Daniel Maguire
Overview
Daniel Maguire has denied Jewish peoplehood, referred to the Jewish connection to the land of Israel as a “myth,” spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and justified terrorism.
Maguire has accused Israel of ethnically cleansing Palestinians and has compared Palestinians to Holocaust victims and Israel to Nazis.
He has blamed the American-Israeli relationship for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has describedthe United States Congress as “AIPAC-occupied territory.”
He has expressed support on his website and in his writing for both the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and for the anti-Israel Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) organization.
Maguire is a professor of Moral Theology at Marquette University.
Denying Jewish Peoplehood
On July 16, 2010, Maguire published an article in which he claimed: ”The state of Israel is based on the myth that first century Jews were moved en-masse into a world-wide diaspora, that they did not proselytize and rejected all converts to formal Judaism; they never intermarried with others all over the world, and today’s ‘Jews,’ even the blue-eyed Jews from Russia and the dark-skinned Jews from Africa are all in biological continuity with the first century Jews expelled by the Romans. Come now!”
In the same article, Maguire went on to state that “The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 took this fantasy for granted without any historical evidence that such a miracle of non-miscegenation did or could happen and with mountains of evidence to the contrary… The effort to build ‘a Jewish state’ based on biological connectedness is an impossible dream.”
Maguire reiterated these views in an article published in December 2015, in which he stated: “The Zionist project is based on a fiction that has no scholarly historical grounding. According to this Zionist myth, in the year 70 CE, the Romans deported a genetically and culturally unified group of people, the Jews, and sent them en masse into exile… Of course, not a word of that is true. Solid Jewish and other scholarship has exploded this fake history, but the myth, with whack-a-mole persistence, keeps resurfacing in full vigor.”
Maguire later concluded that “The Zionist effort to find a biological homogeneity among all the Jews — and a fictitious history of expulsion with a ‘right to return’ — is chimeric to the point of silly. It is the Palestinians who were routed from their homes who have a ‘right of return,’ not the Zionists who invaded Palestine under false pretenses.”
Anti-Jewish Conspiracy Theories
In December 2015, Maguire published an article, stating that “The Zionist empire did not stay in Palestine. Its control needs drove it abroad finding a power base in the Jewish diaspora, most dramatically in the United States of America.”
In the same article, Maguire went on to attack the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) saying: “Congress has become Israeli occupied territory, and politicians who do not tow the AIPAC line are attacked and removed by the lobby’s cash and influence.
”On July 2, 2015, Maguire published an article in which he stated that “Like the Palestinian people, Judaism is also suffering from siege and occupation. Zionism, a Nineteenth Century hallucinatory piece of fictive theology and a vicious ideology, has gotten a demonic grip on much of modern Jewish consciousness and has taken possession of U.S. policies in the Middle East.”
Maguire made similar claims in an article published on August 4, 2014, in which he stated, “AIPAC-ocracy replaces democracy in U.S. policy re Israel. Our Congress is AIPAC-occupied territory. “
On July 24, 2014, Maguire published an article in which he claimed that “The al-Qaeda leaders behind the 9/11 attacks cited the relentless U.S. support of Israeli occupation as a motive for the attack. It is in our national interest to remember that. Resentment of Israeli aggression and our lapdog complicity is at high peak. In the age of suitcase-size atomic weapons, drones and chemical-biological micro-weapons, it is suicidal folly to press on as Israel’s enabler-in-chief. Did 9/11 teach us nothing!”
Comparing Palestinians to Holocaust Victims
In an article published on August 4, 2014, Maguire discussed a military operation in Gaza, stating that “This should be called Operation Holocaust. It is the completion of the ethnic cleansing that drove over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, deceptively called the ‘war of independence’ by the Israelis, al Nakba, the catastrophe, by the Palestinians.”
On July 24, 2014, Maguire published an article entitled: “The New Holocaust - Israel’s Final Solution.”
In December 2015, Maguire wrote that “The same perversity that infected Nazism prevails in the laws of tribal, racist Israel today.”
In the same article, Maguire went on to say of the Israeli state: “All very Hitlerian, all very tribal (racist), all very genocidal.”
Justifying Terrorism
In an article published on July 24, 2014, Maguire discussed the rockets shot from Gaza by Hamas at Israeli civilian communities. He stated that “Like some blind David it is senselessly and desperately hurling unguidable pebbles at the Israeli Goliath, thus giving Israel the excuse to claim victimhood and trot out its fraudulent question to cover over its ongoing crimes against humanity.”
In an article published in December 2015, Maguire discussed the matter again, concluding that “To ask if Israel has ‘a right to defend itself’ — its hackneyed excuse — is like asking if a rapist has a right to defend himself if his victim is resisting the rape.”
Denouncing Zionism
On July 2, 2015, Maguire published an article, stating that “Judaism is a religion based on humanistic principles offering powerful arguments for social justice, but it has been hijacked by Zionists who have twisted it into an excuse for ethnic cleansing and mass murder.”
In December 2014, Maguire wrote: “There have been tortured back and forth debates about whether Zionism is racist: of course it is. At its core, Zionism is an imperial form of ethnic cleansing. Its moral heart is empire; its strategy is ethnic cleansing, the extirpation of one ethnic group to make room for Jews.”
In the same article, Maguire went on to describe the 1948 Arab-Israeli War as Israel’s “original sin,” claiming that “It had no ‘just cause’ because it was not defense but offense, a work of empire-building, land grabbing, and ethnic cleansing.”
In an article published in 2010, Maguire stated that “both the United States and Israel were founded on ethnic cleansing...Israel’s ethnic cleansing began in 1948.”
On July 16, 2010, Maguire criticized the Israeli government and, specifically, “Likud tribalism which throws orphans and widows out of their homes and builds walls to keep them from their olive groves.”
Support For BDS
On July 3, 2014, Maguire published an article on his website, advocating for BDS.
In his endorsement, Maguire quoted the movements leaders, and described the conflict in Gaza as being carried out, one-sidedly, by Israel, without providing any context.
In an article published on July 2, 2015, Maguire again expressed his support for BDS, claiming that the campaign is a response to Israel’s alleged failure to embody Jewish values.
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://www.marquette.edu/theology/faculty-emeriti-daniel-maguire.php
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Marquette
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- JVP
- Related Profiles:
- Ahmad Murrar,
- Rawan Atari,
- Leean Othman,
- Gadeer Ayesh,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
Photos & Screenshots
21 images
Infamous Quotes
“This should be called Operation Holocaust. It is the completion of the ethnic cleansing that drove over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, deceptively called the ‘war of independence’ by the Israelis, al Nakba, the catastrophe, by the Palestinians.”
“The same perversity that infected Nazism prevails in the laws of tribal, racist Israel today… All very Hitlerian, all very tribal (racist), all very genocidal.”
“The Zionist empire did not stay in Palestine. Its control needs drove it abroad finding a power base in the Jewish diaspora, most dramatically in the United States of America… Congress has become Israeli occupied territory, and politicians who do not tow the AIPAC line are attacked and removed by the lobby’s cash and influence.”
