RSS
At House hearing, pro-Palestinian protester interrupts Jewish student’s recounting of antisemitic death threats
(JTA) – As Amanda Silberstein testified to the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday about how a student at her university had threatened to kill and rape Jewish students, she was interrupted.
“Free Palestine,” a protester shouted from the audience during Silberstein’s testimony at a hearing on free speech and antisemitism on college campuses. “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.”
Silberstein is an undergraduate at Cornell University, where a student was recently arrested for making antisemitic death threats. Silberstein, a member of the student board at Cornell’s Chabad-Lubavitch movement chapter, had just described how “professors and student organizations have been fueling Jew-hatred and spreading it across campus with disregard or potentially even with deliberate intent to incite.”
It was one of several times when pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted witnesses at the House Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Free Speech on College Campuses.” Throughout the more than three-hour hearing, they called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip; decried a purported silencing of Palestinian students on campus; and protested the recent House censuring of Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who is Palestinian-American, for her use of the pro-Palestinian phrase “From the river to the sea,” which Jewish groups and others have called antisemitic.
This was not the first time in recent days when pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted congressional proceedings: Last week, hecklers also tried to derail U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as he implored Congress to allocate emergency funds for Israel.
But the dissonance of the moment — Silberstein, unlike Blinken, was not using her testimony to advocate for Israel — exemplified the tense atmosphere, as Republicans and Democrats alike openly pondered the question of whether, and how, speech about Israel and Jews should be policed on campus and in the House.
“I happen to believe in the eradication of Hamas. The same freedom of speech that protects my right to advocate that position is at stake here, is it not?” California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock said at one point to Kenneth Marcus, a witness who served in the Trump administration’s Education Department and chairs the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a pro-Israel group that has repeatedly brought legal challenges against universities it says fail to properly discipline anti-Zionist speech.
The hearing was originally intended to focus on the issue of conservative college students allegedly being silenced. But in light of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, it largely centered on antisemitism on campus and beyond as student and faculty rhetoric around Israel has reached a fever pitch.
Silberstein had been invited to testify in part because Cornell recently canceled classes for a day because of the threats against its Jewish students. That incident followed a professor at the Ivy League university publicly praising the Hamas attacks, turning the school into a flashpoint for the rising temperature around antisemitic and anti-Zionist speech on campuses.
Some Republicans, including hardline right-wing Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, suggested that efforts to restrict pro-Palestinian or pro-Hamas speech on campuses were misguided. Another, California Rep. Kevin Kiley, accused university administrators at schools such as Harvard of relying on free speech as an excuse to avoid condemning students with pro-Hamas views.
A Cornell alum, Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt, condemned the school’s administration for not immediately firing the pro-Hamas professor, suggesting administrators would have done so if he had shared anti-trans or anti-Black views instead.
One Democrat, Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson, said the hearing itself was hypocritical in light of the House’s vote the previous night to censure Tlaib over speech related to Israel.
“It’s ironic that we’re holding this hearing today about censorship and speech on campus, but last night, MAGA Republicans and others censured the only Palestinian voice in the House of Representatives because they didn’t like what she had to say,” Johnson said. “She didn’t threaten anybody. She did not advocate for violence. She stated a view, as happens on college campuses.” (Nearly two dozen Democrats also voted to censure Tlaib, saying that they believed her use of the phrase “From the river to the sea” implied threats of violence toward Jews and Israel.)
McClintock grilled Silberstein and Marcus about whether certain Israel-related speech should be protected on campus. He asked Marcus if “the mere repetition” of the phrase “From the river to the sea” should be “banned or punished.”
In his answer, Marcus referred to an executive order by President Donald Trump that included some anti-Israel speech under the Education Department’s civil rights protections. Speech, he said, could be used “as an indicator of the nature of conduct.” He added that, if a violent antisemitic action followed anti-Israel speech, the prior speech could be policed as an example of predicting that conduct.
“Conduct often follows words,” Silberstein said in agreement, linking chants at Cornell of “From the river to the sea” to antisemitic threats to students. “Speech advocating for violence should not be tolerated on a college campus,” she added.
“Well, what about the eradication of Hamas?” McClintock asked her. Silberstein responded that Hamas is “a recognized terror organization,” which led McClintock to ask, “So it depends upon your viewpoint, is that what you’re saying?”
Gaetz, too, pushed Marcus on whether punishing students who voice support for Hamas amounts to the suppression of legitimate speech. He suggested that those who have called for the suppression of bigoted speech are being inconsistent.
“I am reminded of the great philosopher Austin Powers, who said, ‘There’s only two things I can’t stand: people who are intolerant of other people, and the Dutch,’” Gaetz said, referencing the series of spy comedies starring Mike Myers. “And a similar tension seems to be on display today.”
