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At Harvard and beyond, some students blame Israel for Hamas attacks, reigniting campus Israel debates

(JTA) – Hours after news broke that Hamas had murdered hundreds of Israelis in border towns near Gaza, students at Harvard University sat down to write a letter of protest.
The letter, titled “Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine,” does not mince words. It opens, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
Expressing no sympathy for the hundreds of Israeli victims, the dozens of student groups — including representatives of Palestinian, Arab, Black, Bengali, Pakistani, South Asian and Sikh student associations — instead focused on Israel’s historic treatment of Palestinians and stated plans to retaliate against Hamas in Gaza.
“The apartheid regime is the only one to blame,” it reads, concluding, “The coming days will require a firm stand against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.”
The student letter was joined by at least two others, at Columbia University and New York University, that targeted Israel for condemnation. Students at other schools made pro-Palestinian social media posts and held pro-Palestinian demonstrations this week, some linking Hamas’ actions to Indigenous Peoples Day.
Taken together, the activities — and the responses they generated — are a sign that the campus wars over Israel, already a lightning rod for controversy, are reigniting in the aftermath of Hamas’ attacks.
Antisemitism watchdogs say campuses are already a hotbed of anti-Israel activity, and a Palestinian culture festival at the University of Pennsylvania induced an early-in-the-semester flareup of debate last month.
Now, Students for Justice in Palestine, a national group with chapters at major universities across the United States, has declared Hamas’ operation to be “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance” and called for a “Day of Resistance” on Thursday.
The group is encouraging local chapters to hold demonstrations to “continue to resist directly through dismantling Zionism” and distributed a list of talking points that stated, “When people are occupied, resistance is justified,” declared that “settlers are not ‘civilians’ in the sense of international law,” and framed Hamas’ actions as “Gaza broke out of prison.”
Some Jewish students have expressed concern about the group’s plans. “Although these are all non-violent tactics, they raise the real possibility of creating a hostile environment for Jewish students, and the confrontational spirit that permeates the toolkit raises the concern that these actions could lead to acts of harassment or vandalism targeting Jewish students and organizations,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement about SJP’s “Day of Resistance.”
Whatever happens on Thursday, it’s clear that the attack on Israel has given rise to a new third rail in campus discourse about Israel, around who deserves blame for Saturday’s unprecedented violence against Israelis. Here’s what has happened at three universities where the third rail has already been touched this week.
At Harvard, administrators leave 30 student groups’ letter unanswered for days
Even as Harvard and other schools have held numerous vigils and demonstrations for victims of the attacks, the letter has quickly prompted widespread condemnation from campus Jewish groups, influential Harvard alumni and beyond.
“In nearly 50 years of Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today,” Lawrence Summers, the Jewish former Harvard president and former U.S. Treasury Secretary, posted on X Monday.
One Jewish group, Harvard Jews for Liberation, also signed the letter; the group, which originated out of Harvard Divinity School, calls itself a “spiritual and political space for anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jews at Harvard.” A Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment to a student listed as one of the group’s lead organizers was not returned.
Harvard and Columbia’s presidents did not immediately issue official statements about the attacks. Harvard President Claudine Gay and 17 other senior officials released a statement on the attack on Monday, two days after the student groups’ statement. Gay, the school’s provost and top deans did attend events marking the attack, including a “solidarity dinner” at Hillel, according to a report in the Crimson, the student newspaper.
The statement said administrators were “heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel this weekend, and by the war in Israel and Gaza now under way.” It added that the violence “hits all too close to home for many at Harvard,” and expressed the hope that “we can all take steps that will draw on our common humanity and shared values in order to modulate rather than amplify the deep-seated divisions and animosities so distressingly evident in the wider world.”
But this statement was also criticized by alumni, with Democratic U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, who is Jewish, denouncing it as “word salad approved by committee.”
The issue was particularly potent at Harvard, which has recently served as a flashpoint for different facets of the Israel campus debate. Last year, a range of alumni and community members also denounced the Crimson’s endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel.
