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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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Rubio Heads to Israel Amid Tensions Among US Middle East Allies

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to members of the media, before departing for Israel at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, September 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool
US President Donald Trump’s top diplomat, Marco Rubio headed to Israel on Saturday, amid tensions with fellow US allies in the Middle East over Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar and expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
Speaking to reporters before departure, Rubio reiterated that the US and President Donald Trump were not happy about the strikes.
Rubio said the US relationship with Israel would not be affected, but that he would discuss with the Israelis how the strike would affect Trump’s desire to secure the return of all the hostages held by Hamas, get rid of the terrorists and end the Gaza war.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them. We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” he said.
“There are still 48 hostages that deserve to be released immediately, all at once. And there is still the hard work ahead once this ends, of rebuilding Gaza in a way that provides people the quality of life that they all want.”
Rubio said it had yet to be determined who would do that, who would pay for it and who would be in charge of the process.
After Israel, Rubio is due to join Trump’s planned visit to Britain next week.
Hamas still holds 48 hostages, and Qatar has been one of the mediators, along with the US, trying to secure a ceasefire deal that would include the captives’ release.
On Tuesday, Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with an airstrike on Doha. US officials described it as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests.
The strike on the territory of a close US ally sparked broad condemnation from other Arab states and derailed ceasefire and hostage talks brokered by Qatar.
On Friday, Rubio met with Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani at the White House, underscoring competing interests in the region that Rubio will seek to balance on his trip. Later that day, US President Donald Trump held dinner with the prime minister in New York.
Rubio’s trip comes ahead of high-level meetings at the United Nations in New York later this month. Countries including France and Britain are expected to recognize Palestinian statehood, a move opposed by Israel.
Washington says such recognition would bolster Hamas and Rubio has suggested the move could spur the annexation of the West Bank sought by hardline members of the Israeli government.
ON Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an agreement to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state. Last week, the United Arab Emirates warned that this would cross a red line and undermine the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords that normalized UAE-Israel relations in 2020.
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Netanyahu Posts Message Appearing to Confirm Hamas Leaders Survived Doha Strike

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a Plenum session of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, in Jerusalem, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a statement posted to social media on Saturday evening, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the Qatar-based leadership of Hamas, reiterating that the jihadist group had to regard for the lives of Gazans and represented an obstacle to ending the war and releasing the Israelis it held hostage.
The wording of Netanyahu’s message appeared to confirm that the strike targeting the Hamas leaders in Doha was not crowned with success.
“The Hamas terrorists chiefs living in Qatar don’t care about the people in Gaza,” wrote Netanyahu. “They blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war.” He added that “Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war.”
Israel is yet to officially comment on the result of the strike, which has incurred widespread international criticism.
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Trump Hosts Qatari Prime Minister After Israeli Attack in Doha

Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attends an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, Sept. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
US President Donald Trump held dinner with the Qatari prime minister in New York on Friday, days after US ally Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha.
Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with an attack in Qatar on Tuesday, a strike that risked derailing US-backed efforts to broker a truce in Gaza and end the nearly two-year-old conflict. The attack was widely condemned in the Middle East and beyond as an act that could escalate tensions in a region already on edge.
Trump expressed annoyance about the strike in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sought to assure the Qataris that such attacks would not happen again.
Trump and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani were joined by a top Trump adviser, US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“Great dinner with POTUS. Just ended,” Qatar’s deputy chief of mission, Hamah Al-Muftah, said on X.
The White House confirmed the dinner had taken place but offered no details.
The session followed an hour-long meeting that al-Thani had at the White House on Friday with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A source briefed on the meeting said they discussed Qatar’s future as a mediator in the region and defense cooperation in the wake of the Israeli strikes against Hamas in Doha.
Trump said he was unhappy with Israel’s strike, which he described as a unilateral action that did not advance US or Israeli interests.
Washington counts Qatar as a strong Gulf ally. Qatar has been a main mediator in long-running negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and for a post-conflict plan for the territory.
Al-Thani blamed Israel on Tuesday for trying to sabotage chances for peace but said Qatar would not be deterred from its role as mediator.