Who Is Mohamed Abdou?
Mohamed Abdou is a Canadian-Egyptian academic who is not a U.S. citizen and somehow still managed to land inside one of America’s most elite universities when in 2024, Columbia University brought him in as a visiting scholar in the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) department.
What Columbia got wasn’t just a professor. It got someone openly backing Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, praising October 7th, and dismissing well-documented atrocities. At the same time, he embedded himself in student activist networks and helped organize protests on campus.
For a non-citizen operating inside a U.S. university, Abdou didn’t just cross lines. He erased them.
How Has Mohamed Abdou Supported Hamas and Other Terror Groups?
This isn’t a case of vague language or “context.” Mohamed Abdou‘s statements are blunt, repeated, and very public.
- September 2024 – he described Hamas’s October 7th attack as the “valiant Al Aqsa Flood military operation,” openly praising the assault.
- January 2024 – in an interview with Revolutionary Left Radio, Abdou expressed support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, praising their “stealth mode” operations like it was a military case study.
- October 2023 – in a Facebook post, he stated, “Yes, I’m with the muqawamah (the resistance), be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad,” removing any doubt about where he stands.
How Did Mohamed Abdou Respond to October 7th?
When most people saw October 7th as a massacre, Mohamed Abdou saw something else entirely.
- May 2024 – in a video on X, he claimed that “…there is no evidence of beheaded babies…,” brushing off documented atrocities as “propaganda.”
- January 2024 – In commentary after the attack, Abdou described Hamas as “organized,” claiming that “1,500 warriors” managed to “defeat a larger enemy,” turning a mass-casualty attack into a success story.
How Did Mohamed Abdou Lead Activism at Columbia University?
This is where things really start to blur. Professor or organizer? With Abdou, it’s hard to tell.
At Columbia, he embedded himself directly into campus activism, building on prior ties with groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and stepping into an already volatile protest environment. While teaching courses like “Decolonial-Queerness & Abolition,” he also helped organize disruptive actions, including a protest that interrupted a panel featuring Hillary Clinton. His activity overlapped with a surge in unauthorized demonstrations, classroom disruptions, and chants calling for “intifada,” all as Columbia faced growing national scrutiny. The line between professor and activist was effectively nonexistent.
In April 2024, Columbia President Minouche Shafik confirmed before Congress that Abdou would “never work at Columbia again,” permanently ending his role at the university.
How Has Mohamed Abdou Promoted Anti-American and Antisemitic Ideology?
Abdou doesn’t stop at Israel. His rhetoric expands outward, and it gets more aggressive.
- August 2025 – on his personal Substack, he wrote a post entitled “God D*** America” where he stated “I believe in an Islam that hates America” and referred to America as an “infectious parasite.”
- June 2025 – in a post on X, he wrote “Death to Amerikkka🔻,” using “KKK” spelling to portray the United States as inherently racist and illegitimate and using the upside-down red triangle used by Hamas to denote Israeli human targets.
- February 2024 – during a Columbia event organized by the Palestine Working Group, Abdou described the U.S. and Canada as “settler-colonial orders” and declared: “The onset of decolonization is inherently a violent act.” In that same speech, he stated: “I don’t pledge allegiance to no American flag. Let alone to no [American] Constitution. I don’t call myself an American, and I have never called myself a Canadian.” He also described Ashkenazi Jews as animated by “white supremacy,” pushing a claim that distorts Jewish identity into something ideological and racialized.
- 2024 – in public messaging to activists, he encouraged people to “organize revolutionary alternatives to capitalism & the state,” signaling a push beyond protest into systemic confrontation.
Conclusion: What Does Mohamed Abdou Mean for the United States?
Zoom out from Columbia: the bigger issue is how someone like this ends up inside the United States academic system in the first place. Mohamed Abdou is not a U.S. citizen. Yet while teaching at a top American university, he openly supported terrorist organizations, rejected the country he was working in, and promoted violent forms of “decolonization.” None of this was hidden.
There are real questions here about visa standards and institutional vetting. Columbia eventually removed him. But the issue is bigger than one university. If this is what can operate inside the system without immediate consequences, then the problem is not just Mohamed Abdou. It’s the lack of guardrails that allowed it to happen.
