Schaeffer Hall, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. Photo: Flickr.

My mother always taught me to “be a leader, not a follower.” Throughout my life, I’ve watched people blindly follow senseless trends, and nowhere is this more apparent than on college campuses — where ideas, both good and bad, take root and spread.

Before college, my exposure to Jewish history and culture was limited to small but meaningful moments: studying and singing Oseh Shalom in choir, visiting the Holocaust Museum and hearing from a survivor, or staying up past my bedtime to read a biography of Anne Frank.

Despite these glimpses, I had never actually met a Jewish person until I arrived on campus.

Universities are one of the major front lines for the battleground of ideas and this became extremely apparent after the anti-Israel protests were started in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 atrocities.

 It was there that I saw firsthand how misinformation about Israel distorts history, fuels antisemitism, and turns ignorance into hostility.

After observing the ambivalence — if not outright hostility — that many people on my campus showed towards the Israeli victims, I decided to host a Vigil for Israel on October 17, 2023. It featured prayers, a candlelit moment of silence, and chalk messages across campus advocating for fellow Hawkeyes to stand with Israel.

Within 24 hours, our vigil was defaced. Individuals crossed out our Israel flags, replaced the word Israel with “Palestine,” and washed away our messages.

Since then, whenever I’ve attended so-called pro-Palestinian “peace” rallies, I’ve been confronted by individuals who told me I wasn’t welcome and singled me out simply for being there.

Recently, in March I saw a student wearing a hoodie that said in Arabic, “If you come back, we will crush it and blow up your entire army.”

The previous summer, while covering a rally, I captured video of a woman denying the rape of Israeli women and openly declaring her support for Hamas.

While she was free to do so, it’s hard not to see a connection between this level of discourse and hearing stories about Jewish students being followed and harassed by would-be thugs sporting pro-Jihad sweatshirts.

These incidents aren’t isolated. I was asked to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Free Speech and Antisemitism on November 8, 2023, after continuing to witness how free speech was only protected for some students and not others on college campuses.

During this testimony and the national news interviews that followed, I heard firsthand from students at Cornell and other universities who have faced blatant antisemitic harassment, enabled by misinformation that has justified Hamas and demonized Israel.

Last December, I shared how the situations on campus aren’t getting better when I testified at Congressman Greg Murphy (R-NC)’s Annual Free Speech Roundtable,

My experience, and the experiences of my peers seems to be the norm. I was the president of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) student group at the University of Iowa, and chapter members from across the country have faced similar situations.

At Saint Louis University, in September 2024, two YAF students were disciplined for including a pre-approved banner in a 9/11 memorial that expressed solidarity between the US and Israel against radical Islamic terrorism after an anti-Israel student complained that part of the banner was leaning up against a building.

An activism initiative that Young Americans for Freedom has begun is the Stand for Israel Memorial each October. To remember the one year anniversary of October 7, chapters at the following schools attempted to participate in the project which, involves displaying Israeli flags to remember the hostages, but were met with challenges on campus:

At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, administrators prohibited a YAF chapter from displaying Israeli flags to commemorate victims of Hamas’ October 7 attack. This has led to a Civil Rights complaint being filed by Young America’s Foundation in February 2025.

At the University of Georgia, officials delayed approval for a memorial display and later used bike racks to shield Israeli flags from extremist student backlash.

At Michigan’s Waterford Kettering High School, administrators refused to recognize a YAF chapter and barred students from displaying Israeli flags in remembrance.

At my school, the University of Iowa, in October 2024, pro-Hamas students vandalized a banner for our pro-Israel speaker, shouting slogans calling for the destruction of Israel.

Fighting unrestrained anti-Israel lies and bullying is important — not just for Jewish students, but to anyone who values free expression, academic freedom, and genuine inclusion on campus.

As someone who believes in diversity of thought, speaking out against this unfair abuse of free speech  is essential to protecting those values. This fight will only be won when people of all backgrounds — especially the non-Jewish majority — step up, take ownership, and demand not just support for Israel, which is both justified and necessary, but also the fundamental right of every student to feel safe and free to speak their mind.

Jasmyn Jordan is a 2024-2025 CAMERA Fellow and senior honors presidential scholar at the University of Iowa, double majoring in Political Science and International Relations, with a minor in Journalism.

The post I’m Not Jewish, But Supporting Israel Matters to Me first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas holds a leadership meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, April 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman

As Israel commemorates Yom HaShoah — Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day — Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) is sending out a six-point outline of its recent warning that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has adopted basic components of Hitler’s Nazi ideology.

The PA describes the Jews as a subhuman, dangerous threat to humanity that must be exterminated.

PMW first published this warning in an op-ed, and here are the key components of the Palestinian Authority’s ideology:

1. Jews endanger humanity — they ruin every society in which they live:

• Official PA daily: “From all corners of the globe, I see and understand the harm they [Jews] have caused … They want to subjugate the entire world.”

2. Judaism itself endangers humanity

• Israeli affairs expert on PA TV: “The Israeli culture of murder and destruction … is based on the Torah.”

3. Jews are subhuman:

• Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “[Jews are] grazing herds of humanoids — people or creatures that Allah created in the form of humans … apes and pigs.”

4. Accordingly, Jews are hated and deserve to be hated:

• Mahmoud Abbas: “Europe hates the Jews … because of their social role… . Hitler … fought the Jews because they worked based on usury and money. In other words, they caused ruin.”

