Hebrew U suspends professor who accused Israel of genocide

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem suspended a professor on Tuesday who the previous day accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, among other inflammatory remarks.

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, holder of the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the main Mount Scopus campus, also called into question rapes and other atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, speaking during an interview with Channel 14.

In another video interview published a few days ago by the Makdisi Street podcast, the Haifa-born Arab called the “Zionist entity,” i.e. Israel, “criminal” and a “killing machine” and again said that Israel lied about rapes and babies being killed on Oct. 7.

In a letter announcing her suspension, titled “Incitement and hatred led by Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian,” the university wrote that it “rejects all of her distorted statements with disgust. The Hebrew University is proud to be an Israeli, public and Zionist institution.”

“Since the beginning of the war, Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian has been speaking out in a disgraceful, anti-Zionist and inflammatory manner. At the beginning of the war, the lecturer signed a petition calling Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide, and [the state] an occupying entity since 1948,” the letter reads.

It notes that the university administration sent an earlier letter on behalf of the school’s president, Professor Asher Cohen, and the rector, Professor Tamir Shafer, saying they were sorry that she is a faculty member and asking her to consider resigning from her position.

She did not respond to the request and “continues to enjoy the reputation of our magnificent institution while embarrassing us at the Israeli and international level. Her statements take freedom of expression and academic freedom to the extreme and use it cynically, to the point of incitement,” the letter reads.

Shalhoub-Kevorkian is a dual Israeli and American citizen.