By: Fern Sidman

In a disturbing development that highlights the convergence of Islamist activism, antisemitic conspiracy theories, and academic respectability, Hatem Bazian, a senior lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, delivered a lecture earlier this month at a California mosque that advanced outlandish and antisemitic claims about Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jewish people.

According to a detailed report that appeared on Tuesday in The Algemeiner, the event calls attention to the growing concern over the ability of Islamist activists to propagate anti-Jewish rhetoric under the banner of anti-Zionism, while leveraging their academic positions to legitimize these ideas in American discourse.

On August 15, at the Muslim Community of Folsom, California, Bazian alleged that Netanyahu harbors imperial designs extending far beyond Israel’s borders. According to remarks flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Bazian claimed that Israel seeks to control not only Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, but also Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt—including the Pyramids—and even Islam’s holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, in Saudi Arabia.

“Netanyahu says: ‘I want Jordan. He wants Greater Israel, he wants Jordan, he wants Lebanon, and he wants Egypt – the Pyramids,’” Bazian told his audience. “He wants maybe, if tourists are coming, maybe he will charge people to go up to the Pyramids.”

The Berkeley lecturer went further, asserting without evidence that Netanyahu claimed Israel has a right to Mecca and Medina, alleging: “He said this on the news, in an interview.” No such interview exists.

As The Algemeiner report observed, such claims not only distort reality but also recycle centuries-old antisemitic tropes that falsely depict Jews as seeking world domination.

Hatem Bazian is not a marginal figure. He is a senior lecturer at UC Berkeley, one of America’s most prestigious universities, and a longtime activist within the Islamist movement in the United States. He co-founded Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group notorious for intimidating Jewish students on campuses, and now chairs American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), stands “at the core of the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist movement in the United States.”

As The Algemeiner report documented, AMP has played a central role in organizing anti-Israel demonstrations in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel, often framing the terrorist group’s actions as “resistance.”

Bazian’s rhetoric echoes the ideological framework of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt, which sought to establish Islamic law globally and made antisemitism a cornerstone of its worldview. His conspiratorial narrative—that Jews seek not only Israel but vast swathes of the Arab and Islamic world—fits seamlessly within this tradition.

As The Algemeiner report noted, Bazian’s remarks are less about policy critique and more about demonization, situating Zionism as part of a broader “colonial” project and aligning with Islamist doctrines that cast Jews as eternal adversaries.

Bazian’s lecture also included incendiary claims that Jews exploit antisemitism for profit.

“The whole monetization and weaponization of antisemitism is no longer working,” he declared. “I do believe that Zionism no longer has a standing globally. Now, between the end of Zionism as an ideology and as a genocidal policy versus the liberation of Palestine – it might take a number of years.”

Such remarks, as The Algemeiner report observed, mirror classic antisemitic accusations that Jews fabricate or exaggerate antisemitism for financial or political gain, a trope with roots in both far-right and Islamist rhetoric.

Bazian’s recent statements are not isolated. His record is replete with inflammatory remarks:

In 2015, he likened Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, asserting that “different Semites” were now “locked up,” and defended Hamas by suggesting it was unfairly labeled a terrorist organization in the same way that Nazis labeled European resistance fighters.

He has repeatedly compared Israel to Nazi Germany, collapsing distinctions between a genocidal regime and a democratic state defending itself against terrorism.

He has described Israel as a “colonial project” born out of European racism, rather than a legitimate expression of Jewish self-determination.

As The Algemeiner report indicated, such statements not only distort historical truth but serve to delegitimize Israel’s very existence.

The organizations Bazian leads have also come under serious legal scrutiny.

On May 9, 2024, a Virginia circuit judge ordered AMP to disclose its funding sources, following investigative efforts by Attorney General Jason Miyares. Miyares said he had “a legal obligation to ensure that charitable organizations operating in Virginia are following the law.”

A separate lawsuit alleged that AMP is essentially a rebranded version of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which had been found liable for $156 million for providing material support to Hamas. The suit noted striking continuities between AMP and IAP: the same leadership, similar chapter structures, nearly identical events and conventions, and an ongoing alignment with Hamas’s ideology.

As The Algemeiner report highlighted, this lawsuit underscores the persistent entanglement of U.S.-based Islamist organizations with foreign terrorist movements.

Bazian also used his lecture to mock Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords. He accused Arab leaders of engaging in “tawaf in the White House” only to discover they were “on the menu.”

The remark, dripping with derision, reflects the Islamist rejection of any Arab-Israeli reconciliation and underscores the degree to which activists like Bazian seek to delegitimize peace efforts, painting them as betrayals of the Palestinian cause.

As The Algemeiner report noted, this rejectionist stance mirrors the worldview of Hamas and Iran, which see the Abraham Accords not as diplomatic achievements but as existential threats to their ideological project.

That Bazian holds a faculty position at a leading American university raises troubling questions about the responsibilities of academic institutions in safeguarding against the mainstreaming of extremist rhetoric.

UC Berkeley has long been a hub of anti-Israel activism, but Bazian’s prominence gives his words additional weight, effectively laundering conspiracy theories and Hamas apologetics through the prestige of academia.

This dynamic threatens not only Jewish students, who face heightened hostility on campus, but the integrity of American higher education itself, as universities risk becoming platforms for legitimizing extremism under the guise of scholarship and free expression.

Hatem Bazian’s August 15 lecture at the Muslim Community of Folsom offers a disturbing snapshot of how Islamist conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes continue to circulate in American public life. His claims that Netanyahu seeks to seize Mecca and Medina, his assertion that Jews exploit antisemitism for profit, and his apologia for Hamas fit squarely within a broader pattern of radical rhetoric masquerading as academic discourse.

As The Algemeiner has consistently documented, figures such as Bazian blur the line between activism and incitement, embedding antisemitic narratives within American institutions and exploiting their academic credentials to shield themselves from accountability.

The controversy also highlights the stakes of current legal efforts to investigate AMP’s ties to Hamas, efforts which may finally bring greater transparency to the networks Bazian leads.

Ultimately, Bazian’s remarks emphasize a broader challenge: the need for vigilance in confronting the spread of antisemitism—whether in the streets, in politics, or within the halls of academia—before rhetoric translates into real-world harm.