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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.
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Kosher Restaurant in Madrid Targeted in Arson Attempt
People demonstrate in the city of Santander, Spain, under the motto ‘Let’s stop the genocide in Gaza,’ on Jan. 20, 2024. Photo: Joaquin Gomez Sastre/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
A kosher restaurant in central Madrid was targeted in an attempted arson attack, prompting a police investigation, as Spain continues to face a rise in antisemitic incidents since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.
On Tuesday night, an unknown individual entered the Rimmon Kosher restaurant in the Spanish capital and “sprayed a liquid with a strong gasoline smell on the entrance, intending to set fire and burn down the premises,” according to a joint statement from the Jewish Community of Madrid (CJM) and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE).
Before the police arrived, the attacker fled the scene. However, the restaurant staff’s quick response prevented the fire from being lit.
In a press release on Wednesday, CJM and FCJE condemned the foiled attack as “an antisemitic act aimed at causing harm, targeting public spaces frequented by the Jewish community, and terrorizing its members.”
“This is an act driven by hatred, with a vile and brutal intent, that threatens coexistence, freedom, and tolerance — values that have always defined the citizens of Madrid,” the statement continued.
Comunicado de la Comunidad Judía de Madrid ante el intento de incendio del restaurante Rimmon Kosher de Madrid. pic.twitter.com/SESEm9J8ay
— Comunidad Judía de Madrid (@cjm_es) March 5, 2025
As of now, a police investigation is underway, with authorities focused on tracking down the perpetrator and determining the motive behind their actions.
“We hope the perpetrator’s identity will be determined soon and that this person will be arrested quickly,” CJM and FCJE addedt. “In the meantime, we are ready to cooperate with the authorities and the restaurant owners in any way needed.”
The Israeli Embassy in Spain also condemned Tuesday’s attack on the kosher restaurant, near the main synagogue, and expressed full support for the staff, owners, and customers of the establishment, as well as solidarity with the Jewish community of Madrid.
“We are facing yet another case that shows how hate-inciting rhetoric leads to violence,” the embassy posted on X/Twitter. “We fully trust that the authorities will act decisively to prevent violent and antisemitic incidents from recurring in Spain.”
La Embajada de Israel en España condena enérgicamente el ataque perpetrado contra un restaurante casher en Madrid, próximo a la sinagoga principal.
Expresamos nuestro total apoyo al personal, propietarios y clientes del establecimiento, así como nuestra solidaridad con la… pic.twitter.com/4jTqZLq6CH
— Israel en España
(@IsraelinSpain) March 5, 2025
Since Hamas started the Gaza war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Spain has been a fierce critic of the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Spain halted arms shipments from its own defense companies to Israel and launched a diplomatic campaign to curb the country’s military response. At the same time, several Spanish ministers in the country’s left-wing coalition government issued pro-Hamas statements and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with some falsely accusing Israel of “genocide.”
More recently, Spanish officials said they would not allow ships carrying arms for Israel to stop at its ports. In response, the US Federal Maritime Commission opened an investigation into whether Spain, a NATO ally, has been denying port entry to cargo vessels reportedly transporting US weapons to Jerusalem.
Additionally, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged other members of the European Union to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its military campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In May, Spain officially recognized a Palestinian state, claiming the move was accelerated by the Israel-Hamas war and would help foster a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials described the decision as a “reward for terrorism.”
The post Kosher Restaurant in Madrid Targeted in Arson Attempt first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Failure’: Larry Summers Slams Harvard University’s Response to Campus Antisemitism
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Former Harvard University president Larry Summers said on Monday that the administration’s response to campus antisemitism remains unsatisfactory, echoing the concerns of Jewish civil rights activists who continue to demand progress from the Ivy League institution.
“Harvard continues its failure to effectively address antisemitism,” Summers posted on the X/Twitter social media platform. “Despite [current Harvard president Alan Garber’s] clear and strong personal moral commitment, he has lacked the will and/or leverage to effect the necessary large-scale change, and the Corporation has been ineffectual.”
