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Biden Administration Again Delays Civil Rights Protections Against Antisemitism
Anti-Israel demonstrators rally amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, outside the White House in Washington, US, Nov. 4, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
The administration of US President Joe Biden has once again delayed issuing new federal regulations that would apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to civil rights investigations, a measure that lawmakers and advocates have said would help protect Jewish students from anti-Zionist discrimination and harassment.
The proposed guidelines, based on a directive given in Dec. 2019 by then-President Donald Trump in response to rising anti-Zionist hatred on college campuses, will not be instituted until at least Dec. 2024, after the next presidential election, according to a copy of the proposed rule on the website of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism — which has been adopted by dozens of governments and hundreds of civic institutions around the world — includes examples of anti-Israel bias, such as “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” “denying the Jewish people their right to self determination,” and “applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
The US Education Department had initially pledged to issue new regulations in Sept. 2020, but later said it would happen in Jan. 2021. After Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20 of that year, the administration indicated that it had embraced the IHRA working definition but delayed codifying civil rights protections based on it until Dec. 2022. Since then, the department has continued to postpone the date of implementation.
Kenneth Marcus, a former assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, told The Algemeiner that the new guidance’s delay is disappointing and may be driven by politics. Anti-Israel activists in the US, especially in the Arab and Muslim communities, have criticized Biden over his vocal and material support for Israel’s war against Hamas since the Palestinian terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre. Many have said they will not vote for him next November.
“It may way well be that the Biden White House lacks the political resolve to act forcefully in response to antisemitism, given political considerations involving the Arab and Muslim communities,” said Marcus, the current chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights. “To the extent that the Biden administration is not moving forward on needed regulations, it simply underscores the need for Congress to raise their game. It already has been apparent for recent weeks that the House of Representatives is picking up the slack and moving forward on issues that could have been more effectively handled by the administration.”
Marcus added that the legislative branch of government “does have a crucial to play” and can act now by passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act, a bill supported by both parties that would mandate the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws protecting Jewish Americans. Lawmakers have other options too, he said, pointing to “continued, forceful oversight, such as the promised congressional investigations regarding the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania.”
Marcus acknowledged that the Biden administration has taken important action to address campus antisemitism, recently ruling in April, for example, that discrimination motivated by anti-Zionism contravenes Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. But, he added, delaying the regulations again sends “the wrong message to the higher education community at the worst of all possible times, as antisemitism reaches historical levels on college campuses.”
College campuses across the West have been hubs of such antisemitism since Oct. 7, with students and faculty both demonizing Israel and rationalizing Hamas’ terror onslaught. Incidents of harassment and even violence against Jewish students have also increased. As a result, Jewish students have expressed feeling unsafe and unprotected on campuses. In some cases, Jewish communities on campuses have been forced to endure threats of rape and mass slaughter.
A recent poll, released by Hillel International, found that 37 percent of Jewish college students have felt the need to hide their Jewish identity on campus since Hamas’ Oct. 7 onslaught, in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered and 240 others taken as hostages into Gaza. The survey also found that 35 percent of respondents said there have been acts of hate or violence against Jews on campus. A majority of those surveyed said they were unsatisfied with their university’s response to those incidents.
“These regulations are what the administration has promised to do,” Marcus said. “It’s astonishing that they haven’t been able to issue them, and given the high profile that campus antisemitism has had in recent weeks, this should be the top priority for the Office for Civil Rights.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Families of Detained French Citizens in Iran Plead for Proof of Life After Prison Strike
Noemie Kohler, sister of Cecile Kohler, and Anne-Laure Paris, daughter of Jacques Paris, two French citizens who are held in Iran, attend a press conference along with lawyer Chirinne Ardakani, in Paris, France, June 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
The families of Cecile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris, two French citizens detained in Iran since 2022, issued urgent pleas on Friday for proof the pair are still alive, days after an Israeli strike hit Tehran’s Evin prison where they are held.
Evin prison is known as Iran’s most notorious facility for political prisoners, and where Iran has often held foreign nationals, including Paris and Kohler who are accused of spying and seeking to stir up unrest. France has called the charges baseless and has demanded their immediate release for three years.
