Thea Abu El-Haj

Overview

Thea Abu El-Haj [Thea Renda Abu El-Haj] was a professor in the Graduate School of Education (GSE) at Rutgers University (Rutgers). She is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and an anthropologist primarily focused on Arab and Muslim immigrant communities in the United States.

As of August 2018, El-Haj’s is an associate professor of Education at Barnard College (Barnard). 

In 2007, she authored a paper titled "I Was Born Here, but My Home, It’s Not Here" about how Palestinian American high school students view themselves and “how Palestinian Americans are viewed in the imagined community of the United States, especially after September 11, 2001.” In 2015, she wrote a book titled “Unsettled Belonging — Educating Palestinian American Youth After 9/11.”

Abu El-Haj received her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, her master’s degree from Bryn Mawr College and her bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College.

Vilifying Israel to Promote BDS

On May 8, 2016, Abu El-Haj and Georgetown Professor Fida Adely co-authored a blog post to promote the ultimately unsuccessful effort that year to force the American Anthropological Association (AAA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

Abu El-Haj and Adely alleged that various Israeli security measures — and actions Israel took during its Operation Protective Edge (OPE) against Hamas in 2014 — constituted a broad and "systematic" effort by Israel to deny Palestinians education. The blog post was on the website of Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions (Anthro Boycott), the primary body advocating for the boycott in the AAA.

Abu El-Haj and Adely wrote: "University students are not immune from these restrictions and violence. Israeli forces regularly raid university campuses, destroy property, and arrest student activists."

Over "raid university campuses" they linked to a Palestinian news story which quoted the Israeli army as saying it had "uncovered and confiscated inciting propaganda materials linked to multiple terror organizations including Hamas" at the Arab American University in Jenin.

Over "destroy property" they linked to a Palestinian news story which quoted the Israeli army as saying they were confiscating “material belonging to Hamas’ educational arm al-Kutla al-Islamiyah, including propaganda for Hamas” at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem.

Over "arrest student activists" they linked to a press release from Birzeit University’s Right to Education Campaign (discussed below), saying that it “condemns the Israeli army’s raid on Birzeit University’s campus that took place on January 11, 2016.” The Israeli army said of the operation: “Security forces seized materials including propaganda for Hamas belonging to the illegal association ‘Kotla,’ known for its links to the Hamas terror organization.”

Abu El-Haj and Fidely opened their blog post by implying that Israel intentionally targeted United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools during OPE against Hamas in 2014. Israel commenced OPE to destroy Hamas attack tunnels and to stop rocket attacks from Gaza that targeted Israeli civilians.

Following the war, it was reported that Hamas had used UNRWA schools and other densely populated areas to fire rockets from and even threatened UNRWA workers at gunpoint to hide weapons in the schools. The United Nations, over a year before Abu El-Haj co-authored her blog post, admitted that Hamas had used its facilities to store weapons.

Abu El-Haj and Adely called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions as a means to support Palestinian education while neglecting to mention raids and student arrests conducted by the Palestinian Authority on university campuses. Placing full blame on Israel for such incidents, they concluded: "...we call on colleagues to make use of their privileged academic freedoms to stand against the systematic deprivation of Palestinian rights to education. What greater constraints on academic freedom can there be than those routinely faced by Palestinian students and teachers."

As stated above, Abu El-Haj and Fidely linked to a press release from Ramallah-based Birzeit University’s "Right to Education" tour, known for featuring Birzeit students who spread anti-Israel propaganda. Birzeit has been accused of radicalizing students, as well as promoting and encouraging political violence. The student body elected Hamas to power in 2003, 2015 and 2016.

The "Right to Education" tour brings students who claim that Israel is obstructing the rights of Palestinians to higher education to United States campuses. These claims mischaracterize sweeps Israeli security forces have taken to shut down terror cells operating from Birzeit’s campus. In September of 2014, pro-Palestinian Haaretz reporter Amira Hass was thrown off of Birzeit’s campus — because Hass is Jewish.

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/1575279382

University Website: https://education.barnard.edu/profiles/thea-abu-el-haj