Adam Sabra

Overview

Adam Sabra has expressed support for terrorism and has called for the rejection of Jewish self-determination.

Sabra has also demonized Israel, is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has defended disgraced anti-Israel professor Steven Salaita.

As of March 2019, Sabra was listed as a professor in the Department of History at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he holds the King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud Chair in Islamic Studies.

Supporting Terrorism

On July 14, 2014, Sabra wrote a Facebook post whitewashing Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. He wrote: “Not nice, but hardly the war crime of the century. They even announce when they are going to launch a volley on Tel Aviv to get the inhabitants to run to the shelters.”

Hamas fired over 4,564 missiles and rockets at Israeli population centers during Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014.  

On December 23, 2013, Sabra posted an article on Facebook about terrorist Samer Issawi’s release from administrative detention in Israel, with the comment “Freedom!”

Samer Issawi is a member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) who received a 26-year prison sentence in 2002. During the second intifada, Issawi manufactured and distributed pipe bombs and, in several incidents, fired indiscriminately on Israeli civilian vehicles.

On March 3, 2013, Sabra wrote on Facebook: “An important letter from a Palestinian hunger striker” and shared an op-ed written by Issawi.

Rejecting Jewish Self-Determination

In 1995, Sabra wrote an article for the publication Race Traitor titled: “Abolish the Jewish Caste,” (alternatively titled: “The Jewish Caste in Palestine”). Sabra wrote that he “regards the terms ‘caste’ and ‘race’ as synonymous.” He explained that he preferred the term “caste” over “race” because “of the long-standing use of the term ‘Jewish Race’ in Anti-Semitic rhetoric.”

In the article, Sabra called for “the abolition of the Jewish caste” and the rejection of Jewish self-determination.

The article further claimed that Zionists “simply adopted many of the claims made by Anti-Semites against Jews” in their efforts to establish a Jewish state.

He further claimed that “The fact that Israelis are driven to such extremes to justify their own existence as a national group is the product of extreme insecurity about their constructed identity.”

Sabra concluded the piece by saying that the idea “of ‘two peoples’ must be rejected as mere modifications in the terms of an apartheid system.”

Demonizing Israel

In an April 16, 2015 article about UCSB’s Associated Student Senate voting down a BDS resolution for the third consecutive year, Sabra said: “Israel was founded basically on ethnic cleansing. There’s really not much doubt about that.”

On August 1, 2014, Sabra wrote on Facebook: “Again, it appears that Israel will respond to the killing of its soldiers (whoever did it - Hamas seems to be totally surprised and dismayed) by massacring civilians.”

On July 29, 2014, Sabra shared an article on Facebook about: “Why Israel targets civilians.”

On July 14, 2014, Facebook post, Sabra said: “Israeli troops and settlers murder Palestinians with stunning regularity.” He also suggested that Hamas was not behind the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers.

Hamas was responsible for the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers from a bus stop on June 12, 2014. The abducted boys were murdered by their captors, and their bodies were found buried in Palestinian-controlled territory on June 30, 2014.

On May 22, 2013, Sabra wrote on Facebook: “An excellent deconstruction of the Zionist attempts to cover-up the murder of Muhammad al-Dura.”

The Al-Durah hoax is an iconic piece of anti-Israel propaganda, fabricated on September 30, 2000 at the start of the Second Intifada by a France 2 reporter.  

On April 16, 2013, Sabra wrote on Facebook: “Wherever Israelis go, apartheid follows.”

Supporting BDS

On April 21, 2016, Sabra was listed among the endorsers to the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). He was listed as being with the University of Georgia, where he was Associate Professor of History from 2006 to 2012.

On March 6, 2015, Sabra was one of 40 University of California faculty members who signed a statement endorsing a student resolution calling for the University to divest from Israel. The signatories wrote: “As faculty, we strongly urge the administration to heed this call.”

The Court of the Associated Students of the University of California rejected the resolution three weeks earlier on February 19, 2015 and said it was “political in nature and did not fall within the purview of the student government.”

On October 30, 2014, he shared to Facebook a petition to the American Historical Association (AHA) which called for an academic boycott of Israel and urged other AHA members to sign it.

On August 6, 2014, Sabra shared on Facebook a letter he signed which called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. He urged others to “Please consider signing this important letter if you are a scholar of Middle Eastern Studies.”

On August 2, 2014, he promoted on Facebook the book: “The Case for Sanctions Against Israel” and said: “Get your copy now.”

On June 21, 2014, Sabra wrote on Facebook: “A great day for the BDS movement” and shared a piece titled: “Presbyterians Vote to Divest Holdings to Pressure Israel.”

On February 4, 2014, Sabra shared to a letter he signed to Facebook and said: “Support the right to boycott.” The letter opposed anti-BDS legislation then-pending before New York State legislature.

On January 14, 2014, Sabra wrote on Facebook: “Support the boycott” and shared an article that called to support the “acadmic and cultural boycott of Israel.”

On March 21, 2013, Sabra wrote on Facebook: “Thank you, Roger Waters.” and shared a piece titled: “Roger Waters Calls for Boycott of Israel.”

Defending Steven Salaita

On August 6, 2014, Sabra shared on Facebook a call by anti-Israel professor Corey Robin for people to “email University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise, urging her to rescind her rescission of a hiring offer to” professor Steven Salaita.

That same day, Sabra shared the letter he sent to University of Illinois (U of I) Chancellor Wise.

On August 13, 2014, Sabra wrote on Facebook: “Historians, please consider adding your name to this petition, indicating that you will not participate in events on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus until Steven Salaita is reinstated. There are similar petitions being circulated in philosophy, sociology, English, etc.”

On August 14, 2014, Sabra shared on Facebook a petition he signed pledging “not to speak” at U of I Urbana-Champaign’s campus until Salaita was hired.

On August 26, 2015, Sabra wrote on Facebook: “Please like and share if you support Steven Salaita's reinstatement.”

On November 12, 2015, Sabra wrote on Facebook that he hoped Salaita would get another academic job soon.

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/628459288

Twitter:https://twitter.com/adam_sabra [Deleted]

University Website:http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/adam-sabra/