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As Trump Takes Office, Will the New Administration Help Stop Radicalism on 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

The new Trump administration promises to shift the landscape for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and anti-Israel politics.

A new Executive Order orders action to combat antisemitism, including deporting violent and terror-supporting non-citizens, and the administration’s efforts to remove the Federal DEI enterprise removes a key support for anti-Israel and antisemitic policies at universities receiving government funds.

The effectiveness of these and other measures remains unclear — but the new and supportive rhetoric must be contrasted with the new administration’s established pattern of pressuring Israel to make concessions.

Responding to increasing scrutiny, higher education professionals have rebranded DEI courses and offices, and more evidence has accumulated that university administrations are working to dilute or replace the focus on campus antisemitism. At Northwestern University, critics have noted that a required training program on discrimination and harassment omitted Israel and Zionism as targeted categories, but included “anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian biases.” The University of Toronto also launched a working group on Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian discrimination.

Universities and localities continue, however, to act against students who have violated regulations and laws:

Divestment now appears nearly dead on American campuses. In January Johns Hopkins University rejected divesting from Israel as inappropriately political and impractical, as did the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Maine system. At the University of Georgia, however, students disrupted a board of regents meeting to demand divestment.

This follows a spate of protests by medical professionals, including a letter of support from the American Academy of Pediatrics to then Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in support of Hamas doctor Hussam Abu Safiya who was arrested in Gaza. “Call out sick for Gaza” protests occurred at Boston area hospitals including Harvard Medical School.

Physicians associated with Columbia University also complained administrators had engaged in “the erasure of Palestinian morbidity and mortality and “systematic repression and censorship of health-oriented discussions of the genocide.” The support for Hamas demonstrated by physicians at their medical school graduations is an ominous foreshadowing of future mistreatment of patients on the basis of religion or national identity that has already been documented in the US, Canada, and Europe.

Faculty

In the faculty sphere, one of the most notable developments in January was a resolution approved by the American Historical Association (AHA) members at its annual meeting to condemn “scholasticide” in Gaza. The resolution alleged that Israel had intentionally and systematically destroyed Gaza’s educational infrastructure using US weapons. Once approved the resolution moved to the executive committee before being sent to the full membership. The executive committee, however, vetoed the resolution, stating that “it lies outside the scope of the association’s mission and purpose.”

The AHA’s executive committee’s decision follows a similar one by the Modern Language Association to prevent a BDS resolution from being put to the full membership. The moves suggest that academic leaders — with the notable exception of the umbrella American Association of University Professors, which has endorsed “individual” Israel boycotts and whose leadership is strongly hostile to Israel — are perceiving BDS as a losing issue from the perspective of disciplinary reputation and perhaps legal and public relations liability. There is a schism between younger academics inculcated with the ideology of “scholar-activism” and an older generation.

Despite or perhaps as a result of small signs of resistance to BDS by leaders of academic organizations, faculty unions have emerged as centers of Israel hatred.

Resolutions demanding divestment area are also means to split the faculty and more importantly, leverage affiliated union support. In one example the City University of New York Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) union voted to divest from Israel. A Jewish faculty group then filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights.

The union vote was condemned by the university and New York State governor Kathy Hochul (D). The refusal of the Supreme Court to hear an earlier case regarding the union leaves in limbo the question of whether Jewish and other faculty can be fairly represented by a politicized union.

In an example of the mendacity and mediocrity that characterizes so many anti-Israel faculty members, Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke claimed that she had been forced to retire as a result of her “pro-Palestinian” activities. Her claim that the move was “termination dressed up in more palatable terms” was belied by report from an outside law firm which documented her persistent harassment and defamation of Israeli and Jewish students and “prohibited racial stereotyping.”

Franke has now filed a grievance against the school’s Office of Institutional Equity accusing it of “a pattern and anti-Palestinian racism.”

In a related development, the Islamist group CAIR declared that Columbia was a hostile campus for pro-Palestinian students.

