Overview: Muhammad Shahid Alam has whitewashed anti-Semitism, justified terrorism, demonized Zionism and promoted hatred of Israel. He is also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

As of October 2019, Alam was listed as a Professor of Economics at Northeastern University (Northeastern) and as the faculty adviser to two student clubs: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Political Economy Forum.

Alam’s listing at Northeastern said he previously taught at the University of Karachi in Pakistan, as well as Queens University and Concordia University in Canada and Colgate University, in New York.

Whitewashing Anti-Semitism
In a September 27, 2012 Youtube video of a talk Alam gave to SJP activists, he said [00:00:00]: “You know we should really laugh away accusations of anti-Semitism...."

Alam went on to declare [00:00:18]: “...if you are an academic, if you are an activist, if they call you… [anti-Semite] wear that as a sign of distinction…This proves that I am working for the right side, for the just cause."

Justifying Terrorism
On July 29, 2002, during the height of the Second Intifada, Alam wrote an article, titled: “The Academic Boycott of Israel," where he accused: “the Zionist project of wiping out the Arab presence from Palestine to make room for Jewish settlers."

In his article, Alam said: “Abandoned, isolated, beleaguered and unarmed, a few Palestinian men and women have responded to this massive force by weaponizing their own death …"

The Second Intifada was characterized by more than 120 suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes.

Alam also wrote: “In despair, marginalized, pauperized, facing extinction as a people, if the Palestinians now use the only defense they have-to weaponize their death-who is to blame?"

Alam claimed: “...resistance to the colonizer must be violent" and “resistance is a right of the Palestinians."

He also condemned other academics who argued that “academic boycott ‘indirectly encourages the [Palestinian] terrorist murderers in their deadly deeds.’"

On December 29, 2004, Alam wrote an article, titled: “Seeking Parallels," where he attempted to establish comparisons between the leaders of the American Revolution and the 9/11 terrorist hijackers who engineered the murder of nearly 3,000 American civilians and the destruction of New York’s Twin Towers.

Alam claimed: “Backed by the self-interest of their landed and commercial elites, and inspired by revolutionary ideas, the colonists had a dream worth pursuing. They were prepared to die for this dream ­and to kill. They did: and they won."

Alam went on to say: “On September 11, 2001, nineteen Arab hijackers too demonstrated their willingness to die — and to kill — for what they believed was their dream. They died — so they thought — because they wanted their people to live, free and in dignity."

Alam continued: “The attacks of 9-11 were in many ways a work of daring and imagination too; if one can think objectively of such horrors. They were a cataclysmic summation of the history of Western depredations in the Middle East...The explosion of 9-11 was indeed a ‘shot heard ’round the world.’"

While he acknowledged: “parallels between the American war of independence and the global Islamic insurgency are not exact. The colonists did not deliberately target civilians; the nineteen hijackers did." “Nevertheless," Alam said: “this difference should not obscure the more basic fact — when viewed from the perspective of the protagonists in each case — that there exists a similarity of aims."

Alam also wrote: “Above all, the question that the hijackers of 9-11 pose to their Islamic compatriots is this: ‘What have you risked to oppose your own tyrants, your own ruling cliques, tribes and sectaries, who are so easily co-opted by foreign powers, who have worked so treacherously to enslave their own peoples, who sell off their national treasures, and who have secretly worked with Israel to complete the dismantling of Palestinian society?’"

Demonizing Zionism
On August 21, 2009, Alam wrote an article titled: “Zionism: An Abnormal Nationalism."

In his article, Alam claimed: “Zionism was a grave assault on the history of the global resistance to imperialism …" and that “The Zionists sought to abolish the ground realities in the Middle East established by Islam over the previous thirteen hundred years. They sought to overturn the demography of Palestine, to insert a European presence in the heart of the Islamicate."

Alam also claimed: “In the 1890s, however, a small but determined cabal of European Jews proposed a plan to abrogate the history of global Jewish communities extending over millennia."

Alam continued: “They were determined to accomplish what the worst anti-Semites had failed to do: to empty Europe and the Middle East of their Jewish population and transport them to Palestine, a land to which they had a spiritual connection..." but “...to which their racial or historical connections were nonexistent or tenuous at best."

One way anti-Israel activists spread anti-Semitism is by denying [00:17:45] Jewish history, in order to delegitimize restored Jewish sovereignty, attack Israel’s legitimacy and portray Jews as foreign to the Land of Israel.

Alam then wrote: “The anti-Semites wanted the Jews out of Europe, and so did the Zionists. Anti-Semitism would also become the chief facilitator of the Jewish nationalism that the Zionists sought to create. In addition, the Zionists could muster support for their project by appealing to Western religious bigotry against Muslims as well as their racist bias against the Arabs as ‘inferior’ non-whites."

Promoting Hatred of Israel
On September 21, 2010, Alam wrote an article, titled: “Zionist Dialectics: Past and Future," where he claimed: “the Jews established the only white settler colony to be established in the Middle East.“

Alam also wrote that the U.S. finances Israel’s: “military, arms it, and shields the country from the sanction of international laws, leaving it free to expand its colonial project, and threaten and attack its neighbors at will."

Alam continued: “After September 11, Israel and its allies were a major—if not decisive—factor in pushing the United States to invade and occupy Iraq."

On July 5, 2010, Alam wrote an article titled: “Israel: A Failing Colonial Project," where he claimed that Israel maintains an “apartheid regime" and threatened that “Israel will become an intolerable threat – if it isn’t already – to the Middle East, the world, and no less to Jews everywhere."

Alam concluded: “Only when liberal segments of the Jewish diaspora are convinced that Zionism endangers Jewish lives, only when they act to countervail the power of the Jewish lobby in leading Western societies, will Israel finally be moved to dismantle its apartheid regime."

Supporting BDS
In Alam’s July 29, 2002 article, titled: “The Academic Boycott of Israel," he wrote: “I carefully read the boycott statement, which entailed non-cooperation with ‘official Israeli institutions, including universities,’ and decided to sign on to the list. I also forwarded the call to academics on my mailing list."

Alam added: “Having declared my support for the academic boycott of Israel, I believe I must now explain why I can not view this campaign as ‘destructive,’ ‘ugly’ or supportive of ‘terrorist murderers.’ On the contrary, I see this as a moral gesture, part of a growing campaign."

Alam went on to suggest: “... the protestations about the ‘destructiveness’ or ‘ugliness’ of an academic boycott of Israel" is “insupportable, indeed unconscionable."