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Leaked Harvard University Document Addresses Unlawful Protests in Wake of Anti-Israel Demonstrations
A drone view shows a pro-Hamas encampment at Harvard University where students protest in support of Palestinians, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, April 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University is considering a series of policies aimed at preventing the recurrence of the kinds of unauthorized demonstrations that convulsed the campus last academic year and prompted a slew of lawsuits and scandals, according to a leaked draft document.
First reported by The Harvard Crimson, the document, described as “privileged and confidential,” explicitly proscribes “camping,” a clear reference to the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” that students had set up on Harvard Yard and lived in for nearly three weeks between April and May. It also includes rules against noise pollution, chalking messages on school grounds, and staging protests during exam season.
One proposed rule which forbids photographing protesters may serve the interests of pro-Hamas students, who have chanted antisemitic slogans and proclaimed support for terrorism, by allowing them to remain anonymous. The Crimson says the provision will prevent doxxing, but critics maintain that identifying and preventing anti-Zionist demonstrators on Ivy League campuses from taking their place in the elite is necessary for protecting the Jewish community and keeping American institutions free of extremists.
“The purpose of this document is to establish a common set of such university rules for campus space use,” it says. “Organizations and/or individuals who do not comply with these rules may be held financially responsible for any resulting costs incurred and may be subject to other consequences for noncompliance, including referral for discipline.”
How the Crimson, Harvard’s official campus newspaper since 1873, obtained the document is not disclosed in the report. Harvard spokesman Jason Newton told the paper it “may not accurately indicate the current status of guidance regarding a particular topic.” He added that “once the document is finalized, it will be shared with the Harvard community.”
Other Harvard officials, past and present, including former president Larry Summers, commended the document for being “fine and reasonable.” However, Summers told the Crimson, Harvard’s official policies are often in tension with its actions.
“The issue is that the university, over the last year, has consistently failed to act and impose sanctions when policies are violated and has been slow to implement policies on behalf of Jewish student groups,” he explained. “That is why it is subject to multiple federal government investigations and civil suits.”
Summers’ skepticism is shared by the Jewish community and higher education critics who have accused Harvard University of contriving tough talk about discipline and preserving order to temper negative publicity prompted by its alleged refusal to address antisemitism on the campus. Earlier this month, it was reported that school officials awarded most of the degrees it withheld from pro-Hamas protesters as punishment for their participating in the unlawful encampment at Harvard Yard. The decision followed its “downgrading” disciplinary sanctions levied against several other protesters. Neither action led to contrition, however. Instead, the amnestied students proceeded to mock and revile the university anyway, denouncing it as cynical and rapacious while vowing to continue their flouting of school rules.
“Harvard has caved in, showing that the student intifada will always prevail” one of the groups involved in the anti-Israel demonstrations, Harvard Out of Occupied (HOOP), said upon learning of the news. “This reversal is a bare minimum. We call on our community to demand no less than Palestinian liberation from the river to the sea, grounded in the rights of return and resistance. We will not rest until divestment from the Israeli regime is met.”
The past year has been described by experts as a low point in the history of Harvard University, America’s oldest and, arguably, most important institution of higher education. Since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas across southern Israel, the school has been accused of fostering a culture of racial grievance and antisemitism, while important donors have suspended funding for programs. In just the past nine months, its first Black president, Claudine Gay, resigned in disgrace after being outed as a serial plagiarist; Harvard faculty shared an antisemitic cartoon on social media; and protesters were filmed surrounding a Jewish student on campus and shouting “Shame!” into his ears.
According to the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Harvard has repeatedly misrepresented its handling of the explosion of hate and rule breaking, launching a campaign of deceit and spin to cover up what ultimately became the biggest scandal in higher education.
A report generated by the committee as part of a wider investigation of the school claimed that the university formed an Antisemitism Advisory Group (AAG) largely for show and did not consult its members when Jewish students were subject to verbal abuse and harassment, a time, its members felt, when its counsel was most needed. The advisory group went on to recommend nearly a dozen measures for addressing the problem and offered other guidance, the report said, but it was excluded from high-level discussions which preceded, for example, the December congressional testimony of former president Gay — a hearing convened to discuss antisemitism at Harvard.
