UC Berkeley is under pressure from Jewish activists after extreme anti-Israel statements were linked to the upcoming forum “Feminist and Queer Solidarities with Palestine.”
A forum summary, which was published then deleted from the Cal website, caused an uproar for claiming that evidence of mass sexual violence on Oct. 7 had been “debunked.” That claim contravenes the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, numerous press reports and witness testimony of Hamas rapes of Israeli women during the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history on Oct. 7, 2023.
The summary stated that Zionists had “weaponized feminism, so as to serve Israel’s genocidal intent.” After the summary was removed, university administrators said the description referred to one panelist’s talk, not the Feb. 11 event itself.
Since then, other extreme statements linked to the panelists have emerged, raising questions about whether the event will platform views celebrating terrorism as a form of resistance to Israel, denying evidence of rape and sexual assault against Jewish women, and making use of antisemitic tropes.
Paola Bacchetta, a professor and vice chair for research in Cal’s department of gender and women’s studies, is moderating the online talk, which includes three professors from outside universities. Bacchetta also co-directs the Decolonizing Sexualities Network, an international consortium of scholars and activists.
In November 2023, the Decolonizing Sexualities Network published a “Statement of Solidarity with Palestine” on its website that celebrated the Oct. 7 attack as an act of heroism. The statement was translated from French and was attributed to “political, decolonial, radical feminist lesbians of color.”
Palestinians “have broken the chains of their prison in Gaza, a veritable concentration camp,” the statement said. “From October 7, 2023, history will remember this resistance in the service of the legitimate self-defense of a people roaring with dignity, justice, freedom. So, let’s make sure we contribute to this history. Let’s be there! Let’s live up to it!”
On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists and other militants invaded southern Israel, slaughtering civilians at a music festival and on kibbutzim and taking 251 hostages. About 1,200 people were killed on that day, inciting a war between Israel and Hamas that has devastated Gaza and killed tens of thousands there.
Bacchetta did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Feb. 11 forum is set to take place over Zoom. Public scrutiny of the event followed a Jan. 24 report in Haaretz, a leading Israeli newspaper with a progressive bent, under the headline “Berkeley Event Will Examine ‘How Zionism Has Weaponized Feminism to Serve Israel’s Genocidal Agenda.’” Steven Solomon, a Cal law professor who is Jewish, penned a letter of complaint to university leadership that was leaked to the newspaper.
Now, two groups of activists have started an email campaign in an effort to pressure Cal leadership to publicly condemn statements made by the event’s participants.
EndJewHatred, an activist group founded by the lawyer Brooke Goldstein, and Pens For Swords, a digital network of thousands of pro-Israel activists concerned about antisemitism, launched the campaign this week aimed at Cal’s chancellor and regents, the California Department of Education and members of Congress, including the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which convened public hearings on antisemitism in higher education in December 2023.
“While I respect the principles of academic freedom and free speech,” the email template states in part, “the speakers featured on this panel … all have a documented history of denying the legitimacy of the State of Israel, downplaying or denying the documented sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, presenting claims of an Israeli ‘genocide’ in Gaza as fact rather than opinion, supporting intifada, violent resistance, convicted terrorists, and antisemitism.”
In addition to asking UC Berkeley to condemn the panelists’ statements, the email campaign urges the university to “reconsider hosting and legitimizing this one-sided panel” that is “antithetical” to Cal’s values.
The development presented a knotty public challenge for Cal Chancellor Rich Lyons, who came into office over the summer pledging to curb antisemitism and other forms of bias.
The UC system as a whole has promised to take a harder line against protests that violate university policies, such as the pro-Palestinian tent encampments prevalent on campus last spring. No such protests have taken root this school year. The Feb. 11 talk threatens to breathe oxygen into the debate over antisemitism at Cal, while the university still faces a Department of Education investigation, a congressional inquiry and a more than a year-old federal lawsuit.
In a statement to J. on Friday, Lyons criticized statements from panelists that celebrated Oct. 7, described Zionism as a “global apparatus” and called Israel a white supremacist country.
“If accurately reported, elements of these past statements made by panelists are disturbing and inflammatory,” Lyons said in the statement. “We will, as we have in the past, continue to condemn antisemitic expression, and all other forms of biased, discriminatory expression on our campus that is wholly inconsistent with our Principles of Community.”
His statement added, “The university’s academic freedom policies and the First Amendment can, and often do, protect expression and perspectives that are hateful, and/or absurd. Because this is an academic program put on by an academic department, the central campus administration has no legitimate ability to alter or cancel this panel discussion.”
Lyons’ statement noted that “no student is required to attend” the event, “nor is it part of a course where UC policies prohibit political advocacy or indoctrination.”
The panelists set to join the Feb. 11 event are stridently anti-Israel, past statements show.
Nada Elia is an associate professor in the ethnic studies department at Western Washington University. In a 2016 article for Middle East Eye, Elia delivered a harsh rebuke of Zionism, writing that its impact stretches across the entire world, echoing antisemitic tropes about Jewish domination of world events.
“Zionism functions as a global apparatus that seeks to shut down the will of the people everywhere, and erode our freedoms in order to increase the power of politicians, multinational corporations, and the global arms and security trade,” the article said.
In the same piece, Elia expressed sympathy for Iran, which had “suffered for years as a result of Zionist pressure on the U.S.,” and praised Roger Waters, the rock musician accused repeatedly of antisemitism.
Elia did not respond to a request for comment.
Another panelist, Nadine Naber, a professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois, spoke at an event that generated headlines in the Jewish press last year called “Palestine Is a Queer Feminist Struggle Against Imperialism.” The event took place at Rutgers in March. Naber accused Israelis of systematically raping Palestinians since the country’s founding and described Israel as a “white supremacist” country. Naber did not respond to a request for comment.