Lilith Mahmud
Overview
Lilith Mahmud [Lilith Mahmud-Abdelwa] is an advocate for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and supported a resolution calling on the the American Anthropological Association (AAA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions.Mahmud has promoted the boycott of Israeli academic institutions on Facebook and is a supporter of disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita.
Mahmud is an associate professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
Endorsing BDS
During the 2017 AAA elections, Mahmud was endorsed as a candidate by the Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions as a result of her support for BDS. Mahmud was later elected Publications and Projects Chair of Society for the Anthropology of Europe for a two year term.On November 19, 2016, Mahmud wrote on Facebook: “Anthros: get your butts to the Main Auditorium right now! We need 250 people by 6:15 pm. Please come and bring everyone. #anthroboycott.”
The hashtag “#anthroboycott” is used as an abbreviation for the organization “Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions.”
Mahmud is also a signatory to an October 2014 statement calling on the AAA to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
In June 2016, the AAA announced that a resolution to boycott Israeli universities was defeated but that there are “other actions planned.”
The AAA vote on the anti-Israel resolution took place from April 15 to May 31, 2016, with approximately half of the AAA membership voting on the resolution. Of the half that voted concerning the resolution, 50.4% voted against it, meaning that only one quarter of AAA’s membership — at most — voted in favor of the resolution.
Supporting Steven Salaita
Mahmud signed a 2014 petition demanding Professor Steven Salaita’s reinstatement at the University of Illinois (U of I) and calling for a boycott of U of I until it complied with the petition’s demands.In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.
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
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lilith.mahmud
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- California-Irvine
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Shadi Jafari,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
Photos & Screenshots
