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Hate Exploded Across College Campuses Surrounding the October 7 Anniversary

The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Columbia University, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, on April 25, 2024. Photo: Reuters Connect

October’s anti-Israel protests were focused on the tragic anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 massacres, and the Israeli response that began the now year-long war. Campus protests included student walkouts, building takeovers, and vandalism at numerous universities including Columbia UniversityPomona CollegeTufts University, the University of Virginia, and Princeton University.

At Concordia University, demonstrators were dispersed with tear gas after breaking windows of university buildings.

The homes of the University of Michigan president and Chief Information Office were also vandalized, as was the office of the Detroit Jewish Federation. McGill University canceled classes for October 7, apparently for fear of widespread celebrations of the Hamas massacre. In New York City a Jewish counterprotestor was assaulted as pro-Hamas protests spread across Manhattan.

Other October protests included the attempted blockade of the New York Stock Exchange by 200 Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) protestors, which resulted in arrests, the vandalizing of offices across Britain belonging to the asset management firm Allianz, as well as a factory making parts for F-35 jets.

Bomb threats were called into New York area synagogues on Rosh Hashanah, while antisemitic materials were distributed across the Detroit area. Protestors outside a Jewish cultural center in London chanted “Palestine Is Not Your Home” and accused participants in an October 7th event sponsored by Haaretz featuring both left wing Israeli and Palestinian speakers of being “genocide supporters.”

Attacks on Jews and Jewish sites were common in October. These included the vandalizing of a Chabad sukkah in Pittsburgh by two Muslims males who were then indicted by the US Justice Department. More serious were a New York City car ramming attack aimed at a visibly identifiable Jew on Yom Kippur and a Chicago area shooting of a Jewish male on Simchat Torah, also by Muslim males.

The campus and other protests have been underpinned by a variety of funding and organizing groups. One key group is Samidoun, which was sanctioned as a “sham charity” and front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) by the US Treasury Department in October. Canada jointly announced similar sanctions on the Vancouver-based organization.

Samidoun has provided training to and jointly sponsored campus and other protests with Within Our Lifetime, Palestine Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, and other anti-Israel and pro-Hamas organizations.

In addition to the aforementioned college protests, pro-Hamas vandalism was also noted at American UniversityGeorgetown UniversityBryn Mawr College, and the University of Pennsylvania, where signs were defaced with the words “Sinwar lives,” and where protestors later broke into a board of trustees meeting to shout their demands.

Anti-Israel protestors also disrupted a talk by George Washington University’s president during alumni weekend.

More ominous were statements from a variety of student groups in support of violence. A statement from Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and Columbia Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) said that they “support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.”

The school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter quoted dead Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s objectives “that Operation al-Aqsa Flood was launched with the objective to liberate Palestinian prisoners, the holy sites, and land of Palestine that has been occupied by the Zionist entity since 1948, in the context of the escalation of imperialist violence against Palestinians in scale and brutality over the past few years.”

The University of Michigan’s JVP chapter stated similarly that “Death to Israel is a moral imperative.” That posting was condemned by the university president, and was removed by Instagram.

number of SJP chapters also mourned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, while over 100 Columbia University clubs released a statement mourning Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Similar praise for Sinwar as a “leader, fighter, and martyr” was offered by other SJP chapters in the US, such as at John Jay College, which lauded Sinwar’s “life of honor,” as well as in Britain by numerous Arab and Muslim student groups.

A new target for anti-Israel protests in October were job fairs. Protestors at a variety of schools including Cornell UniversityTufts UniversityCase Western University, and the University of Massachusetts attempted to take over job fairs on the grounds that companies represented included “weapons manufacturers.” Protestors were removed from these and other events including at Temple University, where the Islamist group CAIR later alleged that police had removed a student’s hijab.

Despite the widespread failure to convince administrations or trustees to boycott Israel, student governments continue to support the concept of divestment.

The Rice University student government passed several referenda demanding divestment and condemning Israel. The University of Massachusetts student government passed a resolution reaffirming its support for divestment, as did a resolution by the University of California at Berkeley student government, and a student referendum at American University. Anti-Israel activists were also also permitted to make presentations to trustees at McMaster College.

Divestment was also supported by the Northwestern University graduate student union, and a poll of Columbia University engineering students. The City University of New York Graduate Center’s student government also passed a resolution barring purchase of any product “that support or benefit from the US-backed Israeli occupation of Palestine” including Starbucks and Israeli-produce. In contrast, the student government at Binghamton University overturned a BDS resolution that was adopted in 2023.

At the University of Michigan the student government had been taken over by BDS supporters who refused to fund any student clubs until the university divested from Israel. The university then funded clubs directly, which forced a petition to the student government which ended the crisis. The student government was then unsuccessfully petitioned to send its budget to Gaza universities. This move failed as well, and resulted in insults and death threats against opponents.

Strikes by graduate student unions as a means to protest university policies on Israel continue to emerge. A series of strikes by University of California graduate student unions were cut short by a court injunction for violating the terms of the union contract with the state.

