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Attacks on College Campuses Continued in April; But Universities Are Beginning to Fight Back
DePaul University Law School. Photo: ajay_suresh/Wikimedia Commons.
Attacks against Jews in the US continued in April, including the arson attack against the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion on the first night of Passover. The suspect, Cody Balmer, was apparently motivated by Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro’s “plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people” and stated Shapiro “needs to stop having my friends killed” and “our people have been put through too much by that monster.”
Balmer stated further to police that he planned to attack Shapiro with a hammer.
Elsewhere, an arrest was finally made in the case of two Jewish students at DePaul University who were brutally attacked in November 2024. Three Pittsburgh residents were also indicted for vandalizing a Jewish facility and lying to Federal investigators. One self declared “Hamas operative” was also charged with building pipe bombs.
Despite the appearance of protests having slowed, pro-Hamas demonstrations continued in April on campuses and elsewhere:
- Seventeen students were arrested at Michigan State University protest organized by the local SJP chapter and other anti-Israel groups. Protestors had occupied the lobby of an administration building;
- Protestors at Princeton University disrupted a talk by former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, eventually pulling a fire alarm that emptied the hall. Protestors yelled “Go back to Europe,” “They’re all f***ing inbred!” and “inbred swine!” at attendees.
- Pro-Hamas protestors chased and harassed another University of Michigan regent, Sarah Hubbard, at her home, yelling “Your money has gone to kill Palestinian children. Your money has killed our families. We are your students, you answer to us.”
- In response to the Hubbard incident and others, local police and FBI raided the homes of TAHRIR members and supporters. Electronic devices were confiscated but no arrests were made;
- The Occidental College SJP disrupted the presidential inauguration, vandalized an administration building, and then launched a hunger strike, “consuming only water with zero-calorie electrolyte powder”;
- A building at Dartmouth College was vandalized with red paint during prospective student visits. The perpetrators stated “Let the blood that drips from Dartmouth Hall remind you of the price of silence”;
- A talk by Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir at Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn resulted in violent protests which resulted in several arrests;
- Protestors waved Hamas flags outside of Auschwitz on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Predictably, news accounts have focused on alleged wrongdoing by Jewish counter-protestors:
- In the aftermath of the Brooklyn protests, media coverage focused on the alleged harassment of an individual by Jewish counter-protestors rather than the attempted “flood” of a Jewish neighborhood by an antisemitic mob organized by the Bronx Palestine Solidarity Committee and led by a BLM operative to “rise up against” the “racist Zionist Chabad-Lubavitch”;
- In the aftermath of the violent encampment that occurred in May 2024 on the campus of UCLA, the Los Angeles City Attorney has charged two Jewish counter-protestors and referred only one of the 300 pro-Hamas protestors for a diversionary hearing. The remainder of charges were dropped “due to a university’s failure or inability to assist in identification or other information needed for prosecution;”
- Two Harvard students facing assault charges for beating an Israeli student in 2023 will not face trial but “complete anger management programming, a Harvard course on negotiation, and 80 hours of community service — without the court-mandated apology that the District Attorney’s office had requested.”
Reports indicate universities have formed informal collectives to coordinate responses to the Trump administration but many, including Harvard and George Washington University, have hired well-connected Washington lobbying firms in order to aid with their messaging and restore relations with both Congress and the White House.
A statement released by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and signed by over 150 institutional leaders decried “unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education,” but claimed, “We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.” Antisemitism was not mentioned.
Reductions in Federal funding have prompted universities to seek alternatives including commercial loans and both taxable and tax exempt municipal bonds in addition to tapping endowments, most of which are comprised of investment vehicles with donor restrictions.
Brown University announced it was negotiating loans while Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Northwestern announced they would be issuing bonds. In the past universities have typically issued bonds for capital projects. Unconfirmed reports suggest Yale University has begun to sell holdings in order to avoid potential capital gains should its tax exempt status be revoked.
Georgetown University, however, renewed its agreement with the Qatar Foundation regarding the university’s Qatari campus for another 10 years. The university also awarded the President’s Medal to an outspoken Hamas supporter. A new study indicates that Qatar and China remain the largest donors to US universities. Overall, $29 billion in foreign donations were made to American universities from 2021 to 2024, a tremendous increase over previous years.
Faculty members have been outspoken in opposition to new Trump administration policies, and in some cases, their own institutions’ responses. This has primarily taken the form of public letters demanding resistance and depictions of the dire effects of budget cuts on medicine and science. Little mention has been made of the specific antisemitism or DEI concerns that motivated the administration’s moves. One notable example came from Columbia medical faculty and staff demanding the trustees oppose the Trump administration, support foreign students, reimplement DEI, and provide backup funding for research. In the case of Dartmouth College, faculty have condemned the president’s decision not to sign an industry-wide letter attacking the Trump administration.
Faculty senates have emerged as centers of “resistance.” Some continue to condemn disciplinary procedures for pro-Hamas demonstrators, such as at the University of Wisconsin. A faculty authored report at Columbia University also condemned the university for not deescalating the May 2024 building takeover by allowing the perpetrators to simply leave without the police becoming involved.
Jewish faculty members at a variety of institutions have also issued letters decrying the administration’s move and in support of students. These are complemented by explicit claims that higher education is indeed being destroyed in the name of the Jews. These and similar statements are designed to position progressive Jews as defenders of the status quo and to evade blame for unwanted changes.
Students have continued their opposition to Israel by supporting a variety of pseudo-academic presentations, such as that at the University of Massachusetts on “Resisting the New McCarythism & Complicity.” Another covert intervention was documented at Harvard Law School where a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon targeted the web pages of major law firms that were critical of student protests.
