Anti-Israel protesters at Northwestern (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
A Northwestern University professor—hired as part of a deal with anti-Israel groups to end last year’s encampment—sits on the boards of two organizations that were founded by and frequently partner with Palestinian terrorists, a Washington Free Beacon review found.
Last year, Northwestern president Michael Schill struck a deal with radical student groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), to end their encampment, agreeing to recruit two Palestinian professors and provide full rides to five students from Gaza.
Northwestern tapped Mkhaimar Abusada last fall as a visiting associate professor of political science to fill the first of those faculty slots, teaching a weekly undergraduate course on the "Palestinian National Movement."
Abusada also serves on the boards of two organizations that present themselves as human rights groups—the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)—that, in reality, maintain close ties to terrorists. ICHR has praised Hamas and met with the terror group’s leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, while PCHR has Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) members on its payroll—with one serving as its leader.
NGO Monitor president Gerald Steinberg condemned Northwestern for hiring Abusada.
"His employment as a faculty member is a heinous violation of basic academic norms and moral principles," he said.
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East executive director Asaf Romirowsky echoed that sentiment.
"When you're signing an agreement with SJP and their sympathizers, they're going to find people who are in agreement with their echo chamber of individuals," he said.
"The number one issue is that the institutions are doing no background checks," Romirowsky added. "This is not a matter of academic freedom. This is a matter of national security. This is a matter of threats to the universities themselves. And there needs to be clear red lines."
Neither Abusada nor Northwestern responded to multiple requests for comment. Hiring Abusada could serve as a thorn in the university’s side as it faces pressure to rein in campus anti-Semitism. Last month, the Trump administration froze $790 million in federal funding to Northwestern amid a civil rights investigation into alleged anti-Semitism and racial discrimination on campus.
West Bank-based ICHR was established by former Palestinian Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat, whom Romirowsky described as the "grandfather of all terrorists." The group purports to ensure that the "State of Palestine and the Palestine Liberation Organization meet the requirements for safeguarding human rights," but its members have repeatedly hosted and met with Hamas and PFLP members.
In December 2018, for example, ICHR touted a meeting between its staff and Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader Israel assassinated last year. The group shared photos in a Facebook post that said Haniyeh "affirmed Hamas’ commitment to the values of human rights and the legal principles governing rights and freedoms," according to the platform’s autotranslation. Haniyeh later celebrated Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, assault and called for more attacks.
Other terror leaders in ICHR’s orbit include Khalil Al-Haya, who serves on Hamas’s leadership committee, and Alam Ka’abi, a PFLP Prisoners Committee official who was sentenced to nine life sentences in 2004 by an Israeli court for his role in enlisting terrorists behind a string of lethal attacks.
Romirowsky and Steinberg said ICHR effectively exploits the term "human rights" to paper over political propaganda.
"It's not a coincidence that they have used the word ‘human rights.’ When you use the word human rights, you get a pass, because the perception is that this gives it an aura of legitimacy. This is all part of the facade to make that happen, and give the illusion that Yasser Arafat was involved and cared about human rights," Romirowsky told the Free Beacon. "The accusations waged against Israel are all centered on so-called human rights violations. The fact that the PLO and Arafat created these silos of so-called independent commissions on human rights, and the fact that they're the ones who are delivering these messages is all by design."
Steinberg added that "ICHR officials have applauded heinous terror attacks, including the October 7 atrocities, and the recruitment of Palestinian minors—the exact opposite of the moral principles associated with human rights."
Abusada also serves as deputy chairman for PCHR’s board of directors. The Gaza-based group wages lawfare against Israel, such as filing lawsuits with the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants of Jewish state leaders it accuses of "genocide." It was founded by Raji Sourani, a PFLP member who served a three-year prison sentence in Israel for his PFLP membership. In 2012, he was denied a U.S. entry visa because of his links to terrorism. According to Sourani, the goal of PCHR is to "inundate the [Israeli] occupation with hundreds and thousands of legal suits that will incriminate and convict it."
Two years later, the PFLP honored Sourani with a ceremony in Gaza after he received the "Alternative Nobel Prize," an award given by the Swedish Right Livelihood Foundation to recognize "the actions of brave visionaries working for a more just, peaceful and sustainable world for all." During the event, Sourani told the attendees, "we are proud that once we were members of [the PFLP] and we fought in its ranks," according to NGO Monitor. Rabah Muhana, a member of the PFLP’s Political Bureau who has called for "escalation of resistance in general and armed struggle in particular against the Zionist enemy," also spoke.
Abusada’s predecessor as deputy chair, Jaber Wishah, headed PFLP’s military wing in Gaza.
Steinberg said PCHR, like ICHR, calls itself a human rights group to win over sympathizers.
"Although labeled as an NGO, it would not be able to exist or operate without the approval and cooperation of Hamas," he told the Free Beacon. "Sourani realized that by using the ‘human rights’ label, he and other PFLP members would be able to get funds and be welcomed in the UN by gullible government officials, university faculty and journalists who don't bother to check the details."
"Using this ruse, PCHR has been a leading voice in promoting demonization of Israel and the Palestinian mythology, while keeping their PFLP terror links in the background," Steinberg added.
He also pointed to Abusada’s Arabic-language interviews, telling the Free Beacon, "He has frequently expressed support for what he calls the ‘brave Palestinian resistance’ and often echoes Hamas slogans." For instance, "In January 2023, after the murder of seven Israeli civilians outside a Jerusalem synagogue, Abusada told an Arabic media interviewer ‘the flame of Palestinian resistance shall not end.’"
Jason Curtis Anderson, cofounder of the good government group One City Rising, was unsurprised by Abusada’s board positions.
"We’ve turned a blind eye to terror-linked nonprofits for far too long, allowing them to infiltrate academia, student groups, and the broader nonprofit sector," he said. "So no, I’m not surprised to hear about a professor sitting on the board of an organization with direct ties to terrorism. For these individuals, winning over young minds is part of a long-term strategy to elect more anti-Israel politicians and secure more votes for BDS resolutions."
Before moving to the United States, Abusada taught political science at Al-Azhar University, a Gazan school Hamas used to store weapons. And in 2019, he co-moderated a session during the Masarat Center’s annual conference, which included speakers like senior Hamas official Basem Naim, senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Khalid al-Batsh, and senior PFLP member Khalida Jarrar. He and Jarrar spoke at the same conference in 2014, as did senior Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.
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