The Harvard Corporation is the university’s highest governing body.
Summers went on to list several outrages to which Harvard has subjected its Jewish and pro-Israel students and faculty during this academic year — including the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) holding a panel on Israel’s military actions against terrorist groups in Lebanon in which antisemitic tropes were promoted, Dean Marla Frederick’s denouncing Israel’s founding as the nakba, and the university’s antisemitism task force keeping a professor who has downplayed the severity of Jew-hatred on campus as one of its members.
Summers noted as well that Harvard’s antisemitism task force, which a US federal lawmaker accused of being a farce contrived to manipulate the public’s opinion of the university, has not yet issued a final report containing its findings or recommendations for new policies for dealing with the issue despite having convened over a year ago.
“It is by the way shocking, and I think outrageous, that months after Harvard’s abject failures after Oct. 7, the task force hasn’t even reached a conclusion,” Summers continued. “Nor is there yet a basis for confidence that disruptions will be met with disciplinary consequences, especially in a number of professional schools that are redoubts of the far left.”
Harvard continues its failure to effectively address antisemitism.
Despite President Garber’s clear and strong personal moral commitment, he has lacked the will and/or leverage to effect the necessary large scale change, and the Corporation has been ineffectual.
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) March 4, 2025
Summers’ statements come amid a challenging moment in the history of Harvard University, America’s oldest and arguably most prestigous institution of higher education. Since Hamas’s invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Harvard has seen its law school student government issue a resolution which falsely accused Israel of genocide; its students quote terrorists during an “Apartheid Week” event held in April; and dozens of its students and faculty participated in an illegal pro-Hamas encampment attended by members of a group that had shared an antisemitic cartoon. Additionally, many Harvard students openly cheered Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, which included sexual assault and child abduction, and a mob led by the president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review followed, surrounded, and intimidated a Jewish student, screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” into his ears.
After these incidents and more, Harvard fought tooth and nail to discredit lawsuits which alleged that its response to campus antisemitism amounted to the enabling of discriminatory behavior which violates federal civil rights law. Harvard eventually settled multiple complaints out of court, but at least one plaintiff, Harvard alumnus Shabbos Kestenbaum, refused to be a party to the agreements, arguing that they allowed the university to evade accountability for its alleged inaction.
Summers and Kestenbaum aren’t Harvard’s only critics in the Jewish community. On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a “Campus Report Card” in which Harvard’s antisemitism policies were given a “C” grade. ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement accompanying the report that every school assessed by the organization should have received an “A.”
“I said it last year, and I’ll say it again: every single campus should get an ‘A.’ This isn’t a high bar — this should be standard,” Greenblatt explained. “While many campuses have improved in ways that are encouraging and commendable, Jewish students still do not feel safe or included on too many campuses. The progress we’ve seen is evidence that change is possible — all university leaders should focus on addressing these very real challenges with real action.”
US President Donald Trump’s administration has vowed to crack down on campus antisemitism and pro-Hamas activity across the US.
In January, he issued a highly anticipated executive order aimed at combating campus antisemitism and holding pro-terror extremists accountable for the harassment of Jewish students, fulfilling a promise he made while campaigning for a second term in office.
Continuing work started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — the “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” The order also requires each government agency to write a report explaining how it can be of help in carrying out its enforcement.
Additionally, it initiates a full review of the explosion of campus antisemitism on US colleges across the country after Oct. 7, 2023, a convulsive moment in American history to which the previous presidential administration struggled to respond during the final year and a half of its tenure.
On Tuesday, Trump vowed to suspend federal funding to any educational institution that refuses to quell riotous demonstrations, a punitive measure which would fulfill his administration’s pledge to crack down on campus antisemitism and the pro-Hamas activists fostering it.
“All federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests,” Trump said in a statement posted on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2022. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”
He continued, “No masks! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Failure’: Larry Summers Slams Harvard University’s Response to Campus Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Second Australian Nurse Charged Over Viral Video Threatening to Kill Israeli Patients
Members of the Jewish community and supporters gather for a protest rally against rising antisemitism at Martin Place in Sydney, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: AAP Image/Steven Saphore via Reuters Connect
An Australian nurse working in a Sydney hospital has been arrested and charged after a viral video captured him making threats, stating he would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them.
