Notoriously anti-Israel (and, dare we say, anti-Semitic?) Georgetown University professor John Esposito has struck again.
According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Esposito has become one of six Middle Eastern Studies directors at American universities to publicly embrace a total academic boycott of Israel:
Georgetown University Professor John Esposito is one of six Middle East Studies directors at American universities to embrace an academic boycott of Israel, according to a Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch report. The letter first was reported by Campus Watch last week.
The six directors signed a public letter vowing “not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions,” a move that ArabianBusiness.com says could conflict with promises the directors made for federal funds.
As heads of U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Centers, Esposito and the other directors assured that they will “maintain linkages with overseas institutions of higher education and other organizations that may contribute to the teaching and research of the Center.”
This type of behavior is common for Esposito, who has issued statements in support of the Muslim Brotherhood:
But the move is quite consistent for Esposito, who, as the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has documented, has long supported the Muslim Brotherhood and its front groups in the United States. His Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University was staked with $20 million from Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal in 2005.
Esposito served as an expert defense witness in the Hamas-financing prosecution against the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation and five of its former officials. He describes Sami Al-Arian, a man documented as a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s governing board, as “a proud, dedicated and committed American … a man of conscience with a strong commitment to peace and social justice.”
Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are committed to Israel’s destruction.
Esposito has repeatedly defended terrorist organizations Hamas and Hizballah. In a 2000 interview in the Middle East Affairs Journal, Esposito was asked if they were terrorist organizations. “One can’t make a clear statement about Hamas,” he said… Some actions by the military wing of Hamas can be seen as acts of resistance, but other actions are acts of retaliation particularly when they target civilians.”
In the same interview, Esposito defended Hizballah for operating “within the Lebanese political system functioning as a major player in parliament. But when it comes to the south it has been primarily a resistance movement…”
Esposito not only openly supports terrorist organizations, but also sees fit to cite and quote historically anti-Semitic publications, such as CounterPunch. He recently tweeted a link to a CounterPunch article attacking Shoa-survivor Elie Weisel for being “anti-Palestinian” and claiming (with no substantiating evidence) that Israeli soldiers have used Palestinian children as “soccer balls.”
According to the Middle East Forum, Esposito even recently participated in a panel on ISIS, during which he claimed that the group is comprised somewhat alienated Muslim Democrats and “disaffected youth” who feel that they “must act” because of reluctance to “‘speaking out and condemning’ the ‘things that are devastating’ of ‘traditional allies’ like Israel or Arab regimes.”
With so much evidence that Esposito is not an honest academic, and instead a polemical purveyor of distortion, we wonder: Is this really the type of “scholarship” with which Georgetown wants to be associated?