Petition condemns Berkeley course that perpetuates leftist 'blood libel' narrative on Israel
The course will make students ‘deeply engage with the subject of Palestine through the lens of settler-colonialism.’
‘The portrayal of Zionism as a colonial movement is libelous, as Zionists did not establish a foreign colony but rather revived their nation in their ancestral land,’ critics pointed out.
Critics are speaking out against the University of California, Berkeley’s course, “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis.”
A recent petition by “UC Berkeley parents and concerned allies” condemns the course and calls on UC Berkeley to “withdraw academic credit” for the class. As of publishing time, the petition received 4,397 signatures out of a goal of 6,400, meeting more than 50 percent of its goal.
The petition writers note the course’s apparent lack of emphasis on Israeli perspectives, and claim it distorts history: “The course title alone, ‘Settler Colonial Analysis,’ misrepresents Israel’s history. Colonial powers are not indigenous to the lands they colonize, yet Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, who have lived there continuously for thousands of years.”
They add that the course tries to “criminalize” Israel and Jews, and they compare this attempt to the “blood libel” conspiracy theory used throughout history by anti-Semites.
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The petition states that the course “promotes only a distorted and ahistorical view,” and “is an unscholarly attempt to delegitimize Israel under the guise of a pseudo scholarly analysis.”
The signers also rhetorically ask if Berkeley would ever offer a course teaching that Islam is a “a mass psychosis attempting to violently take over and subjugate the world,” concluding that the California school would never offer such a controversial and offensive class.
“The Jews did not come to the land with weapons to conquer, rather they joined Jews who lived in the land for thousands of years with rakes and hoes to cultivate often swamp-infested land they purchased from absentee landlords,” the petition continues.
The document also speaks out against Dr. Hatem Bazian, who the petition signers claim has “traditionally sponsored” the course and who allegedly has a “well-documented history of promoting antisemitism and inciting violence.”
Bazian’s research interests include “Colonialism and Post-Colonial Studies, Comparative Liberation Theologies, Critical Race Theory,” and “Palestine Studies,” among other subjects. Bazian helped found the controversial group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) while he was a Berkeley student.
The SJP has “justified and/or glorified the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The class aims to have students “deeply engage with the subject of Palestine through the lens of settler-colonialism.”
More specifically, the class “focus[es] in particular on the following questions: What new insights and perspectives emerge from a settler colonial analysis? What is the source of contemporary conflicts over land and political power in Palestine? What connections have scholars drawn between Zionism and settler colonialism? What might decolonization mean in this context, and how might it open the possibility for justice and equality for all peoples in the region?”
“Our analyses will utilize a comparative approach with an emphasis on scholarship in settler colonial studies,” the course description reads.
The course has been offered for years, and has been a consistent source of controversy, according to Ynet.
Campus Reform has reached out to UC Berkeley and Dr. Bazian for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.