Reports continue to accumulate regarding the routine incorporation of anti-Israel materials into coursework in disciplines as varied as English and music. At the University of Pittsburgh, faculty also offered extra credit for attending anti-Israel protests and berated students for their support of Israel and “Jewish privilege.” A video taken at the Barnard College English department shows that every faculty member’s door is decorated with anti-Israel flyers.

Other examples of campus propagandizing include a panel entitled “Feminist and Queer Solidarities with Palestine” to be held at the University of California Berkeley in February. A description of the panel promises to “look at how Zionism has weaponized feminism, so as to serve Israel’s genocidal intent, by upholding debunked accusations of systematic Hamas mass assault.” After the event was publicized, the university removed the description from its website.

Students

With the semester underway campus protests against Israel have resumed but at lower level:

Pushback to university disciplinary efforts is also continuing. At the University of Chicago, a lawsuit has been filed by Palestine Legal, the lawfare arm of the BDS movement, on behalf of a student who had been disciplined and removed from student housing.

But in a sign that the anti-Israel movement and “Palestine” as an organizing principle continue to alienate fellow students, the black feminist group at George Washington University “Black Defiance” announced it had left the Student Coalition for Palestine “after repeatedly experiencing anti-Blackness and racism.”

Finally, in the new semester student governments quickly regained their place as centers for anti-Israel activity:

  1. Several student governments at the University of California at San Diego have divested their holdings from Israeli companies;
  2. The Concordia University Student Union passed a BDS resolution. Only 858 students out of 49,898 enrolled voted;
  3. The Rutgers University student government rejected use of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
  4. The student government at the University of Toronto held a fundraiser for Gaza during a meeting.

K-12

Evidence continues to accumulate regarding deep and pervasive bias against Israel and Jews at all levels of K-12 education. Efforts to coverup and downplay incidents also continue locally.

In a settlement reached with the Howard County Public Schools (MD), the US Department of Education noted that authorities had failed to report incidents where Jewish students were abused, including “posting of swastikas; mimicking Nazi salutes; threats to kill and stating preference for death of Jewish people; using the term “Jew” as a slur; calling a Jewish middle school student a “dirty Jew,” telling her to “go back to the gas chamber.”

Teachers and their unions continue to push “liberated ethnic studies” and “anti-Palestinian racism” in curriculums.

Arts/Culture

Social media and web platforms continue to be key battlegrounds regarding Israel and antisemitism. Wikipedia’s highest adjudicating body, the Arbitration Committee, has barred a number of editors who had systematically distorted the platform’s coverage of Israel, Palestine, and related topics.

The move came after months of revelations regarding the manner in which the group had conspired via back channel communications to edit pieces in order to blame Israel for the current conflict and accuse it among others things of “settler-colonialism” and “genocide.” Six pro-Hamas editors were barred in addition to two pro-Israel editors. A recent report also uncovered a group of pro-Hamas editors conspiring to manipulate French Wikipedia.

The move against pro-Hamas editors came after the Heritage Foundation announced a project to identify anonymous Wikipedia editors responsible for anti-Israel bias.

The author is a contributor to SPME, where a significantly different version of this article first appeared.

The post As Trump Takes Office, Will the New Administration Help Stop Radicalism on College Campuses? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Syria’s President Visits Saudi Arabia in First Foreign Trip Since Assad’s Fall

Syria’s newly appointed president for a transitional phase Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salam, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 2, 2025. Photo: Bandar Algaloud Saudi Royal Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS

Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, visited Saudi Arabia on Sunday in his first foreign trip as Syrian leader, signaling a shift in regional alliances and a move away from Iran as the country’s main ally in the Middle East.

After meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Sharaa said in a statement that they discussed strengthening bilateral ties, regional developments, and cooperation in humanitarian and economic matters, along with “extensive future plans in energy, technology, education, and health.”

Last week, Sharaa became Damascus’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted long-time Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, whose Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.

According to an announcement by the military command that led the offensive against Assad, Sharaa was given the authority to form a temporary legislative council for the transitional period and to suspend the country’s constitution.