Silberstein and Marcus were joined on the witness panel by Stacy Burdett, a senior executive at the Anti-Defamation League; two non-Jewish conservative campus activists; and Pamela Nadell, the director of American University’s Jewish studies program and the author of a forthcoming book on antisemitism in America.
Nadell sparred with Gaetz over whether criticisms of “globalists” or progressive Jewish philanthropist George Soros, both frequent targets of Gaetz’s ire, should always be seen as antisemitic.
Elsewhere during the hearing, Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, a Republican, refused to respond to California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s queries about why his committee left up a tweet reading “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” for months after the rapper Kanye West embarked on a stream of antisemitic comments.
—
The post At House hearing, pro-Palestinian protester interrupts Jewish student’s recounting of antisemitic death threats appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
IDF Soldier Wounded During Hamas Oct. 7 Massacre Succumbs to Wounds
Israeli soldiers respond to an alert of an apparent security incident, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News — The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday that Sergeant First Class Yona Betzalel Brief, who was wounded fighting Gazan terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, had died after succumbing to his wounds.
The 23-year-old combat medic from from Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut was critically wounded and spent more than a year in hospital care.
The post IDF Soldier Wounded During Hamas Oct. 7 Massacre Succumbs to Wounds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Clark University Adopting BDS Measures Pushed by Student Government
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas demonstrator uses a megaphone during a demonstration held on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
The student government of Clark University in Massachusetts is enacting a series of policies based on the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination — despite their failing to receive the support of the majority of the student body.
According The Scarlet, the university’s official campus newspaper, the Undergraduate Student Council (CUSC) will enforce student clubs’ “compliance” with BDS, which includes coercing them, under the threat of defunding, into purchasing goods exclusively from vendors the BDS movement deems acceptable. This effort reportedly has the support of the university’s office for Student Leadership and Programming, as it has supplied student clubs with “tax-exempt vouchers” for making purchases while CUSC orders their leaders to “regularly check the BDS Movement’s website to ensure compliance.”
So far, The Scarlet added, only the university’s food vendor, Harvest Table, has resisted CUSC’s edicts, arguing that it has no “political stance” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or any issue. However, it was still forced to go along, The Scarlet said, having agreed to “buying from local vendors and providers to better comply with the movement.” It is not yet clear how the BDS policies have affected the university’s kosher vendors.
BDS proponents in the CUSC await the endorsement of the university administration, but it has not come, The Scarlet reported.
The university’s president, David Fithian, as well as its dean, Kamala Keim, reportedly held a meeting with members of the pro-BDS party during the summer to “begin charting a path toward divestment,” but they have not corresponded with them since. Additionally, Clark University’s board of trustees has declined a formal request for a discussion on BDS — which aims to destroy Israel, the world’s lone Jewish state, by crumbling its national security, alliances, and economy.
The Algemeiner has reached out to Clark University for comment for this story.
Several CUSC Equity and Inclusion Representatives — Molly Joe, Jordan Alexandre, Melissa Bento, and Stephen Gibbons — told The Scarlet in a statement which alluded to conspiracies of Jewish influence and control that their efforts, despite achieving some successes, have been stymied by hidden forces.
“We as representatives have limited power so long as those above us are unwilling to change,” the group said in a statement to the paper. “We, like you, are only students navigating an opaque and bureaucratic system that is designed to protect certain interests. Our goal will only be achieved if enough of us are unwavering and persistent.”
CUSC’s actions were, on paper, mandated by a spring referendum which asked students if they want the university to divest from Israeli companies and those that do business with it and apply BDS to campus dining options. Eighteen percent of the student body, or 772 students, ultimately “participated” in voting, a phrase CUSC has stressed, and of them an average of 658.6 students, just 15.8 percent of students, voted to approve those items. Even fewer students voted to approve two more on mandating clubs to “adhere” to BDS and initiating a boycott of Amazon. However, in its public statements, CUSC has manipulated student enrollment data to describe BDS as the expressing the will of the students, intentionally excluding from its count the number of graduate students who were enrolled at the university during the 2023-2024 academic year.
For months, CUSC has employed double-speaking in discussing the student body’s reaction to the BDS movement, saying at once that enthusiasm for it is “overwhelming” while also acknowledging that the referendum saw “low voter turnout” and “low engagement numbers.” It has never addressed its disenfranchising 84.2 percent of the student body, which includes the Jewish students who will be affected by the imposition of a political movement which is widely denounced for being antisemitic.
Clark University Hillel, a chapter of the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, has already denounced CUSC’s polices.
“While it may not have been the intention of CUSC and the student body, there are serious consequences of adopting this referendum,” the group said in April, following the vote. “BDS referenda claim to be about changing university policy, but they ultimately discourage dialogue, normalize extreme hatred of Israel, and empower the targeting of Israeli students and those for whom Israel holds cultural or personal significance.”
