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The Fear Trap: What’s Missing From the Current Campus Antisemitism Debate
Pro-Hamas students rallying at Harvard University. Photo: Reuters/Brian Snyder
An underappreciated but crucial dimension of the campus antisemitism wars is how much of the discussion turns on the idea of fear by Jewish students. It’s crowding out some other arguments that might be more successful.
“Jewish students, faculty, and others are fearful for their own safety,” William Ackman wrote in his Dec. 10 letter to members of the Harvard governing boards.
“Students were terrified by this protest and the violence it endorsed,” said a Nov. 30 statement by Harvard Hillel in response to an anti-Zionist demonstration in which activists stormed the campus calling for the destruction of Israel.
US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) spoke about the issue recently on Fox News, referring to a recent hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce where US college presidents testified on campus antisemitism: “What was probably the most tragic aspect of the hearing to me was there were a number of Jewish students from those schools in the audience sitting behind them, and to watch, just the fear, as they’re listening to the presidents of these universities fail to answer a basic question of moral clarity, it was abysmal.”
The president of Yeshiva University, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, recently pointed to a 1990 law, the Clery Act, describing the hate crime of “intimidation” — literally, to render someone timid, or easily frightened. Berman wrote that “the definition of intimidation for Clery purposes is the one used by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program: ‘placing another person in reasonable fear of bodily harm through the use of threatening words and/or other conduct,’ even ‘without displaying a weapon or subjecting the victim to actual physical attack.’” There’s that “fear” word again.
Fear is a totally reasonable human reaction to recent events. When significant numbers of students and faculty react to the rape, beheading, and burning of Israelis on Oct. 7 by blaming Israel, by cheering on the attacks, or even by physically attacking Jewish people and property in America, “fear” from the minority of visibly Jewish or pro-Israel students and faculty makes sense, alongside horror, anger, and disgust.
This is the case even though the students and faculty, at a baseline level, are not cowards. I know some of the Jewish students at Harvard and at other universities; they are brave. Many universities, Harvard in particular, are indeed swamps of antisemitism. As a legal matter, Berman is doubtless correct about the legal definition of intimidation as something that elicits, as a reasonable reaction, the emotion of fear.
Yet emotion is a key word. That’s a practical problem on several levels.
From the point of view of educating future Jewish leaders or even just getting through the days ahead, the community needs to be cultivating the heroic virtues of courage and strength, not fixating on fear.
From a religious point of view, the Bible and the liturgy are full of messages from God and Moses to fear God, but not to fear people or enemies, because God is with the Jewish people. The emphasis is on the individual overcoming fear by placing faith in God, not on summoning university administrators to remove the fear-inspiring conditions.
Not that such demands on the administrators shouldn’t be made. But there are a range of ways to frame language around fear. On one end, there is, “I’m afraid that if one of these extreme anti-Israel students gets carried away, this could end in violence.” Or, “I’m afraid that if you don’t do something about these radical, mediocre professors, they are going to indoctrinate another generation of anti-Israel extremists, and ruin this university’s reputation.” On the other end, there is, “I’m afraid to go to class because I might be in the same lecture hall with the student I saw last week enthusiastically chanting ‘intifada, intifada, globalize the intifida.’”
From a legal point of view, the “reasonable fear” standard is subjective. As the college presidents told Congress last week, it depends on the context. What may make someone afraid after Oct. 7 might differ from what might have made someone afraid before Oct. 7. People may have different levels of fear response depending on their physical size, their level of self-defense training, their understanding of Arabic, whether they are alone or with a group, in daylight or in the dark, in the presence of police or without police, or even whether they themselves are visibly Jewish or not. As a result, it’s an imprecise yardstick to use to police campus speech. What about the Arab student who feels “reasonable fear” because of the presence of a Jewish student in an Israel Defense Forces t-shirt? The more fearful students claim to be, the more power they have to shut down the speech of the other side.
My own view of it is that for positive change to come on American college campuses, Jewish students and parents and their allies will need to accompany the “fear” argument with an array of other arguments.
There’s an educational argument that reasoned conversation rather than shouting slogans is more conducive to teaching and learning, and that narrow ideological conformity is educationally stifling of independent thought.
There’s a moral argument that Israel is superior to the Hamas terrorist organization, that antisemitic discrimination is wrong, and that part of a university’s job is teaching students to make such moral distinctions.
There’s an excellence versus mediocrity argument that the faculty leading the charge against Israel are mediocre and that adopting their policy recommendations, such as boycotting Israel, will damage the missions of teaching and research.
Relatedly, there’s a competition argument, that if a particular institution fails to navigate these issues successfully, then talent and resources will flee to competing institutions that do a better job.
If those other arguments fail to prevail, then fear — not only for bodily harm of individual students, but for the future of America — will indeed be warranted.
Until then, though, the focus on fear may be impeding progress for Jews and Israel on American college campuses.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
The post The Fear Trap: What’s Missing From the Current Campus Antisemitism Debate first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
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