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Biden officials set a 2-week deadline for a plan to combat spike in campus antisemitism
WASHINGTON (JTA) —- At a meeting with Jewish leaders, Biden administration officials vowed to make a plan within two weeks to counter what they say is an alarming rise in antisemitism at U.S. colleges and universities since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack started a war with Israel.
The government officials, led by Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, told the Jewish leaders they would reconvene with them to lay out the proposal, sources in the off-the-record meeting Monday told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Emhoff’s office, in a statement, said that “the administration will continue to engage with leading organizations and students to hear from them directly and take additional actions to counter antisemitism and hate.” Emhoff, who is Jewish, has played a leading role in the Biden administration’s efforts to fight antisemitism.
William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the Jewish leaders came away reassured.
“The secretary spoke movingly about the obligation that America has to protect the Jewish community, and specifically the obligation that the Department of Education has to ensure that Jewish students in both higher education and K-12 feel safe and secure in their educational centers,” he said in an interview after the meeting.
Since Oct. 7, when Hamas invaded Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, pro-Palestinian groups at a series of campuses have celebrated or endorsed the attack. At multiple campuses, Jewish students have been barricaded in buildings amid pro-Palestinian protests. Other Jewish students have been assaulted or engaged in violent altercations with pro-Palestinian students.
Participants told JTA that the 13 Jewish leaders present represented the religious and political span of the community — from Reform to Orthodox, from politically progressive to politically conservative — and yet presented a unified message of a call for action.
“I said, it’s no secret that I think that many consider me a progressive but in this moment, what we’re seeing is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and it goes so far beyond criticism of Israel to very direct attacks on Jews and Jewish spaces, simply because they’re Jewish,” said Amy Spitalnick, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO who has worked for Democrats and who launched her career with J Street, a liberal Jewish Middle East policy group.
“I’ve always been extraordinarily careful about distinguishing between criticism of Israel and antisemitism,” Spitalnik added. “This is not that. This is full-fledged, masks-off antisemitism.”
It was not clear what kinds of steps the Biden administration could implement to combat campus antisemitism.
Ahead of the meeting, the Biden administration outlined steps it has already taken, including having the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security engagement law enforcement nationwide on the campus, local and state level; supporting Jewish, Muslim and Arab students on campuses around the country; and having federal cybersecurity experts reach out to schools.
The Biden Administration has also expedited an initiative launched just over a week before the Hamas attack to instruct federal officials to include antisemitism and other forms of religious bigotry as protected under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. That initiative was part of a broader presidential strategy to combat antisemitism launched in May, the first of its kind.
Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council for Jewish Women, suggested that the initiative could be expanded from Title VI of the act, which bans discrimination, to include Title IX, which targets violence and harassment and outlines penalties for offenders.
Also speaking were Adam Lehman, CEO of Hillel International, who described the current campus environment, and Julie Rayman, the American Jewish Committee managing director, who outlined the effect the spike in antisemitism has had on K-12 schools. Other groups represented include the Anti-Defamation League, the Brandeis Center for Human Rights, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Reform and Conservative movements and the Orthodox Union.
Education Department officials have held roundtables for Jewish students around the country, and Cardona and Neera Tanden, Biden’s top domestic policy adviser, plan to visit an as yet unnamed campus this week.
Spitalnick said she hoped that the Biden administration would “leverage their bully pulpit and speak out loudly and clearly, showing up on campuses, making very clear that Jewish students are not isolated and alone.”
Over the weekend, anonymous antisemitic posts on a Greek life website threatened to “shoot up” the Cornell University kosher dining hall and kill and rape Jewish students. Police were called to the dining hall, and the campus Hillel warned students to stay away from it.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Jewish New York Democrat who is the majority leader, used his daily address on the Senate floor on Monday to say he was “sickened and frightened” by the Cornell incident.
“The incident targeting Cornell’s Jewish community is utterly revolting, but unfortunately, it was not an isolated occurrence,” Schumer said. “Across the country, on campuses and public spaces, the ancient poison of antisemitism has found new life.”
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‘Who Is the Biggest Bastard?’ Belgian Politician Equates Israel With Hamas After Refusing Jewish New Year Greeting
Matthias Diependaele, Minister‑President of Flanders, has faced backlash after declining to send a Rosh Hashanah message to Belgium’s Jewish community. Photo: Screenshot
A senior Belgian politician who recently refused to send a Jewish New Year message has once again sparked outrage for equating Israel with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Matthias Diependaele, Minister‑President of Flanders — the Dutch-speaking region in northern Belgium — was speaking before the Flemish Parliament on Tuesday when he argued the world’s lone Jewish state and only democracy in the Middle East was no better morally than an international designated terrorist group.
