RSS
Columbia University Details Hostile Environment Toward Jewish Students in First Antisemitism Task Force Report
Anti-Israel students protest at Columbia University in New York City. Photo: Reuters/Jeenah Moon
Columbia University’s Task Force on Antisemitism has released a new report detailing the numerous challenges that Jewish and pro-Israel students at the school have faced since Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
“While mourning Hamas’ unspeakable atrocities on Oct. 7, some Jewish and Israeli Columbia affiliates have been the object of racist epithets and graffiti, antisemitic tropes, and confrontational and unwelcome questions, while others have found their participation in some student groups that have nothing to do with politics to be increasingly uncomfortable,” the task force’s report said, calling on the university to enforce civil rights protections.
The report also discussed violations of rules for holding demonstrations on campus, noting that “protesters have disrupted classes and events, taken over spaces in academic buildings, held unauthorized demonstrations, and used ugly language to berate individuals who were filming these protests or just walking by.” Columbia has been a hub of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas demonstrations for the past five months.
Most notably, the report explained that Columbia University has not treated Jews the same as other protected groups, allegedly ignoring their concerns about antisemitic speech uttered by anti-Zionists despite issuing tendentious statements about other “protected classes” in times when “policing, affirmative action, sexual assault, transgender rights, and other important issues” are the subjects of tense public debate.
“This is a challenging issue, since there are important reasons to value the perspective of both the speaker and the audience,” the report continued. “But regardless of how this issue is resolved, the university needs to be consistent in its approach.”
Anti-Israel demonstrators at Columbia University transformed the campus into an enclave of antisemitism where Jewish students have been berated and assaulted at whim after Oct. 7, the group Students Against Antisemitism claimed in a lawsuit filed last month with the help of the StandWithUs Legal Center for Justice.
The complaint alleges that after bullying Jewish students and rubbing their noses in the carnage Hamas wrought on their people, pro-Hamas students were still unsatisfied and resulted to violence, beating up five Jewish students in Columbia’s Butler Library. Another attacked a Jewish student with a stick, lacerating his head and breaking his finger, after being asked to return missing persons posters she had stolen.
Following the incidents, pleas for help went unanswered and administrators told Jewish students they could not guarantee their safety while Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held its demonstrations, according to the lawsuit. The school’s powerlessness to prevent anti-Jewish violence was cited as the reason why Students Supporting Israel, a recognized pro-Israel school club, was denied permission to hold an event on self-defense. Events with “buzzwords” such as “Israel” and “Palestine” were forbidden, administrators allegedly said, but SJP continued to host events while no one explained the inconsistency.
Responding to the task force’s report, Columbia University president Minouche Shafik complimented the authors in a copiously worded statement, but she did not commit to implementing their recommendations.
“I welcome the the initial report of the Task Force on Antisemitism and am grateful to the co-chairs and task force members from Columbia, Barnard College, and Teachers College for their hard and thoughtful work,” Shafik said. “As the task force makes clear, it is essential to ensure that debates and disagreements across Columbia are rooted in academic rigor and civil discourse, and that Jewish students, faculty, and staff, and all members of our community, feel safe, supported, and included. The task force’s important work will continued across a number of fronts as the university works to address this ancient, but sadly persistent, form of hate.”
The task force’s work has not stopped anti-Zionist students at Columbia University from continuing to attack Jewish identity.
On Monday, The Columbia Spectator reported that the Columbia College Student Council voted to hold a referendum on a question, written by the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition, asking students to support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
Among other things, the referendum question calls for shuttering the university’s Tel Aviv Global Center before it opens and cancelling a dual degree program administered in partnership with Tel Aviv University.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Columbia University Details Hostile Environment Toward Jewish Students in First Antisemitism Task Force Report 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.