Baljit Nagra

Overview

Baljit Nagra is a professor who justified Hamas terrorism on October 7, 2023, and spread hatred of Israel online. Nagra is a supporter [no. 692] of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Nagra’s statements were during Israel’s war against Hamas, called “Swords of Iron.” Israel launched the war after Hamas war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings. The atrocities were executed on October 7, 2023, and left 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. For more information, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

As of December 2023, Nagra had been an associate professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) since May 2020.

Nagra’s uOttawa bio said she taught “Racialization, Racism and the Criminal Justice System” and “Critical Contemporary Criminological Theory.” She graduated from the University of Toronto (UofT) with a PhD in sociology in 2011.

As of December 2023, Nagra’s Facebook page said she lived in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Justifying Hamas Terrorism

On October 7, 2023, the day Hamas massacred over 1,200 Israeli Jews, Nagra tweeted: “The root cause of all this violence in Israel and Palestine is decades of Israeli apartheid, illegal occupation and genocide. Maybe western leaders don’t want to acknowledge this because they know they are directly complicit by upholding and funding Israel?”

On October 8, 2023, Nagra tweeted: “white Canadians couldn’t handle restrictions put on them for their own health during the pandemic, so they occupied Ottawa for weeks. But when Palestinian resistance erupts in violence after decades of apartheid, occupation, and genocide, we can’t show empathy for the colonized?”

Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” can be a euphemism for nationalistic terror. It is often used to excuse or even glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.

Also on October 8, 2023, Nagra shared on Facebook a graphic that said: “So many in the decolonisation academia go into hiding whenever land is being decolonised from colonial-settler forces. Without acknowledging the vital importance of resistance that seeks to liberate occupied homelands, all decolonisation talk is merely posturing. #Palestine.”

On October 9, 2023, two days after the Hamas terror atrocities against Israeli citizens, Nagra tweeted: “Israel is a white racist colonial state that has made absolutely no attempts of reconciliation for displacing Palestine people and commuting genocide, instead even in 2023 they have upheld an apartheid system. the Israeli occupation is responsible for all of this violence.”

Also on October 9, 2023, Nagra tweeted: “For western leaders ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ are code words that actually translate to Israel has a right to uphold its illegal occupation and apartheid…if they are every faced with violent resistance than they have carte Blanche to engage in mass genocide.”

On October 13, 2023, Nagra wrote on Facebook: “Please sign,” and linked to a statement she had signed [no. 692], titled: “Artists & Academics in Canada: Statement of Solidarity with Palestine.”

The statement said: “We understand that the events of this week did not occur in a vacuum…The whole world understood in the case of Ukraine that resistance to military occupation is justified. It is in fact a right guaranteed by international law. The militant reaction from Palestinians in Gaza on October 7, 2023, is a result of decades of cruel and oppressive treatment.”

The statement also said: “Israel has held Palestinians in Gaza…in an open-air prison, subjecting them tobrutal massacres and weapons testing.”

Referring to Gaza as an "open-air prison" is a way to delegitimize the United Nations-approved [pp. 39–41] joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip imposed in 2011 to prevent Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets.

The statement concluded: “As artists, cultural workers, and academics, we stand strong in support of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and against all forms of racism and settler-colonial violence.”

Hatred of Israel

On October 10, 2023, Nagra shared on Facebook a screenshot of a tweet from another user that said: “...ALL two million Palestinians in Gaza have been hostages for years. Israel executes as many as it wishes, regularly…”

On October 14, 2023, Nagra wrote on Facebook: “...Israeli [sic] is committing genocide and war crimes…Israel is a racist settler state that has …upheld an oppressive occupation and apartheid system…Israeli army has followed a practice of killing medics, journalists and non combatants…”

On October 16, 2023, Nagra tweeted: “..tropes of men of colour being rapists have historically been used to justify white supremacist violence…”

On October 7, 2023, Hamas raped women next to the bodies of dead friends. Some were raped and then shot in the head. Others, including young girls, were raped and murdered or mutilated in other ways.
On October 18, 2023, Nagra wrote on Facebook: “I got through my classes this week by teaching about what is happening in Gaza…my firm belief is that scholars should use their platform to educate people…I didn’t come this far to be a professor to be quiet on such an injustice that is occurring in Gaza.”
 
On October 19, 2023, Nagra tweeted:“...our government is supporting Israel in committing a genocide against a people that it has kept in a concentration camp for decades and comprises mostly of children…”

Anti-Israel activists refer to Gaza as a “concentration camp” because of the United Nations-approved [pp. 39–41], Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. The blockade was implemented in 2011 to stop Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets.


On October 22, 2023, Nagra tweeted: “...Israel wont accept its own hostages [taken by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023] because it doesn’t want to show the world that Hamas are rational politicalactors…The narrative that Hamas is just a barbaric and evil entity allows [Israel] to continue to engage in genocide.”

On October 25, 2023, Nagra spoke as a panelist in a webinar titled: “White Ethnonationalism, Hindu Nationalism and Islamophobia.” During the panel, she said: [00:52:58]: “...Israel’s genocide of Palestinian people is a way to further cement its settler colonial project…”

Nagra also said [00:58:43] during the webinar, regarding Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists: “It’s not a war, it’s a genocide…This construction of the war is deliberate. It's done to conceal settler colonialism and it's also being done to justify mass violence…”

On October 28, 2023, Nagra shared on Facebook a screenshot of a tweet from another user that said: “There’s also the interesting question of whether you can have a war if one side doesn’t have an airforce; navy; standing army; electricity; food; or water; and is a bunch of kids.”

On November 25, 2023, Nagra posted a video on Facebook of anti-Israel protesters in Ottawa chanting [00:00:02]: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.”

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is a chant used [00:02:47] to call for the elimination of the State of Israel. It has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state. In April 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the chant as antisemitic.

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

University Website:https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/members/1721

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

Twitter:https://twitter.com/drbaljitnagra

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/baljit-nagra-42a521184