A Palestinian Hamas terrorist shakes hands with a child as they stand guard as people gather on the day of the handover of Israeli hostages, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

In the largest anti-Hamas demonstrations Gaza has seen in years, thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets over the past week. Protesters in the north of the Strip — particularly in Gaza City — have chanted “Hamas out” and “Hamas are terrorists,” while holding banners that read, “Hamas does not represent us.”

Hamas has responded with predictable brutality.

According to reports from local activists, at least six protest organizers have been executed. Others were tortured and dumped in public areas as a warning.

The family of 22-year-old Oday Nasser Al Rabay says Hamas kidnapped him and later left his body on their doorstep, with witnesses reportedly describing how he was beaten with metal rods and dragged by a rope tied around his neck.

Oday Nasser Al Rabay

This is the cost of dissent in Gaza. And yet Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah — the British-Palestinian surgeon celebrated by Western media and recently elected Rector of the University of Glasgow — has made it clear he stands with the torturers, not the tortured.

In an Arabic-language interview with Russian state-controlled media RT, Abu-Sittah dismissed the protests as “a type of psychological warfare against the resistance in Gaza.” He claimed they were orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority and denounced them as “a betrayal and treachery.” According to Abu-Sittah, those risking their lives to speak out against Hamas have “stabbed the resistance in the back.”

Apparently, opposing a UK-designated terror group in Gaza is now “treachery” in the eyes of Glasgow’s rector.

He even mocked the scale of the protests, insisting they were smaller than the crowds who “used to come out every time there was a prisoner exchange” — a disturbing comment, since such exchanges involved Hamas trading brutalized Israeli hostages for convicted terrorists. One can reasonably infer Abu-Sittah was among the celebrants.

When pressed by the interviewer about possible alternatives to Hamas rule, Abu-Sittah snapped that the Palestinian Authority should focus its attention on the West Bank, pointedly rejecting the idea of any political solution in Gaza that doesn’t include Hamas. In other words, better to let Gazans suffer under Hamas tyranny than consider a future without it.

The mask is off.

Western media — especially in the UK — have given Abu-Sittah an uncritical platform for over a year and a half, treating him as a neutral humanitarian, a credible expert, and a moral authority.

Dr. Abu-Sittah has made his position clear: he sympathizes with Hamas.

The media can stop pretending now. Stop pretending that a medical degree and a British university title make someone a voice of reason. Abu-Sittah is not a hero. He is not a humanitarian. He is not even neutral.

He is spouting propagandist for Hamas. And that is the only thing the media should be saying about him.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Media’s Favorite Gaza Source Attacks Protestors for Rallying Against Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said over the weekend that Israel still supports and plans on going forward with US President Donald Trump’s “voluntary migration” plan for civilians in Gaza, offering Hamas terrorist leaders exile if the group disarms. 

While speaking to the Israeli cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu said that Israel plans on intensifying military “pressure” in Gaza with the aim of forcing Hamas leaders to surrender and evacuate, allowing “Trump’s voluntary migration” plan to take effect. 

“Hamas will lay down its weapons. Its leaders will be allowed to leave. We will see to the general security in the Gaza Strip and will allow the realization of the Trump plan for voluntary migration,” the Israeli premier said. “This is the plan. We are not hiding this and are ready to discuss it at any time.”

Netanyahu reiterated that Hamas must disarm, although the Palestinian terrorist group has rejected such calls as a “red line” it will not cross. He added that Israel was committed to negotiating a solution that would see the release of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza who Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists kidnapped during their Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.

On Saturday, a top Hamas leader said the terrorist organization had accepted a new ceasefire plan put forth by mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and the United States and called on Israel to back it.

Israel confirmed receiving the proposal and has submitted a counterproposal, according to Netanyahu’s office.

On Monday, Israeli officials said the government has proposed an extended truce in Gaza in exchange for the return of about half the remaining hostages.

The latest proposals, which would leave open a final agreement over ending the Israel-Hamas war, would involve the return of half the 24 hostages believed still to be alive in Gaza – and about half the 35 assumed to be dead – during a truce lasting between 40 and 50 days, Reuters reported.

Last week, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed that the cabinet approved a proposal by Defense Minister Israel Katz to organize “a voluntary transfer for Gaza residents who express interest in moving to third countries, in accordance with Israeli and international law, and following the vision of US President Donald Trump.”

Israel would also take responsibility for “establishing movement routes, pedestrian checks at designated crossings in the Gaza Strip,” to ensure safe passage for Palestinian civilians.

Trump in February proposed the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave a “demolition site” and saying residents have “no alternative” as he held critical talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

“[The Palestinians] have no alternative right now” but to leave Gaza, Trump told reporters before Netanyahu arrived. “I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.”

Trump argued that Palestinians would benefit from leaving Gaza and expressed astonishment at the notion that they would want to remain in the beleaguered enclave. 

“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked. And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land. We’ll get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable,” he said.

Arab leaders of Israel’s neighboring states slammed the plan, vowing not to absorb any refugees from Gaza.

Trump said earlier this month that “nobody is expelling any Palestinians” from the enclave, seemingly suggesting that any resettlement outside of Gaza would be voluntary.

