Roger Hallas
Overview
Hallas is an associate professor of English at Syracuse University (Syracuse).
Anti-Israel Activity at Syracuse
In May 2017, Hallas served as the advisor for a student’s anti-Israel doctoral dissertation, titled: “A Civil Contract of Documentary: Israel, Palestine, and the Political Aesthetics of Documentary Intersubjective Witnessing, 2000-2017”According to the dissertation’s abstract, the project charges that Israel and the United States have used the language of “security” and the “war on terror” as means to justify “Palestinian communities’ ongoing experiences of dislocation and fragmentation.”
The abstract also goes on to refer to “the Israeli state’s colonialist architecture.”
Hallas also signed a petition of the Syracuse community whose purpose was “to state our support of the principles of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which works to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian peoples.”
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.
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Syracuse
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Ken Harper,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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