It continued, “We will not allow Israeli-affiliated products to be banned from the Kosher Kitchen and we will not tolerate our funding being bound to BDS Movement principles. We will do everything in our power to ensure that discriminatory practices are not implemented on our campus.”
The BDS movement is threatening to take hold at other universities.
Yale University will soon hold a student referendum on the issue of divestment from Israel, an initiative spearheaded by a pro-Hamas group which calls itself the Sumud Coalition (SC). According to the Yale Daily News, students will consider “three questions” which ask whether Yale should “disclose” its investments in armaments manufacturers — “including those arming Israel” — divest from such holdings, and spend money on “Palestinian scholars and students.”
The paper added that a path for the referendum was cleared when a petition SC circulated amassed some 1,500 signatures, or “roughly 22 percent of the student body.” Despite that over three-fourths of Yale students did not sign the petition, its proponents — including a representative of the Yale College Council (YCC), an ostensibly neutral body — have taken to describing it as “so popular.” The final vote could wind up being even less representative of the opinion of the student body, as it only has to be approved by “50 percent or more of respondents” who constitute “at least one third of the student body.” Should that happen, Sumud Coalition will — as has happened at Clark University — claim victory and forward the results to Yale University president Maurie McInnis, with a note claiming that SC has received a mandate from the people.
Beyond ideological concerns, the BDS movement could wreak havoc on the financial health of the schools which adopt it. JLens, a Jewish investor network that is part of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), published a report in September showing that colleges and universities will lose tens of billions of dollars collectively from their endowments if they capitulate to its demands.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Clark University Adopting BDS Measures Pushed by Student Government first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Cautions Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire Close but Not Finalized as Truce Announcement Expected Imminently
Israeli tanks are being moved, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in the Golan Heights, Sept. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
A ceasefire to halt fighting between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah is close, but an agreement has not yet been achieved, according to the US State Department.
“We don’t believe we have an agreement yet. We believe we’re close to an agreement. We believe that we have narrowed the gaps significantly, but there are still steps that we need to see taken. We hope that we can get there,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a press briefing on Monday.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby expressed similar sentiments.
“We’re close,” he told reporters, but “nothing is done until everything is done.”
Miller and Kirby’s comments came not long after a senior Israeli official told Reuters that Israel’s cabinet would meet on Tuesday to approve a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist group that wields significant political and military influence across Lebanon.
Reuters also reported on Monday that US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron are expected to announce a ceasefire in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel within 36 hours, citing four senior Lebanese sources. The US and France have been seeking to broker a truce for months.
The news cite Axios reported separately that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, citing a senior US official.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has declined to comment on reports that both countries had agreed to the text of a ceasefire agreement.
Hezbollah has been launching barrages of rockets, missiles, and drones at northern Israel from neighboring Lebanon almost daily since Oct. 8 of last year, one day after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of the Jewish state from Gaza to the south.
The relentless attacks from Hezbollah have forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes in the north, and Israel has pledged to ensure their safe return.
Israel had been exchanging fire with Hezbollah but drastically escalated its military operations over the last two months, seeking to push the terrorist army further away from the border with Lebanon.
Diplomacy has largely focused on restoring and enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for Hezbollah’s withdrawal to north of the Litani River (around 30 km, or 19 miles, from the Israeli border) and the disarmament of its forces in southern Lebanon, with the buffer zone under the jurisdiction of the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces.
Israel has insisted on retaining the right to conduct military operations against Hezbollah if the group attempts to rearm or rebuild its infrastructure — a stipulation that has met resistance from Lebanese officials, who argue it infringes on national sovereignty. Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon has said Israel would maintain an ability to strike southern Lebanon under any agreement.
Retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi — who leads the Israel Defense and Security Forum, a group of former military commanders — recently warned The Algemeiner that any deal must include Iran’s “full exit” from Lebanon and Israel’s freedom of action to prevent any future build up of Hezbollah. Otherwise, he added, the agreement would be “devastating” for the Jewish state.
Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker, Elias Bou Saab, told Reuters the proposal under discussion would entail an Israeli military withdrawal from south Lebanon and regular Lebanese army troops deploying in the border region, long a Hezbollah stronghold, within 60 days.
He added that a sticking point over who would monitor compliance with the ceasefire was resolved in the last day, with an agreement to set up a five-country committee, including France and chaired by the United States.
Nabih Berri, the Hezbollah-aligned Lebanese parliamentary speaker, has been leading the Iran-backed terrorist group’s mediation efforts.
Miller told reporters that US officials are pushing hard for a ceasefire but the final steps to reaching a deal can be the toughest.
“Oftentimes the very last stages of an agreement are the most difficult because the hardest issues are left to the end,” Miller said. “We are pushing as hard as we can.”
The post US Cautions Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire Close but Not Finalized as Truce Announcement Expected Imminently first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login