Mohamed Abdou, a former visiting professor at Columbia University who expressed support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad following the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel, is scheduled to address students at the University of California, Berkeley on Tuesday, one day before the third anniversary of the massacre, JNS reported.
Abdou is slated to participate remotely via Zoom in an event organized by UC Berkeley’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, the California Post reported.
The event, titled “1492: From Palestine to Turtle Island,” is part of Abdou’s “Death to the Akademy” tour, which began earlier this year. Promotional material refers to the events as “Al Aqsa Flood Anniversary Talks,” adopting Hamas’s name for the October 7 attack.
At an April event at New York University, Abdou told students to “be proud of your hate for America.” Four days after the October 7 attack, on October 11, 2023, he wrote on social media, “I’m with the muqawamah” (or ‘the resistance’) “be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.”
Abdou taught at Columbia during the spring 2024 semester. Then-university president Minouche Shafik told Congress in April 2024 that he would “never work at Columbia again” because of his statements. His appointment ended on May 31, 2024.
Abdou later sued Columbia and Shafik, claiming, among other things, that Shafik’s congressional testimony was defamatory and harmed his career. New York State Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Waterman-Marshall dismissed the case on August 13, finding that Abdou had not established a defamation claim.
A UC Berkeley spokesman told the California Post that the university would not cancel Tuesday’s event because of concerns over Abdou’s potential remarks and noted that he would participate remotely.
“Through the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee for Jewish Life, we consistently and continuously engage with the Jewish members of our campus community to ensure we can address their needs and interests, and to ensure that during events like these Jewish community members receive the support they may need,” the spokesman said. “While we do not publicly discuss or disclose security measures, nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of our campus community members.”
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