Bassam Haddad
Overview
Bassam Haddad [Bassam H. Haddad] has spread anti-Israel conspiracy theories and has accused Israel of being a “racist” state that is carrying out a “rape of Palestine.”Haddad is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, for which he has advocated and signed petitions.
Haddad is married to anti-Israel activist Noura Erekat and is an associate professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University (GMU), where he is the director of the Middle East Studies Program.
Demonizing Israel
On July 31, 2006, Haddad participated in an anti-Israel demonstration in front of the State Department in Washington. During the demonstration, Haddad gave an interview in which he claimed that the “Israeli lobby” unduly influences United States foreign policy and implied that Israel caused the U.S. to launch the Iraq War.On July 31, 2014, Haddad tweeted “Israel is not a Terrorist State. It's a racist state that employs terror to survive in its current form. Israelis know that. You should too.”
On August 2, 2014, Hadded tweeted “Israel ceasefires = code for racist normalcy: Halt the beating; continue the structural rape of Palestine. Israelis know it. You should too.”
On December 10, 2014, Haddad tweeted “The unfailing racism of the state of Israel at work.”
Defending Hamas
Haddad’s tweet was written during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE).
Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
On December 5, 2012, Haddad tweeted ‘Really "must read’! No, Israel Does Not Have the Right to Self-Defense In International Law Against OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territory].” Haddad’s tweet was written a month following Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense, which was launched to stop Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli civilians.
Promoting BDS
MESA is considered the most important academic association of Middle East Studies.
In August of 2014, Haddad signed the “Middle East Scholars and Librarians Call for Boycott of Israeli Academia.”
In signing this petition, Haddad committed “not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions, not to teach at or to attend conferences and other events at such institutions, and not to publish in academic journals based in Israel.”
In January of 2014, Haddad signed a petition in support of an American Studies Association (ASA) resolution singling out Israel for academic boycott.
The petition accused Israel of “settler-colonialism, occupation, and apartheid” and likened BDS to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
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
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- DMV GMU
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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