Who Is Hamid Abdeljaber?
Hamid Abdeljaber – who also writes under the name Abdelhamid Siyam – is a Lecturer at Rutgers University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He’s got a fancy UN background and a classroom podium, but instead of teaching students how to think critically, he’s been busy defending the October 7th massacre and cozying up to Hamas-linked groups. It’s a weird look for someone whose job is supposed to be about education, not propaganda.
How Has Hamid Abdeljaber Promoted Antisemitism and Extremism?
Abdeljaber’s public statements don’t just blur the line between criticism of Israel and antisemitism – they obliterate it. He’s spent years using his platform to justify violence, recycle conspiracy theories, and praise figures tied to terrorism. Not exactly the kind of role model you’d want shaping young minds.
- February, 2025 – Abdeljaber hopped on a webinar run by the European Palestinian Information Center, a group with Hamas ties. While there, he pushed the usual antisemitic tropes about Jewish and Zionist control over global institutions. Congressman Josh Gottheimer called him out, pointing to “rampant antisemitism on campus.”
- August, 2024 – Writing as Abdelhamid Siyam, he published a piece mourning Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh after his assassination, calling him someone who “presented an honourable model of sacrifice for his people and homeland.” Classy tribute to a guy who oversaw the murder of 1,200 people.
- June 13th, 2024 – Siyam went after “Zionist propaganda,” claiming “The Zionist entity does not hesitate to fabricate lies, disseminate them, and provide imaginary details.” According to him, any reporting on Hamas atrocities was just part of an elaborate Israeli spin operation.
- May 9th, 2024 – He wrote about American campus protests, arguing that “the vicious campaign that distorted the Palestinian narrative, and the lies that were spread about the October 7 attack, which targeted women, children, and the elderly” – you know, the stuff that actually happened – was all fabricated.
- 2021 – He signed a Rutgers faculty letter condemning Israel’s “colonial conditions of structural violence and inequality” alongside Noura Erakat and Sahar Aziz (who directs the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights that was investigated by Congress for antisemitism). That one’s actually within the bounds of normal political speech, but it set the stage for the much uglier stuff that followed.
What Has Hamid Abdeljaber Written About the October 7th Attacks?
You’d think a lecturer would condemn the slaughter of civilians at a music festival. Instead, Abdeljaber used his columns to frame the attackers as heroes and take swings at Western civilization. His writing leans hard into Holocaust inversion, which is a pretty bold move for someone who’s supposed to be an academic.
Who Is Hamid Abdeljaber Outside the Classroom?
Before landing at Rutgers, Abdeljaber spent 25 years at the United Nations, working in communications roles like Chief of the Middle East Radio Unit and as a spokesman in Iraq and Afghanistan. So the guy has serious diplomatic credentials—which makes his later embrace of extremist rhetoric all the more baffling. A former UN official praising a Hamas leader and dismissing civilian deaths as “lies”? That’s quite the career pivot.
Conclusion: What Does Hamid Abdeljaber Mean for Rutgers University?
So here’s the deal: Hamid Abdeljaber – or Abdelhamid Siyam, if you prefer – has built a public record that includes defending a terrorist attack, praising its leaders, and recycling some of the oldest antisemitic tropes in the book. And he’s doing all this while collecting a paycheck from Rutgers. Under federal Title VI rules, universities have to protect Jewish students from a hostile environment. Having a lecturer who calls the rape and murder of civilians “lies” and appears on Hamas-affiliated webinars sure seems like a problem. Rutgers might want to ask itself whether it’s okay with taxpayers funding an instructor who treats terrorism like a talking point.
