Not, it seems, a long history of lavishing praise on Palestinian terrorists and terror groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and PFLP. For the British-Palestinian doctor, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who has such a history, has just been elected to be the Rector of Glasgow University.

More on Al-Sittah’s elevation can be found here: “Fears for Jewish students after doctor who praised terrorists is elected rector of Glasgow University,” by Rosa Doherty, The JC, March 27, 2024

A British-Palestinian doctor who praised terrorists has been elected as rector of the University of Glasgow, prompting fears for the safety of Jewish students.

Given the epidemic of anti-Israel animus and antisemitism on campuses throughout the Western world, this no longer surprises, but it still infuriates.

Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who received 80 per cent of first preference votes, was elected by students to serve a three-year term in the highest governing body of the university.

Eighty percent of students at Glasgow University voted for Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah to be their next rector. They were not in the least concerned about his praise of terrorists. In fact, such praise may have been one of the reasons for his popularity among students, so many of whom now take part in demonstrations where they chant “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free” and “Say No To [Israeli] Genocide.”

The high-profile doctor has become known as a hero surgeon who worked in Gaza and has been treated as an expert on the situation in the Strip by the world’s biggest media outlets, including BBC, Sky and CNN.

However, a JC investigation into Abu-Sittah revealed that over the years, he has praised a terrorist murderer in a newspaper article, sat beside a notorious terrorist hijacker at a memorial and delivered a tearful eulogy to the founder of a terror group that was later involved in the October 7 atrocities.

Abu-Sittah has been accused by Jewish groups in the UK of promoting terrorism and spreading antisemitism.

On March 8, 2018, Abu-Sittah wrote an opinion piece for the Al Akhbar newspaper in Beirut. He was outraged by the IDF’s recent killing of the terrorist Ahmad Jarrar, who had murdered a rabbi in the West Bank. He called Jarrar a “hero” and said that the Palestinians had now to choose between what he called a “satanic alliance” of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (too moderate for Abu Sittah) and the right path, exemplified by Ahmad Jarrar, of “force, by all available means.” By “force,” Abu-Sittah meant the murderous terrorism as practiced by Jarrar.

This January, just two months before Abu-Sittah was elected as Rector of Glasgow University, CAMERA-UK reported that he spoke at a ceremony marking one year since the death of Maher Al-Yamani, the co-founder of the terror group PFLP. A video of that ceremony shows Abu-Sittah crying while delivering a eulogy to the dead arch-terrorist and proclaiming “This is our only comfort: that even when Maher leaves, the Israelis will be afraid of Maher.”

In March 2024, the UK Lawyers for Israel sent an open letter to Glasgow University which included a series of Abu-Sittah’s social media comments. The letter noted that Abu-Sittah had reposted “an image in honor of Nasser Abu Hamid, a leader of the terror group Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the day after he died, depicting him holding a machine gun, and dripping with blood.”

The UK Lawyers for Israel letter also accused Abu-Sittah of reposting “an antisemitic image featuring Hitler on one side and Israeli prime minister Netanyahu on the other side, both images smeared with blood, thereby comparing Israel to the Nazis. The image was headed ‘Free Palestine (Palestinian Flag), Israel is a Nazi State.’ The text accompanying this image claimed that Hitler had killed an average of 127 children a day, fewer — it claimed — than the number of children ‘killed by Netanyahu,’ which it put at 178 per day.” The UK Lawyers for Israel called this posting by Abu-Sittah an example of antisemitism, according to Example 10 of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of Antisemitism, which proscribes “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

After receiving that damning information about Abu-Sittah set out in the UK Lawyers for Israel’s letter, Glasgow University has launched an investigation into Abu-Sittah.

However, instead of waiting for the results of that investigation, which had first been announced by Glasgow University’s vice chancellor in early March, the vote for rector went ahead and Abu-Sittah won in a landslide.

Now, as rector, Abu-Sittah is in a position at Glasgow University to turn the institution he runs even more into a hotbed of anti-Israel sentiment. He will no doubt be inviting other Palestinian doctors, including some he may have worked with in Gaza, to describe the “horrors” of trying to treat patients under the “merciless” attacks of the IDF. He may have the university sponsor a lecture series on “Israel and the Palestinians,” possibly with Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway asked to address the students on “Israel as an Apartheid State.” He may invite Francesca Albanese, the antisemitic UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestine Territories, to speak about “Israel’s Genocide: A Study In International Impunity.” As long as Abu-Sittah remains as Rector, there will be no end to this.

Well done, students of Glasgow University. 80% of you have just now voted for a supporter of Arab terrorists, the murderers of Israeli men, women, and children, to be your next Rector.

How nice to be led by someone who thinks, just like you, that the apartheid colonial-settler genocidal state of Israel must be eliminated, and that once that tiny Jewish state is eliminated, and its Jewish population either scattered to the winds or killed, a twenty-third Arab state will take its place.

Photo courtesy of Jihad Watch