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Antisemitic Incidents on Campus Spike to Record High Even as Assaults, Vandalism Decrease, New Data Shows
Pro-Hamas students rally at the encampment for Gaza set up at George Washington University students. Washington, DC, April 25, 2035. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect
New data on antisemitic incidents on college campuses released on Thursday by Hillel International paints a picture of the Jewish higher education experience that is somewhat gray, showing improvements in some statistical categories and retrogression in others.
“While we’re encouraged by progress in some areas, any counting of incidents likely underrepresents the true scope of antisemitism, because so many incidents go unreported — especially as they become normalized,” Hillel’s vice president of Israel engagement and confronting antisemitism, Jon Falk, said in a statement. “We cannot allow this level of antisemitism to feel normal. That’s why we’re working on campuses every day, creating safe, inclusive, and vibrant communities for Jewish students everywhere.”
The number of antisemitic incidents counted by the group, which is the largest collegiate group for Jewish students in the world, surged to a record high during the 2024-2025 academic year — 2,234, an increase of more than 500 incidents compared to the 1,853 recorded in the 2023-2024 school year. During the 2022-2023 academic year, the last year before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and the onset of the Gaza war, Hillel recorded just 289 antisemitic incidents.
However, incidents of assault declined by 36 percent over the past academic year, and incidents of vandalism, and graffiti plummeted by 55 percent. Meanwhile, so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampments,” once the bane of Jewish college life and a source of early retirement for elite college presidents, fell 92 percent.
Alongside those numbers are indicators that antisemitism is migrating from the campus to the internet and social media, where it can be easily masked by burner accounts and faceless forum groups in which the cover of anonymity encourages extremism. According to Hillel, antisemitic online harassment increased by 185 percent. Additionally, anti-Israel activists are disrupting commencement ceremonies at marginally higher rates. The 2024-2025 school year saw 37 such incidents. The previous academic year saw 31.
“All Jewish students should feel they belong on campus, but unfortunately, too often we’re seeing environments that make Jewish students feel excluded and threatened,” Hillel International chief executive officer Adam Lehman said in a statement. “Over the past year, many universities have made significant changes to better clarify and enforce their policies and codes of conduct, supported by our work with them to achieve these improvements. When universities step up and enforce their rules, Jewish students and all students benefit from a safer, more inclusive campus environment.”
Other research has explored the role of social media in spreading antisemitic and anti-Zionist propaganda.
In May, a report produced by the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University, Bloomington and shared with The Algemeiner — titled “Anti-Israel Campus Groups: Online Networks and Narratives” — discussed the ways in which pro-Hamas student groups draw in the world beyond the campus to heighten pressure on university officials and create an illusion of inexorable support for anti-Zionism. Key to this effort, the report explained, is a vast and ambitious network of non-campus anti-Israel organizations which ply them with logistical and financial resources that significantly boost their capabilities beyond those of normal student clubs.
“Social media platforms, particularly Instagram, play a critical role in mobilizing these groups, spreading radical narratives, and coordinating actions at both local and national levels,” report authors Gunther Jikeli and Daniel Miehling wrote. “Social media shapes perceptions of the Israel-Hamas conflict in significant ways, often through highly emotive and polarizing content that fuels activism and, at times, incitement.”
Having modernized the manufacturing and distribution of political propaganda by reducing complex subjects to “memes” — some involving humor or contemporary cultural references which appeal to the sensibilities of the youth — social media has become the cheapest and most effective weapons in the arsenal of the pro-Hamas movement, the report said, adding that this was true before the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel precipitated an explosion of anti-Israel activity online.
However, extremist groups have been pushing such anti-Israel activism on campuses long before the Oct. 7 atrocities, according to the report.
From 2013 to 2024, Students for Justice in Palestine, pro-Hamas faculty groups, and others posted over 76,000 posts on social media which were analyzed by the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. Over half, 54.9 percent, included only a single, evocative image.
