Duke Alumni and Parents Object to Antisemite Frances Hasso

Frances Hasso is a professor in the Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies Department at Duke University. I have written about her before, here and here.

You can probably guess, from the department she is in, her take on Israel. She hates the tiny embattled state now fighting a multi-front war, that in her view copies the Nazis in its tactics. And she wants to brainwash innocent students at Duke by teaching a course on “Palestine,” which, of course, has nothing to do with her assumed areas of expertise — “Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies.” Now some alumni and parents have written a collective letter to the President of Duke, asking him to prevent Hasso from her ultra vires swerve into Middle East matters. Theirs is an expression of dismay, by over 100 alumni, and parents of current Duke students, who are fed up with the anti-Israel and antisemitic atmospherics on campus, not just from the know-nothing SJP students screaming their desire to see Israel disappear (“from the river to the sea/Palestine will be free”), to be replaced by a 23rd Arab state, but from faculty members such as Frances Hasso, who indoctrinate students to share their hatred of the Jewish state. More on this letter, a sign that people — including deep-pocketed alumni and tuition-paying parents — are not going to stand for this state of affairs any longer, can be found here: “Duke Parents and Faculty Respond to Hate-Filled Indoctrination at School; Will Federal Government Act?,” by Peter Reitzes, Algemeiner, May 23, 2025:

More than 100 Duke University alumni and parents have signed a letter to the university, expressing serious concerns about what they describe as “extremism” by Frances Hasso, Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies.

The letter encapsulates details that I initially reported. It articulates serious concerns regarding Hasso’s upcoming instruction of the school’s Global Palestine course this Fall. They write:

Professor Hasso has a long and public history of hostility and antipathy toward Israel and Zionists. In just the past year and a half, Professor Hasso has questioned allegations of rape and sexual torture of Israelis from Hamas on October 7 asserting “No one was raped on October 7.” Hasso recently shared a post alleging that “Israel keeps trying to kill Israeli hostages… all as [an] excuse to prolong the Genocidal plan of erasing two million Palestinians from Gaza. Israel’s priorities are Nazi’s war-time policies – fastracking Genocide (Final Solution).” She also previously posted on X: “HAMAS OFFICIALLY DEFEATS ISRAEL!” and “The US empire cannot end soon enough.”

The alumni and parents add:

Surely Duke can find a more qualified and objective teacher for such a sensitive subject matter… At an absolute minimum, it should be co-taught by a historian with a background in Israeli and Middle Eastern studies to counter Professor Hasso’s extremism.

Following my reports earlier this month, additional information regarding Hasso has come to light.

Earlier this week, and also in February, Hasso publicly referred to Israel as “Israhell.”

In February, she posted, “Zionists should zip it, always” and earlier this month reposted, “It is our duty to confront zionists wherever they appear [sic].”

I firmly believe that Duke administrators would consider such statements — if directed towards any other group of people, such as Palestinians or Muslims — to be hostile.

The vast majority of American Jews support Israel. How exactly are Jewish and pro-Israel students expected to feel welcomed and valued in Hasso’s class, and in the gender studies department with her publicly stated belief that “Zionists should zip it, always”?

In April, Hasso alleged that Israel or Jews may have employed a “tactical nuke” in Lebanon. She wrote on X, “Thinking abt [about] ’20 Beirut port explosion, framed as corruption, but prob Zio use of tactical nuke.”

Hasso’s claim that the “blast in Beirut” that went off on August 4, 2020 was possibly a “tactical nuke” makes one wonder about her sanity. As everyone knows, and as the government of Lebanon made clear, the blast, which killed 2,000 people, wounded 6,000, and caused $15 billion in damages, was the result of the careless storage, in Hanger 14 at the Port of Beirut, of ammonium nitrates. No one other than Frances Hasso has suggested that an Israeli tactical nuclear weapon caused the explosion. It’s too bad she has tenure, for her gaga views, her hatred of both Israel and America, certainly disqualify her from teaching and molding the minds of the impressionable young in a course — “Global Palestine” — she is being allowed to teach.

As reported by the BBC and Scientific American, tactical nuclear weapons have never been deployed in warfare, and no nuclear weapon has been utilized in conflict since World War II.

An investigation by Human Rights Watch, an organization recognized for its highly critical stance towards Israel, found that the 2020 Beirut port explosion was a “non-nuclear explosion” and attributed responsibility to Lebanese officials, recommending they face sanctions….

Not even the famously anti-Israel HRW claimed that Israel was responsible for the “blast in Beirut.” But HRW did stick to blaming unnamed “Lebanese officials” when the responsibility lay not with the Lebanese, but with Hezbollah, that had so carelessly stored the highly dangerous ammonium nitrates, and forbade Lebanese officials from entering the hangar where they were being kept, and might have been monitored.

Frances Hasso’s version of the “blood libel” against the Jewish state is to accuse it of using “tactical nuclear weapons” — weapons which no nation has ever used. It’s a charge, like those idiotic accusations about the IDF carrying out “ethnic cleansing” and committing “genocide” in Gaza, that is meant to arouse hatred for the beyond-the-pale Jewish state. Frances Hasso is the very last person who should be entrusted at Duke with teaching a course on “Palestine.” She has so much else to teach — about Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies — where she will have less occasion to indulge her antisemitic hate. And let this be the third, and likely last, piece devoted at Jihad Watch to the nauseating Associate Professor Frances Hasso. I am put in mind of The Last Blast Of The Trumpet Against The Monstrous Regiment Of Women or, at least, against one of them, by name Frances Hasso.