RSS
When Did the Current Wave of Antisemitism Begin?
Jewish-American Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl. Photo: Screenshot
JNS.org – In nearly 30 years of writing and speaking about global antisemitism, I’ve been asked more than once if it’s possible to pinpoint when this present wave of hatred first reared its head. It’s a question that takes on added significance in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas pogrom in Israel—the event that continues to drive the topic of antisemitism to the top of the headlines around the world.
Of course, antisemitism never faded away entirely, as most Jews know all too well. The decades that followed the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, whose 80th anniversary we marked last week, ushered in an unprecedented age of empowerment for the Jewish people. In most of the Diaspora (the Soviet Union and the Arab states being glaring exceptions), the civil and political rights of Jewish communities were enshrined, bolstered by the widely shared taboo on antisemitic rhetoric and activity that coalesced alongside revelations of the horror of the Nazi concentration camps. More importantly, for the first time in two millennia, the Jews finally achieved their own state, with armed forces that proved eminently capable of defeating the threats to Israel’s existence from around the region.
We had been, in the parlance of the early theorists of Zionism, “normalized”—or at least we thought as much.
The age of empowerment was not a golden age. Jews still languishing in the Soviet Union were persecuted and forbidden to make aliyah. The flourishing of multiple armed Palestinian organizations after the 1967 war subjected Israelis and Diaspora Jews to terrorist outrages, among them airplane hijackings and gun attacks on synagogues. The United Nations, whose General Assembly passed a 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism, became the main incubator of the loathing directed at Israel. The brief postwar honeymoon between the Jews and the political left ended around the same time, replaced with the defamatory barbs about “apartheid” and “Zionist racism” that still plague us today.
Even so, at the turn of this century, there was a notable deterioration. For much of the 1990s, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians had seemed close to resolution, symbolized by the brief handshake on the White House lawn between the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat. But in 2000, five years after Rabin was assassinated in Tel Aviv, Arafat launched a second intifada against Israel, and the old hardline positions were reinstated. Much of the world followed Arafat’s cue, as demonstrated at the U.N.’s 2001 conference against racism in Durban, South Africa, held a few days before the Al-Qaeda atrocities in the United States on Sept. 11. There, NGOs and governments alike berated Israel, and Jewish delegates were subjected to the kind of abuse (“Hitler was right”) that has become all too common in the present day.
In tandem with the collapse in relations between Israel and the Palestinians, antisemitism returned with a vengeance, particularly in Europe, spurred by an unholy alliance of Islamist organizations rooted in the continent’s various Muslim communities, and a far left baying for Israeli and American blood after 9/11. It was in Pakistan, however, that the murder that came to symbolize this new reality occurred.
At the end of January 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, an American Jew, was abducted from a hotel in Karachi by Islamist terrorists. A few days later, video surfaced online (at that time, the technology was still novel) of Pearl’s savage execution. After uttering his final words—“My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish”—Pearl was beheaded on camera by his captors.
To my mind, his sickening fate signaled the beginning of the revived trend that Jews are still confronting. I say that because this wasn’t a case of ugly rhetoric or graffiti, a smashed window or even an unsuspecting Jewish passerby getting punched in the face. This was a cold-blooded, ideologically driven murder that exposed the lethal violence that lurks inside every committed Jew-hater.
Last week, one of the terrorists involved in Pearl’s kidnapping and murder was reportedly eliminated during the Indian airstrikes on Pakistan undertaken in response to the killing of 26 civilians by Pakistani-backed terrorists in Kashmir on April 26. Abdul Rauf Azhar was a leader of the Jaish e-Mohammad terror organization who collaborated in Pearl’s abduction with fellow terrorists Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the planners of the 9/11 attacks; and Omar Saeed Sheikh, a Pakistani national who grew up in England and briefly studied at my alma mater, the London School of Economics, before dropping out. Along with the murder of Pearl, Azhar was responsible for the 1999 hijacking of an Indian passenger plane, as well as attacks on the Indian parliament and an Indian army base in 2001 and 2016, respectively.
The significance of Azhar’s elimination now, when antisemitism is raging with far greater intensity than at the time of Pearl’s killing, should not be lost on anyone. During the 23 years that separate the deaths of Pearl and Azhar, Jews have endured insults and vandalism, assault and even murder. Much of this has tracked the troughs and peaks of conflict in the Middle East, especially the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and earlier wars in Gaza in 2008-09, 2014 and 2021.
Not all of the antisemitic outpouring is so closely connected. Some of the worst instances of hatred and violence, like the 2017 torture and murder of Sarah Halimi, an elderly Jewish woman living on her own in public housing in Paris, did not occur at a time of unusually high conflict in the Middle East. Rather, they were a consequence of the demonizing tropes and false claims about Jews that have become embedded in our culture over the course of this century.
