GWU profs defend Oct. 7, say Hamas has 'right to resistance' at panel hosted by med school

Professors defended the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, saying that Hamas militants had a “right to resistance” during a recent faculty panel at George Washington University.

The Dec. 4 panel, titled “Understanding the Conflict in Israel and Palestine” was sponsored by both the School of Medicine and Health Sciences’ Anti-Racism Coalition and the Institute for Middle East Studies, according to the New York Post.

Video footage obtained by The Post shows panelists referring to Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack as a “genocide” and an “ethnic cleansing.”

“Israel rightly can claim self-defense, but I also want to note here that Hamas and the Palestinians also have a right of resistance,” GWU professor Michael Barnett said during the event. 

[RELATED: Police apprehend students who used library for pro-Hamas activism]

Barnett’s current research focuses in part on “the end of the two-state-solution and the rise of the one-state reality in Israel/Palestine” and “the relationship between suffering and progress in the liberal international order,” according to his university bio. 

“All of us have been shaken by the events of October 7. But we all recognize that those events have a history,” said professor Shira Robinson who “works on the social and cultural history of the Modern Middle East, with an emphasis on colonialism, citizenship, nationalism, and cultures of militarism after World War I.”

Robinson’s university bio boasts that her research has been funded by the Palestinian American Research Center, as well as the Fulbright Institute and the Mellon Foundation. 

According to The Post, several concerned attendees, both students and faculty, “tried to ask questions about the panel’s presentation but were ignored — with some also berated by anonymous users in the chat box during the Zoom meeting.”

Following the event, Diversity and Inclusion Dean Yolanda Haywood issued a statement, acknowledging that the panel was biased.

[RELATED: New  anti-Jew developments emerge at George Washington University]

“The primary goal was to offer an experience that would result in thoughtful reflection and be a stimulus for broader, open communication,” said Haywood. “As the webinar proceeded, it became clear that this program was not a balanced presentation on this most divisive and difficult subject.”

George Washington University - students are projecting horrifying messages onto a school library building glorifying Hamas terrorists that beheaded babies, raped teenage girls, and murdered 1400+ people.

We call on President @PresidentofGW to immediately expel those involved.… pic.twitter.com/tecz0R7zF2

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 25, 2023

This comes just weeks after police apprehended students for using the GWU library to project pro-Hamas messages. “GLORY TO OUR MARTYRS,” read one projection. 

“Being a medical student at GW now has made me feel alone and scared for the future of health care,” one Jewish student told The Post. “I am astonished how a medical school and its students, who dedicate their careers to preserving life, have been silent since Oct. 7.”