Who Is Robert Crews?
Robert Crews is a professor in Stanford University’s History Department whose research focuses on Afghanistan, Central and South Asia, Russia, Islam, and global history. He has held several influential roles at Stanford, including Director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Afghanistan, published by the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies and Edinburgh University Press.
But over the past decade, Crews has repeatedly involved himself in political campaigns surrounding anti-Israel sentiment: signing petitions, supporting divestment, publishing essays accusing Israel of war crimes, and parroting similar narratives on social media. In promoting some of the most extreme accusations circulating in academic activist circles, he has proven himself to fit neatly into the network of university professors who increasingly sound less like historians and more like political advocates.
How Has Robert Crews Accused Israel of War Crimes?
Robert Crews has repeatedly accused Israel of misconduct before and during the Gaza war – using extreme language such as genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and deliberate starvation.
- August 2025 – he published an essay accusing Israel of “starvation politics” by deliberately starving Gaza as part of its military strategy during the war.
- June 2025 – in an article discussing the 12-day war between Israel and Iran and Evangelical support for Israel, he criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of pushing the United States toward a broader Middle East war while simultaneously carrying out a “massacre of civilians in Gaza.”
- October 2023 – he signed a public statement warning that Israel’s actions in Gaza could amount to genocide. The statement included statements from Francesca Albanese citing her investigation into the “corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project.”
- July 2014 – he signed a historians’ letter addressed to President Barack Obama and members of Congress criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza and calling for them to “suspend US military aid to Israel, until there is assurance that this aid will no longer be used for the commission of war crimes.”
How Has Robert Crews Pressured Stanford in Anti-Israel Divestment Campaigns?
Robert Crews’ activism around Israel goes back more than a decade and overlaps with campus campaigns pushing Stanford to divest from companies connected to Israel.
- February 19, 2015 – he appeared as a panelist in a Stanford discussion hosted by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies titled “Academic Freedom in Context of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.” Other panelists included Stanford professors Joel Beinin and David Palumbo-Liu, both of whom have also been involved in severely anti-Israel academic activism.
- February 10, 2015 – as a signatory on an open letter, Crews urged Stanford University to “stop investing in companies that profit from the occupation of Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967.” The letter was also signed by fellow Stanford faculty member Priya Satia.
- January 2015 – he wrote a petition connected to the “Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine” campaign urging the Stanford Board of Trustees to divest from corporations “complicit in the infrastructure of occupation, collective punishment, state-sponsored repression, and unjust incarceration in Palestine.” The petition was co-authored by Khalil Barhom, a fellow Stanford professor who has defended the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea,” and Joel Beinin.
What Does Robert Crews Post About Israel on His Social Media?
Robert Crews’ social media activity reflects the same themes that appear in his public writing: steady criticism of Israel paired with amplification of claims about territorial expansion and military misconduct.
- November 2025 – compared in a post on X Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Israel and the West Bank
- March 2024 – posted on X citing the “ruthlessness and shocking pace of the genocide committed jointly by Israel and the U.S.”
Conclusion: What Does Robert Crews Mean for Stanford?
Robert Crews occupies influential positions within Stanford’s academic structure, especially when it comes to Islamic history and education on the region of the Middle East. But when professors regularly make accusations of genocide and war crimes, professionalism starts to blur, and real questions arise about the educator in question being able to teach with nuance.
