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Anti-Israel Protests Roiled Campuses in May — and Led to Dangerous Concessions
Pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City, US, April 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
The academic school year ended with the anti-Israel movement making significant gains on and off campus. The most visible development was the appearance of protests, encampments, building takeovers, and marches at numerous universities across the US.
An analysis revealed that between October 2023 and May 2024, more than 300 protests were held and more than 120 encampments were created. The distribution, however, was strongly correlated with the status of institutions, with protests most common at highly selective or elite institutions where fewer students received Federal aid.
The implication is that pro-Hamas protests are largely an upper class and not a working class phenomenon. Notable encampments and takeovers occurred at Columbia University, UCLA, Portland State University, the University of Chicago, and elsewhere. In these and other cases, police intervention was required after lengthy negotiations with students broke down. Encampments were established and then cleared, either by police or by agreements, with many being reestablished within days and then cleared once again.
With few exceptions, mainstream media depictions of the May protests emphasized Israeli violence and student non-violence, the participation of Jewish students, and the purity of protestors’ motives and spontaneous actions.
Actual reporting noted the national plans to create encampments had circulated in the fall semester, and extensive training was provided to students on tactics such as seizing and securing buildings, and on strategic goals including recreating the widespread unrest of 2020.
Review of social media postings also revealed frequently antisemitic and violent rhetoric, such as the threat to “guillotine” George Washington University president Ellen Granberg. The damage caused to university property by encampments was considerable, but damage to occupied buildings was profound. Damage to the Portland State University library amounted to at least $1 million and at least $3 million at City College of New York, while extensive damage was also done to the University of California system headquarters in Oakland.
The May campus protests also highlighted the role of professional agitators in organizing anti-Israel protests and their links to earlier Black Lives Matter and other protests. Training materials provided by National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to encampment organizers also contained a variety of practical manuals for urban insurgency, as well as materials glorifying the Palestinian “resistance” and other violent revolutionary movements.
Commencement disruptions were frequent in May, with many graduates costuming themselves in keffiyahs, with bloody hands, and holding banners and signs. One notable example was at Duke University, where some 30 protestors walked out prior to an address from Jerry Seinfeld. Reports claim that 1,000 people walked out of the Harvard commencement, in part over the university’s decision not to award degrees to 13 protestors who had been suspended.
The clearing of encampments by police prompted backlash from faculty but also additional protests by students including a strike by the UAW affiliated academic workers union at the University of California system. Strikers alleged “unfair labor practice charges based on the way the university reacted to protesters,” and threatened to withhold all “academic labor,” including grades, until their demands for divestment were met.
Jewish students at many institutions continue to document harassment and intimidation by pro-Hamas protestors, deepening exclusion from campus life after accusations of being “Zionists.”
Hillels have been subjected to pro-Hamas protests at Baruch College, while at the University of California at Santa Cruz, the local SJP chapter demanded Hillel be closed for its support of Israel. The university dismissed the demand.
More explicit threats of a US terror campaign to “bring the intifada home” appeared in a manifesto from protestors who seized a building at the University of Chicago, which stated “We embrace many methods of attacking our enemies. Whatever is effective, destructive, fun, creative, creates leverage, disrupts power, or changes minds is welcome. We refuse to police and surveil each other and remember the enemies are the state, the pigs, and the war profiteers.”
In response to protests, encampments, and building takeovers, most university administrations were anxious to negotiate with protestors and to accede to their demands, thereby incentivizing future protests.
At Northwestern University, concessions included a promise to reveal its investments and to establish an investment advisory board with student participation, as well as two professorships and five scholarships for Palestinians, and a “Middle Eastern and North African” residential unit.
Brown University promised protestors that after a student presentation, divestment would be voted on by trustees. The students identified a number of aerospace and defense companies they alleged were complicit in “grave human rights violations” including Northrup Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics.
At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, administrators agreed to permit anti-Israel students to present the case for divestment to trustees, called the situation a “plausible genocide,” condemned destruction in Gaza, and demanded a ceasefire. The chancellor later apologized for weighing in on “deeply complex geopolitical and historical issues.”
