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Elite Universities Deliver Ultimatum to Anti-Israel Demonstrators as School Year Draws to a Close

A drone view shows a pro-Hamas encampment at Harvard University where students protest in support of Palestinians, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, April 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

The presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have formally told anti-Israel protesters that they will be suspended from school if they refuse to end unauthorized demonstrations in which sections of campus have been commandeered and occupied for the past two weeks, according to statements issued on Monday.

“The continuation of the encampment presents a significant risk to the educational environment of the university,” interim Harvard president Alan Garber said in a note to the school community. “Those who participate or perpetuate its continuation will be referred for involuntary leave from their schools. Among other implications, students placed on involuntary leave may not be able to sit for exams, may not continue to reside in Harvard housing, and must cease to be present on campus until reinstated.”

Garber noted that students residing in tents on Harvard Yard — a collection of structures that has been described as an “encampment” — has forced the rescheduling of exams and disrupted the academic lives of those who have continued doing their homework and studying for final exams, responsibilities that the protesters have seemingly abdicated.

“There are many ways for our community to engage constructively in reasoned discussion of complex issues, but initiating these difficult and crucial conversations does not require, or justify, interfering with the educational environment and Harvard’s academic mission,” Garber continued. “Our disagreements are most effectively addressed through candid, constructive dialogue, building not on disruption, but on facts and reason.”

MIT delivered a similar ultimatum to anti-Zionist protesters there, even promising not to severely discipline students against whom the school has already filed disciplinary charges if they leave by 2:30 pm. That deadline expired and, according to the Daily Wire, the protesters formed a human chain and resolved to continue on.

“You must swipe you ID as you leave the encampment, and we will keep on file the stamp from your exit swipe showing you departed by 2:30 pm,” MIT chancellor Melissa Nobles said in a school-wide notice. “For those who do not leave the encampment voluntarily by 2:30 pm … if you either have been sanctioned by COD [the Committee on Discipline] or have a pending COD case related to events since Oct. 7 but choose to stay in the encampment past the deadline, you will be placed on an immediate interim full suspension lasting at least through [MIT] commencement activities, and you will be referred to the COD.”

Nobles continued, “This means you will be prohibited from participating in any academic activities — including classes, exams, or research — for the remainder of the semester. You will also not be permitted to reside in your assigned residence hall or use MIT dining halls.”

As the deadline approached, the pro-Hamas activists shouted “We are intifada,” according to numerous reports, while officers reportedly dressed in riot gear arrived at the scene. Further reports indicated that the encampment was later dissolved without issue.

“Looks like this worked! Encampment being cleared out as we speak!” MIT student Talia Khan tweeted. “These folks will be suspended according to MIT.”

Khan later told The Algemeiner: “I hope MIT goes through with their promised suspensions.”

At Harvard, some faculty have encouraged students to remain non-compliant with Garber’s directive. Remarks of Professor Walter Johnson — whose anti-Zionist faculty group posted an antisemitic cartoon on social media in February — surfaced on X/Twitter after its publishing in which he accused the university of deception.

“There’s no room for reasoned discussion about this action!” Johnson bellowed while amplifying his voice with a megaphone. “If Harvard will not disclose its investments in the occupied territories, in the Israeli military, and in Gaza it does not make sense to repeat the words ‘civil discourse and reasoned interchange.’ It does not make sense to repeat the word ‘veritas!’”

For nearly three weeks, college students have been amassing in the hundreds at a growing number of schools, taking over sections of campuses by setting up “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and refusing to leave unless administrators condemn and boycott Israel. Footage of the protests has shown demonstrators chanting in support of Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus. In many cases, activists have also lambasted the US and Western civilization more broadly.

On many campuses — including George Washington University in Washington, DC, New York University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, and University of Southern California, among others — members of the faculty have attached themselves to demonstrations, encouraging students to support terrorism, antisemitism, and further violent convulsions aimed at overthrowing the US government.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Elite Universities Deliver Ultimatum to Anti-Israel Demonstrators as School Year Draws to a Close first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Holocaust Survivor Marian Turski Dies Aged 98

Marian Turski speaks on the occasion of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw, Poland, April 19, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Holocaust survivor Marian Turski, who became a journalist in Poland and headed an international committee of Auschwitz survivors, has died at the age of 98, said the Polish weekly magazine Polityka, where he worked as a columnist.

In an article on Tuesday announcing Turski‘s death, Polityka described him as “an exceptional guardian of memory, an outstanding man whose voice was heard all over the world.”

Born as Moshe Turbowicz on June 26, 1926, in Druskieniki, in what is now Lithuania, Turski was sent to the Lodz ghetto at the age of 14.

In 1944 he was transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, where both his father and brother died.

In 1945 he survived two death marches, firstly from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany, and then from Buchenwald to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by the Soviet Red Army.

More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in gas chambers or from starvation, cold, and disease at Auschwitz, where most had been brought in freight wagons, packed like livestock.

After World War Two Turski lived in Lower Silesia, southern Poland, before moving to Warsaw, where he worked as a historian and journalist. He started working at Polityka in 1958 and was the author of several books.

He was made an honorary citizen of Warsaw in 2018, in part as recognition for his work in setting up the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in the city.

In January, Turski gave a speech at the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in which he warned against rising antisemitism.

“We see in the modern world today a great increase in antisemitism, and it was antisemitism that led to the Holocaust,” he said.

“Let us not be afraid to convince ourselves that we can solve problems between neighbors.”

Over 3 million of Poland’s 3.3 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.

In all, between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically killed 6 million Jews across German-occupied Europe, along with gypsies, sexual minorities, disabled people, and others who offended Nazi ideas of racial superiority.

