George Mason University, the Northern Virginia school that has grappled with high-profile instances of pro-terror student radicalism, hosted an anti-Israel professor who delivered a lecture aimed at “shattering this idea that anything that is to do with Jews, the Holocaust, Israel is somehow unique.”
The Washington Free Beacon attended the Thursday event—titled, “Pedagogy and Palestine in the Classroom”—in an English Department conference room on George Mason’s campus. The school’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine sponsored it.
The event featured Stockton University associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies Raz Segal, who discussed “teaching and conversing on Palestine in today’s context.” Segal is known for his hostility toward the Jewish state, having accused Israel of genocide just six days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack.
In his George Mason speech, he lamented “the problematic idea that Jews are unique,” calling it “an integral part of thinking in an anti-Semitic way.” He cited the Holocaust as a counterargument—and went on to argue that Nazi Germany’s slaughtering of six million Jews “was not, of course, unique.”
“When someone raises this in my class, as an assumption or whatever it is, that the Holocaust is somehow different, I take this as an opportunity,” Segal said. “Tell us why you think that it is unique? Let’s break this down.”
“And ultimately in the class, whenever we do this exercise—and there is a lot of published material about these kinds of comparisons that show us that the Holocaust was not, of course, unique—is that the class reaches the conclusion … that, yes, the Holocaust was not unique, right?” Segal continued. His goal in teaching his students, then, is “just shattering this idea that anything that is to do with Jews, the Holocaust, Israel is somehow unique.”
The panel came in the aftermath of two high-profile incidents at George Mason involving student radicals.
In November, police searched the home of two Students for Justice in Palestine leaders suspected of defacing George Mason’s student center and found firearms, scores of ammunition, Hamas and Hezbollah flags, and signs that read “death to America” and “death to Jews,” the Free Beacon reported at the time. Shortly thereafter, in mid-December, the FBI arrested a George Mason freshman, Egyptian citizen Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, for plotting a terror attack on the Israeli consulate building in Manhattan.
Those incidents did not deter George Mason from hosting Segal for a speaker series aimed at attacking the Jewish state. Roughly 20 people attended the lecture, some of whom appeared to be students.
Segal has landed in hot water at other higher education institutions for his controversial views.
Last summer, the University of Minnesota tapped him to lead its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Members of the center’s advisory board took issue with the appointment, citing Segal’s Oct. 13, 2023, op-ed that referred to Israel’s “assault on Gaza” as “a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.”
“I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians,” Segal wrote. “I have written about settler colonialism and Jewish supremacy in Israel, the distortion of the Holocaust to boost the Israeli arms industry, the weaponization of antisemitism accusations to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians, and the racist regime of Israeli apartheid. Now, following Hamas’s attack on Saturday and the mass murder of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, the worst of the worst is happening.”
As a result, two members of the Minnesota center’s advisory board announced their resignation within hours of Segal’s appointment. One of those members, French professor Bruno Chaouat, said Segal “failed to recognize the genocidal intent of Hamas” and “does not understand that a movement like Hamas is inherently fascist and represents precisely what CHGS stands against.” The University of Minnesota responded by pulling Segal’s job offer.
George Mason did not respond to a request for comment. Segal stood by his remarks from the Thursday panel, arguing that the Holocaust was “specific” rather than “unique.”
“We also know that perpetrators of mass killing always use the best technology that they can develop, right, in order to murder in the most ‘efficient’ way,” he said. “That doesn’t make any case unique, right? That definitely means there are specific elements, right, to each case of genocide.”
Read the full article here