“In contrast, Reels (5.3%) and Videos (4.9%) are used far less frequently,” the report said. “Based on these descriptions, we see a strong preference among campus-based anti-Israel groups for static visual formats, suggesting that this type of bimodal content represents the highest form of shareability within activists networks.”
To boost their audience and reach, pro-Hamas groups also post together in what Jikeli and Miehling described as “co-authored posts,” of which there were over 20,000 between 2013 and 2024. The content they contain elicits strong emotions in the individual users exposed to it, inciting incidents of antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and violence, the report continued. Such outrages increase in proportion to the concentration of anti-Israel groups on a single campus, as the report’s data show a relationship that is “particularly strong.”
Of all the groups responsible for fostering a hostile campus environment, SJP stands out for being “the most frequent collaborator with other anti-Israel organizations,” the report added. The group’s closest ally appears to be the Palestinian Youth movement, which maintains ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terror organization which became infamous in the 20th century for perpetrating a series of airplane hijackings.
“This close collaboration not only broadens SJP’s audience but also suggests that PYM’s radical anti-Zionist rhetoric and visual language may shape elements of SJP’s discourse,” Jikeli and Miehling explained. “PYM’s posts frequently incorporate imagery associated with socialist iconography, national liberation movements, and Islamist martyrdom. Such content often features slogans that reject the legitimacy of the Israeli state, depict convicted Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel as political prisoners, and glorify members of terrorist groups.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Antisemitic Incidents on Campus Spike to Record High Even as Assaults, Vandalism Decrease, New Data Shows first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US House Members Ask Marco Rubio to Bar Turkey From Rejoining F-35 Program
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard
A bipartisan coalition of more than 40 US lawmakers is pressing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prevent Turkey from rejoining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, citing ongoing national security concerns and violations of US law.
Members of Congress on Thursday warned that lifting existing sanctions or readmitting Turkey to the US F-35 fifth-generation fighter program would “jeopardize the integrity of F-35 systems” and risk exposing sensitive US military technology to Russia. The letter pointed to Ankara’s 2017 purchase of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system, despite repeated US warnings, as the central reason Turkey was expelled from the multibillion-dollar fighter jet program in 2019.
“The S-400 poses a direct threat to US aircraft, including the F-16 and F-35,” the lawmakers wrote. “If operated alongside these platforms, it risks exposing sensitive military technology to Russian intelligence.”
The group of signatories, spanning both parties, stressed that Turkey still possesses the Russian weapons systems and has shown “no willingness to comply with US law.” They urged Rubio and the Trump administration to uphold the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and maintain Ankara’s exclusion from the F-35 program until the S-400s are fully removed.
The letter comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed during a NATO summit in June that Ankara and Washington have begun discussing Turkey’s readmission into the program.
Lawmakers argued that reversing course now would undermine both US credibility and allied confidence in American defense commitments. They also warned it could disrupt development of the next-generation fighter jet announced by the administration earlier this year.
“This is not a partisan issue,” the letter emphasized. “We must continue to hold allies and adversaries alike accountable when their actions threaten US interests.”
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US Lawmakers Urge Treasury to Investigate Whether Irish Bill Targeting Israel Violates Anti-Boycott Law
A pro-Hamas demonstration in Ireland led by nationalist party Sinn Fein. Photo: Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne
A group of US lawmakers is calling on the Treasury Department to investigate and potentially penalize Ireland over proposed legislation targeting Israeli goods, warning that the move could trigger sanctions under longstanding US anti-boycott laws.
In a letter sent on Thursday to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 16 Republican members of Congress expressed “serious concerns” about Ireland’s recent legislative push to ban trade with territories under Israeli administration, including the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
The letter, spearheaded by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), called for the US to “send a clear signal” that any attempts to economically isolate Israel will “carry consequences.”
