Robert Ross
Overview
Robert Ross [Robert B. Ross] was sued in 2020, for allegedly discriminating against a co-worker based on her Jewish and Israeli ancestry and for conspiring with other anti-Israel professors to advance “militant and hateful views against Israel and in favor of BDS that are anti-Semitic and lead to the creation of a hostile work environment.”Ross is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and promoted BDS as the chair of advocacy for the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA)’s Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church USA (IPMN).
In 2016, Ross was a member of the Board of Trustees for the anti-Israel Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA).
As the North American branch of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (Sabeel), FOSNA works to convince Christian churches of their spiritual duty to divest from Israel by teaching “Liberation theology,” which fuses Christian religious teachings with Palestinian national ideology.
The group has numerous branches and offers “witness trips” to the West Bank, as well as advocacy training.
Ross has also demonized Israel.
As of August 2020, Ross was an assistant professor of Global Cultural Studies at Point Park University (Point Park).
Sued for Discrimination
According to an article, published in the Jewish Chronicle on January 23, 2020, Ross was one of several Point Park professors who allegedly discriminated against professor Channah Newman based on her Jewish and Israeli ancestry.Ross and his fellow professors allegedly lead “a concerted effort by anti-Zionist faculty and students to create a hostile work environment” for Newman, who is Chair of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department and a professor of French and Cultural Studies at Point Park.
The article cited Ross as an “outspoken critic of Israel” who had also “used his position at Point Park to promote ‘highly anti-Zionist views and activities’ and to ‘foster the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.’”
The article also reported that Ross “leads Palestinian advocacy efforts on behalf of the Presbyterian Church’s Israel/Palestine Mission Network, and is member of the Organizing Collective of the U.S. Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.”
An article published in the Point Park campus newspaper on January 22, 2020, stated that Ross was one of the professors “explicitly mentioned in a number of items in a lawsuit” filed by the Jewish Israeli professor. Those charges included “Discrimination of race/national origin, religion, age and sex” and fostering a “Hostile work environment causing” their Jewish Israeli co-worker “to feel unsafe.”
The same article reported that Professor Newman’s complaint noted she was the “sole Israeli faculty member” at Park Point.
Pleadings filed in the case alleged that pro-BDS faculty, including Ross, encouraged students to take harmful action against Newman, and ”sought with administrative backing to undermine her program, courses, duties, and responsibilities.”
Newman alleged that at least one student, with the assistance of faculty actively involved in BDS, falsely accused her of a Title IX violation, while current and former activist students took to Facebook to drum up negative information about her to provide to the Title IX investigator. The false Title IX complaint was allegedly used by the University as a pretext to effect the terms and conditions of Newman’s employment.
As of August 2020, the case Newman filed was still ongoing.
Supporting BDS
As of February 2020, Ross was a signatory to a list of endorsers of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).Ross also authored an undated article for USACBI, geared to fundraising and promoting BDSin American Churches.
In 2016, Ross signed an open letter stating that a boycott of Israeli settlements was insufficient because Israel must be boycotted entirely.
The letter, published on October 21, 2016 and addressed to the editors of the New York Times (NY Times), condemned a prior statement published in the NY Times that called for a limited boycott on specific areas of Israel.
The letter attacked the statement’s narrow focus, arguing that “the statement calls for boycotting settlements while letting Israel, the state that has illegally built and maintained those settlements for decades, off the hook.”
An article, published by the New York Times (NYT) on June 20, 2014, featured a photograph of Ross and others celebrating the Presbyterian Church’s decision to divest from Israel. The decision to divest was determined by a vote of 310-303.
Following the vote, a blog was published in the Times of Israel (TOI) by Kenneth Waltzer, about Ross’ involvement in the movement, titled: “Portrait of a Presbyterian divestment activist.”
The blog chronicled Ross’ BDS activism and stated that: “In Ross’s mind, the [Presbyterian] Church should take partisan action because – as he writes, and the study guide emphasized — Zionism aimed and still aims at the dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian population.”
The blog also said that: “For Ross, there are believers in peace and justice, and there are ‘apologists for Israel,’ nothing in between...The Jewish state must be tagged as a special pariah. So much for love, peace, and justice.”
On May 30, 2014, Ross published a piece in the Presbyterian Church journal, Unbound, titled: “Divestment is an Investment in Love, Peace, and Justice,” in which Ross described a trip he took to Israel in connection to his BDS activism.
