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As Trump Takes Office, Will the New Administration Help Stop Radicalism on College Campuses?
Pro-Hamas Columbia University students march in front of pro-Israel demonstrators on Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Photo: Roy De La Cruz via Reuters Connect
The new Trump administration promises to shift the landscape for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and anti-Israel politics.
A new Executive Order orders action to combat antisemitism, including deporting violent and terror-supporting non-citizens, and the administration’s efforts to remove the Federal DEI enterprise removes a key support for anti-Israel and antisemitic policies at universities receiving government funds.
The effectiveness of these and other measures remains unclear — but the new and supportive rhetoric must be contrasted with the new administration’s established pattern of pressuring Israel to make concessions.
Responding to increasing scrutiny, higher education professionals have rebranded DEI courses and offices, and more evidence has accumulated that university administrations are working to dilute or replace the focus on campus antisemitism. At Northwestern University, critics have noted that a required training program on discrimination and harassment omitted Israel and Zionism as targeted categories, but included “anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian biases.” The University of Toronto also launched a working group on Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian discrimination.
Universities and localities continue, however, to act against students who have violated regulations and laws:
- The University of Rochester expelled four students for putting up “wanted posters” targeting Jewish faculty and staff. The students also face criminal mischief charges;
- A University of Chicago student was arrested and charged with aggravated battery in connection with an October 2024 anti-Israel protest. Students later protested outside the president’s residence in support of the arrested individuals;
- Another four Case Western students were arrested and charged with felonious vandalism in connection with a November building takeover;
- Two Dartmouth College students were found guilty of misdemeanor trespass after refusing to leave an encampment in October 2023;
- A Northwestern University Ph.D. graduate pled guilty to a firebomb attack and lighting fires “in solidarity with Palestinians” at the University of California at Berkeley;
- At Princeton University, 14 students and others will stand trial in April on charges of defiant criminal trespassing in connection with an April 2024 takeover of a university building;
- New York University suspended 13 students who held a sit-in that disrupted the university library in December. One of the students accused the school of “targeting brown and Arab students;”
- Three University of Michigan students were charged with misdemeanors in connection with a fall 2024 “die-in.”
Divestment now appears nearly dead on American campuses. In January Johns Hopkins University rejected divesting from Israel as inappropriately political and impractical, as did the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Maine system. At the University of Georgia, however, students disrupted a board of regents meeting to demand divestment.
This follows a spate of protests by medical professionals, including a letter of support from the American Academy of Pediatrics to then Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in support of Hamas doctor Hussam Abu Safiya who was arrested in Gaza. “Call out sick for Gaza” protests occurred at Boston area hospitals including Harvard Medical School.
Physicians associated with Columbia University also complained administrators had engaged in “the erasure of Palestinian morbidity and mortality and “systematic repression and censorship of health-oriented discussions of the genocide.” The support for Hamas demonstrated by physicians at their medical school graduations is an ominous foreshadowing of future mistreatment of patients on the basis of religion or national identity that has already been documented in the US, Canada, and Europe.
Faculty
In the faculty sphere, one of the most notable developments in January was a resolution approved by the American Historical Association (AHA) members at its annual meeting to condemn “scholasticide” in Gaza. The resolution alleged that Israel had intentionally and systematically destroyed Gaza’s educational infrastructure using US weapons. Once approved the resolution moved to the executive committee before being sent to the full membership. The executive committee, however, vetoed the resolution, stating that “it lies outside the scope of the association’s mission and purpose.”
The AHA’s executive committee’s decision follows a similar one by the Modern Language Association to prevent a BDS resolution from being put to the full membership. The moves suggest that academic leaders — with the notable exception of the umbrella American Association of University Professors, which has endorsed “individual” Israel boycotts and whose leadership is strongly hostile to Israel — are perceiving BDS as a losing issue from the perspective of disciplinary reputation and perhaps legal and public relations liability. There is a schism between younger academics inculcated with the ideology of “scholar-activism” and an older generation.