The collapse of al-Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.

During the “Conference for Announcing the Victory of the Syrian Revolution,” Sharaa said that the first priority was to fill the government vacuum “in a legitimate and legal way.”

Since Assad’s fall, the new Syrian government has sought to strengthen ties with Arab and Western leaders.

In these efforts, Saudi Arabia has played a key role, hosting Damascus’s new foreign and defense ministers in early January and later organizing a meeting with Syrian, Arab, and Western officials.

Last week, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani became the first head of state to visit Damascus after the collapse of Assad’s regime.

Syria’s new diplomatic relationships reflect a distancing from its previous allies, Iran and Russia. Iran, for example, has not reopened its embassy in Damascus, which was a central part of its self-described “Axis of Resistance” against US-backed Israel, including Assad’s Syria and a network of terrorist proxies — primarily Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Russia seeks to preserve access to its air and sea bases in Syria, but Moscow took in Assad when he fled the country in December. Syria’s new government has requested Assad’s extradition.

The Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on opposition protests in 2011 sparked the Syrian civil war, during which Syria was suspended from the Arab League for more than a decade.

The new Syrian government appears focused on reassuring the West and working to get sanctions lifted, which date back to 1979 when the US labeled Syria a state sponsor of terrorism and were significantly increased following Assad’s violent response to the anti-government protests.

However, Damascus still faces significant instability and challenges, including threats from the Islamic State terrorist group and other militants in the country. On Monday, a car bomb exploded in Manbij in northern Syria, killing at least 19 people, mostly women, and leaving over a dozen wounded.

The post Syria’s President Visits Saudi Arabia in First Foreign Trip Since Assad’s Fall first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump Hints at Openness to West Bank Annexation, Touts Israel’s Success Despite Being ‘Very Small Piece of Land’

US President Donald Trump (R) in the Oval of the White House in January 2025. Photo: Fortune via Reuters Connect

US President Donald Trump on Monday did not bat down the prospect of Israel annexing parts of the West Bank, noting that the Jewish state is a “very small piece of land” and praising Israelis for their “amazing” accomplishments despite their country’s size.

While speaking to reporters from the Oval Office, Trump was asked whether he supports Israel potentially annexing the West Bank. Though Trump refused to answer the question directly, he seemed to indicate dissatisfaction with the size of Israel’s territorial boundaries. 

“Well, I’m not going to talk about that,” Trump said regarding West Bank annexation. “It [Israel] certainly is a small country in terms of land.”

Trump then picked up a stationery pen and juxtaposed it to his presidential desk, comparing the size of Israel to its Middle Eastern neighbors.

“That’s not good, you know? It’s a pretty big difference,” Trump said, regarding the size of Israel. 

“I use that as analogy. It’s pretty accurate, actually,” Trump said. “It’s a pretty small piece of land, and it’s amazing that they’ve been able to do, what they’ve been able to do when you think about it. There’s a lot of good, smart brainpower. But it is a very small piece of land, no question about it.”

Trump has previously indicated a potential belief that Israel should expand its territorial boundaries. In August 2024, while still campaigning for president, Trump called Israel “tiny” and questioned if the country could expand. 

“When you look at the map, a map of the Middle East, Israel is a tiny little spot compared to these giant landmasses. It’s really a tiny spot. I actually said, ‘Is there any way of getting more?’” Trump said 

Observers have pondered whether Trump would support a formal annexation of parts of the West Bank in his second term. Although Trump has yet to indicate support for such measures, Jewish billionaire Miriam Adelson, one of the president’s most generous campaign donors, allegedly requested support for West Bank annexation in exchange for financial assistance. However, a spokesperson for Adelson denied that she made such a request.

The first Trump administration handled the West Bank in a different fashion than its predecessors, suggesting that the White House might be open to upending traditional policy regarding the territory. In 2019, the Trump administration reversed the US policy that declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal. Explaining the policy shift, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace.”