“How do you explain who is the biggest bastard?” he asked. “On the one hand, you have an innovative, modern country that should be based on Western standards, but uses disproportionate force and commits human rights violations without any compassion. On the other hand, you see a terrorist organization that doesn’t hesitate to hide behind a human shield. Who is the bigger bastard? The one who shoots at children? Or the one who uses them as a human shield? I don’t know. I choose the innocent victims, and I want to think about how best to help them.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the ongoing war with their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating widespread sexual violence. In response, Israel has waged a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths during its war effort to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli miitary.
Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
Diependaele belongs to the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the same center-right party led by Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. His parliamentary remarks prompted immediate backlash.
“The Flemish Alliance has completely surrendered to leftist pressure and no longer has a moral compass. He compares a free society and democratic state, existentially threatened, to a gang of murderous Muslim terrorists,” said Sam van Rooy, a lawmaker from the right-wing Vlaams Belang party, according to multiple reports. “This is why I continue responding to the anti-Israeli debate, constantly fed by leftist parties and traditional parties — it causes masks to fall. Israel is a litmus test. Now we know that, unfortunately, Flanders is controlled by a prime minister who cannot distinguish between good and evil.”
Diependaele has even received criticism from other members of Belgium’s five-party federal government coalition.
Sammy Mahdi, head of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V), described the remarks in an Instagram post as “shameful” and indicative of “a lack of common sense.”
CD&V and Vooruit, another political party in the coalition, said on Wednesday that Diependaele was not speaking on behalf of the government, according to Belgian media.
Diependaele’s comments came after he declined a request last week by the Belgian Jewish newspaper The Centrale to provide a Rosh Hashanah message. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, will take place in late September this year.
“After internal deliberation, we regret to inform you that, given the current situation and sensitivities concerning the tensions in the Middle East, we cannot follow up on your request,” the statement from Diependaele’s office read.
“Anything that bears even the slightest connection to this conflict is being closely monitored and examined under a magnifying glass. For that reason, we do not deem it opportune to go into this any further,” it continued.
According to the Jewish newspaper, requesting a Rosh Hashanah greeting from Belgium’s leaders for the country’s Jewish citizens has been a long-standing tradition.
“This year, even that became radioactive,” The Centrale wrote.
Shortly after the newspaper published Diependaele’s response, which drew widespread outrage from Belgium’s Jewish community, the politician rejected claims of antisemitism and attempted to defend his earlier statement.
“My refusal is purely based on the principle that, for more than 15 years in my role as a representative of the people, I have not supported religious activities,” Diependaele wrote in a new letter sent to The Centrale.
“I have also never accepted invitations for the Eid. I have also never taken part in a Te Deum for Catholics,” the Flemsih leader continued. “By this I am in no way passing judgment on any religion or on the people who practice it. It is, however, my conviction that no religion — including my own — has any role to play in the exercise of my mandate.”
However, the paper rejected Diependaele’s new letter, arguing that his shift from “too sensitive right now” to a “timeless principle” was an attempt to mask his initial fear of public backlash.
The World Jewish Congress denounced Diependaele’s actions as a clear act of antisemitism.
“Holding Jews in the Diaspora collectively accountable for the actions of Israel – is antisemitic. To be a political leader, and to refuse to acknowledge the traditions and culture of your country’s Jewish community – because of Israel – is antisemitic,” the organization said in a statement. “What transpired is quite clear: A political leader declined to acknowledge their Jewish citizens because of Israel and the perceived public backlash about engaging with Jews.”
While members of the Belgian government have been pushing for a tougher stance against Israel amid the Gaza war, the country has been less critical of the Israeli military campaign in recent months than other European countries.
In late April, for example, De Wever rejected a journalist’s claim that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and argued it is premature to recognize a “Palestinian state.”
Weeks earlier, Belgium announced it would not enforce the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, should he visit Brussels.
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Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi Says ‘We Are Fighting the Jews, Not Zionism’
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi attends the annual festival of Greek Communist Youth in Athens, Greece, Sept. 22, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Costas Baltas
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi said on a podcast earlier this month that she is fighting Jews, not Zionism, and that she wishes for World War III.
“I was raised [to believe] that Judaism means occupation, and today, tomorrow, and a million years from now, I will continue to say that Judaism [should] be presented to the children of Palestine – children of my age and younger – as occupation, and that we are fighting the Jews, not Zionism,” Tamimi, now 24, said on “The Enlightenment Podcast” on YouTube on Aug. 8.