Despite or perhaps as a result of small signs of resistance to BDS by leaders of academic organizations, faculty unions have emerged as centers of Israel hatred.
Resolutions demanding divestment area are also means to split the faculty and more importantly, leverage affiliated union support. In one example the City University of New York Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) union voted to divest from Israel. A Jewish faculty group then filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights.
The union vote was condemned by the university and New York State governor Kathy Hochul (D). The refusal of the Supreme Court to hear an earlier case regarding the union leaves in limbo the question of whether Jewish and other faculty can be fairly represented by a politicized union.
In an example of the mendacity and mediocrity that characterizes so many anti-Israel faculty members, Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke claimed that she had been forced to retire as a result of her “pro-Palestinian” activities. Her claim that the move was “termination dressed up in more palatable terms” was belied by report from an outside law firm which documented her persistent harassment and defamation of Israeli and Jewish students and “prohibited racial stereotyping.”
Franke has now filed a grievance against the school’s Office of Institutional Equity accusing it of “a pattern and anti-Palestinian racism.”
In a related development, the Islamist group CAIR declared that Columbia was a hostile campus for pro-Palestinian students.
Reports continue to accumulate regarding the routine incorporation of anti-Israel materials into coursework in disciplines as varied as English and music. At the University of Pittsburgh, faculty also offered extra credit for attending anti-Israel protests and berated students for their support of Israel and “Jewish privilege.” A video taken at the Barnard College English department shows that every faculty member’s door is decorated with anti-Israel flyers.
Other examples of campus propagandizing include a panel entitled “Feminist and Queer Solidarities with Palestine” to be held at the University of California Berkeley in February. A description of the panel promises to “look at how Zionism has weaponized feminism, so as to serve Israel’s genocidal intent, by upholding debunked accusations of systematic Hamas mass assault.” After the event was publicized, the university removed the description from its website.
Students
With the semester underway campus protests against Israel have resumed but at lower level:
- At Cornell University protestors vandalized a statue in the center of campus with “Divest from death” and “occupation=death” and red paint. When interviewed, the anonymous protestors stated their goal was the elimination of Israel;
- At Columbia University “New York City Resists with Gaza” and “Columbia University Apartheid Divest” destroyed the sewage system at the International Affairs Building with cement and spray painted graffiti there and on the business school. In a social media posting the groups stated they had “attacked two targets” to note the death of Hind Rajab and to resist “One of Columbia’s most recent violent gentrification projects into Harlem, the construction of which was conditioned on the creation of Columbia’s Apartheid Global Center in ‘Tel Aviv’”;
- Columbia University protestors vandalized the campus with “Land back, nothing less than liberation.” Demonstrators also held several protests off campus;
- Also at Columbia masked protestors entered a modern Israel history class, reading manifestos and handing out leaflets saying “Curse Zionism.” The university president condemned the incident, warned that police presence on campus might be expanded, and later suspended one ‘”affiliate” for participating in the incident and barred two others from campus. A faculty group also condemned the incident;
- At Yale University, a speaking appearance by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the Hillel was protested by students and others who attempted to block entrance to the building and who then occupied the building’s lobby;
- Protestors at Oxford University occupied a campus library. They stated the building had been renamed the “Khalida Jarrar Library” after the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine;
- At Ohio State University, the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter held a protest outside of the Chabad house during a Holocaust remembrance event, which included several former Israeli soldiers.
Pushback to university disciplinary efforts is also continuing. At the University of Chicago, a lawsuit has been filed by Palestine Legal, the lawfare arm of the BDS movement, on behalf of a student who had been disciplined and removed from student housing.
But in a sign that the anti-Israel movement and “Palestine” as an organizing principle continue to alienate fellow students, the black feminist group at George Washington University “Black Defiance” announced it had left the Student Coalition for Palestine “after repeatedly experiencing anti-Blackness and racism.”
