“Zionist Brain” Professor at University of California Merced will not teach upcoming semester

A professor at the University of California Merced will not be teaching in the upcoming semester after he was revealed to have allegedly posted antisemitic tweets.

Prof. Abbas Ghassemi, who teaches engineering at UC Merced, will not be teaching in the upcoming Spring semester, according to reports.

Prof. Ghassemi has deleted a Twitter account, dating from July 2019, from which he allegedly tweeted a drawing labelled “the Zionist Brain” that divided an image of a brain into sections that used antisemitic tropes such as avarice and “world domination”. Other areas of the brain were labelled “land usurpation” and “compulsive-lying”. The same image has been seen on a website dedicated to peddling antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Other tweets included wording such as “Surprise, surprise!! The entire system in America is controlled by [the] Zionist. Change of president is just a surface polish, change of veneer. Same trash different pile!” and “the Zionists and IsraHell interest have embedded themselves in every component of the American system, media, banking, policy, commerce…just a veneer of serving US interest and population – everyone pretends that is the case.”

When the tweets were first revealed, a spokesperson for UC Merced said:“As the now-inactive Twitter account made clear, these were the opinions of a private individual.” But since then it is understood that an investigation has been opened and is still ongoing while Prof. Ghassemi is apparently suspended.

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