Connect with us

RSS

How College Campuses Became Bastions of Extremism and Intolerance

Solidarity encampment at Columbia University, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Photo:

The 2023-2024 academic year will be remembered for its inept university presidents, antisemitic college deans, fringe left activist professors, and gullible, pro-Hamas students.

Collectively and individually, especially at the Nation’s top schools, they have twisted to the breaking point the carefully-curated reputations of their institutions. Across the country, campus sympathy has shifted from the victims to the perpetrators of terrorism. College students are waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, and chanting their praise for Yahya Sinwar.

To specialists who follow the problems of Middle East studies, the displays on college campuses after October 7 were not surprising. But to the majority who do not follow the ins and outs of academic politics, watching college students and faculty members align themselves with political violence in the name of “resistance,” celebrate the murder of Israelis, and call for a “global Intifada” had many Americans questioning whether the results of a college education are worth the cost — and not just in dollars.

On one level, academic brands are merchandizing tools — bumper stickers and clothing displaying school mascots and logos. More importantly, though, is the intangible dimension of the academic brand — one part reputation, pointing to the past, and one part promise, pointing to the future. Universities with storied histories promise that their past success will be repeated with future success.

At the nation’s top schools, brands are focused on exclusivity. Only a very small percentage of students can attend these elite institutions. If the people who run them don’t appear to be the smartest, most impressive and erudite people in the nation, the brand suffers. Claudine Gay lost her job as president of Harvard because of the damage she did to the brand.

Academia could not have been brainwashed without Middle East studies programs and their leaders in the embattled Middle East Studies Association (MESA). Together, they are largely responsible for academia’s realignment against Israel and in favor of Palestinian “resistance.”

They are also responsible for much of last year’s academic brand deterioration. The more prominent the Middle East program at any given school, the greater damage to that school’s reputation.

Since the 1980s, academia has been dominated by leftists, many of whom view the US negatively and elevate America’s adversaries to heroic status. David Rapoport argues that, for many on the left, “When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the PLO replaced the Viet Cong as the heroic model.” For today’s campus radicals, Hamas has replaced the PLO as the heroic model.

Middle East studies professors have spent the last several decades supporting academic boycotts of Israel, excusing or downplaying Palestinian violence, and “normalizing” Hamas.

They have dedicated their energies and expertise to creating a language that justifies “resistance” against “settler-colonial empires.”

MESA and the Middle East studies professors who control the profession lead by example, demonstrating how they expect their students to think and write and behave. Too many accept political violence by Palestinians as a form of “social justice” and expect their easily-influenced students to do likewise. After all, they also control how or if graduates have access to the job market.

In 1993, one of those professors at the University of California, Berkeley, founded the most virulent of all the student protest groups — Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

SJP is a leading vector of the antisemitism eroding academia. It published a “Toolkit for Resistance” on October 8th that provided the template for the first wave of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests and continues to be the most significant instigator of campus unrest. Schools that have an SJP chapter have protest problems. Most schools that don’t have an SJP chapter don’t have protest problems.

Schools that do not have an SJP chapter should do everything possible to prevent one from being established. Fordham University is the biggest winner in this category, since it didn’t allow an SJP chapter to take root on its campus.

Because Ivy League schools represent the top brands in academia, they also have the most to lose. Partly because of its location, Columbia has become the epicenter of anti-Israel protests. Consequently, its brand degradation has captured a great deal of media attention. Not surprisingly, Columbia is also a leader in the Palestinization of academia. Its Center for Palestine Studies, founded in 2010, employs ideologues like Joseph Massad and Rashid Khalidi, the former PLO spokesman.

The Columbia brand suffered a damaging blow when Judge Matthew Solomson of the US Court of Federal Claims announced in The Wall Street Journal that he and dozens of his colleagues will not hire law clerks from Columbia.

The new academic year began at Columbia with protests continuing, followed by news that the university had hired one of the pro-Hamas protesters who took over Hamilton Hall in April, to teach a class on Western Civilization.

Brown University has also suffered self-inflicted brand erosion, almost as long as Columbia. In 2020, it endowed the first ever chair for Palestinian studies at an American university, naming it the Mahmoud Darwish Chair, and installing a BDS-supporter.

Harvard was the first school to have its brand tarnished in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 massacre of civilians. On October 8, a group of 31 student organizations issued a joint statement blaming Israel for the attack. They gathered on campus to have their photo taken, which subsequently went “viral.” It was the first of several devastating blows Harvard’s brand suffered last year. Another came when hedge fund billionaire and Harvard alum Bill Ackman announced that he would no longer hire graduates from his alma mater.

Now that the 2024-2025 academic year has begun, anti-Israel protests have resumed at some schools. Minus the tents, Columbia today looks like it did last year. Further brand erosion continues apace.

After enduring months of pro-Hamas encampments, Brown president Christina Paxon acquiesced to the undergraduate mob with a deal that brought temporary peace in return for entertaining student demands for divestment from Israel. Brown’s Advisory Committee on University Resources is scheduled to provide Paxon “with a recommendation on the matter of divestment by September 30, 2024.” If Paxon doesn’t make more concessions, expect more trouble. If she does make more concessions, the troubles may be worse.

Like Brown, Harvard too brought an end to its encampment problem by agreeing to discuss divesting from Israel. How long will that ceasefire last?

The administrations at these schools may think they have solved their problems, but by taking the demands of the students seriously, they have only emboldened them.

Not only are these administrators failing to convince most people that they are the most capable and wise among us; they are failing to demonstrate that they are competent stewards of the brands they inherited.

