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Jewish Leaders Discuss Campus Antisemitism, Trump Deportation Policy at US Senate
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas students rally at the encampment for Gaza set up at George Washington University students. Washington, DC, April 25, 2024. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect
Jewish civil rights advocates, faith leaders, and academics appeared as witnesses for a US Senate committee hearing on Thursday to discuss the ongoing campus antisemitism crisis and the Trump administration’s recent crackdown on anti-Zionist activity, a subject that has sparked a hotly contested debate on civil liberties and the limits of academic freedom.
Held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, the hearing came on the heels of a policy offensive in which the Trump administration has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants to Ivy League schools accused of ignoring antisemitic discrimination, created a federal inter-agency task force on antisemitism, and ordered the deportation of anti-Zionist students and faculty who are accused of providing material support to Hamas and participating in other seditious activities.
“Educational institutions are not public streets or sidewalks, and students need not be permitted to engage in expressive activity wherever, whenever, and however they wish — for example, including by wearing masks to conceal their identities — especially when such allowances ultimately contribute to the creation of hostile educational environments,” Carly Gammill, legal policy director at StandWithUs, told the committee, making the case for regulating utterances of campus speech and assembly which undermine Jewish students’ civil rights to a college education free from discrimination.
Other speakers included Rabbi Levi Shemtov of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), Rabbi David Saperstein of Religious Action Center of Reform, and Kenneth S. Stern, director of Bard College’s Center for the Study of Hate.
“Antisemitism is not just an age-old prejudice, it is a contemporary crisis manifesting on campuses across the nation,” Shemtov said. “As my father once taught me, it is not enough for people, especially for public figures, to not be antisemitic, we must be anti-antisemitic. We must demand the same of our universities and governmental institutions.”
Representing a civil libertarian viewpoint, Stern argued against codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism into law and imposing punitive measures on college students and faculty accused of promoting antisemitism.
“Students, including Jewish students, have a right not to be victims of true threats, harassment, intimidation, bullying, discrimination, let alone assault. However, they should expect to hear ideas that cut them to their core,” Stern told the committee. “If we bludgeon the campus into submission, we risk destroying an institution that has made America the envy of the world.”
He continued, “I am more worried now that the campus tensions over [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] threaten higher education, as each side tries to silence the other. Pro-Palestinian activists sometimes use a heckler’s veto to promote academic boycotts and sometimes exclude Zionists from social spaces, which is almost always McCarthy-like and sometimes clearly antisemitic. But I’m more worried about the use of the law to silence pro-Palestinian speech.”
Stern also criticized US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) high-profile arrest and detainment of Mahmoud Khalil — a Columbia University alumnus who was an architect of the Hamilton Hall building takeover and other disturbances in the New York City area this semester — as “McCarthyism,” prompting a rebuke from HELP committee member Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).
“As you very well know, United States law says that a noncitizen is inadmissible for entry into this country if they, and I quote, ‘endorse or espouse terrorist activity or persuade others to do the same.’ That same law provides you can be removed for the same reasons,” Hawley responded. “That is what Mr. Khalil has been accused of. He has further been accused of, by the United States government, lying on his visa application. That on its own would be sufficient to remove him from this country.”
Hawley added that Khalil is named as a defendant in a new lawsuit which accuses him of “terrorizing and assaulting Jewish students, unlawfully taking over and damaging public university property, and assaulting Columbia University employees.” He then asked Stern, “You’re telling me that it’s McCarthyism to remove this individual?”
Republican lawmakers have called for holding higher education accountable since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel set off an explosion of antisemitic sentiment on college campuses, causing a succession of conflagrations which still are still burning hot at schools such as Columbia University.
In December, the Republican-led US House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued a report which said that nothing short of a revolution of the current habits and ideas which constitute the current higher education regime can prevent similar episodes of unrest from occurring in the future. Colleges, it continued, need equal enforcement of civil rights laws to protect Jewish students from discrimination and “viewpoint diversity” to prevent the establishment of ideological echo chambers.
The report also said that “academic rigor,” undermined by years of dissolving educational standards for political purposes, would guard against the reduction of complex social issues into the sloganeering of “scholar activism,” in which faculty turn the classroom into a soapbox and reward students who mimic them.
Earlier this month, US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) proposed two new bills which would impose legal sanctions on purveyors of pro-terror ideologies on university campuses and the higher education institutions that harbor them.
The “No Student Loans for Campus Criminals Act” would prevent any campus protestor convicted of a crime from receiving federal student loans or student loan relief, and the “Woke Endowment Security Tax Act (WEST)” would levy a 6 percent excise tax on the endowments of 11 American universities, using the proceeds to pay down the national debt and secure the southern border shared with Mexico. According to Cotton’s office, the bill would generate $16.6 billion in revenue.
“The American people should not be on the hook for the tuition of Little Gaza inhabitants,” Cotton wrote on social media. “Second, our elite universities need to know the cost of pushing anti-American and pro-terrorist agendas.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.
In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.
At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Nearly half of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.
The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.
Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.
“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”
Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.
Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.
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Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events
A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.
The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.
Incidents reported by the group include:
- At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
- A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
- In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”
CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”
The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”
Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.
A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”
CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”
In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.
Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”
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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.
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