David Salama, DO

@martinshawx 'Thoughtful inquiry and ethical reflection' that somehow omits what started the war, the murder of 1,200 civilians, the taking of 250 hostages, and the documented rape of women. That's not ethics. That's advocacy dressed in academic language.

Good to see this principled support for UMich professor Derek Peterson: ‘Professor Peterson’s comments—measured, principled, and clearly situated within a broader call to recognize those who work to advance justice—fall squarely within the protected sphere of faculty speech. Faculty members do not surrender their rights to speak as scholars and citizens when they participate in university forums—whether in classrooms, public venues, or ceremonial settings. On the contrary, such occasions are among the most visible expressions of the university’s core commitments to thoughtful inquiry, ethical reflection, and engagement with the most pressing issues of our time.’

@LorenaElke @Unseen_Archive @AAUP This is what happens when you run out of facts. I'll take that as a concession.

@DavidGSalama @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Shut up genicider

The @AAUP & the AFT have just issued a strong & helpful statement defending academic freedom and condemning the ridiculous campaign of intimidation that has been launched against me. I am most grateful for this. Here is the statement: aaup.org/news/aaup-aft-…

@sfmcguire79 1250 (from a school of 50k) on a petition open only to UM insiders, defending anti-Israel protesters with zero mention of 10/7, Hamas, hostages, or rape. 'Ethically rich.' Sure. My Egyptian Jewish family - expelled from Egypt for being Jews might define that phrase differently.

1250 UMich faculty, staff, students, and alumni have signed a letter claiming “nothing Professor Peterson said was inappropriate to the occasion” and that his “remarks were thoughtful, informed, instructive, and ethically rich.” The problems run deep. docs.google.com/document/u/0/d…

@jjw415 @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Hamas embeds fighters in hospitals and tunnels under schools. The casualty count is horrific precisely because Hamas designed it that way.

@jjw415 @Unseen_Archive @AAUP The word genocide has a legal definition. It requires documented intent to eliminate a people. Gaza's population has grown from 400,000 to over 2 million since 1948 — that's not what genocide looks like. And 'far exceeds anticipated justification' — by whose calculation?

@LizHolcomb @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Wait — YOU'RE telling ME not to equate Jews with Israel, while defending a speech that used Jewish history as a runway to condemn Israel? Do you hear yourself? That's exactly what Peterson did. I didn't connect those two things. He did.

@DavidGSalama @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Lol no, the crowd responded to all sorts of social activist bravery being highlighted. Jews can be celebrated on their own merits without being a set up to criticise Israel sheesh...listen to yourself. Don't equate all Jews with Israel right...

@LizHolcomb @Unseen_Archive @AAUP By that logic, Trump rallies prove most people know the election was stolen. Crowd response at a homogeneous venue proves nothing except that the speaker knew his audience. He absolutely used Jewish history as scaffolding right before his punchline.

@DavidGSalama @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Most people know Israel has been inhumane, as evidenced by the largest cheers. Jewish moral authority had nothing to do with it.

@k_thos @MidwestHedgie @Unseen_Archive @AAUP As for a minority of Israeli leaders' rhetoric — ugly words exist on both sides. Hamas's founding charter called for the extermination of Jews. That's not rhetoric. That was policy.

@k_thos @MidwestHedgie @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Displacement in wartime is not ethnic cleansing by definition. In actual ethnic cleansing people don't come back (ask the 800,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries after 1948, including my father's family from Egypt. Gaza's population has grown dramatically since 1948.

@LizHolcomb @Unseen_Archive @AAUP The 2 lines landed where they did b/c of everything that came before. He invoked Michigan's first Jewish prof, built a case around inclusion and antisemitism and then used that Jewish moral authority as a launching pad to call 🇮🇱's war inhumane. 2 lines can do a lot of damage

@DavidGSalama @Unseen_Archive @AAUP It's 2 lines of a 5 minute speech lol 🙄

@LizHolcomb @Unseen_Archive @AAUP and because he's the Chair of the Faculty Senate at a major research university, not a rally speaker. If you're going to call a war 'inhumane' at a graduation ceremony, basic intellectual honesty requires acknowledging what started it.

@LizHolcomb @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Because he's a historian. That's literally his job: context. If I handed him a paper calling a war 'inhumane' with no mention of what started it, he'd fail me. He chose to speak. He chose those words. 'Why should he have to' provide context is a strange defense

@aaiqbal @Unseen_Archive @AAUP We agree on inappropriate speech.. The 'colonization' framing only works if you ignore that Jews are indigenous to that land, they were fleeing extermination in Europe, and Arab states expelling 800,000 Jews including my father's family from Egypt. Both peoples have claims.

@DavidGSalama @Unseen_Archive @AAUP What started the violence was Zionist colonization of Palestine. Which created a state that necessarily sees every Palestinian as an “existential demographic threat”, and consistently acts accordingly Not sure why every graduation speech needs to get into this, though

@LizHolcomb @Unseen_Archive @AAUP it actually proves the point. He used his one mention of the conflict to praise protesters and declare Israel's war 'inhumane.' Zero mention of October 7th. Zero mention of Hamas. Zero mention of hostages. Two lines is plenty of space to show your bias.

@DavidGSalama @Unseen_Archive @AAUP There were two lines about the effects the world has seen, it wasn't a course or lecture. "Sing for the pro-Palestinian student activists, who have over these past two years opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza.”

@MidwestHedgie @Unseen_Archive @AAUP and was the Allied firebombing of Dresden a war crime? Was Hiroshima? Wars are ugly. But there's a difference between prosecuting a war against a terrorist organization embedded in a civilian population and 'ethnic cleansing.' One of those requires intent.

@MidwestHedgie @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Nobody said it was. But 'ethnic cleansing' requires intent to eliminate a people — Israel has dropped more leaflets, made more evacuation calls, and taken more civilian precautions than virtually any modern army. Meanwhile Hamas's own charter called for the elimination of Jews.

@comrade_osna @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Great idea — let's. The Hebron massacre, 1929. Arabs slaughtering Jews before Israel was even a state. And save the 'go back to Europe' line — my father's family is Egyptian. They were expelled from Egypt for being Jewish. History is inconvenient that way, isn't it?

@DavidGSalama @Unseen_Archive @AAUP Let's look back in history and see who really started it.

@Unseen_Archive @UMich You invoked Jewish history as cover, then attacked Israel with no context. No mention of Hamas. No October 7th. No hostages. No victims. A historian of political violence who leaves out what started the violence isn't speaking truth to power. That's propaganda with a PhD

Yesterday I had the pleasure of addressing the graduates @UMich commencement. I spoke about the long history of student activism, which has moved the University toward justice. Here is a video. It has caused a furore on social media & in UM admin. youtube.com/watch?v=iu0xsQ…

@StopAntisemites This dude's entire academic career is built on a contextualized study of political violence, oppression and state power in Africa, including and especially his focus on Idi Amin. It's hard to believe his omission of Hamas/October 7th was accidental.

At today’s University of Michigan graduation, Professor Derek Peterson thanked anti-Israel protesters for 2 years of campus chaos. Turning a commencement speech into a political rant like this is grounds for termination. Sickening.