Steven Salaita (born 1975) is an American scholar, author and public speaker formerly holding the Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut. He became the center of a controversy when University of Illinois withdrew its conditional offer of employment as a professor of American Indian Studies[1][2][3] after attention was drawn to his tweets on the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. The tweets were seen as criticism of the Israeli government[1][4] by some, and as expressions of antisemitism by others.[5]