And earlier this year, the Ivy League school extended a fellowship offer to Ken Roth, a fierce Israel critic and former Human Rights Watch director, after receiving broad pushback for earlier denying his appointment, reportedly for his views on Israel. (Roth, who remains a fellow at Harvard while also accepting a visiting professorship at Princeton, has denounced the Hamas attacks on Twitter, calling them “an egregious war crime” and adding, “War crimes by one side never justify war crimes by the other. Is either side listening?”)
“I think a lot of us were disappointed that our peers at Harvard Law School would sign such a letter,” Erica Newman-Corre, co-president of the law school’s Jewish Law Student Association and a Harvard College alum, told JTA. “In law school there’s a lot of focus on nuance and conversation, and we felt that the letter wasn’t consistent with those values of law students.”
Newman-Corre does not typically use her phone on Shabbat but turned it on when she heard news of Israel because she has family currently visiting the country. Her family is now safe, but the campus climate over the issue has upset many Jewish students, she said.
“Over my years at Harvard there’s been some anti-Israel sentiment, but it’s never pervasive and it’s never felt like I can’t go about my daily life without experience or noticing it,” she said. “This is obviously a more extreme moment.”
Frustrated Jewish Harvard student groups and alumni circulated a statement of their own condemning the one by the solidarity group.
“The statement signed by the Palestine Solidarity Committee and dozens of other student groups blaming Israel for the aforementioned attacks is completely wrong and deeply offensive,” reads a “Joint Statement on War in Israel” signed by more than a dozen Jewish Harvard groups, hundreds of faculty and staff and thousands of other individuals including several alumni.
“There are no justifications for acts of terror we have seen in the past days,” the letter continues. “We call on all the student groups who co-signed the statement to retract their signatures from the offensive letter.”
Among the signatories: Harvard Hillel, Harvard Chabad, emeritus professor and prominent pro-Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz, divinity school visiting scholar Rabbi David Wolpe, novelist and alum Dara Horn, Newman-Corre, and dozens of Harvard Medical School professors. Some public figures who are not Harvard alums, including New York Democratic Rep. Richie Torres, also signed.
“It’s kind of shocking to know that we’re sitting in classes with peers who are blaming our people for our people’s own murders and rapes,” Jacob Miller, the student president of Harvard Hillel and an initial drafter of the open letter, told JTA. “And I would say that this is very antisemitic. I don’t know how Jewish students are going to handle this. I don’t know how Jewish students are expected to move forward living in this campus environment and attending classes with students who are so callous.”
Following the oppositional letter, Gay issued a second statement about Israel Tuesday, which Harvard published online but did not immediately email to students. In it, she specifically condemned Hamas.
“Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region,” Gay wrote. Then, referencing the initial letter, she added, “While our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”
By late Tuesday, several of the student groups had removed their names from the initial letter, with leaders telling the Crimson they had not been made aware their organizations had signed on, and some saying they hadn’t read the statement. Others issued statements of their own condemning Hamas. The college also said that students involved in groups that signed the letter were seeing their personal information leaked online, while Jewish hedge-fund manager and Harvard alum Bill Ackman wrote on X that other CEOs want Harvard to release names of every group participant “so as to insure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.”
Student groups say Columbia’s support for Israeli students constitutes ‘discrimination against Palestinians’
Meanwhile at Columbia, a longer statement from student Palestinian solidarity groups said they would mourn “the tragic losses experienced by both Palestinians and Israelis” while also asserting, “The weight of responsibility for the war and casualties undeniably lies with the Israeli extremist government and other Western governments, including the U.S. government, which fund and staunchly support Israeli aggression, apartheid and settler-colonization.”
It adds, “If every political avenue available to Palestinians is blocked, we should not be surprised when resistance and violence break out.”
