July 8, 2014
Lisa Hajjar, PhD., is an American sociologist and author of several books. She teaches law and society at University California, Santa Barbara. Her interests include human rights, international law, race, gender, sexuality, nationalism and ethnicity, peace and conflicts related to America, Israel and Palestine. She also blog at Jadaliyya.
Lisa, daughter of a Finnish Christian mother and father of Syrian descent taught ‘military law’ at the Swarthmore college before joining UCSB.
The Jewish Lobby has accused Dr. Hajjar being influenced by Israel haters like Dr. Joseph Massad, Ph.D (Columbia University) and Joel Beinin, Ph.D (Stanford University) for criticizing the unbelievable human rights abuses committed by United States and Israel. The Lobby did not approve Hajjar’s sitting on a World Tribunal, which declared Saddam Hussein innocent and the US guilty of war crimes and human right abuser. The tribunal further concluded that “the occupation of Palestine, Afghanistan and all other colonized areas is illegal and should be brought to an end immediately.”
On February 2, 2009, Eric Golub writing at Jewish Campus Watch called Dr. Hajjar the “most dangerous speaker”.
On June 7, 2005, Jewish writer Steven Plaut at Muslim-hating David Horowitz’sFrontPage Magazine called Hajjar “Jihadnik”. The Israeli Hasbara organ, ‘A Guide to the Political Left’ lists Hajjar along with Dr. Finkelstein, William Ayers, Anna Baltzer, Phyllis Bannis, Jimmy Carter, Lenni Brenner, Dr. Richard Falk, Dr. Chomsky, Juan Cole, Lawrence Davidson, Rev. John Esposito, Dr. Gabriel Piterberg, etc. – as the anti-Semites who believe that Hamas genuinely seeks to reach a peace accord with the Zionist entity but has been overcome by Israel’s intransigence and duplicity.
Dr. Hajjar has visited Guantanamo Bay concentration camp several times. She reports how innocent Muslims are tortured without being tried in US court of law. Read more here.
On June 19, 2014, Dr. Hajjar posted an article, entitled ‘Comparing American and Israeli Ways of War’. In the article, Dr. Hajjar asserts that Israel has become a role model for United States in conducting its wars, tortures and human rights abuses.
“I contend that Israel is not only the most relevant comparative example to understand American way of war, but in fact provides the model for articulating and projecting positions on ‘what is lawful in war’ the the Unites has adopted and expanded,” says Dr. Hajjar.
“Israel has been in perpetual state of war since its establishment in 1948. One manifestation of this is the fact that the entity has no internationally recognized permanent boundaries. But the nature of that war changed profoundly after 1967, when Israel occupied Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem (and Syrian Golan Heights) and Palestinian liberation entered its militancy phase. Over the decades since 1967, Palestinian militancy has surged and receded, transformed (e.g. with the rise Islamist organizations), turned internecine, and faced stiff liberationist competition from those who embrace non-militant strategies, of which the Boycott Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS) is the most prominent example. Throughout, one constant has been the official Israeli position that Palestinians are existential enemies. This is exemplified the fact that the government proclaims that both Hamas rockets and the BDS movement are “strategic threats” and must be combated and destroyed,” says Dr. Najjar. Listen to Dr. Najjar on Israel-Palestinian conflict below.
I would like to end this post with professor Neve Gordon’s (Ben Gurion University) comment on Jewish military courts in Israel’s occupied territories.
An Israeli Jew and a Palestinian meet in transit right after having been sentenced in court. The Palestinian asks the Jew how much time he got. “Three years,” says the Jew. “The judge was relatively lenient, though, and took into account that the guard who tried to stop me from robbing the bank, didn’t die from his wounds. How much time did you get?”
“Seven years for driving without my headlights on,” says the Palestinian.
“Wow! That’s a hefty punishment,” the Jew exclaims.
“On the contrary, my judge was also lenient. He noted that if I had been caught driving without headlights during the night he would have sentenced me to fifteen years.”
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!