Birzeit University, located just outside of Ramallah in the West Bank, is home to an overwhelmingly Hamas-affiliated student government that
By Kassy Akiva
Birzeit University, located just outside of Ramallah in the West Bank, is home to an overwhelmingly Hamas-affiliated student government that holds on-campus terrorist parades. It also has relationships with some of America’s most prestigious universities, despite the fact that its leadership and faculty openly harbor pro-terrorist and anti-American sentiments.
The chairwoman of Birzeit’s Board of Trustees denied Hamas’s brutality and rape on October 7, and the school’s official account called for “glory to the martyrs” days after the attack. Yet its relationships in the United States remain largely intact — it has active relationships with Harvard University, Rutgers University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others across the country.
Harvard University is set to host a “Palestine Social Medicine Course” next month at Birzeit, where students will learn about “settler colonialism.” Rutgers University affirmed its relationship with Birzeit in May amid student encampment protests and William Paterson University entered into an agreement with the Hamas-run university in 2022 for exchange programs, sharing curricula and joint degree programs. Other schools, such as MIT, have recently co-hosted conferences, invited Birzeit professors for speaking events, or had student groups visit its campus.
Experts say the university has “gone off the deep-end” since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 terrorist attack, with leadership openly defending the actions and broadcasting lies about the conflict.
Birzeit’s Terrorist-Sympathizing Leadership
Hanan Ashrawi, the chairwoman of Birzeit University’s Board of Trustees, has denied Hamas committed sexual assault on Israeli civilians during its October 7 massacre, endorsed the lynching of Israeli soldiers, and defended Hezbollah, according to CAMERA UK.
On October 11, Ashrawi wrote that Israel’s “spin machine” was “manufacturing horrific lies in an orchestrated smear campaign claiming rape, slaughtering babies, beheadings, burnings alive” and that the Western media “immediately swallowed & regurgitated such vile slander.” Ashrawi doubled down on sexual assault denial in March, calling a UN report finding grounds that Hamas committed sexual violence invalid because it included mostly interviews with Israelis.
Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he is not surprised that Birzeit’s radical views are expressed at the highest levels.
“Ashrawi has had a forked tongue for decades,” Schanzer told the Daily Wire, pointing out that she was once part of the Oslo Accords. “While she was once seen as a woman of peace, that ship sailed a long time ago and she has since been a mouthpiece for radicalism for the better part of a decade.”
In a January 2, 2024 post on X, Ashrawi voiced her frustration with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killing Saleh al-Arourui, the founding commander of Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam brigades, who she labeled a “Palestinian leader.”
Hanan Ashrawi, the chairwoman of Birzeit University’s Board of Trustees, has denied Hamas committed sexual assault on Israeli civilians during its October 7 massacre.
“The long-distance assassination by drone of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri is a typical Israeli pattern of murdering Palestinian leaders of all factions. Not only does it not bring security or capitulation, it provokes & produces a serious escalation with long-term ramifications,” Ashrawi wrote.
Ashrawi also sat on the Honorary Editorial Board of the Palestinian Chronicle, the U.S.-based non-profit that employed Abdallah Aljamal, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in June as three hostages held prisoner in his home were rescued.
Previously a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, she was also a founding member of Miftah, an organization with a history of anti-Ssemitism, including publishing an article claiming Jews use Christian blood to make matzah for Passover before apologizing, according to the Times of Israel. Ashrawi was denied a visa to the United States in 2019, according to her Twitter though it is unclear if she was given one in the following years for trips.
“I think it is quite revealing that she has been supportive of Hamas and other extremist groups after being part of the peace process for so many years,” Schanzer said. “I think she has gone well past the tipping point and there is no return for her. I suspect she knows that.”