The letter goes on to call on Columbia to end its connections with Israel, including its center in Tel Aviv and partnership with Tel Aviv University, and criticizes university statements to students about the attacks as “discrimination against Palestinians” for only mentioning Israeli students. (One such email was sent to the university’s School of General Studies, which is popular among Israeli military veterans.)
Two dozen student groups had signed the letter as of Wednesday morning, representing Palestinians, women of color, South Asian law students and queer and trans people of color, among others. As in the Harvard letter, an anti-Zionist Jewish group, the Columbia chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, also signed. Emails sent to the group via a listed email address bounced back.
Without referencing the letter, the president of Columbia’s law student senate issued his own statement condemning the Hamas attacks.
Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, issued her own statement on the conflict Monday. “I was devastated by the horrific attack on Israel this weekend and the ensuing violence that is affecting so many people,” wrote Shafik, an Egyptian-born legal scholar and former World Bank executive who is in her first semester heading the university. The school hosted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a webinar Tuesday to discuss the situation in Israel.
A prominent NYU student leader blames Israel — and loses a post-graduation job offer
While the Harvard and Columbia letters were made up of smaller student groups, NYU’s originated with a more prominent student leader. On the front page of the law school student bar association’s newsletter this week, their president stated, “I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination. Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”
New York University School of Law, Nov. 6, 2021. (ajay_suresh via Creative Commons)
Refusing to condemn “Palestinian resistance,” Ryna Workman instead provided a long list of other things they condemned, including “the violence of apartheid,” “the violence of collective punishment,” and “the violence in removing historical context.” They concluded, “Palestine will be free.”
Workman’s statement upset Jewish law students at NYU, with some exploring whether they can be removed from their presidency. “The SBA President’s statement was shocking,” current law student Nathaniel Berman told JTA. “I am hoping for a forceful response from the administration, but not holding my breath.”
David Friedman, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel under President Donald Trump and is an NYU law school alum, called on his fellow alumni to “cut them off” and not to hire “a single one of their students” over Workman’s letter. “If this is their takeaway from the Hamas massacre of 1000 Jews, let’s hope their next organization is called ‘The Idiot Unemployed Lawyers Association,” he wrote on X.
Late Tuesday, the law firm of Winston & Strawn, which had extended an offer of employment to Workman, announced in a statement that it had rescinded the offer.
“These comments are profoundly in conflict with Winstron & Strawn’s values as a firm,” the unsigned statement read. “Winston stands in solidarity with Israel’s right to exist in peace and condemns Hamas and the violence and destruction it has ignited in the strongest terms possible.”
The dean of NYU’s law school, Troy McKenzie, also condemned Workman’s letter in an email to students Tuesday afternoon. The message, McKenzie wrote, “certainly does not express my own views, because I condemn the killing of civilians and acts of terrorism as always reprehensible.”
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The post At Harvard and beyond, some students blame Israel for Hamas attacks, reigniting campus Israel debates appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes Hit Record High in 2024, FBI Data Shows

FBI agents and NYPD officers work near the scene of a reported shooter situation in the Manhattan borough of New York City, US, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Antisemitic hate crimes in the US continued to add up to record-setting and harrowing statistical figures in 2024, according to the latest data issued by the FBI on Tuesday, prompting calls by Jewish leaders for a society-wide intervention.
Even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, has been experienced by a demographic group which composes just 2 percent of the US population.
“As the Jewish community is still reeling from two deadly antisemitic attacks in the past few months, the record-high number of anti-Jewish hate crime incidents tracked by the FBI in 2024 is consistent with ADL’s reporting and, more importantly, with the Jewish community’s current lived experience,” Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said in a statement on Tuesday. “Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, Jewish Americans have not had a moment of respite and have experienced antisemitism at K-12 school, on college campuses, in the public square, at work, and Jewish institutions.”
Ted Deutch, chief executive officer of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), also commented, saying, “Leaders of every kind — teachers, law enforcement officers, government officials, business owners, university presidents — must confront antisemitism head-on. Jews are being targeted not just out of hate, but because some wrongly believe that violence or intimidation is justified by global events.”
