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Bridging Hatred: How Two Forms of Antisemitism Converge on College Campuses
City, University Of London. Photo: Wiki Commons.
Another morning, another flood of emails. Lately, my university inbox has become more than just a stream of class updates and administrative notices — now even this simplest of tasks has been hijacked by antisemitism.
Statements from the Student Union condemning Israel’s “Genocide,” “Educide,” “Domicide,” and a list of other bogus terms pile up on my inbox screen — one after another.
And even though I delete the emails, antisemitism follows me in every hallway (filled with anti-Israel posters) and cubicles filled with antisemitic stickers. It is completely inescapable.
This phenomenon reminds me of something Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks once said, when he compared antisemitism to a “virus” that has “survived over time by mutating.”
Beyond that, antisemitism has permeated groups you’d never expect to withstand being in the same room, let alone aligned in a common cause, with each other. The surprising nature of the spread of antisemitism between the far left and Islamist groups, has been called the “Red-Green Alliance.”
This alliance is simply proof that sometimes the enemy of my enemy is — still just an enemy. However, the current resurgence of the latest variant of antisemitism — created in the wake of October 7th — has clearly found fertile ground in Western schools and academic institutions.
According to CAMERA, an organization set up to fight anti-Israel narratives and disinformation, the roots of this deranged ideology begin in a very expected place: Nazi Germany, which spent an enormous amount of resources into spreading antisemitism internationally.
With the eventual disappearance of the Nazi regime in Germany, the mantle of exporting antisemitism has now been picked up by (among others) authoritarian regimes globally. The Soviet Union, for instance, worked closely through Uganda’s Idi Amin to encourage Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat to rephrase his endless waves of terrorism against Israeli civilians as acts of heroism, part of a necessary “liberation movement.”
In time, these propagandistic slogans developed intellectual roots as revolutionaries in Iran, notably Ali Shirati, pioneered a synthesis, combining Marxism’s oppressor/oppressed paradigm with a political interpretation of Shiite Islam. This positioned Islam as uniquely responsible for championing the marginalized.
Unsurprisingly, Iran has developed into one of the most major exporters of this “New Antisemitism” — funding a web of initiatives aimed to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and dehumanize its people.
The influence of these Islamic regimes extends across Europe and North America, deeply embedding itself within Western academic institutions. This phenomenon has received far less attention compared to the coverage of China’s Confucius Institutes on campuses, despite Qatari and Iranian interests exerting a much greater financial and ideological impact.
A groundbreaking 2008 report revealed the scale of this influence, when research uncovered that Islamist regimes had injected $462 million into just eight leading UK institutions, including prestigious universities like Oxford and Cambridge. Subsequent investigations have painted an even more alarming picture, with reports suggesting that Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood have secretly channeled over $13 billion into American universities between 2001 and 2021.
The consequences of this influence is not so surprising. British academics have increasingly demonstrated a lack of moral clarity on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Some of this their Marxist roots, where other efforts could be attributed to foreign funding. And when they support terrorist groups on college campuses, they often go without consequences. Their “oppressor vs. oppressed” ideology makes them sympathetic to terrorism.
Many students have followed the lead of these teachers, with anti-Israel protests on UK universities becoming a near daily occurrence — costing UK universities at least £1 million in management already, and spreading hate to new generations of students and the general population.
And sadly, the impact of this rise of a new antisemitism has resulted in Jewish students fearful of expressing their Jewish identity on campus, with figures showing as many as 70% of Jewish students actively concealing their Jewish identity in UK universities.
As for me and the flood of hate in my email inbox, my problem won’t be resolved until we start to tackle antisemitism within our universities, and our media institutions seriously and denormalize this spreading hatred.
Isaac Grand is Masters Student in Law at City, University of London, and a CAMERA on Campus Fellow.
The post Bridging Hatred: How Two Forms of Antisemitism Converge on College Campuses first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Terrorist Responsible for Death of 21 Soldiers Eliminated
An Israeli F-35I “Adir” fighter jet. Photo: IDF
i24 News – Khalil Abd al-Nasser Mohammed Khatib, the terrorist who commanded the terrorist cell that killed 21 soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip on January 22, 2024, was killed by an Israeli airstrike, the IDF said on Sunday.
