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I knew students at my college were protesting Israel. I didn’t expect what they would say in class.
(JTA) — I am a non-religious, 20-year-old-Jewish student in New York City. I have not been to Israel since I was 9. I was raised in what you might call a “naturally occurring Jewish community”: Riverdale, in the Bronx. I attended Modern Orthodox schools through high school. Once I graduated, I left for Binghamton University, which boasts a massive Jewish community. It wasn’t until I transferred this fall to Hunter College, part of the City University of New York, that I left the Jewish bubble.
The last month has been the worst of my life. The horrors of Oct. 7 left me — along with my whole community — in a state of shock. While going through the videos and firsthand accounts, I couldn’t help but think about the losses yet to come: Hamas laid a trap so horrific that Israel would respond with overwhelming force. I knew there would be angry, difficult discourse in response. Sure enough, even before Israel launched retaliatory attacks, denial and outright celebration of the atrocities spread rampant online.
I was hoping to find more compassion in person. But I soon realized that if I expected to find it in one of my classes in the media department at Hunter, I’d come to the wrong place.
CUNY, a diverse public university system with 25 colleges spread across the city, has often been a hotbed for pro-Palestinian activism even as it has a deep Jewish history and many Jewish students today. Jews and pro-Israel activists, both inside and beyond the university, have complained that the school has tolerated expressions of antisemitism and anti-Zionism from faculty and students — allegations that led, in 2016, to a probe by the university.
On Monday, Oct. 16, I went to my Interview Techniques class. As an exercise, my teacher decided to record the lesson while he interviewed each of us in front of the class. He decided, perhaps not understanding the raw emotions of the week or perhaps because of them, to ask us about the Hamas attacks. Out of the eight students, I am the only Jew; the rest are Christian or not religious. What followed was a dialogue devoid of compassion for the perceptions of Israelis and Jews, or curiosity about the facts of the situation.
As tensions over this conflict rise on college campuses around the country, attention has largely gone toward protests, rallies and open letters. But the recording from my class illustrates a different frontier for Jewish students — discourse within the classroom. The quotes that follow are directly from the recording.
When the teacher asked, “How have you been following the news?” one student said they had been watching ABC and CNN. “It’s horrible … Just the devastation, especially in Palestine,” said the student. Another student added: “I don’t really like what’s going on in this war. I know it’s been going on for 75 years. I guess I see Palestine’s side more.”
“The Palestinian people?” asked the teacher.
“Yeah,” said the same student. “I don’t want to say I don’t understand the other side, but I understand the Palestinian side more.”
Later on, the conversation turned to the more than 200 Israelis taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7.
“Because of where I stand on this issue… I don’t think we should be bombing people’s homes to get the hostages,” said a third student. “I mean, me specifically, I don’t think Israel is a legitimate country. Let’s start from there. They are a colonial country.”
“What do you mean?” asked the teacher.
“Israel is not legitimate,” the student went on. “The U.N. placed them there. … They literally took people’s homes in order for them to be a country.”
According to the student, Jews had no claims on any part of the region when, in November 1947, the United Nations voted to divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states. “I mean, the U.N. did that for them,” said the same student. “And then they kept expanding and taking people’s homes and lives.”
No mention was made of the Arabs’ rejection of the partition plan, or the war they launched the following year to destroy the newly independent Jewish state.
“And the Hamas are reiterating… I mean, I don’t support terrorism but — there has always been conflict before Hamas bombed Israel. Palestinian lives have been lost for 75 years and no one cares. But then when they retaliate on Israel, suddenly it’s making headlines. That just doesn’t… I don’t know — the U.N. and every country in the U.N. partook in the taking of the land.”
When the same speaker was asked about the Holocaust, they dismissed any notion that it had proven a need for a Jewish refuge, or that the Hamas slaughter of Jews might trigger traumatic memories for Jews. “Israel being made may have something to do with the Holocaust, but I’m saying the Palestine and Israel war right now has nothing to do with the Holocaust,” they said.
Nine days after Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis in a single day of bloodshed, another student was ready to move on.
“This sounds like old news,” they said. “How did this all begin again? Didn’t they have a truce? The news shows Palestinians in here, in New York who are protesting the war, and they wore signs saying ‘Palestine’s not for sale.’ My guess is that might have something to do with why this whole thing started up again.”
“There was a massacre,” the teacher pointed out.
“Who massacred who?” asked the student.
“Don’t you have qualms with Hamas?” asked the teacher.
“No, I have no qualms about anything,” said the student.
“Don’t you know what Hamas did?” the teacher pressed.
“No,” said the student. “I have no idea.”
Later, it was my turn. “I am trying to do my breathing exercises, but I feel a bit attacked,” I explained. “I am not trying to fight anyone here. This is incredibly personal to me. It’s not you I am angry at, It’s the situation.”
What is not shown in the transcript are the dirty looks and fierce head shakes I received. One student sitting two seats to my left vigorously shook their head at everything I said. My one friend in the class remained silent. After attending a pro-Israel rally in front of the U.N. and posting about it on social media, the same friend was bombarded with condemnation. They got blocked by former friends and ghosted by others. After class, my friend told me they could no longer support Israel publicly from fear of losing more friends.
A few days later, at a protest of Hunter College students in the school’s courtyard, protesters cheered “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “Globalize the Intifada” and “It is right to rebel, Israel go to hell.” On the side, I ran into a friend from high school who was proudly wearing an Israeli flag. As I spoke to him, protesters took photos of us.
At the end of this terrible week, however, I had some reasons for hope. As I ate in the cafeteria, sobbing over the lack of human compassion, I saw a text saying that someone had set up a booth on the third floor of the main building with a sign reading “let’s talk about Hamas.” When I walked over to the booth, there sat my aforementioned friend from high school. On one side sat three Jewish students; on the other were five Muslim women wearing hijabs. Some people on both sides clearly just wanted to argue, but I just wanted to talk to people.
On the outskirts of the conversation, a Muslim woman said to one Jewish student, “I can’t talk with you until you answer: Is Israel doing a genocide?” My friend kept arguing with her, which clearly kept their conversation from going anywhere. I took a different approach by saying, “First of all, I feel so awful for the civilians in Gaza. This isn’t their war and they don’t deserve to be punished. I am sure there are radical racist Israelis who would love nothing more than to kill all Palestinians. I am not on their side at all, they don’t represent me or the vast majority of Jews and Israelis. I had been protesting Bibi my whole life. We all hate him. Neither side’s civilians are responsible for the radicals in their government.”
After this concession, our conversation continued for another couple of hours as we continued to explore common ground. The Muslim students talked about their hatred for all the Arab governments including those in Egypt, Lebanon and others. They recognized that the victims of the Oct. 7 attacks are not their enemy; they don’t bear responsibility for their government’s actions nor deserve to be punished for them. By the end, four Jews and five Muslims became friends by realizing our similarities outweigh our differences.
These weeks have taught me some difficult truths. Uninformed, incurious people can easily be radicalized past the point of human compassion. No groups are immune from blind rage: I have Jewish friends too who have forgotten empathy, who are blinded by our pain and can’t see the suffering and fear of other students; however, once we take our blindfolds off and see each other as humans, even the most treacherous field still has common ground.
—
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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.