Joseph Massad

On October 8, 2023, a day after Hamas attacked Israel, Massad wrote an article for the EI titled: “Just another battle or the Palestinian war of liberation?”

In the article, Massad wrote, referring to the Hamas terrorists who had infiltrated Israel by paragliding: “What can motorized paragliders do in the face of one of the most formidable militaries in the world? Apparently much in the hands of an innovative Palestinian resistance…Indeed as stunning videos show, these paragliders have become the air force of the Palestinian resistance.”

Massad then wrote, defending Hamas’ war crimes after the group took over Israeli cities while intentionally killing civilians and taking hostages: “No less astonishing was the Palestinian resistance’s takeover of several Israeli settler-colonies near the Gaza boundary and even as far away as 22 kms, as in the case of Ofakim.”

Massad continued by claiming that “perhaps the major achievement of the resistance in the temporary takeover of these settler-colonies is the death blow to any confidence that Israeli colonists had in their military and its ability to protect them.”

Massad then celebrated the fact that Israelis, referred to by him as “colonialists,” had to flee “through the desert on foot to escape the rockets and gunfire.”

Massad wrote, referring to this escape: “In the interest of safeguarding their lives and their children’s future, the colonists’ flight from these settlements may prove to be a permanent exodus. They may have finally realized that living on land stolen from another people will never make them safe.”

Massad also wrote, referring to Hamas terrorists’ invasion of Israel: “The sight of the Palestinian resistance fighters storming Israeli checkpoints separating Gaza from Israel was astounding, not only to the Israelis but especially to the Palestinian and Arab peoples who came out across the region to march in support of the Palestinians in their battle against their cruel colonizers.”

Still on the Hamas’ attack, Massad defended that “no less awesome were the scenes witnessed by millions of jubilant Arabs who spent the day watching the news, of Palestinian fighters from Gaza breaking through Israel’s prison fence or gliding over it by air.”

Massad then claimed the Hamas attack was “the resistance’s remarkable takeover of Israeli military bases and checkpoints.” He also wrote that “no less striking was the capture of some of Israel’s colonial soldiers and officers in their underwear while sleeping.”

Massad concluded his article by writing that the Hamas attack was a “stunning victory of the Palestinian resistance over the Israeli military.”

On November 8, 2019, Massad gave the keynote address at The Jerusalem Fund’s 2019 annual conference, where he condemned then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” as well as the Oslo Peace Accords.

At the conference, Massad criticized [00:41:10] the Palestinian Authority (PA) for “continuously preventing the majority of Palestinian resistance action against [Israeli] occupation army.”

Massad also said [00:45:02]: “The Oslo Accords inaugurated this process of liquidating the Palestinian national struggle while the Deal of the Century plans and hopes to conclude it. The only thing standing in its way is the ongoing Palestinian resistance to Israeli settler colonialism and racism that continues inside Israel in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.”

Massad continued and said [00:45:26]: “The ongoing ‘Marches of Return’ in Gaza and the armed resistance of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam to Israeli invasions in Gaza...have all come together alongside the Palestinian-led global BDS movement to block the Palestinian misleadership embodied in the Palestinian Authority and its Israeli and American sponsors.”

On May 21, 2013, AJ English published an opinion article written by Massad titled: “The Last of the Semites.”

In the article, Massad wrote: “Zionism’s anti-Semitic programme of assimilating Jews into whiteness in a colonial settler state away from Europe, were a direct continuation of anti-Semitic policies prevalent before the [Second World] War.”

On December 24, 2012, Massad wrote an opinion article for AJ English titled: “Zionism, anti-Semitism and colonialism.”

In the article, Massad wrote: "When the Nazis took over power in Germany, the Zionists, sharing Herzl’s understanding that anti-Semitism is the ally of Zionism, were the only Jewish group who would collaborate with them."

On December 11, 2004, Massad wrote an editorial for the MIFTAH website titled: “Semites and anti-Semites, that is the question.”

In the editorial, Massad claimed that Zionism abducted “the holocaust to justify Israel’s colonial and racist policies.”

On October 8, 2023, Massad wrote an article for the EI titled: “Just another battle or the Palestinian war of liberation?”

In the article, Massad criticized Western and Arab governments’s condemnation of Palestinian terrorist groups for “accepting military and financial help from the Iranian government.”

