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‘Heinous’: Bloodstained Palms Protest at Top Berlin University Over Gaza War Fuels Antisemitism Fears
Students at Berlin’s UdK University display palms stained with red to symbolize blood during a Nov. 13 pro-Hamas protest. Photo: Screenshot
A group of pro-Hamas students at one of Germany’s top universities have staged several protests throughout the month of November, turning their campus into an ideological battlefield that has left Jewish students feeling under siege.
On Wednesday, around 30 students at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) — widely recognized as one of the leading art colleges in the world — called a “Strike for Palestine.” After the university administration prevented the group from assembling outside the main entrance, stating that the protest had not been properly registered, the students moved to the university’s cafe where they issued a call for a boycott of Israeli universities.
A statement from the group shared with the Berliner Zeitung attacked the UdK for its alleged “complicity with this genocide” — a reference to Israel’s military campaign against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. They demanded the severing of the UdK’s ties with two Israeli institutions, the Bezalel College of Art and Shenkar College, “in view of their active support for the Israeli occupation forces (also known as IDF).” The statement also called on UdK faculty to cancel their lectures as a gesture of solidarity with the protesters. Posts on Instagram encouraging attendance at the protest denounced Israel for “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.”
Wednesday’s action came a fortnight after around 100 students at the university gathered for another pro-Hamas protest. Carrying banners declaring “Stop Genocide,” “End Colonialism,” and “Free Palestine,” the students sat around a table with their palms facing outwards painted in red ink to symbolize blood.
While the gesture was apparently intended to condemn the German government’s support for Israel’s defensive military operation, several observers noted a striking similarity with the notorious lynching of two IDF reservists, Vadim Nurzhitz and Yosef Avrahami, in the West Bank city of Ramallah in Oct. 2000.
“Every Jewish student, actually anyone who has studied Israel’s recent history, will interpret the red hands differently: In October 2000, near Ramallah, two Israeli reservists were arrested for making a wrong turn and detained in a police station,” wrote Claudius Seidl of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a lengthy article on the Nov. 13 protest at UdK. In an outburst of intense violence reminiscent of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, Nurzhitz and Avrahami were brutally murdered and their bodies mutilated by a Palestinian mob while both were in the custody of Palestinian Authority (PA) police officers.
One of their assailants, Aziz Salha, appeared at the window of the police station following the murder of the two Israelis, delightedly displaying his blood-stained palms to the appreciative crowd gathered outside. A photograph of Salha’s gesture quickly went viral and has kept its place as one of the most unsettling images captured during the conflict between Israel and Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Aziz Salha displays his bloodstained palms following the Oct. 2000 murder of two IDF reservists in Ramallah. Photo: Wikipedia
While the Nov. 13 protest was underway, Norbert Palz — the president of the UdK who had earlier issued a statement condemning the Hamas pogrom — attempted to reason with the group but was shouted down. According to Seidl’s account of the protest, the barracking of Palz was orchestrated by Tirdad Zolghadr, an Iranian-born arts curator who has been a visiting professor at UdK since 2022.
Following that protest, Jewish students at UdK began reporting incidents of harassment. A music student from Israel was spat on by an Arab man in the street outside the university after he was overheard speaking in Hebrew; the student later said that he was advised by the police officers to whom he reported the incident not to speak Hebrew “too loudly.” Meanwhile, in another incident, a female Israeli student was reduced to tears after pro-Hamas students told her she was to blame for the Oct. 7 atrocities as she had served in the Israeli army.
Neither student has ventured to the UdK campus since these incidents. Josefine von der Ahé, an art student at UdK, meanwhile told Seidl that she attributed “the receptivity of so many students to the stories of ‘evil Israel’ to profound ignorance of the State of Israel and its history.”
Several Berlin politicians condemned the protests at UdK. Adrian Grasse, who sits in the Berlin parliament for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told the BZ news outlet that the “heinous events at the UdK are part of a development at the Berlin universities that I am following with increasing concern. With aggressiveness, hatred, defamation, and even the demand for the destruction of Israel, such actions make no contribution to peace and mutual understanding.”
Laura Neugebauer, an MP from the left-wing Green Party, similarly condemned the protests.
“Berlin universities must be places where Israelis and Jews can study safely and freely,” she said. “There can be no ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ here.”
The UdK’s origins stretch back to the foundation of the Prussian Academy of Arts in the latter part of the 17th century. The present school was formed through the merger of a music college and a fine arts college in 1975.
The post ‘Heinous’: Bloodstained Palms Protest at Top Berlin University Over Gaza War Fuels Antisemitism Fears first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syrian Minister Met Israel’s Dermer for Talks on Regional Stability, Sources Say
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani speaks during a press conference in Moscow, Russia, July 31, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/Pool
Syria’s foreign minister met Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer in Paris on Tuesday to discuss security arrangements in southern Syria, two Syrian sources familiar with the meeting said.
