Report Reveals More Anti-Semitic Tweets from UC Merced Professor

A new report has revealed more anti-Semitic tweets from UC Merced Professor Abbas Ghassemi.

The conservative website Washington Free Beacon reported on January 5 that the Stop Antisemitism.org watchdog has compiled a dossier on Ghassemi’s tweets. Among them included a retweet hailing the Iranian Shiite terror proxy Hezbollah as “protector of our goals” and a tweet referring to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as “Pimp-eo” and a “criminal thug. Nothing you say will change that, not $$$ from petro-monkeys support for Zionists and IsraHell…. You are nothing and soon will join the trashcan of history!!!”

Another Ghassemi post highlighted by the Free Beacon included him tweeting in December, “The little Zionist puppies were many times on the same page with the criminal Americans, but now with the election of Biden, they will go out of their holes to kiss the feet of their masters.”

Stop Antisemitism.org tweeted, “Hey @ucmerced Abbas Ghassemi doesn’t just hate Jews- he hates America and idolizes Iranian ayatollahs and Hezbollah!  Fire him ASAP!”

Hey @ucmerced Abbas Ghassemi doesn’t just hate Jews- he hates America and idolizes Iranian ayatollahs and Hezbollah! 

Fire him ASAP!https://t.co/iUITlNt6nb https://t.co/jwLOHmKOXp

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) January 5, 2021

StandWithUs co-founder and CEO Roz Rothstein said in a statement to the Journal, “We are not surprised to find that more antisemitic tweets from Professor Ghassemi are surfacing. Professor Ghassemi appears to traffic obsessively in antisemitic conspiracy theories and a diabolical hatred for Israel. We hope the university incorporates these new findings in their ongoing investigation.”

Anti-Defamation League Central Pacific Regional Director Seth Brysk also said in a statement to the Journal, “The conspiratorial lies found in multiple entries and retweets, appear to violate the social media platform’s rules for directing hate against a group. Several messages provide textbook examples of crude, antisemitic canards; mendacious allegations about Jewish power and control, attempts to dehumanize and demonize Jewish people, denial of Jewish peoplehood and the right to self-determination, Holocaust trivialization, insinuations about Jewish greed, and more. It is deeply offensive.  ADL urges anyone encountering such vulgar expressions to confront and roundly reject the brazen bigotry.”

AMCHA Initiative Director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin said in a statement to the Journal, “Although Professor Ghassemi’s blatant and reprehensible antisemitic posts occurred ‘off-campus’, there is an undeniable and valid concern that he will bring his hate and bigotry into the classroom and lecture halls, if he hasn’t already. If a professor were to denigrate, harass, or express intolerance in the classroom, regardless of the identity of his or her targets, that must be addressed promptly and vigorously by the administration. While we are pleased that the UC Merced Chancellor has recognized that Ghassemi’s anti-Zionist tweets are a form of antisemitic intolerance, we believe that universities should fight all intolerance and protect all students equally.”

StandWithUs also highlighted in a January 5 letter to the university that some of Ghassemi’s other tweets included him quote-tweeting a post that denied that Iran ever had a nuclear weapons program; Ghassemi accused the United States of “doing criminal acts under this cover is prescribed from the Zionist masters!” Another tweet from Ghassemi states that “claiming to be a Jew in the west gives them media attention!” and another states “Love it” in response to a tweet claiming that “the end of the Zionist regime is near” with a photo of a large Jewish Star of David in a cemetery.

Jim Chiavelli, Assistant Vice Chancellor of External Relations at the university, told the Journal that the university has no new information on the matter at this time. Ghassemi did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.

On December 29, the university announced that they will be investigating Ghassemi after a report from the Jewish News of Northern California (the J) highlighted some anti-Semitic tweets from his since-deleted Twitter account, including an image of “The Zionist Brain” featuring a “Holocaust Memory Centre” and a tweet stating that “the Zionists and IsraHell interest have embedded themselves in every component of the American system.” Ghassemi has hired a First Amendment lawyer to represent him in the matter, according to the J.