Attacking Jewish organizations has become a formal strategy of pro-Hamas groups on and off campuses. The CAIR-backed Drop Hillel campaign, which claims to be Jewish run but which is fronted by National Students for Justice in Palestine and Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters, demands that Hillels be banned from campuses over their support for Israel.

The campaign has received attention at a variety of campuses including Duke University, claims that “Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes.” It claims further that Hillel is a lynchpin in campus harassment of anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian students and in Israel’s “racist and settler colonialist practices.”

A report by UCLA’s antisemitism task force has detailed the antisemitic harassment and violence that emerged after October 7th, which culminated in the spring encampment and subsequent riots. The report noted that Jewish students were harassed and then prohibited from entering parts of campus. Some 100 physical assaults were also recorded.

Finally, in an especially grotesque turn, anti-Zionist students erected a number of “Liberation Sukkahs” at a variety of universities including Columbia. Similar unauthorized installations at the University of California, BerkeleyBrown University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Northwestern University were dismantled by authorities, who were then accused of “antisemitism” by protestors.

The Hillel sukkah at Simmons University was vandalized with the words “Gaza Liberation Sukkah,” while the JVP chapter posted a note on social media stating,“This is not antisemitism. Drop Hillel.”

Faculty support for explicitly anti-Israel viewpoints is reflected in speaking invitations to pro-Hamas UN rapporteur and antisemite Francesca Albanese at Princeton UniversityBrown University, Barnard College, Georgetown University, and elsewhere. A talk on the October 7th massacre by Palestinian Christian theological Sari Ateek at Virginia Theological Seminary is another example of an invitation to a known Hamas supporter.

“Faculty for Justice in Palestine” chapters also have taken the lead in organizing campus protests. October examples include Columbia/Barnard calling for the boycott of local Harlem businesses, and the University of Pennsylvania’s joining an Indigenous Person’s Day protest and calling for the university to break ties with a local high tech firm.

Faculty leadership is also represented by efforts from the “International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network” to associate Zionism with ‘white supremacy.” These faculty are in turn members of various “critical studies” programs working to created anti-Israel and antisemitic K-12 curriculum.

In one example of an organized disruption, Harvard University faculty staged a silent demonstration in a university library in violation of new rules and in support of students who had similarly disrupted a library study area. In response, some two dozen faculty members had their library access temporarily restricted. Teaching staff at Simon Fraser University are voting on an Israel boycott resolution.

University responses to faculty provocations have been sporadic. In an extreme example, Muhlenberg College has fired a faculty member, Maura Finkelstein, who expressed support for Hamas and attacked “Zionists” on social media. One of the posts in question stated: “Do not cower to Zionists … Shame them. Do not welcome them in your spaces. Do not make them feel comfortable. Why should those genocide-loving fascists be treated any different than any other flat-out racist. Don’t normalize Zionism. Don’t normalize Zionists taking up space.”

While the terms of her firing have not been made fully clear by the college or by Finkelstein herself, her implicit threat to “Zionists,” which created a hostile teaching environment, may have played a role.

Elementary and secondary school teachers and their unions continue to be at the forefront of anti-Israel activism. In Seattle, a controversy emerged after it was revealed that the “Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference” included a number of anti-Israel presentations, including one by a well-known BDS supporter on “Incorporating K-12 Literature About Palestine — Preparing for False Allegations of AntiSemitism.”

Similar “social justice” teacher training was reported in Chicago, where a group offered sessions to promote “informed discussions on global issues, particularly settler colonialism, and we believe that addressing the complexities and misconceptions surrounding the Palestinian cause can contribute to promoting anti-racism and dismantling systems of oppression.”

The impact of pro-Hamas teacher training was evident even in the immediate aftermath of October 7, 2023 — when California teachers began to ask students, “What does Palestinian freedom mean to you?” and “How are you engaged with the Palestinian freedom struggle?”

The background of the immense anti-Israel bias that has been built into K-12 curriculum and teacher activities was partially explained by a new report that noted how the New York City Department of Education has allowed unions and foreign supported activist organizations to provide curriculum materials and teacher trainings.

Foreign entities including the American branch of the Qatar Foundation and local entities such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which is supported by Communist Chinese Party entities, are among those discussed.

In Los Angeles, Jewish teachers have filed a suit against the United Teachers Los Angeles union over dues that support anti-Israel activities. Since the union is the sole bargaining representative, union dues are automatically deducted from teachers’ salaries.

The suit details the pervasive anti-Israel activities undertaken under the union’s aegis before and after October 7, 2023, including advocacy for the racist Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. The union has now also voted to call for an arms embargo against Israel.

Jewish schools also continue to be targets for vandalism and other attacks. In Canada, shots were fired for the second time at a Jewish school.

The author is a contributor to SPME, where a significantly different version of this article first appeared.

The post Hate Exploded Across College Campuses Surrounding the October 7 Anniversary first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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