Syrian and Israeli officials have been conducting US-mediated talks on de-escalating conflict in southern Syria. A previous round of these talks was held in Paris in late July but ended without a final accord.
Syrian state news agency SANA said Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani met with an Israeli delegation on Tuesday, but did not mention Dermer.
The agency said the discussions focused on de-escalation, non-interference in Syrian domestic affairs, and reactivating a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a UN buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
There was no public comment by the Israeli government on the meeting.
A Syrian security source familiar with the meeting said Shibani and Dermer met for several hours, along with their respective teams.
The source said Shibani emphasized that Israel’s ongoing interventions in southern Syria, including incursions into the provinces of Quneitra and Deraa, risked further destabilizing the region.
The two sides agreed to continue talks focused on security coordination in southern Syria, the source said.
Another Syrian source familiar with the meeting said Israel had again raised establishing a “humanitarian corridor” to send aid directly into Sweida, a Druze-majority province in Syria’s south that saw days of sectarian violence last month.
Syria had previously rejected this idea but Israel raised it again, the source said.
Hundreds of people were reported killed in the clashes in Sweida province between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and government forces. Israel intervened with airstrikes to prevent what it said was mass killings of Druze by government forces.
The clashes last month underlined the challenges interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa faces in stabilizing Syria and maintaining centralized rule, despite warming ties with the US and his administration’s evolving security contacts with Israel.
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Iran Says Moment for ‘Effective’ Nuclear Talks With US Not Reached
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks during a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2025. Photo: Hamid Forootan/Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran believes the moment for “effective” nuclear talks with the United States has not yet arrived, its top diplomat said on Wednesday, adding that Tehran would not completely cut off cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.
Tehran suspended negotiations with Washington, which were aimed at curbing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions, after the US and Israel struck its nuclear sites in June.
Since then, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been unable to access Iran‘s nuclear installations, despite IAEA chief Rafael Grossi stating that inspections remain essential.
“In my opinion, we have not yet reached the point of maturity where effective negotiations with the US can take place,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in remarks carried by state media.
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned they will not hesitate to hit Iran again if it resumes enrichment of uranium, a possible pathway to developing nuclear weapons.
Iran, which denies any intention to develop nuclear weapons, vowed a forceful response to the threats.
European powers have threatened to activate United Nations sanctions on Iran under a “snapback” mechanism if Iran does not return to the negotiation table.
Araqchi said a meeting with Europeans could take place in the coming days, though “a basis for negotiations” has not been reached.
COOPERATION WITH IAEA
Last month, Iran‘s parliament passed legislation suspending cooperation with the IAEA and stipulating that any future inspections will need a green light from Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council.
The legislation came after Tehran accused the IAEA of effectively paving the way for the Israel-US attacks with a report on May 31 that led the agency’s Board of Governors to declare Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
Araqchi said in his remarks on Wednesday that Tehran was not cutting off all cooperation with the IAEA.
“The return of inspectors will be possible based on the parliament’s law, that is, with the approval of the Supreme National Security Council … So, it is not that we say we absolutely cut cooperation with the agency.”
Araqchi spoke two days after a foreign ministry spokesperson said Iran would continue talks with the IAEA and they would probably have another round of negotiations in the coming days.
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Australia’s Albanese Downplays Netanyahu’s Criticism as Ties Sour
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday played down Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu’s pointed condemnation of his decision to recognize a Palestinian state, saying he treated the leaders of other countries with respect.
“I don’t take these things personally; I engage with people diplomatically. He has had similar things to say about other leaders,” Albanese said during a media briefing.
Netanyahu’s personal attack on Albanese, describing him as a “weak politician,” has further strained relations between the two countries.
Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke told national broadcaster ABC earlier on Wednesday that strength was “not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry.”
“Strength is much better measured by exactly what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has done, which is when there’s a decision that we know Israel won’t like, he goes straight to Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Ties have soured since Australia decided last week to conditionally recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September.
“History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews,” Netanyahu said in a post on X on Tuesday.
Albanese told reporters that he had informed Netanyahu about Australia’s decision to support a Palestinian state before his center-left government formally announced the plan.
“At that time, I gave Prime Minister Netanyahu a clear indication of my view and Australia’s view going forward but also a clear indication of the direction in which we were headed,” Albanese said.
“I gave him the opportunity to outline what political solution there was and gave him that opportunity.”
Israel this week revoked the visas of Australian diplomats to the Palestinian Authority after Albanese‘s Labor government canceled the visa of an Israeli lawmaker over remarks the Australian government considered controversial and inflammatory.
Israel has been facing increasing international pressure over its military offensive in the Gaza Strip due to the humanitarian situation in the enclave.
The offensive began nearly two years ago after Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.