Almost three weeks ago, I posted disturbing video of the University of Sydney staff member harrassing Jews on campus. At the time her identity was unknown, but what was known was the University had suspended her pending further investigation.
She has since been identified as “cultural activist and media academic” Rose Nakad.
In the student newspaper Honi Soit two years ago, Ms Nakad said she had worked in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
“She challenges her students to think about the ‘political and historical consciousness of things’,” the newspaper said. “In this type of practice, you use the voice of a high-pitched woman or a gender-nonconforming voice and make it the voice of resistance in your story.”
Ms Nakad obtained a doctorate of philosophy in humanities and the social sciences from the University of Technology Sydney and has a number of published academic papers within the field, according to online listings. In one of her dissertations titled, “InsUrgency in Community Arts”, published in 2016, Ms Nakad suggests that her artwork “needed to actively deconstruct (and denounce) lies of Zionist propaganda”.
She has been pictured with the Sydney Staff for BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) group.
That is not the only group with whom she has been pictured. My friend Daniel believes he found a photo of her on the Samidoun website:
Yeah, that’s her.
According to NGO Monitor:
In February 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense designated Samidoun a terrorist organization and “a subsidiary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).” According to the Ministry, Samidoun was founded by “members of the PFLP in 2012,” and Khaled Barakat, identified by the PFLP as “coordinator” of Samidoun, “is involved with establishing militant cells and motivating terrorist activity in Judea & Samaria and abroad.
In 2023, Germany banned and dissolved Samidoun’s activities. Last year, the US and Canada issued joint statements listing Samidoun as a terrorist entity, and the Dutch Parliament passed a resolution calling on the government to designate Samidoun as a terror organization.
The article containing the above photo concerns Samidoun partnering with the Palestinian Arab Cultural Club in Beddawi refugee camp in Lebanon to support their work to provide a “people’s ambulance” for the people of the camp. So it might be that Nakad was a member of that club, rather than Samidoun. And perhaps there is a chance she did not know their terror-affiliations. But given the anger and hate on display against those Jews at the University of Sydney, it is certainly possible she did.
Whether Nakad’s appearance alongside Samidoun was deliberate or naïve remains to be seen. What is clear is that a University of Sydney academic – already suspended for targeting Jewish students – has now been linked, directly or indirectly, to an organization banned by multiple democratic nations as a terrorist front. And the University of Sydney should take this into account when questioning her.
