Saree Makdisi, a professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA, has spent decades pushing extremist narratives, promoting antisemitic ideology, and using his academic credentials to legitimize hatred and violence under the guise of “resistance.” With family ties to the infamous Edward Said, Makdisi has inherited and weaponized a toxic brand of academic anti-Zionism that bleeds into full-fledged antisemitism and support for extremist movements.

Saree Makdisi’s Lifetime of Demonizing Jews and Undermining the West

Makdisi is not simply critical of policy—his statements and writings align closely with the rhetoric of terrorist sympathizers, and he routinely defends propaganda that frames Jews and Zionism as inherently evil.

• Promotes Holocaust inversion: In 2022, Makdisi compared Gaza to the “Warsaw Ghetto,” accusing Jews of replicating Nazi atrocities—an antisemitic trope denounced globally.

• Frames Zionism as racial supremacy: He has falsely claimed that the State of Israel was born from and operates as a settler-colonial, ethnic cleansing machine.

• Dehumanizes Israelis and their allies: Makdisi’s speeches and op-eds frequently refer to Israel as a “neo-fascist” project, erasing context and ignoring acts of terrorism entirely.

A Vocal Advocate for the Extremist BDS Movement

Makdisi is a long-time advocate of the extremist Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. His calls for isolation and pressure are not about peace—they are about punishing Jewish self-determination and promoting international hostility.

• Demands total cultural and academic boycott: In 2016, he pushed for the full boycott of Israeli academic institutions, denying Jewish scholars a platform purely based on nationality.

• Signed multiple boycott letters targeting Israel and Jewish institutions.

• Supports economic warfare against a democratic ally in the Middle East by calling for global isolation.

Inciting and Justifying Radical Action

Makdisi repeatedly offers intellectual cover for violence, framing terrorist aggression as “armed resistance” and minimizing the horrors of Hamas’s war crimes.

• In an April 2023 interview, he downplayed October 7’s massacres and instead focused on isolating Israel.

• He claimed that only through “external pressure”—economic, cultural, and political—would the Jewish state “be brought to heel.”

• In a 2024 Drift interview, he argued that university leaders “fail to protect free speech” because they don’t tolerate his anti-Israel rhetoric.

Pushing Antisemitism Disguised as Free Speech

Makdisi’s public persona depends heavily on flipping the script—he portrays those who expose his extremism as “censors,” while attacking Jewish students, faculty, and institutions without restraint.

• Coined and uses the slur “Ziotrolls” to demean Jewish and Zionist voices online.

• In a 2016 op-ed, he played the victim, claiming his anti-Israel positions led to a coordinated campaign to silence him—while ignoring how Jewish students across UC campuses were harassed and physically intimidated by BDS activists he supports.

• He claims that Jews “should become a minority” in Israel by granting a so-called “right of return” to millions of Palestinians—an erasure of the Jewish homeland by demographic force.

A Dangerous Force on Campus

Makdisi is no fringe figure—he is entrenched within UCLA’s academic system, frequently lectures at global conferences, and has been celebrated by extremist platforms like Middle East Monitor and Democracy Now!

• Participated in “Said’s Palestine” event alongside radical academics like Nadia Abu El-Haj and Judith Butler.

• Awarded by the Palestine Book Awards for his book “Tolerance Is a Wasteland,” a screed against Jewish self-determination.

• Uses his platform to normalize terrorism, amplify Hamas-aligned talking points, and inflame campus division.

Saree Makdisi is not an academic—he is a propagandist in a professor’s chair. His goal is not education, but indoctrination. He doesn’t belong near students, and he certainly doesn’t belong on a university payroll.