• PA TV: “Their [Jewish] thinking is based on racism that caused them to be hated everywhere.”

5. Finally, the colonial states created Zionism/Israel to get rid of their Jews:

• Official PA TV: “The Europeans hated them and wanted to get rid of them, so the European countries … had the idea of establishing a Jewish state’”
• Official PA TV: “They — Europe and America — succeeded in getting rid of the Jews, whom they view as human waste, and they threw them out into Palestine.”

6. Humanity will be saved through the extermination of the Jews

• Repeatedly on official PA TV: “Allah, strike the thieving Jews … count them and kill them one by one, do not leave even one.”

The world cannot make the same mistake of ignoring genocidal hate that it made in 1939, or that Israel made in October 2023, for that matter. When people say they want to kill you and back it up as God’s directive, they must be taken seriously.

This article must be read as a warning, and you can read the text of PMW’s full article.

The author is the founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch. 

The post Yom HaShoah 2025: How the Palestinian Authority Replicates Nazi Ideology first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Illustrative: Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, US, April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.

Yalies4Palestine attempted to establish a so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the Beinecke Plaza section of Yale University’s campus on Tuesday evening, prompting a quick disciplinary response from the administration.

The students were told in no uncertain terms that refusing to discontinue the activity by an 11 pm deadline set by administrators would result in disciplinary sanctions, according to a report by the Yale Daily News. Prior to that, they obstructed Jewish students’ right to walk through campus, according to videos posted to social media by a Jewish student at Yale.

Jewish students aren’t allowed to walk through Yale’s campus anymore! pic.twitter.com/ywa8Z7V6KU

— Netanel Crispe (@NetanelCrispe) April 23, 2025

Such action blocking Jews from parts of campus elsewhere has triggered a lawsuit in which the US Justice Department recently filed a statement of interest.

“The group’s activities violated Yale’s time, place, and manner polices,” a university spokesperson told the News when asked about the incident. “University officials clearly articulated Yale’s policies and the consequences of violating them.”

The students eventually left after Yale’s assistant vice president for university life, Pilar Montalvo, walked through the area distributing cards containing a message which implored students to “Please stop your current action immediately. If you do not, you may risk university disciplinary action and/or arrest” and a QR code for a webpage which explains Yale’s policies on expression and free assembly.

The cards triggered a paranoiac fit, the News reported. Upon receiving them, the students became suspicious that the QR code could be used to track and identity those who participated in the unauthorized protest. “Do not scan the QR code!” they began to chant. They left the area soon after, the paper added, clearing the way for public safety officers to photograph and remove the tents they had attempted to pitch.

According to the News, the protest was triggered by an upcoming off-campus event at which Israel’s controversial national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — who has called for annexing the West Bank and the emigration of Gaza’s residents — will be hosted by Shabtai, a student group not formally recognized by the university.

Writing to The Algemeiner in a message titled “Yale Maintains Calm Campus and Takes Disciplinary Action,” the university took credit for preventing a style of protest that could have lasted for weeks and upended the campus during final exams. It also confirmed that disciplinary sanctions have already been meted out to several students who participated in Tuesday’s unauthorized demonstration despite having been punished for committing the same infraction in the past.

“University officials articulated Yale’s policies and the consequences of violating them and actively cleared the area, which has remained clear since that time,” a spokesperson wrote. “During the interaction, staff identified students who had been warned or disciplined in previous incidents that violated university policy. Those students have received written notice today that they are subject to immediate disciplinary action.”

The most severe sanction handed down is the revocation of Yalies4Palestine’s status as a registered student organization, which proscribes their holding events on campus indefinitely. Additionally, the group will no longer enjoy access to funds that subsidize club activities and is deprived entirely of the privilege of assembling on university property. A string of transgressions precipitated the action, Yale said in Wednesday’s statement, noting that the group had been forewarned on Monday that it had exhausted the university’s tolerance for its misconduct.

“Concerns have been raised about disturbing antisemitic conduct at the gathering,” the statement continued. “The university is investigating those concerns, as harassment and discrimination are antithetical to learning and scholarship. Yale condemns antisemitism and will hold those who violate our policies accountable through our disciplinary processes.”

Yale University has ample cause to claim credit for quelling the would-be encampment and punishing those who were involved in it. The Trump administration has been impounding federal funds previously appropriated to universities that allow pro-Hamas demonstrations and promote excessive “wokeness.”

In March, it cancelled $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.” Brown University’s federal funding is also reportedly at risk due to its alleged failing to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its alignment with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement.

Most recently, the Trump administration cancelled $2.26 billion in federal funding for Harvard University following the institution’s refusal to agree to a wishlist of reforms that Republican lawmakers have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Contained in a letter shared by interim Harvard president Alan Garber, the policies called for included “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [DEI initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implored Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”

Harvard is now suing the administration in federal court to halt its sequestering of grants and contracts paid for by the American taxpayer. However, resolving the complaint could take months, and any money confiscated from Yale before a ruling in that case is rendered could cause catastrophic levels of harm that lead to hiring freezes, job cuts, and unsustainable borrowing, a measure to which several universities, including Harvard, have resorted to cover budget shortfalls.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Yale University Students Abort Anti-Israel Encampment Attempts After Warning From Officials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.