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University of California Student Government Passes BDS Legislation
Graphic posted on a social media account administered by University of California-Davis chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine on February 17, 2024. Photo: Screenshot/Instagram
The University of California-Davis (UC Davis) student government passed on Friday legislation adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions, (BDS) movement and falsely accusing Israel of genocide.
“This bill prohibits the purchase of products from corporations identified as profiting from the genocide and occupation of the Palestinian people by the BDS National Committee,” says the measure, titled Senate Bill (SB) #52. “This bill seeks to address the human rights violations of the nation-state and government of Israel and establish a guideline of ethical spending.”
Puma, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Airbnb, Disney, and Sabra are all named on SJP’s “BDS List.”
Powers enumerated in the bill include veto power over all vendor contracts, which SJP specifically applied to “purchase orders for custom t-shirts,” a provision that may affect pro-Israel groups on campus. Such policies will be guided by a “BDS List” of targeted companies curated by SJP. The language of the legislation gives ASUCD the right to add more.
“No ASUCD funds shall be committed to the purchases of products or services of any corporation identified by the BDS List as being complicit in the violation of the human rights guaranteed to Palestinian civilians,” the bill adds.
A notable provision of the bill regards the charter for the Special Committee on Ethical Standing. It says the committee must be “dissolved” in a year and its”responsibilities” absorbed by UC Davis’ Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission, a division of the student government that which describes itself as a special advocacy group for non-white students. The requirement makes BDS a permanent policy of the school and links it to the issue of racial justice, which, on a college campus, serves as a safeguard against any future attempt to pass legislation proscribing the adoption of BDS.
SJP praised the bill’s passing and signing by ASUCD’s president, Francisco Javier Ojeda.
“The bill that was passed prevents any of the $20 million in the ASUCD budget from being spent on companies complicit in the occupation and genocide of Palestinians, as specified by the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement,” the group said on social media. “From McDonald’s to Sabra to Chevron, none of our student feeds that fund ASUCD operations will be used to financially support 30+ companies that are complicit in Zionist violence.”
Students for Justice in Palestine at University of California-Davis is one of many SJP chapters that justified Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7. In a chilling statement posted after the world became aware of the terrorist group’s atrocities on that day, which included hundreds of civilian murders and sexual assaults, the group said “the responsibility for the current escalation of violence is entirely on the Israeli occupation.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters — which have said in their communications that Israeli civilians deserve to be murdered for being “settlers” — lead the way in promoting a campus environment hostile to Jewish and pro-Israel voices. Their aim, the civil rights group explained in an open letter published in December, is to “exclude and marginalize Jewish students,” whom they describe as “oppressors,” and encourage “confrontation” with them.
The ADL has urged colleges and universities to protect Jewish students from the group’s behavior, which, in many cases, has violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Shoah Museum in Rome Acquires Another Defaced Mural of Holocaust Survivor
Edith Bruck, in white, attends the unveiling event for the AleXsandro Palombo mural “The Star of David” at the Shoah Museum in Rome, Italy, on April 7, 2025. Photo: Ariel Nacamulli
The Shoah Museum in Rome unveiled on Monday a second Holocaust-related mural that was recreated and acquired by the institution after being defaced by antisemitic vandals in Milan earlier this year.
The mural, titled “The Star of David,” depicts Italian-Hungarian Holocaust survivor, writer, and poet Edith Bruck, and was created by Italian contemporary artist aleXsandro Palombo. The artwork shows Bruck dressed in striped concentration camp prisoner uniform with an Israeli flag draped over her shoulders. Palombo debuted the mural in Milan in January, in honor of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, but mere days after its unveiling, the large blue Star of David on the Israeli flag was scrapped off by vandals and Bruck’s face with later defaced. Palombo has since recreated the mural, and it is now in display at the Shoah Museum.
In the original mural, Bruck stood under the words “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”), which is the phrase featured on the main gate at the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp. Palombo also named the artwork after the slogan, but he left out the wording when recreating the mural for the Holocaust museum and has renamed the artwork “The Star of David.”
Bruck attended the mural’s unveiling ceremony on Monday at the Shoah Museum. The event was also attended by Israeli Ambassador to Italy Jonathan Peled; Victor Fadlun, president of the Jewish Community of Rome; and Noemi Di Segni, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.
“The mural must live precisely because it was vandalized, and so it will live, and everything related to memory and what I have personally experienced must live,” Bruck said. “After they defaced it, it will finally live, it will live because it has returned to Rome, where I live.”
The artwork has been added to the museum’s permanent collection and it stands beside another of Palombo’s Holocaust-related murals – titled “Anti-Semitism, History Repeating” – which was acquired by the Shoah Museum in January after it was defaced three times. That mural depicted two Auschwitz survivors — Italian Senate member for life Liliana Segre and Italian author Sami Modiano. The two murals are now displayed in front of the Portico d’Ottavia outside the Casina dei Vallati, which is in the ancient Jewish Ghetto of Rome and currently home to the Shoah Museum.
Palombo has had several of his Holocaust-related murals vandalized in antisemitic attacks, including one that features Bruck, Segre and Modiano together.
“After the despicable defacement in Milan, welcoming today aleXsandro Palombo’s mural at the Museum of the Shoah Foundation is an act of resistance and responsibility,” said Mario Venezia, president of the Shoah Museum Foundation. “Edith Bruck, like Liliana Segre and Sami Modiano, has dedicated her life to dialogue and testimony, speaking to thousands of young people and engaging with institutions. Today, we are here to reiterate that memory cannot be erased, neither by paint nor by the hatred of those who attempt to rewrite history. We will continue to defend it, to honor the survivors and for all new generations who believe in the value of knowledge and respect.”
