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At the University of North Carolina, Teachers Attack Israel with the Lie of ‘Genocide’ and Students Threaten Violence
In May, Students for Justice in Palestine poured red paint which resembles spilled blood on the steps of the South Building, an office for administrative staff and the chancellor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photo: UNCSJP/Screenshot
The 2024-25 school year has recently begun at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where faculty members and students are continuing their anti-Israel activism and indoctrination.
In an email promoting a Sept. 6 event titled “Teach Palestine,” Nadia Yaqub — Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies –wrote to her fellow UNC academics: “As the genocide against the people of Gaza continues, many of us feel we cannot proceed with our teaching as if nothing is going on.”
The event flier asks, “Are you concerned by the ongoing genocide in Gaza? Are you looking for ways to bring Gaza or Palestine/Palestinians in general into your courses?”
In her email about the event, Yaqub added, “The workshop is open to faculty, staff, and graduate students from across the university, and we hope to present ideas and strategies that are applicable in any field.”
According to Yaqub’s email, all fields at UNC — such as mathematics, computer sciences, and speech-language pathology, just to name a few — should or can be used to focus on events in Gaza.
Community members I have spoken with expressed concern that Yaqub is clearly trying to stop students from getting a proper education in their respective fields in order to promote her political agenda.
Multiple sources report that donors and community members are outraged, and are contacting UNC with concerns about institutional bias and classroom activism. Many wonder if this planned workshop will fall outside of North Carolina state law on institutional neutrality, which clearly specifies, “The constituent institution shall remain neutral, as an institution, on the political controversies of the day.”
On Sept. 1, 2024, the UNC Campus Y promoted the “Teach Palestine” workshop on social media. They posted the flier the very same day the world learned the devastating news that six Israeli civilians had been executed by Hamas in Gaza. The Campus Y post did not mention those murders, and seems to be a clear signal that the Campus Y does not care about or consider Jewish life and suffering.
In Nov. of 2023, the Campus Y published a “A Solidarity Statement with Palestine.” The statement begins:
We, as the executive board of the Campus Y, stand in solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora in their struggle for land and freedom from settler colonialism. We reject the idea that recent eruptions of violence are indicative of a ‘conflict,’ and uphold that they are indicative of pushback to the Israeli government’s oppression and genocidal erasure of Palestinian people and land, an ongoing process since the 1948 Palestine War and the Nakba.
The statement added: “We would like to emphasize that the Y remains a safe space for all students to decompress; particularly our Arab, Muslim, and especially Palestinian communities.”
The solidarity statement also promised that the Campus Y would continue collaborating with the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (UNC-SJP) which is pro-Hamas. Referring to this now suspended chapter as pro-Hamas is not hyperbole; it is factual.
On Oct. 7 — when Hamas committed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — UNC-SJP proclaimed on social media: “It is our moral obligation to be in solidarity with the dispossessed, no matter the pathway to liberation they choose to take. This includes violence.”
On Oct. 12, UNC-SJP held a “Day of Resistance Protest for Palestine” on campus. The event flier celebrated terrorism by featuring a Hamas paraglider en route to kill Israelis and commit other atrocities. In a widely circulated video, a protester screamed, “All of us Hamas.”
I interviewed two Jewish students who silently counter-protested that day. They told me that they were approached by activists who allegedly brandished knives.
In 2020, the Campus Y supported a boycott of an upcoming Hillel trip. The Executive Board of the Campus Y stated that they “voted to sign onto the petition started by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to boycott the Hillel Perspectives trip, which sends student leaders from UNC’s campus on a fully funded spring break trip to multiple cities in Israel and Occupied Palestine.”
Towards the end of last school year, the Campus Y was briefly closed by the university due to safety concerns. Sources tell me that campus officials were concerned that the Campus Y was being kept open late, past closing hours, to support the anti-Israel protesters in ways such as providing bathrooms to those in the encampment.
Over the summer, UNC-SJP made national news when they announced their support of “armed rebellion” and “revolutionary violence.”
In a manifesto from late July, UNC-SJP proclaimed, “We emphasize our support for the right to resistance, not only in Palestine, but also here in the imperial core. We condone all forms of principled action, including armed rebellion.”
UNC-SJP also made an ominous social media post that some community members and faculty feel is a threat. The suspended chapter wrote, “The time has run out for peace policing … In this hour we urge all people of conscience to heed Palestinians’ calls to escalate autonomously and without reservation.”
Sources tell me that the State Bureau of Investigation has been asked to investigate the potential threats from these UNC-SJP statements.
