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Ania Loomba
Ania Loomba spoke at an anti-Israel rally in October 2023 after the Hamas terrorist organization committed war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings, on October 7, 2023.
Loomba also expressed support for the pro-Hamas encampment at Penn, called the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
Loomba is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and wrote a personal statement encouraging the Modern Language Association (MLA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions in 2016.
In September 2023, Loomba signed a faculty letter in support of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, an event that reportedly “featured several activists who promoted conspiracies about Jewish power and called for violence against Israel.”
As of December 2023, Loomba was listed as the Catherine Bryson Professor of English and Chair of the English department at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). Penn is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
As of the same date, Loomba was listed as faculty in the departments of Comparative Literature, South Asian Studies, and Women's Studies at Penn.
As of December 2023, Loomba’s Facebook page said she lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
On May 7, 2024, Loomba wrote a letter in support of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Penn titled: “We’re Doing This for Gaza.”
In the letter, Loomba said: “...The students are therefore calling for the university to disclose its financial holdings and institutional and operational ties with the state of Israel, and to amend its investment policy to divest from companies that consistently, knowingly, and directly profit from Israel’s war on Gaza and the occupation of Palestinian territories…”
On April 25, 2024, anti-Israel activists from Penn, Temple University and Drexel University set up the "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" on the Penn campus to protest Israel's war against Hamas.
The encampment was one of over 140 pro-Hamas and anti-Israel college encampments set up in North America, and over 20 more globally, in the spring of 2024. The first began on April 17, 2024, at Columbia University. The encampments were unofficially known as the “student intifada,” borrowing a term associated with terrorist violence.
Protesters harassed Jewish students, blocked Jews from campus facilities and shouted anti-Semitic slogans. They occupied campus grounds, in many cases illegally, caused property damage, violently took over buildings, celebrated terrorism and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Activists set up encampments to oppose Israel’s right to wage war against the Hamas terror group following October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 people, including 32 American and 8 Canadian citizens. Hamas also kidnapped 252 people, including 11 Americans and the bodies of 2 murdered Canadians. As of May 26, 2024, 125 hostages remained in Hamas captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
On October 16, 2023, Loomba spoke at a walkout and rally held at Penn in support of Hamas terrorist war crimes, titled: “Collective Walkout for Palestine.”
On October 16, 2023, Penn professors and students staged a “walkout” in support of the Hamas terror attack against Israel nine days earlier. The aim of the event was to “protest the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and stand in solidarity with Palestine.”
The protest, which was organized by Penn Against the Occupation (PAO), was titled: “Collective Walkout for Palestine,” where participants walked out of classes to the on-campus rally.
One professor led [00:00:03] the chant: “When people are occupied, resistance is justified!” Palestinians and anti-Israel activists often use the term “resistance” as a euphemism for nationalistic terror and to glorify anti-Semitic violence.
Another professor claimed [00:00:07] Israel “desecrates the memory of the Nazi Holocaust,” and at least one speaker accused [00:00:48] Israel of “genocide.”
At the rally, Loomba blocked [00:07:27] a Jewish student from participating in the protest. As Loomba motioned [00:00:01] with her arms that the student was to move away, the protesters chanted: “Free, free Palestine!”
Loomba applauded [00:01:02] fellow Penn professor Eve Troutt Powell who said [00:00:30], referring to a statement issued by Penn president Liz Magill: “You cannot write a statement that shows you have only been listening to some trustees and alums. You cannot write a statement and assume that there’s no protection for all of us on this campus. This is the University of Pennsylvania. This is our university, too!”
On October 15, 2023, Penn president Liz Magill issued a statement in which she wrote: “I, and this University, are horrified by and condemn Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel and their violent atrocities against civilians. There is no justification—none—for these heinous attacks, which have consumed the region and are inciting violence in other parts of the world.”
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation.
Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” As of November 10, 2023, approximately 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.
A terrorist detained by Israel admitted he raped an Israeli woman when he broke into a kibbutz house during the October 7, 2023 attack. In March 2024, a former hostage of Hamas publicly stated she was sexually abused and tortured while in captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, European Union, Israel and other countries. Founded in 1987, it has killed thousands of Israeli civilians through mass shootings and suicide bombings. Hamas has also kidnapped children, families and the elderly and held them hostage in Gaza. It has desecrated [slide 7] dead bodies and launched numerous rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.
As of May 2025, Loomba signed a US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
In 2014, Loomba signed a petition demanding Professor Steven Salaita’s reinstatement at the University of Illinois (U of I) and calling for a boycott of U of I until it complied with the petition’s demands.
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.
On July 26, 2016, Loomba shared an article on Facebook criticizing musician Carlos Santana for performing in Israel.
In August 2016, Loomba submitted a personal statement urging the MLA to adopt a resolution, to which Loomba was a signatory, that would boycott Israeli academic institutions.
In her statement, Loomba compared Israel to Apartheid South Africa and claimed that Palestinian women need “protection from the ‘constant attacks, excessive and indiscriminate use of force used by the Israeli oppressive apparatus, acts of violence and daily terror committed by Israeli Jewish civilians, including settlers.’”
Loomba also compared Israel’s relationship to Palestinians with India and its conflict with Kashmir, writing that “[t]he recent use of pellet guns on ordinary citizens including children has been compared to Israeli actions against Palestinian civilians.”
On January 4, 2017, Loomba wrote on Facebook that “The anti-BDS defense of progressive Israelis, much like the charge of antisemitism that often accompanies it, is disingenuous. Its purpose is to frustrate efforts to advance Palestinian human rights, and it should be recognized as such.” Loomba’s post also included a statement allegedly written by anonymous Israelis urging the MLA to adopt BDS.
During the annual MLA meeting in January 2017, MLA’s delegate council rejected the BDS resolution and instead voted to support Resolution 2017-1 (2017-1), which urged the MLA to refrain from adopting BDS.
On May 21, 2017, Loomba posted a video on Facebook that protested the MLA’s adoption of 2017-1.
In June of 2017, the MLA adopted 2017-1 by a 2-1 margin following a full membership vote.
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by pro-terror activist Omar Barghouti in 2005 to turn “Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.” Barghouti has also called for Israel's destruction and the BDS movement demands would result in that same goal.
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 infiltrating university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments propose resolutions to boycott or divestment from Israel or Israeli-affiliated entities. 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 and pro-terror activism on campus.
