RSS
Campus Chaos Risks Poisoning All of Society Unless Universities Uphold Their Own Rules

Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) members occupying an administrative building at Barnard College on Feb. 26, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik is often presented as a great 20th century rabbinic philosopher, but in reality, his logic was solidly based on Talmudic methodology, and his most profound insights reflect that tradition.
Here’s one: “To sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate is the greatest sin a scholar can commit.” This aligns with the Talmudic dictum: “Who is wise? One who foresees the consequences” (Tamid 32a).
One of the great Talmudic sages, Rabbi Eleazar, son of Rabbi Yosei, warns that a judge must never rule based on immediate concerns alone, as doing so can undermine the very system he is meant to uphold.
A judge who prioritizes expediency over principle, seeking to compromise rather than uphold justice, does not bring peace — instead he ensures corruption and decay (Sanhedrin 6b). Short-term expediency often leads to long-term destruction, and those who fail to see beyond the moment are not fit to lead.
Which brings me to this week’s events at Barnard College in New York. I have always loved the idea of a university as a temple of learning — a sanctuary where young minds expand, ideas are sharpened, and the pursuit of truth is sacrosanct. But it has become painfully clear that something has gone terribly wrong, and the long-term negative repercussions simply can’t be overstated.
At Barnard College, a group of masked students — wrapped in keffiyehs, banging drums, and shouting slogans — stormed a campus building, physically assaulting a college employee in the process. They treated the halls of learning like a street corner rally, drowning out any semblance of reason with crude theatrics and belligerence.
Instead of engaging in thoughtful discourse, they resorted to intimidation, disrupting dozens of classes and the lives of thousands of other students, all in pursuit of a self-righteous spectacle.
And how did the college respond? With deference and indulgence. After hours of petulant refusals to engage with kindly university officials desperately attempting to reason with them, the protesters were eventually granted precisely what they wanted — no consequences, no accountability, and no responsibility for the havoc they had generated.
It was an exercise in spineless appeasement, reinforcing the already obvious lesson that on today’s college campuses, brute force and outrage are far more effective than dialogue and debate.
The protest itself was staged in response to the recent expulsion of two students who had aggressively disrupted a History of Israel class, turning what should have been an environment of learning into a battleground of political agitation.
But the mob was not content with mere protest. They demanded the impossible: immediate reinstatement of the expelled students, amnesty for all disciplinary action against so-called “pro-Palestine thought,” and a public meeting with the college president — essentially, the right to disrupt at will, without any consequences. In their world, free speech means their speech alone, and any opposition is silenced not with ideas, but with brute force.
As I watched clips of the protest on X, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief. Once, universities were temples of knowledge, where scholarship reigned supreme, debate was rigorous yet respectful, and the classroom was a sanctuary for intellectual exploration.
Now, they are being hijacked by mob rule – reduced to platforms for megaphone politics, virtue signaling, and performative outrage. The very institutions that should champion reason and discourse have become breeding grounds for hysteria and intimidation. There is a term for this: sacrilege.
In Parshat Terumah, we find the first recorded reference to a sacred space: “And they shall make for Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). Notice the phrasing: “among them,” not “in it.”
The implication is profound. A space is not holy simply because of its walls or its grandeur. It is holy because of the people who treat it with reverence, and because of the impact that reverence will have on broader society.
When a place of learning is built on respect, intellectual rigor, and the humble pursuit of truth, that sacred spirit spreads. It lifts up all those who enter, elevating not just the institution, but society itself.
But the reverse is also true. When places of learning are hijacked by mob rule, when violence and intimidation replace scholarship and discourse, that corruption does not stay contained — it spreads like a contagion.
If universities become places of shouting rather than thinking, of bullying rather than reasoning, of destruction rather than construction, we should not be surprised when wider society begins to mirror that same decay.
Today’s students who shriek down dissent, storm buildings, and revel in chaos will be tomorrow’s professionals, policymakers, and leaders. If they are taught that force wins arguments, that disruption yields rewards, and that entitlement trumps effort, that is the world they will build — and the world we will be forced to inherit. Their ugly behavior will spill out well beyond the halls of learning.
Which is why university leadership cannot afford to appease the chaos-makers. They must be dealt with firmly, swiftly, and without hesitation.
A university that refuses to uphold its own rules — rules designed to protect the very foundation of learning — ceases to be an institution of higher education. It becomes a playground for the loudest and most aggressive, where intimidation replaces intellect, where noise drowns out knowledge, and where sacred spaces are reduced to battlegrounds of division and disorder.
To be clear, students are entitled to their opinions. They have every right to debate, to discuss, and to challenge ideas they find objectionable. But they do not have the right to storm buildings, assault staff, disrupt classes, and then demand immunity from consequences. That is not free speech. That is anarchy.
Barnard College’s administration was totally right to expel the two students who disrupted the class. They would be even more right to stand their ground and refuse to be bullied into reversing that decision. If universities are to reclaim their place as temples of learning, they must set clear boundaries and enforce them decisively.
If we allow our sanctuaries of knowledge to be overrun, we should not be surprised when the entire edifice of civilization begins to crumble. As C.S. Lewis warned: “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.”
And in the end, the real question is this: Do we want our future shaped by reason and discipline, or by chaos and destruction? Because, as Margaret Thatcher so bluntly put it: “You can’t have education without discipline. You can’t have freedom without order.”
The post Campus Chaos Risks Poisoning All of Society Unless Universities Uphold Their Own Rules first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
RSS
Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
RSS
Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.