How soon until the majority concurs with William F. Buckley’s 1961 quip that he “would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Cambridge telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty”?

Chief Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) Political Correspondent A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is also a Milstein fellow. A different version of this article was originally published at IPT.

The post How College Campuses Became Bastions of Extremism and Intolerance first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

IDF Denies Troops Fired on Civilians After Incidents of Settler Violence

Illustrative. Israeli troops during counterterrorism activity in Tulkarem, northwestern Samaria, September 2024. Photo: IDF.

i24 NewsThe IDF released a statement after an incident during which Israeli soldiers opened fire on Israeli civilians in the West Bank on Saturday night, denying that the trooped fired live ammunition.

This comes at the heels of arson incidents by settlers against Palestinian villages, with clashes breaking out. The IDF said that its soldiers had come under attack on Friday as they entered the area of Kafr Malik, the site of the disturbances, by Israeli civilians. “The undermining of the rule of law and the use of violence by a radical minority harm security and stability in the area.”

The IDF later said that “an initial investigation indicates that IDF forces did not fire live ammunition at Israeli civilians in the area. It should be clarified that the battalion commander’s force operating in the Baal Hatzor area of the Binyamin brigade did not fire live ammunition at all.” On the other hand, the civilians claimed this was false, posting a video that showed shell casings on the ground right next to where the troops were deployed.

Meanwhile, the police requested the remand of six individuals, two of whom are minors, to be extended in connection with the incident.

The IDF later said that, “in another area within the sector, stones were thrown at a military vehicle near the site of the clash by masked individuals from an ambush. The force responded with a warning shot of three bullets.” A possible connection “between this incident and the claim that an Israeli civilian was injured by live fire” is being investigated.

After the incidents late last week, the IDF issued an unusual directive for soldiers to exercise special vigilance and also prepare for scenarios involving nationalist incidents perpetrated by Israeli citizens. The directive was issued after a military vehicle was set on fire inside a Jewish settlement, the tires of an armored David vehicle were punctured, and a community policing caravan near the community of Beit El was also set on fire.

“The security establishment system is highly alert,” a security official told i24NEWS. “We are seeing an escalation on the ground – and if you cannot leave a military vehicle in a Jewish community without it being burned in the sector, it is a sign that the situation is dangerous.”

The post IDF Denies Troops Fired on Civilians After Incidents of Settler Violence first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Israel Orders Evacuations in Northern Gaza as Trump Calls for War to End

US President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony of Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

The Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas in northern Gaza on Sunday before intensified fighting against Hamas, as US President Donald Trump called for an end to the war amid renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire.

“Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold talks later in the day on the progress of Israel’s offensive. A senior security official said the military will tell him the campaign is close to reaching its objectives, and warn that expanding fighting to new areas in Gaza may endanger the remaining Israeli hostages.

But in a statement posted on X and text messages sent to many residents, the military urged people in northern parts of the enclave to head south towards the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which Israel designated as a humanitarian area. Palestinian and U.N. officials say nowhere in Gaza is safe.

“The (Israeli) Defense Forces is operating with extreme force in these areas, and these military operations will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city center to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations,” the military said.

The evacuation order covered the Jabalia area and most Gaza City districts. Medics and residents said the Israeli army’s bombardments escalated in the early hours in Jabalia, destroying several houses and killing at least six people.

At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, relatives arrived to pay their respects to white-shrouded bodies before they are buried.

“A month ago, they (Israel) told us to go to Al-Mawasi (in Khan Younis) and we stayed there for a month, it is a safe zone,” said Zeyad Abu Marouf. He said three of his children were killed and a fourth was wounded in the Israeli airstrike.

“We ask God and the Arabs to move and end this occupation and the injustice taking place against us,” Abu Marouf told Reuters.

NEW CEASEFIRE PUSH

The military escalation comes as Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, begin a new ceasefire effort to halt the 20-month-old conflict and secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages still being held by Hamas.

Interest in resolving the Gaza conflict has heightened following US and Israeli bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

There has also been rising concern over how aid is being distributed to Gazans in the ruined enclave. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed over the past month in the vicinity of areas where food was being handed out, local hospitals and officials have said.

A Hamas official told Reuters the group had informed the mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks, but reaffirmed the group’s outstanding demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal territory.

Hamas has said it is willing to free remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive, only in a deal that will end the war. Israel says it can only end the war if Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.

The post Israel Orders Evacuations in Northern Gaza as Trump Calls for War to End first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Russia Launches Largest Drone Attack Yet Against Ukraine, Kills F-16 Pilot

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

i24 NewsUkraine’s Air Force said that Russia launched 537 drones and missiles against targets throughout Ukraine overnight between Saturday and Sunday, in what what described as the largest attack of the war.

Poland activated aerial defenses and scrambled jets as the six-hour onslaught continued. One Ukrainian F-16 pilot was killed as Kyiv attempted to intercept the missiles and drones, with 475 shot down.

“Tragically, while repelling the attack, our F-16 pilot, Maksym Ustymenko, died. Today, he destroyed seven aerial targets,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Ustymenko did everything possible, but his jet was damaged and started losing altitude,” the air force said, as quoted in Politico. “He died like a hero!”

The cities of Cherkasy, Lviv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Kyiv were targeted.

The Russia attack came after Ukraine attacked the Kirovske airfield in the Crimean Peninsula, targeting air defenses, drones, and even destroying several helicopters and an air defense system.

The post Russia Launches Largest Drone Attack Yet Against Ukraine, Kills F-16 Pilot first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News