Durham University retains online profile of pro-Hamas academic
EXCLUSIVE: Berlin-based Dr Taqadum Al-Khatib still listed as part of fellowship programme despite his antisemitic tweets – two weeks after Jewish News brought the issue to the university's attention.
Durham University has retained on its website the profile and lecture of an Egyptian academic it welcomed for two months this summer as a visiting fellow – despite being informed by this newspaper that he is a public supporter of Hamas.
After being shown evidence of the posts Dr Taqadum Al-Khatib made following the 7 October attacks in Israel, the university still hosts the video of a public lecture he presented in Durham in July and a biography that presents him as a respectable, mainstream scholar.
On the day of the Hamas terrorists’ massacre in southern Israel, Al-Khatib reposted a video of a protest by anti-Zionist Jews with placards saying: “All Palestine under Palestinian sovereignty.” The protesters are chanting: “Down, down, the Nazi state of Israel.”
Also on 7 October he posted: “What happened today is a reaction against the international community’s failure to hold Israeli authorities to account for apartheid and other crimes.” The following day, he tweeted, in Arabic: “The countdown has begun,” an apparent reference to the prospect of the destruction of Israel. He has reposted conspiracy theories from the Grayzone website that the IDF deliberately shelled Israeli homes and its own bases in response to the attack by Hamas.
Al-Khatib, who lives in Berlin, was an academic visitor at Durham University from April to June this year, as one of the Mohamed Ali Foundation fellows. Al-Khatib lists his interests as history, cultural studies and Middle East politics. His scholarship is a smokescreen for his support for terrorism.
His activities on X (formerly Twitter) were uncovered by Khaled Hassan, an expert on radical Islamism who, through MENA Department, investigates Arabic-language disinformation and propaganda. Hassan worked on the research that led to the UK revoking the visa of the Egyptian TV presenter Moataz Matar over his support for Hamas.
Hassan has said of Al-Khatib: “He uses his academic credentials to promote antisemitism, to suggest that Jews are liars.” Al-Khatib publicises on Twitter his German-language book, The Jews in Egypt – Correlation Between Language and Minority, which was the subject of his PhD thesis.
One of the Egyptian’s tweets, in Arabic, read: “Zionists, if you give them your fingers, they will take a hand, if you give them a hand, they will take your arm.” It goes on to say that Zionists will swallow you whole. Another said: “Zionists are liars and use antisemitism to frighten people off. Especially here in Germany.” He has commented on the arrest in Germany of a woman who said accusations that Hamas killed children was false propaganda. Al-Khatib said the behaviour of the German police in arresting her was “a return to Nazism in its most brazen form”.
Al-Khatib, who was awarded his PhD in 2019 from the Freie Universität Berlin, is celebrated by so-called pro-democracy organisations as an Egyptian living in exile in Germany for opposing President Sissi. Heidelberg University lists him on its website as a lecturer.
His lecture in July in Durham’s fellowship series is one of four the university hosts on its website. The inaugural lecture, in 2019, was given by Prof Pascale Ghazaleh. The history professor at the American University in Cairo, who has written for the Electronic Intifada website, has also been involved in activism.
In 2019, she was reportedly among a number of academics who helped to declare ‘no confidence’ in the former official of the Bush and Obama administrations Francis Ricciardone as president of the AUC. She objected to the university “being treated as an extension of the US embassy”, she said.
When Jewish News showed Durham University evidence that Al-Khatib was an antisemite who supported Hamas, the university pointed out that the views he shared in response to the 7 October atrocities were expressed some time after his visiting fellowship had ended.
It added: “These views are in no way endorsed by Durham University. He has no ongoing association with the university.” The university said it did not tolerate “any form of antisemitism”, adding: Durham University strongly condemns any incidents of antisemitism and any form of prejudice or discrimination.”
The Freie Universität Berlin and Dr Al-Khatib have been contacted for comment.
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