In a section titled: “Witnessing the Occupation,” Ross said he had used a friend to subvert Israeli airport security and enter the country. Ross also stated: “‘A week earlier, Rachel had served as my alibi at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.” and that when he was asked “Why are you visiting Israel?”
Ross answered: “'To see the holy sites and visit my friend, Rachel,' I said, just as I had rehearsed...I didn’t tell the border guard that the primary reason for my travel was to visit the Occupied West Bank."
Ross went on to claim that “Israel has been systematically pushing Palestinians out of Jerusalem and the West Bank” through home demolitions and concluded that “the Church should divest from companies that are enabling and profiting from the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”
Anti-Israel Church Activism
Ross opened his May 30, 2014 article in Unbound by stating that “The Presbyterian Church (USA) has been engaged in a decade-long struggle to divest from companies that are profiting from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.”IPMN is an activist group within PCUSA that has promoted anti-Semitism, as well as hatred of Israel, supports BDS and demonizes Zionism.
Ross wrote an article published in the anti-Israel Mondoweiss on June 13, 2014, promoting divestment for PCUSA’s upcoming General Assembly. Ross equated Israel with Apartheid-era South Africa and said the companies targeted in the PCUSA divestment resolution were “involved in militarization, human rights abuses, or threats to public health.”
Ross said: “there is no reason the Presbyterian Church (USA) should vote against divestment.”
Ross continued that even “opponents of divestment who are reasonably well informed of the situation acknowledge that Palestinian suffering is disproportionate to that of Israel; they recognize the injustice of the Israeli expulsion of Palestinians from the new state of Israel in 1948, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967, and the air, land, and sea blockade of Gaza since 2007; and they are often working to end at least the occupation and blockade.”
The United Nations approved [pp. 39–41] the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza in 2011 as a security measure to stop Hamas from acquiring sophisticated rockets. Multiple flotillas have attempted to breach the blockade, with at least one flotilla initiating a violent confrontation with Israeli forces.
In June 2014 PCUSA’s General Assembly voted in support of divestment and other anti-Israel resolutions. Ross was an observer with PCUSA’s IPMN in 2014, which supported the passage of the divestment and other anti-Israel resolutions at that year’s General Assembly. A picture of Ross celebrating the passage appeared in the New York Times (NYT).
Ross was part of the United Church of Christ (UCC) Palestine Israel Network (PIN), representing PCUSA’s IPMN, which promoted divestment at UCC’s 2015 General Synod. A divestment resolution passed at the UCC’s 2015 General Synod.
Speaking about IPMN’s “Zionism Unsettled,” which has been described by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as anti-Semitic, Ross wrote in his June 2014 Mondoweiss piece: “The connection of the contemporary occupation and expropriation of Palestinian territory to a Zionist yearning for a Jewish homeland is an undeniable reality.”
Ross suggeated the charge that “Zionism Unsettled” is anti-Semitic was outrageous and was made because “apologists for Israel can find no factual basis for their attacks.”
In a 2015 article promoting IPMN’s “continued work in the Middle East,” Ross was quoted about a recent trip to Israel, stating: “‘Every single person in Gaza is suffering from PTSD’...of the after effects of the intensive Israeli bombing,” after Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE) against Hamas in 2014.
Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
In a 2015 Middle East Eye article about U.S. churches divesting from Israel, Ross was quoted as the “advocacy chair” of PCUSA’s IPMN, advocating divestment over dialogue with Israel and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not interested in peace with the Palestinians.
Demonizing Israel
On December 29, 2012, Ross published an article for the anti-Israel publication, Electronic Intifada (EI), titled: “How the New York Times Erases Israel’s Crimes.”In the article, Ross described Israel’s relationship to Gaza “an imperially-imposed form of collective punishment foisted upon Palestinians by Israel.”
Ross went on to state that “The Nakba, the original sin of Zionism and the State of Israel” was underrepresented by the New York Times.
Finally, Ross concluded that “The New York Times serves Israel’s interests by keeping the American public in the dark about the true nature of Israel’s occupation.”
Social Media and Weblinks
University Website: https://www.pointpark.edu/academics/schools/schoolofartsandsciences/departments/LiteraryArts/LiteraryArtsFaculty/RobertRoss.
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Point-Park
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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