Rabab Abdulhadi
Overview
Rabab Abdulhadi [Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi] has spread anti-Semitism, led pro-terror academic trips and glorified terrorists.Abdulhadi has also promoted hatred of Zionists, America and Israel. She is a leading anti-Israel activist in America and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
As of June 2023, Abdulhadi was listed as an Associate Professor in the Ethnic Studies/Race and Resistance Studies in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University (SFSU). As of the same date, she was also listed as the founding director/senior scholar of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies program at SFSU.
Abdulhadi is a founding member of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).
Abdulhadi reportedly co-founded the U.S. branch of the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS), as well as the Union of Palestinian Women’s Associations in North America (UPWA) and the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC).
GUPS at SFSU is an affiliate of the national anti-Israel campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). She was a keynote speaker at the 2018 and 2017 National SJP Conference.
In November 2020, Abdulhadi wrote on Facebook that she was the faculty advisor of GUPS at SFSU. She was the GUPS faculty advisor as early as October 2016.
In 2018, Abdulhadi was also a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
Abdulhadi also served as the first director of the Center for Arab American Studies (CAAS) at the University of Michigan, Dearborn (UM-Dearborn). She was also a visiting scholar at the Institute for Women’s Studies at Birzeit University (Birzeit).
Spreading Anti-Semitism
On September 15, 2020, Abdulhadi said [00:44:30] on Facebook: “I think we need to go to [then U.S. vice presidential candidate] Kamala Harris and say to her: ‘...It’s not okay that some of our representatives actually have dual Israeli-U.S. passport. That’s not okay! That’s not okay!...”The concept of “dual loyalty” is an anti-Semitic accusation that alleges Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own nations.
In a February 7, 2019 interview with Arab Talk, Abdulhadi condemned U.S. pro-Israel advocacy groups, saying [00:07:09]: “These groups are bullies...they push around in Congress and they bribe them, and they give them money, they twist their arms and so on, there are used to basically silencing everybody and crushing everybody.”
On July 1, 2018, Abdulhadi wrote on Facebook: “...Islamophobia Industry is closely associated with the Israel lobby industry, also intentional, well connected and well financed network by the U.S. right wing and branches of the Israeli government.”
In an April 5, 2018 video posted to the AMED Studies at SFSU Facebook page, Abdulhadi criticized [00:34:05] a public pledge by SFSU president Leslie Wong to “welcome” Zionists on campus.
Abdulhadi said [00:34:05]: “I’m waiting for him to say, ‘white supremacists are welcome, KKK is welcome…Neo-Nazis are welcome, homophobes are welcome, misogynists are welcome,’ why stop only at Zionists? Welcome them all. I mean bring the…whole club. Bring everybody who is right wing and racist, bring them to campus, why only stop at Zionists?”
On March 3, 2019, Abdulhadi shared a personal statement to the AMED Studies at SFSU Facebook page where she accused the SFSU Administration of the “weaponizing of free speech in the service of Nazis, Zionists and other white supremacists.”
On May 22, 2019, Abdulhadi tweeted: “...No place in Palestine solidarity movement for Nazism, white supremacy, Zionism, Islamophobia, anti-blackness or any form of racism and racial discrimination. NONE!” She was objecting to a swastika graffiti intertwined with the expressions: “Free Palestine” and “San Francisco State University.”
Leading Pro-Terror Academic Trips
In 2014, Abdulhadi organized and led an SFSU-funded “academic and labor delegation to Palestine,” which met with terrorist leader Leila Khaled and convicted Hamas funder Sheikh Raed Salah. Abdulhadi said that both are “part of the Palestinian people's authentic and legitimate leadership.” She also invited students to join the trip, which she called a “political solidarity tour.”Leila Khaled is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. As of 2017, Khaled was a member of PFLP's Political Bureau. Khaled has said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough, advocated [00:36:07] for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.
The U.S. State Department has listed the PFLP as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) since 1997, given its history of attacks against civilians, airplane hijackings and suicide bombings.