Mossad then wrote: “This would be like demanding that the Europeans resisting the Nazi occupation during World War II refuse military and financial help from the white supremacist and apartheid United States, not to mention the racist colonizing regimes of France and Britain.”

On January 4, 2009, during Operation Cast Lead (OCL), Massad wrote an editorial for the EI titled: “The Gaza Ghetto Uprising.”

In the editorial, Massad compared Israel to Nazis and Hamas attacks on Israel to the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

Massad wrote in the article: “The crushing of the Gaza Ghetto Uprising and the slaughter of its defenseless population will be relatively an easy task for the giant Israeli military machine and Israel’s sadistic political leadership.”

On January 27, 2020, during an interview for Russia Today (RT), Massad claimed [00:00:53] that Israel used the Holocaust to whitewash [00:03:26] “its crimes.”

On December 19, 2019, Massad wrote an editorial published in MEE that Israel’s seeking “non-aggression” agreements with Gulf Arab countries as a prelude to possible future peace deals was part of a strategy by Israel to seek “regional dominance through overwhelming military superiority over its neighbors.”

Massad also wrote that Israel was “the main regional aggressor in the entire Middle East.”

On December 4, 2019, Massad wrote an editorial published in the ME titled: Palestinian RIght of Return; The legal key to undoing the Zionist Conquest.”

In the article, Massad wrote that “the Zionist colonisation of Palestine...was based on racial supremacy.”

In a March 2002 lecture at Oxford University, Massad reportedly said: “The Jews are not a nation…The Jewish state is a racist state that does not have a right to exist.”

In a January 21, 2024 interview for Al-Jazeera, Massad said: “I do not see much difference between the American role in Israel's wars, and its support of Israel and its racist regime, which calls for the supremacy of the Jewish race, and its support in the past for the South African regime, the Rhodesian regime, or even the oppressive and racist regimes that ruled the Portuguese colonies...”

Massad continued and said [00:00:50]: “There is also an ideological investment in European settler colonialism, which calls for European ethnicity and cultural racial superiority.”

Massad concluded the interview by saying [00:01:08]: “...Historically, the U.S. was - and still is – a settler colony, that sanctifies white supremacy over the rest of the people. Therefore, there is a kind of fusion between the U.S. and Israel. Israel reminds it of how things were in the United States in the past."

Massad was the subject of an investigation in 2004-2005 following accusations of antisemitism.

In October 2004, The David Project group released “Columbia Unbecoming,” a film in which Columbia students described academic abuse and intimidation they claimed they had faced at the hands of Massad, George Saliba and Hamid Dabashi.

During a 2002 lecture, Massad reportedly asked a Jewish student who had served in the Israeli army: “How many Palestinians have you killed?” after the student had asked Massad an unrelated question.

Another student claimed that Massad screamed at her and ordered her to leave his classroom after she told Massad that Israel provides civilians with advanced warnings before attacks.

Another student also said that Massad’s “favorite description is the Palestinians as the new Jew, and the Jew as the new Nazi” and that he called "the Zionists are the new Nazis.”

In March 2005, a Columbia ad-hoc faculty committee was created to investigate the accusations against Massad. The committee reportedly admitted to the lack of grievance procedures available for addressing student concerns but stated that they did not find “evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic.”

The committee was reportedly composed of five professors, three of whom were accused of being “predisposed” to Massad. One of the committee members was Massad’s dissertation advisor at Columbia, while two others were BDS supporters.

On May 9, 2024, The Middle East Eye published an article by Massad in support of the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia, titled: “Student protests upend hegemony on Israel and Palestine forever.”

In the article, Massad wrote: “As a principal bastion for the maintenance of the ruling elite ideology, Columbia University is essential for the maintenance of ideological stability. The fear is that when its own students and faculty veer off the liberal script, this will lead to a domino effect on the rest of the university system across the US, or even travel to other liberal systems, as the recent university encampments inspired others across Western Europe, Canada and Australia.”

Massad further stated: “Indeed, student and faculty agitation against the ongoing Israeli genocide has spread to dozens of universities, including New York University, Yale, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Emory University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Southern California, to name but a few examples of where recent massive repression or the threat thereof has been deployed.”

The encampment was also in support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.