Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian: “They [Jews] should be afraid because criminals are always afraid.”

While Jewish organizations are fighting for the safety of Jewish students on American campuses, Jerusalem’s Hebrew University reinstates Arab-Israeli professor who openly wants Jewish students to be frightened. Almost all of the material published regarding her suspension and reinstatement neglects to mention this most important point. 

On 28 March, 300 students signed a letter expressing their dismay at the reinstatement of Hebrew University’s Prof. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian after she offered a vague and unconvincing explanation for one of her horrific statements in a 9 March podcast on the Makdisi Street channel operated by the three American-Lebanese-Palestinian Makdisi brothers.

Despite having made, over the years, equally abhorrent comments in Israel and abroad, this podcast and an earlier petition she signed were the trigger for her suspension. Her accusations that Israel is committing genocide and lying about Oct 7^th was too much to bear in the wake of the atrocities and as our hostages languish in Gaza and our soldiers continue to risk their lives fighting Hamas. It almost overcame the usual reticence of university faculty to expel one of its own regardless of what that person did or said. Almost – because after initial harshly worded letters sent to NSK, the university rector shamefully accepted an explanation that was entirely beside the point and allowed her back into the lecture halls.

One faculty member with whom I communicated told me in an email: “I can tell you that she is not and will not be teaching any required courses.” In other words, students who would prefer not to take classes with her can avoid doing so. This is not because she is a poor instructor, which is why many students may prefer not to take a particular course. Perhaps the administration does not want to require students to sit in class and be graded by someone who demonizes the country and openly calls Israeli Jews criminals, which might make them feel very uncomfortable, to put it mildly.

It is ironic that American Jewish organizations and individuals are fighting for the safety of Jewish students on campuses there yet Israel’s own Hebrew University reinstates the Arab-Israeli professor who openly wants Jewish students to be afraid. In a WhatsApp interview, Eran Ben-Ami, Legal Advisor for the NGO Im Tirzu, said that if there was a well-functioning Disciplinary Committee at the university, it should have seriously considered the complaints against her. Wanting “to frighten those on campus,” says Ben-Ami, “does not allow for an atmosphere that promotes academic freedom and it is not the ‘vibe’ that we want to see on campus, any campus, even if it does not reach the level of criminally prosecutable acts.”

I turned to ACRI, Massawa, Adalah, and Academia4Equality, and Adalah, NGOs in Israel working toward Arab rights in Israel about Prof Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s expressed desire to frighten Jewish students by speaking Arabic, wondering if that infringes upon the human rights of the Jewish students. None of them responded.

If there is any doubt that Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian wants Jewish students on campus to be afraid, here is the word-for-word text from the podcast (from about 56:30 minutes):

… if I walk in the street and I speak Arabic you will see them like this [jerks her head to the side] and they should be afraid. And they should be afraid because criminals are always afraid. They cannot dispossess my land. They cannot displace my people. They cannot kill and not be afraid. So they better be afraid. And this is why they are afraid, because they cannot look at us in our face.

If we set aside for the moment the accusations of genocide and occupation in this statement, which are debatable issues if one wants to engage in a serious debate and not mud-slinging for international consumption, if we set this aside for a moment, what is remarkable is her lie about Israelis being afraid when they hear her speak Arabic. This is a subtle way to confirm the lie, for those who have never been here, that Zionism is racism.

The professor knows that Jewish students in Israeli universities are quite used to Arabs studying alongside them in class as well as teaching them. While only 12-14% of the student body at the Hebrew University are Arabs (versus Arabs equalling about 20% of the general population), Haifa University, where she completed her BA degree, boasts 40% Arab students. And she is certainly not the only Arab professor in the country or the university. In fact, since 2013, an Arabic-speaking Druze Israeli has been the Director of the Institute of Criminology to which she belongs.

Furthermore, it seems she has also not been paying attention to the mushrooming course offerings in spoken Arabic for the general Israeli public. Personally, when I hear Arabic around me, I turn my head much as Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian demonstrated in the podcast. She would have been wrong, however, if she perceived me as frightened because I am straining to listen and see how much I can understand. It is not good manners to listen in on others’ conversations, I know, but I do it because my desire to practise Arabic overcomes my desire to be polite.

The students protesting her reinstatement argue that

…there is no way to understand her hope [that Israelis fear hearing Arabic] in any way other than encouraging and supporting violence and terror against Israelis wherever they are, including the university students. Is it conceivable that a member of the faculty, from any sector and any political orientation, will threaten students and maintain her teaching roles, without apologizing and satisfactorily clarifying her views?

Just as Prof Shalhoub-Kevorkian was able to broadcast her views to the world in a podcast (as well as earlier in a petition and at foreign universities), it is only right, the students write, for her apology to be made similarly. Instead, the rector spoke for her in an email sent out to the university community announcing her reinstatement.

The faculty originally protesting her suspension opposed the fact that (likely given the emotional strain we are all under) it was not carried out according to university protocols. It is not too late for that.

Feature Image is a screenshot from the Makdisi Street podcast of 9 March 2024.