked-subways-last-month/.

13. Susie Day, “Time on the Clock of the World: Amin Husain on How We Handle Trump,” Verso, March 16, 2017, https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3131-time-on-the-clock-of-the-world-amin-husain-on-how-we-handle-trump.

14. “Amin Husain,” Canary Mission, https://canarymission.org/professor/Amin_Husain.

15. “Marc Lamont Hill Tells #DSA That #BLM Would Like to ‘Dismantle the Zionist Project,’” February 8, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_XKRks0RqM.

16. Connor Williams, “CNN Contributor Gripes That Iron Dome ‘Takes Away Hamas’s Military Leverage’ over Israel,” mrcNewsBusters, August 4, 2014, https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/connor-williams/2014/08/04/cnn-contributor-gripes-iron-dome-takes-away-hamass-military’.

17. Jonathan A. Greenblatt, “Al Jazeera Propagates Hatred. Is It Also a Foreign Agent?,” The Hill, August 10, 2018, https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/401145-al-jazeera-propagates-hatred-is-it-also-a-foreign-agent/; “Muslim Brotherhood in Qatar,” Counter Extremism Project, https://www.counterextremism.com/content/muslim-brotherhood-qatar.

18. “Qatar: 6500 Labourers Died, 24,000 Suffered Human Rights Abuses on World Cup 2022 Projects,” Organizer Voice of a Nation, June 6, 2022, https://organiser.org/2022/06/06/84415/world/qatar-6500-labourers-died-24000-suffered-human-rights-abuses-on-world-cup-2022-projects/.

19. Malak Harb, “Qatar Detains Workers Protesting Late Pay before FIFA World Cup,” PBS News Hour, August 22, 2022, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/qatar-detains-workers-protesting-late-pay-before-fifa-world-cup.

20. Ryan Mauro and Alex VanNess, “Clarion Exclusive Report: Foreign Influence Ops on U.S. Universities,” Clarion Project, September 5, 2019, https://clarionproject.org/us-universities-foreign-funding-clarion-intel-exclusive/; “Northwestern Qatar University: Qatar’s Multimillion-Dollar Plan to Influence American Media,” Canary Mission, February 2022, https://canarymission.org/campaign/Northwestern_Qatar_University.

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