Laila Farah
Overview
Laila Farah is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement who has demonized Israel, promoted anti-Israel campus activism and shown support for a terrorist.Farah is an associate professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies and Critical Ethnic Studies at DePaul University (DePaul). She has been a Board Member of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) since 2010.
Supporting BDS
Farah is a signatory to a list of individuals endorsing the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).Farah signed the “Campaign to Boycott the Oral History Conference at Hebrew University of Jerusalem,” authored by the BDS movement and published on December 5, 2013.
The petition encouraged historians and academics to boycott an upcoming conference at Hebrew University, claiming that “while all Israeli universities are deeply complicit in the occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is particularly noteworthy.”
Demonizing Israel
On May 8, 2014, Farah was a featured speaker at an American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) event titled “PINKWASHING & the erasure of Palestinian queer struggles,” which charged that “Israel brands itself as a safe haven for the LGBTQ community in order to distract from its human rights violations.”“Pinkwashing” is a claim that Israel advocates manipulate the LGBTQ community in order to garner support for Israel.
The AFSC is an anti-Israel Quaker organization that promotes BDS.
Farah is the author of a book, published in 2013, titled “Stitching Survival: Revisioning Silence and Expression.” According to the book’s abstract, “The Nakba (catastrophe) that ensued at the advent of the creation of the state of Israel created a Palestinian exodus of mass proportion” and “the imperial expansion of Israel, both in terms of land grabbing and military development and aggression, have all exploited this diasporic community for sixty years.”
The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by defining it as a catastrophe.
Promoting Anti-Israel Activism on Campuses
Farah signed a letter, authored by the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization and published on January 25, 2017, condemning Fordham University’s decision to block the establishment of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Fordham.In 2016, Fordham reportedly blocked the formation of a Fordham SJP chapter “based on the reported behavior of other [SJP] chapters on other campuses,” indicating that “the establishment of a local branch could be ‘polarizing’ and pose a safety concern to students and faculty.”
Signatories demanded that Fordham “immediately rescind the rejection of SJP as a student group on campus, apologize to the students affected by this harmful decision, and reaffirm Fordham’s commitment to free speech and academic freedom.”
The petitioners also highlighted SJP’s BDS activity, characterizing SJP’s efforts to promote anti-Israel boycott as part of “a time-honored non-violent mode of political expression.” The petition accused Fordham’s administration of a “fundamental misunderstanding of what boycotts are, the purpose of a university, and the goals of SJP.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in cooperation with Palestine Legal (PL), and civil rights attorney Alan Levine sued Fordham on behalf of four students in April 2017. A New York court annulled Fordham’s decision in August 2019, mandating that the university recognize SJP as an official club.
Fordham appealed the ruling to the NY State Supreme Court Appellate Division in January 2020. On July 24, 2020, Fordham SJP students filed a brief asking the appellate court to deny Fordham’s appeal of the lower court’s decision.
As of October 2020, a variety of groups, not directly involved in the case, filed amicus briefs with the Appellate Division for the court's consideration including JVP.
Supporting a Terrorist
In 2016, Farah reportedly served as a board member of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a Chicago-based community organization that campaigned for the release of Rasmea Odeh, following her arrest.Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, Odeh masterminded a PFLP bombing that killed two college students in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate.
Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated [00:10:53] Odeh as the mastermind.
In 1970, an Israeli court tried and convicted Odeh for her involvement in both bombings and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Odeh was released 10 years later, in a prisoner swap and emigrated to the United States.
On November 10, 2014, a Michigan federal jury convicted Odeh for immigration fraud because she failed to disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her immigration application. On March 12, 2015, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
In 2017, after an appeal and a lengthy court battle, Odeh admitted to immigration fraud, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship, deported to Jordan and banned from re-entering the U.S.
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://las.depaul.edu/academics/womens-and-gender-studies/faculty/Pages/laila-farah.aspx
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- DePaul
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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