Sa'ed Atshan
Overview
Sa’ed Atshan [Sa’ed Adel Atshan] was denied entry into Israel while leading an anti-Israel activist trip for students. Atshan has demonized Israel, participated in multiple National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Conferences and supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.He has also expressed opposition to interfaith cooperation and supported an anti-Israel organization.
As of April 2020, Atshan was affiliated with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), an anti-Israel, Quaker organization that promotes BDS.
As of April 2020, Atshan was an Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore College (Swarthmore).
Atshan was formerly a lecturer at the Peace and Justice Studies Department at Tufts University (Tufts), where he was reportedly the faculty advisor for SJP at Tufts (SJP Tufts) in 2014.
Leading Anti-Israel Activist Trip
On December 23, 2015, during the “Knife Intifada,” Atshan was denied entry into Israel’s West Bank when leading a trip he organized for Swarthmore students in his Israeli-Palestinian Conflict class.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.
Atshan claimed he was denied entry due to being deemed a “security threat” by Israeli authorities and that the trip he organized continued on without him, The trip participants reportedly met with Manal Tamimi,who has spread anti-Semitic blood libels and support for terrorists.
Demonizing Israel
Atshad co-wrote a book, scheduled for publication in June 2020, titled: “The Moral Triangle,” which says that German support for Israel derives from the guilt of the Holocaust.WorldCat’s summary of the book describes it as an “ethnography of immigrant communities in Berlin...The authors demonstrate that Germany's steadfast support for the state of Israel challenges Palestinian immigrants, who view this as an abdication of the country's moral responsibility.”
WorldCat’s summary of the book continues: “Atshan and Galor begin by drawing a comparison between the generational trauma resonating from the Holocaust and that from the Nakba, the word Palestinians use to refer to the loss of life and land that happened during the establishment of an Israeli state in 1948.”
In a Jerusalem Post article published on July 23, 2018, it was reported that Atshan had been scheduled to speak at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, but that his presentation was canceled.
The article quoted Atshan speaking in 2014 and stating that: “We all know Israel is an apartheid state and should be boycotted.” In response to the cancelation, an ambassador was quoted in the article saying that “Atshan is very closely connected with BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] [and] he is not a person who wishes to build bridges of understanding with Israel.”
On March 21, 2017, Atshan reportedly gave a talk at Haverford College for Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW).
On October 15, 2015, Atshan endorsed a series of misleading maps on Facebook. The maps claim that lands once controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian land,” were purportedly stolen by Israel.
The maps claim that lands once controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian land” were purportedly stolen by Israel. In February 2016, publisher McGraw-Hill Education recalled copies of a college textbook containing the fraudulent maps. In October 2015, American cable news network MSNBC apologized for airing a similar series of maps and retracted them.
The same article also reported that, at the 2014 SJP National Conference, Atshan blamed Israel: “for creating a Palestinian society rife with honor killings and the persecution of gays – all caused by the intersection of Zionism with misogyny and homophobia.”
On April 10, 2012, Atshan participated in an SJP panel event at Columbia University that accused Israel of “pinkwashing.”
“Pinkwashing” is a claim that Israel advocates manipulate the LGBTQ community in order to garner support for Israel.
Participating in SJP National Conferences
Atshan spoke at the 2016 National SJP Conference held at George Mason University (GMU).On November 4, 2016, Atshan was listed to speak at a “cross movement plenary,” alongside Ramah Kudaimi, who is barred from entering Israel until 2026 and Randa Wahbe, who has expressed support for terrorists, demonized Israel and is a supporter of the BDS movement.
Atshan spoke at the 2014 SJP National Conference, hosted by SJP Tufts, on October 25, 2014.
On October 24-26, 2014, Tufts SJP hosted the 2014 SJP National Conference.
On October 25, 2014, Tufts SJP quoted Sara Kershner, the founder of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), as saying at the conference: “Zionism has hijacked [Jewish] history and struggle against genocide to justify genocide today.”
Clothing was sold at the conference, including a shirt with the image of airplane hijacker Leila Khaled — a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — with the text “resistance is not terrorism.”
Although the event was listed as “free and open to the public,” at least one student journalist was refused press credentials. Terror supporter Max Geller and agitator Ahmed Hamad both spoke and presented at the conference.
Conference attendee Ofek Ravid said that he was “booed and hissed at” — and told by “several members in the crowd to f**k off” — for merely suggesting that “Israel needs to be looked at as a complex nation through a dialectic lens, not as a black and white fragment.” Ravid was also asked to leave the building by an SJP representative.
Supporting BDS
Atshan was quoted in a Times of Israel article published on October 27, 2014 as saying at the 2014 National SJP Conference: “‘We all know Israel is an apartheid state and should be boycotted.’”On February 17, 2017, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Atshan was scheduled to speak at an elementary school but that his presentation was abruptly canceled. According to the article: “the Quaker school in Wynnewood called off his scheduled talk this month to a student group after some Jewish parents objected.”
The article suggestedthat the cancellation of Atshan’s talk came after his critics “pointed to his support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement to pressure Israel economically for an end to the West Bank occupation, which he has likened to a form of apartheid.”
Opposing Interfaith Cooperation
On April 8, 2015, Atshan published an article on the anti-Israel news site Mondoweiss, titled: “Faithwashing: the Muslim Leadership Institute and the academic boycott.”In his article, Atshan suggested that participation in the Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI) was a violation of BDS and claimed “the US Muslims in the MLI program are falling in step with the Israeli state’s conflation of Judaism and Zionism.”
Atshan went on to say: “Their neglect of the long and rich history of anti-Zionism among Jewish communities adds another layer to the Shalom Hartman Institute’s silencing of Palestinian voices.”
MLI "invites North American Muslim leaders to explore how Jews understand Judaism, Israel and North American Jewish identity through a Zionist lens," and to expand their understanding of Jewish “ethics, faith, and practice.” According to MLI founder Imam Abdullah Antepli, “MLI aims to put mainstream North American Jewry in conversation with their Muslim counterparts.”
Bazian, the founder of the anti-Israel organizations SJP and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), has spread classic anti-Semitism, compared Israel to Nazi Germany, called for “intifada" in America and defended the Hamas terror group.
Sheikh Omar Suleiman, during Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in 2014, called on Twitter for a “Third Intifada” to destroy Israel and invoked the incendiary libel that Israel arbitrarily denied Muslims the right to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
Such religiously-charged falsehoods have incited deadly violence against Israelis, including the November 2014 Har Nof Synagogue Massacre, where terrorists murdered six people during morning prayers.
Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
Atshan objected to the fact that some Hartman research fellows spoke with approval of Israel’s OPE against Hamas. Atshan called OPE: “Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.”
Atshan also condemned in his article MLI’s “overstating the religious and theological dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Supporting an Anti-Israel Organization
On May 1, 2019, Atshan indicated on Facebook that he donated to UNRWA.The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) has been accused of hiring militants and providing armsto Hamas terrorists. Hamas rockets have been found in UNRWA schools on numerous occasions.
In 2015, the U.S. Congress found that "[t]he curriculum of UNRWA schools, which use the textbooks of their respective host governments or authorities, has long contained materials that are anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and supportive of violent extremism.”
UNRWA school teachers have reportedly carried terrorist acts while working at UNRWA and frequently posted anti-Semitic cartoons and texts.
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.
Social Media and Weblinks
University Website:https://www.swarthmore.edu/faculty-sa%E2%80%99ed-atshanFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/4101342
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/saatshan [Deleted]
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Swarthmore,
- more...
- Tufts
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- SJP
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- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025
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