Israel detains Palestinian professor who spoke out against Israel-Hamas war

JERUSALEM – Ms Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a Palestinian professor at a prominent Israeli university, first waded into the debate over the war in the Gaza Strip by joining academics worldwide in signing a letter that called for a ceasefire.

It branded Israel’s assault on the territory a “genocide” and the leaders of her university responded by urging her to resign.

That was soon after the war began on Oct 7. Months later, the professor,  64, drew even more scrutiny for saying it was time to “abolish Zionism” and accusing Israel of politicising rape.

She was briefly suspended in March by Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she has taught law and social work for nearly three decades. But right-wing Israeli politicians demanded more severe punishment and, in April, the police detained her overnight.

“I have been persecuted and defamed, my academic production of knowledge flattened and my home and even my own bedroom invaded,” she told The New York Times.

She is now under investigation for incitement to terrorism – a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. And though she has not been charged, her case has prompted a profound debate inside Israel about the repression of free speech and academic freedom since the war began more than eight months ago.

Her lawyers said she is being punished for her political views. And some other Israeli professors and students worry that the country’s universities – which had long defended the values of relative diversity and open-mindedness – have contributed to the suppression of dissent.

While universities argue they are simply trying to keep campuses calm, critics noted that there is a clear double standard across Israeli society. Violent rhetoric towards Palestinians from Jewish Israelis is often brushed aside while Palestinian citizens of Israel who express support for Palestinians in Gaza or criticise the conduct of the war face discipline or even criminal investigation.

As of May, police records show, 162 indictments for incitement to terrorism had been filed since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct 7. Nearly every case, according to Adalah, a legal centre for the rights of the Arab minority in Israel, involved Arab citizens of Israel or Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem, who mostly declined offers of citizenship after Israel annexed the area.

Ms Shalhoub-Kevorkian is among about 500 Arab-Israeli citizens who have faced police investigations for incitement. Dozens of students have also been caught up in disciplinary proceedings by universities for vague expressions of religious belief or statistics and images that counter Israel’s narrative of the war, according to Adalah.

Ms Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s case has drawn more attention than most because she is a globally recognised scholar under criminal investigation for statements related to subjects she has studied for decades.

“Violent extremism has been allowed to overtake and politicise the criminal justice and academic systems, and has reached new levels in my case,” she said. “This violent extremism has served to demonise Palestinians.”

A Palestinian of Armenian origin, she was born in the Israeli city of Haifa and educated at Hebrew University, where she received her doctorate in law in 1994. Her work has focused on trauma, state crimes, gender violence, law and society, and genocide studies.

She has lectured worldwide over the past two decades, with visiting professorships at universities including Georgetown in Washington. She tends to speak with a mix of outrage and academic jargon.

Ms Abeer Otman, who studied for her doctorate with Ms Shalhoub-Kevorkian, said she was also the kind of professor who was quick to hold a person’s hands during conversations about traumatic experiences, or line up a lawyer for someone in need.

But even before Oct 7, Ms Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s lectures and interviews, especially in the United States, were a focus for pro-Israel watchdog groups. The attention intensified when, after signing the letter mentioning genocide, she continued to speak out.

During a podcast interview recorded on March 6 with American academics, she said it was time to “abolish Zionism”, calling it criminal. She also questioned the veracity of the Israeli government’s accounts of rape during the October attack.

“If it didn’t happen,” she said, “it’s shame on the state to use women’s bodies and sexuality to promote political agendas, to promote further dispossession of land, to promote further killing.”

A new report on June 12 by a UN commission investigating the Oct 7 attack documented cases indicating sexual violence against women and men during the attack and against some of those who were abducted.

After reviewing testimonies obtained by journalists and the Israeli police concerning rape, however, the commission said it had not been able to independently verify the rape allegations. This was “due to a lack of access to victims, witnesses and crime sites and the obstruction of its investigations by the Israeli authorities”.

The report said Israel did not cooperate with the investigation. Hamas has denied that its members sexually abused people in captivity or during the attack.

In the swirl of these competing claims, in mid-March, a right-wing Israeli news channel edited a video version of the professor’s podcast interview in a way that cut out caveats and context, and a clip of the edit went viral.

Hebrew University suspended Ms Shalhoub-Kevorkian, explaining in a March 14 letter to students and faculty that “one of the most important values​​ of the social work profession is that you always believe and side with the victims so it is not possible to teach social work while declaring that rape didn’t happen”.

After she met university leaders on March 27 and told them that, as a feminist researcher, she believes all victims, and that she did not deny there were rapes on Oct 7, she was allowed to return to teaching.

In early April, right-wing members of Israel’s parliament called for her to be fired and for the police to investigate her for incitement. They urged economic sanctions against Hebrew University to increase the pressure to oust her.

On April 18, the police detained her at her home in east Jerusalem. Her lawyers said she was ill at the time but had to spend the night in a cold jail cell with cockroaches even though she had not been charged with any crime.

The next day, the police and prosecutors asked to extend her detention, but a judge rejected the request and freed her.

Over the next few weeks, Israeli authorities questioned her for more than 17 hours in several lengthy sessions, delving into her books and views on a variety of subjects, according to her lawyers.

Mr Shlomi Segall, a political philosophy professor at Hebrew University, joined a small demonstration in late April outside a police station where Ms Shalhoub-Kevorkian was being questioned. He wore a white T-shirt that said in Hebrew: “They are taking away our democracy. Are you fine with it?”

“We see every citadel of democracy crumbling,” he said.

A few days later, after she was called back for more interrogation, she said the case would not keep her quiet.

“I am a strong woman,” she told the Times. “We should also remember that this horrible ordeal pales in comparison with what women, children, doctors, academics and practically everyone in Gaza are going through,” she added.

“We should not lose our focus on their suffering.” NYTIMES