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Where Are the Progressive Politicians Standing Up to the Jew Hatred on Campus?
The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Columbia University, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, on April 25, 2024. Photo: Reuters Connect
The members of the progressive caucus in the US House of Representatives, known as “The Squad,” have recently coalesced around support for the “peaceful” antisemitic protests engulfing college campuses.
The Squad hears “ceasefire” when “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea” are chanted. They are pandering to the students who are currently calling for a Palestine “free” of Jews, and who believe their ideology that everything in the United States — and globally — is about race and an “oppressor vs. oppressed” ideology.
The litmus test for all progressive policies is that they must advance “racial justice and equity” (The House Progressive Promise). Members of the Squad justify their anti-Zionist position by falsely accusing Israel of being an “apartheid state.” This accusation is a lie, but it squares nicely with the objective of the progressive platform which is to advance their particular version of racial justice and equity — which means the demonization of whomever they deem to be “white” and “powerful.”
Members of the Squad believe that their commitment to “dismantle the systems of oppression and discrimination that allow racism to persist” obligates them to oppose Israel.
The following is a statement that Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) made on October 8, 2024, while Hamas sadists were still on a killing rampage in Israel and Hamas rockets were reigning down on Israeli towns:
The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance. The failure to recognize the violent reality of living under siege, occupation, and apartheid makes no one safer. No person, no child anywhere should have to suffer or live in fear of violence. We cannot ignore the humanity in each other. As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.
I believe professor and diversity advocate Mona Khoury-Kassabri, the Vice President for “Strategy and Inclusion” at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, may have a different viewpoint concerning Congresswoman Tlaib’s libelous accusation that Israel is an apartheid state, as would the Arab-Israeli doctors who are studying and practicing medicine in Israel, all Arab citizens who have equal rights and serve in the Knesset and Supreme Court, and many others.
Israel is not an apartheid state. For just the beginnings of proof, you can look here.
New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), probably the most well-known member of the Squad, hurried up to Columbia to give her support to the students of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment who demanded that Columbia University divest from all things Israel.
The following are the first two of five demands the Columbia University Apartheid Divest Organization made to the administration of Columbia (cuapartheiddivest):
Divest all of Columbia’s finances, including the endowment, from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine. Ensure accountability by increasing transparency around financial investments.
Sever academic ties with Israeli universities, including the Global Center in Tel Aviv, the Dual Degree Program with Tel Aviv University, and all study-abroad programs.
The protestors refuse to let anyone speak who disagrees with these views. In effect, they are demanding that their free speech rights are respected while calling on the silencing of Jewish and pro-Israeli voices.
The intent of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement is to de-legitimize Israeli scientists, artists, politicians, entrepreneurs, athletes, farmers, industrialists, doctors, and professors — irrespective of their politics or views — and to de-legitimize the State of Israel itself.
The logic of the BDS movement is that isolating and suffocating Israeli society will create immense pressure that forces Israel to retreat to the geography of the 1967 borders — and eventually collapse upon itself. Of course, an isolated and weakened Israel will be far less likely to make any concessions because it will be unable to take the risks associated with ceding more autonomy over more land and resources to the Palestinian people. The anti-Zionist policies voiced by the student protestors, and supported by the Squad, will lead to more death and destruction in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank — not less.
The demands of the protestors also don’t include one word about the Israeli and American hostages that Hamas is currently torturing, or the 1,200 people massacred intentionally on October 7. They are ignoring Hamas and Palestinian terrorism — which are the primary cause of the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza. Protestors marching for the “global intifada” have decided that the actions of Hamas on October 7 were a legitimate act of resistance.
If they’re serious about what they believe, any non-Jewish progressive politician besides Ritchie Torres (D-NY) should step up to the bullhorn and address the students who are in a rage about the death and destruction in Gaza, and explain how and why the commitment of Hamas to slaughter Jews from “the river to the sea” is absolutely evil and not progressive.
Charles A. Stone is a Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY.
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Israel to Send Delegation to Qatar for Gaza Ceasefire Talks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has decided to send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, an Israeli official said, reviving hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations to end the almost 21-month war.