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offences, or about 9 percent of the total.
Antisemitic hate crimes kept federal and local law enforcement agents busy throughout 2024, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
In November, for example, the US Department of Justice secured the conviction of a Massachusetts man, Joh Reardon, 59, who threatened to perpetrate mass killings of Jews. Over several months, Reardon called Jewish institutions across Massachusetts, proclaiming that he would kill Jewish men, women, and children in their houses of worship. His terroristic menacing included promises to plant bombs in synagogues in the cities of Sharon and Attleboro, as well as making 98 calls to the Israeli Consulate in Boston, a behavior which began on Oct. 7, 2023, and ended just days before his apprehension by law enforcement in January.
In New York City, meanwhile, the Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn endured a violent series of robberies and other attacks. In one instance, three masked men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood. Before then, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. Additionally, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
The wave of hatred has not relented in 2025.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Families of Oct. 7 Victims Sue Meta for $1 Billion Over Hamas Terror Livestreams

Meta logo is seen in this illustration taken Aug. 22, 2022. Photo: Reuters
Family members whose loved ones’ suffering and murders were streamed on Facebook or Instagram on Oct. 7, 2023, during the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, filed a lawsuit in Tel Aviv District Court on Monday against the social media platforms’ parent company.
The plaintiffs assert that Meta facilitated terrorism by failing to block the live video and also violated the victims’ right to privacy. They seek 4 billion shekels (about $1.15 billion) in damages.
“Our hearts go out to the families affected by Hamas terrorism,” Meta said in a statement responding to the suit. “Our policy designates Hamas as a proscribed organization, and we remove content that supports or glorifies Hamas or the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.”
The lawsuit states that the videos from the attack “trampled the petitioners’ rights in the most harrowing way imaginable” and that “these scenes of brutality, humiliation, and terror are permanently etched into the memories of the victims’ families and the Israeli public as the final moments of their loved ones’ lives.”
Many of the videos remained on the sites for hours after their initial broadcast, according to the lawsuit, which argues that “Facebook and Instagram violated the privacy of the victims, and continue to do so, by enabling the distribution of terror content for profit.”
One of the plaintiffs, Mor Bayder, wrote on Oct. 8, 2023, that “my grandmother, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz all her life, was murdered yesterday in a brutal murder by a terrorist in her home … A terrorist came home to her, killed her, took her phone, filmed the horror, and published it on Facebook. This is how we found out.”
Another individual signed on to the suit is Gali Idan, who Hamas held captive for hours and said was “filming constantly.” She stated that “it was clear the livestreaming was part of their operational plan — propaganda aimed at spreading fear. They filmed Maayan’s [her daughter’s] murder, our desperation, our children’s trauma, and forced [her husband] Tsahi to speak into the camera. All of it was broadcast.”
Idan calls Meta “complicit in the infrastructure of terror.”
Stav Arava also came on board as a plaintiff after seeing video of his brother Tomer forced at gunpoint to try and persuade neighbors to exit their home.
Other plaintiffs include families who did not have loved ones at the attacks, but whose minor children witnessed the videos, many of which continue to circulate today. The suit warns that the videos represent “grave harm to the dignity and psychological well-being of platform users — especially youth — who were exposed to raw acts of terror amplified by Meta’s systems.”
On June 6, a group of 41 US lawmakers sent a letter expressing concerns about “disturbing and inflammatory content circulating on your platforms in support of violence and terrorism” to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, then-X CEO Linda Yaccarino, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. “We strongly urge Meta, TikTok, and X to take decisive and transparent steps to curb these dangerous trends and protect all users from the effects of hate and incitement to violence online,” the legislators wrote to the tech leaders.
“For far too long, social media platforms have allowed harmful messages, hashtags, and conspiracy theories to fester and proliferate online, targeting different communities,” the letter stated. “Following Meta’s decision earlier this year to roll back its trust and safety policies, one estimate noted this could lead to individuals encountering at least 277 million more instances of hate speech and other harmful content each year on its platforms. Since these changes, on Facebook alone, Jewish Members of Congress have experienced a fivefold increase of antisemitic harassment on the platform.”
