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How Anti-Zionist Faculty Captured a University of California Campus and What It Means for the Future of Jews in America
“Let’s make it clear – zionism is not welcome on our campus” read a recent Instagram message, which was followed by raised fist and Palestinian flag emojis.
At first blush, this posting appeared to be one more bullet in the barrage of vitriolic hatred and harassment aimed by anti-Zionist students groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Israel’s supporters on campus, especially Jewish students, in the aftermath of Hamas’ genocidal attack on Israel last fall.
But that’s not the case. The above message shunning the campus presence of Zionism — and by obvious extension, Zionists, which the vast majority of Jews identify as — wasn’t authored by students at all.
Rather, it came from their professors — more than 100 of them — founders of a Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC).
Let that sink in. A large group of faculty at one of the finest public university systems in the world is using a popular social media platform to proclaim the modern-day equivalent of the ubiquitous Nazi-era slogan “Juden sind hier unerwünscht” (“Jews are not wanted here”).
Even more chilling is the fact that the faculty group’s message was part of a larger post urging their colleagues and students to attend an on-campus “March Against Zionism” organized by an allied anti-Zionist student group, whose goal was “to make it clear that the racist settler-colonial ideology of zionism is not welcome on this campus!”
Like the student brownshirts in the early 1930s, who vilified and bullied Jewish students and professors until they were completely purged from German universities, the student organizers of the faculty-supported “March Against Zionism” threatened to — and actually did — disrupt a Jewish student gathering and harass its participants.
Much ink has been spilled discussing the explosion of antisemitic harassment on college campuses nationwide since October 7, with a lot of it describing the outsized role played by anti-Zionist student groups like SJP. However, a recent study conducted by my organization of the anti-Zionist activism of faculty at the University of California found that they play a crucial role in fomenting campus antisemitism, and nowhere is that more obvious than at UC Santa Cruz.
In fact, if one wants to understand how antisemitism could engulf US campuses at warp speed after the Hamas attack, one need look no further than UCSC and the faculty group that has committed itself to purging Zionism and Zionists from campus and collaborates with anti-Zionist student groups to get the job done.
Like its nine sister campuses and nearly 100 campuses across the country, UCSC became home to a chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine, or FJP, after the Hamas attack. Established in response to a call from the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), FJP chapters are intended to provide support for student groups like SJP and to engage them and their fellow faculty in advancing the implementation of an academic boycott of Israel (the academic arm of the BDS movement) on their campuses.
USACBI’s overarching goal is combating “the normalization of Israel in the global academy.” To that end, the organization’s guidelines call for boycotting educational programs in or about Israel, and canceling or shutting down pro-Israel events and activities; encourage academic programming and campus events that portray Israel in a wholly negative light, as a pariah state unworthy of normalization; and condone the denigration, protest, and exclusion of pro-Israel individuals on campus. All of these academic BDS-associated activities have had a devastating impact on students and faculty who want to study in or about Israel, or who identify with the Jewish State.
FJP’s anti-Zionist impact and the resulting harms have played out in two distinct campus arenas.
First, in its collaboration with SJP and similar student groups, FJP has amplified the students’ anti-Zionist messaging and activity, and given them academic legitimacy. For instance, FJP at UCSC was co-sponsor of an SJP-authored BDS resolution that passed overwhelmingly at a student senate meeting, during which Jewish students who opposed the resolution were prevented from speaking, heckled, and harassed.
Afterwards, the faculty group celebrated the resolution’s passage by posting a message stating: “Major congrats to y’all, and to every other UC student body that has voted to divest in recent weeks. WE KEEP GOING UNTIL PALESTINE IS FREE!”. UCSC’s FJP has also used its clout to protect anti-Zionist students from being prosecuted for abusive behavior, as when it joined in a statement calling on the UC Regents to drop charges against students who had unlawfully disrupted a Regents meeting with demands for the University to boycott Israel.
Second, FJP’s mutually beneficial collaborations with academic departments have significantly strengthened the anti-Zionist reach and impact of both FJP and the individual departments with which the group collaborates. Consider, for example, that it was academic BDS-supporting leaders of UCSC’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department who founded the campus FJP chapter, that more than 60% of CRES’ principal faculty are members of the faculty group, and that an invitation to join FJP and help “organize for Palestine” has been prominently displayed on CRES’ departmental homepage since November. It’s therefore not surprising that CRES has become a primary beneficiary of the group’s political muscle in its time of need.
As documented in a recent report by my organization, CRES’ extensive use of departmental resources for anti-Zionist activism — including helping to establish and support an institute whose mission is to dismantle Zionism, publishing statements and hosting educational events blaming Israel for Hamas’ October 7 massacre, shutting down the department as part of a “global strike” against Israel, and much more — has raised significant concern among the UC Regents. Although CRES’ use of departmental resources for political activism is in violation of university policy and state law, UCSC administrators have been unwilling or unable to stop them. As a way of addressing the problem, the Regents have been deliberating over a policy prohibiting departments like CRES from using their university website for making political statements. Although it only deals with one small part of the problem, the proposed policy is a step in the right direction. And yet, for CRES and other politically motivated and directed departments, it is a step too far.
In an effort to thwart any attempt to limit their anti-Zionist activism, CRES and other UCSC anti-Zionist faculty deputized FJP to help spearhead an academic senate resolution calling on the administration to defend the faculty’s “right” to continue engaging in political advocacy (which they euphemistically call “public scholarship”), and to resist any attempt by the UC Regents to stop them. The UCSC faculty’s overwhelming support for the resolution now makes it virtually impossible for their administration to challenge CRES or other faculty whose anti-Zionist activism violates university policy or state law.
Think about it: Within a few short months, a faculty group that takes its marching orders from a nationally-coordinated campaign to rid US campuses of Zionism and Zionists has enabled the ideological capture of its institution by anti-Zionist faculty, and effectively neutralized administrative attempts to stop it.
The only hope of derailing this out-of-control train lies with the UC President and Regents, who have the authority to hold campus administrators accountable for not enforcing university regulations and the law. If UC leaders are unwilling or unable to exercise their authority, it won’t be long before the University of California, and in short order universities across the country, become wholly inhospitable and unsafe for their Jewish members, echoing the darkest chapters of Jewish history.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is the director of AMCHA Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to combating antisemitism at colleges and universities in the United States. She was a faculty member at the University of California Santa Cruz for 20 years.
The post How Anti-Zionist Faculty Captured a University of California Campus and What It Means for the Future of Jews in America first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.