UPDATE: Imam with antisemitic history doubles down at Stanford’s Gaza encampment
Students with Stanford University’s pro-Palestinian encampment announced on social media their plans to host an imam with a long history of antisemitic statements and calls for a Muslim caliphate in the U.S.
Amir Abdel Malik Ali is scheduled to speak at 5 p.m. Wednesday at White Plaza, site of the tent encampment on campus, according to three Instagram accounts associated with the protest.
Born Derek Gilliam, Ali is a California imam who “promotes anti-Semitism, violence and conspiracy theories that blame the U.S. government and Jews for attacks by Islamic terrorists,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which profiled the religious leader back in a 2011 report of “10 leading domestic jihadists.”
“He’s at his most hyperbolic when talking about Jews,” the SPLC report states, adding that Ali “argues that Jews run the U.S. government” and the media.
In December 2023, Ali delivered a sermon at the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, in which he rejected that Jews are “semites” and called them “Europeans who converted to Judaism while in Europe.”
“We know they are not the Chosen People anymore. Muslims know that they are not the Chosen People anymore,” he said in the address, an excerpt of which was published on social media. “They assassinated Zachariah, and John the Baptist, and tried to assassinate Jesus.”
“Everyone sees you for who you really are,” he added in his speech. “You are the new Nazis. That is who you are and that is how we’re coming at you.”
Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine advertised the event jointly with two other groups, alongside the message: “Disclose. Divest. Defend. Rise Up. Resist. Reclaim.”
The invitation comes amid considerable debate about whether the pro-Palestinian encampments across the country — many of which have disbanded as the school year winds down — spread antisemitism. Calls for “intifada,” an uprising associated with brutal violence against Israeli Jews, have been commonplace, as have chants of “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea,” which can be interpreted as a call for the elimination of Israel.
Many supporters of the encampments, however, have insisted their efforts are directed solely at the actions of the State of Israel, which they consider to be engaged in “genocide” and point to the participation of anti-Zionist Jews as evidence they do not harbor animus toward the Jewish people as a whole.
Ali has addressed campus activists before, including at UC Irvine in 2009 and UC Berkeley in 2004. Both the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League described him in 2011 reports as a leader of a movement called Sabiqun, an extreme group “that advocates for the creation of a global Islamic state,” according to the ADL.
Stanford Against Apartheid in Palestine, a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups on campus, and the Palestinian Youth Movement Bay Area also published the digital flyer.
A number of Jewish students were “deeply disturbed” at the prospect of an appearance by Ali, said Aaron Schimmel, a Ph.D. student in Jewish history who, when he learned about the invitation, immediately wrote to high-level university administrators describing the event as “beyond the pale.”
“I kind of couldn’t believe it,” Schimmel told J. He said he remains discouraged that Stanford’s pro-Palestinian tent encampment, erected on April 25, remains in place at the center of campus despite university policy prohibiting overnight camping.
“I keep thinking, OK, this is when the university steps in and does something,” Schimmel said.
Stanford did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to its media relations department and two spokespeople.
Neither Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine nor the Palestinian Youth Movement immediately responded to requests for comment. Stanford Against Apartheid in Palestine does not accept messages sent via Instagram, and other contact information was not immediately available.