What is your role in genocide? For one professor at GW, the answer is clear: He’s an architect of it. While GW refuses to divest from the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, it also employs and platforms a designer of it despite student protests calling for his removal. This means an active hand in the expulsion and slaughter of the Palestinian people, and that is simply unacceptable.
Joseph Pelzman is a professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs. In July 2024, he published a paper titled “An Economic Plan for Gaza: A BOT Approach,” which he presented in Jerusalem through his Center of Excellence for the Economic Study of the Middle East and North Africa. The highly problematic plan for the Gaza Strip seems to have inspired President Donald Trump who, six months later, announced the United States would convert Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In less than 50 pages, the GW-tenured economist advocates for an overt ethnic cleansing campaign. Pelzman blames U.S. pressure for holding back, restraining Israel from “resorting to carpet-bombing and eliminating the danger from Gaza once and for all” and condemns the “Israeli decision to surrender to US pressure” as a “complete strategic mistake.”
The GW-tenured professor wastes no time in advocating for the indiscriminate bombing of a region with a population density similar to London. Pelzman desperately attempts to justify his morally depraved stance by claiming that the “overwhelming majority of Palestinian civilians” are “seeking the genocide of the Jews.”
Pelzman’s article demonstrates the harmful and violent Zionist views that GW has thus far refused to condemn. If the University wants students to believe that their prosecution of speech has any legitimacy, it starts by officials reconsidering Pelzman’s fit to be in an international affairs classroom when he holds such blatantly discriminatory views. Until then, students will continue to advocate for his removal through petitions and protest.
Pelzman makes a habit of institutionalizing his prejudice and treating these biases as academic. His textbook, “The Economics of the Middle East and North Africa,” demonstrates his anti-Arab bias and contribution to knowledge production, which propagates human rights abuse. Throughout the textbook, Pelzman repeatedly distinguishes what he refers to as the “Arab MENA” from Israel, Cyprus and Turkey, to portray the former as irredeemably uncivilized. Allowing racial bias to form the basis of a supposedly objective textbook highlights the institutional nature of his harmful rhetoric.
In fellow economist Oden Ranaan’s review Pelzman’s textbook, he says it is “tainted by an unmistakable Orientalist bias, coupled with a selectively uncritical approach and a strong bias towards Israel.” These biases are brought into GW syllabi, something the University must at least acknowledge. Ranaan continues that the textbook is full of stereotypes, characterizing the supposed ‘Arab MENA’ as states that are, “inherently backward, intolerant, undemocratic, irrational and static, with its members all sponsoring terrorism.” This nauseating, broken-record interpretation of the world taken directly from the War on Terror era exists solely to support Western bombing and expansion in the Middle East and North Africa.
It is downright horrifying to know that this textbook is actively used in GW courses. In fact, online student critiques point out that Pelzman relies solely on his biased textbook to teach on the subject. Going as far back as 2004, students have noted his lack of compassion and biased teaching, even allegedly “advocating for slave labor,” according to a review from over three years ago.
The University consistently pretends their repression is content-neutral in banning pro-Palestinian organizations, yet their commitment to anti-Arab racism is apparent throughout its courses and faculty. GW must remove Pelzman from the classroom until it is clear his hate is not being forced onto students in an educational setting.
This environment is explicitly unsafe for the Middle Eastern and North African students who are required to take his class for their concentration. GW’s loyalty to Pelzman allows him to instill racist teachings in his students in an attempt to create the new faces of Western empire. It is an empire which relies on the dehumanization of Arab people to expand, as evidenced by the War on Terror, and Pelzman’s unabashed desire to transfer ownership from Palestinians to foreign investors.
Pelzman appeared on the “America Baby!” podcast earlier this year to spout more plans for perpetuating the genocide in Gaza. He emphasizes the need for the Israeli Defense Force to use biometric identification on Palestinian civilians, comparing his vision to the likes of surveillance used by China in Uyghur concentration camps. He goes on to suggest that a 50-year lease would be to “reeducate” the Palestinians. Every word is alarmingly similar to genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns in the past and present. This is no surprise considering he suggests Israel and the United States recycle Gazan infrastructure to “restart from scratch,” in order to give ownership of the Gaza Strip to foreign investors — something difficult to do when the indigenous population is still alive. In peddling these ideas, Pelzman has made a career in manufacturing consent for the continuation of the genocide in Gaza.
GW has given him every resource to do so. While his proposal calling a lack of carpet-bombing a mistake may fall under the “passionate and principled argument” that University President Ellen Granberg accepts regarding the Middle East, it seems students opposing genocide are not. Entire populations are decimated by indiscriminate bombing campaigns that only gain their support from the American people through racist knowledge production like Pelzman’s textbooks. When students speak up against it, they are immediately villainized by administration, with grassroots petitions and community calls as our only weapon to defend against GW’s institutional anti-Palestinian stance.
While GW condemns student protesters, it stands firm in its protection of Israel’s right to genocide. It is unacceptable that Pelzman’s harmful characterizations of the Arab world are institutionalized in syllabi at this University. And yet, it is unsurprising that a University that refuses to divest from an apartheid state would benefit from keeping a professor like Pelzman on its payroll. Pelzman should not have an educational platform to spew his hateful rhetoric, and by signing this petition, you can join the call for GW to take action against him.
Manny Blanco is a senior majoring in geography.