The Irish measure, introduced by Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Simon Harris, seeks to prohibit the import of goods and services originating from what the legislation refers to as “occupied Palestinian territories,” including Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Supporters say the bill aligns with international law and human rights principles, while opponents, including the signatories of the letter, characterize it as a direct extension of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel as a step toward the destruction of the world’s lone Jewish state.
Some US lawmakers have also described the Irish bill as an example of “antisemitic hate” that could risk hurting relations between Dublin and Washington.
“Such policies not only promote economic discrimination but also create legal uncertainty for US companies operating in Ireland,” the lawmakers wrote in this week’s letter, urging Bessent to determine whether Ireland’s actions qualify as participation in an “unsanctioned international boycott” under Section 999 of the Internal Revenue Code, also known as the Ribicoff Amendment.
Under that statute, the Treasury Department is required to maintain a list of countries that pressure companies to comply with international boycotts not sanctioned by the US. Inclusion on the list carries tax-reporting burdens and possible penalties for American firms and individuals doing business in those nations.
“If the criteria are met, Ireland should be added to the boycott list,” the letter said, arguing that such a step would help protect US companies from legal exposure and reaffirm American opposition to economic efforts aimed at isolating Israel.
Legal experts have argued that if the Irish bill becomes law, it could chase American capital out of the country while also hurting companies that do business with Ireland. Under US law, it is illegal for American companies to participate in boycotts of Israel backed by foreign governments. Several US states have also gone beyond federal restrictions to pass separate measures that bar companies from receiving state contracts if they boycott Israel.
Ireland has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel on the international stage since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza, leading the Jewish state to shutter its embassy in Dublin.
Last year, Ireland officially recognized a Palestinian state, a decision that Israel described as a “reward for terrorism.”
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US Families File Lawsuit Accusing UNRWA of Supporting Hamas, Hezbollah
A truck, marked with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) logo, crosses into Egypt from Gaza, at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah, Egypt, Nov. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
American families of victims of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks have filed a lawsuit against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, accusing the organization of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing material support to the Islamist terror groups behind the deadly assaults.
Last week, more than 200 families filed a lawsuit in a Washington, DC district court accusing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing funding and support to Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
The lawsuit alleges that UNRWA employs staff with direct ties to the Iran-backed terror group, including individuals allegedly involved in carrying out attacks against the Jewish state.
However, UNRWA has firmly denied the allegations, labeling them as “baseless” and condemning the lawsuit as “meritless, absurd, dangerous, and morally reprehensible.”
According to the organization, the lawsuit is part of a wider campaign of “misinformation and lawfare” targeting its work in the Gaza Strip, where it says Palestinians are enduring “mass, deliberate and forced starvation.”
The UN agency reports that more than 150,000 donors across the United States have supported its programs providing food, medical aid, education, and trauma assistance in the war-torn enclave amid the ongoing conflict.
In a press release, UNRWA USA affirmed that it will continue its humanitarian efforts despite facing legal challenges aimed at undermining its work.
“Starvation does not pause for politics. Neither will we,” the statement read.
Last year, Israeli security documents revealed that of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza, 440 were actively involved in Hamas’s military operations, with 2,000 registered as Hamas operatives.
According to these documents, at least nine UNRWA employees took part directly in the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Israeli officials also uncovered a large Hamas data center beneath UNRWA headquarters, with cables running through the facility above, and found that Hamas also stored weapons in other UNRWA sites.
The UN agency has also aligned with Hamas in efforts against the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israeli and US-backed program that delivers aid directly to Palestinians, blocking Hamas from diverting supplies for terror activities and selling them at inflated prices.
These Israeli intelligence documents also revealed that a senior Hamas leader, killed in an Israeli strike in September 2024, had served as the head of the UNRWA teachers’ union in Lebanon, where Lebanon is based,
UNRWA’s education programs have been found by IMPACT-se, an international organization that monitors global education, to contribute to the radicalization of younger generations of Palestinians.