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George Washington University Students Hold ‘Jewish Pride’ Rally as Pro-Hamas Encampment Remains on Campus
“Show Your Jewish Pride” rally at George Washington University G Street Park on May 2, 2024. Photo: Dion J. Pierre
Washington, DC — George Washington University (GW) was the stage of two dueling demonstrations on Thursday as Jewish students held a rally just a block away from the school’s pro-Hamas encampment, an illegal occupation of school property which has become an emblem of surging campus antisemitism in America.
“When Jewish students across the country are harassed — yelled at, spat on, concerned, and blocked from the very places they have a right to be — we respond with songs of hope and humanity, as a community,” GW senior Sabrina Soffer told a crowd of hundreds that gathered in blistering heat. “This is our defiance. We respond to slurs by mobs wishing our existence away by flying our flags high — tapestries of our past and present, our people and purpose.”
The rally, titled “Show Your Jewish Pride,” was a student-led initiative organized by a consortium of student groups, including GW for Israel (GWI), Students Supporting Israel (SSI), and the Jewish Students Association (JSA). Soffer, their principal leader and organizer, has appeared all over national media to spread awareness of rising antisemitism, and, last year, she delivered a soaring speech before hundreds of thousands of people at the March for Israel in Washington, DC.
Nearly a dozen speakers addressed the crowd on Thursday as Israeli and American flags rippled in the wind. One of them, Leat Corinne Unger, drove to Washington from New York to advocate the release of the more than 100 Israeli hostages still held captive in Gaza by the Hamas terrorist group. One of them is her cousin, Omer Shem Tov, who was abducted while attending the Nova Music Festival in Israel on Oct. 7.
“He is my cousin. He was 20 when he was kidnapped. He celebrated his 21st birthday three weeks into captivity, and it’s been 209 days since we last heard from him,” Unger told The Algemeiner during an interview. “It’s a nightmare that has lasted for 209 days. I hope that everyone will remember that we’re all fighting numerous battles on many fronts, but the most important priority is to bring our brothers and sisters home. I don’t think we can be whole, healed, and proud until they’re home. Even after Omer gets home, if there is anyone who is still there, I’m going to be fighting for them.”
Unger added that Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel upended her life.
“It changed me and put everything into perspective,” she continued. “I’m no longer a speech pathologist. I’m no longer a learning specialist. I’m no longer a director of a school. I’m now a full fledged advocate of my people.”
Since Oct. 7, antisemitic incidents have reached record levels around the world, including in the US and Europe.
Another speaker on Thursday, pro-Israel activist and social media influencer Lizzy Savetsky, told The Algemeiner that showing solidarity with Jewish students has become her life’s mission.
“I think this is the most important work that I could be doing right now,” she said. “Fighting antisemitism is overwhelming. It’s a global issue, but what we’re seeing on college campuses right now and the lack of protection and the lack of advocacy for Jewish students is shocking and extremely disturbing. So I just want to be there for them and let them know they’re not alone. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be a Jewish student on campus right now.”
Following the event, Savetsky resolved to walk through GW’s pro-Hamas encampment and invited The Algemeiner to join her. Wearing a t-shirt that said “Shalom” — which means “peace” in Hebrew and is often used as a greeting — she was promptly noticed by two protesters who proceeded to follow her every step while lodging accusations of anti-Palestinian racism. Others soon noticed her presence, and the mass of students and faculty erupted into chants of “Zionist go home!”
Savetsky was accompanied by Lauren Kagen, a social media director for the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC).
“What was most shocking was the presence of faculty,” Savetsky told The Algemeiner after the encounter. “This is supposed to be an educational institution, and how can Jewish students feel safe attending their classes when their professors are out there protesting against them? But I am so proud of our people and who we are. Our love will prevail over their hate, and seeing all of that just encourages me to keep on fighting.”
The Metropolitan Police Department has declined to help George Washington University remove the pro-Hamas encampment from campus, according to numerous reports. Republican lawmakers have called for the students to be arrested.