Israel struck the prison on Monday, one of the last targets hit in its 12-day air campaign that ended with a ceasefire the following morning. Iran has said some people died in the attack, but the fate of the French prisoners remained unclear.
France has condemned the strikes on the prison, accusing Israel of putting two of its citizens in danger.
“We are desperate, terrorized,” said Anne-Laure Paris, daughter of Jacques, calling on Iranian authorities to provide immediate evidence that the pair survived and to secure their release within hours.
According to their families, the last confirmed contact with the prisoners was on May 30 during a consular visit.
“No one, not us, the families or the French authorities, have been able to make direct contact with them,” Noemie Kohler, Cecile’s sister said.
“We are waiting for immediate sign of life from Cécile and Jacques … to make sure they are really okay and they are really alive.”
They are urging the French government to support “exfiltration on grounds of force majeure,” pointing to the dangers posed by ongoing conflict and an unstable ceasefire. A formal request is also being prepared for submission within hours to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.
France in May filed a case at the World Court against Iran for violating the right to consular protection a bid to pressure Iran over the detention of its two citizens.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have detained dozens of foreign and dual nationals in recent years, often on espionage-related charges. Rights groups and Western countries accuse Tehran of using foreign detainees as bargaining chips, which Iran denies.
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Palestinian Authority Condemns Hamas for Murdering Gazans Seeking Food
Palestinians collect aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
According to the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas is systematically murdering Gazan residents attempting to access food supplies under the false pretext of “collaboration” with American aid distribution centers.
The descriptions of the murders, including the names of the murdered and of their relatives who reported their deaths, appeared in the PA’s official daily. It described harrowing accounts from Gazan families who condemn Hamas for operating “death squads” targeting civilians:
There are many reports that have begun to arrive from the Gaza Strip about killings by Hamas of many of the residents walking the roads in search of a sack of flour, under the pretext that they are collaborating with the American aid centers for food distribution! Not only do the reports reveal this, but there are also letters and statements from families whose sons have been reached by the treacherous hand of Hamas.
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 23, 2025]
Specific cases include:
The Shahin family from Deir Al-Balah reported the death of their son, Siraj Al-Din Hisham Shahin, due to “treacherous shooting” by Hamas.
The Al-Hilu family reported that five sons were murdered by Hamas. [emphasis added]
Hiba Al-Misshal, sister of victim Osama Al-Misshal, wrote the most detailed description:
[There is] a letter from the sister of murder victim Osama Al-Misshal, Hiba Al-Misshal, who revealed that a group of Hamas members bearing the name Arrow Unit stopped the bus her brother was traveling on together with other young men, while they were on their way to one of the food distribution centers.
They took them off the bus, bound them, and shot them, after falsely accusing them of “collaboration,” and they continued to chase them while they were wounded, up to the entrance of Nasser Hospital, where they shot them again and prevented the doctors and staff from treating them, and incited the people to beat them with sticks and pipes, amid painful silence around.
…This led to the killing of her brother and other young men who were on the bus! In her letter, Hiba [Al-Misshal] demands “justice for her brother and for every innocent young man who was unjustly murdered.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2025]
The article explains that Hamas named the death squads the “Arrow Unit,” to make people think that it is not Hamas but a vigilante group. But according to the PA, Hamas is monopolizing aid distribution through a black market, and killing anyone who bypasses their system.
In its current crisis today, Hamas has no way out but to establish death squads against anyone who stands in the way of its plunder and tries to obtain a sack of flour, outside of its control and its black market.
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2025]
Even though the article was intended to expose Hamas, the PA could not help but add an accusation that Israel is also somehow responsible. Significantly, the accusations against Israel, which have been proven to be false in the past, come with no names, no evidence, and no eyewitnesses:
What allows this situation today, which is packed with death and destruction, is the Israeli occupation that has made the roads to food full of dangers…
The one who creates this hated reality today is not Israel alone, but Hamas in a similar manner, and it is a partner to it in this work of death. It pursues the hungry with death squads, which it called “the arrow” in order to tell those who go on the road in search of food that is not obtained through [Hamas] that they will be their prey through the “Arrow Unit.” This is the hated situation – and this is Hamas with the ‘arrow’ unit – the hunters of those seeking food.