“Edith Bruck came to the inauguration of aleXsandro Palombo’s work to show that we have no intention of accepting these forms of violence, responding in a peaceful, non-violent way,” added Venezia. “It’s important because her gesture is a civil response to an act of vandalism. We have Edith with us, and we will always have her in our hearts and minds.”
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Yeshiva University Baseball Team Ends 100-Game Losing Streak With Victory Over Bronx’s Lehman College
Yeshiva University David H. Zysman Hall. Photo: Beyond My Ken/Wikimedia Commons
The baseball team of Yeshiva University in New York City on Tuesday night snapped a 100-game losing streak dating back to 2022 when it beat Bronx’s Lehman College in a doubleheader.
The Lehman Lightning team came into Tuesday night’s game at Naimoli Family Baseball Complex in New Jersey with its own 42-game losing streak going back to 2023. YU and Lehman College had the two longest losing streaks in college baseball heading into their showdown.
Lehman was the first to end its losing streak when it won the first game of the night 7-6 with extra innings, which pushed YU’s losing streak from 99 to 100 games. The Maccabees held a 5-4 lead in the top of the fifth inning but ultimately lost to their rivals.
However, the Washington Heights Jewish school came back to put a stop to their streak, and a 0-18 all-time record against Lehman, with a 9-5 victory in the second game of the night. The pitcher who closed out the game, Noah Steinmetz, is the younger brother of Orthodox Jewish Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Jacob Steinmetz and son of YU’s basketball coach Elliot Steinmetz.
YESHIVA UNIVERSITY WINS! The 100 game losing streak is snapped! pic.twitter.com/vBMCF5pS8o
— Michael Clair (@michaelsclair) April 8, 2025
Only two players on the current roster of the YU Maccabees have ever been on the field before for a win, according to Major League Baseball (MLB). Lehman’s head coach, Chris Delgado, has never led his team to a victory and was a player on the Lehman roster the last time the baseball team won a game, MLB.com noted,
“I really appreciate [the fans who came out],” Delgado reportedly said. “The cold weather was not our best friend today, for the fans and for the players. It’s definitely a sense of relief, and I feel happy for this side and for Yeshiva as well. It’s a long time coming. I feel like it was a successful day for both programs and something both programs needed to be able to move forward from the failures in the past.”
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Iranian State Media Boosts Tucker Carlson’s Comments Opposing US Military Action, Condemning ‘Neocons’
Tucker Carlson speaks on July 18, 2024 during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Jasper Colt-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
Iranian state media boosted recent comments from controversial political commentator Tucker Carlson that suggested an American military confrontation with Iran would be “suicidal” for the US.
The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the official news agency of the state of Iran, published an article on Tuesday highlighting Carlson’s comments, in which the far-right podcast host and media personality warned the US against prosecuting a “destructive” war with Iran. Carlson cautioned that the US would surely “lose” any military confrontation with the Islamist regime and blamed unspecified “neocons” for suggesting federal lawmakers adopt a more aggressive posture toward Tehran.
“Whatever you think of tariffs, it’s clear that now is the worst possible time for the United States to participate in a military strike on Iran. We can’t afford it. Thousands of Americans would die. We’d lose the war that follows,” Carlson posted on social media.
Carlson then blamed a potential war with Iran on “unrelenting pressure from neocons,” referring to so-called neoconservatives in the US who believe in a more aggressive US foreign and military policy. He also blasted federal officials for allegedly pushing for “”with Iran” and said they are “not an ally of the United States, but an enemy.”
The former Fox News host did not note in his social media post that US officials have long accused Iran of clandestinely pursuing nuclear weapons — a charge denied by Tehran — and labeled the Middle Eastern power as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.
Tuesday was not the first time that Carlson lambasted US foreign policy toward Iran and its terrorist proxies in the Middle East.
In January 2024, he condemned American military action against the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen as the “next step toward full scale war with Iran, which the foreign policy ghouls in Washington have been fantasizing about for decades.”
In December 2024, Carlson asked on X/Twitter, “Which government has killed more Americans: Iran or Mexico?” in an apparent attempt to advocate a tougher posture against illegal immigration into the US.
Carlson criticized his former employer, Fox News, in March, posting that the network was “softening up the base for a war” with Iran.
Beyond Iran, Carlson has sparked controversy over the past year for spreading misinformation regarding Jewish history and Israel. In September 2024, Carlson drew outrage for platforming Holocaust revisionist and self-described historian Darryl Cooper. During their discussion on his podcast, Cooper appeared to downplay the Holocaust, argued that the US was on the “wrong side” of World War II, and suggested that the slaughter of six million Jews in concentration camps was “humane” because the Nazis did not have food to feed the “prisoners of war.”
In December, Carlson invited economist Jeffrey Sachs onto his podcast for a lengthy interview in which both men gave credence to the antisemitic idea that Israel “controls” US foreign policy, among other controversial comments. During the interview, Sachs floated the notion that former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s recently toppled regime was largely harmless and that the US opposed the authoritarian ruler “on behalf of Israel.” Sachs argued that American foreign policy hawks and the Israeli government have embarked on a joint mission to “remake the Middle East.”
Carlson has also criticized Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of “blowing up churches and killing Christians.” He lambasted American Christian political leaders for “not being more critical of the destruction in Gaza.”
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