By Tammi Rossman-Benjamin
Published April 24, 2026, 5:43 p.m. ET
A recent event hosted by students at UC Berkeley’s law school drew national criticism after featuring Israa Jaabis, a failed Palestinian suicide bomber released from Israeli prison in November 2023 as part of the hostage-prisoner exchange following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
Berkeley’s response was to invoke free speech, insisting that the university must remain content-neutral toward protected expression.
But the deeper threat to academic freedom at Berkeley is not a single student-sponsored event. It is the conduct of faculty who are using departments, speaker series, official academic programming, and university authority to turn anti-Israel activism into institutional practice.
That conduct was recently on display in UC Berkeley’s Rhetoric Department, which sponsored a talk titled “Anti-Zionism Is Not a Luxury.” The event was promoted as one that “articulates and embraces an affirmative anti-Zionism,” calls for “the end of a Zionist world,” and presents anti-Zionism as “a vital necessity of existence.”
A recent event hosted by students at UC Berkeley’s law school drew national criticism after featuring Israa Jaabis, a failed Palestinian suicide bomber released from Israeli prison in November 2023 as part of the hostage-prisoner exchange following Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Nor was it a one-off for the Rhetoric Department. Since Oct. 7, 2023, it has sponsored or co-sponsored more than a dozen similarly one-sided anti-Israel events, raising an obvious question: Why would a rhetoric department become a reliable sponsor of activist programming?
The answer lies in the political commitments of the department’s members. Half of Berkeley rhetoric’s faculty, including the chair and other senior leaders, signed a statement issued just days after Hamas’ attack on Israel that openly took sides in the war — declaring solidarity “without hesitation” with those “who fight for justice in Palestine,” endorsing an academic boycott of Israeli universities, and omitting any mention of Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians.
The Rhetoric Department is far from unique. According to recent research, from fall 2023 through spring 2025, 34 Berkeley departments sponsored or co-sponsored 40 Israel-related events with an anti-Israel bias, and none without.
The pattern is unmistakable: The 10 Berkeley departments that sponsored the most anti-Israel events were all led by faculty who had publicly backed an academic boycott of Israel.
These aren’t random student groups organizing protests. These are professors using their institutional authority to advance a political agenda.
Nor was it a one-off for the Rhetoric Department. Since Oct. 7, 2023, it has sponsored or co-sponsored more than a dozen similarly one-sided anti-Israel events, raising an obvious question: Why would a rhetoric department become a reliable sponsor of activist programming?
The answer lies in the political commitments of the department’s members. Half of Berkeley rhetoric’s faculty, including the chair and other senior leaders, signed a statement issued just days after Hamas’ attack on Israel that openly took sides in the war — declaring solidarity “without hesitation” with those “who fight for justice in Palestine,” endorsing an academic boycott of Israeli universities, and omitting any mention of Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians.
The Rhetoric Department is far from unique. According to recent research, from fall 2023 through spring 2025, 34 Berkeley departments sponsored or co-sponsored 40 Israel-related events with an anti-Israel bias, and none without.
The pattern is unmistakable: The 10 Berkeley departments that sponsored the most anti-Israel events were all led by faculty who had publicly backed an academic boycott of Israel.
These aren’t random student groups organizing protests. These are professors using their institutional authority to advance a political agenda.
