RSS
Despite Congressional Testimony, Rutgers’ Reality Doesn’t Meet Its Aspirations
Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway was recently called before the Congressional Committee on Education & the Workforce, due to suggestions that the Rutgers administration had fostered an intimidating campus environment in the wake of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The Rutgers administration was also accused of needlessly capitulating to protestors’ demands in order to shut down a campus tent encampment. Rather than ensuring smooth studies for all students by promptly dispatching police to disperse the demonstration (in the wake of some demonstrators’ urging of disruption of final exams), the Rutgers administration negotiated and reached a deal under which students would disperse in return for discussion of Rutgers’ divestment from Israeli contacts, and for additional promotion of Arab/Muslim studies at the university.
President Holloway’s testimony dispelled any notion of bias in favor of a pro-Palestinian position, and forcefully endorsed higher education’s traditional dedication to free inquiry and debate in the pursuit of truth.
As to demonstrators’ demands for university divestment from Israeli contacts, Holloway rejected notions of divestment from Israeli businesses or cessation of cooperation with Israeli academia. While he agreed to listen to the demonstrators’ arguments as to divestment, he said that he refused to dissolve Rutgers’ recent commitment to collaboration with Tel Aviv University in interdisciplinary research, including Israeli scholars’ presence at a new health studies facility.
As to intimidation of pro-Israeli campus entities, Holloway noted that Rutgers housed an educational enterprise for Jewish studies (the Bildner Center for Jewish Life) as well as Hillel and Chabad chapters, and that the university’s police force worked in coordination with those entities to ensure their security. He strongly endorsed the notion that a university must be a marketplace of ideas expressed with civility and without harassment, or the disruption of presentation of divergent views. He promised that the university would produce and enforce a new code of conduct safeguarding those interests.
President Holloway’s willingness to increase Rutgers’ scholarly and academic involvement in Arab/Muslim studies sounds like a commendable response to the presence and interests of 7,000 Arab or Muslim students on Rutgers’ campuses. The problem is that such a notion of expanded academic and scholarly analysis does not conform with the on-campus reality of the last several years.
Rutgers University houses the Center for Security, Race, and Rights (CSRR), created in 2019 with a stated mission to examine the impact of America’s post- 9/11 security measures on Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities. Beyond a variety of projects involving the welfare of American Muslims, CSRR has directed a significant portion of its activity (lectures and workshops) to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
That would be a salutary endeavor if conducted with careful academic analysis and debate. Instead, CSRR has regularly presented a one-sided polemic utilizing facile calumnies demonizing and deligitimizing the very existence of the Jewish State of Israel.
CSRR’s anti-Israel preoccupation started well before Hamas’ cross-border invasion and barbaric atrocities of October 7, 2023.
In May 2021, CSRR sponsored a “teach-in” promoting the thesis that 20th century reestablishment of a Jewish presence in Judaism’s ancient homeland constituted an illegitimate “colonialist enterprise.”
The lecturer’s underlying book, The 100 Years’ War on Palestine, had been labeled by Benny Morris, a meticulous Israeli historian (known for not glossing over Israeli misdeeds) as “simply bad history” in distorting the Zionist national movement, minimizing Palestinian political violence, and misrepresenting the role played by Western powers. Nonetheless, CSRR offered no critical analysis or dissenting view.
Likewise, in September 2022, CSSR presented a dual lecture on “U.S. Foreign Policy on Palestine-Israel.” I listened to both speakers as they engaged in rabid sloganeering rather than careful analysis. Because they deemed Israel an “apartheid” state oppressing its own Arab citizen population, both speakers urged halt of all military support for Israel (without any speaker’s reference to existential threats posed by Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas). And the speakers condemned supposed US “indifference” to Palestinian interests (without any mention of consistent US efforts to promote a Palestinian state in the West Bank).
CSRR promotion of a distorted anti-Israel narrative continued after Hamas’ atrocities of October 7, 2023.
The CSRR director, in promoting CSSR activities and in circulating information sources to Rutgers faculty and staff, adopted a vocabulary of “Israeli genocidal practices” and “intentionally starv[ing] 2.3 million Palestinian civilians.” CSSR has also never disassociated itself from Hamas’ stated dedication to destruction of Israel and extirpation of its Jewish residents by any means necessary.
I (as an emeritus professor of law at Rutgers) and a few senior colleagues have sought to engage CSRR by circulating arguments countering its one-sided anti-Israel polemic.