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2025]
The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
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Is CNN Sharing Iranian Propaganda Instead of Proper Journalism?
CNN logo. Photo: Josh Hallett / Flickr
Has CNN been keeping its audience properly informed? Over the past week, the network has published at least two video pieces focusing on the sentiments of regular Iranian civilians over the Israeli and American attacks on the Islamic regime’s nuclear, military, and political installations.
However, under scrutiny, both pieces appear to parrot narratives put out by the regime’s officials rather than properly representing the nuanced views of those Iranians on the ground.
Fred Pleitgen Interviews Iranians on the Streets of Tehran
On June 22, the day after the US bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities, CNN journalist Fred Pleitgen (who claims to be the first Western journalist to enter Iran since the conflict started) took to the streets of Tehran to find out what Iranian civilians were feeling in the wake of the American attack.
What followed was a litany of pro-regime vitriol, with bystanders calling for a “strong response” to the American strikes, claiming that President Trump had no basis to attack Iran, and that Iran had done nothing wrong.
One interviewee even sounded like an official regime mouthpiece, stating that “I support the Supreme Leader with my life. I approve of him, really, because he’s moving forward for the sake of our land.”
There is no doubt that many Iranians are angry at the US for its attack on the nuclear facilities. However, there is also no doubt that Pleitgen chose to only present one public sentiment to his audience and create the false impression that it is the sentiment shared by a cross-section of Iranians.
A Western journalist would need the official permission of the authorities to report from Iran. Was Pleitgen given free rein to interview anyone on the street, or was he directed by officials to only interview those who tow the regime’s line?
And how would Iranian interviewees react? Given the regime’s efforts to crack down on any dissent, often using brutal measures, if any ordinary Iranian even dared to publicly state any criticism of the Islamic Republic?
It’s incredibly unlikely — but CNN won’t be transparent about the conditions that Pleitgen is working under, as well as the inability of critical voices to make themselves freely heard.
Since this latest conflict began on June 13, some other news outlets (like The Washington Post and ABC News Australia) have managed to present the diversity of views among Iran’s civilian population in a nuanced way, including those who are opposed to the attacks on Iranian soil and those who are cautiously optimistic about how this could affect the future of Iran.
By failing to interview anyone with opposing views (or to even mention that such views exist), Pleitgen has not filed a piece of journalism as much as a piece of regime-approved propaganda.
Erin Burnett Spreads Questionable Message
A few days before Fred Pleitgen took to the streets of Tehran, anchor Erin Burnett shared a video and message allegedly shared with her by an Iranian filmmaker named Pouria Nouri.
The video showed explosions in Tehran, while the message expressed the fears associated with living under bombing, while also conveying that Iranians have never been so united in “solidarity” in the face of Israeli attacks.
The message concluded, “As an Iranian citizen, I call on the world’s media not to close their eyes to the evident truth and to the initiator of this unjust war, the Israeli regime, and to pay attention to the plight of the Iranian people now caught in the midst of war. People who deserve a normal, peaceful life. Yet, their lives have now been thrown into chaos.”
Burnett found this message so powerful that she shared a part of it on her June 18 broadcast and read it in full on her TikTok page, describing it and the accompanying video as “incredible.”
Maybe a little too incredible.
No sooner had Burnett shared this supposed message from an Iranian civilian on her social media pages, than people began to cast doubt on its veracity.
On her X (formerly Twitter) page, many people pointed out that the message suspiciously echoed propaganda put out by the Islamic regime.
One analyst pointed out on TikTok that the message and video were likely spread by a regime plant since it echoes official state propaganda and it is illegal for regular Iranians to make contact with foreign media organizations. For someone to openly share something with CNN under their name, they would have to know that they are immune from punishment.
The fight against Iranian belligerence is being fought on land, in the air, and in the court of public opinion.
For CNN to pass off regime-approved talking points as genuine public sentiments expressed by the average Iranian civilian — while not balancing this with competing voice — is not only bad journalistic practice, but also assists the Islamic Republic’s propaganda efforts on the international stage.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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