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Trump Administration Says George Washington University Ignored Campus Antisemitism
US President Donald Trump holds a press briefing on Aug. 11, 2025. Photo: Andrew Thomas via Reuters Connect
The Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Tuesday that it has amassed sufficient evidence to prove that George Washington University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, alleging that the institution responded to campus antisemitism “by acting deliberately indifferent” to the harm it posed to Jewish students and faculty.
“The division finds that GWU took no meaningful action and was instead deliberately indifferent to the complaints it received, the misconduct that occurred, and the harms that were suffered by its Jewish and Israeli students and faculty,” the agency said while sharing a document containing its findings. “The Justice Department will seek immediate remediation with GWU for its civil rights violations.”
George Washington University, speaking through spokesperson Shannon McClendon, responded to the Justice Department in a statement which summarized the institution’s actions and policies while stopping short of offering a contentious refutation of the government’s case.
“We have taken appropriate action under university policy and the law to hold individuals or organizations accountable, including during the encampment, and we do not tolerate behavior that threatens our community or undermines meaningful dialogue,” McClendon said. “We have worked diligently with members of GW’s Jewish community, as well as Jewish community organizations, city, and federal authorities to protect the GW community from antisemitism and we remain committed to working with them to ensure every student has the right to equal educational opportunities without fear of harassment and abuse.”
As previously reported, George Washington University in Washington, DC has been a hub of extreme anti-Zionist activity that school officials have struggled to quell. A major source of such conduct has been the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which, among other things, has threatened a Jewish professor and intimidated Jews on campus.
Recently, a student used her commencement speech to lodge accusations of apartheid and genocide against Israel, a notion trafficked by neo-Nazi groups and jihadist terror organizations.
The student, Cecilia Culver, accused Israel of targeting Palestinians “simply for [their] remaining in the country of their ancestors” and said that GW students are passive contributors to the “imperialist system.” An economics and statistics major, Culver deceived administrators who selected her to address the Columbian College of the Arts and Sciences ceremony, the university said in a statement, claiming she strayed from her prepared remarks.
GW faculty have also allegedly contributed to the promotion of antisemitism on campus. In 2023, former psychology professor Lara Sheehi was accused of verbally abusing and discriminating against her Jewish graduate students.
As recounted in a 2023 civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs, Sheehi was accused of expressing contempt for Jews when, on the first day of term in August 2022, she asked every student to share information about their backgrounds and cultures. Replying to a student who revealed that she was Israeli, Sheehi allegedly said, “It’s not your fault you were born in Israel.” Jewish students said they made several attempts to persuade the university to correct Sheehi’s behavior or arrange an alternative option for fulfilling the requirements of her course. Each time, StandWithUs alleged, administrators said nothing could be done.
Later, the complaint added, Sheehi spread rumors that her Jewish students were “combative” racists and filed misconduct charges against them. One student told The Algemeiner at the time that she never learned what university policies Sheehi accused her and her classmates of violating.
In May, a civil lawsuit recounted dozens of antisemitic incidents which occurred at the university following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. It alleged that school officials failed to respond to adequately to them because of anti-Jewish, as well as anti-Zionist, bias. Among the incidents detailed, the campus Hillel Center was vandalized; someone threw a rock through the window of a truck owned by a Jewish advocacy group; and a Jewish student was told to “kill yourself” and “watch your back” in a hate message which also called her a “filthy k—ke.”
That and more transpired, court documents charge.
“Protesters at GWU raised repulsive, antisemitic signs and shouted slogans like ‘final solution,’ ‘the irony of being what you once hatred,’ a message that equated the swastika to the Star of David; and ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ an express call for violence against Jews,” the complaint adds. “Protesters vandalized university property in what amounted to rioting and blocked Jewish students from traversing campus freely, attending class, and otherwise engaging in educational opportunities.”
The plaintiffs, Sabrina Soffer and Ari Shapiro, said in court documents that the university’s anemic response to campus antisemitism constituted a violation of Title VI. They are seeking damages and injunctive relief.
