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Jewish Musician Denounces ‘Dreadful Display of Extreme Intolerance’ by Anti-Israel Protesters

Deborah Conway and her Willy Zygier performing during a pro-Jewish rally organized by the Christian-led “Never Again Is Now” movement to stand against hate and antisemitism and to support Jewish community. Photo: Alexander Bogatyrev / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect

Jewish Australian rock singer-songwriter Deborah Conway and her guitarist-husband Willy Zygier condemned the group of anti-Israel protesters who on Saturday night repeatedly disrupted their concert in Australia, during which an audience member broke a wine glass and threatened one of the demonstrators with its shattered stem.

“It was a dreadful display of extreme intolerance,” the musical duo said in part. “We were all confronted with a micro example of civilizational breakdown, but the forces for civil discourse triumphed in the end.”

The Tasmanian Palestine Advocacy Network (TPAN) organized an anti-Israel rally outside The Playhouse Theatre in the city of Hobart where Conway and Zygier were performing. TPAN said after the rally that “an anonymous group of absolute legends” protested inside the venue, disrupting the concert a number of times.

One male protester held a Palestinian flag from the second floor of the auditorium and loudly called on the room and Conway to condemn what he described as Israel’s “murder,” “genocide”, and “war crimes” in the Gaza Strip, referring to the ongoing war targeting Hamas-led terrorists in Gaza who are responsible for the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel. The protester was escorted out of the venue by security and the concert proceeded as planned. A female protester then stood up by the stage and called out to Conway, criticizing her support for Israel and its “ethnic cleansing.” The activist was then confronted by a female audience member who smashed a wine glass on the stage, held its glass stem towards the protester’s face, and yelled, “Get out! Get out!” The protester was escorted out by security shortly afterward and could be heard saying, “You’re fu—ing hurting me.”

Once again, the performance resumed until a third protester stood up and repeated, “Free, free Palestine” before being thrown out of the auditorium by security and theater staff. Videos from the scene showed audience members heckling the protesters before each of them were escorted out of the venue.

Conway and Zygier said the pro-Palestinian activists should realize their actions will not help further their cause or bring an end to the ongoing war in the Middle East. “Calling Deborah genocidal, responsible for deaths etc & other ridiculous lies does your cause no good,” the musicians wrote in a Facebook post. “None of it is true but somehow your movement have convinced themselves, and others, that ruining our careers will ‘Free Palestine.’ It’s the stuff of crazed ideologues.”

“Going down the path of characterizing Israel as an illegitimate state is a recipe for endless war and a constant path of misery for Arab & Jew,” they added. “It is a convoluted history with terrible mistakes on all sides but the demonization of people on either side will also bring misery to Australian shores. We understand people are inflamed and passionate and powerless but excoriating the other, bringing violence is counter productive. For f—k’s sake Hobart is as far from the Middle East as you can get.”

The husband and wife also said they sympathized with their audience on Saturday night because they “got a whole lot more in their evening’s entertainment than they bargained for (& paid for). So did we.”

“We applaud their bravery for their attempts to protest the protesters. Except with the caveat that going down the path of violence is unhelpful to say the least,” the musicians concluded, referring to the incident with the broken wine glass. “And we really hope that they have enough of a memory of the show itself that will outlast the ugliness that we all had to endure. That’s a frail hope but we cling to it.”

The anonymous group of anti-Israel activists from the concert said in a released statement on Monday that they were protesting “in solidarity with Palestine” and in protest of the theater’s decision to host a musician who “made hateful statements about Palestinians” in an interview last year. They claimed Conway used “violently racist, dehumanizing language that normalizes genocide.” They also said that the moment in which an audience member confronted one of the protesters with the stem of a broken wine glass “shows how normalized this rapid leap to violence is by supporters of the racist and colonial Zionist project.”

During the interview referenced by the group, which took place in December, Conway was asked about her thoughts on how Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are suffering during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The interviewer said “innocent people, lots of kids” are being negatively affected by the war.

“It depends what you call kids,” Conway responded. “You see 16-, 17-year-olds, young boys, totting rifles. Unfortunately Hamas recruits boys that are not men yet. There are a lot of young people dying but I believe the responsibility for that lies pretty squarely with Hamas who have embedded themselves in the civilian population, who have not allowed Gazans to move south when Israel asked them to — they actually murdered some people who tried to move.”

