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University of Michigan Faculty Form Anti-Zionist Group, Accuse School of Aiding ‘Genocide of Palestinian People’
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan. Photo: Screenshot
A group of professors and other workers at the University of Michigan has formed a “Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine” (FSJP) chapter and as its first act published a guest column in The Michigan Daily accusing the school of “horrific suppression” of anti-Zionist viewpoints and “brutal actions against students.”
Claiming to be “engaged in education, advocacy, and action in solidarity with Palestinian liberation,” the group, which is a companion to the extreme anti-Zionist group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), railed against University of Michigan president Santa Ono for taking steps to cool the campus climate and discourage rhetoric that denigrates those who have staked out positions on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
One action the group singled out for opprobrium was the university’s decision in November to cancel a campus-wide vote on an anti-Israel resolution accusing the Jewish state of “genocide” and “apartheid.” Another vote on a resolution condemning Hamas as well as bigotry targeting both Jews and Muslims was also canceled. In a statement issued on Dec. 5, Ono defended the decision, saying both measures “have done more to stoke fear, anger, and animosity on our campus than they would ever accomplish” if adopted as policy.
FSJP called his plea for civility hypocritical.
Regarding its claims of “brutal actions against students,” FSJP cited to two incidents in which a crush of anti-Zionist protesters stormed administrative buildings while screaming “ceasefire now,” a call for Israel to halt its military operations aimed at eradicating the Hamas terror group from Gaza. In one of the demonstrations, held on Nov. 22, the protesters attempted to force their way into Ono’s office in the Alexander G. Ruthven administrative building, pushing past Division of Public Safety and Security (DPPS) officers while clamoring to see the president.
An altercation caught on video ensued between the demonstrators and the police, and a female Muslim student was arrested. The faculty group as well as Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) claimed that footage of the arrest showed an officer ripping off the student’s hijab while attempting to handcuff her. The Algemeiner has viewed the footage, however, and cannot substantiate the allegation.
In total, police arrested 40 students from the building that day. A similar incident occurred four days earlier, when the protesters clashed with police after successfully taking over the Ruthven building.
“Forty students were arrested and cited for trespassing because they dared to request a meeting with their president,” FSJP wrote. “All of this, in a campus community that waxes poetic about its efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and its exceptional status as ‘leaders and best.’”
The campus employees added that they believed the University of Michigan has tried to “bury the university’s complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people” and demanded that the school divest any of its holdings in companies linked to Israel. “A genocide carried out by the Israeli government and facilitated by corporations in which the university invests,” they continued.
The University of Michigan has long been a hub of anti-Israel activity. In January, anti-Israel student protesters there chanted, “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide,” during US Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to campus, where she was scheduled to discuss climate change. They also chanted, “There is only one solution: Intifada revolution” while waving Palestinian flags. A student who appeared to be leading the demonstration condemned the Biden administration for approving aid to Israel, which she referred to as “the Zionist entity.”
FSJP is a new effort organized and supported by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), a nonprofit organization that lobbies universities to adopt an academic boycott of Israel. The group advocates policies stipulating that “projects with all Israeli academic institutions should come to an end” and delineates specific restrictions that adherents should abide by — for instance, denying letters of recommendation to students who seek to study in Israel.
On its website, USACBI says professors should form such chapters “in response to the genocidal assault on Gaza and the crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices” and asks that “founding members make a commitment” to supporting academic boycotts of Israel.
The movement to form new “Faculty for Justice in Palestine” groups is growing. So far, chapters have cropped up all over higher education since Oct. 7, including at New York University, the Claremont Colleges, the University of California system, University of Florida, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Rutgers University, Haverford College, Princeton University, and Harvard University.
Critics argue the movement’s growth poses a threat to the well being of Jewish college students. According to a recent study conducted by the AMCHA Initiative, an antisemitism watchdog, a positive correlation exists between college faculty who support boycotts of Israel and the occurrence of antisemitic incidents on college campuses.
AMCHA researchers found that the “presence and number of faculty” who supported academic boycotts before Israel’s last war with Hamas in 2021, which began after the terrorist organization fired more than 150 rockets at Israeli territory, “were strongly and reliably associated with every measure of faculty and student-perpetrated antisemitic activity during this period.” They also found through a series of regression analyses that schools with “five or more faculty who had expressed support for academic BDS [the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel] prior to May 2021” were 5.6 times “more likely to have a student government that issued an anti-Zionist statement,” and 3.6 times more likely to have incidents of antisemitic harassment and intimidation.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, the director of the AMCHA Initiative, reiterated that point on Thursday.
