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Columbia University Newspaper Endorses Mamdani for New York City Mayor
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Columbia University’s flagship newspaper, The Columbia Daily Spectator, has endorsed a far-left New York City mayoral candidate who has been accused of antisemitism and made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career.
The Spectator’s editorial board issued the endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, a representative in the New York State Assembly, in a rare moment of summer activity, as most of the university’s student body is on holiday. It comes as the university’s leadership is reportedly taking steps to deal with a surge of campus antisemitism that captured national attention and led the Trump administration to pull federal funding over the school’s alleged failure to combat the crisis.
“Our endorsements reflect the consensus opinion of the editorial board, but we recognize that voters may weigh these issues differently,” the paper said on Tuesday. “As Spectator‘s editorial board, we endorse Zohran Mamdani as our top choice for New York City Mayor. Currently ranked second in most polls, the New York State Assembly member and his campaign have resonated with New Yorkers who have been repeatedly disappointed by the current administration.”
It added, “The Democratic Socialist has grounded his campaign in bread-and-butter issues such as universal child care, free public transportation, and affordable housing, echoing Sen. Bernie Sanders’ brand of economic populism.”
The paper’s choice of Mamdani prompted a slew of responses on social media. A native of Uganda born to parents from India, one of whom is an Oscar nominated filmmaker, Mamdani has refused to recognize the Jewish state of Israel, advocated adoption of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and suggested that New York City — home to the world’s largest Jewish community outside of Israel — will divest from the country if he is elected.
Earlier this month, he refused to distance himself from the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a slogan that is believed to have inspired a wave of anti-Jewish violence which culminated in the murder of two young Israeli diplomats outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC in May. The Democratic mayoral candidate went as far as comparing the phrase to the motivations behind the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, prompting a rebuke from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“I think what’s difficult is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means struggle,” Mamdani said on the Bulwark podcast. “And as a Muslim man who grew up post-9/11, I’m too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning.”
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was an effort by Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland to fight back as they were set to be deported to concentration camps and killed during the Holocaust. In contrast, the slogan “globalize the intifada” references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels known as intifadas, or uprisings.
On another occasion, years before he emerged as a candidate for mayor, Mamdani appeared to threaten that a “third intifada” was forthcoming.
Following the Spectator’s declaration of support for his campaign, Columbia University professor Shai Davidai charged that the paper had violated laws which prevent nonprofit entities, such as the Spectator, from entering the fray of electoral politics.
“The Columbia Spectator has just breached its non-profit status by endorsing a political candidate,” Davidai said. “Please join me in filing a formal complaint with the IRS against the Spectator Publishing Company. It’s time to make our colleges a partisan-free space for education.”
Elisha Baker, who studies Middle East History at Columbia University, said in a statement shared with The Algemeiner and other outlets that the Spectator is essentially throwing its support behind a surge of antisemitic violence called for by anti-Zionists of Mamdani’s mold.
“Zohran Mamdani is a threat to Jews in NYC and Americans everywhere. He marches with the antisemitic and anti-American mob,” Baker said. “A vote for Mamdani is a vote for antisemitism and continued pro-terror chaos on our streets. Especially since the tragic attacks in DC and Boulder, a vote for Mamdani is nothing short of a vote for Jews to stay inside.”
New York City will ultimately determine the merit of the case against the mayoral candidate, who would be the favorite to win the November general election if he prevails over his Democratic opponents, including former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, during Tuesday’s primary.
During the campaign, Cuomo criticized Mamdani’s links to the anti-Zionist movement.
“Yesterday when Zohran Mamdani was asked a direct question about what he thought of the phrase ‘globalize the intifada,’ he dismissed it as ‘language’ ‘that is subject to interpretation,’ Cuomo said in a statement earlier this month. “That is not only wrong – it is dangerous. At a time when we are seeing antisemitism on the rise and in fact witnessing once again violence against Jews resulting in their deaths in Washington DC or their burning in Denver – we know all too well that words matter. They fuel hate. They fuel murder. As the US Holocaust Museum so aptly said, all leaders or those running for office must condemn the use of this battle cry. There are no two sides here.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Columbia University Newspaper Endorses Mamdani for New York City Mayor first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes Hit Record High in 2024, FBI Data Shows
FBI agents and NYPD officers work near the scene of a reported shooter situation in the Manhattan borough of New York City, US, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Antisemitic hate crimes in the US continued to add up to record-setting and harrowing statistical figures in 2024, according to the latest data issued by the FBI on Tuesday, prompting calls by Jewish leaders for a society-wide intervention.
