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A University of Florida Teacher Promotes Hatred for Israel; Will the State Act?
The University of Florida campus. Photo: Wiki Commons.
Despite the University of Florida (UF)’s strong administrative support for Zionist students post-Oct. 7, the concerns highlighted in a recent American Jewish Committee (AJC) report — finding that nearly one-third of American Jewish college students have encountered faculty-promoted antisemitism — remain relevant on campus.
Malini Johar Schueller, a professor in UF’s English department, is the faculty adviser for the school’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and, more recently, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Schueller regularly uses her academic position to spread her anti-Israel ideology, fostering and fueling a hostile atmosphere on campus.
Schueller is listed as the #1395 endorser of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel Organizing Collective and the #2259 signer of the only publicly-made signed statement of the Scholars Against the War on Palestine. She is also a member of Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine at UF.
A little over a month after the Oct. 7 massacre carried out by Palestinian terrorists, Schueller changed her cover photo on Facebook from a photo of her and her husband to the Palestinian flag. In December 2023, she shared a photo of a bus advertisement originally posted by Refaat Alareer in 2021 reading “NORMAL PEOPLE BOYCOTT ISRAEL.” The caption claimed that “you do not have to be a Muslim or Arab to support Palestine, you just need not be an asshole,” to which she responded, “So true.”
A few months later, Schueller shared sentiments amidst the rise of encampments that swept the nation in late April 2024, hoping that UF faculty would follow in the footsteps of NYU faculty who “protected” protesters from arrest threats.
Schueller’s activism escalated beyond merely pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel sentiments and made statements supporting Palestinian “resistance” — a term that has been often used by Palestinians themselves to justify violence against Israelis and Jews.
For example, on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, Schueller proclaimed: “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” a commonly used chant to excuse violence against Israelis and Jews, according to CAMERA’s Dictionary of Hamas Supporters’ Chants and Slogans.
Schueller’s Orlando Sentinel piece, “False anti-Semitism charges blind us to real bigotry,” accuses Israel of being a settler-colonial and apartheid state, claims disputed by groups like the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee — as well as by many non-Jewish organizations and scholars. She further asserts that accusations of antisemitism wrongly portray all Jews as monolithic supporters of Israel, but a Pew Research Center report contradicts her claim, showing that most Jewish people oppose BDS, highlighting her tendency to amplify minority viewpoints at the expense of the majority.
As an educator, Schueller is positioned to teach the next generation of leaders, yet she openly boasts of using her academic position to advance her unacademic activism. Her teaching methods are outlined in her 2024 research article titled “Teaching Palestine: Challenges of Identification and Alliance.” In it, she advocates for an “activist reading” of Palestinian literature. She pushes students to see Palestinians through a “radical alterity” framework. She also uses and cites the work of authors, such as Susan Abulhawa, who reject the Jewish indigenous connection to the land of Israel and laud Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
Schueller’s courses include Introduction to Postcolonial Theory and Comparative Settler Colonialisms. Required readings are heavily one-sided, relying on activists and ideologues such as Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Abuhawa. Among the other readings is a text by Ghassan Kanafani, a former senior member of the US-designated Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine.
The student groups she advises, UF Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), champion the same anti-Zionist rhetoric she promotes.
UF SJP, for example, regularly posts similarly ideological messaging that crosses into antisemitic conspiracy theorizing, such as depicting “Zionist colonialism” as a profit-making conspiracy. They have erected displays repeating the antisemitic “Zionism is racism” canard, famously rejected by the United States and rescinded by the United Nations. UF SJP is intolerant of opposing viewpoints and has led harassment campaigns to shut down events featuring Israeli speakers.
Both the state government and university administration have been steadfast on their policies defending Jewish students and academic freedom. And as the Fall 2024 semester approached, Ray Rodrigues, the chancellor of the state university system, directed a state-mandated course syllabi evaluation for courses related to antisemitism for Florida’s 12 public universities.
But courses like Schueller’s fell through the cracks because they lacked specified keywords.
UF must take decisive action to continue to protect academic integrity and ensure that its classrooms remain spaces for genuine intellectual inquiry, not platforms for political indoctrination. Schueller’s teaching and activism may have violated UF’s Academic Freedom and Responsibility regulation. The university must conduct a thorough review of her course materials to ensure academia is disparate from activism. By demanding transparency, upholding academic standards, and rejecting the misuse of university resources for activism, UF can reaffirm its commitment to fostering a campus where all students can engage in open, respectful discourse without fear of discrimination.
Molly Seghi is a sophomore journalism student at the University of Florida. She is also the 2024-2025 CAMERA on Campus fellow.
The post A University of Florida Teacher Promotes Hatred for Israel; Will the State Act? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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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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