“AMCHA’s research has shown consistently that promoting BDS in the classroom is highly correlated with increased antisemitism in the campus square,” Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner. “So if the University of Michigan really wants to address the problem of antisemitism, it must start with ensuring that its faculty are prohibited from using their academic positions as bully pulpits for spewing hatred of the Jewish state and its supporters and encouraging activism to harm them.”
“Not only are FJP groups charged with giving support and academic legitimacy to the BDS efforts of their campus SJP groups, they are also committing their members to bringing academic BDS and its goals of delegitimizing and dismantling the Jewish state into their classrooms and conference halls,” she added.
Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), a nonprofit that promotes academic freedom in higher education, told The Algemeiner that while faculty should form groups centered on common interests, doing so for the purpose of denigrating others is grossly inappropriate.
“Unfortunately, based on its first public statement, the Michigan FJP appears bent on uplifting the Palestinian cause while demeaning and denigrating Jews on campus,” Elman explained. “It’s astonishing that in its lengthy initial public statement the group could find no space to advocate for the 100 plus hostages including US citizens and young women, who continue to be held in captivity by Hamas.”
“What’s most concerning about these new Faculty for Justice in Palestine groups is that they’ll end up giving a faculty ‘pass’ for the bad behavior and hostile and bigoted rhetoric that we’ve seen from all too many Students for Justice in Palestine and affiliated clubs in recent weeks,” she added. “Students tend to take their cues from faculty. On campuses where these groups are forming, I wont be surprised to see an uptick in student peer-on-peer harassment, anti-Israel activity, and antisemitism.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post University of Michigan Faculty Form Anti-Zionist Group, Accuse School of Aiding ‘Genocide of Palestinian People’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Family of Colorado Fire-Bomb Suspect Taken Into ICE Custody as Authorities Probe Antisemitic Attack
Police officers gather on Pearl Street in front of the Boulder County Courthouse, the scene of an attack that injured multiple people, in Boulder, Colorado, US, June 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mark Makela
The family of the Egyptian national charged with tossing gasoline bombs at a pro-Israeli rally in Colorado was taken into federal custody on Tuesday and could be quickly deported, officials said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a social media video post that ICE had taken into custody the family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who lived in Colorado Springs and who federal officials have said was in the US illegally, having overstayed a tourist visa and an expired work permit.
Noem said while Soliman will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, federal agents were also “investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack – if they had any knowledge of it or if they provided any support for it.”
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for more details about the detention of Soliman’s family.
According to local media reports, Soliman’s family included two teenagers and three younger children. FBI and police officials had said on Monday that the family has cooperated with investigators. The suspect told investigators he acted alone.
The White House, in a social media post, said Soliman’s family was in ICE‘s custody for “expedited removal” and that they “could be deported as early as tonight.”
Department of Homeland Security officials said Soliman entered the United States in August 2022 on a tourist visa, filed for asylum the following month, and remained in the country after his visa expired in February 2023.
The Sunday attack in Boulder, Colorado, injured a dozen people, many of them elderly. The attack targeted people taking part in an event organized by Run for Their Lives, an organization devoted to drawing attention to the hostages seized during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Soliman, 45, told investigators that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people” but had delayed committing the attack until after his daughter graduated from high school, according to state and federal court documents charging him with attempted murder, assault, and a federal hate crime.
Police and FBI affidavits quoted the suspect as saying he took firearms training to obtain a concealed-carry permit but ended up using Molotov cocktails because his noncitizen status blocked him from buying guns. Soliman told investigators that he had learned how to make the firebombs from YouTube.
A police affidavit filed in support of Soliman’s arrest warrant said he was born in Egypt, lived in Kuwait for 17 years, and moved three years ago to Colorado Springs, about 100 miles (161 km) south of Boulder, where he lived with his wife and five children.
Federal and local authorities said at a Monday news conference in Boulder that Soliman had done nothing to draw law enforcement attention before Sunday’s attack. He was believed to have acted alone, they said.
An affidavit said the suspect “threw two lit Molotov cocktails at individuals participating in the pro-Israel gathering,” yelling, “Free Palestine” as they ignited in the crowd.