On January 19, 2024, I circulated an e-mail challenging CSRR’s ascription of all blame for Gazans’ tragic ordeal to Israel, and pointing out Hamas’ integral role in precipitating that tragic fate. In response, I was accused of propounding “a hateful stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists.” Such a vacuous assertion of racism is utterly inconsistent with President Holloway’s envisioned marketplace of ideas via civil discourse.
President Holloway’s aspiration for a university fostering free inquiry certainly includes protection of vigorous protest expression. He acknowledges, though, that there are limits to free expression even under a regimen that adheres to First Amendment principles.
His testimony asserted, without particularization, that some statements in the context of recent pro-Hamas demonstrations “have no place at a University.” His only specification of a free speech boundary was a passing reference to exclusion of “incitement” or “exhortation” of violence.
That sounds like an appropriate limitation on demonstrators’ conduct, but it is difficult in application.
At the Rutgers Newark campus encampment, a demonstrator carried a placard reading “from the river to the sea, by any means necessary.” Given the context of the demonstration, including Hamas’ articulated agenda and ruthless tactics, that demonstrator was urging the repetition of murderous atrocities and hostage taking. Is that punishable expression?
The scope of “incitement” excluded from Constitutional protection has been judicially defined as the urging of prompt violence from the hearers — an element arguably lacking in the Newark scenario. Likewise, Hamas’ call for the destruction of the Jewish State implicitly — if not explicitly — endorses liquidation of the Jewish Israelis. If such a call for distant, non-immediate violence is sanctionable, that implicates virtually all participants in pro-Hamas demonstrations in punishable incitement to violence.
Keep in mind as well that the real source of intimidation on college campuses is not the placards supporting Hamas. It is the prospect of ostracism and exclusion directed toward anyone on campus who supports the preservation of Israel as a Jewish homeland with a democratic commitment to equal political status for all its residents regardless of religion.
That pervasive anti-Zionist phenomenon is also inconsistent with President Holloway’s aspiration for civil and respectful campus dialogue.
Norman L. Cantor is Professor of Law Emeritus at Rutgers University Law School where he taught for 35 years. He also served as visiting professor at Columbia, Seton Hall, Tel Aviv University, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published five books, scores of scholarly articles in law journals, and dozens of blog length commentaries in outlets like The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, and The Algemeiner. His personal blog is seekingfairness.wordpress.com. He lives in Tel Aviv and in Hoboken, NJ.
The post Despite Congressional Testimony, Rutgers’ Reality Doesn’t Meet Its Aspirations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Mamdani Says He Will Discourage Use of ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ Reaffirms Commitment to Anti-Israel Movement
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
Facing mounting pressure from Jewish community leaders, business executives, and fellow Democrats, New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has moved to clarify his stance on the controversial slogan “globalize the intifada,” signaling he will discourage its use while continuing to back the broader anti-Israel movement it represents.
In a closed-door meeting this week with over 100 business leaders organized by the Partnership for New York City, Mamdani said he will not use the phrase himself and will urge allies to stop using it as well, attendees told multiple news outlets. The candidate, a democratic socialist and state assemblyman from Queens, emphasized that while the slogan has become a flashpoint, his commitment to the Palestinian movement remains unchanged.
The slogan, which gained traction at pro-Palestinian protests worldwide amid the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza, has been criticized by many Jewish New Yorkers who associate it with calls for violence against Jewish and Israeli civilians. “Intifada,” Arabic for “uprising,” is widely known from two bloody periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. Many observers have argued that calls to “globalize the intifada” will encourage activists to take up political violence worldwide, especially against the Jewish community and supporters of Israel.
“I heard from Jewish New Yorkers who told me that phrase brings up very real fear,” Mamdani reportedly said in the meeting. “That’s not the intention I want to convey.”
Nonetheless, Mamdani was clear that he does not view “globalize the intifada” as inherently violent. Instead, he said it symbolizes a transnational protest against what he calls Israeli “apartheid.” He described it as a call for political pressure, boycott movements, and international solidarity, not physical confrontation.
Last month, Mamdani defended the phrase “globalize the intifada” by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. In response, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum repudiated the mayoral candidate, calling his comments “outrageous and especially offensive to [Holocaust] survivors.”
Mamdani’s attempt to reframe the slogan has drawn mixed reactions. Some Democratic leaders have said the clarification doesn’t go far enough.
High-profile Democrats in the US Congress from New York such as Rep. Ritchie Torres, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have all urged Mamdani to condemn the slogan, arguing that the phrase has violent connotations.
