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For Ousted UPenn President Liz Magill, Backlash Over Campus Antisemitism Response Long Predated Oct. 7
Then-University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill testifies before a US congressional committee in a hearing titled ‘Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism’ on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Dec. 5, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
Elizabeth Magill was under fire from all sides before her widely reported resignation as president of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) on Saturday.
For weeks, Magill was roundly criticized for refusing to cancel an anti-Zionist festival hosted on Penn’s campus that featured speakers accused of antisemitism. Then two Jewish students filed a lawsuit accusing the university of refusing to punish harassment and intimidation of Jewish students. And after repeatedly failing last Tuesday to tell a US congressional committee whether calling for the genocide of Jews constituted a violation of Penn’s code of conduct, a major donor threatened to rescind a $100 million gift if she remained on the job.
“It is a context-dependent decision,” Magill told the lawmaker who posed the question. “If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment, yes.”
“Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide?” US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) asked, visibly disturbed by Magill’s answer. “The speech is not harassment? This is unacceptable Ms. Magill.”
The comments stunned the committee and the country, garnering millions of views on social media and causing many observers to wonder why the leader of one of America’s most prestigious institutions of higher education would not, amid a historic surge in antisemitism across the West, not outright condemn anti-Jewish hate.
Magill had several previous opportunities throughout her tenure to denounce hateful, even conspiratorial, rhetoric directed at both Israel and the Jewish community. However, Magill repeatedly declined to respond to the mounting incidents of antisemitism, especially anti-Zionism, on campus, according to an analysis by The Algemeiner of public statements she had issued since July 2022, when she assumed the presidency at Penn.
“Israel is a settler colonial state that uses apartheid to further its ethnic cleansing agenda,” said an essay by Penn Against the Occupation (POA) that was included in the 2022-2023 edition of the Penn Disorientation Guide, a symposium of essays published annually by upperclassmen. It was issued just weeks after Magill started on the job.
“It is time to end the way our school helps to perpetrate human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and organize around divesting from Israel,” the essay continued. “Here’s what you should know about divestment, a popular movement to fight for equality for Palestinians.”
POA went on to charge the university with numerous offenses: Penn “normalizes ties with the occupation” by hosting the Perspectives Fellowship, a program the school’s Hillel chapter founded to educate students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by taking them on a trip to Israel, as well as Gaza and the West Bank. Penn’s support of Birthright, which sends Jewish students to Israel, “turns a blind eye to the crimes of the Israeli occupation.” Both programs, POA said, “frame the Zionist colonial entity in a positive light.”
Later that semester, after campus police arrested radical student environmentalists for staging an unauthorized protest on school grounds, POA said in an Instagram post that “arresting peaceful protesters is a staple of policing in both the United States and in Israeli-Occupied Palestine.” The group drew a link between the world’s continued dependence on fossil fuels to Israel, saying, “We urge Penn not only to divest from all fossil fuel companies but divest from companies that profit from Israeli apartheid, many of which are one in the same … policies of forced displacement, from Palestine to the UC townhomes in Philadelphia, are all modern-day practices of settler colonialism.”
Neither Magill nor the university responded to the apparent accusation that the Jewish state, conspiring with the US, has caused climate change and colonized both Americans and Palestinians.
The next month, on Nov. 6, POA held a screening of Gaza Fights for Freedom “with snacks provided” in Penn’s Van Pelt Library. The film rationalizes the terrorist acts committed during the Palestinian intifadas against Israel and features a clip of an interview with Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Al-Zahar, who can be heard saying, “We run effective self-defense by all means including using guns.”
The film was directed by Abby Martin, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and a former host on the Russian-funded media network RT America. Martin, who has compared Israel to Nazi Germany, reposted on social media posts that celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
In March of this year, POA hosted Mohammed El-Kurd during its “Israeli Apartheid Week.” Currently a columnist for the magazine The Nation, the 25-year-old El-Kurd has trafficked in antisemitic tropes, demonized Zionism, and falsely accused Israelis of eating the organs of Palestinians.
