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How Should We Respond to Pro-Hamas College Rallies?
“Glory to Hamas.” Is there any civil response possible to this chant?
During the past few weeks, events at American universities have unfolded thick and fast. Columbia University was at the center of attention. We could hardly believe our ears when we heard the slogans shouted by hundreds of students on campus, and even more radically outside the university gates.
Jewish students were harassed, beaten, and prevented from entering some of the spaces on campus. Slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” and “Globalize the Intifada” were heard at many American universities. The first slogan takes up almost verbatim the wording of the Hamas charter of 2017, which calls for the “liberation” of the territory on which Israel is located. What else can this mean other than the desire to eradicate Israel, and at least the acceptance of murder and ethnic cleansing against Jews as part of this “liberation”?
Hamas has not only repeatedly affirmed this goal verbally and in writing, but put it into practice to the best of its ability on October 7, 2023. And Hamas has vowed that as long as it retains power, it will try to repeat October 7 over and over.
Anyone who does not want to be misunderstood should therefore explicitly distance themselves from Hamas. But the protesters are not doing that.
The call to “globalize the intifada” is no less murderous. Both the first and second intifadas were violent, and Israeli civilians were targeted — in cafés, buses, and on the street. This terror is now to be globalized?
My university, Indiana University in the Midwest, is not exactly known as a trouble spot. Still, there have been some protests by students and professors here. We are not an Ivy League university, but one of the Big Ten research universities, known for the Jacobs School of Music, the Kelly School of Business, the McKinsey Institute, and the Maurer School of Law, among others.
Around 10 percent of the almost 50,000 students on our campus in Bloomington are Jewish. Since April 25, there has been an encampment “for unconditional solidarity with Palestine” opposite the Chabad House, where many Jewish students come and go. Some of the slogans, chanted verbally and put on posters, seem to be aimed directly at Jews.
Not all of the slogans are implicitly murderous. Some merely demonize Israel — for example, the claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, which is presented as an indisputable fact through constant repetition. You can show solidarity with the Palestinian victims of the war (started by Hamas), you can condemn the war, you can be very partial to the Palestinians — but the accusation of genocide is slander.
The false claim to genocide is so pernicious, because it justifies all the hate directed at Israel — and at those who don’t explicitly condemn Israel.
There is a certain logic to this. If one is truly convinced that Israel is in the process of deliberately exterminating an entire people, then not only is Israel is reprehensible, but all those people who support and normalize Israel, or are Zionists themselves, are evil — that means most Jews.
The dynamic is similar to the medieval accusation of ritual murder. Anyone who was really convinced that Jews were murdering Christian children in order to use their blood for their rituals understandably wanted to put an end to it by any means necessary — even with violence. “Resistance by all means” does not allow for criticism of the barbarity of Hamas.
Not all students who write and shout such slogans are aware of their meaning, and their effect on Jewish students.
I spoke to students who held up a poster that equated campus police, the KKK, and “IOF.” But it took one of the masked organizers, who came running to block our conversation, to clarify what IOF meant. The students didn’t know. “Israel Offense Forces or Israel Occupying Forces” — he wasn’t quite sure either. But the message that comes across to the Jewish students who pass by these posters is that the country they feel deeply connected to is being demonized in a way that condemns them at the same time.
Many of the protesting students may be astonishingly ignorant and naive. Not so the organizers. There has been a rapid, sectarian radicalization among them over the past six months. Shortly after October 7, I had a discussion with the president of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) at our university on the university radio station. Even though we disagreed on many points, he condemned Hamas, at least in private conversation. And he asked Jewish acquaintances whether they were doing okay. A week ago, I looked at his Twitter profile. “Glory to Hamas” was written there. For him, Israel is “a demonic, irredeemable society that never has and never will have ever [have] a single right to exist.” He equates Zionists, i.e. all those who do not condemn Israel, with the Nazis. Zionists, he writes, are “indigenous to hell.”
The PSC plays a key role in calling for the campus protests, and regularly reports on the protest camp on its Instagram page. There is a lot of applause for this — also from an Iranian account called “Mahdi_Alavi.” He encourages students to read Ayatollah Khamenei’s letter to the youth of Europe and North America. There were love and applause emojis in the comments, but no objections.
Another key leader of the protests, who is particularly good at reaching other students via megaphone, also provides an insight into his thinking on social media. He writes about the Israeli army on X: “They lied about mass rape so they themselves could mass rape,” and has denied the unimaginably brutal sexual violence of the murderers of October 7. He also takes a liking to Hamas. It is “morally superior to Israel in every way that matters.”
What is the answer to such pro-Hamas propaganda? The Jewish students played loud music by Jewish-American musicians such as Matisyahu and Israeli pop songs, drew attention to the hostages, and posed with Israeli flags in front of the encampment where implicit and explicit Hamas sympathizers were present.
A similar response came from Rabbi Levi Cunin. The group “Faculty & Staff for Israel” had called for a rally on May 2. A politics professor known at the university for being anti-Israel and tearing down posters of the hostages filmed the entire event, possibly to intimidate participants. When Rabbi Cunin, while giving a speech, became aware of him, he turned to him and shouted in his face “And when there are antisemites who come to [our] anti-Hamas rally, what do you say? Am Israel Chai!” Long live the people of Israel.
And indeed they shall.
Günther Jikeli holds the Erna B. Rosenfeld Professorship at the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism in the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University. He heads the research lab “Social Media & Hate.”
The post How Should We Respond to Pro-Hamas College Rallies? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.