New York City’s Jewish community, already alarmed by a rise in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, has expressed deep concern over Mamdani’s embrace of language they consider inflammatory. Leaders from groups such as the UJA-Federation and the Anti-Defamation League have called on him to unequivocally disavow the slogan.
Mamdani’s team has pushed back against claims that the phrase advocates violence, pointing to other progressive politicians who have used similar language in solidarity with Palestinian movements. In recent days, his campaign has worked to strike a more conciliatory tone, especially in conversations with Jewish leaders and the business elite.
During the private gathering, which reportedly included executives from Pfizer, Uber, major real estate firms, and banking institutions, Mamdani reiterated policy goals that have rattled the city’s corporate class: tax hikes on high earners, rent freezes, and public investment in city-run grocery stores. He also emphasized his opposition to police budget increases, while pledging to expand mental health crisis response programs as an alternative.
While many attendees remain skeptical of Mamdani’s politics, several expressed cautious optimism after the event.
Mamdani is expected to hold additional meetings with labor unions, faith groups, and small business owners in the coming weeks as he attempts to broaden his coalition ahead of November’s general election. With incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo both running as independents, the race remains hotly contested, although Mamdani is generally considered the frontrunner in the largely Democratic city.
The post Mamdani Says He Will Discourage Use of ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ Reaffirms Commitment to Anti-Israel Movement first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
AMIA Bombing: The Hate That Terrorized Jewish Argentines 31 Years Ago is Just as Present Today
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
This Friday, July 18, marks 31 years since an Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist drove a van packed with explosives into the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish Community Center building in Buenos Aires.
The attack murdered 85 people, and injured more than 300. Now, three decades later, the world still remains subject to the reach of Iranian-backed terrorism.
Just last month, as an American Jewish Committee (AJC) Project Interchange delegation of Consuls General was ending their visit to Israel, our group (including one of the authors of this op-ed, Brandon) abruptly received an alert: an Iranian-made Houthi missile was headed for our area and we needed to seek shelter immediately. Once the AJC group had returned from Israel, millions of Israelis were forced into bomb shelters as the Iranian regime launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at civilian targets across the country. Scenes of blown out and destroyed buildings, eerily reminiscent of the AMIA bombing, were once again seared into memory.
The other author of this op-ed, Jacques, is an Argentine Jew. For him, the AMIA bombing — and the ensuing decades long fight for justice — continues to hit close to home. The bombing shattered more than the AMIA building — it shattered the Argentine Jewish community and its sense of security.
Jacques’ family lived in fear that they too could be the next victims of terror. The AMIA bombing was the single worst act of terrorism against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, a distinction surpassed only by the Iranian regime-backed Hamas slaughter on October 7, 2023.
To this day, those who planned the AMIA bombing are still walking free. In 2024, in a long overdue step, Argentina’s highest federal court officially held the Iranian regime — the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism — responsible. While this is a key step toward accountability for the Iranian regime’s actions and justice for AMIA’s victims, there is still work to be done.
Following last month’s preemptive military action from both the United States and Israel against Iran’s nuclear program — a regime that has consistently declared, “Death to America, Death to Israel” — Argentine President Javier Milei offered a rare moment of moral clarity in an otherwise foggy global response. In declaring that Israel was “saving Western civilization,” he named what too many other leaders refuse to admit — that Iran’s terrorism knows no borders.
But missiles and bombs are not the only threats we face. As in the case of AMIA, the Iranian regime’s and Hezbollah’s activities started with calls to target Jews worldwide. Terror grows in atmospheres where antisemitism is abided.
In sensing the urgency to act to curb rising antisemitism, last year, on the eve of the 30th commemoration of the AMIA bombing, Buenos Aires hosted the signing of the new Global Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism, which to date has been signed by 36 countries, including the United States and Argentina.
The current global rise in antisemitism is especially alarming in the United States. While antisemitism has historically emerged from the far-right and far-left, it is the fusion of far-left ideology and Islamist rhetoric that has been driving much of the recent violence. Consider the recent D.C. shooting after an American Jewish Committee event outside the Capitol Jewish Museum, when the killer proclaimed, “I did it for Palestine” or the assailant in Boulder, Colorado, who threw Molotov cocktails at a rally of Jews calling for the release of the hostages while shouting, “End Zionists.”
Elected leaders must act and speak out with moral clarity – especially in New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. There were a record 345 reported antisemitic incidents in 2024 according to the NYPD, more than all incidents against other minority groups combined. And these were just the incidents that were officially reported.