Within the University of California system, the Berkeley administration agreed to a divestment task force and the chancellor called for a “permanent ceasefire.” The Riverside administration agreed to similar terms and also terminated a variety of overseas programs including in Israel, which had been the target of long term pressure.
Union Theological Seminary announced that it would “identify all investments, both domestic and global, that support and profit from the present killing of innocent civilians in Palestine” in order to “withdraw support from companies profiting from the war.”
Bard College announced an agreement with protestors that included disclosure of investments, strengthening ties with a branch campus in eastern Jerusalem, and “support of appropriate challenges — political, social, and legal— to Executive Order 157,” banning investments in institutions or companies that boycott Israel.
The most significant and real Israel boycotts have emerged in the Netherlands. Ghent University severed ties with three Israeli research institutions on the grounds they are “problematic according to the Ghent University human rights test,” while Leiden University has put exchange programs with Israeli universities on hold and “will assess all our current ties with Israeli institutions and joint research projects.” The university also stated it will also not admit Israeli students from Tel Aviv University or Hebrew University “until after an evaluation.”
Overall, the universities appear to have provided a mixture of performative and real concessions. Some appear to be simply using delaying tactics, or postponing confrontations until the fall semester. Funding Gazan students and creating “Palestine studies” centers, however, guarantees future campus radicalization by introducing anti-Israel extremists.
The privileged admission of Palestinian students also appears to be in violation of Title IV of the Higher Education Act, while the creation of residential and Muslim-only spaces reinforces campus identity politics.
Faculty remain at the forefront of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas protests in the aftermath of encampments and building takeovers, in many cases joining protests, conducting classes within encampments (where “Zionist” students were prohibited), staging walkouts and “die-ins,” acting as human shields, and being arrested.
Faculty members have been especially vocal expressing outrage over the rare suspensions of students involved in campus takeovers and other hostile activities. One example of that emerged at Harvard University, where 500 faculty members signed a letter complaining that the “unprecedented, disproportionate, and arbitrary” sanctions “undermine trust” and demanded that suspended students be awarded their degrees. The demand was rejected by the Harvard Corporation, who barred 13 protestors from receiving degrees.
Faculty unions with longstanding animosity towards Israel have used the campus violence as a pretext to propose increasingly severe and illegal measures, such as the notoriously anti-Israel union at the City University of New York, which demanded the administration ban all faculty and student trips to Israel. The resolution was voted down.
Northwestern University faculty and staff signed a resolution accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing and genocide,” and demanding the administration condemn “targeted harassment of students and the disproportionate censorship of pro-Palestine speech,” end partnerships with Israeli institutions, and “disclose and divest” from “all companies that support Israeli apartheid.” Similar demands were made by faculty groups at Princeton University, Amherst College, and elsewhere.
Anti-Israel activities also continue to rile the K-12 sector. Reports indicate that dozens of Jewish families in the Oakland, California, school district have begun to withdraw their children after repeated anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents.
Walkouts from public schools were reported at a number of school districts including in Chicago and Princeton, New Jersey, while Berkeley middle school students were led by administrators to a local Jewish Community Center, then occupied by preschoolers, for an anti-Israel protest. Video also emerged of a pro-Hamas protest inside a Bronx high school during which Jewish students and teachers locked themselves in classroom.
Teachers unions continue to be at the forefront of anti-Israel activity. One recent example is a call by the Maine Education Association demanding that the state pension fund divest from companies “complicit in the violation of the human rights” of Palestinian civilians. A “spontaneous” student walkout in Washington, D.C. was apparently also organized by a teachers’ group with connections to American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Palestinian Youth Movement.
The systematic indoctrination of students by teachers and their unions into anti-Israel bias represents a long-term threat to Jews and to American society that has yet to be addressed.
Anti-Israel protests continued around the world in May including London and New York, and vandalism of Jewish and Jewish-owned sites also continued in May, including three restaurants in Manhattan. Several Jewish children were assaulted in New York, in addition to an attempted car ramming attack against Hasidic Jews, and there were two incidents of shots fired at a Jewish school in Montreal.
