The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has reinstated a law professor who called into question the rapes of women and the other atrocities during the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, the school said on Wednesday.
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a dual Israeli-American citizen, also termed Israel’s actions against the Islamist terrorist group genocide.
The university suspended her on March 12 for her inflammatory remarks, pending a retraction.
The decision to allow her to resume teaching was taken following a meeting with the rector of the university, Professor Tamir Sheafer, in which Shalhoub-Kevorkian claimed that “as a critical feminist researcher she believes all victims and does not doubt their words, and that she does not deny the fact that on October 7 there were cases of rape in the south [of Israel],” the school said in a statement.
“Sheafer stressed that the Hebrew University strongly condemns inciting words and threats against students, lecturers, individuals and groups, and calls on all members of the university community to maintain a safe and respectful study and research environment,” the vaguely worded statement read.
The Haifa-born Israeli-Arab lecturer had called the “Zionist entity,” i.e. Israel, “criminal” and a “killing machine” and said that it lied about terrorists committing rapes and killing babies on Oct. 7.
In an earlier 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.”
“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.
The university said at the time that it was sorry she was a faculty member, and asked her to consider resigning from her position.