The post Netanyahu Backs Trump’s ‘Voluntary Migration’ Plan for Gaza Civilians, Urges Hamas Leaders to Go Into Exile first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

A pro-Palestinian protester holds a sign that reads, “Faculty for justice in Palestine,” during a protest urging Columbia University to cut ties with Israel, Nov. 15, 2023, in New York City. Photo: Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

Jewish lawyers and nonprofit leaders fired back at an anti-Zionist open letter which, while condemning the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Hamas activists on college campuses, presented itself as being a voice for all Jews.

“Not in our name … We are united in denouncing, without equivocation, anyone who invokes our name — and cynical claims of antisemitism — to harass, expel, arrest, or deport members of our communities,” Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff-Boston Area (CJFS) wrote earlier this month, drawing signatories from higher education institutions across the country. “We specifically reject rhetoric that caricatures our students and colleagues as ‘antisemitic terrorists’ because they advocate for Palestinian human rights and freedom.”

The blistering letter went on to accuse the Trump administration of holding “Christian Nationalist” views and setting off an “existential terror” by preconditioning federal funding universities on their enacting reforms which reduce antisemitic discrimination and left-wing bias. It has done so, CJFS further charged, while appropriating the Hebrew language, using “Jews as a shield to justify a naked attack on political dissent and university independence.”

CJFS Boston Area circulated the missive following US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) arrest and detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University alumnus who was an architect of the Hamilton Hall building takeover and other disturbances in the New York City area this past academic year. Similar action has since been taken against others, including Cornell University graduate student Momodou Taal, a dual citizen of Gambia and the United Kingdom, and Columbia University student Yunseo Chung, a noncitizen legal resident from South Korea.

The group is not representative of the Jewish community and should stop claiming to be, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a scholar and the executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner in a statement.

“Shame on these Jewish faculty members. As [the University of California] was heating up to be ground zero for BDS [the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel] and antisemitic harassment, Jewish students used to come to me crying because they felt abandoned by their Jewish professors, many of whom turned out to be not only unsympathetic to their plight, but actively contributed to campus antisemitism,” Rossman-Benjamin said. “More than 50 signatories of this statement are members, and in some cases chairs, of Jewish or Israeli studies programs.  And instead of speaking up on behalf of Jewish students who are facing an unprecedented explosion of antisemitic assault, violent threats, intimidation, and harassment on their campuses since 10/7 [Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel], they’ve chosen to speak out on behalf of an individual who is actually responsible for fueling such antisemitism, and to gaslight Jewish students by denying that antisemitism is even a problem at their schools.”

She continued, “These faculty are throwing Jewish students under the bus because of their hatred for Trump. I have one message: If you can’t put the safety of Jewish students above your politics, stop identifying yourself as a Jewish professor.”

Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), concurred, noting that the group seems driven by partisan opposition to US President Donald Trump and indifferent to the rise of antisemitism on college campuses that began after Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel.

“Beleaguered Jewish students on campus need support and protections from harassment, ostracism from educational spaces, and attacks on their identities — not their professors minimizing the serious problem of campus antisemitism as something made up by the Trump administration,” Elman said. “Faculty should be defending and championing the bedrock academic principles of campus free expression, open inquiry, and academic freedom while also insisting on meaningful reforms and remedies that meet the real needs and concerns of Jewish and Zionist students. This is what the Jewish and Zionist faculty affiliated with my organization — the Academic Engagement Network — are doing to meet the current moment, and it’s why they didn’t sign on to this misguided and inflammatory petition.”

Rona Kitchen, associate professor of law at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, went further, defending Trump’s deportation policy as legal and consistent with federal law which prohibits providing material support to a terrorist organization, a crime of which Mahmoud Khalil is accused of committing in violation of the terms of his visa.

“They’re making it seem as if most American Jews are opposed to taking action against those who engage in unlawful — and I stress the unlawful nature of their conduct — antisemitic and also anti-American activity on college campuses over the last year and a half,” Kitchen said. “Most American Jews support taking action against that, and this group wrote this letter proclaiming that it shouldn’t happen in ‘our name’ because it is unhelpful to Jews, but, in fact, it is helpful action.”

She continued, “And that does not mean I agree with everything the administration is doing. I don’t. But detaining a person who was leading encampments in which there was serious violence and who is now a defendant in a lawsuit which alleges that he violated federal law by providing material support to terrorist organization is legal.”

CJFS is not content with just issuing letters, as the group has its sights set on abolishing the protections afforded Jewish students and the US Jewish community by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool universities and governing bodies have adopted — and, in some cases codified in law — to help them determine what does and does not constitute antisemitism. Harvard University, for example, has applied the definition to its non-discrimination and anti-bullying policies (NDAB) to recognize the centrality of Zionism to Jewish identity, and explicitly state that targeting an individual on the basis of their Zionism constitutes a violation of school rules. New York University has also adopted the IHRA definition as part of an effort to recognize the subtleties of antisemitic speech and its use in discriminatory conduct that targets Jewish students and faculty. Over 30 states have adopted the IHRA definition as well to enhance their investigations of antisemitic hate crimes perpetrated by both far-left and far-right extremists.

CFJS advocates such a policy despite data showing that antisemitic incidents on college campuses have risen by upwards of 321 percent across the country.

Seth Orenburg of the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law told The Algemeiner that CJFS Boston “politicizes Jewish identity while demanding ideological conformity.” The professor, who is Jewish, added that its latest initiative “is ironically, not in my name — and not in the name of justice either.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Jewish Higher Education Community Fires Back at Anti-Zionist Faculty Letter first appeared on Algemeiner.com.