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An NYU student wrote ‘F–k Israel’ on a piece of trash. Is that antisemitism or freedom of speech?
(New York Jewish Week) — New York University is investigating a graduate student working at the school library who wrote “Free Palestine” and a profanity on an Israeli mail bag left in the trash.
The university accused Naye Idriss in November 2022 of alleged antisemitism and vandalism, according to her attorney. Idriss was informed that she was being investigated for allegedly violating the non-discrimination policy in the student conduct code.
Dylan Saba, who is representing the student through Palestine Legal, a civil rights group, also said that the university sent an email to library staff saying that there was “an anti-Israel incident.” Another email stated that there was “an alleged antisemitism incident.”
In December, Idriss, who was one of three Arabic language students working at the library, was not rehired with her peers.
Photographs show a bag bearing the logo of Israel’s postal service, with the word “F–k” written next to the word Israel and “Free Palestine” scrawled on the side. The bag appears to have been shipped from an Israeli vendor in July 2022 before being tossed in a recycling bin.
The incident was first reported by the online news publication Electronic Intifada on Monday.
Idriss did not respond to a request for a comment, but NYU spokesperson John Beckman confirmed to the New York Jewish Week that the university is looking into the incident.
“Beyond acknowledging that there was an incident that involved the writing of profanity in the library, and that various appropriate NYU offices have looked into the matter and responded to it, I cannot elaborate because it is NYU’s practice not to comment on the specifics of individual employee or student matters,” Beckman said.
NYU had initially classified the investigation as a student conduct issue, which would not have entitled Idriss to union representation. Because the incident occurred at work, Idriss has the right to have a union representative present in any workplace disciplinary proceeding, Saba told the Electronic Intifada. After the union intervened, the investigation led to a hearing with NYU’s human resources department.
#StudentSpotlight Naye Idriss was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon and graduated from @Columbia with a BA in Anthropology and Comparative Literature and Society in May 2020. pic.twitter.com/YdSk8Z8WTG
— NYU Kevorkian Center (@nyukevo) November 23, 2021
“They have not dismissed the antisemitism charge,” Saba said. “They just haven’t moved forward with it.”
He added in written statement to the New York Jewish Week: “This is very clearly an example of repression from NYU in response to continuous pressure from outside Zionist organizations to silence pro-Palestinian political speech.”
Tova Benjamin, a steward and organizer with the Union for Graduate Workers at NYU, also confirmed to the New York Jewish that the union has been representing Idriss during NYU’s investigation, but would not comment any further.
Saba told the New York Jewish Week that the proceeding “has been on pause while the HR process proceeds to a resolution.”
On Monday, the aggressive watchdog group Stop Antisemitism tweeted Idriss’ face and details about her education and place of birth to over 60,000 followers online.
“I hope she gets suspended,”one person commented.
“Throw her azz in jail,” another wrote.
NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, the campus Hillel, declined to comment.
Jewish groups have complained in the recent past about incidents at NYU they call antisemitic. In 2020, following complaints that NYU hadn’t done enough to prevent “a hostile environment” for Jews on the campus, the U.S. Education Department and NYU reached an agreement under which the university agreed to “bolster our longstanding commitment to opposing and responding to antisemitism,” a university spokesman said at the time.
In April 2022, a pro-Palestinian law student group sent out an email chain saying, among other things, “the Zionist grip on the media is omnipresent.” Like the mailbag incident, the email prompted a debate over what is legitimate and protected criticism of Israel, however harsh, and what constitutes hate speech.
Alex Morey, a lawyer and director of campus rights advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a non-partisan organization that defends free speech on campus, told the New York Jewish Week that this seems to be the first case he’s seen where “a student is using garbage as their medium of expression.”
“But free speech principles protect all manner of written expression, whether you’re putting your views on a protest sign or a piece of trash,” Morey said.
Morey added that “you can’t vandalize garbage.”
“Vandalism requires damaging someone else’s property, and garbage, by nature, belongs to no one,” Morey said. “When the student took the bag from the trash, it became hers to use as she saw fit. Reportedly, the bag was in a recycling container. She was, arguably, recycling it.”
NYU’s student conduct policy says that the campus community “thrives on debate and dissent,” and that “free inquiry, free expression, and free association enhances academic freedom and intellectual engagement.”
