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Harvard University Pauses West Bank Program With Birzeit University
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
Harvard University has paused a partnership with a higher education institution located in the West Bank, an area administered by Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA).
According to a report by The Harvard Crimson, Birzeit University will not, among other things, receive Harvard’s co-sponsorship of a “Palestine Medical Course” held on its campus due to “safety concerns of having Harvard students study in the West Bank.” This is the second change to the arrangement with Birzeit, as the course had already been transplanted to Amman, the capital city of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The Crimson added that the decision to put the Harvard-Birzeit partnership into abeyance followed from an internal investigation of Harvard’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB), the institution directly affiliated with Birzeit. It is not clear what ultimately caused Harvard to discontinue the arrangement, but it is a move for which prominent members of the Harvard community and federal lawmakers have clamored before, The Crimson noted.
“There are some issues that should be complicated. Why can’t Harvard immediately dissolve its partnership with Birzeit University?” former Harvard president Larry Summers wrote on the X social media platform in July 2024. His post came on the heels of a letter in which over two dozen Republican members of Congress said that Harvard’s partnership with Birzeit was “extremely concerning” given alleged pro-Hamas sentiment expressed by the school’s student government.
“The university also has had a policy of barring Israeli Jews from campus. Shockingly, following the Oct. 7 attack, Birzeit University posted, ‘Glory for martyrs, recovery for wounded ones, and freedom for the captives.’ This type of behavior stands in direct opposition to the values Harvard claims to uphold,” the lawmakers wrote, led by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a rising star in the GOP whose nomination for United Nations Ambassador was pulled by President Donald Trump to protect his party’s majority in Congress.
Harvard University has rejected accusations that it harbors antisemites and supporters of jihadist terrorists since its students cheered Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in southern Israel, in which the terrorist group murdered, sexually assaulted, and abducted Israeli civilians.
Over the next year and a half, the university saw its students and faculty quote terrorists, share antisemitic cartoons, and illegally occupy sections of campus they refused to surrender unless Harvard initiated a boycott of Israel. The new Trump administration has placed the school in its crosshairs even as it takes steps to downsize, and potentially shutter, the government agency charged with investigating it.
Earlier this month, the Department of Education added Harvard University to a list of colleges and universities it will investigate for possible civil rights violations stemming from their alleged failure to address campus antisemitism. In announcing the action, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said, “Jewish students studying on elite campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year.”
Meanwhile, Harvard has recently taken steps to allay concerns that it welcomes pro-Hamas extremists. It recently fired a librarian whom someone filmed ripping posters of the Bibas children, two babies murdered in captivity by Hamas, off a kiosk in Harvard Yard. Following the incident, which became a viral sensation on social media, Harvard diversity and inclusion officer Sherri A. Charleston denounced the perpetrator’s behavior as “hateful” and a violation of “the university and community values that unite us.”
In January, Harvard settled an antisemitism lawsuit it had initially fought to discredit, and in so doing pledged to “strengthen our policies, systems, and operations to combat antisemitism and all forms of hate.”
Per the agreement, Harvard will apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to its non-discrimination and anti-bullying policies (NDAB), recognize the centrality of Zionism to Jewish identity, and explicitly state that targeting and individual on the basis of their Zionism constitutes a violation of school rules.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
The post Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
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