This latest legal step comes as law enforcement works to combat a surge in antisemitic incidents across Australia, which the country’s spy chief has called his agency’s top priority.
After the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, several Jewish sites in Australia have been relentlessly targeted with vandalism and even arson, especially in the past few months. In response, a New South Wales (NSW) police task force, Strike Force Pearl, was established to address the wave of hate crimes and rising antisemitism.
On Tuesday night, 27-year-old Ahmed Rashid Nadir was arrested and charged with federal offenses, including using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offense, as well as possession of a prohibited drug, NSW Police said in a statement.
The arrest follows an incident at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney, in which Nadir and his fellow nurse, Sarah Abu Lebdeh, were seen in an online video posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements during a night-shift discussion with Israeli influencer Max Veifer.
The footage, which circulated widely, showed Lebdeh stating she would refuse to treat an Israeli patient and instead kill them, while Nadir used a throat-slitting gesture and claimed to have already killed many.
“It’s Palestine’s country, not your country, you piece of s—t,” Lebdeh told Veifer.
“One day your time will come, and you will die the most disgusting death,” she added in a sentence riddled with obscenities.
Last week, 26-year-old Lebdeh was arrested and charged with similar federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass, with a conviction potentially leading to up to 22 years in prison.
After reviewing patient records, the hospital found no evidence that Lebdeh or Nadir had harmed patients.
NSW’s Health Minister Ryan Park confirmed that both nurses had been suspended and would be permanently barred from employment within the state’s health system.
According to the NSW Police statement, both Lebdeh and Nadir were released on bail and are set to appear in court on March 19. Lebdeh has been prohibited from leaving Australia and using social media while her case proceeds.
The incident is one of the latest in a surge of antisemitic acts across Australia since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October 2023, with Jewish institutions targeted in arson attacks and businesses defaced.
Law enforcement in Sydney and Melbourne, home to the majority of Australia’s Jewish population, is actively investigating hate crimes, including the recent discovery of a trailer containing explosives and a list of potential Jewish targets.
Since the formation of Strike Force Pearl, the task force to combat antisemitism, in December, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb reported that 15 people have been arrested, and 78 charges have been filed.
“I must commend the work Strike Force Pearl detectives are doing to investigate, charge, and put these individuals before the courts,” Webb said in a statement. “There is a tremendous amount of dedication and hard work going into all these investigations.”
Last month, dozens of Australia’s leading Muslim groups and individuals defended the two nurses, accusing their critics of “hypocrisy” and “double standards and moral manipulation” in an open letter.
“This statement is not about defending inappropriate remarks. It is about pushing back against the double standards and moral manipulation at play while the mass killing of our brothers and sisters in Gaza is met with silence, dismissal, or complicity,” the letter said.
In response to the ongoing spike in antisemitism, Australia passed a new slate of hate crime laws last month which would, among other measures, imprison those who make terror threats or perform Nazi salutes.
In a Senate committee hearing last week, Mike Burgess, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), the country’s domestic intelligence agency, said that antisemitism is now the agency’s top priority.
“In terms of threats to life, [antisemitism is] my agency’s number one priority because of the weight of incidents we’re seeing play out in this country,” Burgess told the Senate. “Antisemitism and significant antisemitism acts are prominent in our investigation caseload at this point in time.”
In a recent 2025 threat assessment declassified by ASIO, Burgess warned that the surge in antisemitic attacks across Australia could escalate, as extremists are increasingly self-radicalizing and “choose their own adventure” toward potential terrorist activity.
“Threats transitioned from harassment and intimidation to specific targeting of Jewish communities, places of worship, and prominent figures,” he said. “I am concerned these attacks have not yet plateaued.”
The post Second Australian Nurse Charged Over Viral Video Threatening to Kill Israeli Patients first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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