Fred Moten

Overview

Fred Moten [Frederick Charles Moten] has demonized Israel, helped produce an anti-Israel documentary and expressed support for a terrorist.

As of March 2023, he was listed as an endorser of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), which is a part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He has also signed several open letters promoting BDS, defending USACBI and demanding increased product boycotts against Israel.      

In 2013, the American Studies Association (ASA) executive committee endorsed the Academic and Cultural boycott against Israel, a move that Moten reportedly supported.

In 2016, Moten served as a member of the Members for Justice in Palestine within the Modern Language Association (MLA MJP).  

Moten has been invited as a guest speaker on numerous occasions by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters to their Israeli Apartheid Week events. He has also spoken at events hosted by the anti-Israel organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). 

As of March 2023, Moten was listed as a Professor and Associate Chair of Performance Studies and of Comparative Literature at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York University (NYU). 

As of the same date, Moten was listed as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at the University of California, Riverside (UCR).

Demonizing Israel

Moten has accused Israel of racism and colonialism. In explaining his support for USACBI, Moten has likened Israel to apartheid South Africa and accused Israel of “racism, settler colonialism and state violence”. 

On September 7, 2016, Motem published a ‘Statement in Support of Boycotts of Israeli Academic Institutions.’ In his statement, Moten alleged that the structural foundations of Israel are “settler colonialism and racist brutality,” and implied that Israel is maintained only under general conditions of terror. 

On November 7, 2009, Moten was a panelist on the program at the ASA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. In his speech, Moten accused Israel of racial-military domination and settler colonialism. Moten also labeled the United States as “Israel’s outsized and enabling evil twin.”

Producing the Documentary Film - “The Coming Intifada”

In the summer of 2015, and winter of 2016, Moten was advertised by the avowedly “radical” Tidal magazine and MTL collective as traveling to Israel along with fellow BDS agitators to “have conversations and encounters” with activists, and make a film about Palestine”. 

The documentary, originally titled “On The Horizon of Palestine” is now titled “The Coming Intifada.”

The MTL collective has referred to Palestinians as “those in bondage” and alleged that Israel practices apartheid. MTL refers to Israel as “occupied Palestine,” and refers to Jerusalem as “occupied Jerusalem, Palestine”. MTL refers to actions of BDS as acts of“Militant love.”

The film “The Coming Intifada” includes a scene of activists visiting Khader Adnan. 

Adnan is the spokesperson for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an Islamic, Palestinian nationalist organization that violently opposes the existence of Israel. 

PIJ has no “political wing” or “social wing,” only a “military wing” that focuses solely on promoting terrorism and the murder of Israelis. It is reported that the group is backed by Iran and has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks.

A 2007 YouTube video showed Adnan praising and encouraging suicide bombings: "Who among you will carry the next explosive belt? Who among you will fire the next bullets? Who among you will have his body parts blown all over?”

Supporting a Terrorist

Moten is a signatory on the Khalida Jarrar Solidarity Statement issued on August 21, 2014 by the Palestinian Prisoner Support Network. The statement was in opposition to an expulsion order directing Jarrar to leave Ramallah, and transfer to the district of Jericho where she was to live under a restricted movement protocol for six months. 

Jarrar is a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization.