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Anti-Jewish Violence Persisted in November: The Scene from Cities and College Campuses
Pro-Hamas Columbia University students march in front of pro-Israel demonstrators on Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Photo: Roy De La Cruz via Reuters Connect
November was marked by escalating attacks on Jews worldwide.
In Amsterdam, Israelis visiting to attend a soccer match were chased and assaulted by gangs of thugs and criminals. These riots were condemned by national politicians, as well as the mayor who later regretted using the word “pogrom” and expressed concern for the marginalized Muslim perpetrators.
A rampage through Montreal also saw Muslim and leftist protestors burn effigies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, burn cars, and smash windows. The Montreal riots came after campus disruptions and walkouts organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) led to one local college being closed.
A coalition of anti-Israel groups also promised “global escalation” and carried out disruptions of Thanksgiving holiday travel and celebrations, including the Macy’s Parade in New York City.
Additional attacks were reported:
- In Chicago, a visibly Jewish man was shot on a Saturday morning by a Muslim assailant who shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he engaged in a gunfight with the police. The Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, declined to name the victim or describe the circumstances,
- In the United Arab Emirates, a Chabad rabbi was abducted and murdered. Three Uzbek citizens suspected of working for Iran were later arrested,
- In Berlin, a Jewish youth team was attacked by local Muslims,
- In Sweden, shots were fired at an Israeli owned firm, apparently by local Muslim gang members paid by Iran,
- In Chicago two Israeli students were attacked by local Muslims,
- Pyrotechnics were thrown at Italian policemen at a pro-Hamas protest in Turin,
- In a Jewish neighborhood of Sydney, a car was burned, and a number others were vandalized with the words “F*** Israel,” as was a local restaurant. Mohammed Farhat was arrested in connection with the crimes as he attempted to leave the country.
Other pro-Hamas protests included:
- In London, police allowed protestors to block Parliament Square during Remembrance Day commemorations,
- A march through a Jewish neighborhood of Bergenfield (NJ) to protest an Israeli real estate fair,
- Outside the Jewish National Fund annual conference in Dallas,
- Outside a Toronto synagogue, where an Israeli was to speak,
- A march through a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn,
- At the United Nations climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Other incidents included:
- The home and car of University of Washington president Ana Marie Cauce were vandalized,
- In Los Angeles, Jewish owned businesses were vandalized,
- Tunnels at the University of Rochester were covered with “wanted posters” depicting Jewish faculty. Four students were later arrested for the crimes, but the student government passed a resolution condemning the university’s response,
- Spray painting the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial with red paint,
- In Milan, a mural depicting Italian Holocaust survivors was defaced,
- In Amsterdam, the offices of a pro-Israel Christian group were vandalized. The mayor also banned a march by the same group,
- CNN personality Dana Bash was confronted by a CodePink protestors at a talk inside her synagogue,
- Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský was booed at a talk at University College, London, and had to be removed from the room,
- An Israeli restaurant across the street from Columbia University was vandalized with the words “free Palestine.“
At the University of Manchester, a bust of Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president and a noted chemist, was “abducted” and then “beheaded” by the domestic terror group Palestine Action, who filmed the entire episode.
The bust of another university faculty member was also stolen and destroyed. The theft was intended to highlight the Balfour Declaration which, as the group put it, “began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by signing the land away.”
Most seriously, two individuals were arrested in Pittsburgh, including one self-described “Hamas operative,” and charged with vandalizing a local Jewish facility and collecting explosive materials for a mass casualty attack. Mohammad Hamad’s accomplice is Talya Lubit, a Dickinson College graduate in Middle East studies.
University administrations
University administrations appear unsure how to respond to the incoming Trump administration, though many had already acted after the US Congress made it clear that their conduct in the 23-24 academic year was completely unacceptable.
In the meantime, some pushback against obvious student excesses has continued:
- Tufts university suspended its SJP chapter until 2027, citing its promotion and celebration of violence. The SJP chapter then announced its had disaffiliated itself from the university,
- The University of Pennsylvania has suspended a business school fraternity for posters mocking Israeli hostages,
- The University of Michigan has begun disciplinary proceedings against its student anti-Israel coalition, which may result in up to a four-year suspension,
- Harvard Divinity School issued a two week suspension to students who conducted a pray-in in the school’s library,
- The New York State Supreme Court upheld Columbia University’s suspension of its SJP and JVP chapters, ruling the school’s decision was “neither arbitrary or capricious, irrational or in violation of clearly established University policies.”
At the same time, Columbia University has agreed to a $395,000 settlement for two Israeli students who were suspended after being falsely accused of using a “chemical weapon” against pro-Hamas protestors in the spring semester.
Students
The overall volume and intensity of student protests against Israel have been more subdued in the Fall semester, alternately attributed by pro-Palestinian students and faculty to exhaustion and repression.
On other campuses, the protests continue unabated. Several student strike days saw walkouts and building occupations, in part as a response to the National SJP’s ‘Take a Building Challenge,’ including at the University of Arizona and Sarah Lawrence College. A building at Sarah Lawrence remains occupied with little university reaction.
An ‘International University Day of Action’ organized by SJP saw walkouts at the Harvard University, the University of Michigan, and other institutions. Some 85,000 students in Quebec reportedly walked out, including at Concordia University (where a woman was filmed shouting at Jews about a “final solution coming your way”).
Campus Jewish institutions are increasingly frequent targets of protests.
