Israeli Professor Ami Pedahzur at University of Texas. Photo: screenshot

An Israeli professor at the University of Texas at Austin confronted a group of anti-Israel activists hellbent on disrupting a lecture by a visiting Stanford professor about Israeli military culture, and is now facing student calls for punishment.

A petition has been launched to defend UT Professor Ami Pedahzur, who can be seen in video footage posted by the local Palestine Solidarity Committee chapter on YouTube confronting the students, imploring them at one point to “sit down and learn.” As the confrontation escalates, Pedahzur can be seen standing so close to one of the activists that he is held back by three other students.

The activists then begin chanting, “Free, free Palestine” and “Long live the Intifada.”

The activists claimed to have lodged a “civil rights” complaint with UT. They claimed their “disruption was met with physical intimidation by a graduate student and UT Professor Ami Pedahzur.”

According to the Washington Post, local police found that none of the actions “rose to the level of a criminal defense.”

Below is video of the incident, posted by PSC.

The petition defending Pedahzur states:

After storming into Israeli Professor Ami Pedahzur’s classroom to call for the destruction of Israel, members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) began shouting “Long live intifada” – a call for violence against Israelis.

Now, PSC members want Dr. Pedahzur fired because they felt “intimidated” when he stared back at them. Worse, they’re filing a civil rights complaint because Dr. Pedahzur responded with an open letter to the campus community, revealing the group’s leader uses the screen-name “Georges Abdallah,” a Lebanese assassin who murdered an American soldier.