So frustrated were a “majority” of AAG members with being an accessory to what the committee described as a guilefully crafted public relations facade that they threatened to resign from it.
Harvard must still tend to outstanding issues which resulted from the events of this past academic year. A congressional investigation of its handling of antisemitism is ongoing and six Jewish students are suing it for allegedly ignoring antisemitism discrimination.
In April, attorneys representing the school attempted to have the suit tossed out of court, arguing that the plaintiffs lack legal standing.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Leaked Harvard University Document Addresses Unlawful Protests in Wake of Anti-Israel Demonstrations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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A Foundation Led by a Terror Sympathizer Is Waging Lawfare Against Israel
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) — a Belgium-based advocacy organization — is hunting IDF soldiers and government officials all over the world, attempting to manipulate the international legal system to arrest and prosecute Israelis for alleged crimes.
Today, the HRF is primarily targeting Israelis, but it is also establishing a dangerous precedent, whereby organizations with a radical agenda could use the same legal playbook to persecute US and NATO troops in the future.
In July, HRF submitted its most recent complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC), after the IDF targeted Al Jazeera reporter Anas al Sharif — who Israel says was moonlighting as a Hamas operative.
The complaint accuses IDF members allegedly involved in Sharif’s death of war crimes and genocide. The complaint goes on to urge the ICC to issue arrest warrants for the IDF members.
Since its founding in 2024, HRF has filed several complaints against Israelis with the ICC, including a sweeping complaint in October 2024 that identified 1,000 IDF soldiers purportedly involved in the war in Gaza.
According to HRF, the organization submitted 8,000 pieces of “verifiable evidence … including videos, audio recordings, forensic reports, and social media documentation” that allegedly document the guilt of the named soldiers. Included in the list were 12 unwitting American dual nationals.
While framed as the pursuit of justice under international law, HRF’s campaign is grounded in hatred. The group’s founder, Dyab Abou Jahjah, has been open and on the record for more than two decades regarding his affinity for terrorists, as well as his antisemitic, anti-American, and anti-Israeli beliefs.
Abou Jahjah admitted to joining Hezbollah as a young man, where he claims to have received military training. He has used social media to amplify messages from former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Shortly after 9/11, Abou Jahjah voiced his animosity towards the United States, saying that the attacks elicited feelings of “sweet revenge.” The following year, Belgian authorities arrested Abou Jahjah for his involvement in riots.
In 2005, Abou Jahjah agreed with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that wiping Israel off the map was the “only possible moral position.” He has repeatedly glorified armed resistance, and was eventually fired in 2017 from his position with a Belgian newspaper for praising the slaying of four Israeli soldiers. In addition to its efforts at the ICC, HRF has attempted to spur the prosecution of Israelis in more than 20 countries.
HRF’s methodology for building cases against IDF soldiers is to comb through the targets’ social media accounts, collecting data to use in complaints. Meanwhile, the group monitors the soldiers’ movements, filing cases in foreign jurisdictions, as the IDF soldiers travel abroad. The organization’s efforts have also included an attempt to extradite Israelis from Nepal, and a request to Interpol to flag an Israeli citizen for apprehension.
This approach has generated some results: authorities in Lima, Peru, opened a criminal case against an IDF soldier, and Belgian authorities questioned two Israeli citizens at a music festival near Antwerp. However, none of HRF’s cases have resulted in a successful prosecution — yet.
HRF’s attempts to trigger a prosecution at the ICC should be of special concern to the United States, which — like Israel — decided not to join the ICC when it was formed, fearing that it would become a venue for lawfare. The US Congress was so concerned with the threat of ICC judicial overreach that in 2001 it passed a law authorizing the president to “use all means necessary” to liberate Americans held by the ICC.
Meanwhile, the ICC has shown it is determined to find ways to prosecute troops from countries that are not parties to the court’s founding treaty.
In 2017, the ICC announced that it would proceed with an investigation of US troops that it said committed war crimes in Afghanistan. The court argued that since Afghanistan was part of the ICC, Americans in Afghanistan were subject to its jurisdiction.