During the same interview, Conway denounced antisemitism targeting the Jewish community in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre. She also commented on Israel launching its military campaign in response to the Oct. 7 attacks, saying: “I don’t believe that Hamas can be allowed to continue to use Gaza as an operations base. War is awful and atrocious,. People get killed, it’s horrible, and I think Hamas has embedded themselves in such a way to use Palestinians as a human shield for their operations.”

On May 19, Conway and Zygier performed at a pro-Israel rally in Melbourne organized by the Christian-led movement “Never Again Is Now” to show solidarity with the Jewish community facing hate and antisemitism. Shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks, Conway performed on stage wearing colors of the Israeli flag. She later said she did so because “that was my way of saying, ‘I’m a Jew. I’m proud to be a Jew [and] I support the right of Israel to exist.’”

The post Jewish Musician Denounces ‘Dreadful Display of Extreme Intolerance’ by Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote

Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.

The University of California (UC) Faculty Assembly has rejected a proposal to establish passing ethnic studies in high school as a requirement for admission to its 10 taxpayer-funded schools for undergraduates.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the campaign for the measure — defeated overwhelmingly 29-12 with 12 abstaining — was spearheaded by Christine Hong, chair of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. Hong believes that Zionism is a “colonial racial project” and that Israel is a “settler colonial state.” Moreover, she holds that anti-Zionism is “part and parcel” of the ethnic studies discipline.

Ethnic studies activists like Hong throughout the University of California system coveted the admissions requirement because it would have facilitated their aligning ethnic studies curricula at the K-12 level with “liberated ethnic studies,” an extreme revolutionary project that was rejected by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. Had the proposal been successful, school officials of both public and private schools would have been forced to comply with their standard of what constitutes ethnic studies to qualify their students for admission to UC.

Being indoctrinated into anti-Zionism and “hating Jews” would essentially have become a prerequisite for becoming a UC student had the Faculty Assembly approved the measure, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner on Friday. AMCHA Initiative first raised the alarm about the proposal in 2023, calling it “a deeply frightening prospect.”

“Ethnic studies never intended to be like any other discipline or subject. It was always intended to be a political project for fomenting revolution according to the dictates of however the activists behind the subject defined it,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “And anti-Zionism has been at the core of the field, and this became especially clear after Oct. 7. Most of the anti-Zionist mania on campuses that day — the support for the encampments, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters — it was a project of Ethnic Studies. At UC Santa Cruz, 60 percent of Faculty for Justice in Palestine members were pulled from the ethnic studies department.”

Founded in the 1960s to provide an alternative curriculum for beneficiaries of racial preferences whose retention rates lagged behind traditional college students, ethnic studies is based on anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western ideologies found in the writings of, among others, Franz Fanon, Huey Newton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Karl Marx. Its principal ideological target in the 20th century was the remains of European imperialism in Africa and the Middle East, but overtime it identified new “systems of oppression,” most notably the emergent superpower that was the US after World War II and the nation that became its closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.

UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department is a case study in how the ideology leads inexorably to anti-Zionist antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative argued in a 2024 study.

Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CRES issued a statement rationalizing the terrorist group’s atrocities as political resistance. Additionally, the department days later participated in a “Call for a Global General Strike,” refusing to work because Israel mounted a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — an action CRES called “Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” Later, the department held an event titled, “The Genocide in Gaza in our [sic] Classrooms: A Teaching Palestine Workshop,” in which professors and teaching assistants were trained in how to persuade students that Zionism is a racist and genocidal endeavor.

Imposing such noxious views on all California students would have been catastrophic, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.

“The goal of admissions requirements is to make sure that students are adequately prepared for college,” she noted. “Their goal was to use their power to force students to take the kind of Critical Ethnic Studies that is taught at the university, with the goal of revolutionizing society. The idea should have been dead on arrival, being rejected on the grounds that there is no evidence that it is a worthwhile subject that should be required for admission to the University of California.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations

Paraguayan President Santiago Peña praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Paraguay’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and to broaden the country’s previous designation to include all factions of Hamas and Hezbollah.

The top Israeli diplomat congratulated the South American country and described President Santiago Peña’s decision as a “landmark move” in addressing security challenges and fostering international peace.

“Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens regional stability and global peace,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X. “More countries should follow suit and join the fight against Iranian aggression and terrorism.”

On Thursday, Peña issued an executive order designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization “for its systematic violations of peace, human rights, and the security of the international community.”

The executive order also expanded Paraguay’s 2019 proscription of the armed wings of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, to encompass the entirety of both organizations, including their political wings.