We should feel a strong degree of satisfaction at the news that Azhar is dead and therefore unable to ruin the lives of other innocents like Daniel Pearl. However, that’s not the same as full justice, which would involve a comprehensive reckoning by politicians, influencers and thought leaders with the antisemitism that has stained our culture and our civilization. We know, more or less, where all this started. What we don’t know is where it will end.
The post When Did the Current Wave of Antisemitism Begin? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
White House Urges UN to Fire Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights on the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The White House is pressing the United Nations to remove Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, over what officials describe as a pattern of inflammatory, legally questionable and antisemitic conduct.
In a formal diplomatic communication to UN leadership, the US accused Albanese of crossing ethical and legal boundaries by promoting fringe legal theories and issuing sweeping threats to American and international companies.
Albanese, an Italian academic appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2022 and recently reappointed for a second term, has come under increasing scrutiny for her outspoken criticism and targeting of Israel. Recently, she sent letters to major companies, some of them US government contractors, warning that doing business with Israel could constitute “complicity in genocide,” “apartheid,” and other grave human rights abuses. The letters alleged potential criminal liability under international law.
The Trump administration lambasted these moves as a campaign of “political and economic warfare.” In a sharply worded letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, acting US Ambassador Dorothy Shea argued that Albanese’s claims were built on “false legal premises” and “inflammatory rhetoric,” warning that such conduct poses risks not just to Israel but to global business and diplomatic norms.
The controversy highlights longstanding US concerns about perceived anti-Israel bias at the UN, particularly within the Human Rights Council, where Israel has frequently been the target of critical resolutions.
US officials have also cast doubt on Albanese’s legal credentials, alleging that the special rapporteur is not an actual lawyer. The state department contends she routinely presents herself as an “international lawyer” despite reportedly never having passed a bar exam or been licensed to practice law. That detail, the US argues, should disqualify her from the diplomatic immunities typically granted to UN officials.
The letters sent to companies are part of a forthcoming UN report, spearheaded by Albanese, that accuses Israel of operating an “economy of genocide” with the support of global corporations. US diplomats dismissed the draft as “legally baseless,” saying it misrepresents both facts on the ground and international law. “Private companies are not legally bound by human rights law,” Shea wrote in her communication.
A spokesman for the UN secretary-general’s office told the Washington Free Beacon it has “no authority over the human rights rapporteurs,” who report directly to the Human Rights Council, according to the outlet. “It is up to the Human Rights Council to handle appointments and to oversee their work,” said the spokesman.
Press representatives for the UNHRC did not immediately respond to a Free Beacon request for comment.
Albanese has long drawn criticism from Israel and its allies. She has accused the Israeli government of perpetrating a system of apartheid and has publicly compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, a comparison widely condemned across political lines. She has also been accused of rationalizing or downplaying the October 7 Hamas attacks.
The post White House Urges UN to Fire Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Danish Suspect Arrested for Spying on Berlin’s Jewish Community for Iranian Intelligence Amid Rising Middle East Tensions
The Iranian flag flying over a street in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 3, 2023. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A man accused of spying on Jewish institutions and individuals in Berlin on behalf of Iranian intelligence — allegedly in preparation for potential terrorist attacks — has been arrested in Denmark.
In a statement released Tuesday, German prosecutors confirmed that a Danish citizen was detained last week in Aarhus, a city in western Denmark, on suspicion of being tasked by Iranian intelligence with collecting information on “Jewish localities and specific Jewish individuals” in the German capital.
According to German authorities, the man allegedly spied on three properties last month, “presumably in preparation for further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets.”
While it hasn’t been disclosed which sites and individuals were targeted, a report by German magazine Der Spiegel revealed that the suspect took photos of several houses, including the headquarters of the German-Israeli Society (DIG).
The suspect is accused of working for a foreign intelligence service, reportedly receiving orders from the Quds Force, Iran’s elite paramilitary unit responsible for directing its proxies and terrorist operations abroad.
After being extradited from Denmark, the suspect will appear before a German judge who will decide whether to keep him in custody pending formal charges.
This latest threat comes as concerns grow over Iranian sleeper cells while tensions in the Middle East escalate amid the ongoing conflict between Tehran and Jerusalem.
After Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities last month to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, Iran warned of retaliation, saying it may activate sleeper cells abroad and mobilize its proxies — from Hezbollah to the Houthis — to target Israeli assets in response to the attacks.
As tensions escalated between the two adversaries, Jewish security groups and institutions worldwide, including schools and synagogues, increased security measures and urged vigilance, anticipating that Iran — limited in its capacity to retaliate militarily against Israel — might target Israeli and Jewish interests abroad.
Tehran has a long history of deploying spies to orchestrate assassination plots and attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets across Europe and the United States.
For example, Swiss authorities last year arrested Swedish teenagers who, acting on Iranian instructions, attempted to attack the Israeli embassy in Stockholm.
