RSS
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.
RSS
US Senators Led by Ted Cruz Reintroduce Legislation to Label the Muslim Brotherhood a Terrorist Organization
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaking at a press conference about the United States restricting weapons for Israel, at the US Capitol, Washington, DC. Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A group of US lawmakers has reintroduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025, legislation that would classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who spearheaded the effort, is calling on the Trump administration to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a move that would trigger sanctions and stricter restrictions on its assets, travel, and financial networks.
The Texas senator described the Brotherhood as “a terrorist organization” that provides material support to proxy entities, including Hamas, a Palestinian offshoot of the global Islamist movement. He cited the group’s extremist ideology and noted Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, describing the attack as “the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust” during which “at least 53 Americans” were killed or kidnapped.
“American allies in the Middle East and Europe have already labeled the Brotherhood a terrorist organization,” Cruz said in a statement, urging the US to “do the same, and do so expeditiously.” The bill is co-sponsored by several Senate Republicans, including Sens. Tom Cotton (AR), John Boozman (AR), Rick Scott (FL), Ashley Moody (FL), and Dave McCormick (PA).
Cotton echoed Cruz’s assessment, saying the Brotherhood “preaches death to Israel, the United States, and other Western governments,” and argued that such rhetoric warrants a formal terrorist designation.
In the US House of Representatives, Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) introduced companion legislation, citing similar concerns about the group’s global network and ideological influence.
Labeling the Muslim Brotherhood as an FTO would mark a significant shift in US counterterrorism policy. Such a designation would enable the US government to freeze the group’s assets, impose visa bans, and criminalize support for its activities. It would also likely increase scrutiny of affiliated organizations and individuals both inside and outside the United States.
Governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Austria have already banned the Brotherhood, arguing it poses a threat to domestic and regional stability. But critics of Cruz’s bill warn that such a sweeping measure could backfire, potentially targeting progressive political efforts and fueling perceptions of US hostility toward Islamic political participation.
The legislation will now be reviewed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. While supporters push for swift passage, its fate remains uncertain amid concerns over diplomatic fallout and domestic civil liberties.
The post US Senators Led by Ted Cruz Reintroduce Legislation to Label the Muslim Brotherhood a Terrorist Organization first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Federal Judge Allows Antisemitism Lawsuit to Proceed Against Powerful Lawyers Union
A view of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Photo: Chip East via Reuters Connect
A US federal judge ruled on Tuesday that an antisemitism lawsuit accusing the powerful Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) union can continue over the objections of the organization’s formidable legal counsel, which attempted to have the case dismissed by arguing that it is “self-serving” and “anti-democratic.”
On Wednesday, officials from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which is representing the aggrieved parties, hailed the procedural victory in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York as a testament to the veracity of the allegations of which the ALAA is accused.
“We are enormously gratified with this ruling vindicating our clients’ federal labor law rights to oppose antisemitism in their union, including their right to sue over a virulently anti-Israel resolution proposed just weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack,” Brandeis Center chairman and founder Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “The Brandeis Center will defend Jewish and non-Jewish union members who stand up for themselves and against antisemitism and with all the lawful tools available to them.”
Brandeis Center senior counsel Rory Lancman added, “In standing up for what it is right, these courageous legal aid lawyers faced expulsion and a campaign of demonization that has taken an enormous toll on then, both professionally and personally. We look forward to proceeding with this case and fully vindicating their rights under federal labor law.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the union for New York public defenders allegedly degenerated into a “cornucopia of classic modern antisemitism” in the months following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel. Just weeks after the massacre, the ALAA passed a virulently anti-Israel resolution which made only a passing reference to Hamas’s atrocities and launched a smear campaign against Jewish members who opposed it. Following that, the union facilitated the filing of “formal charges” against Jewish and Zionist members, attempting to expel them from its ranks.
Antisemitic conduct in the ALAA took other forms, the complaint alleged. Members commended Hamas’s violence, chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and denied that the terrorist group had murdered women and children. In one incident, someone allegedly asserted that Zionist beliefs would prevent Jewish attorneys from “zealously” defending Muslims, Palestinians, and Arabs and lead them to conspire against them and sabotage their cases.
“If they support Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, why would they not have a reason to collude with prosecutors and other adversaries to deprive our clients of justice in the courts,” ALAA member Marlen Bodden wrote in an “officewide” email on Nov. 16, 2023.
“It is a legitimate question,” Monica Dula responded.
A ranking official attempted to stop the conversation from descending into a pitch and catch of antisemitic tropes, but the idea that Jews would work against their clients had allegedly been planted weeks earlier. On Oct. 13, 2023, Saara Ashid suggested that a Jewish attorney would not “stand up for Black and Brown folk in the same way,” according to the lawsuit. She added, “I’m starting to worry about all of your clients.”
By Nov. 17, ALAA was scheduled to vote on a resolution that the complaint describes as a “1,147-word diatribe against the existence of the Jewish state, replete with deceitful blood libels designed to arouse the most ancient antisemitic hatreds.” Resolved to stop it from taking place, several Jewish members, accusing the union of breach of contract and fostering a professional culture that would discourage Jews from seeking legal counsel from ALAA affiliated attorneys, sought and were granted a temporary restraining order which delayed the proceeding.
Angered by the ruling, their colleagues allegedly sought to expel them from the union entirely, with one member accusing them “of snitching behavior.” A volley of similar comments were launched in an email thread over the next several days, the lawsuit notes, with Emmanuel Garcia writing “if you are a snitch please do us a favor and kill yourself” and David Tobias commenting “careful, snitches are in this thread, they might snitch on you and air strike your home with your family in it.”