Zuckerberg acknowledged in January when making the change in moderation policies that “this is a trade-off” and “it means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
In a report analyzing the impact of the policy change, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) explained how “it is also possible that the policy change has signaled to hateful users that such abuse will now be tolerated. By allowing hateful content to remain on the platform, Meta is in effect encouraging this content on its platforms.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of ADL, said in a Jan. 7 statement that “it is mind blowing how one of the most profitable companies in the world, operating with such sophisticated technology, is taking significant steps back in terms of addressing antisemitism, hate, misinformation and protecting vulnerable & marginalized groups online. The only winner here is Meta’s bottom line and as a result, all of society will suffer.”
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International Muaythai Federation Bans Israeli Representation at All Competitions

People stand next to flags on the day the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, are handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) has banned all representation of Israel at its events and said Israeli athletes must compete under neutral status, following the alleged death of a Palestinian boy who was a member of the Palestinian national Muaythai team.
Ammar Mutaz Hamayel, 13, was allegedly shot in the back by an Israeli soldier near Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestinian media claimed. Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were also accused of detaining Hamayel for two hours before handing him over to a Palestinian ambulance that took him to the hospital, where he was allegedly pronounced dead. Israel has not verified or commented on Hamayel’s death.
The IFMA published a tribute to Hamayel after his alleged death, saluting him as a “young warrior” and saying that “his passion for Muaythai was matched only by the warmth and kindness he shared with all who knew him.” In honor of Hamayel, the IFMA flew its flags at half-mast, its social media profiles went dark, and a moment of silence was held for him at the final of the Asian Championships on June 25. Stephan Fox, the general secretary of IFMA, posted his own tribute to Hameyel on social media.
“When a child, a youth peace ambassador, is killed, silence is no longer an option,” said IFMA President Dr. Sakchye Tapsuwan. “This is not just a tragedy – it is a call to action. We cannot stand by when the innocent pay the price of conflict,” he added. “Sport is meant to protect, empower, and unite – especially for the young. Ammar believed in that. We honor his memory not with silence, but with a stand for justice.”
The IFMA, which is the world governing body for the Thai martial arts and combat sport, published a policy report on July 18 announcing that effective immediately, Israeli national symbols – including the flag, anthem, and emblems – will be “strictly prohibited” at all IFMA-organized and IFMA-sanctioned events. Israeli athletes, team officials, coaches, and delegation members must participate under the status of Authorized Individual Neutrals (AIN), a designation also applied to individuals from Russia and Belarus. “They must not represent their country in any capacity,” according to the new policy. Also, no IFMA or IFMA-affiliated events will be hosted in or supported within Israel until further notice.
The new policy will remain in place until repealed or amended by the IFMA Executive Committee. “The policy reflects IFMA’s commitment to fair play, neutrality, and the protection of the values and integrity of sport in the current complex geopolitical landscape and recent developments,” the organization stated.
The IFMA added that the new policy will not impact the 2025 Youth World Championships in Abu Dhabi set for September. Israeli delegations may compete in the championships with Israeli representation but “all subsequent events will enforce the full neutrality conditions set forth in this policy.”
Muaythai originated hundreds of years ago in Thailand, a Southeast Asian country whose citizens have been constantly impacted by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. During the Hamas-led deadly massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, terrorists killed more than 40 Thais and kidnapped 31 Thai laborers, some of whom died in captivity, according to the Thai government. Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists abducted more than 250 people in total, including Israelis and foreign nationals.
In June, Israeli military forces retrieved the body of a Thai hostage, Nattapong Pinta, who had been held in Gaza since the attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Pinta was abducted alive from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and was killed during captivity. Last year, four Thai nationals were killed and one was injured in northern Israel by rockets fired from the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah.