One of two US aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the Middle East in part to deter Iran from carrying out a threatened attack against Israel has departed the region, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

The decision to end the dual-carrier presence came nearly three weeks after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group to remain in the Middle East, even after the arrival of the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to replace it.

The Roosevelt has now departed the Middle East and is headed to the Asia-Pacific region, Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told a news briefing.

Austin’s order for the Roosevelt to stay in place came on Aug. 25, as Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel and Israel‘s military said it struck Lebanon with around 100 jets to thwart a larger attack, in one of the biggest clashes in more than 10 months of border warfare.

Officials have been concerned that Iran might make also good on its threats to carry out an attack against Israel over the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran in July.

Ryder played down the idea that the United States was no longer concerned about potential Iranian action and said the decision was based on the Navy’s fleet management.

“Iran has indicated that they want to retaliate against Israel. And so we’re going to continue to take that threat very seriously,” Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon.

Iran has vowed a severe response to the July killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which took place as he visited Tehran and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has been seeking to limit the fallout from the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, now approaching its one-year anniversary. The conflict has leveled huge swathes of Gaza, triggered border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group and drawn in Yemen’s Houthis.

“We remain intensely focused on working with regional partners to de-escalate tensions and deterring a wider regional conflict,” Ryder said.

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Protests also occurred at multiple screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The post Toronto police charge three people at UJA event protest—while more cops find themselves assaulted appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

State University of New York (SUNY) Purchase president Milagros Peña will leave office at the end of this academic year, ending a four-year tenure that was derailed by pro-Hamas demonstrations on the campus.

According to The Journal News, Peña announced her “retirement” in a letter to the campus community and further discussed the decision at a convocation event held earlier this month.

“After considerable reflection and discussion about what is best for me and my family, I informed Chancellor [John B. King, Jr.] over the summer that this 2024-2025 academic year will be my last year as president,” Peña wrote, according to excerpts of the letter shared by the local news outlet. “I have mixed emotions about my decision to retire as president after the spring semester, because, though we still face challenges as a community, we have accomplished a great deal together and our shared mission of providing access to a high quality, transformative public education is as important as ever.”

Appointed to office 2020, Peña became a target of far-left faculty last academic year when she authorized the clearing of an illegal “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” which, the school’s newspaper reported at the time, led to clashes between law enforcement and pro-Hamas students who refused to obey orders to leave the area. An estimated 70 students were arrested, The Phoenix Purchase has said, and at least one professor was detained for obstructing justice.

However, Peña was inconsistent as a policy maker. In an account of her responses to campus antisemitism published by The Algemeiner on Wednesday, SUNY Purchase alumna Esti Heller said the president ignored numerous supplications for increased security for Jewish life on campus after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Peña was unresponsive, even after someone vandalized an Israeli flag and desecrated a sukkah, a hut built for the Jewish festival of Sukkot. Later, Peña reversed course in her handling of the pro-Hamas protesters, Heller said, acceding to their demands for “ethical investing,” amnesty for students charged with violating the code of conduct, and public disclosure of the school’s financial decisions.

Ultimately, Peña lost a no-confidence vote on June 3 in which 87 percent of the voting faculty called for her to leave office.

“While disappointed by the resolution, I am committed to continuing to take part in conversations with stakeholders on and off campus about many of the issues raised and look forward to engaging with the faculty, staff, and students about our shared goals and the best way of moving forward as a community,” Peña told the Purchase following the vote.

Now, three months later, Peña has granted faculty their wish, becoming the third university president in New York State this year to leave office after being criticized for mismanaging a series of crises, antisemitic incidents, and riotous demonstrations. Last month, Minouche Shafik resigned as president of Columbia University after her administration’s credibility crumbled amid revelations of antisemitic conversations between administrators and a partisan investigation of a pro-Israel professor. In May, Cornell University president Martha Pollack resigned after weeks of convulsive protests and disruptions on campus caused by mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty.

In Wednesday’s announcement, Peña pledged to make her final months in office productive.

“We still have a lot to do before I step away, and I look forward to working together to ensure that Purchase College continues to thrive,” she said. “While there are challenges ahead, I feel confident that we have the flexibility, the skills, and the determination to continue to provide an excellent education for our students and to make progress as an institution that is continually evolving, while safeguarding our community and living up to our values during this extraordinary time.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post SUNY Purchase President Steps Down Amid Backlash Over Handling of Anti-Israel Protests, Campus Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.