Wake Forest University cancels talk by pro-Hamas activist on anniversary of Oct. 7 massacre
Rabab Abdulhadi has made several provocative comments, justifying the Oct. 7 massacre and comparing Zionism to white supremacy.
‘We have also made the conscious decision not to host events on this day that are inherently contentious and stand to stoke division in our campus community,’ school leaders wrote.
Wake Forest University in North Carolina has canceled a talk scheduled for Oct. 7 that would have featured a controversial speaker accused of being anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas.
Rabab Abdulhadi, an anti-Israel activist and professor at San Francisco State University (SFSU), drew controversy because of her past provocative statements and because her anti-Israel lecture was scheduled for the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s terrorist massacre.
University leadership sent an email on Thursday informing the campus community about the event cancellation, according to National Review.
“We have also made the conscious decision not to host events on this day that are inherently contentious and stand to stoke division in our campus community,” the school leaders wrote. “We are living in complex times, and yet we remain hopeful about the future because of this caring community and our shared mission to serve humanity.”
Abdulhadi has been strongly condemned for what many have seen as anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas comments.
The day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel, Abdulhadi posted to X a justification of the terrorist attack, writing that Palestinians “are merely defending themselves.”
She continued, saying that Palestinians have “the right to defend themselves against colonial & racist violence.”
In 2022, Abdulhadi compared what she called “Zionist settler colonialism” to white supremacy in the U.S. in a post to her X account.
Students at Wake Forest created a petition, which received more than 8,500 signatures, to protest against Abdulhadi’s planned appearance. The students criticized her as someone “who promotes terrorism and espouses hate speech against Jewish students.”
Abdulhadi is the founding director of SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program.
According to her biography on SFSU’s website, she is currently “compiling critical oral histories of Palestinian activism and editing an anthology on Teaching Palestine,” as well as organizing roundtables on “Black Liberation; Abolition and Reparations; and Whose Narrative? Gender, Justice and Palestine.”
Abdulhadi has additionally received awards from groups including American Muslims for Palestine and the Arab Feminist Union.
Campus Reform has contacted Wake Forest University and Professor Rabab Abdulhadi for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