ALAA then moved to file charges against its Jewish members, accusing them of attempting to “interrupt a democratic process on an internal union matter” and violating the union’s “core” mission. The anti-Israel resolution has since been passed, and a trial of the members is forthcoming.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post US Federal Judge Allows Antisemitism Lawsuit to Proceed Against Powerful Lawyers Union first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Netanyahu Defines Israel’s Policy in Syria as Demilitarization, Druze Protection
Smoke rises while Syrian security forces sit in the back of a truck as Syrian troops entered the predominantly Druze city of Sweida on Tuesday following two days of clashes, in Sweida, Syria July 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Karam al-Masri
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday outlined Israel’s two primary strategic goals in Syria as ensuring southern Syria is demilitarized and protecting the Druze religious minority in the same area.
“We have set forth a clear policy: demilitarization of the region to south of Damascus, from the Golan Heights and to the Druze Mountain area. That’s rule number one. Rule number two is protecting the brothers of our brothers, the Druze at the Druze Mountain,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Both those rules were broken by the regime in Damascus,” the Israeli premier continued. “The [Syrian] regime sent troops south of Damascus, into the region that has to be demilitarized, and began slaughtering the Druze. That we could not accept in any way, and I therefore directed the IDF [Israel Defense Forces to take action — and take powerful action. The Air Force attacked both the gangs of murderers and the armored vehicles. I added another target, to also attack the Ministry of Defense in Damascus.”
Israel launched powerful airstrikes in Damascus on Wednesday, damaging the defense ministry and hitting near the presidential palace as it vowed to destroy Syrian government forces attacking Druze communities in southern Syria and demanded they withdraw.
The strikes came after days of heavy fighting broke out in the predominately Druze city of Sweida, where local Druze fighters clashed with regime forces amid growing tensions and reports of atrocities against civilians.
Clashes between Druze and the Bedouins, a collection of Sunni Muslim farmers who have long-standing frictions with the Druze, earlier this week prompted the Islamist-led Syrian government to send troops to Sweida to quell the fighting, but the violence then escalated.
The Israeli strikes followed appeals from Druze leaders who accused the regime of waging “a war of extermination.”
Druze are followers of a religion that is an offshoot of Islam and spread between Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.
Describing Syria’s new rulers as barely disguised jihadists, Israel has consistently vowed to prevent them from deploying forces in southern Syria, which borders northeastern Israel, and pledged to protect the region’s Druze community — motivated in part by appeals from Israel’s own Druze minority.
“We will not allow Syrian army forces to enter the region south of Damascus, and will not allow any harm to the Druze at the Druze Mountain,” Netanyahu said on Thursday.
PM Netanyahu:
“I would like to brief you on what we have done in Syria, and what we are going to do in Syria.
We have set forth a clear policy: demilitarization of the region to south of Damascus, from the Golan Heights and to the Druze Mountain area. https://t.co/PmvHEprmfC pic.twitter.com/36CEpSxIer— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) July 17, 2025
His statement came after Syrian government officials and Druze leaders announced a renewed ceasefire on Wednesday — a development for which the Israeli premier took credit.
“As a result of that powerful action [the Israeli strikes], a ceasefire came into force, and the Syrian forces retreated back to Damascus. That is important,” Netanyahu said. “This is a ceasefire that was reached through strength. Not by making requests, not by begging — through strength.”
Netanyahu’s statement came after Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa accused Israel of fueling instability in his country.
In a televised speech on Thursday, Sharaa condemned what he described as “Israeli interference disguised as protection for the Druze community” — just hours after the ceasefire took effect and regime forces began withdrawing from the southern province.
“The Israeli entity is trying to turn our land into a theater of chaos,” the Syrian leader said. “Since the regime fell, Israel has sought to dismantle Syria.”
Sharaa said Israel’s airstrikes had only escalated tensions, accusing the Jewish state of targeting both civilian and government infrastructure in an effort to sabotage Syria’s new government and its attempts to restore order.
“Syria is not a testing ground for foreign conspiracies,” Sharaa added. “We, the people of Syria, know who is trying to drag us into war and divide us.”
“They want to ignite a conflict on our soil to split our homeland and spread destruction,” he continued.
In his Thursday speech, Sharaa spoke directly to the Druze community, emphasizing their integral role in the country and affirming the government’s commitment to safeguarding their rights and unity.
“You are an inseparable part of our nation. Syria will never be a place for division or internal strife,” Sharaa said. “Protecting your rights and freedoms is a top priority. We reject any effort to lure you into siding with foreign interests.”
The US-brokered ceasefire announced on Wednesday following a previous attempt that had collapsed, amid mounting international pressure to resolve the conflict.
The newly brokered ceasefire paves the way for Sweida’s full integration into the government, requiring regime forces to withdraw from the southern region and transferring security responsibilities to local Druze fighters.
Sharaa became Syria’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted long-time leader Bashar al-Assad, whose brutal and authoritarian Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
The collapse of Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al Qaeda affiliate.
Despite reservations about the nascent Syrian regime, Israeli officials have expressed interest in establishing formal diplomatic relations with long-standing adversary Syria if certain conditions are met.
The US under President Donald Trump has lifted sanctions on the Syrian government and pushed for the new regime to normalize relations with Israel. US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack recently called for a non-aggression pact between the long-time Middle Eastern foes, saying that he believes peace between Israel and Syria is possible.
The post Netanyahu Defines Israel’s Policy in Syria as Demilitarization, Druze Protection first appeared on Algemeiner.com.