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Arrest made over threats to kill Jews at Cornell as New York State announces new measures to combat antisemitism
(New York Jewish Week) — Police have taken a suspect into custody over threats to kill Jewish students at Cornell University over the weekend, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said Tuesday as her office announced a series of measures to combat antisemitism on campuses and elsewhere in New York.
New York State police detained the Cornell suspect for questioning on Tuesday after identifying the individual earlier in the day, Hochul said, a day after she visited Jewish students at the university in a show of support.
Anonymous antisemitic threats posted to a Greek life website over the weekend threatened to “shoot up” Cornell’s kosher dining hall and included comments such as “jewish people need to be killed” and “eliminate jewish living from cornell campus.”
“If i see a pig male jew i will stab you and slit your throat,” read a post by a user called “hamas.”
Police were called to the dining hall, and the campus Hillel warned students to avoid the building after the threats.
“When I met with Cornell students yesterday, I promised them we would do everything possible to find the perpetrator,” Hochul said as she announced the suspect was in custody. “Public safety is my top priority and I’m committed to combating hate and bias wherever it rears its ugly head.”
Hochul also announced a series of measures to combat hate crimes and antisemitism in New York.
The governor ordered a third-party review of antisemitism and discrimination policies at New York City’s massive public university system, the City University of New York. The school system has been an antisemitism battleground in recent years, with some Jewish students and faculty alleging discrimination and harassment and demanding action from the administration. Much of strife across the system’s 25 colleges centers on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Jewish students saying anti-Israel criticism often veers into antisemitism, and pro-Palestinian activists decrying alleged attacks on free speech.
Judge Jonathan Lippman, a former chief judge on the New York Court of Appeals, will lead the review of CUNY antisemitism. The probe will look into the campus environment; policies, procedures and handling of antisemitism complaints; and balancing free speech rights with antisemitism.
Last May, a student speaker at the CUNY School of Law graduation praised the school as a place where students could “speak out against Israeli settler colonialism,” said Israel was “indiscriminately raining bullets and bombs on worshipers,” and blamed “donors” and “investors” for stifling anti-Israel criticism. Two weeks later, CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodríguez and the board of trustees denounced Fatima Mousa Mohammed’s remarks as “hate speech.” The previous year, radical pro-Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani delivered a similar speech at the law school graduation.
“We will take on the antisemitism we have seen on college campuses,” Hochul said during a press conference Tuesday. “The problem didn’t begin with the weeks following the Oct. 7 attacks. It’s been growing on a number of campuses and seen most acutely in the City University of New York.”
CUNY said in response to the announcement, “We will cooperate with Judge Lippman’s review as we work to build on the progress we’ve made combating antisemitism across our campuses.”
“As an institution of higher learning and one of the country’s most diverse universities, CUNY has taken many steps to combat hate, discrimination and intolerance in all forms, important work which we continue every day,” a CUNY spokesperson told the New York Jewish Week.
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating CUNY’s Brooklyn College over alleged antisemitism in a probe announced last year.
In addition to the CUNY review, the state’s division of criminal justice services will distribute $50 million for law enforcement agencies statewide to acquire new technology and equipment to better solve and prevent hate crimes, and $25 million in grants for securing communities against hate crimes, a program to boost protection as nonprofit organizations and other sites.
The state will also expand its social media analysis unit to better monitor violent threats against schools and campuses.
Antisemitic incidents have spiked in New York City and the United States since the start of the war in Israel, according to data collated by the New York Police Department and Jewish security groups. Jews are targeted in hate crimes in the city more than any other group.
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The post Arrest made over threats to kill Jews at Cornell as New York State announces new measures to combat antisemitism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.