Israeli Arab Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Global Chair in Law at Queen Mary University of London, was suspended on Tuesday from teaching in the Hebrew U School of Social Work after she distributed a petition in which she claimed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The suspension was also based on a Shalhoub-Kevorkian podcast interview in which she expressed her doubts that sexual assaults had taken place on October 7, and repeated her charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
פרופ’ נדירה שלהוב-קיבורקיאן מהאונ’ העברית: את הציונות צריך למגר. היה אונס ב-7 לאוקטובר? “ישראל תמיד משקרת”#הדוח_של_אראל @ErelSegal @doh_erelsegal14 @IshayFridman pic.twitter.com/Zt6DlA42q8
— עכשיו 14 (@Now14Israel) March 11, 2024
The university issued a statement saying, “The Hebrew University rejects with disgust all of Prof. Kevorkian’s distorted statements. The Hebrew University is proud to be an Israeli, public, and Zionist institution.”
“As they have done in the past, the heads of the university repeat their call to Prof. Kevorkian to find another academic home that matches her position at this point. And to maintain a safe climate on campus for the benefit of our students – the university decided to suspend her from teaching.”
Prof. Asher Ben Aryeh, dean of the School of Social Work, wrote a letter to his colleagues in academia saying that he would not allow Shalhoub-Kevorkian to teach at the school because her statements contradict the values of social work.
Kevorkian said in the podcast that Zionism must be abolished, and she cast doubt on the rape and sex crimes committed by Hamas’s Nochba terrorists because “Israel always lies.” Kevorkian also said that she is pleased that Jews are afraid when she speaks Arabic because Jews should be afraid, because criminals are always afraid.”
About Israeli documentation of the Hamas atrocities on October 7, 2023, she said in the podcast, “They will use any lie, they started with babies, they continued with rape, and they will continue with a million more lies, every day with a different story, we stopped believing them, I hope the world stops believing them.”
In 2019, Shalhoub-Kevorkian gave a lecture at Columbia University in New York in which she claimed that Israel performs weapons experiments on PA Arabs. She received a Master of Arts degree in 1989 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1994, both from Hebrew University.