In a joint operation between the military and the Shin Bet security agency, the terrorist was spotted in a reconnaissance mission. The troops called up an aircraft to target him, and he was eliminated.
Khatib planned and took part in many other terrorist plots against Israeli soldiers.
i24NEWS’ Hebrew channel interviewed Dor Almog, the sole survivor of the mass casualty disaster, who was informed on live TV about the death of the commander responsible for the killing his brothers-in-arms.
“I was sure this day would come – I was a soldier and I know what happens at the end,” said Almog. “The IDF will do everything to bring back the abductees and to topple Hamas, to the last one man.”
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Stanley Fischer, Former Fed Vice Chair and Bank of Israel Chief, Dies at 81
FILE PHOTO: Vice Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve System Stanley Fischer arrives to hear Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney delivering the Michel Camdessus Central Banking Lecture at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, U.S., September 18, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
Stanley Fischer, who helped shape modern economic theory during a career that included heading the Bank of Israel and serving as vice chair of the US Federal Reserve, has died at the age of 81.
The Bank of Israel said he died on Saturday night but did not give a cause of death. Fischer was born in Zambia and had dual US-Israeli citizenship.
As an academic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fischer trained many of the people who went on to be top central bankers, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as well as Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank president.
Fischer served as chief economist at the World Bank, and first deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund during the Asian financial crisis and was then vice chairman at Citigroup from 2002 to 2005.
During an eight-year stint as Israel’s central bank chief from 2005-2013, Fischer helped the country weather the 2008 global financial crisis with minimal economic damage, elevating Israel’s economy on the global stage, while creating a monetary policy committee to decide on interest rates like in other advanced economies.
He was vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2017 and served as a director at Bank Hapoalim in 2020 and 2021.
Current Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron praised Fischer’s contribution to the Bank of Israel and to advancing Israel’s economy as “truly significant.”
The soft-spoken Fischer – who played a role in Israel’s economic stabilization plan in 1985 during a period of hyperinflation – was chosen by then Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as central bank chief.
Netanyahu, now prime minister, called Fischer a “great Zionist” for leaving the United States and moving to Israel to take on the top job at Israel’s central bank.
“He was an outstanding economist. In the framework of his role as governor, he greatly contributed to the Israeli economy, especially to the return of stability during the global economic crisis,” Netanyahu said, adding that Stanley – as he was known in Israel – proudly represented Israel and its economy worldwide.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also paid tribute.
“He played a huge role in strengthening Israel’s economy, its remarkable resilience, and its strong reputation around the world,” Herzog said. “He was a world-class professional, a man of integrity, with a heart of gold. A true lover of peace.”
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Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Says Israel Blocking Ramallah Meeting Proof of ‘Extremism’
Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud attends a news conference at the Arab Gulf Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 9, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Yosri
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud said the Israeli government’s refusal to allow a delegation of Arab ministers to the West Bank showed its “extremism and rejection of peace.”
His statement came during a joint press conference in Amman with counterparts from Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain, after they met as part of an Arab contact group that was going to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
“Israel’s refusal of the committee’s visit to the West Bank embodies and confirms its extremism and refusal of any serious attempts for (a) peaceful pathway… It strengthens our will to double our diplomatic efforts within the international community to face this arrogance,” the Saudi minister said.
On Saturday, Israel said it would not allow a planned meeting on Sunday that would have included ministers from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Palestinian Authority officials said.
Bin Farhan’s visit to the West Bank would have marked the first such visit by a top Saudi official in recent memory.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in a “provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said blocking the trip was another example of how Israel was “killing any chance of a just and comprehensive” Arab-Israeli settlement.
An international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the conference would cover security arrangements after a ceasefire in Gaza and reconstruction plans to ensure Palestinians would remain on their land and foil any Israeli plans to evict them.
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