Shira Robinson

Shira Robinson is an Associate Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University. Her teaching and writing focus on Israel and Palestine, but her record extends far beyond academic analysis—into open political advocacy against Israel and the normalization of anti-Zionist ideology within the classroom. From her undergraduate years leading anti-Israel activism to her current faculty position, Robinson has consistently aligned with movements and organizations that depict Israel as an apartheid and colonial state.

Record of Advocacy & Ideological Bias

Background and Early Activism

As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, Robinson served as chair of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee (PSC)—an early campus formation of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) known for its anti-Israel activism and promotion of the BDS movement.

Academic and Teaching Activity

Robinson teaches courses such as “Land & Power in Israel/Palestine,” which explicitly centers the conflict around power and occupation. She has participated in events hosted by PalestinianStudies.org and appears in images on the organization’s website. Her academic framing mirrors her activism—portraying Israel as a colonial entity engaged in systemic oppression.

May 2025: Robinson was named in a legal complaint filed by students against GWU alleging severe antisemitic harassment. One plaintiff reported that a class led by Robinson required listening to a podcast titled Occupied Thoughts, a program known for promoting BDS-aligned narratives.

Signatures and Faculty Activism

Apr 2024: Signed an Open Letter from Faculty and Staff across the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia Region, endorsing faculty support for pro-Palestinian activism on campus.
Apr 2024: Signed a petition titled “Israeli and Iranian Scholars Unite Against Israel.”
Mar 2024: Signed an open letter to President Biden demanding the U.S. “stop transfer of all offensive arms and related funds to Israel immediately.”
May 2021: Signed a Statement on Palestine from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia Academics, which condemned Israel’s “ongoing attacks on historic Palestine” and expressed “solidarity with the Palestinian people in their just struggle for liberation.”
2016: Signed a letter defending Rutgers professor Jasbir Puar, known for promoting conspiracy theories about Israel and giving a lecture at Vassar titled “Inhumanist Biopolitics: How Palestine Matters.”
Jan 2016: Reportedly sponsored an anti-Israel resolution at the American Historical Association (AHA) convention titled “Protecting the Right to Education in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
Jul 2014: Signed an anti-Israel statement blaming Israel alone for the Gaza war, describing its actions as an “obscene assault.”

Events and Public Commentary

Dec 2023: Participated in a GWU medical school panel criticizing Israeli military policy during the war.
Jun 2021: Spoke at a GWU–Middle East Research and Information Project panel aimed at “debunking myths” about Israel, where she claimed Israel “is not serving all its citizens.”
In an interview with the International Affairs Review, Robinson described Israel’s control of Palestinians as a system of “legal segregation,” equated it to apartheid, and associated Zionism with anti-Semitic ideology.
Nov 2017: Delivered a lecture at NYU titled “Past as Present: Reflections on the 70th Anniversary of 1948,” where she called Israel a fascist state.
Mar 2014: In an interview with Philip Weiss, accused Israel’s founding leadership of planning the premeditated expulsion of Palestinians, portraying David Ben-Gurion as manipulating democracy to mask population reduction.
Mar 2014: Spoke at a Palestinian Center event discussing Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel’s Liberal Settler State, arguing that Israeli law deliberately enabled oppression and exclusion.
Oct 2014: Participated in a Teach-In for Gaza session titled “Settler-Colonialism and Military Occupation,” addressing Israel’s use of military rule over its Arab citizens before 1967.
2017: Led a session for the GWU Institute for Middle East Studies teacher workshop called “Israel and Palestine: A Brief History.”

Publications

Sep 2013: Published Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel’s Liberal Settler State, describing the “racism deliberately built into Israel’s legal and political DNA” to maintain Jewish privilege.
2006: Authored “The Ghetto vs. the Gun”, accusing Israel of exploiting Holocaust memory to justify militarism and domination of Palestinians.
Jun 2002: Published “My Hairdresser Is a Sniper”, criticizing what she described as Israel’s normalization of militarism and the dehumanization of Palestinians.

Shira Robinson’s career demonstrates how anti-Israel activism can be embedded within academia and reframed as scholarship. From her early leadership in anti-Israel student groups to her faculty role at GWU, she has consistently advanced narratives that cast Israel as a racist, colonial state and justify Palestinian “resistance” as liberation. Her involvement in multiple anti-Israel petitions, panels, and publications reflects an ideological commitment to activism that undermines the neutrality expected of a university professor.