The ICC has extended that argument to Israel, claiming that because the unrecognized “State of Palestine” is an ICC member, IDF troops in Gaza are subject to the court’s jurisdiction. HRF seeks to turn that theory into reality by serving up defendants for the ICC to prosecute.
The Trump administration commendably fought back against the ICC’s overreach with Executive Orders in its first and second administrations, authorizing a series of sanctions against members of the court, with four additional ICC officials sanctioned in August.
Now, the administration should turn its attention to HRF. First, there are grounds to investigate the ties to Hezbollah of HRF and its founder Abou Jahjah, with an eye to imposing sanctions under Executive Order 13224 (as amended), which authorizes sanctions on terrorists and their material supporters, agents, and trainees. Second, HRF could be subject to sanctions if it meets the criteria laid out in Executive Order 14203, which applies to those who have “directly engaged in” or “materially assisted” the ICC pursuit of targets from countries that are not members of the court.
By standing on principle today, when the court is targeting Israelis, the US government can ensure that Americans do not become the court’s targets tomorrow.
Enia Krivine is the senior director of the Israel Program and the National Security Network at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on X @EKrivine.
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AEPi: Brotherhood as a Shield Against Campus Hate
The AEPi chapter at Stanford. Photo: Stanford.edu
The night was cold and tense. A group of Jewish students huddled together outside their campus Hillel, clutching backpacks and phones, waiting for the chants to die down. Across the quad, a crowd surged and shouted, voices rising in anger: “From the river to the sea….” It was loud, aggressive, and deeply personal. Inside the building, someone had just taped over a mezuzah. Social media was aflame with threats and photos of students’ names and faces. The administration sent a carefully worded email urging “dialogue,” but Jewish students knew what it really meant: you’re on your own tonight.
This scene is not from a single campus, nor is it isolated. It is a composite of what Jewish students have faced across the country over the past two years, and is a story that I have been told countless times.
The fact of the matter today is that October 7 did not create campus antisemitism, but it stripped away any illusion that hostility toward Jews was sporadic or manageable. In the weeks following Hamas’ brutal attacks on Israel, Jewish students experienced not only anger but organized efforts to intimidate and silence them. College, a place meant for exploration and growth along with viewpoint diversity, became for many young Jews a place of fear, retreat, and calculation. They were forced to figure out when to speak up, when to hide, and when to walk quickly in the other direction.
University leaders, caught between competing pressures, have largely been reactive. After a crisis, they issue statements, create task forces, and hope the problem subsides. National Jewish organizations provide important advocacy from afar, but they are often too distant and too slow to respond to fast-moving campus dynamics. The result is a dangerous vacuum, one in which Jewish students feel abandoned and vulnerable.
Into that vacuum has stepped an unexpected but powerful actor: Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), the international Jewish fraternity. Long known for promoting Jewish leadership and philanthropy, AEPi has developed something more ambitious: a comprehensive plan to confront campus antisemitism head-on.
It is not simply another task force or symbolic statement. It is a living system that empowers students, engages administrators, and builds networks of allies. At a time when so many institutions seem paralyzed, AEPi offers clarity, action, and hope.
A New Model for a New Challenge
The brilliance of AEPi’s approach lies in its refusal to wait. Most campus responses to antisemitism are reactive: they begin after damage has already been done. AEPi’s plan is different. It begins with the students themselves and builds outward, creating a network that connects local action to national coordination. It rests on three pillars: leadership development, community building, and proactive advocacy.
The first and most foundational pillar is leadership. Jewish students are too often cast only as victims to be protected by others. AEPi rejects this passivity. Its chapters operate as training grounds where students learn to organize, negotiate, and lead. Brothers are taught to plan events, run meetings with university officials, and navigate moments of crisis. A public Shabbat dinner isn’t just a meal, for instance. Rather, it is an act of visibility and courage. When a chapter hosts “Shabbat Across AEPi,” bringing together hundreds of students in a visible celebration of Jewish life, it sends a clear message: we are here, and we will not hide.
These experiences prepare young Jews to lead far beyond the walls of their fraternity houses. In my own writing, I’ve argued that fraternities can serve as vital mediating institutions. When done well, they provide structure, mentorship, and purpose — things that many young adults desperately need but rarely find in today’s higher education landscape. AEPi is a case study in this potential. Its chapters don’t just offer friendship or social activities. They cultivate citizens who understand that leadership is not about privilege, but about responsibility.
Building Bridges, Breaking Isolation
Antisemitism thrives in ignorance. When non-Jewish students have little meaningful contact with Jewish peers, they are more vulnerable to caricatures and conspiracy theories. AEPi tackles this directly by making outreach a central part of its mission. Its chapters host thousands of events each year that bring together students of all backgrounds: cultural exchanges, interfaith dialogues, philanthropy drives, and service projects.
These aren’t box-checking diversity or outreach programs. They are sustained, face-to-face encounters that foster trust and understanding. A non-Jewish student who helps plan a Passover meal or joins a community service event alongside AEPi brothers sees Jews not as abstract symbols in a political debate, but as friends and peers. That personal connection is one of the most powerful antidotes to hatred.
The scale of this outreach is remarkable. According to AEPi’s own reporting, its chapters created nearly three million individual “touchpoints” with students last year through engagement efforts. These numbers are more than statistics: they represent countless small moments of human connection that slowly transform campus culture.
Preventing the Next Crisis
The third pillar of AEPi’s strategy is what makes it truly novel: proactive advocacy. Too often, administrators are blindsided by crises and scramble to respond once headlines hit. AEPi flips this dynamic by emphasizing preparation and early intervention.
Before the academic year begins, AEPi sends advocacy letters to hundreds of college presidents, diversity offices, and campus security teams. These letters don’t just call for dialogue. They outline concrete steps universities can take: adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, enforce codes of conduct fairly across all groups, monitor for harassment, and visibly affirm Jewish students’ right to safety and belonging.
This groundwork matters. When tensions escalate, administrators already know whom to call and what steps to take. In the days after October 7, as campuses erupted, AEPi provided private briefings and real-time intelligence to university leaders. In one case, a chapter learned that outside agitators planned to infiltrate a protest near a Jewish student center. With that advance warning, administrators deployed security and defused the situation before it turned violent. The incident never made headlines because the crisis was prevented rather than merely managed.
This kind of quiet, behind-the-scenes engagement is invaluable. It builds trust, establishes clear lines of communication, and demonstrates that Jewish students are not simply petitioners begging for protection. They are partners in creating safe, pluralistic campus environments.
Why This Model Matters
To see why AEPi’s model is so powerful, consider what it replaces. The old model of campus engagement was fragmented and reactive. Universities would issue statements after an incident, form committees, and hope for the best. National Jewish organizations would provide legal help or public advocacy, often at a distance. Students were left to navigate a hostile environment largely on their own.
AEPi bridges these divides. It empowers students at the grassroots level while connecting them to parents, alumni, administrators, and national organizations. Everyone has a role, and the pieces work together. It is operational, not performative.
The stakes could not be higher. A 2021 survey of Jewish students in Greek life found that 65 percent had experienced or witnessed antisemitism on campus, and half reported hiding their Jewish identity at some point to avoid harassment. These numbers reveal more than a safety issue. They speak to a profound crisis of belonging. When young adults feel they must erase themselves to fit in, the university has failed at its most basic purpose.
Leadership as the Missing Ingredient
The deeper truth here is about leadership. Campuses today are awash in expression but starved for formation. Students are encouraged to “speak their truth,” but they are rarely taught how to organize others, resolve conflicts, or build enduring institutions. In this vacuum, the loudest and most extreme voices dominate.
Fraternities, when structured well, fill this gap. They teach accountability and mutual responsibility. They train young adults to govern themselves and to serve others. These mediating institutions are essential to rebuilding trust and civic life.
AEPi is doing this work for Jewish students at a moment of acute need. Its toolkit is not just about defending Jewish life today. It is about cultivating the leaders who will sustain Jewish communities and contribute to the broader civic fabric for decades to come.
Scaling the Blueprint
For all its success, AEPi cannot do this alone. Its approach should be a template for others. Hillel, Chabad, and independent Jewish student groups can adapt its leadership training for all Jewish students, not just fraternity members. National organizations should integrate AEPi’s early-warning strategies into their own reporting systems.
Universities must move beyond symbolism. They should formalize the kinds of proactive partnerships AEPi has pioneered, and treat Jewish student safety as a core responsibility. Alumni and donors can provide the resources and accountability needed to sustain these efforts. And non-Jewish allies — students, faculty, administrators — should be systematically engaged and trained, not just thanked for attending a vigil once a year.
In a world where a viral TikTok can shape perceptions more quickly than any campus event, digital advocacy must also become a priority. Jewish leaders need the tools to counter misinformation online and to tell their own stories with clarity and confidence.
A Vision for Renewal
Campus antisemitism will not disappear on its own. It will only be defeated by organized, principled leadership; the kind AEPi has demonstrated. Jewish life on campus must no longer be defined by fear and retreat. With courage, preparation, and solidarity, it can instead be marked by pride, resilience, and unshakable belonging.
Fraternities are often caricatured as outdated or insular. AEPi proves the opposite. When rooted in mission and values, they can be among the most powerful engines of civic formation we have. AEPi has taken the bonds of brotherhood and turned them into a shield. Now it falls to the rest of us — students, parents, administrators, allies, public intellectuals — to take up that shield and build the future that our campuses so desperately need.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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‘Life Ended Before It Began’: Aunt Mourns Murder of Newly Married Nephew in Jerusalem Terror Attack
Jacob Pinto, center right, during the chuppah ceremony at his wedding in Jerusalem this past summer. Photo: Instagram/Carrie Nachmani
Six people were murdered in a Palestinian terrorist attack at a bus stop in Jerusalem on Monday, and one victim was a young newlywed who recently immigrated to Israel from Spain.
“He was a most noble, honorable, religious, kind young man … We waited all our lives for him to marry our niece. She waited for the man of her dreams,” Carrie Nachmani told The Algemeiner on Monday about 25-year-old Jacob Pinto. He married Nachmani’s niece in Jerusalem this summer.
Nachmani, a cookbook author and the mother of Instagram influencer Ariella Charnas, shared on Instagram a video from Pinto’s wedding to her niece, and it showed the couple during the chuppah ceremony. Nachmani wrote in the caption of the video that Pinto, a Spanish citizen and resident of Jerusalem, was heading to his teaching job on Monday when two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at his bus stop at Ramot Junction in northern Jerusalem, killing six people before the attackers were shot dead by a soldier and an armed civilian. She said Pinto was already onboard when the terrorists “stormed his bus and shot him.”
“He immediately called my niece to say how much he loved her, his family and their new life he had waited for,” Nachmani wrote. “There are not enough words for this evil that exists … Unbearable, inconsolable, unimaginable … life ended before it began … may his memory be a blessing.”
On Monday, Charnas shared on her Instagram Story a screenshot of her mother’s Instagram post and tribute to Pinto.
Pinto’s murder took place the same morning that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced sanctions against both Spanish Minister of Childhood and Youth Sira Rego and Deputy Prime Minister and Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz. The two are banned from entering Israel, and the country has ended all official contacts with them because of their antisemitic statements and criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
Others who were killed in Monday’s terrorist attack include Sarah Mendelson, 60; Rabbi Israel Matzner, 28; Rabbi Yosef David, 43; Rabbi Mordechai Steintzag, 79; and Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Pash. Eleven others were reportedly injured in the attack, including a pregnant woman and six who were in critical condition with gunshot wounds.
Sa’ar said the gunmen were Palestinians from the West Bank. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas released a statement condemning “any targeting of Palestinian and Israeli civilians,” but the Palestinian terrorist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad praised the shooting, with Hamas calling the two gunman “resistance fighters.” Neither terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the shooting.
Several guns, ammunition, and a knife used by the attackers were found at the scene of the shooting, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said authorities were looking for suspects who might have helped the attackers. The deadly shooting took place amid a nearly two-year war between Israel and Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip who orchestrated the deadly massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.