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California College Professors Bashed Israel; Here’s What They Got Wrong

One of the campus buildings at the University of California, Berkeley. Photo: Max Pixel/Creative Commons.

On November 21, the Palestine, Arab, and Muslim Caucus of the California Faculty Association, a union organized to platform pro-Palestinian voices, hosted a webinar titled “On Weaponizing Antisemitism.”

Rather than attempting to protect all students, the goal of the event was clearly to accuse pro-Israel and Jewish advocacy organizations of dishonestly using the widely embraced International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism to silence pro-Palestinian voices. They defended their claim by highlighting an observed rise in US Islamophobia since the October 7th massacre.

Despite this, the panelists ignored the major surge in antisemitic incidents in the US since Hamas’ massacre. Throughout the event, they refused to unequivocally condemn Hamas’ heinous attacks. They even went as far as denying the Jewish connection to the land of Israel, while expressing antisemitic conspiracies about Jewish power in America.

The moderator, associate professor Sang Hea Kil of San Jose State University’s Justice Studies department, held Israel entirely responsible for the current situation in the Gaza Strip, stating that “the Israeli regime is capitalizing on the October 7th military incursion to create another ‘Nakba,’ by forcing 1.1 million Gazans to forcibly leave their land, while simultaneously bombing them and preventing their escape to safe passage.” However, this cannot be farther from the truth. Israel ordered the evacuation of the civilian population of Gaza City, in accordance with the rule of law. Furthermore, it was Hamas who had been preventing the civilian population from evacuating towards the designated safe zones. Even after the civilians had successfully evacuated, this didn’t stop Hamas from using these safe zones to attack Israeli civilians.

Ironically in Sang Hea Kil’s anti-Zionist diatribe, she highlighted the importance of the anthropological relationship between people and their land, narrow-mindedly comparing the Palestinians to the  Native American tribes who lived near her college. For seemingly arbitrary reasons, she denied all evidence proving the analogous connections that Jews have to Israel. As she should know, the contiguous Jewish presence in the disputed territories existed long before the Islamic conquests that brought Arab culture and society to the region.

Later, in an attempt to frame the ongoing war in Gaza, she mentioned “the bombing of hospitals, schools, and UN shelters” as an example of the ongoing “Israeli aggression,” which she claimed is in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. She completely ignored the exception outlined in the same document allowing the targeting of such buildings if they are being used militarily, which is exactly what Hamas has been doing for decades. She also called Israel an apartheid state, which has continuously been proven to be a lie.

Judith Butler, a UC Berkeley professor of Philosophy and Gender Studies, argued that although antisemitism exists and needs to be combated, “we must [fight antisemitism] in an international framework that allows all of the forms of hatred to be understood in relationship to each other.” In other words, to properly address any form of hate crimes, people must take into consideration all forms of hate. An example she gave was the recent marches against antisemitism in France, which she claimed are counterproductive because they only address antisemitism.

Since she sweepingly declared that all accusations of Palestinian antisemitism contribute to anti-Palestinian prejudice (which apparently is a subset of Islamophobia), such accusations are by definition illegitimate. This is how she justifies her rejection of the IHRA definition of antisemitism because of her false belief that it grants immunity to Israel.

Hypocritically, while criticizing protests against antisemitism for not including Islamophobia, she ignored the severe degree of antisemitism in Islamic or Palestinian societies, especially the extreme level of support the Palestinians displayed for the October 7th massacre or the rampant antisemitism ingrained in Pro-Palestinian activism.

Not only are the opinions espoused by the webinar morally bankrupt and devoid of reality, but they contribute to an anti-Israel atmosphere on campus and around the world, which could lead to even more violence against Jews and Israelis.

Chaim Friedman is the CAMERA on Campus Fellow for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The post California College Professors Bashed Israel; Here’s What They Got Wrong first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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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 NewsPrime 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 NewsThe 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.

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