“With this decision, Paraguay reaffirms its unwavering commitment to peace, international security, and the unconditional respect for human rights, solidifying its position within the international community as a country firmly opposed to all forms of terrorism and strengthening its relations with allied nations in this fight,” Peña wrote in a post on X, emphasizing the country’s strategic relationship with the United States and Israel.

Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terror groups with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch the Oct. 7 attack months in advance.

Last year, Peña reopened Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem, making it the sixth nation — after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea — to establish its embassy in the Israeli capital. During the same visit, he condemned the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the perpetrators “criminals” in a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

The Trump administration also praised Paraguay’s decision to officially label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, describing it as a major blow to Iran’s terror network in the Western Hemisphere.

“Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and has financed and directed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, through its IRGC-Qods Force and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.

The US official said Paraguay’s action will help disrupt Iran’s ability to finance terrorism and operate in Latin America — particularly in the Tri-Border Area, where Paraguay borders Argentina and Brazil, a region long regarded as a financial hub for Hezbollah-linked operatives.

“The important steps Paraguay has taken will help cut off the ability of the Iranian regime and its proxies to plot terrorist attacks and raise money for its malignant and destabilizing activity,” the statement read.

“The United States will continue to work with partners such as Paraguay to confront global security threats,” Bruce added. “We call on all countries to hold the Iranian regime accountable and prevent its operatives, recruiters, financiers, and proxies from operating in their territories.”

During his first administration, Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing the Iranian regime’s use of the IRGC to “engage in terrorist activities since its inception 40 years ago.”

At the time, Trump said this designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”

“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” he continued.

The post Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’

Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.

As darkness fell over Yale University on Wednesday evening, Jewish students faced intimidation that echoed history’s darkest chapters. The following day, as the sun rose on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world solemnly reflected on the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.

Yet, disturbingly, at Yale, the shadows of that same hatred linger once again.

For several nights now, radical anti-Israel activists, primarily organized by “Yalies for Palestine,” an anti-Israel hate group, have targeted Jewish students at Yale — in many cases, based solely on their outwardly Jewish appearance. 

On Wednesday, protestors blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them — all while campus police stood by and did nothing.

One Jewish student described her chilling encounter with the protesters the night before, on Tuesday: “When I tried to get through, they blocked me, ignored my requests to pass, and handed out masks to those obstructing me. Yale security told me they couldn’t help.”

The immediate trigger for this harassment is the invitation extended by Shabtai, a Yale Jewish society, to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli government minister. Whether one supports or opposes Ben-Gvir’s politics is beside the point. Notably, Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, was also protested and disrupted during a separate campus event in February, underscoring a broader trend of hostility toward Israeli speakers regardless of their political affiliation.

These events signal more than isolated protests; they constitute a redux of hatred that historically escalates when met with institutional silence or indifference. 

Yale’s administration, under President Maurie McInnis and Dean Pericles Lewis, has failed to adequately respond. Though Yale revoked official recognition from Yalies for Palestine, its tepid actions have not halted the dangerous slide toward overt hostility. The silence — from both the university and the Slifka Center, Yale’s center for Jewish life — is deafening.

This isn’t the first troubling instance at Yale. A year ago, similar demonstrators disrupted campus life with vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric, silencing dialogue and fostering an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students. 

Earlier this year, CAMERA on Campus documented Yale’s Slifka Center pressuring students to erase evidence of anti-Jewish harassment during a pro-Israel event, effectively whitewashing antisemitism and emboldening extremists.

As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has powerfully documented, the rhetoric of anti-Zionism today often revives the antisemitic patterns of the past, particularly those propagated by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. These tactics, she explains, echo Nazi-era propaganda that portrayed Jews as subhuman, sinister, and uniquely malevolent — a narrative used to justify marginalization and, ultimately, genocide.

These dynamics — scapegoating, dehumanizing, and ostracizing Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism” — are not relics of history. They are alive and active across elite American campuses. And now, unmistakably, they have taken root at Yale.

McInnis must break the silence and condemn the open harassment and assault of Jewish students. She must also hold the perpetrators of the heinous actions and those responsible for the safety of students accountable for their inaction. 

This week has revealed a grave failure of moral and institutional duty on many fronts. When law enforcement stands by as Jewish students face intimidation and assault, it sends a chilling message: their safety matters less.

We must demand a full investigation and real accountability. Condemnations of antisemitism are not enough. Policies must be changed to ensure Jewish students and organizations can freely exercise their right to free expression without being subject to harassment and assault. Anything less would betray Yale’s stated values — and the promise of “never again.”

Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.

The post Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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