Outrage Over SFSU 'Race and Resistance' Professor Rabab Abdulhadi

Professor Rabab Abdulhadi teaches in the "Race and Resistance" program of the Ethnic Studies Department at San Francisco State University.

AMCHA (the Israeli Center for Holocaust Survivors and the Second Generation) is protesting Professor Abdulhadi's recent trip to Jordan, where she met with Leila Khaled of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which was financed with tax-payer funding.

Daniel Mael has the background, at Truth Revolt, "SFSU Professors Met with Terrorists Tied to American Deaths on Taxpayer's Dime":

A California Public Records Act inquiry revealed that multiple professors from San Francisco State University met with terrorists on a trip funded by the university. Professors Rabab Abdulhadi and Joanne Barker, along with Abdulhadi's husband, met with terrorists Leila Khaled and Sheikh Raed Salah during the "Labor Delegation to Palestine 2014" which began on January 5th, 2014 and concluded on February 14th, 2014.

Eight organizations- the AMCHA Initiative, Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Simon Wiesenthal Center Campus Outreach, StandWithUs, and Zionist Organization of America- sent a letter to CSU Chancellor Timothy White, SFSU President Leslie Wong, CSU Vice Chancellor and Chief Audit Officer Larry Mendel and CSU Attorney Carrie Hemphill Reith concerning the matter.

Leila Khaled is "a convicted hijacker and the most famous member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist organization responsible for 159 terrorist acts such as bombings, armed assault and assassinations, resulting in numerous injuries and deaths including those of more than 20 US citizens," the groups noted.

Sheikh Raed Salah has been convicted of funding the terrorist organization Hamas and sat in prison from 2003 - 2005. In the letter to school administration the organizations also highlighted that, "In 2008, Salah was charged with incitement to violence and racism. In 2010, Salah was also arrested for his participation on the Mavi Marmara, part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Salah was recently incarcerated again on charges of incitement to violence."

The letter to the university administration outlined Abdulhadi's dishonest approach to obtaining funding...

More here, "AMCHA and Jewish Organizations Write President Wong about Professor Abdulhadi and SFSU Faculty Event Condoning Terrorism."

Kenneth Monteiro, the Dean of SFSU College of Ethnic Studies, has defended Abdulhadi, "Dean of the College of Ethnic Studies Commentary on Free Speech and AMCHA Initiative’s attacks on students and faculty across California Campuses." And at Truth Revolt, "SFSU Ethnic Studies Dean: I Stand With Pro-Terror Research."

And here's the response from Professor Abdulhadi, "Public Statement: Rabab Abdulhadi Responds to AMCHA Allegations." And get a load of this:

AMCHA has predictably focused a huge amount of attention on our meeting with Leila Khaled, in an attempt to demonize the delegation and to damage my reputation. So let me clarify the purpose of meeting with Khaled. Khaled is a Palestinian feminist icon. She is therefore relevant to my research and pedagogy, both of which aim to revise Palestinian women’s studies by critiquing conventional wisdom within the feminist canon. In my courses, I aim to provide a counter narrative to the orientalist depictions of Palestinian, and other Arab and Muslim, women as weak and docile—and men as bloodthirsty and misogynist. To this end, I screen several films including “Leila Khaled: Hijacker?” and open these classes to the public.

Orientalist? Sounds like terror-supporting Middle East scholar (the late) Edward Said.

And screening films like "Leila Khaled: Hijacker?" Might as well screen "Triumph of the Will" and "open these classes to the public."

In any case, back over at Truth Revolt, "SFSU: We'll Fight 'Censorship' of Taxpayer-Funded Pro-Terror Trips by Professors."

Clearly, taxpayer monies funded meetings with terrorists. If such advocacy is legal under current law, the law should be changed. However, I don't buy this woman's explanation that all of this was on the up and up. You've pretty much lost the debate when you start screaming "McCarthyism."