On Tuesday, assistant attorney general Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s civil rights division said the Trump administration will continue identifying universities which allegedly miscarried justice, saying, “Every student has the right to educational opportunities without fear of harassment or abuse. No one is above the law, and universities that promulgate antisemitic discrimination will face legal consequences.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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New Zealand Prime Minister Says Israel’s Netanyahu Has ‘Lost the Plot’
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon attends a press conference with Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (not pictured) at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Wednesday that Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu had “lost the plot” as the country weighs whether to recognize a Palestinian state.
Luxon told reporters that the lack of humanitarian assistance, the forceful displacement of people, and the annexation of Gaza were utterly appalling and that Netanyahu had gone way too far.
“I think he has lost the plot,” added Luxon, who heads the center-right coalition government. “What we are seeing overnight, the attack on Gaza City, is utterly, utterly unacceptable.”
Luxon said earlier this week New Zealand was considering whether to recognize a Palestinian state. Close ally Australia on Monday joined Canada, the UK, and France in announcing it would do so at a UN conference in September.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached “unimaginable levels,” Britain, Canada, Australia and several of their European allies said on Tuesday, calling on Israel to allow unrestricted aid into the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
Israel recently increased the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza, after imposing a temporary embargo in an effort to keep them out of the hands of Hamas, which often steals the aid for its own use and sells the rest to civilians at inflated prices. While facilitating the entry of thousands of aid trucks into Gaza, Israeli officials have condemned the UN and other international aid agencies for their alleged failure to distribute supplies, noting much of the humanitarian assistance has been stalled at border crossings or stolen. According to UN data, the vast majority of humanitarian aid entering Gaza is intercepted before reaching its intended civilian recipients.
Ahead of Wednesday’s parliamentary session, a small number of protesters gathered outside New Zealand’s parliament buildings, beating pots and pans. Local media organixation Stuff reported protesters chanted “MPs grow a spine, recognize Palestine.”
On Tuesday, Greens parliamentarian Chloe Swarbrick was removed from parliament’s debating chamber after she refused to apologize for a comment insinuating government politicians were spineless for not supporting a bill to “sanction Israel for its war crimes.”
Swarbrick was ordered to leave the debating chamber for a second day on Wednesday after she again refused to apologize. When she refused to leave, the government voted to suspend her.
“Sixty-eight members of this House were accused of being spineless,” House speaker Gerry Brownlee said. “There has never been a time where personal insults like that delivered inside a speech were accepted by this House and I’m not going to start accepting it.”
As Swarbrick left, she called out “free Palestine.”
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Gaza ‘Journalist’ Was a Hamas Terrorist — But the Media Ignores the Evidence
The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon
Outrageous reporting this week enabled terrorism to hide behind the mask of journalism, portraying an Al Jazeera reporter targeted by Israel in Gaza as a heroic figure.
In reality, it was a sea of lies that ignored clear evidence that Anas al-Sharif was, in fact, a member of Hamas.
Almost all foreign media outlets mourned the death of al-Sharif in an IDF strike on Monday, August 12, while doubting or altogether omitting hard evidence presented by the IDF proving that he was a commander of a terrorist cell in a Hamas guided rockets platoon.
Western press have eaten up Al Jazeera *cough* Hamas propaganda over Anas al-Sharif’s elimination by the IDF.
Here’s a
of some of the most egregious coverage. https://t.co/zrgp91N4EP
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 12, 2025
The IDF presented an internal Hamas document where al-Sharif was registered as a soldier and team commander, as well as a photo showing him embraced by former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7, 2023, attack against Israel.
كما قلنا منذ البداية ورفض البعض تصديقه: لا يجلس مجالس الارهابيين إلا الإرهابي. #أنس_الشريف لم يكن صحفيًا بل إرهابيًا حمساويًا pic.twitter.com/KG6DPrlyoW
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) August 11, 2025
The media did not even bother displaying these. Instead, al-Sharif’s photo in a press vest circulated everywhere, and Israel’s claims were either ignored or undermined.