Finally, in the new semester student governments quickly regained their place as centers for anti-Israel activity:
- Several student governments at the University of California at San Diego have divested their holdings from Israeli companies;
- The Concordia University Student Union passed a BDS resolution. Only 858 students out of 49,898 enrolled voted;
- The Rutgers University student government rejected use of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
- The student government at the University of Toronto held a fundraiser for Gaza during a meeting.
K-12
Evidence continues to accumulate regarding deep and pervasive bias against Israel and Jews at all levels of K-12 education. Efforts to coverup and downplay incidents also continue locally.
In a settlement reached with the Howard County Public Schools (MD), the US Department of Education noted that authorities had failed to report incidents where Jewish students were abused, including “posting of swastikas; mimicking Nazi salutes; threats to kill and stating preference for death of Jewish people; using the term “Jew” as a slur; calling a Jewish middle school student a “dirty Jew,” telling her to “go back to the gas chamber.”
Teachers and their unions continue to push “liberated ethnic studies” and “anti-Palestinian racism” in curriculums.
Arts/Culture
Social media and web platforms continue to be key battlegrounds regarding Israel and antisemitism. Wikipedia’s highest adjudicating body, the Arbitration Committee, has barred a number of editors who had systematically distorted the platform’s coverage of Israel, Palestine, and related topics.
The move came after months of revelations regarding the manner in which the group had conspired via back channel communications to edit pieces in order to blame Israel for the current conflict and accuse it among others things of “settler-colonialism” and “genocide.” Six pro-Hamas editors were barred in addition to two pro-Israel editors. A recent report also uncovered a group of pro-Hamas editors conspiring to manipulate French Wikipedia.
The move against pro-Hamas editors came after the Heritage Foundation announced a project to identify anonymous Wikipedia editors responsible for anti-Israel bias.
The author is a contributor to SPME, where a significantly different version of this article first appeared.
The post As Trump Takes Office, Will the New Administration Help Stop Radicalism on College Campuses? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Launches Airlift to Bring Home Stranded Citizens After Iran Strikes
Passengers, who had left Israel on June 17, 2025, aboard the Crown Iris cruise ship due to the closure of Israel’s airspace amid the Israel-Iran war, board a bus after their arrival at the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, June 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
Israel on Wednesday launched a phased airlift operation to bring home its citizens, after the country’s military strike on Iran closed air space across the Middle East, leaving tens of thousands of Israelis stuck overseas.
The first rescue flight, operated by national carrier El Al, touched down at Tel Aviv Airport early Wednesday morning, returning passengers from Larnaca, Cyprus.
Worldwide, Israel‘s transport ministry estimates that more than 50,000 Israelis, stranded after airlines halted flights to the country, are trying to come home.
Foreign citizens have also been fleeing Iran overland. China started evacuating its citizens from Tehran to Turkmenistan by overland bus on Tuesday. Hundreds of other foreign nationals fled to neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan.
El Al has said repatriation flights are already scheduled from Athens, Rome, Milan, Paris, Budapest, and London. Smaller carriers Arkia and Israir are also taking part.
“We are very emotional about receiving the first rescue flight as part of ‘Safe Return,’” Transportation Minister Miri Regev told the captain of the arriving El Al flight.
While many Israelis want to come back, around 38,000 tourists are stranded in Israel, with much of the country in lockdown, and all the museums and holy sites closed.
The US embassy in Jerusalem said on Wednesday it was organizing evacuation flights and ship departures for US citizens who wanted to leave, while the Tourism Ministry said it would start coordinating flights out for foreigners.
Around 1,500 Americans on a Jewish heritage program were evacuated overnight to Cyprus via a cruise ship, which will now sail back with Israeli citizens aboard.
“We didn’t sleep for nights on end. We are all very exhausted and it’s a sigh of relief,” said Dorian, 20, from New York, after he had disembarked.
“In Israel, I was very afraid. I was never used to anything like that. Sirens, missiles, or anything like that. New York is pretty much very safe, and this was new to me.”