“They are in blatant violation of university policy, but we won’t be intimidated,” GW senior Skyler Sieradzky said.
GW has been one of many college campuses to be engulfed in the anti-Israel demonstrations that have swept across the country.
For over two weeks, university 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.
The protests initially erupted across the US but have since spread to university campuses around the world, primarily in the West. The Algemeiner has reported on how in many instances the faculty, rather than the students, have been the key forces driving the demonstrations and keeping university presidents on their heels.
The protests have erupted amid a surge in antisemitism on university campuses. In the months since Oct. 7, anti-Zionist activists inspired by Hamas’ barbarity have bullied and even assaulted Jewish students while demanding that colleges implement a full boycott of Israel — an action that would purge schools of Jews and Zionists, experts have told The Algemeiner. According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents on college campus rose 321 percent in 2023, disrupting the academic lives of Jewish students and leaving them uncertain about the fate of the American Jewish community.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Hamas Terrorists Admit Israeli Hostages Held at Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital
Ahmad Kahalot, a senior Hamas member and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, speaking to Israeli interrogators. Photo: Screenshot
Israeli hostages were held in Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, a new report citing terrorists’ confessions revealed this week.
The discovery followed an Israeli raid that uncovered a sprawling network of terrorists operating within the hospital’s walls, leading to the detention of over 240 Hamas terrorists, some of whom — including a senior commander who attempted to evade capture by posing as a patient with a broken arm — admitted that the facility was used as a base for Hamas operations.
The hospital, which is located in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, was used to hide terrorists at different times, Fox News Digital said in a report published on Tuesday. According to captured terrorist Anas Muhammad Faiz al-Sharif, the hospital was seen as a “a safe haven for them because the [Israeli] military cannot directly target it.”
Gonen Ben Itzhak, former spy handler for Mosab Yousef, the son of Hamas’s co-founder who became an informant for Israel, said the news came as no surprise, noting that international aid organizations were “complicit in war crimes carried out under the cover of those criticizing Israel.”
“Hamas’s reign of terror in Gaza has led to the fact that all government systems in the Strip, as well as civilian systems, are subordinate to Hamas and have an affiliation with Hamas,” the Shin Bet agent turned lawyer and activist told The Algemeiner.
During last month’s raid, Israeli forces uncovered that its director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was actively complicit in Hamas’s terrorist activities. As interrogations of detainees progressed, it became clear that Abu Safiya was more than just a passive observer — he was a key figure in facilitating Hamas operations. Despite his involvement in the group’s actions, an international campaign has emerged since then to call for his release, a movement spurred by his media appearances throughout the war.
“We realized that the person at the heart of it all, the one organizing the terrorism and Hamas activities within the compound, was the hospital director himself,” Lt. (res.) D., a field investigator in military intelligence, told Israel’s Channel 12 news. “The world must understand that there is close and clear cooperation between the medical team and the senior leadership of the terrorist organization: they cynically exploit our desire to avoid harming the helpless and use the medical platform to establish a base for terrorism.”
Terrorists inside the facility reportedly distributed grenades, mortars, and equipment for ambushing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops. “The [terrorist] operatives were there, transporting equipment and weapons like AK-47s … and pistols,” Faiz al-Sharif said, confirming that “the weapons were transferred to and from the hospital.”
Lt. D also reported becoming suspicious of a man posing as an injured patient during a routine check at the hospital’s ambulance platform. Upon questioning, the man gave a false name and ID, claiming to have been injured days earlier. But, the cast on his arm appeared freshly applied, raising the IDF investigator’s doubts. The investigator would later learn that he was a senior Hamas commander who had been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel and was still running terror operations until the day of his capture.
“During the interrogation, [the terrorist] confessed that the doctor sitting next to him had faked the cast to help him escape in a humanitarian aid ambulance. He explained Hamas’s strategy, saying they know there’s little chance the IDF will interrogate wounded individuals being evacuated for medical treatment, so he tried to exploit the opportunity to flee,” Lt. D told Channel 12.