Raed Salah is a founder of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, a group which has been linked to Hamas and has “ideological roots’ in the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The group was banned in Israel due to “criminal” activities, including incitement. Saleh has called for Israel’s destruction and spread anti-Semitic blood libels.
In June 2014, after Abdulhadi was accused of using public funds to finance a trip that met with known terrorists, she claimed: “I was under no obligation to inform the university of each and every person with whom I met.”
Also following the delegation’s visit, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was reached between An-Najah National University (An-Najah) and SFSU that would enable a student exchange program between the two universities.
In 2017, a lawsuit was filed against Abdulhadi for, among other claims, spearheading the collaboration with An-Najah since it was a “known recruitment facility for Hamas.” The lawsuit said “students indoctrinated to hate Jews would be sent to San Francisco and SFSU students would travel to An-Najah where they would likely be radicalized in ways that could further endanger Jewish students on campus…or at least exacerbate the already hostile environment for Jews on campus at SFSU.”
In March 2018, Abdulhadi co-organized the “Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice” conference with Birzeit’s Ibrahim Abu Lughod Institute for International Studies and the Institute for Women’s Studies.
Participants planned to “spend 1-2 days at each of the sites of the sponsoring universities in a formal conference setting” and to “visit geographies of Palestinian anti-colonial indigenous resistance.” On the trip, Abdulhadi met with anti-Israel former Member of Knesset (Israeli Parliament) Haneen Zoabi.
Zoabi has been investigated for inciting violence multiple times. In July 2014, she was suspended from the Knesset after she defended the Hamas kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, who were later found executed in a field.
On May 25, 2022, Abdulhadi urged people in a Facebook post to donate to the Teaching Palestine program in order “to continue to produce justice-centered knowledge.”
In the same post, she recounted one Teaching Palestine delegation that also went to Lebanon to visit “the PLO cemetery where Ghassan Kanafani…and many others rest in power…”
Kanafani was a leading member and spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the terrorist organization’s early years. Kanafani announced the PFLP’s responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre of May 1972 and was linked to the airport attackers. The attack killed 26 people and wounded 80 others.
Glorifying Terrorists
On July 6, 2022, Abdulhadi promoted on Facebook an event where she would be speaking, titled: “Celebrating Ghassan Kanafani on the 50th anniversary of his assassination.”On May 25, 2022, Abdulhadi posted to Facebook: “...I celebrate African Liberation Day to share the pride, joy and pain of the cost of Liberation. I honor… Assata Shakur…and all the African Liberation fallen heros in the mother continent and in the Diasporas…”
Assata Shakur was convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper and wounding another in 1973 while a member of the separatist Black Liberation Army (BLA). She escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba in 1984, where she resides today. She is listed on the FBI Most Wanted Terror List under her legal name, Joanne Deborah Chesimard.
On April 11, 2022, Abdulhadi shared on Facebook a post commemorating “the birthday of the revolutionary Palestinian thinker, writer and activist, Ghassan Kanafani” and celebrating “Kanafani’s legacy.”
On November 22, 2021, Abdulhadi posted to Facebook: “Freedom for comrade/sister Khitam Saafin, chair of the Union of Palestimian [sic] Women’s Committees and all Palestinian prisoners and prisoners of conscience everywhere. #freekhitam. #FreeThemAll.”
In February 2022, Khitam Saafin was sentenced to 16 months in prison for her membership in the terrorist organization PFLP.
On March 23, 2021, Abdulhadi referred to terrorists Rasmea Odeh and Shadia Abu Ghazaleh on Facebook as “female freedom fighters.”
Odeh was a key military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a PFLP supermarket bombing that killed two college students. She also attempted to bomb the British consulate in Jerusalem. Odeh later moved to the United States but was deported to Jordan in 2017 for immigration fraud.
On September 24, 2020, Abdulhadi and AMED organized an event featuring Leila Khaled. Abdulhadi and the full GUPS board attempted to live stream the event, which the online video conferencing platform Zoom canceled out of concern that hosting Khaled on its platform would be a felony given her PFLP leadership role.