The post Holocaust Survivor Marian Turski Dies Aged 98 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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My Message to Donald Trump: The Jews Need You

US President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room at the White House in Washington, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis

What happens when the past starts to look dangerously like the present? The hate my family fled in the Soviet Union is back, not just in distant countries but in my city, on social media, and even in the political discourse of this country.

My ancestors didn’t survive oppression by being passive. In the Soviet Union, they fought to preserve their identity, even when being Jewish was a crime. Synagogues were destroyed, Hebrew was banned, and Jewish people were persecuted in every aspect of life. Yet, they kept their faith and traditions alive, passing them down secretly, risking everything to do so.

They weren’t just surviving — they were resisting. And that resistance is part of the reason I’m here today.

But now, in 2025, the same struggle is back: the slurs on the subway walls, the antisemitic graffiti at parks, the casual hate directed at Israel. It’s not just words, it’s a message: Jews don’t belong.

After the October 7th Hamas massacre, we saw a spike in antisemitic incidents, and the climate is growing more hostile. This isn’t some far-off problem; it’s here in America, and it’s escalating.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House makes the need for action even more straightforward. Under the Biden administration, antisemitism surged, and yet the response was mostly silence or half-hearted condemnations. Jewish communities were left exposed as attacks increased. This can’t continue.

We need leadership that takes direct, meaningful action to combat antisemitism — not just when it makes headlines, but every day. Now back in office, Trump has the responsibility to prioritize this fight. His words and actions will shape the future of our country, and it’s time to show authentic leadership by actively protecting Jewish communities.

Antisemitism has become normalized in many spaces, and it’s not something we can hope will fade. We need policies that protect Jewish people, enforce stronger laws, and educate against hate speech. This is about more than just rhetoric. It’s about taking action that ensures we are not targeted simply for being who we are.

I hear the slurs, see the symbols, and witness the spread of harmful stereotypes, often with no consequences. Whenever I speak up, it feels like I’m fighting an uphill battle. But I’m not alone.

This is part of a larger fight. We need leaders, not just in my school or community, but in the White House, who will stand against hate and take tangible steps to protect us.

The responsibility to fight antisemitism can’t fall solely on students or Jewish communities — those in power must take it up. President Trump, this is your moment. Do not let this crisis go unaddressed. If you genuinely want to leave a legacy of strength, act now. Make fighting antisemitism a priority.

We must ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. The stakes are too high. We cannot afford to wait for another crisis to occur. If you want to be remembered for more than just words, show the courage to lead the fight against antisemitism.

The writer is a high school student from Great Neck, New York, passionate about advocacy and government. Through his writing and activism, he engages others in meaningful conversations about US politics, international relations, and Israel’s significance as both a homeland for the Jewish people and a key ally of the United States

The post My Message to Donald Trump: The Jews Need You first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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CBS’ Margaret Brennan Said ‘Free Speech’ Enabled the Holocaust; She Has No Idea What She’s Talking About

People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki

It was bad enough when Whoopi Goldberg of The View infamously said the Holocaust was not about race. On Sunday, Margaret Brennan of CBS’ Face The Nation interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio. During the interview, Brennan said, “free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide” in Nazi Germany.

Was it freedom of the press when Nazis shut down the Munich Post, which for a decade had been warning against Hitler and covered the suspicious death of his niece? What about all of Hitler’s critics and enemies — why would they have to flee if there was free speech?

What an actual dictator does is close down free speech to maintain groupthink. Brennan embarrassed herself using the buzzword of “weaponizing” without understanding its meaning, or the fact that it was a lack of freedom of the press that was weaponized to help Hitler conduct a genocide.

In March 1933, Hitler passed the Enabling Act and, in his speech, said that “the entire educational system, the theatre, the cinema, literature, the Press and the wireless, all these very things will be used as a means to this end and valued accordingly. They must all serve for the maintenance of the eternal values present in the essential character of the people.”

So now that we established as of 1933 there was no freedom of the press, how could Brennan claim a “weaponization” of free press caused a genocide? Perhaps, she has no idea of what she is talking about, and she should make an on-air apology if she has not already.

I would not expect that she or Goldberg would have read a book called Mein Kampf. But Hitler wrote: “Again and again our Jewish press has known how to concentrate special hatred on England, and many a good German simpleton has fallen into the Jewish snare with the greatest willingness, drooled about ‘strengthening’ German sea power, protested against the rape of our colonies, recommended their reconquest, and thus helped furnish the material which the Jewish scoundrel could pass on to his fellow Jews in England for practical propogandist use.”

Perhaps Brennan could educate herself by watching a film or play about Sophie Scholl and the White Rose members. Scholl and her compatriots were executed for handing out pamphlets that called for resistance. They declared Hitler was a liar. She was 21 when she was executed. Strange, I don’t see any students today being executed for free speech.

Such reports on national news networks assume that the general public has little knowledge of the Holocaust, which is sadly true. If anyone is weaponizing anything, it is Brennan using scare tactics to try to compare modern day political figures to Hitler, which is a tough comparison to make considering no American leaders have advocated for Jews to be eliminated, whereas Hitler used that terminology and hatred from the very beginning.

Be skeptical any time you hear the phrase “weaponized.” Many podcasts and anti-Israel speakers have tried to ignore antisemitism by saying it is being “weaponized” by Jews. You may also hear that Jews “weaponized” the Holocaust to create the state of Israel.

If Jews, after seeing the horrible genocide, understood the need for a Jewish state — and the countries of the United Nations voted for establishment of Israel due to the savagery of the Holocaust — that is called understanding the consequences of events. It is not called weaponization.

The author is a writer based in New York.

The post CBS’ Margaret Brennan Said ‘Free Speech’ Enabled the Holocaust; She Has No Idea What She’s Talking About first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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