The larger goals of the protestors remain downplayed by the media but are stated clearly in left wing and pro-Palestinian media. The anti-Western slogans include “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!,” “abolish the university,” “from turtle island to Palestine, solidarity forever,” along with demands that Jews “go back to Europe.”
Congressional investigations of K-12 schools and universities over their treatment of Jews, Israelis, and pro-Hamas protestors expanded in May. Presidents of universities again testified before a House subcommittee investigating campus antisemitism, a development that was condemned in advance by members of the higher education industrial complex. The presidents of Rutgers, Northwestern, and UCLA largely avoided the calamitous outcome of earlier hearings but could not easily explain sweeping concessions to protestors.
The major development in the arts and cultural sphere in May was the Eurovision song contest. After efforts to bar Israel altogether from the competition, and to force venues showing the competition to boycott it, Israeli entrant Eden Golan was restricted to her hotel and escorted by by police for fear of angry mobs in the streets.
She was also heckled by the audience members and by other contestants. But large number of votes from European residents rather than official judges enabled her to finish in fifth place.
Finally, writers in particular have been subjected to ideological tests and harassment regarding Israel. Blacklists of writers and musicians alleged to be “Zionists” continue to be circulated. A major corporate sponsor of a literary festival was dropped after a number of writers, including a Member of Parliament, threatened to boycott literary festivals across Britain. An effort to condemn Israel through a motion in the British Society of Authors failed by a narrow margin, but the writers’ group PEN American has been in the news over complaints it has failed to offer sufficient condemnations of Israel.
The author is a contributor to SPME, where this op-ed was adapted from.
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Northwestern University Touts Progress on Addressing Campus Antisemitism Amid Federal Scrutiny
Signs cover the fence at a pro-Palestinian encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect.
Northwestern University on Monday touted its progress in addressing the campus antisemitism crisis, issuing a statement containing a checklist of policies it has enacted since being censured by federal lawmakers over its handling of pro-Hamas demonstrations which convulsed its campus during the 2023-2024 academic year.
“The university administration took this criticism to heart and spent much of last summer revising our rules and policies to make our university safe for all of our students, regardless of their religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, or political viewpoint,” the statement said. “Among the updated policies is our Demonstration Policy, which includes new requirements and guidance on how, when, and where members of the community may protest or otherwise engage in expressive activity.”
The university added that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
“This included a live training for all new students in September and a 17-minute training module for all enrolled students, produced in collaboration with the Jewish United Fund,” it continued. “Antisemitism trainings will continue as a permanent part of our broader training in civil rights and Title IX.”
Other initiatives rolled out by the university include an Advisory Council to the President on Jewish Life, dinners for Jewish students hosted by administrative officials, and educational events which raise awareness of rising antisemitism in the US and across the world. Additionally, Northwestern said that it imposed disciplinary sanctions against several students and one staff member whose conduct violated the new “Demonstration and/or Display Policies” which regulate peaceful assembly on the campus.
“In closing, although Northwestern has made significant progress in the fight against antisemitism on campus, the university remains vigilant and will continue to do what is necessary to make our campus safe,” the statement concluded. “Importantly, the fight against antisemitism is NOT [sic] a zero-sum game. All members of our communities on campus — all religions, races, national origins, genders, sexual orientations, and political viewpoints — deserve to feel safe and know that our rules will be enforced to protect them against hate, discrimination, harassment, and intimidation. Northwestern is committed to this principle.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Northwestern University struggled for months to correct an impression that it coddled pro-Hamas protesters and acceded to their demands for a boycott of Israel in exchange for an end to their May 2024 encampment.
University president Schill denied during a US congressional hearing held that year that he had capitulated to any demand that fostered a hostile environment, but his critics noted that part of the deal to end the encampment stipulated his establishing a scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contacting potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, creating a segregated dormitory hall that will be occupied exclusively by students of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim descent, and forming a new advisory committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
The status of those concessions, which a law firm representing the civil rights advocacy group StandWithUs described as “outrageous” in July 2024, were not disclosed in Monday’s statement.