On September 22, 2020, Abdulhadi was quoted as saying: “We really idolize somebody like Leila Khaled, somebody who actually stands up for herself, speaks for herself, actually goes to a plane and hijacks it …”
Abdulhadi concluded: “...it was kind of like it rang a chord with me.”
Also on September 22, 2020, Abdulhadi featured [00:04:07] in a live-streamed YouTube video promoting the Khaled event. She said [00:28:41]: “I was part of a group of generation…I wanted to grow up to be like Leila Khaled…I so admired her standing up and her speaking up…”
On April 10, 2020, Abdulhadi tweeted: “...#FreeGeorgesAbdallah & Reject US/Israeli pressures to hold him captive for 35 years past 2013 release date...#FreeThemAll. #FreePalestine.”
Georges Abdallah is a convicted Lebanese terrorist, reportedly a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and co-founder of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF). He murdered an American military attaché and an Israeli diplomat in 1982.
On July 2, 2017, Abdulhadi shared a post on Facebook in support of Saafin and PFLP leader Khalida Jarrar. Abdulhadi wrotethat they were “prisoners of conscience” whose arrest demonstrated “the poverty of thought, the lazy intellectual engagement and most dangerously the Orientalist, Islamophobic, racist and Zionist agenda...”
Hatred of Zionists
On November 8, 2017, Abdulhadi wrote on Facebook: “...Israel’s apologists, along with all those white supremacists, racists, Islamophobes, and colonists seek to intimidate, bully, and smear…”On February 23, 2018, Abdulhadi wrote Facebook in opposition to SFSU president Leslie Wong promising: “Let me be clear: Zionists are welcome on our campus.”
Abdulhadi wrote: “I consider the statement below from President Wong, welcoming Zionists to campus…to be a declaration of war against Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians…”
Abdulhadi continued: “I…demand the immediate retraction of this racist, Islamophobic and colonialist statement…it is embarrassing to have our campus leadership cater to donor pressures and the Israeli lobby.”
On October 23, 2020, Abdulhadi tweeted: “I LOVE @NationalSJP…amazing students doing amazing work. #Zionists, #WhiteSupremacists and haters of all types, give it up!”
On May 30, 2021, Abdulhadi tweeted about Zionists: “...We defeated them several times but they keep spreading lies & misinformation. How else can they justify indefensible settler colonialism, racism & occupation?”
Hatred of America
On July 4, 2021, Abdulhadi wrote on Facebook: “... We will never celebrate, accept, nor condone the founding of the US settler colonial racist state on the lands of our Indigenous relations ...”On September 11, 2019, Abdulhadi wrote on Facebook that the U.S. was among several countries that were “colonial powers.”
On March 8, 2019, Abdulhadi wrote on Facebook: “...The US ‘celebrates’ ‘thanksgiving’, ‘Independence Day’, and a host of other holidays that signal genocide and Nakba…”
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.
Hatred of Israel
On May 15, 2022, Abdulhadi tweeted: “...it's impossible not to see parallels in how Zionist settler colonialism kills Indigenous Palestinians & US white supremacist settler colonialism kills Black, Indigenous and other 3rd world/people of color …”On April 29, 2022, Abdulhadi tweeted: “It is abundantly clear that evicting Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah families is product of a racist court system, backed by a racist legal system, spearheaded by billionaire-backed racist settler colonisers…”
In May 2021, Palestinian violence erupted in anticipation of an Israel High Court ruling on eviction proceedings concerning over 70 Palestinian tenants illegally residing in Jewish-owned properties in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
On May 30, 2021, Abdulhadi tweeted: “It's chilling to see Israel apologists brag about killing children. But then colonists never cared about life even for the colonizers. All is fodder for their war, greed and expansion.”
On April 23, 2020, Abdulhadi alleged [00:10:28] on YouTube that “Israeli interrogators actually infected Palestinian prisoners while they were torturing them with the COVID-19.”
