J. the Jewish News of Northern California via JTA – A professor teaching at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of California at Merced maintained a Twitter account of the many anti-Semitic posts. The content has been described by the Anti-Defamation League as “repulsive” and propagating “anti-Semitic stereotypes”.
Abbas Ghassemi’s account, which opened in July 2019, was deactivated after media J. sent him a request for comment on December 18. But the newspaper was able to create an archive and take screenshots of some of its tweets before the shutdown. He had posted and retweeted over 2,200 times.
Screenshot of a tweet from Professor Abbas Ghassemi’s account.
–
June 14, Ghassemi tweeted: “… reality is cruel !!!!!! With the diagram of a “Zionist brain” with labels such as “frontal money lobe”, “Holocaust memory center” and “world domination lobe”. This same image is also on the website Jew World Order, which peddles anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Receive our daily edition for free by email so you don’t miss out on the best of news Free registration!
On December 8, in response to Joe Biden’s victory in the US election, Ghassemi retweeted another Twitter user’s post with the comment: “Surprise, surprise !! The whole system in America is controlled by [ce] Zionist. The change of president is only a surface varnish, a change of window. Same garbage, different pile! “
Many of Ghassemi’s tweets used “IsraHell” instead of “Israel”.
On December 13, he retweeted a post adding the following comment: “Zionists and Israel’s interests have integrated themselves into all parts of the American system, media, banking, politics, commerce… by pretending to be of service to the interests and the people of America – everyone claims it is. “
Ghassemi tweeted similar articles about alleged “Zionist” and Israeli control over parts of the United States on eight other occasions between October and December.
Ghassemi did not respond to J.’s questions emailed through the university and direct message via Twitter.
Although the biography section of his Twitter profile reads “Professor of Engineering at the University of California,” a spokesperson for the University of California at Merced said, “As the now inactive Twitter account makes clear, the opinions published are those of an individual, and not those of the institution. “
Screenshot of Abbas Ghassemi’s Twitter account. (Via JTA)
–
Jim Chiavelli, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the School’s External Relations Office, added: “Under the principles of our community, UC Merced is committed to ‘upholding the right to freedom of expression and fostering a culture. dialogue, understanding and courtesy in all interactions’. “
Chiavelli did not say whether the university plans to take action against Ghassemi.
Seth Brysk, ADL’s Central Pacific region director, said Ghassemi’s posts, retweets and comments on Twitter “provided perfect examples of propaganda vulgar and anti-Semitic, false claims about Jewish power and control, attempts to dehumanize and demonize the Jewish people, negate Jewish national sentiment and the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, trivialize the Holocaust, innuendo about Jewish greed, etc ”.
“It’s deeply offensive,” added Brysk.
Brysk said Ghassemi’s tweets “appeared to violate Twitter platform regulations due to group hatred.” Although the policy of Twitter on hateful behavior does not explicitly mention anti-Semitism, the company “forbids targeting individuals or groups with content intended to instill fear or spread frightening stereotypes against a protected category”.
Founded in 2005, the University of California at Merced is located just over 200 kilometers southeast of San Francisco, midway between Modesto and Fresno. In the 2019-2020 academic year, the total number of undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students was 8,847.
According to the link to his biography on the site de Merced, Ghassemi received his master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1979, then began graduate studies at New Mexico State University in 1988. According to his profile LinkedIn, he worked and taught at New Mexico State University until 2015 and joined Merced in February 2018.
Until the beginning of last year, he was editor-in-chief ofEnergy Sources, a specialist journal devoted to energy and the environment.
–