Northwestern University is not the only school creating distance between itself and the anti-Zionist movement, a step many colleges have taken in response to US President Donald Trump’s vowing to cut the flow of taxpayer funds supplementing their budgets should they refuse to crackdown down on illegal protests and antisemitism. Following the Trump administration’s cancelling of over $400 million in federals contracts and grants awarded to Columbia University, former interim president Katrina Armstrong proposed a list of reforms the school would agree to undertake — in areas ranging from undergraduate admissions to campus security — to restore the funds.
Armstrong later resigned from her position, saying in a statement which explained the decision that she wishes to return to her role as executive director of the university’s Irving Medical Center, as well as several other positions she holds.
Meanwhile, Harvard University recently fired a librarian whom someone filmed ripping posters of the Bibas children, two babies murdered in captivity by Hamas, off a kiosk in Harvard Yard and denounced him as “hateful.” Additionally, it paused a partnership with a higher education institution located in the West Bank, a move for which prominent members of the Harvard community and federal lawmakers had clamored in a series of public statements. The Trump administration initiated a review of $9 billion in taxpayer funds it receives anyway, prompting interim president Alan Garber to defend Harvard’s handling of the issue.
“For the past fifteen months, we have devoted considerable effort to addressing antisemitism,” Garber said. “We have strengthened our rules and our approach to disciplining those who violate them. We have enhanced training and education on antisemitism across our campus and introduced measures to support our Jewish community and ensure student safety and security.”
Northwestern University is in the Trump administration’s crosshairs too. It is one of 60 universities being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over its handling of campus antisemitism, a project that will serve as an early test of the administration’s ability to perform the essential functions of the agency after downsizing its workforce to increase its efficiency.
“The department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite US campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in March. “US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by US taxpayers. That support is a privilege, and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Pressure Mounts on UN Members to Block Reappointment of Controversial Anti-Israel Official
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 United Nations is facing growing pressure to block the reappointment of Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has an extensive history of using her role to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize the terrorist group Hamas’s attacks against the Jewish state.
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is set to reappoint Albanese for another three-year term on Friday, despite calls from several countries and NGOs urging UN members to oppose her reappointment due to her controversial remarks and alleged pro-Hamas stance.
Since taking on the role of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories in 2022, Albanese has been at the center of controversy due to what critics, including US and European lawmakers, have described as antisemitic and anti-Israel public remarks.
In the months following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities, across southern Israel, Albanese accused Israel 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 have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli actions.
She has also previously made comments about a “Jewish lobby” controlling America and Europe, compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and stated that Hamas’s violence against Israelis — including rape, murder, and kidnapping — needs to be “put in context.”
Last year, the United Nations launched a probe into Albanese for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations.
In the past, she has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and that they give her “hope.”
On Monday, US Rep. Brian Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to the president of the UNHRC, Ambassador Jürg Lauber, to express his strong opposition to Albanese’s reappointment.
In the letter, Mast claimed that Albanese has failed to act “in an independent capacity with a professional, impartial assessment, and maintain the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.”
“Ms. Albanese unapologetically uses her position as a UN special rapporteur to purvey and attempt to legitimize antisemitic tropes, while serving as a Hamas apologist,” the letter read.
“In her malicious fixation, she has even called for Israel to be removed from the United Nations while likening Israel to apartheid South Africa,” Mast wrote in a letter signed by six fellow lawmakers. “Regrettably, Ms. Albanese’s rhetoric has perverted the very institution and its foundational principles in which she was appointed to serve.”
Governments worldwide, including France, the UK, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands, have condemned her statements as antisemitic and urged that she not be given another term in her role.
Last month, 42 members of the French Parliament publicly urged the government to oppose Albanese’s reappointment, arguing that it “would send a regrettable signal to victims, human rights defenders, and states committed to credible multilateralism.”
This week, British Labour Member of Parliament David Taylor also objected to Albanese’s reappointment, saying “there is no place for such alleged antisemitism on the international stage.”
