Three progressive US lawmakers are facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly “inciting” anti-Israel protests at Columbia University.

The lawsuit, filed by five anonymous students, names Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), and Jamaal Bowman (NY) — all members of the so-called “Squad” of far-left members of the House of Representatives — as key instigators of the “extreme and outrageous” anti-Israel protests on the Ivy League campus. The lawsuit also implicates nearly a dozen pro-Palestinian groups.

“The Gaza Encampment was extreme and outrageous conduct. It was illegal. It violated university rules. Its occupants harassed, followed, physically blocked, intimidated, and bullied Jewish students,” the lawsuit says. 

Starting in mid-April, dozens of student organizers at Columbia University commandeered the South Lawn and erected an encampment in protest of Israel’s military campaign against the Hamas terror group in Gaza. The students vowed not to dismantle the encampment until the university agreed to boycott and divest from all Israel-related entities, including divesting from companies that do business with the Jewish state and cutting ties with Israeli universities.  

The demonstration, which included chants in support of Hamas and calls for Israel’s destruction, quickly grew in numbers amid allegations that Columbia wasn’t doing enough to punish rampant antisemitism on campus.

The lawsuit argues that the three lawmakers were among the “outside champions” who encouraged the protests. The three progressives issued statements defending the at-times violent protesters and criticizing law enforcement. 

“If any kid is hurt tonight, responsibility will fall on the mayor and [university] presidents,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X/Twitter on April 30.

Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman, and Omar each visited the encampments at Columbia University in a show of support for the campus agitators. Omar suggested that Jewish students critical of the Columbia University anti-Israel protests were “pro-genocide,” sparking a firestorm of outrage. Bowman defended the anti-Israel protests as “peaceful” and said he was “outraged” at Columbia administrators for calling in police officers to protect the campus.

Two of the five claimants in the lawsuit are Jewish, according to the New York Post. 

An anonymous Columbia Jewish sophomore told the Post that he “did not feel safe” on campus. 

“During the protests, I witnessed numerous offensive and antisemitic signs and messages, including antisemitic skunk posters with the Star of David,” the Columbia student recalled.

The Columbia protests drew widespread criticism for rhetoric that many observers considered antisemitic. Student activists openly waved flags representing the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups. A group of Columbia student protesters made headlines for chanting “burn Tel Aviv to the ground.” Several campus groups issued statements categorically banning “Zionist” students from membership. In May, police revealed that anti-Israel protesters who occupied an academic building at Columbia had signs that read “death to America,” death to Israel,” and “long live the intifada” — the last of which refers to a violent Palestinian uprising.

In response, several prominent Columbia Jewish alumni have vowed to no longer donate funds to the Ivy League university. The US Congress summoned Columbia President Minouche Shafik to testify on the alleged antisemitic campus climate at the university. The Committee on Education and the Workforce initiated an investigation into antisemitism at Columbia.

“In a civilized community, one does not call for the obliteration of a major metropolitan area, praise terrorists, or threaten death and destruction upon our classmates and their families, friends, and coreligionists,” the lawsuit reads.

The claimants allege that the campus agitators and their supporters “not only consciously disregarded the rights of others, but the impact on the rights of others was the point of the protest: the more disruption [they] could cause for the university and the [students], the more leverage they thought they would have for their agenda.”

Omar, Bowman, and Ocasio-Cortez have all routinely lambasted Israel and called for the US to lessen its support to the Jewish state.

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North Carolina State University (NCSU) has settled a civil rights complaint which accused school officials of failing to respond to a series of antisemitic incidents in which a Jewish student was allegedly subjected to bullying, violent threats, and doxxing.

Brought by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the complaint alleged that the Jewish plaintiff was abused by her peers for supporting Israel. Anti-Zionist students, it said, frequently uttered threats while walking past her on campus and also published her picture and private information online.

The alleged misconduct wasn’t limited to students. In another incident, the administration told the student nothing could be done when, in her first week on campus, she discovered swastika graffiti all over the walls of a tunnel on campus.

As part of the settlement, an outcome achieved during an “early” mediation process administered by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the university agreed to update its anti-discrimination policies to adhere to a 2019 Trump administration executive order which recognized anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism, include antisemitism in its programming on racial and ethnic hatred, and hold regular meetings with Jewish organizations on campus. The university will also base its handling of future antisemitic incidents on North Carolina’s Shalom Act (House Bill 942), which explicitly refers to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

“The Brandeis Center’s settlement with NCSU represents a significant step forward in our efforts to combat antisemitism on college campuses,” Brandeis Center chairman and founder Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “This settlement paves the way for meaningful change on both NCSU’s campus and on college campuses throughout the country.”

He continued, “The settlement agreement includes a commitment to abide by Executive Order 13899 and North Carolina Statutes, including North Carolina House Bill 942, which explicitly references the IHRA definition of antisemitism and its contemporary examples for combating antisemitism. We commend the university for its commitment to include references to these important tools in the settlement agreement and in their revised anti-discrimination policy.”

Brandeis Center senior counsel Robin Pick added, “NC State has the opportunity to be a leader and a model for other universities in the fight against antisemitism.”

Other universities have recently settled legal complaints prompted by allegedly poor, and potentially illegal, responses to antisemitic incidents.

