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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.”
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
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