These statistics are entirely unacceptable. Staying silent when antisemitic phrases like “globalize the intifada” are used — an expression that is nothing more than incitement — legitimizes violence. Suicide bombings were the defining feature of the Second Intifada — and of the AMIA bombing itself. It is no wonder that the Jewish community feels more apprehensive with this rhetoric.
Thirty-one years after the AMIA bombing, the lesson remains brutally clear: when terrorists are not prosecuted, they are emboldened. When hateful rhetoric is tolerated, violence follows. When antisemitism is qualified or grouped together with other forms of hate, the call to protect Jewish lives is cheapened. Words may not pull the trigger, but they load the gun.
In the absence of justice, terrorism reigns free without consequence. Silence is complicity. As citizens of the two countries with the largest Jewish populations in North America and South America respectively, we are calling on our neighbors, friends, and leaders to draw a clear line: there can be no tolerance for antisemitic hate, and no haven for those who preach or perpetrate violence on Jews.
The time to stand up is now.
Brandon Pinsker is the Associate Director of the American Jewish Committee office in New York.
Jacques Safra is a Board Member of AJC New York and AJC’s Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs (BILLA).
The post AMIA Bombing: The Hate That Terrorized Jewish Argentines 31 Years Ago is Just as Present Today first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
EU Rejects Sanctions on Israel Amid Diplomatic Battle, PA Condemns Decision as ‘Shocking and Disappointing’
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas speaks to the media as she arrives at the 5th EU-Southern Neighbourhood Ministerial meeting in Brussels, Belgium, July 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel welcomed the European Union’s decision not to pursue punitive action against the Jewish state over the war in Gaza, calling it “an important diplomatic victory” as some member states push to undermine Jerusalem’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in the war-torn enclave.
On Tuesday, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas announced that the bloc would not impose sanctions on Israel, following a meeting of EU foreign ministers to address the issue.
In a post on X, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised the news as the result of a “complex, grueling, and multi-front diplomatic battle.”
“The attempt to impose sanctions on a democratic country defending itself against efforts to destroy it is outrageous,” the top Israeli diplomat said, expressing gratitude to Israel’s allies in Europe who helped block the punitive measures.
ישראל עומדת מזה קרוב לשנתיים במערכה צבאית במספר חזיתות. אבל היא עומדת גם במערכה מדינית מורכבת, מפרכת ורבת חזיתות.
היום השגנו הישג מדיני חשוב כשעלה בידנו להדוף את כל סוגי הניסיונות האובססיביים של מספר מדינות לנקוט סנקציות נגד ישראל באיחוד האירופי. אותן מדינות לא הציעו, למשל,… pic.twitter.com/j4ivwv2WUF— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) July 15, 2025
Speaking at a press conference following the Brussels meeting, Kaja Kallas noted “positive signs” in Israel’s progress toward fulfilling last week’s agreement with the EU to increase humanitarian access to Gaza, while emphasizing that “more concrete steps” remain necessary.
The top EU diplomat stated that the bloc will carefully watch Israel’s execution of the agreement — which aims to open additional crossings, increase aid and food shipments, support critical infrastructure repairs, and protect aid workers.
According to Kallas, if Israel fails to follow through on the agreed measures, the bloc will reconsider imposing punitive actions against Jerusalem, with an update on its compliance to be presented at the next foreign ministers’ meeting in two weeks.
“We will keep these options on the table and stand ready to act,” Kallas said.
During this week’s meeting, the bloc discussed 10 potential measures against Israel over alleged violations of human rights commitments under the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state — such as suspending trade-related deals and imposing arms embargoes.
Despite efforts by some European countries to undermine Israel’s defensive campaign against Hamas in Gaza, there was not enough support within the EU to take any action, as Jerusalem still retains significant backing among member states.
In an interview with Euronews, the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, condemned the EU’s decision not to take action against Israel, describing it as “shocking and disappointing.”
“These violations have been unfolding in front of everybody’s eyes. The whole world has been seeing what is happening in Gaza. The killing. The atrocities, the war crimes, the weaponization of food, the killing of people queuing to get a pack of flour,” Shahin said.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, last month’s report builds on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by Kallas.
Last month, Ireland became the first European nation to push forward legislation banning trade with Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, an effort officials say is meant “to address the horrifying situation” in the Gaza Strip.
Ireland’s decision comes after a 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal.
The ICJ ruled that third countries must avoid trade or investment that supports “the illegal situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The post EU Rejects Sanctions on Israel Amid Diplomatic Battle, PA Condemns Decision as ‘Shocking and Disappointing’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.