“Any student reading this promise should feel confident expressing even the most controversial views in creative ways on campus,” Morey said.
Still, Morey noted that speech that rises to the level of a threat or discriminatory harassment should be punished, but proving that can have “high legal bars.”
“Simply holding or expressing an anti-Israel view, whether one defines it as antisemitic or not, doesn’t get close to meeting these standards,” Morey said. “In other words: NYU not only allows but encourages students to express all sorts of controversial views on campus, even if some people deem those views antisemitic.’”
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JD Vance praises Tucker Carlson-Mike Huckabee interview as ‘a really good conversation’
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance has weighed in on the Tucker Carlson-Mike Huckabee interview that has ignited widespread antisemitism allegations as well as a diplomatic row with Arab states, calling it “a really good conversation that’s going to be necessary for the right.”
Vance made the comments to the Washington Post, which published them Friday morning. He said he had not seen the entire interview, which was more than two hours long, but had viewed “clips here and there.”
Vance is a longtime ally of Carlson, a leading far-right figure who has stirred a rift among conservatives by platforming antisemites, at times promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories himself and increasingly campaigning against Israel. (Carlson says he is not antisemitic.)
Vance’s refusal to criticize Carlson or seek to end the rift has increasingly alarmed Jewish conservatives. To the Washington Post, he reiterated what he said before when asked about Carlson and the antisemitism rift — that he believes the Republican Party should be an open marketplace of ideas.
He said he was pleased that the right has stoked “a real exchange of ideas,” even when it includes “the people that I find annoying on our side,” whom he did not specify. That exchange, he said, was also essential for electoral success.
“If you think of the Trump coalition in 2024 — and the way that I put it is, you had Joe Rogan, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and JD Vance and a coalition of people — but to do that, you have to be willing to tolerate debate and disagreement,” Vance said. “And I just think that it’s a good thing.”
Vance is seen as likely to run for president in 2028.
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Amid Iran tensions, Huckabee tells US embassy staff in Israel they should leave ‘TODAY’ if they wish
(JTA) — Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has told U.S. government employees and their families that they may leave the country and should do so expediently, amid mounting signs of a possible U.S. attack on Iran.
Huckabee emailed embassy staff on Friday morning saying that if they want to leave, they should do so “TODAY,” according to a letter first reported by The New York Times. He noted that commercial flights could become scarce and urged them to accept passage to any country before returning to Washington, D.C.
“There is no need to panic, but for those desiring to leave, it’s important to make plans to depart sooner rather than later,” he wrote.
The letter comes a day after U.S.-Iran talks in Geneva ended without public breakthroughs. Iranian officials, as well as the Omani mediators, said additional conversations were planned for next week; the United States did not comment. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kusher, two Jewish advisors to President Donald Trump who successfully brokered a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war last year, are leading the U.S. delegation.
Trump has been threatening to attack Iran for weeks over its nuclear program and has built up U.S. military forces in the Middle East to levels not seen in decades. In recent days, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance have both said military intervention could be needed while saying the president continued to prefer diplomacy.
Vance’s comments were particularly notable because he typically opposes U.S. intervention overseas. He told the Washington Post in comments published Friday morning that there was “no chance” that the United States would get involved in an extended Middle East campaign.
Iran has said it would consider Israel a valid target in the event of a U.S. attack. Last year, Iranian missiles killed more than two dozen people in Israel during a 12-day war initiated by Israeli strikes on Iran’s military program. Now, Israelis have been living in limbo for weeks while waiting to learn whether a new war, expected to be more destructive, will begin.
In the past, when expecting Iranian retaliation, the embassy has warned staff against leaving population centers in Israel. Now, the Department of State has updated its Jerusalem embassy website to reflect “the authorized departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members of U.S. government personnel to leave Israel,” setting a status that means flights will be paid for by the U.S. government.
While El Al, Israel’s national carrier, does not fly during Shabbat, other airlines typically do run some flights to and from Ben Gurion Airport on Friday nights and Saturdays. Many of those are budget European airlines that have only recently resumed flying to Israel after last year’s Iran war; some airlines, including KLM, have already suspended Israel flights in anticipation of another conflict.
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Pro-Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani sues Betar USA, alleging far-right Zionist group violated her civil rights
(JTA) — The founder of radical pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime has sued the right-wing militant Zionist group Betar USA, alleging that it violated her civil rights by putting out social media “bounties” on her and harassing her with beepers.
