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Anti-Israel Campus Protests Were Filled with Hate; College Teachers Tell You Not to Believe the Truth

Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect
How history will treat the post-October 7 anti-Israel protests on college campuses across America will depend in part on how much longer they last.
As we approach the two-year mark, there seems little room for indifference. Normal people are appalled by the Hamas Hipsters — privileged adolescents at $80,000 per-year schools — calling to “Globalize the Intifada.” But not everyone. Some people, especially some academics, are proud of them.
Danielle K. Brown, a journalism professor at Michigan State University who has devoted “over a decade” to researching protests and media coverage, wrote about the “disconnect” between “outside onlookers” and “those on the ground.”
Whereas the former can’t see past the ugliness of the anti-Israel protests, the latter understand and appreciate “the meticulous planning by advocacy groups and leaders aimed at getting a message out.” She calls it the “protest paradigm” and argues that this divide was particularly noticeable during the Spring 2024 semester of encampments.
Breaking the Protest Paradigm
Brown blames the media for highlighting “the spectacle rather than the substance,” which leaves “audiences uninformed about the nuances of the protests.” She claims that the protest paradigm is only broken “in the work produced by journalists who have engaged deeply and frequently with the advocacy groups” responsible for the protests, especially students.
Student journalists may be more likely to identify with protesters than with university administrations and public officials, but since the Left has adopted the Hamas cause, there are plenty of equally-enthusiastic and more capable “insiders” willing to “control the narrative,” including professional journalists, politicians, and especially professors.
Where outsiders saw antisemitism, violence, and disruption of expensive educations, these academics and other “insiders” uniformly praise the protesting students for their bravery and deny that they are antisemitic. They blame someone else for any violence that occurs, and they minimize harassment of Jewish students, property destruction, and building takeovers. Some even have the audacity to portray the protesters as morally superior to the universities they are protesting.
Aren’t They Beautiful?
Since the primary “advocacy group” behind the post-October 7 protests is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), it’s not surprising that Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) has been its primary ally on “the inside.” FJP, after all, exists solely to provide public relations services for SJP.
When University of Michigan students attempted to take over a building on the Ann Arbor campus, they were met with force from campus and local police. The university’s FJP chapter described it as “a beautiful display of unity, moral courage and justice.”
Georgetown University’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine published an “Open Letter” on May 13, 2024, calling the encampment at George Washington University “a positive, peaceful, respectful protest” and lavishly praising the “students [who] managed to create and sustain an orderly, clean, and lively encampment, with two kitchens, a medical center, and an outdoor classroom where students learned, discussed, sang, prayed, and danced.”
Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC) saw something different with her own eyes: “defacement of buildings, destruction of property [and] threats against Jewish students.”
Definitely Not Antisemitic
Describing the encampments as beautiful was often not enough. It was equally important to assert that, contrary to what anyone could plainly see, they were not antisemitic. Outright denials were common, such as the University of Michigan FSJP’s denunciation of “the repressive actions and demonizing language of President Ono … – in particular, using the mendacious cudgel of anti-semitism.”
But mere denials were not enough for “insiders” defending the encampments at Columbia University and George Washington University, which received the most attention of the 100-plus encampments at schools in the US. They found it important to impart a Jewish character to the protests.
George Mason University’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine’s praised the encampment at GWU as “an inclusive space of free education, food security, medical care, and creativity. They organized teach-ins, prayed, made art, held a Shabbat service.”
A Reuters article describing the Columbia encampment as a “living history lesson,” nonchalantly adds that protesters ate “free kidney beans and rice and kosher Passover snacks,” and asserts that “Reuters journalists have seen students peacefully chatting, reading, eating and holding both Jewish and Muslim prayer ceremonies.”
When four of the most far-left members of the New York City Council toured the Columbia encampment, they wrote about what it was “really like.” Taking umbrage with descriptions of “a cesspit of antisemitic hatred and a threat to the safety of all Jewish students and faculty,” they countered that, “Far from a danger zone where Jews should fear to tread, the encampment hosted a large kabbalat shabbat service on Friday evening, followed the next night by an equally well-attended Havdalah service.”
Enlisting anti-Zionist Jews in the cause provides a shield against charges of antisemitism. As Clemens Heni puts it, “Jewish anti-Zionists give hatred of Israel a kind of Kosher stamp.” But it a weak shield based on a false premise.
Curiously, the same Left that portrayed Larry Elder as “the black face of white supremacy” during his candidacy for the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election is quite comfortable implying that Jews can’t be antisemitic.
It’s Someone Else’s Fault
Another common goal of encampment defenders is to absolve the protesters of all violence by deflecting blame onto others, especially university administrations and police departments. Georgetown University’s FSJP blames “Mayor Bowser and the GWU administration [for having] created the very conditions that it had accused the students of fostering: chaos, conflict, and violence.”
Likewise, George Mason University’s FSJP “condemns in the strongest terms possible GW President Ellen Granberg’s decision to call the MPD on students who were demonstrating peacefully and endangering no one.”
The University of Texas FSJP denounced university “President Hartzell’s decision to once again order a military-style invasion of the UT campus.”
Brown herself criticizes Texas Governor Greg Abbot for having “equated protesters [at the University of Texas, Austin] to criminals with antisemitic intentions” and unfairly shaping the narrative by overshadowing “rebuttal from protest participants.”
Protesters Are Better Than Everyone
The most exorbitant white-washing tactics portray student protesters as wiser and better at educating than the universities where they protest.
At the University of San Francisco, where the anti-Israel protesters gave their encampment the grandiose name “The Peoples’ University for Palestine,” the school’s FJP chapter, “Educators for Justice in Palestine,” praised the “peaceful movement that has created a robust learning environment where students have learned to engage in collaborative work and discussion.”
Harvard’s FJP was equally impressed: “With their encampment, our students aim to construct a liberated space for collective education.”
But the most over-the-top, bombastic hyperbole in praise of any post-October 7 protest came from Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, an emeritus professor of politics at Whitman College who wants The Federalist Papers banned from college classes.
In Kaufman-Osborn’s effusive defense of the Columbia encampment for Project MUSE, the university is “an autocratic property corporation,” and the student protesters are “the encampment’s residents.” In language only an academic would write, he explains that the protesters’ “embrace of procedural democracy was subtended by a struggle to meet mundane needs whose satisfaction is a necessary precondition of the possibility of autonomous self-governance.”
Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) saw something different with his own eyes: “Jewish students … being verbally – and even physically – assaulted. Masked protesters … cheering on and actively calling for the genocide of Jews.”
Conclusion
Contrary to what anonymous FJP members, socialist politicians, and others “on the ground” wrote, post-October 7 anti-Israel protesters have created nothing but hostile environments. The encampment students in particular pilfered university resources and disrupted the educations of their peers who want nothing to do with pro-Hamas demonstrations. If any “created food security,” it was on someone else’s dime.
They also weren’t “residents” but trespassers, and they neither saved democracy nor challenged authoritarianism. What will the Fall 2025 semester bring? Will there be more protests and encampments in solidarity with Hamas? Or maybe the Islamic Republic of Iran will be the new cause.
Whatever comes, there will be no shortage of “insiders” to explain why you should not believe your lying eyes.
Chief Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) Political Correspondent A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is also a Milstein fellow. A version of this article was originally published by IPT.
The post Anti-Israel Campus Protests Were Filled with Hate; College Teachers Tell You Not to Believe the Truth first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.