Sky News, for example, lauded al-Sharif as a “crucial reporting voice,” but IDF evidence of his Hamas affiliation was disregarded.
On social media network X, Sky News also posted a story quoting Al Jazeera’s condemnation of Al Sharif’s “assassination.” The network did not respond when Israeli former hostage Shlomi Ziv commented: “I was held by a journalist in captivity and his father was a Doctor!!!!!!!”
Meanwhile, the AP and Reuters — the world’s two leading news agencies — failed to properly report what the IDF was stating.
The AP simply lied, saying that Israel said “without producing evidence that al-Sharif had led a Hamas cell. It was a claim the news organization and al-Sharif had denied” — as if a denial is a clear-cut refutation of hard evidence.
Reuters did the same, saying Israel did not disclose any evidence.
And instead of headlines such as “IDF kills Hamas terror cell leader posing as ‘Al Jazeera’ journalist,” both agencies’ headlines were one-sided.
They took the Palestinian narrative that Israel targets journalists as gospel, even though this narrative is based on the Qatari-funded network that supports Hamas and the denial that its worker has been exposed as a terrorist:
The New York Times went as far as eulogizing al-Sharif and the four other journalists who were killed in the strike, displaying Israel’s proven claims as mere accusations.
Nowhere did the Times display al-Sharif’s photo with Sinwar or the documents showing his Hamas affiliation.
This evidence was also omitted from a Washington Post headline and sub-header that made Israel look like it deliberately targets journalists:
Meanwhile, CNN produced hard-hitting videos showing al-Sharif’s Al Jazeera’s dispatches from war-torn Gaza, but without showing any of Israel’s evidence.
Ultimately, this is symptomatic of a wider problem throughout this war — whereby the media treat IDF statements with disdain while treating the claims of a terrorist organization as fact.
All these outlets, of course, failed to mention that al-Sharif conveniently ignored Gazans’ protests against Hamas throughout the war. Courage, apparently, applies only to reporting what Hamas wants the world to hear.
And almost none of them mentioned that al-Sharif was not the first terrorist who posed as a journalist in Gaza, perhaps in an attempt to hide the fact that it is a common phenomenon — from CNN’s Hassan Eslaiah to Al Jazeera’s Ismail Al Ghoul, among others.
Will the media ever doubt the Qatari network’s statements as it doubts the IDF?
Will they ever question what any journalist in Gaza says?
They can’t. Because they project their own conceptions on what it is like to cover a warzone, especially Gaza. They think that any journalist there deserves automatic solidarity and protection, instead of professional scrutiny.
With a pre-existing pro-Palestinian bias – it means the entire global media sings to Hamas’ tune.
Indeed, it proves Hamas’ evil brilliance of using the term “journalist” as a cover for terrorism. If anyone doubts it, it is an assault on the freedom of the press. Thus, the global media outcry over al-Sharif and his colleagues is a betrayal of real journalism, manipulated to demonize Israel and enable attacks against it. The outcry should have been directed against the exploitation of respected titles to promote terrorist agendas or fire rockets at innocent civilians.
Al Jazeera has already succeeded in promoting its own Hamas-friendly narrative in the aftermath of al-Sharif and his colleagues’ deaths — one where Israel is attempting to “silence voices” from revealing the truth of what is going on inside Gaza. As the IDF gears up for a potential invasion of Gaza City, we can expect to hear more of this narrative, as Al Jazeera and its fellow travelers in Western media falsely claim that Israel is attempting to cover up alleged crimes by deliberately targeting media workers.
The truth is quite the opposite. But it is unlikely to be reported.
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.
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Israeli Military Says Chief of Staff Approved ‘Main Concept’ for Attack Plan in Gaza
The new Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, March 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that chief of staff Eyal Zamir has approved the “main concept” for an attack plan in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has said it will launch a new offensive and seize control of Gaza City, which it captured shortly after the war’s outbreak in October 2023 before pulling out.