Nerdeen Kiswani announced she had filed the lawsuit Wednesday evening, She accused the revamped historic Revisionist Zionist group of violating the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which makes conspiring against an ethnic minority a federal crime.
The lawsuit comes more than a month after Betar USA agreed to cease its operations in New York following a settlement with the state’s attorney general — which Kiswani’s lawsuit notes. The office of AG Letitia James found that Betar USA had engaged in a “campaign of violence, harassment, and intimidation against Arab, Muslim, and Jewish New Yorkers.”
“For years, Betar USA stalked & harassed me even offering $1,800 for someone to hand me a beeper while I was pregnant,” Kiswani wrote on X. “Last month, the NY AG found they engaged in bias-motivated harassment and threats. Still they faced no real consequences. So I’m filing a lawsuit.” She included a crowdfunding link for the suit, which has raised $4,000 in the first 16 hours.
In a statement, Betar USA called Kiswani a “terror supporter” and called the suit “an attack on Zionism itself” that “represents a serious danger to American and diaspora Jewry.” In a follow-up post on X, the group also said it welcomed a deposition against Kiswani and Within Our Lifetime, adding, “Let’s see where the money is coming from and how much you’ve cost NYC.”
Kiswani, an ethnic Palestinian born in Jordan who came to the United States as a refugee at 1 year old, has sparked outrage and accusations of antisemitism in New York and beyond with her pro-Palestinian activism and aggressive attitude toward Zionists.
“We don’t want zionists in Palestine, NYC, our schools, on the train, ANYWHERE,” she tweeted after a man was arrested for allegedly calling to eject Zionists from a subway car.
Within Our Lifetime originated as a branch of Students for Justice in Palestine before splintering off from the national group, accusing SJP of being insufficiently radical. Since then, Kiswani’s group has protested at exhibits honoring the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks; university Hillels; synagogues holding Israel real-estate events; and gatherings where speakers have praised Hamas and/or where Jews have been assaulted.
Kiswani’s prominence and activities within the pro-Palestinian movement have led to clashes with many ardent pro-Israel activists. In recent weeks a tweet of hers also prompted far-right Jewish pro-Israel Rep. Randy Fine, of Florida, to make disparaging remarks about Muslims that have led to rising Democratic calls for his censure.
But it’s Betar USA, whose members engage in similarly radical activity on the pro-Israel side, that is now facing a direct lawsuit from Kiswani. Her attorneys said Betar and its leadership, including founder Ronn Torossian and former executive director Ross Glick, had “conspired” against her “by subjecting her to a coordinated and sustained campaign of racial violence, and interference with her rights to use public accommodations to intrastate travel.”
Kiswani’s suit hones in on several of Betar USA’s common rhetoric, including the group’s use of beepers as a meme, a reference to Israel’s 2024 pager operation against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. The suit also says Betar members “privately and publicly agreed to track Ms. Kiswani’s whereabouts, follow her, and threaten, intimidate, and attempt to assault her.”
In tweets directed at Kiswani that are still visible, Betar USA threatened to “denaturalize” the activist (after she criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s condemnation of pro-Hamas chants at protests) and wrote, “We will send many more of you to meet Allah” (in reference to Kiswani calling for “the abolition of Israel by any means necessary”).
Responding to the lawsuit, Betar USA spokesperson Jonathan Levy called the group “a mainstream Zionist movement that has played a central role in Jewish and Israeli history.” Betar traces its lineage back to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the pre-state Revisionist Zionist revolutionary, and has insisted its actions are in line with mainstream Zionist and Israeli viewpoints.
Levy added, “Calling Betar a terror group akin to the KKK is the same accusations we’ve heard calling the IDF a criminal army and labeling Zionism as genocide.”
Glick did not mention the suit when speaking to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporter at a different New York protest Wednesday evening before Kiswani’s lawsuit went public. He disparaged the AG’s settlement as “a lot of lies,” adding, “My position and Betar’s position is, look, we were reborn for self-defensive reasons, we weren’t on the offense.”
The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 was also successfully used, by a group of progressive Jewish attorneys, to prosecute the neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. That case’s legal victory earned broad praise for finding a creative way to hold hateful actions to account without violating First Amendment rights.
Joseph Strauss contributed reporting.
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