Tamimi’s comments were flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which reported on and translated her remarks.
Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi: We Are Fighting the Jews, Not Just Zionism; Westerners Patronize Us with Their Aid, They should Shut Up When We Talk; They Will Give Us Aid, Whether They Like It Or Not, and We Will Not Thank Them; I Wish for a Nuclear WWIII, So the Whole World… pic.twitter.com/NNn5Jf7TD6
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) August 15, 2025
“The whole world needs to shut up, when a Palestinian is talking,” she said. “We are superior to the entire world, because we are the only ones in the world fighting injustice, at the expense of our lives, and the expense of our humanity.”
Tamimi continued, “Every night when I go to sleep, I put my head on the pillow, and I pray to God to protect the humanity left inside me, because I don’t want to become a killer. In this West of yours, if a mother screams at her child, he grows up to become a serial killer.”
“I have reached a point where I wish for a World War III. Whoever dies, dies, and whoever lives, lives. The important thing is that we will be over with this. I have reached this point,” she said. “Let the whole world be destroyed, I don’t care. Let them drop nuclear bombs, and destroy the whole world, so it won’t be just the Palestinians.”
These recent comments are the most recent in a long string of radical remarks by Tamimi. In November 2023, she wrote, in an Instagram post, “Come on settlers, we are waiting for you in all the West Bank cities from Hebron to Jenin – we will slaughter you and you will say that what Hitler did to you was a joke.”
Speaking about Israelis who live in the West Bank, she said, “We will drink your blood and eat your skull. Come on, we are waiting for you.”
Tamimi became famous internationally in 2017 when a video of her, then just 16 years old, slapping, kicking, and yelling at Israeli soldiers went viral as a symbol of both Palestinian resistance to Israel, and the asymmetric nature of the conflict. The soldiers did not retaliate but did later arrest her.
Tamimi was convicted on four counts of assaulting an IDF officer and soldier, incitement, and interference with IDF forces in March 2018, and was sentenced to eight months in prison and eight months of probation.
She was released a few months later, in July 2018. Since then, Tamimi has been hailed as a Palestinian human rights activist, received a book deal from Penguin Random House, and consistently received sympathetic coverage from Western news outlets.
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Trump Administration Reaffirms Opposition to Turkey Rejoining F-35 Program
A Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft is seen at the ILA Air Show in Berlin, Germany, April 25, 2018. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
The Trump administration has reaffirmed its opposition to Turkey’s rejoining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, citing Ankara’s possession of Russian S-400 missile defense systems.
In a letter sent on Wednesday to US Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), a senior State Department official reiterated that Washington remains committed to enforcing the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which penalizes countries with financial ties to Russia’s defense sector.
“The Trump administration is fully committed to protecting US defense and intelligence assets and complying with US law, including CAATSA,” the letter read
The message, signed by Paul Guaglianone of the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, stated that Washington’s position “has not changed” and that Turkey’s continued possession of the Russian-supplied S-400 remains incompatible with US law and defense requirements. The official stressed that the Trump administration was fully committed to protecting American defense and intelligence assets while maintaining its obligations under the National Defense Authorization Act.
Despite the strained relationship, the letter emphasized that Turkey remains a longstanding NATO ally. US officials framed the relationship as critical to the security interests of both countries and signaled a willingness to maintain dialogue with Ankara.
In 2017, despite several US warnings, Ankara purchased the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system, leading to Turkey’s expulsion from the multibillion-dollar fighter jet program in 2019.
“The United States seeks to cooperate with Turkey on common priorities and to engage in dialogue to resolve disagreements,” Guaglianone wrote, while maintaining that Washington has “expressed our disapproval of Ankara’s acquisition of the S-400 and clearly conveyed steps that would need to be taken” in the sanctions review process.
The letter came after a bipartisan coalition of more than 40 US lawmakers pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this month to prevent Turkey from rejoining the F-35 program, citing ongoing national security concerns and violations of US law. Members of Congress warned that lifting existing sanctions or readmitting Turkey to the US F-35 fifth-generation fighter program would “jeopardize the integrity of F-35 systems” and risk exposing sensitive US military technology to Russia.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed during a NATO summit in June that Ankara and Washington had begun discussing Turkey’s readmission into the program.
Under Section 1245 of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon is prohibited from transferring F-35 jets or related technology to Turkey unless Ankara no longer possesses the Russian-made S-400 system and provides assurances it will not acquire such equipment in the future. Because Turkey continues to retain the S-400, US officials are legally barred from approving its participation in the F-35 program.