Steven Salaita
Overview
Steven Salaita had an offer of a tenured faculty position revoked by the University of Illinois (U of I), after a series of anti-Semitic tweets were uncovered, in 2014.Following the incident, Salaita was hired as the Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB), in 2015. However, AUB declined to offer Salaita tenureship after one year in the position.
As of February 2019, Salaita indicated on Twitter and on his blog that he worked as a school bus driver.
Salaita did not delete any of his controversial tweets and continues to demonize Israel online through his Twitter account and in articles.
Salaita is a proponent of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and is a leader within the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).
Salaita is also the author of three anti-Israel books.
He has also expressed support for convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh and has advocated for anti-Israel agitator Ahed Tamimi.
Controversy at U of I
Salaita became a focus of national controversy when U of I withdrew an offer of employment for the position of professor of American Indian Studies in 2014, following revelation of Salaita's controversial tweets regarding the 2014 Israel–Gaza war.One tweet, posted shortly after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped by Hamas from a bus stop (and later found murdered), 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.”
A month later, Salaita tweeted: "Zionists: transforming ‘antisemitism’ from something horrible into something honorable since 1948."
U of I defended its decision to withdraw the job offer to Salaita on January 29, 2015, in a press release, noting: “[Salaita’s tweets] demonstrate that Dr. Salaita lacks the judgment, temperament and thoughtfulness to serve as a member of our faculty in any capacity, but particularly to teach courses related to the Middle East.”
U of I ultimately offered Salatia a financial settlement in November 2015, which he accepted. The settlement stipulated that Salaita would drop his “pending legal claims against U of I, including a lawsuit alleging breach of contract and First Amendment violations.” The settlement also specified that Salaita would not work for U of I in the future.
Salaita embarked upon a national speaking tour after the controversy surrounding his firing became national news.
After being denied the position at U of I, Salaita took a teaching position at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon, where he was employed from 2015 through 2017. However, AUB declined to offer Salaita tenureship and following the close of the 2017 academic year, Salaita again sought employment.
Unable to find a teaching position “on four continents,” Salaita again took to social media, stating on Facebook “I no longer consider myself among the professoriate.” Salaita went on to say that “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not… I will die unapologetic.”
Demonizing Israel
On May 26, 2018, Salaita tweeted that “Zionists insist that Israel doesn't just shoot unarmed demonstrators.They're right. Israel also shoots journalists and doctors.”In a tweet published on May 16, 2018, Salaita wrote “Just a reminder that Israel was murdering civilians, stealing land, displacing natives, destroying homes, imprisoning children, and implementing apartheid before ‘Hamas’ was even an idea.”
On April 30, 2018, Salaita tweeted that “Israel occupies foreign territory. Israel violates international law. Israel lies about its nuclear arsenal (and has for decades). Israel massacres unarmed protestors. Cheering Israel as it threatens Iran is a transparent exercise in racism and chauvinism.”
On April 26, 2018, Salaita tweeted that “Zionists can no longer coherently defend Israel's brutality. As a result, their main tactic these days is to suppress criticism of Israel altogether. Go ahead, then, and condemn the insecure little settler colony. The task is more urgent than ever.”
In a tweet posted on April 9, 2018, Salaita wrote that “Residents of the Gaza Strip already suffer a murderous occupying force; they don't need unsolicited hot takes from Western pundits about how to conduct their resistance. Support their right to live. Then shut up. It's not complicated.”
On April 7, 2018, Salaita tweeted that “Defense of Israeli brutality is now beyond ridiculous. Give it a rest already. You hate Palestinians and are happy to see them murdered. Leave it at that. You don't need to further insult everybody with phony concern over burning tires.”
In a tweet published on April 6, 2018, Salaita wrote that “Gaza is not a disembodied site of burning tires and mindless violence. It is a brutal experiment in settler colonization where a surplus Indigenous population is confined to a tiny blockaded territory, ever subject to the malicious whims of its high-tech captor.”
On January 21, 2018, Salaita tweeted that “Israel boasts a hateful leader. Israel practices anti-Black racism. Israel brutalizes migrant workers. Israel oppresses Muslims. Israel has already built a hideous wall. Zionists who protest Trump aren't engaged in resistance, but ritual hypocrisy.”
On January 1, 2018, Salaita published an article in which he described the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as “an organisation whose main purpose is to persecute a subjected population, and one that has perpetrated massive acts of ethnic cleansing.”
On December 31, 2017, Salaita tweeted that “The USA and Israel both dispossess Indigenous nations, brutalize Black people, imprison children, torture dissidents, cosset dictators, arm reactionaries, abuse protestors, elect racists, and demand to be seen as avatars of virtue. #SharedValues.”
On December 6, 2017, Salaita wrote that “Jerusalem has long been a site of painstaking colonisation.”
In an article published on November 6, 2017, Salaita wrote that “The contradiction between the ideals and practices of Zionism is unresolvable because racist violence is baked into the ideology.”
On August 31, 2017, Salaita published an article titled “A Moral Case Against Normalisation with Israel,” in which he condemned all those who “openly collaborate with the erstwhile Zionist enemy.”
On July 21, 2017, Salaita wrote a tweet stating that “In Israel, freedom of religion means the ability of the state to murder non-Jews without consequence. #Jerusalem.”
