On Thursday (26th October), a video of Hinduphobic Professor Hatem Bazian went viral on social media wherein he refused to condemn Hamas for the killing of 1400 Israeli citizens.
The video was posted on X (formerly Twitter) by Canary Mission. Bazian is a continuing lecturer at the University of California in Berkeley and has spread falsehoods about India and the Hindu community on several occasions.
In the video that has now gone viral online, the controversial academic could be seen participating in a ‘pro-Palestine rally’ in Washington DC and declining to condemn the atrocities unleashed on Israel by Hamas terrorists.
Journalist Asra Nomani confronted him during the rally and asked, “Hatem Bazian, do you condemn Hamas?” He mocked her and said that he was against ‘hummus’ (a Middle-Eastern dish).
The American professor then pretended to be busy on his phone so as to avoid answering direct questions from the journalist. “Do you condemn the terrorist organisation Hamas?”, Nomani further inquired.
While continuing to lend his silent support to Hamas, he insensitively responded, “I like falafel (a Middle-Eastern cuisine).” Asra Nomani continued to confront Hatem Bazian and asked, “Do you condemn the kidnapping and murdering of civilians?” The ‘academic’ waved in denial and walked away.
Ever since Hamas launched its terror attack on Israel on 7th October this year, Hatem Bazian has come to the rescue of the jihadist outfit. Far from condemning the killing and abduction of civilians by Hamas terrorists, he was seen engaging in whataboutery on social media.
A supposed expert on ‘Palestinian Studies’, Hatem Bazian is the founder of ‘Students for Justice in Palestine‘ (SJP) and the Chairman of ‘American Muslims for Palestine‘ (AMP). He has stirred controversy in the past for his anti-Semitic views on social media.
Hatem Bazian was born in Nablus (West Bank), attended High school in Amman (Jordan) and moved to the United States to attend the San Francisco State University. He has been at the helm of both anti-Hindu and anti-India propaganda.
Endorses Audrey Truschke and IAMC
In 2019, the controversial academic was seen supporting ‘historian’ Audrey Truschke, infamous for trivialising the atrocities perpetuated by the Mughal tyrant Aurangzeb on his Hindu subjects.
She has been at the forefront of downplaying the Portuguese Inquisition of Goa and atrocities committed against Hindus. In 2018, the ’historian’ falsely claimed that Lord Ram was called a ‘misogynist pig’ by Goddess Sita during ‘Agnipariksha’.
In another instance, Truschke had misinterpreted the sacred Hindu religious text of Bhagavad Gita and accused it of rationalising mass slaughter.
Truschke had also equated a gang rape case in India to an incident in the Hindu epic of Mahabharata, essentially alluding that Hindu culture endorses “rape culture” and misogyny.
At the time of the US Capitol riots, Truschke tweeted about the presence of an Indian flag at the scene to falsely suggest that the insurrection was the handiwork of ‘Hindu Right’. Despite all this, Hatem Bazian was seen extending his support to her in March 2021.
He was also seen promoting a dubious report, prepared by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), on the ‘state of religious minorities in India’.
According to the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), the Indian Americal Muslim Council has links [pdf] with the banned Islamic terror outfit, Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
Besides, the Indian American Muslim Council has ties with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) through its founder Shaik Ubaid. The IAMC is a Jamat-e-Islami-backed lobbyist organisation claiming to be a rights advocacy group.
In the past, it had reportedly collaborated with and even paid money to various groups in the USA to get India blacklisted by the USCIRF (United States Commission on International Religious Freedom).
IAMC had been caught spreading fake news and misinformation to further the Islamist cause in India. It had also been slapped with the UAPA in 2021.
Hatem Bazian peddles anti-India narrative
Along with two other ‘scholars’, Hatem Bazian published a 128-page report titled ‘Islamophobia in India: Stoking Bigotry’ and made outlandish claims about ‘genocide’ against Indian Muslims.
“Islamophobia in India during COVID-19, is built upon years of BJB and RSS stoking bigotry in the country!” he alleged in a tweet in April 2020.
In September this year, he was seen parroting similar claims about ‘rising Islamophobia in India.’
Hatem Bazian was also seen peddling the dubious narrative of ‘Human Rights Watch’ to cast aspersions on India’s decision to abrogate Article 370 in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir.
He was also seen defending rioters, who created mayhem in the streets over the ‘Nupur Sharma controversy.’ The UC Berkeley Professor claimed, “India, a Teflon Democracy -The so-called “largest democracy” in the world is so weak that a protest by citizens leads to fascistic response. India destroys houses of several Muslim figures after religious riots,”
Hatem Bazian also demanded the passing of an ‘Islamophobia bill’ to counter its supposed rise in India, Burma and China.
In an Instagram post in September 2020, he claimed, “The partnership between Zionist and Hindutva organizations is on fast track in the US, just like Muslim Zionist normalization is underway in the ME.”
Anti-Hindu propaganda
Hatem Bazian, who has been under the scanner for his anti-Semitism, has been fearmongering against the Hindu community since 2014. A screenshot of his past tweets clearly shows how he cherry-picked stories to present Indian Hindus in bad light.
Hatem Bazian was seen unleashing an online mob against Hindus, based on claims from radical Islamic outfit ‘Muslim Mirror.’
He was involved in dog-whistling against US-based Hindu rights groups and the Muslim outreach coordinator of Joe Biden in March 2020.
In February 2022, Hatem Bazian was listed as one of the speakers at an event dubbed ‘ India on the Brink: Preventing Genocide.’ The event was organised to mark the 20th anniversary of the 2002 Gujarat riots. The likes of Sunita Vishwanath and Ritumbra Manuvie also participated in the event.
Manuvie had disseminated a false narrative on Nuh violence through her think tank ‘Foundation The London Story‘. She has been at the helm of shielding Islamists who unleashed mayhem on the streets of northeast Delhi in February 2020.
She has been scaremongering about India and insinuating that a genocide against Muslims is underway in the country. Opindia found 6 such contentious articles, published on the ‘India’ page of the website of the Netherlands-based think tank.
Sunita Vishwanath, the co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), had actively promoted the misleading narrative of ‘Hindu Vs Hindutva’. The same organisation was also seen endorsing the ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ conference. As per Disinfo Lab, HfHR was formed in the year 2019 by Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and the Organization for Minorities of India (OFMI).
Interestingly, the three organisations had formed another outfit called the Alliance for Justice and Accountability (AJA). As per an article in The Hindu, the Alliance for Justice and Accountability had been at the forefront of leading demonstrations against the visit of PM Modi to Houston on September 22, 2019.
Just like Ritumbra Manuvie, Sunita Vishwanath also tried to create hysteria and panic among Indian Muslims about the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019.