An academic who claims she was forced out of her teaching job at a British university after she praised terrorists as “heroes” is raising money to sue the institution.

Media studies specialist Shahd Abusalama claims Sheffield Hallam University breached her employment rights after it suspended her and launched an investigation amid allegations of antisemitism.

Dr Abusalama claims she was hounded out for being a Palestinian. The investigation followed a series of controversial comments by the academic including her public backing of Leila Khaled, who was involved in the TWA Flight 840 hijacking in 1969 and the attempted takeover of El Al Flight 219 in 1970.

The academic praised Khaled as “a symbol of the Palestinian revolution in her glory”. In a Twitter conversation in 2012, Ms Abusalama wrote: “What a shame! Somehow the Zionist lobbies control all this for their interest. They buy presidents/slaves.”

She also described a Palestinian jailed for transporting suicide bombers as “legendary”. Dr Abusalama said she left her job at the end of last year despite the university dropping its inquiry and offering her an improved employment contract.

Shahd Abusalama 3

Shahd Abusalama celebrating her employment by Sheffield Hallam

The Gaza-born academic said: “I’m fighting so hard … to clear myself of these unfounded accusations of antisemitism that were mounted against a Palestinian.”

Claiming that she had raised £13,000 to bring a case against the university, she added the investigation into her conduct was “a very convenient political way the Zionists are deliberately and systematically using to silence Palestinian voices and every voice that speaks out against Israeli injustice and systematic domination of the Palestinians”.

Speaking on YouTube, she said: “The investigation was incredibly racist and incredibly retraumatising to me… I was later cleared, but the university had shown that I was not welcome, and I agreed to leave.”

A new report on campus antisemitism by the CST, published this week, highlights that her allegation the complaints were the product of a powerful and secretive Zionist conspiracy were without evidence.

It said these “echoed a familiar trope that assumes Jewish people who complain about antisemitism are doing so dishonestly and in bad faith”. Dr Abusalama and Sheffield Hallam were contacted for comment.