The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has submitted a complaint against the Los Angeles City Council over a proposal to ban anti-Israel protesters from demonstrating in front of synagogues. 

CAIR, which has been dogged for years by allegations of association with Hamas and other terrorist groups, argues that establishing “100-foot protest buffer zones” around “sensitive sites” such as Jewish institutions and houses of worship could hamper speech rights of anti-Israel activists. The organization stated that the proposal represents the latest in a series of attempts to unfairly target so-called “anti-genocide” protesters. 

“Though the goal of the motion is to protect public spaces, such as religious institutions and healthcare facilities from those who may block or impede the entrances to these facilities, it is important to examine the underlying context, which directly threatens the free specch and assembly rights of community members who peacefully advocate on behalf of Palestinian rights,” the organization wrote.

JUST IN: CAIR has come out against two LA city council proposals that would, among other things, require pro-Hamas protestors to keep an 8-foot distance from people entering synagogues and prohibit them from intentionally blocking entrances pic.twitter.com/P6A7S32PwQ

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) September 15, 2024

CAIR slammed the proposed rules as “arbitrary” and “impractical,” adding that they are likely to result in the “unjust criminalization of individuals who are peacefully assembling.” The organization pointed to the recent anti-Israel demonstrations at UCLA and in front of a Los Angeles synagogue as instances in which “peaceful protestors were subject to extreme violence and intimidation.” 

Police violence against anti-Israel protests could increase as a result of the measure, the group warns. The organization worries that “excessive force” could be deployed against anti-Israel agitators while “pro-Zionist demonstrators” are allowed to “act with impunity.” 

“We respectfully urge you to reconsider the harmful implications of this motion and to protect the fundamental rights that underpin our democracy. The right to protest and voice dissent, even on the most controversial of subjects, is a right that cannot be restricted without serious consideration of the constitutional violations that are sure to follow. Moreover, protests serve a critical function in a democratic society. They ensure that individuals can challenge the status quo and call for justice, especially on matters that disproportionately affect those systemically marginalized and dispossessed,” the group continued. 

In August, Los Angeles City Council proposed making it a misdemeanor for protesters to prevent entry into schools, religious institutions, or hospitals. The motion amid simmering anger over violent pro-Palestine demonstrations across the city. Pro-Palestine protesters swarmed Adas Torah synagogue in June to prevent a real estate auction of Israeli land.

“Even here in Los Angeles County, we have seen how intimidation is used to prevent community members from entering facilities to receive essential services,” Los Angeles Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said in a statement. 

A number of Jewish advocacy organizations and leaders expressed support for the proposal, claiming that that it will “ensure the safety” of those trying to enter religious institutions. 

CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that CAIR “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”

CAIR has found themselves been embroiled in even more controversy since Oct. 7. The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’ rampage across southern Israel.

“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”

The post CAIR Submits Complaint Over Proposal To Prohibit Protests In Front of Synagogues first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Anti-Israel activity on college campuses has reached crisis levels in the 11 months since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, according to a new report the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued on Monday.

Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024 — paints a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.

“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report says. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”

The report added that ten campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and University of Michigan combing for 90 anti-Israel incidents, 52 and 38 respectively. Harvard University, University of California Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others, filled out the rest of the top ten. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where an anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.

The ADL also provided hard numbers on the number of pro-Hamas protests which struck campuses across the country following Oct. 7, a subject The Algemeiner has covered extensively. According to the report, 1,418 anti-Zionist demonstrations were held at 360 campuses in 46 states during the 2023-2024 academic year, a 335 percent increase from the previous year.

“These actions included frequent walkouts, with coordinated days of action nationwide during which students collectively walked out of classes. Sit-ins and die-ins (when a group of people gather and lie down as if dead) were also popular, alongside more traditional rallies and marches intended to draw attention to the Palestinian causes,” it continued. “As the school year progressed, activists increasingly felt that protests alone were insufficient to pressure campus administrations into divesting from Israeli companies or disassociating from ‘Zionist’ donors and groups.”

These actions culminated in the establishment of “Gaza Solidarity Encampments,” where pro-Hamas students lived for up to several weeks, as well as “physical occupations of buildings, vandalism, and tent encampments across the country.” Not all of this activity was explicitly antisemitic, the ADL explained, but a significant portion of it was.

“Jews and/or Zionists were associated with greed and bloodthirstiness or compared to rodents and other animals,” the report said. “In one incident on April 19, 2024, at the encampment at Yale University, a protester displayed a sign depicting a shirtless Joe Biden cradling and breastfeeding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is drinking drops of blood from dollar signs on Biden’s bosom.”

ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said on Monday that the report’s findings are unprecedented and he called on college officials to address the existential threat campus antisemitism poses to the academia’s Jewish community.

“The antisemitic, anti-Zionist vitriol we’ve witnessed on campus is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, the anti-Israel movement’s relentless harassment, vandalism, intimidations and violent physical assaults go way beyond the peaceful voicing of a political opinion. Administrators and faculty need to do much better this year to ensure a safe and truly inclusive environment for all students, regardless of religion, nationality or political views, and they need to start now.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Anti-Israel Activity on College Campuses Up ‘Staggering’ 477 Percent: ADL Report first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) released a video over the weekend, calling for all American universities to adopt the official International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.  

In the video, Torres praised New York University (NYU) over their decision to “modernize” their hate speech policies by adding protections for students that identify as Zionist. Torres argued that these changes are necessary “in response to the increasingly complex and ever-evolving reality of campus antisemitism.” He called on university administrators nationwide emulate NYU and bolster protections for Jewish students. 

“NYU’s decision to adopt a fuller understanding of antisemitism sets an example that others in academia should follow for the safety of their Jewish students,” Torres said. 

Torres continued, calling antisemitism “an ancient virus that mutates over time.” He urged universities to be “nimble” in responding to the new iterations of antisemitism arising on their campuses. He asserted that antisemitism can manifest itself in hatred of Jews both “as a religion” and “as a nation.” 

“Anti-Zionism and antisemitism are indeed intersectional, and cannot be so easily compartmentalized in the real world as they can be in academic spaces,” Torres said. 

Torres argued that modern antisemites replace use “Zionist” as a replacement word for “Jew.” He added that discrimination against “Zionists” is indeed antisemitism in both “intent and effect.” 

“Rejecting moral clarity about right and wrong does not weaken the academic enterprise; it strengthens it,” Torres added. 

Torres has repeatedly lambasted universities for fostering a hostile environment for Jewish students in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel. He has called anti-Israel campus activists and academics “pseudo-intellectuals” and condemned them for peddling antisemitism in the name of social justice.

Universities across the country have been roiled by antisemitism controversies in the months following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. Columbia University student Khymani James, for example, publicly stated that Zionists “don’t deserve to live.” The Ivy League university has not confirmed if James has been permanently expelled from the campus. A mob of pro-Palestinian protesters held a demonstration in front of the City University of New York Hillel on Tuesday, shouting at Jewish students to get “out of the Middle East” and “go back to Brooklyn.”

Torres, a self-described progressive, has established himself as a stalwart ally of the Jewish state, especially in the months following the Hamas slaughter of roughly 1,200 people across southern Israel on Oct. 7. Torres has repeatedly defended Israel from unsubstantiated claims of committing “genocide” in Gaza. He has also consistently supported the continued shipment of American arms to help the Jewish state defend itself from Hamas terrorists. Torres has levied sharp criticism toward university administrators for allowing Jewish students to be threatened on campus without consequence.

The post Ritchie Torres Calls for All Universities to Enshrine Protection of Zionist Students in Official Conduct Codes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.