In July, POA’s latest contribution to the Penn Disorientation Guide called Israel “a Western proxy,” “another settler colonial state,” and, comparing Israel to South Africa during apartheid, said that only “Israeli Jews” have freedom. It made no mention of Arabs living freely in Israel and participating in government.
“Just like Penn was complicit in supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa, history repeats itself in Penn’s support of the Israeli apartheid regime,” the group charged. “We ask students to speak up about the colonization of Palestine.”
The Algemeiner reviewed statements Magill issued during her tenure. In that time, only once did she comment on issues of race and identity, addressing in June the US Supreme Court’s restricting of race-conscious admissions programs through affirmative action. Up to that point, her public statements were limited to discussing climate change and marginal university business.
Magill did not address rising antisemitism at Penn until Sept. 12, when reports emerged of a scheduled anti-Zionist gathering on campus featuring speakers who promoted antisemitic conspiracies and violence against Israel. The “Palestine Writes Literature Festival” took place on campus from Sept. 22-24.
The event’s itinerary listed speakers such as Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta, who previously said during an interview that “Jews were hated in Europe because they played a role in the destruction of the economy in some of the countries, so they would hate them.” Former Pink Floyd vocalist Roger Waters was also invited to the event. A recent documentary exposed several of Waters’ inflammatory antisemitic statements.
“We unequivocally — and emphatically — condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values,” Magill said in a statement at the time cosigned by two other high-level school officials. “As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission. This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.”
Despite mounting pressure from alumni, the campus Jewish community, and outside activists, Magill declined to condemn or cancel the event, citing the importance of free speech on campus. In October, in the aftermath of the Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7, she apologized for not condemning the event.
By the time Magill appeared before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Dec. 5, anti-Israel protests at the university amid the Israel-Hamas war had descended into demagoguery and intimidation of Jewish students, as activists berated pro-Israel counter-protesters for condemning Hamas’ Oct. 7 onslaught.
For roughly seven hours on Oct. 17, protesters walked back and forth across Penn’s grounds chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a slogan widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of Israel, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The demonstrators also chanted “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide, we caught you in genocide.”
At one point, during a gathering of the protesters in front of the Van Pelt Dietrich Library, a high school senior — referred to as “MJ,” who attends the Specialized Science Academy in Philadelphia — was invited to speak. He accused Israel of genocide and harassed others in the area, according to students who witnessed his remarks.
“The Israeli Jew has bastardized Judaism! Bastardized it! Trampled on it! How could you let this genocidal regime crap all over your God and your religion like this?” the speaker said, according to footage posted by POA and seen by The Algemeiner. “How can you, as a people who have seen the same amount of oppression in the past, stand by the same genocidal tactics, and lies, and methods that they use on our people? How could you stand for that? Look at you — you’re not even looking at this direction. You’re scared. You’re scared of being wrong.”
Addressing Jewish students who were standing nearby, he concluded: “I hope you sh—t when you go on your bed tonight. I hope your dreams are filled with the horrors of dead Palestinian babies, burned Palestinian children, dead Palestinian women, a hundred square miles, leveled. I hope this scorches your brain. I hope you are terrified of this, because you should be.”
Magill responded to those protests by condemning hate speech. In fact, most of her statements since June have been about rising unrest on campus over surging antisemitism and heated demonstrations over the conflict in Gaza. In November, she announced Penn’s Action Plan to Combat Antisemitism, calling anti-Jewish hatred an “evil.”
To Magill’s growing detractors, however, it was too little too late, especially after her comments to Congress last week.
“It has been my privilege to serve as president of this remarkable institution,” Magill said in her final statement to the Penn community. “It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members to advance Penn’s vital missions.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post For Ousted UPenn President Liz Magill, Backlash Over Campus Antisemitism Response Long Predated Oct. 7 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation

A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’

Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
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.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
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 bloody rampage 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.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says

Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.