German University Suspends Pro-BDS Professor

The Free University in Berlin has cancelled academic assignments for a pro-BDS professor who allegedly engaged in anti-Semitic activities.

In a tweet from the Free University sent to The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, the university stated: “The professor will not receive teaching assignments at the Otto Suhr Institute until the accusations are clarified.”

The Otto Suhr Institute (OSI) at the FU said it takes the accusations very seriously. The FU’s Twitter handle has 6,776 followers. The OSI, where the anti-Israel academic Roldán Mendívil teaches at the FU, is a well-respected political science department.

Roldán Mendívil wrote on her blog titled “cosas que no se rompen” that it “only makes sense that  different groups meet and BDS-affiliated or BDS activists fight against repression, occupation and arbitrary exploitation.” BDS is the acronym for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting the Jewish state.

She has written that “Israel is a colonial state…Period.”

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s office in Jerusalem and the organization’s chief Nazi hunter, told the Post on Tuesday that “obviously, this is a person who is an antisemite.” He added that “it is very unfortunate that someone who has strong antisemitic views is allowed to promote those views in the German education system.”

The monthly German Jewish paper Jüdische Rundschau reported Friday that  Roldán Mendívil appeared in a  a rap video called “Long Live Palestine” and sung “No peace with the occupation regime.”

Alex Feuerherdt, a German journalist with an expertise in contemporary European antisemitism, wrote on the mena-watch website on Tuesday that Roldán Mendívil “played down the antisemitic terror of Palestinian organizations and held the Jewish state responsible for this terror.” 

The academic wrote that she supports the “Palestinian struggle” and argued that “one can clarify why Hamas has gained support.”

Roldán Mendívil  apparently blamed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 for the current conditions of Palestinians in Lebanon and for the EU and US designated terrorist organization Hamas, according to her critics.

She signed an anti-Israel petition against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in 2014 that sought to stop Hamas rocket attacks into Israeli territory. Post press queries were sent to the FU management and Roldán Mendívil. The FU was founded in 1948 and its total student enrollment in 2015 was 35,713.

Benjamin Weinthal is a senior fellow at the Foundaiton for Defense of Democracies.