“Albanese’s response to the largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century was to describe it as ‘a response to Israel’s oppression,’” Taylor told the Jewish Chronicle. “She described Israel as being a ‘settler colonial conquest.’”
“Making statements of this nature in a UN capacity is abhorrent and does so much damage to communities already torn apart by horrific violence, going against everything the United Nations stands for,” Taylor said.
Human rights groups and NGOs have also campaigned to prevent the anti-Israel rapporteur from receiving a second term.
UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, has organized a petition against her reappointment, which has garnered over 83,000 signatures.
Last month, Maram Stern, executive vice president of the World Jewish Congress, sent a letter to the president of the UNHRC urging him to reject the renewal of Albanese’s mandate, citing what she described as the UN official’s history of anti-Israel animus and antisemitic statements.
“Ms. Albanese has repeatedly made public remarks that propagate harmful antisemitic tropes, question the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and employ rhetoric that undermines the credibility of the Human Rights Council itself,” the letter read. “Her persistent lack of objectivity and failure to uphold a balanced and impartial approach required of her as special rapporteur compromises her credibility as an independent expert.”
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) also urged UN Members to reject Albanese’s second term, saying she “has systematically demonstrated a troubling pattern of conduct and expression that is incompatible with the responsibilities, neutrality, and integrity expected of a UN special rapporteur.”
“Her actions not only betray the victims of terrorism and antisemitism but also are a stain on the credibility of the Human Rights Council itself,” the AJC wrote in a letter.
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Three Jewish Coaches Lead Teams in NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Final Four
Florida Gators head coach Todd Golden and Auburn Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl talk before the game as Auburn Tigers take on Florida Gators at Neville Arena in Auburn, Ala., on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
The men’s 2025 NCAA Tournament Final Four bracket includes four No. 1 seed teams, three of which have Jewish coaches who will lead the way in the two national semifinals taking place on Saturday.
Auburn University Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl has contributed Auburn’s success in the NCAA in part to God and his Jewish faith. He described Israel as the “ancestral homeland for the Jewish people” and called for the release of American-Israeli Edan Alexander from Hamas captivity at a post-game conference last month. He also took the Auburn team on a trip to Israel, where they made stops at the Western Wall and Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
The Tigers will compete on Saturday in the NCAA Tournament Final Four against the Florida Gators whose Jewish coach, Todd Golden, is an Israeli citizen who previously played two years professionally for Maccabi Haifa in Israel.
In 2009, Golden was co-captain of the USA Open Team, coached by Pearl, that won gold at the Maccabiah Games, which is an international multi-sport event for Jewish and Israeli athletes. Golden has been the coach of the Tigers for two seasons, but prior to that he was the assistant coach at Columbia, the head coach at San Francisco, and even worked under Pearl. Golden was director of basketball operations for the Auburn staff for the 2014-15 season and was promoted to assistant coach for the 2015-16 campaign.
Duke and Houston also play each other on Saturday in the Final Four. The head coach of the Duke Blue Devils, Jon Scheyer, also formerly played in Israel and holds Israeli citizenship. He played professionally for Maccabi Tel Aviv from 2011-12. In October 2023, not long after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Scheyer commented on the conflict and said in part: “My heart breaks for the people in Israel — that have hostages, American lives that are taken, mourning loved ones.” Scheyer is leading Duke to the Final Four in only his third year as head coach.
The Houston Cougars – the fourth men’s team competing in the Final Four – do not have a Jewish coach, but they have a player who was born in Israel and played for Israel’s national youth squad. Guard Emanuel Sharp, who is the son of Derrick Sharp, was part of Israel’s under-16 national basketball team and also played for Maccabi Tel Aviv for over a decade.
This year’s Final Four have a combined record of 135-16. Since seeding began in 1979, this is only the second time in history that all four No. 1 seeds advanced to the Final Four. It previously happened in 2008. Larry Brown was the last Jewish coach to win the NCAA Tournament when he led Kansas to the victory in 1988.
The 2025 NCAA Tournament Final Four begins on Saturday, with two national semifinals taking place at the Alamodome in San Antonio, and ends on Monday with the national championship.
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