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Jewish Professor Threatened by Students for Justice in Palestine at George Washington University
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas students rally at the encampment for Gaza set up at George Washington University, Washington, DC, April 25, 2035. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect
The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at George Washington University on Monday issued an ominous warning to a professor who created a proposal to resettle residents of Gaza outside of the Palestinian enclave and remake it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism, a policy rolled out by US President Donald Trump earlier this month.
“This notice is to inform you that you are hereby evicted from the premises of the George Washington University,” SJP wrote in a missive it taped to the office door of international affairs professor Joseph Pelzman, who first shared the resettlement plan with Trump’s presidential campaign in July 2024, according to an account of events he described to the podcast “America, Baby!” the following month.
“The reason for the eviction is: your active role in incepting the genocide and planned ethnic cleansing of Gaza,” SJP’s message continued. “Your disgusting plan for the complete destruction and foreign occupation of Gaza and the colonial ‘re-education’ of Palestinians.”
Denouncing Pelzman as the “architect of genocide,” SJP added, “Pelzman’s tenure is only one pernicious symptom of the bloodthirsty Zionism permeating our campus … The proprietors of this eviction notice demand your immediate removal.”
On Tuesday, Pelzman told The Algemeiner in a statement that the university’s police department and its president, Ellen Granberg, have been notified of the letter. He also shared background on his controversial proposal, which was outlined in a paper titled “An Economic Plan for Rebuilding Gaza,” a work published by the Center of Excellence for the Economic Study of the Middle East and North Africa (CEESMENA).
“The flyer, titled ‘Notice of Eviction,’ falsely accuses me of genocide, racism, and other inflammatory claims,” Pelzman said. “While it does not contain an explicit, direct threat, the language used is highly aggressive and appears to incite collective action against me.”
He added, “The SJP complaint refers to a paper that I recently published in an academic journal. Nothing in my formal economics paper suggests anything remotely resembling the SJP complaint. They accuse me of writing the Trump plan. The reality is that my paper was sent to the Trump people in July. It was not written for him, nor was it requested by him. Clearly, these people did not read the paper.”
Pelzman had said during an interview in August that his paper, which was later published in the Global World Journal and put online in October, “went to the Trump people because they were the ones who initially had an interest in it — not the Biden people. I was asked [by Trump’s team] to think outside the box on what do we do after [the Gaza war], as nobody was really talking about it.”
Responding to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment on SJP’s conduct, spokeswoman Julia Garbitt said the university is taking the situation “very seriously” and deplores “any acts that deface university property or threaten any members of our community.” Garbitt also noted that an investigation to identify the culprits, whom she said will be subject to “all applicable local laws and university polices,” is underway.
She continued, “We also want to stress that faculty members are entitled to academic freedom in their teaching and research, even when it is controversial. We also want to be clear that scholarly work produced by faculty does not reflect a university position. These commitments are the hallmark of an academic community that respects differing points of view.”
SJP’s threat to Pelzman, an accomplished academic who has focused heavily on the Middle East region, comes as the group serves probation for breaking a slew of school rules during the 2023-2024 academic year — a term which saw it heap abuse on school officials, visitors to campus representing former US President Joe Biden’s administration, and African Americans.
The university suspended the group over its behavior in Feb. 2024 but is now active again. Recently, SJP announced that it will hold a “teach-in” to commemorate the First Intifada, an outbreak of Palestinian terrorism which began in Dec. 1987 and, lasting for nearly six years, claimed the lives of scores of Israelis.
The group’s targeting of Pelzman came after Trump earlier this month proposed an amalgam of Pelzman’s concepts and his own, which notably involved the US occupying Gaza in perpetuity to oversee its reconstruction and recovery from the Israel-Hamas war prompted by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. As part of the proposal, Trump suggested relocating Gazans in countries such as Jordan and Egypt, which rejected the plan for being unworkable.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said on Feb. 5 during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site — level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings — level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”
Pelzman explained his own thinking on the topic in August, noting that the Biden administration was not interested in his counsel.
“You have to destroy the whole place, you have to start from scratch,” he said. “And then you have an economy which actually has three sectors. You have tourism potential, you have agriculture potential, and then you have — because a lot of them are smart — high tech … This is a triangular sector model, but its implementation requires the area to be completely vacated so that the destroyed concrete can be recycled — ensuring that nothing remains of the vertical construction extending deep underground.”
Trump recently somewhat retreated from the idea, saying he would not impose the plan but instead recommend it. Nonetheless, the controversial and seismic proposed policy change has set off a maelstrom of anti-Zionist sentiment at George Washington University.
In Monday’s letter to Pelzman, SJP implied that it is prepared to harm the professor over his role in advancing Trump’s plan for Gaza.
“If you choose to remain on the premises, and if GWU continues to harbor your malignant presence on this campus, every sector of this community will be mobilized against you,” the group said. “The students of GWU will hold you and this university accountable for your crimes.”
Speaking to The Algemeiner on Tuesday, George Washington University senior Sabrina Soffer said SJP’s note to Pelzman violates norms which protect the unfettered exchange of ideas in higher education and constitutes harassment.
“They are targeting Professor Pelzman for doing his job — producing creative scholarship in a field of academia that is littered with mines that explode with the slightest sense of movement or touch,” Soffer said. “SJP’s slandering him as a ‘bloodthirsty Zionist” and threatening to ‘mobilize’ against him amounts not only to a violation of our discrimination policy but also a brazen act of intimidation which discourages academic freedom and the discovery of new knowledge.”
She continued, “The university must enhance their disciplinary policies and hold SJP accountable for its actions by once again suspending its permission to operate on campus.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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