Even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, has been experienced by a demographic group which composes just 2 percent of the US population.
“As the Jewish community is still reeling from two deadly antisemitic attacks in the past few months, the record-high number of anti-Jewish hate crime incidents tracked by the FBI in 2024 is consistent with ADL’s reporting and, more importantly, with the Jewish community’s current lived experience,” Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said in a statement on Tuesday. “Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, Jewish Americans have not had a moment of respite and have experienced antisemitism at K-12 school, on college campuses, in the public square, at work, and Jewish institutions.”
Ted Deutch, chief executive officer of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), also commented, saying, “Leaders of every kind — teachers, law enforcement officers, government officials, business owners, university presidents — must confront antisemitism head-on. Jews are being targeted not just out of hate, but because some wrongly believe that violence or intimidation is justified by global events.”
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offences, or about 9 percent of the total.
Antisemitic hate crimes kept federal and local law enforcement agents busy throughout 2024, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
In November, for example, the US Department of Justice secured the conviction of a Massachusetts man, Joh Reardon, 59, who threatened to perpetrate mass killings of Jews. Over several months, Reardon called Jewish institutions across Massachusetts, proclaiming that he would kill Jewish men, women, and children in their houses of worship. His terroristic menacing included promises to plant bombs in synagogues in the cities of Sharon and Attleboro, as well as making 98 calls to the Israeli Consulate in Boston, a behavior which began on Oct. 7, 2023, and ended just days before his apprehension by law enforcement in January.
In New York City, meanwhile, the Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn endured a violent series of robberies and other attacks. In one instance, three masked men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood. Before then, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. Additionally, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
The wave of hatred has not relented in 2025.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Families of Oct. 7 Victims Sue Meta for $1 Billion Over Hamas Terror Livestreams
Meta logo is seen in this illustration taken Aug. 22, 2022. Photo: Reuters
Family members whose loved ones’ suffering and murders were streamed on Facebook or Instagram on Oct. 7, 2023, during the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, filed a lawsuit in Tel Aviv District Court on Monday against the social media platforms’ parent company.
The plaintiffs assert that Meta facilitated terrorism by failing to block the live video and also violated the victims’ right to privacy. They seek 4 billion shekels (about $1.15 billion) in damages.
“Our hearts go out to the families affected by Hamas terrorism,” Meta said in a statement responding to the suit. “Our policy designates Hamas as a proscribed organization, and we remove content that supports or glorifies Hamas or the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.”
The lawsuit states that the videos from the attack “trampled the petitioners’ rights in the most harrowing way imaginable” and that “these scenes of brutality, humiliation, and terror are permanently etched into the memories of the victims’ families and the Israeli public as the final moments of their loved ones’ lives.”
Many of the videos remained on the sites for hours after their initial broadcast, according to the lawsuit, which argues that “Facebook and Instagram violated the privacy of the victims, and continue to do so, by enabling the distribution of terror content for profit.”
One of the plaintiffs, Mor Bayder, wrote on Oct. 8, 2023, that “my grandmother, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz all her life, was murdered yesterday in a brutal murder by a terrorist in her home … A terrorist came home to her, killed her, took her phone, filmed the horror, and published it on Facebook. This is how we found out.”
Another individual signed on to the suit is Gali Idan, who Hamas held captive for hours and said was “filming constantly.” She stated that “it was clear the livestreaming was part of their operational plan — propaganda aimed at spreading fear. They filmed Maayan’s [her daughter’s] murder, our desperation, our children’s trauma, and forced [her husband] Tsahi to speak into the camera. All of it was broadcast.”
Idan calls Meta “complicit in the infrastructure of terror.”
Stav Arava also came on board as a plaintiff after seeing video of his brother Tomer forced at gunpoint to try and persuade neighbors to exit their home.
Other plaintiffs include families who did not have loved ones at the attacks, but whose minor children witnessed the videos, many of which continue to circulate today. The suit warns that the videos represent “grave harm to the dignity and psychological well-being of platform users — especially youth — who were exposed to raw acts of terror amplified by Meta’s systems.”
