Premilla Nadasen
Premilla Nadasen’s Support for the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia University (Columbia), Justifying Hamas Terrorism, Hatred of Israel, Dismissing Anti-Semitism
The incidents occurred after Hamas terror atrocities and war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings, which were executed on October 7, 2023. The attacks left over 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”
Nadasen has also engaged in anti-Israel activism and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
As of February 2024, Nadasen was listed as a professor of history at Barnard College (Barnard), which is part of Columbia.
As of the same date, Nadasen’s LinkedIn profile said she had been the co-director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women since July 2022.
Also as of February 2024, Nadasen was listed as a member of the “scholarly advisory committee” of the Center for Women’s History at the New-York Historical Society.
As of the same date, Nadasen’s LinkedIn said she received a PhD in American history from Columbia in 1998.
Justifying Hamas Terrorism and Spreading Hatred of Israel
Nadasen joined with other Columbia faculty to sign an October 30, 2023 “Open Letter from Columbia University and Barnard College Faculty” justifying the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks against Israel. The open letter also aimed to defend a student-written “Joint Statement from Palestine Solidarity Groups at Columbia University regarding the recent events in Palestine/Israel…”On October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis, kidnapped hundreds and wounded thousands. War crimes included mass rape and torture. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” For more information, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
The faculty letter called [p. 2] the Hamas atrocities a “military response” by “an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation,” as well as “just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies.”
Among anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” is a euphemism for terrorism and is used to glorify and encourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.
The letter Nadasen signed also defended [p. 1] Columbia students who had signed on to their joint statement, claiming the students’ document “situated the military action begun on October 7th within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel.”
The letter claimed that the Hamas terror attacks on October 7, 2023 “occurred in the context of a decades-long military occupation and consistent nonviolent calls within Palestine and around the world for a political solution and for peace.”
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. International law mandates no absolute right of return and UN Resolution 194, which defined principles for “refugees wishing to return to their homes,” was unanimously rejected by Arab nations following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
The letter that Nadasen signed also referred to Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists as “Israel’s ruthless bombings, blockade, and imminent ground invasion of Gaza.” The statement also called the war an “illegal and genocidal assault on Gaza.”
Israel and Egypt implemented a UN-approved [pp. 39–41] joint blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2011 to stop Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets. Hamas went around the blockade by smuggling weaponry through tunnels under the Philadelphi corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.
Nadasen signed an October 2023 letter titled: “Academic Freedom Under Attack at Barnard College.”
The letter accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” in its war against Hamas. The letter also defended anti-Zionism, describing it as “a critical, political position against a state-building project and political ideology.”
Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture. Zionism is a core part of the identity of most Jews.
Dismissing Campus Anti-Semitism
Nadasen signed a December 2023 statement defending anti-Israel activists at Syracuse University (SU) for holding a protest that featured a sign that read: “globalize the intifada.” The term “intifada” is associated with terrorism against Israeli Jews and the activists also handed out flyers with the same phrase that the sign had.The term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” carries the connotation of violence. Palestinian intifadas waged against Israel have been marked since 1987 by hundreds of hijackings, shootings, stabbings, bombings and suicide missions.
The statement that Nadasen signed also alleged that university administrators “claimed that the word intifada, which in Arabic means uprising, ‘has been deemed by SU to be threatening’ and that it can be ‘reasonably interpreted’ as a ‘call to the genocide of Jewish people.’ We assert that the ‘interpretation’ of the word intifada as ‘a call for the genocide of Jewish people’ is baseless and dangerous. Intentionally criminalizing the Arabic language implies that the language itself, and therefore Arabic speakers generally, are inherently violent and genocidal.”
The second intifada (2000-2005) was characterized by more than 120 suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes.
In October 2015, there was an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” was characterized by young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab Israeli civilians. The attacks were incited by Palestinian leaders propagating the libel that Israel intended to desecrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
Anti-Israel Activism (BDS)
On December 27, 2023, Nadasen featured in a video on the Twitter account of the news site Democracy Now!In the video, Nadasen expressed support for the Columbia chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) after the university suspended them for violating school policies. On October 9, 2023, Columbia SJP expressed support for the Hamas terror attacks two days earlier.
On April 24, 2017, Nadasen reportedly participated in a panel at Columbia titled: “The Road to Freedom: The BDS Movement for Palestinian Rights and the Struggle Against Apartheid.” Another panel participant was BDS movement founder Omar Barghouti.
The anti-Israel website Mondoweiss wrote an article on the event that said Nadasen spoke about her “experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa and the similarities between those experiences and her 2001 trip to Palestine."
During Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE) against Hamas, Nadasen signed an August 5, 2014 petition titled: “Coalition of Feminists Condemn ‘Massacre’ in Gaza, Urge Support for BDS.”
Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
In June 2011, Nadasen reportedly participated in a group trip of anti-Israel activists to Israel, the purpose of which was “to see for ourselves the conditions under which Palestinian people live and struggle.”
Following the trip, the activists concluded Israel to be “a project of apartheid and ethnic cleansing,” which led them to publish a call to action in support of the BDS movement.
Nadasen authored and signed the statement: “We unequivocally endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign…We call upon all of our academic and activist colleagues in the US and elsewhere to join us by endorsing the BDS campaign and by working to end US financial support…for the Israeli state and its occupation.”
Support for the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia
On April 26, 2024, Nadasen posted on X: “These are my students. So proud of them.” Nadasen’s post included an April 24, 2024 X post that featured a CNN video showing Columbia students participating in the Columbia encampment.Premilla Nadasen participated [slide 9] in an anti-Israel ceremony organized by “The People’s Grad for Palestine” on May 16, 2024.
The event, titled: “The People’s Graduation,” was planned by “an independent group of faculty [who] wanted to create a graduation ceremony for their students who have been excluded from campus for peacefully protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza [at the Columbia encampment].”
The ceremony was organized “following the cancellation of [Columbia’s] Universitywide Commencement ceremonies and in the aftermath of the April 18 and April 30 police sweeps of the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ and occupied Hamilton [Hall].”
On April 17, 2024, Columbia students and anti-Israel activists set up a pro-Hamas “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the university's main lawn. Many participants were arrested and the encampment featured multiple violent incidents, including taking over a campus building and taking a university worker hostage.
Activists protested Israel’s war against Hamas and demanded that Columbia “divest from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation…”
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/premilla.nadasenX: https://x.com/premillanadasen
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/premnadasen/
Instagram 2:https://www.instagram.com/premillanadasen/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/premilla-nadasen-71598637/
University Website:https://history.barnard.edu/profiles/premilla-nadasen
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Columbia
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Marianne Hirsch,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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