Iran has fired more than 400 ballistic missiles at Israel since Friday, triggering air raid sirens and a rush to bunkers. At least 24 people, all civilians, have died so far in the strikes, according to Israeli authorities.
Iranian officials have reported at least 224 deaths, mostly civilians, though that toll has not been updated for days.
CYPRUS HUB
Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport has been closed to passenger traffic since Israel launched its pre-dawn attack on Friday and commercial aircraft are sitting out the war in foreign airfields.
The Airports Authority reinforced staffing on Wednesday to ensure arriving passengers left the airport quickly. Relatives were advised to avoid travelling to pick up family members for security reasons.
The airlift is being carried out in stages, based on risk levels and security assessments, a spokesperson for the Airports Authority said.
Large numbers of Israelis seeking to get home have converged on Cyprus, the European Union member state closest to Israel. Flights from the coastal city of Larnaca to Tel Aviv take 50 minutes.
Nine flights were expected to depart Cyprus on Wednesday for Haifa, and four for Tel Aviv, carrying about 1,000 people, sources at Cypriot airport operator Hermes said.
The carrier Arkia asked customers abroad to remain patient. “Tens of thousands of Israelis are still waiting to return home, and we are doing everything we can to bring them back quickly and safely,” it said in a statement.
Cruise operator Mano Maritime, whose “Crown Iris” ship carries 2,000 passengers, has said it will make two crossings from Cyprus to Israel‘s Mediterranean port city of Haifa.
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Russia Tells US Not to Strike Iran, Warns of Nuclear Catastrophe
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov attends the BRICS Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 28, 2025. Photo: Mauro Pimentel/Pool via REUTERS
Russia is telling the United States not to strike Iran because it would radically destabilize the Middle East, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday, and Moscow said Israeli strikes risked triggering a nuclear catastrophe.
Russia signed a strategic partnership with Iran in January and also has a relationship with Israel, although it has been strained by Moscow’s war in Ukraine. A Russian offer to mediate in the Israel-Iran conflict has not been taken up.
Ryabkov, speaking on the sidelines of an economic forum in St Petersburg, told Interfax news agency Moscow was urging Washington to refrain from direct involvement.
“This would be a step that would radically destabilize the entire situation,” Interfax cited Ryabkov as saying, and criticizing such “speculative, conjectural options.”
The head of Russia‘s SVR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, has said the situation between Iran and Israel is now critical and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure meant the world was “millimeters” from catastrophe.
“Nuclear facilities are being struck,” she told Reuters, adding that the UN nuclear safety watchdog had already noted specific damage.
“Where is the [concern from the] entire world community? Where are all the environmentalists? I don’t know if they think they are far away and that this [radiation] wave won’t reach them. Well, let them read what happened at Fukushima,” she said, referring to the 2011 accident at the Japanese nuclear plant.
Israel says it has struck Iranian nuclear facilities to prevent Tehran developing an atomic weapon. Iran denies seeking nuclear arms.
RUSSIAN OFFER TO MEDIATE
In a 20-year strategic partnership pact signed in January by President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Russia did not undertake to help Tehran militarily and is under no obligation to do so despite the countries’ close military ties.
Putin, who has already lost an important partner in the Middle East with the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad last December, spoke to US President Donald Trump by phone on Saturday. He offered Moscow’s services as a mediator, which Trump said he was open to before demanding Iran‘s “unconditional surrender.”
A source familiar with US internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering options including joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, has said the conflict – though opposed by Russia – could yield some benefits to Moscow including higher oil prices, more appetite from China for Russian oil because of difficulties sourcing Iranian oil and a reallocation of US military resources away from Ukraine.