Students at Columbia demanded the university “sever all ties with Hillel,” At Harvard University, the appearance of a former Israeli soldier prompted calls of “Zionists not welcome here,” while at Brooklyn College protestors outside the Hillel chanted “We don’t want no Zionists here” and “You support genocide.”
Pro-Hamas protestors also harassed donors at a fundraising dinner hosted by the Harvard University president.
Walkouts were also held, as unionized students and employees continued to conflate “Palestine” with campus labor issues, for example at UCLA where students rallied for a strike as well as for Gaza. An “anti-Veterans Day” protest was also held at Columbia University by pro-Palestinian students to “honor the martyrs’ and reject the ‘American war machine.”
Despite the almost uniform repudiation of BDS by university administrations and trustees, Trinity College and Macalaster College, student governments continue to pursue these mechanisms, either in earnest or as means to undermine social cohesion on campus. Pro-Hamas students, including at Yale University and Princeton University employ the tactic of aiming divestment at “weapons manufacturers” rather than Israeli companies as a whole.
Efforts by student governments to directly boycott Israel also continue. In an ironic turn of events, however, the University of Michigan student government leaders who held the organization hostage and demanded that it support BDS and Gaza have now been impeached for dereliction of duty, incitement of violence, and seizing control of social media accounts. They will now face trial by a student judiciary panel.
Student governments were also the scene of complaints regarding invitations to outside speakers opposed to Hamas, especially Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef.
Finally, CAIR and other Islamist organizations continue to file complaints and lawsuits alleging Islamophobia of various universities. A variety of “human rights” groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, and Human Rights Watch also issued an open letter complaining that some 20 colleges and universities have employed “excess force” against pro-Hamas protestors.
Faculty
In the wake of the Trump electoral victory, the tone of “resistance” regarding Israel continued unabated. This was seen in faculty defenses of students participating in building takeovers, as at the University of Minnesota, protest votes by University of Michigan faculty against trustees who refused to divest from Israel, and in protests to commemorate Palestinian “martyrs,” including at New York University.
In an interview, the president of the American Association of University Professors struck a defiant tone regarding the profession and its involvement with political issues, including boycotting Israel.
At the same time, some faculty recognize that Israel boycotts have compromised academia’s social standing and legal positions. One example of the latter is a decision by the leadership of the Modern Language Association to prevent a boycott resolution from being put forward to the full membership. But individual faculty continue to emphasize the unique evil of Israel in course offerings, which are then defended under the banner of academic freedom.
Medical education continues to be a locus of especially notable antisemitism.
Reports on how the University of California at San Francisco Medical School curriculum has been comprehensively restructured around “social justice” are examples of how institutions continue to embed racism under the rubric of opposing white supremacy and “settler colonialism.”
The author is a contributor to SPME, where a different version of this article appeared.
The post Anti-Jewish Violence Persisted in November: The Scene from Cities and College Campuses first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says
A closed Israeli military gate stands near Ramallah in the West Bank, February 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after Arab ministers planning to attend were stopped from coming.
The move, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government announced one of the largest expansions of settlements in the West Bank in years, underlined escalating tensions over the issue of international recognition of a future Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, that is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Israel fiercely opposes.
The delegation of senior Arab officials due to visit Ramallah – including the Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Bahraini foreign ministers – postponed the visit after “Israel’s obstruction of it,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the block was “a clear breach of Israel’s obligations as an occupying force.”
The ministers required Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had delayed a planned trip to the West Bank.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”
Palestinians want the West Bank territory, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of a future state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
But the area is now criss-crossed with settlements that have squeezed some 3 million Palestinians into pockets increasingly cut off from each other though a network of military checkpoints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the announcement this week of 22 new settlements in the West Bank was an “historic moment” for settlements and “a clear message to Macron.” He said recognition of a Palestinian state would be “thrown into the dustbin of history.”
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Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Armed men hijacked dozens of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip overnight and hundreds of desperate Palestinians joined in to take supplies, local aid groups said on Saturday as officials waited for Hamas to respond to the latest ceasefire proposals.
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close but Hamas has said it is still studying the latest proposals from his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the proposals.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
On Saturday, the Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war began 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
At the same time, a separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on the social media platform X.
NO BREAD IN WEEKS
The World Food Program said it brought 77 trucks carrying flour into Gaza overnight and early on Saturday and all of them were stopped on the way, with food taken by hungry people.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” it said in a statement.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Overnight on Saturday, he said trucks had been stopped by armed groups near Khan Younis as they were headed towards a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and hundreds of desperate people had carried off supplies.
“We could understand that some are driven by hunger and starvation, some may not have eaten bread in several weeks, but we can’t understand armed looting, and it is not acceptable at all,” he said.
Israel says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
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Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Hamas said on Saturday it was seeking amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable.”
The Palestinian terrorist group said it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. But Hamas reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions Israel has rejected.
A Hamas official described the group’s response to the proposals from Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “positive” but said it was seeking some amendments. The official did not elaborate on the changes being sought by the group.
“This response aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas. Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to the Hamas statement.
Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.
Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close after the latest proposals, and the White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the terms.
Saying he had received Hamas’ response, Witkoff wrote in a posting on X: “It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief on May 13, confirming what Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
The Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said on Saturday it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Program trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement.
‘A MOCKERY’
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on X.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
A separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
Hamas denies looting supplies and has executed a number of suspected looters.
The post Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.