A typical example was changing the term “antisemitic incidents” to “pro-Palestinian protests.” At the same time, reports indicate that dozens of students have requested the removal of op-eds or their names from pro-Palestinian opinion pieces published in student newspapers.
Disciplinary actions against pro-Hamas protestors continued in April:
- The Bryn Mawr College chapters of SJP and JVP were placed on interim suspension after disrupting an admitted student event. They then protested a trustee meeting;
- The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee was suspended and its events canceled until July after it violated regulations on campus demonstrations;
- McMaster University suspended the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights pending an investigation into the group’s misconduct;
- McGill University revoked a memorandum of understanding with the school’s student society after the group orchestrated a three day strike in support of Palestinian rights that involved blocking campus access and vandalizing an administration building.
Maintenance staff at Columbia University have filed a lawsuit against pro-Hamas students and organizations alleging they were held hostage and both physically and verbally abused in the May 2024 building takeover. Named in the suit are a number of professional organizers as well as organizations including The People’s Forum, WESPAC, National SJP, and American Muslims for Palestine.
Pro-Hamas organizing in the K-12 sector remains at crisis levels. But in what might be a sign that universities are responding to both Trump administration financial pressure and unwelcome publicity, Brown University announced it was discontinuing a curriculum development program that had been severely criticized for its anti-Israel content.
At the same time, however, the Rhode Island General Assembly is considering legislation that would mandate Ethnic Studies in the state’s public high schools.
Teachers unions and educational consultants continue to center anti-Israel and antisemitic curricula. The American Educational Research Association’s annual conference, for example, will feature 23 round tables which include “Palestine” with numerous individual presentations emphasizing “decolonization,” “liberation,” the “right to resist,” as well as “occupation, genocide, and settler-colonial and imperial violence.”
Similarly, the Oregon Educators for Palestine has announced plans to hold a “community teach-in” on “Teaching Palestine” alongside “Rethinking Schools” and the Portland Association of Teachers’ Social Justice and Community Outreach Committee.
In a recent local example, the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (CA) Board of Trustees voted unanimously to continue a contract with the ethnic studies curriculum provider Community Responsive Education, whose product includes endorsements of boycotting Israel. The debate over the curriculum was also notable for the overt antisemitic comments from at least one trustee, who accused Jews of being “segregationists” with “economic power.”
Meanwhile, the California Department of Education has found that the Campbell Union High School District used biased content and systematically discriminated against Jewish students.
New York City School Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos was also forced to apologize after the monthly Office of Student Pathways Newsletter, sent to select teachers and parents, included a bullet point entitled “Guidelines for teaching about genocide” and which linked to a US Campaign for Palestinian Rights document titled “STOP GAZA GENOCIDE TOOLKIT.” Aviles-Ramos has ordered a “thorough investigation.”
The University of California Academic Senate voted down a proposal to make Ethnic Studies an admission requirement for the state’s universities. The core of the proposal demanded that students study “dominant cultures, institutions, and structures that perpetuate racial violence, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression.”
The working group which made the proposal is comprised of academics from the system’s Ethnic Studies Council, which has made repeated efforts to implant its anti-Israel bias in various parts of the university and K-12 enterprises.
The author is a contributor to SPME, where a different version of this article was first published.
The post Attacks on College Campuses Continued in April; But Universities Are Beginning to Fight Back first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says
A closed Israeli military gate stands near Ramallah in the West Bank, February 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after Arab ministers planning to attend were stopped from coming.
The move, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government announced one of the largest expansions of settlements in the West Bank in years, underlined escalating tensions over the issue of international recognition of a future Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, that is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Israel fiercely opposes.
The delegation of senior Arab officials due to visit Ramallah – including the Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Bahraini foreign ministers – postponed the visit after “Israel’s obstruction of it,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the block was “a clear breach of Israel’s obligations as an occupying force.”
The ministers required Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had delayed a planned trip to the West Bank.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”
Palestinians want the West Bank territory, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of a future state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
But the area is now criss-crossed with settlements that have squeezed some 3 million Palestinians into pockets increasingly cut off from each other though a network of military checkpoints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the announcement this week of 22 new settlements in the West Bank was an “historic moment” for settlements and “a clear message to Macron.” He said recognition of a Palestinian state would be “thrown into the dustbin of history.”
The post Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Armed men hijacked dozens of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip overnight and hundreds of desperate Palestinians joined in to take supplies, local aid groups said on Saturday as officials waited for Hamas to respond to the latest ceasefire proposals.
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close but Hamas has said it is still studying the latest proposals from his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the proposals.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
On Saturday, the Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war began 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
At the same time, a separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on the social media platform X.
NO BREAD IN WEEKS
The World Food Program said it brought 77 trucks carrying flour into Gaza overnight and early on Saturday and all of them were stopped on the way, with food taken by hungry people.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” it said in a statement.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Overnight on Saturday, he said trucks had been stopped by armed groups near Khan Younis as they were headed towards a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and hundreds of desperate people had carried off supplies.
“We could understand that some are driven by hunger and starvation, some may not have eaten bread in several weeks, but we can’t understand armed looting, and it is not acceptable at all,” he said.
Israel says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
The post Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Hamas said on Saturday it was seeking amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable.”
The Palestinian terrorist group said it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. But Hamas reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions Israel has rejected.
A Hamas official described the group’s response to the proposals from Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “positive” but said it was seeking some amendments. The official did not elaborate on the changes being sought by the group.
“This response aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas. Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to the Hamas statement.
Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.
Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close after the latest proposals, and the White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the terms.
Saying he had received Hamas’ response, Witkoff wrote in a posting on X: “It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief on May 13, confirming what Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
The Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said on Saturday it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Program trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement.
‘A MOCKERY’
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on X.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
A separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
Hamas denies looting supplies and has executed a number of suspected looters.
The post Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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