Palestinian group Hamas said on Friday it had responded to a US-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal in a “positive spirit,” a few days after US President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed “to the necessary conditions to finalize” a 60-day truce.
The Israeli negotiation delegation will fly to Qatar on Sunday, the Israeli official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.
But in a sign of the potential challenges still facing the two sides, a Palestinian official from a militant group allied with Hamas said concerns remained over humanitarian aid, passage through the Rafah crossing in southern Israel to Egypt and clarity over a timetable for Israeli troop withdrawals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday, has yet to comment on Trump’s announcement, and in their public statements Hamas and Israel remain far apart.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said Hamas must be disarmed, a position the terrorist group, which is thought to be holding 20 living hostages, has so far refused to discuss.
Israeli media said on Friday that Israel had received and was reviewing Hamas’ response to the ceasefire proposal.
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Tucker Carlson Says to Air Interview with President of Iran
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
US conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson said in an online post on Saturday that he had conducted an interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which would air in the next day or two.
Carlson said the interview was conducted remotely through a translator, and would be published as soon as it was edited, which “should be in a day or two.”
Carlson said he had stuck to simple questions in the interview, such as, “What is your goal? Do you seek war with the United States? Do you seek war with Israel?”
“There are all kinds of questions that I didn’t ask the president of Iran, particularly questions to which I knew I could get an not get an honest answer, such as, ‘was your nuclear program totally disabled by the bombing campaign by the US government a week and a half ago?’” he said.
Carlson also said he had made a third request in the past several months to interview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be visiting Washington next week for talks with US President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Friday he would discuss Iran with Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.
Trump said he believed Tehran’s nuclear program had been set back permanently by recent US strikes that followed Israel’s attacks on the country last month, although Iran could restart it at a different location.
Trump also said Iran had not agreed to inspections of its nuclear program or to give up enriching uranium. He said he would not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear program, adding that Iran did want to meet with him.
Pezeshkian said last month Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research.
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Hostage Families Reject Partial Gaza Seal, Demand Release of All Hostages
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – As Israeli leaders weigh the contours of a possible partial ceasefire deal with Hamas, the families of the 50 hostages still held in Gaza issued an impassioned public statement this weekend, condemning any agreement that would return only some of the abductees.
In a powerful message released Saturday, the Families Forum for the Return of Hostages denounced what they call the “beating system” and “cruel selection process,” which, they say, has left families trapped in unbearable uncertainty for 638 days—not knowing whether to hope for reunion or prepare for mourning.
The group warned that a phased or selective deal—rumored to be under discussion—would deepen their suffering and perpetuate injustice. Among the 50 hostages, 22 are believed to be alive, and 28 are presumed dead.
“Every family deserves answers and closure,” the Forum said. “Whether it is a return to embrace or a grave to mourn over—each is sacred.”
They accused the Israeli government of allowing political considerations to prevent a full agreement that could have brought all hostages—living and fallen—home long ago. “It is forbidden to conform to the dictates of Schindler-style lists,” the statement read, invoking a painful historical parallel.
“All of the abductees could have returned for rehabilitation or burial months ago, had the government chosen to act with courage.”
The call for a comprehensive deal comes just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for high-stakes talks in Washington and as indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas are expected to resume in Doha within the next 24 hours, according to regional media reports.
Hamas, for its part, issued a statement Friday confirming its readiness to begin immediate negotiations on the implementation of a ceasefire and hostage release framework.
The Forum emphasized that every day in captivity poses a mortal risk to the living hostages, and for the deceased, a danger of being lost forever. “The horror of selection does not spare any of us,” the statement said. “Enough with the separation and categories that deepen the pain of the families.”
In a planned public address near Begin Gate in Tel Aviv, families are gathering Saturday evening to demand that the Israeli government accept a full-release deal—what they describe as the only “moral and Zionist” path forward.
“We will return. We will avenge,” the Forum concluded. “This is the time to complete the mission.”
As of now, the Israeli government has not formally responded to Hamas’s latest statement.
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