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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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Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says
A closed Israeli military gate stands near Ramallah in the West Bank, February 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after Arab ministers planning to attend were stopped from coming.
The move, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government announced one of the largest expansions of settlements in the West Bank in years, underlined escalating tensions over the issue of international recognition of a future Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, that is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Israel fiercely opposes.
The delegation of senior Arab officials due to visit Ramallah – including the Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Bahraini foreign ministers – postponed the visit after “Israel’s obstruction of it,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the block was “a clear breach of Israel’s obligations as an occupying force.”
The ministers required Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had delayed a planned trip to the West Bank.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”
Palestinians want the West Bank territory, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of a future state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
But the area is now criss-crossed with settlements that have squeezed some 3 million Palestinians into pockets increasingly cut off from each other though a network of military checkpoints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the announcement this week of 22 new settlements in the West Bank was an “historic moment” for settlements and “a clear message to Macron.” He said recognition of a Palestinian state would be “thrown into the dustbin of history.”
The post Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Armed men hijacked dozens of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip overnight and hundreds of desperate Palestinians joined in to take supplies, local aid groups said on Saturday as officials waited for Hamas to respond to the latest ceasefire proposals.
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close but Hamas has said it is still studying the latest proposals from his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the proposals.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
On Saturday, the Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war began 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
At the same time, a separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on the social media platform X.
NO BREAD IN WEEKS
The World Food Program said it brought 77 trucks carrying flour into Gaza overnight and early on Saturday and all of them were stopped on the way, with food taken by hungry people.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” it said in a statement.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Overnight on Saturday, he said trucks had been stopped by armed groups near Khan Younis as they were headed towards a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and hundreds of desperate people had carried off supplies.
“We could understand that some are driven by hunger and starvation, some may not have eaten bread in several weeks, but we can’t understand armed looting, and it is not acceptable at all,” he said.
Israel says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
The post Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Hamas said on Saturday it was seeking amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable.”
The Palestinian terrorist group said it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. But Hamas reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions Israel has rejected.
A Hamas official described the group’s response to the proposals from Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “positive” but said it was seeking some amendments. The official did not elaborate on the changes being sought by the group.
“This response aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas. Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to the Hamas statement.
Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.
Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close after the latest proposals, and the White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the terms.
Saying he had received Hamas’ response, Witkoff wrote in a posting on X: “It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief on May 13, confirming what Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
The Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said on Saturday it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Program trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement.
‘A MOCKERY’
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on X.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
A separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
Hamas denies looting supplies and has executed a number of suspected looters.
The post Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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