Proponents of annexation argue that establishing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank would protect the Jewish state from future terrorist attacks by groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while also providing residents a better quality of life.

However, opponents of West Bank annexation argue that such an action would deprive Palestinians of the ability to have their own state and trigger an onslaught of backlash from Israel’s Western allies and international institutions such as the UN.

The Trump administration has issued an executive order rescinding sanctions imposed during the Biden administration against Israelis living in the West Ban. The sanctions accused them of behaving violently against Palestinians in the West Bank. Mike Huckabee, the nominee for US ambassador to Israel, has publicly declared that he will refer to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” adopting terminology preferred by Israel.

The post Trump Hints at Openness to West Bank Annexation, Touts Israel’s Success Despite Being ‘Very Small Piece of Land’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US Justice Department Forms Antisemitism Task Force Following Trump Executive Order

A woman walks past the US Department of Justice Building, in Washington, DC, Dec. 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Al Drago

The US Department of Justice announced on Monday that it is has created a “multi-agency” Task Force to Combat Antisemitism to fulfill an executive order issued last week by President Donald Trump.

“The Task Force’s first priority will be to root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” the department said in a press release, which noted that the group will be housed inside the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and include representatives from the departments of education and health and human services.

“Antisemitism in any environment is repugnant to this nation’s ideals,” said Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights who has been appointed to lead the initiative, said in a statement. “The department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found. The Task Force to Combat Antisemitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump’s renewed commitment to ending antisemitism in our schools.”

The announcement came less than a week after Trump directed federal agencies to combat campus antisemitism and hold pro-terror extremists accountable for the harassment of Jewish students, fulfilling a promise he made while campaigning for a second term in office. Continuing work started started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — the new executive order, titled, “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”

Additionally, the order initiates a full review of the explosion of campus antisemitism on US colleges across the country after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a convulsive moment in American history to which the previous administration struggled to respond during the final year and a half of its tenure.

Jewish activists and civil rights groups praised Monday’s announcement for being responsive to the Jewish community’s concerns about rising hatred and a perceived refusal to condemn discrimination when its perpetrators are left-wing progressives.

“ADL long advocated for the creation of an interagency task force to combat antisemitism,” the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said in a statement posted on X/Twitter. “We welcome this important step by [the president] and the Justice Department and look forward to working together to tackle antisemitism on college campuses and beyond.”

Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard University graduate student who is currently suing the school for allegedly neglecting to punish antisemites, said, “American Jewish students: help is on the way,” while Eyal Yakoby, a University of Pennsylvania alumnus who sounded the alarm that antisemitism at the institution had reached crisis levels following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, proclaimed, “Promises made, promises kept.”

Campus antisemitism was the subject of a major recent report by several committees of the US House of Representatives that accused college officials of choosing to protect their brands over fighting anti-Jewish hatred.

“The committee found that so-called university leaders deliberately chose to withhold support from Jewish communities on campus, demonstrating a refusal to address the hostile environments at their institutions,” the report said. “Jewish students, faculty, and staff often felt abandoned by administrators’ passive and muted responses to the explosion of antisemitic hate on campus. The committee’s investigation found that these failures to act were not mere oversights but intentional decisions.”

The report added that some schools, such as the University of Pennsylvania, pantomimed corrective action to disruptive behavior, assuring the public that it took rules violations, including the commandeering of campus property with “Gaza Solidarity Encampments,” seriously — but it punished very few students for misconduct and those it did were given slaps on the wrist, according to critics.

Egregious conduct which prompted civil litigation evaded disciplinary action, it continued, explaining that nearly 100 students who participated in an encampment which barred Jewish students from accessing sections of campus at the University of California, Los Angeles “signed resolution agreements allowing them to escape disciplinary consequences” and “none were disciplined.”

In last week’s executive order, Trump denounced his predecessor, former president Joe Biden, for refusing to handle the problem.

“This failure is unacceptable and ends today,” he said. “It shall be the policy of the United States to combat antisemitism vigorously, using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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