There have also been reports of Iranian links to a shooting at a German synagogue and planned attacks on Jewish sites in Cyprus in recent years.
In the US, one notable case is the foiled 2011 plot in which authorities uncovered an Iranian plan to assassinate the then-Saudi ambassador by bombing Café Milano, a Washington, DC, restaurant popular with American officials.
Germany has long been a strong ally of Israel, even as an increasing number of European Union members adopt anti-Israel stances and push for measures against the country.
At the same time, Berlin has maintained a tense relationship with Tehran while striving to re-engage Iran diplomatically over its nuclear program.
The post Danish Suspect Arrested for Spying on Berlin’s Jewish Community for Iranian Intelligence Amid Rising Middle East Tensions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Trump Administration Issues Harvard University Civil Rights Violation Notice
US President Donald Trump delivers an address to the nation accompanied by Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the White House, June 21, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration has issued Harvard University a “notice of violation” of civil rights law following an investigation which examined how it responded to dozens of antisemitic incidents reported by Jewish students since the 2023-2024 academic year.
As first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Monday, the correspondence, sent by the Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, charged that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a deluge of racist and antisemitic abuse following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, which precipitated a surge in anti-Zionist activity on the campus, both in the classroom and out of it. It concluded with a threat to cancel all federal funding for Harvard.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the four federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
On Monday, Kenneth Marcus, former assistant secretary of education for civil rights under the George W. Bush administration and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told The Algemeiner that the notice signals the administration’s intent to see through its campus reform agenda.
“We have known for some time that the Trump administration believes that Harvard is in violation of Title VI [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964], but it is nevertheless instructive to see the Task Force lay out its case,” Marcus explained. “If the Justice Department intends to take Harvard to court, it is critical for them to take care of such formalities. Alternatively, if their focus is on negotiations, this is a sign of seriousness. Given the recent staff reductions throughout the federal government, it is important to see that the administration has the bandwidth to develop and advance detailed allegations.”
The Joint Task Force comprises Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum, Acting General Counsel for the Department of Education Thomas Wheeler, and Acting General Counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services Sean Keveney.
In a statement to The Algemeiner, Steve McGuire, a Campus Freedom Fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), wrote: “While ACTA has concerns about some aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to Harvard’s civil rights problems, it seems clear that the university is not going to fix them on its own. With respect to antisemitism, its own leaders and some of its most prominent defenders have conceded that it has a problem. Harvard has cultivated an intolerant intellectual culture in which mistreating Jews and Israelis is allowed or even encouraged. The Trump administration is right to call this out, and I hope it will engage in a full and proper process to ensure Harvard rectifies the problem.”
The administration, McGuire added, should aim “to ensure that cultural change at the university sticks and endures over the long run” while encouraging Harvard to “work to address other issues, including inadequate protections for free expression and its lack of intellectual diversity, if it wants to reform a culture that has clearly gone off the rails and made discrimination of various kinds acceptable at the university for way too long.”
Campus antisemitism expert Yael Lerman of StandWithUs, said, “This finding marks a critical milestone toward possible federal actions, such as withholding funding, and signals important progress in upholding Title VI protections. We hope Harvard’s response to this determination will be swift action to ensure the safety and equal protection to which Harvard’s Jewish and Israeli students are entitled.”
Harvard University has previously admitted to mismanaging the campus antisemitism crisis.
Several weeks after sparring with the Trump administration, as well as suing it in federal court, Harvard released its long-anticipated report on campus antisemitism. The over 300-page document provided a complete account of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color — and said that one source of the problem is the institution’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups.
Interim Harvard president Alan Garber apologized for the inconsistent application of anti-discrimination policy.
“I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community,” Garber said in a statement that accompanied the report. “The grave, extensive impact of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel and its aftermath had serious repercussions on campus. Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry. We will continue to provide for the safety and security of all members of our community and safeguard their freedom from harassment. We will redouble our efforts to ensure that the university is a place where ideas are welcomed, entertained, and contested in the spirt of seeking truth; where argument proceeds without sacrificing dignity; and where mutual respect is the norm.”
Monday’s notice from the Trump administration comes as Harvard resumes discussion with federal officials regarding a potential agreement for restoring $3 billion in federal research grants and contracts the government withheld in the early stages of its investigation of antisemitism at Harvard.
According to a report published by The Harvard Crimson on Thursday, Garber held a phone call with major donors in which he “confirmed in response to a question from [Harvard Corporation Fellow David M. Rubenstein] that talks had resumed” but “declined to share specifics of how Harvard expected to settle with the White House.”
Garber “did not discuss how close a deal could be,” the Crimson reported, “and said instead that Harvard had focused on laying out the steps it was already taking to address issues that are common ground for the University and the Trump administration. Areas of shared concern that have been discussed with the White House included ‘viewpoint diversity’ and antisemitism.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Trump Administration Issues Harvard University Civil Rights Violation Notice first appeared on Algemeiner.com.