The attack was the latest act of violence aimed at Jewish Americans linked to outrage over Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. It followed the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy aides that took place outside Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum last month.
The post Family of Colorado Fire-Bomb Suspect Taken Into ICE Custody as Authorities Probe Antisemitic Attack first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Turkey Backing Syria’s Military and Has No Immediate Withdrawal Plans, Defense Minister Says
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler takes part in a NATO Defense Ministers’ meeting at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Johanna Geron
Turkey is training and advising Syria’s armed forces and helping improve its defenses, and has no immediate plans for the withdrawal or relocation of its troops stationed there, Defense Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters.
Turkey has emerged as a key foreign ally of Syria’s new government since rebels – some of them backed for years by Ankara – ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December to end his family’s five-decade rule.
It has promised to help rebuild neighboring Syria and facilitate the return of millions of Syrian civil war refugees, and played a key role last month getting US and European sanctions on Syria lifted.
The newfound Turkish influence in Damascus has raised Israeli concerns and risked a standoff or worse in Syria between the regional powers.
In written answers to questions from Reuters, Guler said Turkey and Israel – which carried out its latest airstrikes on southern Syria late on Tuesday – are continuing de-confliction talks to avoid military accidents in the country.
Turkey‘s overall priority in Syria is preserving its territorial integrity and unity, and ridding it of terrorism, he said, adding Ankara was supporting Damascus in these efforts.
“We have started providing military training and consultancy services, while taking steps to increase Syria’s defense capacity,” Guler said, without elaborating on those steps.
Named to the post by President Tayyip Erdogan two years ago, Guler said it was too early to discuss possible withdrawal or relocation of the more than 20,000 Turkish troops in Syria.
Ankara controlled swathes of northern Syria and established dozens of bases there after several cross-border operations in recent years against Kurdish militants it deems terrorists.
This can “only be re-evaluated when Syria achieves peace and stability, when the threat of terrorism in the region is fully removed, when our border security is fully ensured, and when the honorable return of people who had to flee is done,” he said.
NATO member Turkey has accused Israel of undermining Syrian peace and rebuilding with its military operations there in recent months and, since late 2023, has also fiercely criticized Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
But the two regional powers have been quietly working to establish a de-confliction mechanism in Syria.
Guler described the talks as “technical level meetings to establish a de-confliction mechanism to prevent unwanted events” or direct conflict, as well as “a communication and coordination structure.”
“Our efforts to form this line and make it fully operational continue. Yet it should not be forgotten that the de-confliction mechanism is not a normalization,” he told Reuters.
The post Turkey Backing Syria’s Military and Has No Immediate Withdrawal Plans, Defense Minister Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Norway Lawmakers Oppose Blanket Ban by Wealth Fund on Companies in Gaza, West Bank
A view of new buildings around the Israeli settlement Talmon B near the Palestinian town of Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the West Bank, Nov. 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
Norway‘s parliament on Wednesday rejected a proposal to have the country’s $1.9 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, divest from all companies with activities in the Palestinian territories.
The minority Labour government has for months been resisting pressure from anti-Israel campaigners to instruct the fund to divest from all firms with ties to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and parliament had been expected to vote against.
“We have an established ethical regime for the fund,” Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg told the chamber earlier in the day, during a debate on several aspects of the way the fund is run.
“We divest from the companies that contribute to Israel’s breach of international law, but we do not divest from all companies that are present on the ground.”
Lawmaker Ingrid Fiskaa from the small Socialist Left opposition party told the chamber: “Without Norwegian oil fund money, it would be more difficult for Israeli authorities to demolish the homes of Palestinian families.”
The United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, wrote to Stoltenberg to alert him to what she called the “structural entanglement of Israeli corporations … in the machinery of the occupation both in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and the violence that sustains it.”
“International corporations benefiting from [the Norwegian fund‘s] investments are critical components of the infrastructure sustaining the economy of the occupation,” she wrote, in a letter dated May 20.
Stoltenberg replied that the government was “confident that the investments do not violate Norway‘s obligations under international law.”
He noted that the fund follows ethical guidelines set by parliament, and that compliance is monitored by a separate body.
That watchdog has over the past year recommended divestments from Israeli petrol station chain Paz and telecoms company Bezeq and is looking at more potential divestments in Israel.
The post Norway Lawmakers Oppose Blanket Ban by Wealth Fund on Companies in Gaza, West Bank first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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