GUPS SFSU - Overview
GUPS SFSU has promoted terrorists, participated in anti-Israel rallies, demonized Israel and Zionism, and campaigned for the BDS Movement as part of its anti-Israel activism.GUPS SFSU was founded in 1973. Hatem Bazian was reportedly GUPS SFSU’s most prominent alumnus, as he co-founded the anti-Israel organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UC-Berkeley in 2000. He also founded American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) in 2006. SJP was modeled on GUPS when it was founded.
GUPS SFSU - Glorifying Terrorists 2019-2020
On November 15, 2019, during Israel’s Operation Black Belt against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror group, GUPS SFSU tweeted: “Rest in peace to our martyrs.” The tweet included a November 13, 2019 tweet from the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) mourning the death of “24 Palestinians…killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.”Most of the reported dead were identifed as PIJ members killed in an Israeli operation in Gaza.
In November 2019, Israel launched “Operation Black Belt” to stop rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. The rockets were sent by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror group on November 12-14, 2019, targeting Israel’s biggest civilian population centers.
GUPS SFSU - Supporting a Terrorist 2015-2016
On March 8, 2016, GUPS SFSU posted to Instagram a graphic that portrayed Leila Khaled as a “fierce woman resisting colonial powers and repression.”GUPS SFSU - Anti-Israel Rally 2019-2020
On November 15, 2019, GUPS SFSU promoted on Instagram an “emergency protest” titled “Hands Off Gaza!” organized by the Palestine Action Network (PAN) to take place at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco the following day.At the protest, demonstrators chanted [00:01:43]: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” They also held signs that said: “Israel is an Apartheid State! An Apartheid State is a Racist State!” and accused Israel and the U.S. of commiting genocide.
GUPS SFSU - Rally in Support of Anti-Israel Violence 2018-2019
On March 27, 2019, GUPS SFSU promoted on Instagram a March 30, 2019 rally, hosted by the Palestine Action Network (PAN), celebrating the first anniversary of Gaza’s “Great March of Return.” The post featured a flier urging people to “defend” the BDS Movement, “support Palestinian self-determination and the right of return” and “stop all U.S. aid to Israel.”At the rally, protestors expressed hatred of Israel, accused Israel of commiting genocide, expressed support for BDS and claimed [00:01:18] that “both the US and Israel were established as settler colonial states.”
GUPS SFSU - Demonizing Israel 2018-2019
On February 12, 2019, GUPS SFSU promoted on Instagram an “emergency rally” in response to SFSU’s recognizing Israel Independence Day on its list of “Religious Observances.” The post said: “Zionism is NOT allowed on our campus!”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.
The post was accompanied by a statement signed by the “General Union of Palestine Students” labeling Israel a “settler colonial state” and accusing Israel of “the ongoing murder and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
GUPS SFSU - Demonizing Zionism 2018-2019
On April 16, 2019, GUPS SFSU posted to Instagram accusing Zionism of being “a white supremacist settler colonial ideology.” The post also claimed: “Zionism is not separate from massacre, from ethnic cleansing but that these are inherently Zionist.” The post ended by urging: “Don’t Normalize Zionism!”GUPS SFSU - Demonizing Zionism 2017-2018
On February 23, 2018, GUPS SFSU wrote on the Medium platform that “Zionism is the violent ideology responsible for the genocide and displacement of indigenous Palestinians and the destruction of Palestinian land," as well as a “form of hate” that is not welcome “in the Bay Area, let alone SFSU.”GUPS SFSU -Supporting BDS 2020-2021
On October 26, 2020, GUPS SFSU promoted the BDS Movement on Instagram and called on people to support the divestment resolution they drafted and were advocating to be approved by the university.On November 18, 2020, SFSU Associated Students approved the resolution.
On November 19, 2020, GUPS SFSU posted to Instagram that they were “happy and proud” that through their “passion for social justice and organizing” they succeeded in campaigning for the BDS resolution. They also emphasized that this was a step toward a world “free from the evils of colonialism and white supremacy.”
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.
SJP
SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.
The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.
SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.
SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.
SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.
Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.
Social Media and Weblinks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AbdulhadiRabab
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabab-abdulhadi-709890a
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- San-Fransico-State
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- GUPS,
- more...
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- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025