In addition, on Aug. 24, the Chapel Hill Courthouse near campus was vandalized with graffiti saying “Kill Cops,” “Jihad Now,” and “Death to Cops.”
Peter Reitzes writes about issues related to antisemitism and Israel.
The post At the University of North Carolina, Teachers Attack Israel with the Lie of ‘Genocide’ and Students Threaten Violence first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Rubio Heads to Israel Amid Tensions Among US Middle East Allies
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to members of the media, before departing for Israel at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, September 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool
US President Donald Trump’s top diplomat, Marco Rubio headed to Israel on Saturday, amid tensions with fellow US allies in the Middle East over Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar and expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
Speaking to reporters before departure, Rubio reiterated that the US and President Donald Trump were not happy about the strikes.
Rubio said the US relationship with Israel would not be affected, but that he would discuss with the Israelis how the strike would affect Trump’s desire to secure the return of all the hostages held by Hamas, get rid of the terrorists and end the Gaza war.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them. We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” he said.
“There are still 48 hostages that deserve to be released immediately, all at once. And there is still the hard work ahead once this ends, of rebuilding Gaza in a way that provides people the quality of life that they all want.”
Rubio said it had yet to be determined who would do that, who would pay for it and who would be in charge of the process.
After Israel, Rubio is due to join Trump’s planned visit to Britain next week.
Hamas still holds 48 hostages, and Qatar has been one of the mediators, along with the US, trying to secure a ceasefire deal that would include the captives’ release.
On Tuesday, Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with an airstrike on Doha. US officials described it as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests.
The strike on the territory of a close US ally sparked broad condemnation from other Arab states and derailed ceasefire and hostage talks brokered by Qatar.
On Friday, Rubio met with Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani at the White House, underscoring competing interests in the region that Rubio will seek to balance on his trip. Later that day, US President Donald Trump held dinner with the prime minister in New York.
Rubio’s trip comes ahead of high-level meetings at the United Nations in New York later this month. Countries including France and Britain are expected to recognize Palestinian statehood, a move opposed by Israel.
Washington says such recognition would bolster Hamas and Rubio has suggested the move could spur the annexation of the West Bank sought by hardline members of the Israeli government.
ON Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an agreement to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state. Last week, the United Arab Emirates warned that this would cross a red line and undermine the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords that normalized UAE-Israel relations in 2020.
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Netanyahu Posts Message Appearing to Confirm Hamas Leaders Survived Doha Strike
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a Plenum session of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, in Jerusalem, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a statement posted to social media on Saturday evening, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the Qatar-based leadership of Hamas, reiterating that the jihadist group had to regard for the lives of Gazans and represented an obstacle to ending the war and releasing the Israelis it held hostage.
The wording of Netanyahu’s message appeared to confirm that the strike targeting the Hamas leaders in Doha was not crowned with success.
“The Hamas terrorists chiefs living in Qatar don’t care about the people in Gaza,” wrote Netanyahu. “They blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war.” He added that “Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war.”
Israel is yet to officially comment on the result of the strike, which has incurred widespread international criticism.
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Trump Hosts Qatari Prime Minister After Israeli Attack in Doha
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attends an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, Sept. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
US President Donald Trump held dinner with the Qatari prime minister in New York on Friday, days after US ally Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha.
Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with an attack in Qatar on Tuesday, a strike that risked derailing US-backed efforts to broker a truce in Gaza and end the nearly two-year-old conflict. The attack was widely condemned in the Middle East and beyond as an act that could escalate tensions in a region already on edge.
Trump expressed annoyance about the strike in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sought to assure the Qataris that such attacks would not happen again.
Trump and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani were joined by a top Trump adviser, US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“Great dinner with POTUS. Just ended,” Qatar’s deputy chief of mission, Hamah Al-Muftah, said on X.
The White House confirmed the dinner had taken place but offered no details.
The session followed an hour-long meeting that al-Thani had at the White House on Friday with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A source briefed on the meeting said they discussed Qatar’s future as a mediator in the region and defense cooperation in the wake of the Israeli strikes against Hamas in Doha.
Trump said he was unhappy with Israel’s strike, which he described as a unilateral action that did not advance US or Israeli interests.
Washington counts Qatar as a strong Gulf ally. Qatar has been a main mediator in long-running negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and for a post-conflict plan for the territory.
Al-Thani blamed Israel on Tuesday for trying to sabotage chances for peace but said Qatar would not be deterred from its role as mediator.