Gabriel Piterberg

Overview

Gabriel Piterberg has demonized Israel, defended anti-Zionism on campus and supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In 2015, Piterberg achieved international notoriety after two female UCLA graduate students filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the University of California (UC) Regents. 

Following a lengthy investigation, in March 2018, the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion publicly stated on its website that Piterberg would no longer be employed in any capacity by UC and that he had also been denied emeritus status.

Piterberg was formerly a professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Demonizing Israel

It was reported that Piterberg’s office door at UCLA was decorated with a poster that says “End the Occupation” and depicts Israelis dragging away Palestinians.

During an August 20, 2014 interview, Piterberg blamed Israel for Operation Protective Edge (OPE). Israel commenced OPE in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

Piterberg stated that Israel is “the clear victimizer” and repeated his debunked theory that the “large context is the conflict between a settler colonial movement and an indigenous national movement, and in a formation in which what is wanted from the indigenous population by the settlers is their land but not their labor.”

He further claimed that “what bothers the Israelis for over 100 years about the Palestinians is not their alleged terrorism or their culture; it's their mere presence. They covet the land, not the people.”

During the interview, Piterberg effectively excused Hamas terror attacks by referring to Palestinian-Arab violence targeting Jews as “alleged terrorism.”

Piterberg signed a 2014 open letter calling on Israeli academics who believed it “urgent” to “act to end the illegal occupation in Palestine” and Israeli “atrocities” to sign a petition. The petition was closed to overseas signers after only 83 Israeli professors signed on.

On December 8, 2013, it was reported on Facebook that Piterberg accused Israel of practicing a “worse apartheid” than South Africa and that he claimed Israel “aims to cleanse and eliminate the Palestinians from their homeland.”

At the December 7, 2013 AMP conference, Piterberg claimed that Israel and the Zionist movement, were founded on “insidious” and “genocidal” “settler-colonialism.” He argued that Israel was uninterested in Palestinian labor and insistent on existing with “white labor only” and further claimed that Israelis are not “bothered” by Palestinian terror or culture but by a Palestinian presence.

Piterberg also argued that since the early 1900’s, Israelis have been “trying to create their own labor and get possession of as much land as possible.” He claimed that Israel tried to nullify all collective non-Jewish ownership of — and access to — land and implied that Israel did not commit actual genocide only “because they couldn’t finish it in the circumstances  of that period.”

At the 2013 AMP conference, Piterberg mischaracterized as “collective dispossession” and “cleans[ing]” a proposed Israeli government plan (the Begin-Prawer Plan) to officially recognize and register the vast majority of Bedouin settlements throughout southern Israel and relocate and compensate the residents of 35 unrecognized villages.

During a March 2012 BDS panel hosted by SJP UCLA, Piterberg propagated the claim that Israelis committed an “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians during its founding, a claim on which he doubled down during his speech.

On February 16, 2009, it was reported that Piterberg accused Israelis of "dancing on the blood of Palestinian children" at January 31, 2009 conference at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine), titled: "Whither the Levant? The Crisis of the Nation State: Lebanon, Israel, Palestine."

At a January 21, 2009 UCLA event called “Human Rights and Gaza,” Piterberg spread the claim [00:16:20] that Israel killed Gazans using white phosphorus and depleted uranium and accused Israel of “wanton violence and carnage.”

According to a Campus Watch report, Piterberg signed a 2002 open letter that insinuated Israel would use America’s war in Iraq to engage in "ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians. No retractions were ever issued for the letter — despite the failure of its claims to materialize.

Supporting Anti-Zionism on Campus

In an April 12, 2012 article, it was reported that Piterberg led a teach-in to protest University of California (UC) President Mark Yudof’s denunciation of anti-Israel demonstrators who defaced Israeli flags and attempted to shout down invited speakers on UC campuses.

During his teach-in, Piterberg launched an anti-Semitic attack on Yudof’s Jewish identity  and alleged that Yudof’s “statement was biased and showed ‘disproportionate concern for Jewish students’.”

Piterberg alleged that Yudof ignored “harassment and threats to Palestinian and Arab students and their allies,” although Piterberg could not cite any comparable examples of anyone disrupting their events.

Piterberg also characterized Yudof’s statement as racist because it assumed that defacing Israeli symbols was offensive to all Jewish students.

Piterberg scoffed at the idea that anti-Semitism is a problem on campus and argued that Yudof was trying to “silence dissent.” Piterberg then blamed pro-Israel campus organizations for fomenting hostile campus environments and provoking anti-Israel demonstrators to attack pro-Israel events.

Piterberg went on to demean President Yudof, stating that “Yudof should ‘behave like a president’ and confine his pro-Israel, ‘Zionist’ views to his private life, or he should resign and become ‘an AIPAC employee.’”

Piterberg has been involved with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCLA and presented at an American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) conference in 2013.

Supporting BDS

In 2014, Piterberg signed a letter calling on “scholars and librarians within Middle East studies to boycott Israeli academic institutions.”

The letter further pledged "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.”

Charges of Sexual Harassment

In 2015, Piterberg was the center of major controversy after two female UCLA graduate students filed a Title IX sexual harassment lawsuit against the University of California Regents.

The women claimed they were subjected to repeated instances of sexual harassment and sexual assault by Piterberg.

In May 2016, Piterberg resigned from a visiting scholar appointment in Florence, Italy, after a petition calling for his removal was circulated among UCLA and European University Institute students and faculty.

Despite the charges against him, Piterberg returned to his position at UCLA, where he was met by widespread criticism and protests. According to an article chronicling the controversy, the “noisy protests outside his classroom… prompted the cancellation of his two classes.”

In an article, published on March 18, 2018, it was reported that after the Title IX findings were referred to the Academic Senate, Piterberg “agreed to leave UCLA and forgo any future employment with the UC system, emeritus status, office space or other privileges.”

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.