NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT: Zareena Grewal, a Yale professor, has garnered internet support after facing calls for her termination for a pro-Palestine tweet calling Israel a 'murderous, genocidal settler state'.
Grewal, an associate professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, made her first tweet on October 07 just hours after Hamas launched a full-fleshed surprise attack on Israel.
The Palestinian militant organization caught Israel’s defense off guard with a barrage of nearly 2000 missiles and dozens of ground attacks that left at least 1200 Israelis dead and another 2,600 gravely injured.
Amid the ongoing conflict, Grewal made a slew of pro-Palestine tweets, voicing her protest against the Israeli government.
Grewal’s university biography describes her as a "historical anthropologist and a documentary filmmaker whose research focuses on race, gender, religion, nationalism, and transnationalism across a wide spectrum of American Muslim communities."
The professor has written several research books, focusing on race, gender, religion, nationalism, and transnationalism. Her first book is described as "an ethnography of transnational Muslim networks that link US mosques to Islamic movements in the post-colonial Middle East through debates about the reform of Islam."
She has also produced a documentary film ‘By Dawn’s Early Light: Chris Jackson’s Journey of Islam’, which explores the life of NBA guard Mahmoud Abdul Rauf.
In her X (formerly Twitter) bio, Grewal describes herself as a "Yale prof" and "radical Muslim."
What did Zareena Grewal say about the Israel-Palestine war?
Grewal made her first post on October 09 when she described Israel as a murderous state. “My heart is in my throat. Prayers for Palestinians. Israeli [sic] is a murderous, genocidal settler state and Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle, and solidarity. #FreePalestine,” she wrote, as per Daily Mail.
“No government on earth is as genocidal as this settler colonial state,” the professor tweeted in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's post a few days later when the heinousness of the Hamas attacks had become more apparent.
Additionally, she has recently retweeted posts asserting that the Middle Eastern country had “mad bloodlust” and that those who support the Jewish state would have “been posting 'I stand with slave owners' during rebellions.”
She retweeted a news report on the deadly Hamas attacks on October 8 along with the caption, "It's been such an extraordinary day!"
Petition to terminate Zareena Grewal
Following Grewal’s tweets, a Yale University student filed a petition on change.org to “immediately terminate the employment of” the professor.
The petition targeted to get 15,000 signatures and has already gained almost 11,000 signatures. “She has unequivocally proven that she has no right being in her current role or in the field of education if she considers war crimes against civilians to be acts of resistance,” the petition stated.
The petition continued by mentioning how the University stands against promoting violence and advocating an anti-national organization.
“Condoning violence, advocating for a terrorist organization, and historical revisionism and inaccuracies are all ideas that run contrary to the values of Yale University,” it continued.
The petition's signatories unanimously denounced Grewal's standpoint, adding that "her virulent antisemitism is disgusting and extremely dangerous."
Meanwhile, others argued that “such rhetoric is despicable and has no place in the United States and definitely not in an institution of higher learning.”
Internet supports Zareena Grewal after her pro-Palestine tweet
After a petition for Grewal’s termination surfaced on social media, several users came forward to express their support for the Yale professor.
One user wrote, “I don't like what she says, but we do have freedom of speech in this country, and if you don't like what she has to say just don't listen to her, but don't try to ruin it for the people that do.”
“Supporting hamas is not the same thing as supporting open air enslaved Palestinians please don’t mistake the two,” said a second user.
“Wtf! She ain’t wrong though she telling the truth,” another user stated.
One other user asserted, “Looks like she supported Palestinians and not Hamas. 2 different things.”
“She only supports the Palestinians, everyone has their own opinion,” said another user.
“Scary stuff low key, people losing their livelihood for supporting their own countries, what a joke,” one more wrote.
