Nadia Yaqub
Overview
Nadia Yaqub has participated in anti-Israel campus activism, demonized Israel, is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) and has defended disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita.As of September 2019, Yaqub was a professor in the Department of Asian Studiesat the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC).
Participating in Anti-Israel Campus Activism
In April 2019, Yaqub curated a three-day film screening at Columbia University (Columbia) titled: “Gaza on Film.”In an interview published on May 28, 2019, Yaqub discussed the event, stating that “If you can define the Palestinian condition as one of exile and displacement and ongoing dispossession, Gaza is always the extreme case.”
On April 8, 2017, Yaqub participated on a panel titled: “Israel-Palestine,” at a three-day conference sponsored by the Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University (Duke).
The panel that Yaqub sat on was moderated by anti-Israel professor, Susan Slyomovics.
On September 27, 2011, it was reported in the UNC newspaper that Yaqub spoke at an event on campus organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
According to the article: “UNC Students for Justice in Palestin...organized a discussion focused on the United Nation’s vote on Palestine’s statehood.”
Demonizing Israel
In July 2018, Yaqub published a book titled:“Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution.”According to the book’s description: “Filmmakers working within the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and through other channels filmed the revolution as it unfolded, including the Israeli bombings of Palestinian refugee camps, the Jordanian and Lebanese civil wars, and Palestinian life under Israeli occupation, attempting to create a cinematic language consonant with the revolution and its needs.”
In a September 14, 2018 interview, Yaqub discussed her book, stating: “Compared the Palestinian experience with the Holocaust, stating: “Israel’s repeated and disproportional attacks on Palestinian and other Arab civilians are rooted in a worldview that is very similar to that which produced the genocide against European Jews.”
In the same interview, Yaqub went on to praise violent protests taking place on Israel’s border with Gaza, stating: “As we speak in May 2018, Israeli soldiers are wounding or killing thousands of protesters participating in the “Great March of Return” in Gaza. This violence is the logical extension of the 1970s bombings of camps and villages in Lebanon.”
In May 2018, violent riots, instigated by Hamas on the Israeli-Gaza border, saw thousands of rioters attempting numerous breaches of Israel’s border fence, with
participants declaring their intention to harm Jews across the border.
Media reports confirmed [00:00:20] the March of Return protesters’ breaches and attempted breaches of Israel’s border fence, some by armed Palestinians. On May 15, 2018, senior Hamas official, Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, said that the Gaza protests were under a pretext of “peaceful resistance.”
On May 16, 2018, a Hamas senior official, Salah al-Bardawil, stated that 50 out of 62 protesters killed during the May 14 Gaza border protest were Hamas operatives. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also claimed that three of its members were killed at the same protest.
Supporting BDS
In March 2015, Yaqub signed an open letter calling for the adoption of BDS by the MLA.The open letter was addressed to the Modern Language Association (MLA), “calling on the association to pass a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
In January 2017, the MLA Delegate Assembly approved a resolution (2017-1) acknowledging “the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel contradicts the MLA’s purpose” and conflicted with another resolution (2002-1), that condemned boycotts against scholars. Therefore, the Assembly “resolved that the MLA refrain from endorsing the boycott.”
The petition encouraged historians and academics to boycott an upcoming conference at Hebrew University (HUJI), claiming that “while all Israeli universities are deeply complicit in the occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is particularly noteworthy.”
Defending Steven Salaita
Yaqub signed a petition published on August 21, 2014 by the BDS movement titled: “A Call to People of Conscience Not to Speak at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Until Chancellor Wise Honor [sic] the Contract to Hire Professor Steven Salaita.”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
University Website:https://asianstudies.unc.edu/faculty/dr-nadia-yaqub
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- North-Carolina-Chapel-Hill
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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