In a tweet published on March 26, 2017, Salaita wrote “#AIPAC2017 keywords: security, terrorism, shared values, peace. What they actually mean: theft, occupation, war, ethnic cleansing.”
On October 16, 2016, Salaita tweeted that “Some Zionists claim that Palestinians are a recent invention, a funny thing to argue given that no Israeli nationality existed until 1948.”
In a tweet posted on July 24, 2016, “Hillary Clinton vigorously supports Israeli ethnic cleansing. She's a lesser evil only if we consider Palestinians lesser human beings.”
On May 10, 2016, Salaita tweeted that “Israeli ‘independence day’ is a bullshit euphemism. There never was an Israel to be liberated, only a Palestine to be destroyed.”
On February 1, 2016, Salaita tweeted “That Israel directs so much violence at children illuminates Zionism's impulse to halt Palestinian life at its inception.”
In 2016, Salaita published a book titled “Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine,” in which “he emphasizes BDS’s significant potential as an organizing entity.”
According to the book’s description, “By establishing Palestine as an indigenous nation under colonial occupation, this book draws crucial connections between the scholarship and activism of Indigenous America and Palestine.”
On July 8, 2014, he tweeted that “There's something profoundly sexual to the Zionist pleasure w/#Israel's aggression. Sublimation through bloodletting, a common perversion.”
In March 2011, Salaita published a book titled “Israel’s Dead Soul,” which, according to the book’s description, “explores the failures of Zionism as a political and ethical discourse.”
In November 2006, Salaita published a book titled “Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan,” in which he “compares the dynamics of settler colonialism in the United States related to Native Americans with the circumstances in Israel related to the Palestinians.”
Supporting BDS
On November 24, 2017, Salaita wrote “A Message to Artists who Play Israel” in which he argued that “adhering to the cultural boycott is good for you, too.”Salaita went on to write that “Israel tries to pass itself off as an innocuous presence in the community of nations, so the world needn't worry over land expropriation, war crimes, water theft, blockades, inequality, torture, ethnocracy and home demolition.”
On December 17, 2016, Salaita tweeted a photo of himself holding a sign that said “I SUPPORT THE MLA BOYCOTT RESOLUTION BECAUSE PALESTINIANS DEMAND (ACADEMIC) FREEDOM.”
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.”
On May 6, 2016, Salaita published an article titled “All for BDS, Once and For All,” in which he argued that “In boycotting Israel, we answer a specific call for solidarity issued from our colleagues in Palestine.”
In an article published on February 27, 2014, Salaita wrote about how he “worked with the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) for around five years.”
In December 2013, Salaita wrote an article in support of BDS, explaining that “boycott of Israeli academic institutions isn’t about ‘the Jews.’ It’s about the racism Zionists visit on Palestinians in the name of the Jewish people, using the imprimatur of cultural autonomy to justify settler colonization.”
Supporting Rasmea Odeh
In a tweet published on August 14, 2015, Salaita wrote that “The corruption re my firing is quaint compared to the utter rot underlying Rasmea Odeh's prosecution. All vocal Palestinians are targets.”Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, Odeh masterminded a PFLP bombing that killed two college students in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate.
Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated [00:10:53] Odeh as the mastermind.
In 1970, an Israeli court tried and convicted Odeh for her involvement in both bombings and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Odeh was released 10 years later, in a prisoner swap and emigrated to the United States.
On November 10, 2014, a Michigan federal jury convicted Odeh for immigration fraud because she failed to disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her immigration application. On March 12, 2015, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
In 2017, after an appeal and a lengthy court battle, Odeh admitted to immigration fraud, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship, deported to Jordan and banned from re-entering the U.S.
On October 7, 2014, Salaita tweeted a photo of himself with Rasmea Odeh, along with the caption “I was lucky enough to meet a true hero tonight at U of Chicago, Rasmea Odeh. #Justice4Rasmea.”
On October 24, 2013, Salaita tweeted a call to “Drop the Charges against Rasmea Yousef Odeh” along with a link to a petition.
In 2014, Salaita supported convicted terrorist-murderer Rasmea Odeh who, at the time, was fighting federal charges of immigration fraud.
Salaita tweeted, "The corruption re my firing is quaint compared to the utter rot underlying Rasmea Odeh's prosecution. All vocal Palestinians are targets."
Supporting Ahed Tamimi
On January 17, 2018, Salaita tweeted that “When Zionists describe Ahed Tamimi as ‘dangerous,’ they're being typically racist, sexist, deceitful, and paranoid, but the descriptor isn't necessarily incorrect. Palestinians who demand freedom necessarily threaten the Israeli state.”In a tweet published on January 3, 2018, Salaita wrote “Quit describing Ahed Tamimi's reaction to the terrorists who invaded her family's property as ‘assault.’ The term you're looking for is ‘self-defense.’”
On December 28, 2017, Salaita posted a tweet stating that “Zionists want to destroy Ahed Tamimi not only because she embodies their deepest anxieties about Palestinian resistance, but also because she refuses to hide her contempt for the shitty little colony they adore.”
Ahed Tamimi was detained after she was filmed punching and kicking Israeli soldiers. She has a long history of physically attacking Israeli soldiers.
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.
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.
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- Related Profiles:
- John Waterbury,
- Jennifer Mogannam,
- George Saliba,
- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025
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