Ben Itzhak blasted international aid organizations, including UNRWA and the Red Cross, for serving as a facade enabling terrorist operations in Gaza.
“The international organizations bear responsibility for war crimes committed by Hamas against Israel, against the Israeli hostages, and also against the poor residents of Gaza,” he told The Algemeiner.
“They allowed Hamas to trample on international law and use civilian infrastructure: kindergartens, schools, clinics, and hospitals as military headquarters … dragging Israel into military activity that is perceived by the world, in the eyes of those who are not familiar with the cruel reality of Gaza, as war crimes.”
The hospital’s ties to terrorism run deep and are longstanding, starting with its very name. Kamal Adwan, for whom the facility is named, was a Palestinian Fatah operative responsible for attacks in Nahariya and Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market before being killed by the IDF in 1973.
Last month’s raid wasn’t the first on the hospital. On Dec. 12, 2023, around 90 people were detained, including its then director, Ahmed Kahlout. The IDF at the time released a video of his interrogation, in which he described how Hamas used the hospital as a base for Hamas operations. Its ambulances were used to transport terrorists and even Israeli hostages, Kahlout said.
Kahlout revealed that he was recruited into Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and received military training. He also said that other staff members, including doctors, nurses, and paramedics, were part of Hamas’s military network. Kahlout called Hamas leaders “cowards” and blamed them for the suffering, saying, “They ruined us,” hinting that his involvement may not have been entirely voluntary. He was later released, but according to Palestinian media reports, was killed by an Israeli drone in November.
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Half of Americans Can’t Name a Single Nazi Concentration Camp, New Survey on Holocaust Knowledge Finds
The sign “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”) is pictured at the main gate of the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland. Photo: Reuters/Pawel Ulatowski
Basic knowledge of the Holocaust is lacking in eight countries surveyed by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), but a majority of respondents believe a similar genocide could happen again.
The Claims Conference, a nonprofit organization that secures material compensation for Holocaust survivors and their heirs around the world, on Thursday released the results of an eight-country survey investigating Holocaust knowledge across the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Romania.
Researchers found large gaps in education about the Nazis’ mass murder of 6 million Jews during World War II, including among young people. They also discovered significant concerns that an event like the Holocaust could happen again, with 76 percent of respondents in the United States saying a similar genocide could occur today. These numbers dropped to 69 percent in the UK, 63 percent in France, 62 percent in Austria, 61 percent in Germany, 54 percent in Poland, 52 percent in Hungary, and 44 percent in Romania.
In the United States, 48 percent of those surveyed could not name a single concentration camp used by the Nazi regime to imprison and murder Jews during World War II — including Auschwitz, the largest and most infamous of the Nazi camps. This figure fell to about 25 percent of those answering in the UK, France, and Romania. In Germany and Hungary, this level of ignorance reached 18 percent, while in Austria it hit 10 percent and in Poland it stood at 7 percent.
The survey also found that many respondents did not know that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews. The number of people believing that 2 million or fewer Jews died reached 28 percent in Romania, 27 percent in Hungary, 24 percent in Poland, 20 percent in the UK and 18 percent in Germany. In France, the US, and Austria, 21 percent of respondents expressed ignorance about the total death count.
Among those aged 18-29, the survey found disbelief in the official number of Jews murdered. Among Romanian youth, 53 percent agreed that the Holocaust happened but that the numbers killed have been greatly exaggerated. Researchers found lower numbers in the other countries: 22 percent in Hungary, 33 percent in France, 14 percent in Poland, 21 percent in Austria, 13 percent in Germany, 15 percent in the US, and 11 percent in the UK.
A significant number of young adults in the same age range said they had not heard of the Holocaust. The figures stood at 46 percent in France, 15 percent in Romania, 14 percent in Austria, and 12 percent in Germany. A striking 20 percent of French adults overall said that they had not heard or weren’t sure if they had heard of the Holocaust prior to taking the survey.