In July, New York University (NYU) agreed to pay an undisclosed sum of money to settle a lawsuit brought by three students who described the university’s approach to handling antisemitism as “deliberate indifference.” In resolving the case, NYU avoided a lengthy trial which would have revealed who and which office received but failed to address numerous reports that NYU students and faculty “repeatedly abuse, malign, vilify, and threaten Jewish students with impunity.”

In May, Columbia University settled a lawsuit which accused President Minouche Shafik of fostering a hostile learning environment by appeasing pro-Hamas rioters who convulsed the campus with unauthorized demonstrations for weeks.

One university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has managed to defeat a lawsuit prompted by campus antisemitism. Last month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit alleging that the university refused to enforce rules which prohibit discrimination when Jews were victims. That same judge, a Democratic appointee and former political operative, will determine the fate of another lawsuit against Harvard University which makes similar accusations.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post North Carolina State University Settles Antisemitism Complaint first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Israel’s former Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren has traded his diplomatic credentials and suits for a dog tag and combat uniform by joining an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rapid response counter-terrorism unit in a northern kibbutz, warning that the fall of the embattled north would pose the most significant threat to Israel’s central heartland.

Oren recently returned from Washington, DC, where he accompanied a delegation of displaced Israelis from the north for a series of talks and high-level meetings in the US capital. The former envoy criticized Biden administration officials for lacking adequate answers for the evacuees they met with, implying they expected the evacuees to simply accept living in close proximity to a terror threat.

“No one is going to go back to living, say, in Metulla, which is literally a war zone with 150 houses destroyed and with Hezbollah on the other side of the fence,” he said, referring to the powerful Iran-backed terrorist organization in Lebanon. Oren cited army estimates that as much as 40 percent of Israel’s evacuated north, numbering some 80,000 people, would not return home in the event of a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza.

“We now know what terrorists on the other side can do to Israelis,” he added.

Oren asserted that Israel was misdirecting its focus with the fighting in Hamas-ruled Gaza to the south, investing its manpower and resources against the wrong enemy. “We’re fighting the wrong war. We should focus our main energy on the north, which is a strategic threat. Hamas was and is a tactical threat. It’s not going anywhere.”

Hezbollah, which wields significant military and political influence across Lebanon, has been firing drones, missiles, and rockets at northern Israel daily since October, when the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began. The onslaught has forced Israelis living near the Lebanon border to flee to other parts of the country for safety.

Oren assailed the response by world leaders and global press to last week’s targeted assassinations of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas terror chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and rejected claims that the killings would make hostage negotiations tougher and foil the chances for regional quiet.

“The reaction of the world was extraordinary. By eliminating two mass murderers, they’re saying Israel has jeopardized peace. You can’t make this stuff up,” Oren said. “What foils the chances for a hostage agreement [with Hamas] and for regional stability is not standing up to terror and not fighting.”

“Leaders of the United States and the world should thank Israel for eliminating the murderer of not just Israelis, and of Palestinians, but the murder of Americans,” he added.

Oren rejected claims that Israel was not operationally or logistically prepared for a full-scale war with Hezbollah, asserting that Israel had untapped resources ready for deployment. “We have conventional means that we’ve never used before, and we could use them now, like our submarine force,” he said, declining to elaborate further.

Kobi Levy, a resident of Kfar Blum who is part of the rapid response team alongside Oren, hailed the former envoy’s decision to dust off his uniform for the first time in over a decade. Oren fought in the First Lebanon War in 1982 in the Paratroopers Brigade.

According to Levy, many lawmakers and politically-affiliated groups, including the Brothers in Arms anti-government protest group, have briefly visited the kibbutz for what he termed “photo ops and empty promises.”

Oren, he said, “came with all his heart to listen. To us, the people of the north. He’s the only politician who understands exactly what the residents want.”

Levy also said that Oren wasn’t above doing whatever was needed for the team, from early morning drills to overnight guard shifts. He predicted that Oren, who also served as a deputy minister in Israel’s 19th Knesset, had a “bright future” ahead of him should he make a return to Israeli politics.

Asked if such a scenario was on the cards, Oren was coy. “Whether in a suit or a uniform, I’ve always been about service to our country and our people, and I’ll continue serving in any way I can.”

For the meantime, Oren was happy to be the “oldest guy by far” in the rapid response squad. “I knew that if I wanted to advocate for the north, I needed to see it firsthand,” he said.

That experience has led him to discover things he would never otherwise have known. One example he gave is the lack of financial support for Kfar Blum, which was not evacuated by the IDF and therefore receives no compensation. More than 60 percent of the kibbutz’s residents have self-evacuated, including Levy’s own family which evacuated only last week over fears of a reprisal after last week’s double assassination. The kibbutz, once known for being the cultural center of the north with several music festivals, has hosted thousands of soldiers passing through in the past ten months of war, and authorities have yet to pick up the tab, Oren said. “They do it with love of course, but even just the water bill is a tremendous burden on this community.”

“I’m deeply impressed by the people here and their commitment to the north and to Israel,” he said.

“I’m not being sentimental; they are the embodiment of the Zionist ideal,” Oren added. “But the sense is that they’ve been forgotten.”

The post Rejoining IDF, Ex-Envoy Michael Oren Warns: ‘We’re Fighting the Wrong War’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.