On June 6, a group of 41 US lawmakers sent a letter expressing concerns about “disturbing and inflammatory content circulating on your platforms in support of violence and terrorism” to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, then-X CEO Linda Yaccarino, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. “We strongly urge Meta, TikTok, and X to take decisive and transparent steps to curb these dangerous trends and protect all users from the effects of hate and incitement to violence online,” the legislators wrote to the tech leaders.
“For far too long, social media platforms have allowed harmful messages, hashtags, and conspiracy theories to fester and proliferate online, targeting different communities,” the letter stated. “Following Meta’s decision earlier this year to roll back its trust and safety policies, one estimate noted this could lead to individuals encountering at least 277 million more instances of hate speech and other harmful content each year on its platforms. Since these changes, on Facebook alone, Jewish Members of Congress have experienced a fivefold increase of antisemitic harassment on the platform.”
Zuckerberg acknowledged in January when making the change in moderation policies that “this is a trade-off” and “it means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
In a report analyzing the impact of the policy change, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) explained how “it is also possible that the policy change has signaled to hateful users that such abuse will now be tolerated. By allowing hateful content to remain on the platform, Meta is in effect encouraging this content on its platforms.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of ADL, said in a Jan. 7 statement that “it is mind blowing how one of the most profitable companies in the world, operating with such sophisticated technology, is taking significant steps back in terms of addressing antisemitism, hate, misinformation and protecting vulnerable & marginalized groups online. The only winner here is Meta’s bottom line and as a result, all of society will suffer.”
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International Muaythai Federation Bans Israeli Representation at All Competitions
People stand next to flags on the day the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, are handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) has banned all representation of Israel at its events and said Israeli athletes must compete under neutral status, following the alleged death of a Palestinian boy who was a member of the Palestinian national Muaythai team.
Ammar Mutaz Hamayel, 13, was allegedly shot in the back by an Israeli soldier near Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestinian media claimed. Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were also accused of detaining Hamayel for two hours before handing him over to a Palestinian ambulance that took him to the hospital, where he was allegedly pronounced dead. Israel has not verified or commented on Hamayel’s death.
The IFMA published a tribute to Hamayel after his alleged death, saluting him as a “young warrior” and saying that “his passion for Muaythai was matched only by the warmth and kindness he shared with all who knew him.” In honor of Hamayel, the IFMA flew its flags at half-mast, its social media profiles went dark, and a moment of silence was held for him at the final of the Asian Championships on June 25. Stephan Fox, the general secretary of IFMA, posted his own tribute to Hameyel on social media.
“When a child, a youth peace ambassador, is killed, silence is no longer an option,” said IFMA President Dr. Sakchye Tapsuwan. “This is not just a tragedy – it is a call to action. We cannot stand by when the innocent pay the price of conflict,” he added. “Sport is meant to protect, empower, and unite – especially for the young. Ammar believed in that. We honor his memory not with silence, but with a stand for justice.”
The IFMA, which is the world governing body for the Thai martial arts and combat sport, published a policy report on July 18 announcing that effective immediately, Israeli national symbols – including the flag, anthem, and emblems – will be “strictly prohibited” at all IFMA-organized and IFMA-sanctioned events. Israeli athletes, team officials, coaches, and delegation members must participate under the status of Authorized Individual Neutrals (AIN), a designation also applied to individuals from Russia and Belarus. “They must not represent their country in any capacity,” according to the new policy. Also, no IFMA or IFMA-affiliated events will be hosted in or supported within Israel until further notice.
The new policy will remain in place until repealed or amended by the IFMA Executive Committee. “The policy reflects IFMA’s commitment to fair play, neutrality, and the protection of the values and integrity of sport in the current complex geopolitical landscape and recent developments,” the organization stated.
The IFMA added that the new policy will not impact the 2025 Youth World Championships in Abu Dhabi set for September. Israeli delegations may compete in the championships with Israeli representation but “all subsequent events will enforce the full neutrality conditions set forth in this policy.”
Muaythai originated hundreds of years ago in Thailand, a Southeast Asian country whose citizens have been constantly impacted by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. During the Hamas-led deadly massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, terrorists killed more than 40 Thais and kidnapped 31 Thai laborers, some of whom died in captivity, according to the Thai government. Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists abducted more than 250 people in total, including Israelis and foreign nationals.
In June, Israeli military forces retrieved the body of a Thai hostage, Nattapong Pinta, who had been held in Gaza since the attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Pinta was abducted alive from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and was killed during captivity. Last year, four Thai nationals were killed and one was injured in northern Israel by rockets fired from the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah.