RSS
Pittsburgh Organizers Stopped an Effort to Boycott Israel; But It Was Far Too Close
A man pauses at a memorial for the 11 victims shot by a neo-Nazi at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue. Photo: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton
The city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is known for many things: bridges, steel, sports teams, and sadly, the Tree of Life Synagogue building shooting, where the worst massacre of Jews in US history took place on October 27, 2018.
After the Tree of Life attack, we felt a sense of community, support, and understanding in the area. Non-Jewish social justice and religious groups showered our community with love, and elected officials rallied to help our community recover and rebuild.
Unfortunately, that sense of love and community has shifted dramatically since October 7. After the brutal Hamas attack against Israel, the likes of which we have not seen since the Holocaust, many of us felt that Americans would more deeply understand the threats that Israelis are facing, and the risk that antisemitism poses to communities everywhere.
Sadly, the Jewish community in Pittsburgh has not felt even a fraction of the support we once felt, and we’ve often been left to fight battles with very few allies.
Like many Jewish communities around the world, my Squirrel Hill community has seen a dramatic rise in antisemitic incidents, including graffiti on my synagogue walls and my local Jewish Federation, physical and verbal attacks, hateful rhetoric during ceasefire resolution debates, encampments, and other anti-Israel protests.
In early June, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Pittsburgh tried a new tactic, dedicating their time to trying to introduce a ballot question that would have asked whether the city should participate in a boycott against Israel, and prohibit investments and public funds to “entities that conduct business operations with or in the State of Israel unless and until Israel ends its military action in Gaza.”
Such a referendum would have targeted our city’s synagogues and Jewish organizations, almost all of which have strong bonds — historical, religious, and commercial — with the State of Israel.
Anti-Israel activists spent months going to concerts, farmers markets, festivals, public pools, and anywhere they could think of with petitions for people to sign “if you’re in favor of a ceasefire.”
Of course, in many cases, the DSA activists failed to mention that this was a boycott petition that would force Israel to meet impossible (and unattainable) standards, threaten local Jewish institutions, and bring our city to a grinding halt, since some Israeli companies play an integral role in the day-to-day functions of our local government and institutions.
Those of us who have been fighting back against anti-Israel entities knew immediately how dangerous this was, and that we had our work cut out for us. We watched and waited to see if the DSA would submit the minimum number of signatures required to make it onto the ballot. All the while, we started researching, planning, and mobilizing. We found out the process for petition approval, created legal arguments, recruited legal counsel, mobilized community members, and worked to educate elected officials on the dangers of this referendum.
Finally, on August 6, our fears came true. The DSA submitted their petition, and we got to work. Our legal counsel began drafting our challenge, community leaders started recruiting hundreds of volunteers to challenge the petition, and we worked to encourage elected officials to oppose this petition on separate grounds.
We were overwhelmed with the response from within our community. Within a day, hundreds of Jewish community members were being trained on the very complex way to check signatories. Our legal counsel prepared their arguments, and City Controller Rachael Heisler issued her own challenge. We organized plaintiffs, witnesses, and testimony.
Volunteers spent hundreds of hours combing through signatures multiple times to identify those that did not meet the criteria for submission. The DSA continued to insist that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they had the minimum verifiable signatures to proceed.
However, we were able to find enough invalid signatures to stop the referendum from moving forward, and the DSA had no choice but to concede. On August 19, StandWithUs, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, and a coalition of four local Jewish clergy, successfully defeated the petition. We were well prepared to argue the legal challenges as well, but never got the chance to do so.
This effort took massive collaboration, mobilization, and community engagement. As the Regional Director of StandWithUs, I was so proud to partner with the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, the Beacon Coalition, local synagogues and Jewish institutions, and community members to fight back against this precedent-setting referendum.
A growing number of anti-Israel entities, including the DSA, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), pose a serious threat to local Jewish communities. Their goal is to spread misinformation and propaganda, and to wear down our community by exhausting us and our resources, but we won’t let them. We’ll continue to fight back against all attempts to discriminate against our community and work to defend Israel against misinformation and propaganda.
This success was truly a community effort that required time, resources, and dedication, in order to defeat the first attempt to put an anti-Israel boycott proposal on a US city ballot. We are grateful for this result and to our partners in this work, and we will continue to fight back against all attempts to harm our community and unfairly attack the State of Israel. At a time of rising antisemitism, these efforts have never been more important.
Julie Paris is Mid-Atlantic Regional Director for StandWithUs, an international, nonpartisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism.
The post Pittsburgh Organizers Stopped an Effort to Boycott Israel; But It Was Far Too Close first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
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.
RSS
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.
RSS
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.