Many respondents regardless of age also reported seeing Holocaust denial or saying that such sentiments proliferated in their countries. Hungarians (45 percent) and Americans (44 percent) were those most likely to report that Holocaust denial was common in their countries, while 38 percent of French, 34 percent of Germans, 27 percent of Austrians, 24 percent in the UK, 24 percent of Romanians, and 20 percent of Poles agreed.
Large numbers also described encountering Holocaust denial or distortion on social media, with the highest levels in Poland, where 47 percent of respondents answered “yes.” The number dropped in Austria (38 percent), Hungary (38 percent), Germany (37 percent), the US (33 percent), Romania (25 percent), the UK (23 percent), and France (20 percent).
“The alarming gaps in knowledge, particularly among younger generations, highlight an urgent need for more effective Holocaust education. The fact that a significant number of adults cannot identify basic facts — such as the 6 million Jews who perished — is deeply concerning,” Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference, said in a statement. “Equally troubling is the widespread belief that something like the Holocaust could happen again, underscoring the critical importance of educating people about the consequences of unchecked hatred and bigotry.”
Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, warned that “with the Holocaust survivor population rapidly declining, we are at a critical and irreversible crossroads. Survivors, our most powerful educators, will not be with us much longer — and this Index is a stark warning that without urgent and sustained action, the history and lessons of the Holocaust risk slipping into obscurity.”
The study showed that support for Holocaust education remained high, with 90 percent or more saying it was important: 96 percent in the US and Poland, 94 percent in the UK and Germany, 93 percent in France and Romania, 91 percent in Hungary, and 90 percent in Austria.
Respondents also broadly supported Holocaust education in schools, with the US coming in highest at 95 percent. Numbers dropped in the European countries surveyed. Support for teaching students about the Holocaust stood at 93 percent in Poland, 92 percent in the UK, 91 percent in France, 88 percent in Hungary, 87 percent in Germany, 84 percent in Austria, and 78 percent in Romania.
“As we continue to delve into these surveys and understand better where Holocaust education is working and where it requires attention, it is powerful to see that a majority of all people polled across all countries in this index not only agree that Holocaust education is important, but want to continue teaching the Holocaust in schools,” said Matthew Bronfman, who led the Index Taskforce. “Now our task is clear; we must take this mandate and make it happen.”
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New York Man Pleads Guilty to Hate Crime for Antisemitic Vandalism in Front of Jewish Center
Illustrative: “Free Palestine” graffiti on display in downtown Chicago, Oct. 21, 2023. Photo: Reuters/Alexandra Buxbaum
A man from Long Island, New York pleaded guilty on Thursday to Criminal Mischief in the Fourth Degree as a Hate Crime, a felony, for spray-painting antisemitic phrases on fences and in front of a local Jewish center earlier this year.
In April, Sebastian Patino Caceres, 23, spray-painted “Free Palestine” on the sidewalk in front of the East Meadow Beth-El Jewish Center in East Meadow, New York, according to LongIsland.com, which reported the guilty plea. He also spray-painted “Zionism is Nazism,” “Stop the Genocide,” “Free Palestine,” and “F—k Israel” on fences in front of homes.
Caceres’s plea deal will require him to undergo six months of anti-bias training, 100 community service hours, and a guided tour of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center in Glen Cove, New York. If he does so then his sentence will be reduced to three years of probation and a misdemeanor. A failure to do so would result in the felony charge remaining and five years of probation.
“My prosecutors held this defendant responsible for his offensive actions with this plea to a felony hate crime today, but with the understanding that punitive measures alone will not stop this intolerant behavior,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a statement. “It is through education and awareness that we can teach defendants about the gravity of their words and actions, change minds, promote kindness and compassion, and heal communities. This defendant has been given the opportunity to learn and grow from this criminal conduct.”
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