The body of a motorist lies on a road following a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, southern Israel October 7, 2023. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Over 17,000 people associated with Yale University and others have signed a petition calling for the removal from the faculty a professor who said Palestinians had “every right” to target Israelis through “armed struggle” as Hamas was invading Israel.

“Prayers for Palestinians. Israeli [sic] is a murderous, genocidal settler state and Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle, solidarity #FreePalestine,” Zareena Grewal — an associate professor of American Studies, Ethnicity, Race & Migration, and Religious Studies at Yale — tweeted on Saturday, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas murdered over 1,000 Israelis during its invasion.

Later Grewal posted, “No government on earth is as genocidal as this settler colonial state,” referring to Israel.

On her X/Twitter page, Grewal describes herself as a “radical Muslim.”

A note, written by Yale student Netanel Crispe, accompanying the petition to oust Grewal from Yale argues that the professor abused freedom of speech to promote Hamas’ violence and terrorism.

“We the undersigned, demand that Yale University immediately terminate the employment of Zareena Grewal,” the petition says. “She has unequivocally proven that she has no right being in her current role or in the field of education if she considers war crimes against civilians to be acts of resistance.”

College campuses have been hotbeds of pro-Hamas support since the start of the terror group’s invasion of Israel. Beyond the deaths, thousands of Israelis also have been injured and dozens were kidnapped and taken as hostages to neighboring Gaza, the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas.

Across the US, dozens of college student groups declared solidarity with Hamas. Several chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at places such as Brown University, the University of Maryland, Tufts University, and the University of California-Los Angeles have described the attacks as a form of “resistance,” demanding that others accept “our right to liberate our homeland by any means necessary.” Additionally, 31 student groups at Harvard University issued a statement blaming Israel for the attack and accusing the Jewish state of operating an “open air prison” in Gaza, despite the Israeli military having withdrawn from the territory in 2005.

Asaf Romirowsky, a Middle East expert and the executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner that the statements issued by anti-Zionist college students  are “morally obscene.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.