The post Russia Tells US Not to Strike Iran, Warns of Nuclear Catastrophe first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Debunking Nine Myths of the Israel-Iran War
Smoke billows following missile attack from Iran on Israel, at Tel Aviv, Israel, June 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Gideon Markowicz ISRAEL
If you are using social media, you have likely encountered many false narratives surrounding the Israel-Iran war. Here is what you need to know:
Myth 1: Israel is trying to drag America into a war where its soldiers will die
Reality: Israel does not desire a protracted action and seeks no ground invasion. At most, it would ask America to give it a bunker-buster bomb to hit the Fordow nuclear facility, which is the best protected and underground nuclear facility in Iran. America could also choose to bomb Fordow itself — not at Israel’s behest. Israel has already attacked the Natanz nuclear facility.
Myth 2: Israel launched this war due to its aggressive and violent nature
Reality: Iran has been attacking Israel for almost 40 years, and has been using its proxies of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and others in order to create a ring of fire around Israel. Iran was responsible for the Oct. 7 massacre through its support of Hamas, as well as every Hezbollah atrocity against Israel. And it was Iran itself that started the direct war between the two countries. In April, Iran launched 300 projectiles, including 170 drones and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel. Last October, it launched 200 ballistic missiles.
Myth 3: The Iranian people are against Israel
Reality: The majority of the Iranian population hates the repressive regime in Iran. In September 2022, 22 year-old Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for not wearing a hijab. Witnesses reported she was beaten in custody. Protests ensued, and human rights groups reported that Iran’s security forces killed more than 400 protesters. These follow many protests and uprising in the past against the mullahs.
Iranian civilians obviously don’t want to be hit by Israeli fire, but Israel has chiefly targeted military locations. If a certain number of Iranian civilians were killed, that attitude could potentially change.
Myth 4: Prime Minister Netanyahu has been saying Iran would have nuclear weapons for many years, so he cannot be trusted on this point
Reality: The first part is true, as Iran has been working on its nuclear program for decades. It has lied, and been caught lying, numerous times in the past. The only reason to enrich uranium past 60 percent is for military purposes.
In addition, things on the ground have changed. Iran has seen its proxies weakened and has become more desperate. Iran never before fired hundreds of missiles at Israel, as it did in 2024 and 2025, and may have been surprised at Israel’s ease in repelling the attack, and also disabling Iran’s air defenses. President Trump has also confirmed that he believes Iran was truly coming close to building a nuclear weapon.
Myth 5: Iran and President Trump were about to make a deal, so Israel sabotaged it by attacking the Islamic Republic
Reality: President Trump gave Iran 60 days to negotiate, and Trump has now said the Iranians didn’t negotiate seriously or in good faith. That’s why he allowed the Israeli attack to go forward on day 61.
Myth 6: Because some Iranian missiles got through Israel’s defense systems, those systems are a failure
Reality: No matter how advanced any system of intercepting projectiles is, there is no such thing as 100 percent accuracy in war. Drones, which are slow and take many hours to get to Israel are easier to shoot down. Ballistic missiles fired from Iran can reach Israel in 10-15 minutes, and pack a good amount of explosives that can do tremendous damage, even wiping out a block.
Myth 7: This is only about Iran’s nuclear program
Reality: Iran’s ballistic missiles also pose a huge threat, as we have seen in recent days, and Israeli attacks have knocked out some of the rocket launchers. Israeli officials report that Iran wanted to expand its ballistic missile arsenal from 2,000 to 8,000.
Myth 8: Israel’s attack certainly brings the world closer to World War III
Reality: While anything is possible, it does not appear that Russia and China would get involved. Hezbollah has stated it will not get involved.
Myth 9: Israel is believed to have a nuclear bomb, so it’s only fair that Iran has one as well
Reality: Iran has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Israel has never threatened the same to Iran. Israel does not foment terrorism around the world, and Israel would not use a nuclear weapon to stop Western states from confronting its use of terrorism. That’s why countries like Germany and France say Iran cannot possess a nuclear weapon, but Israel can. Iran getting a nuclear weapon could also trigger a nuclear arms race with countries like Saudi Arabia.
The author is a writer based in New York.
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