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Biden on 5th anniversary of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: Hamas invasion is ‘deepening the wound’ of antisemitism

WASHINGTON (JTA) — On the fifth anniversary of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, President Joe Biden drew a straight line between the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history and Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 invasion of Israel.
“A gunman opened fire on Sabbath worshippers as they prayed, murdering 11 precious souls, wounding many more – including first responders,” Biden said Friday in his statement marking Oct. 27.
“Deepening the wound, today’s remembrance comes on the heels of the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Biden said. “On October 7th, a sacred Jewish holiday, the terrorist group Hamas unleashed pure evil against the people of Israel, slaughtering 1,400 Jews and taking hostage hundreds more.” Oct. 7 was the Jewish festival of Shemini Atzeret-Simchat Torah in Israel.
Biden’s weaving the two attacks, one committed by white nationalists, the other by radical Islamist terrorists, into the same cloth, marks a sharp shift from the launch of his campaign and the beginning of his presidency, when he identified the threat of antisemitism as coming principally from the far right. The gunman in Pittsburgh, who was sentenced to death this summer, was influenced by a proliferation of far-right content on social media.
Biden rolled out a strategy to counter antisemitism last May, the first by any presidential administration in U.S. history. A number of U.S. Jewish groups who advised on the strategy urged Biden to take into account the threat of anti-Jewish hatred from the left and other sources as well as the far-right, particularly on campuses, where some Jewish students say they face intimidation from the pro-Palestinian left.
“Under my presidency, we will continue to condemn antisemitism at every turn,” Biden said in his statement. “We are implementing the first-ever national strategy to counter Antisemitism. Because hate never goes away, it only hides until it is given just a little oxygen. And as a nation, we must ensure hate is never given any oxygen.”
A White House spokesman on Thursday specifically called out some campus pro-Palestinian protests as veering into antisemitism.
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The post Biden on 5th anniversary of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: Hamas invasion is ‘deepening the wound’ of antisemitism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration’s actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.
The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his term.
The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.
Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.
Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorists.
The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.”
“This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.
Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.”
The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.
The post Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week

Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, that he will bring a vote before his government to dismiss him next week.
The post Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes

Newly recruited fighters who joined a Houthi military force intended to be sent to fight in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, march during a parade in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
i24 News – The Houthis claimed on Sunday that they targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and other vessels in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that the US-led attacks against the Houthis on Saturday comprised of more than 47 airstrikes on seven governorates, with the death toll expected to rise.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” Saree said, vowing the Houthis “will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”
The post Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.