JNS.org — US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that talks to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal were making progress.

“The negotiators are bearing down on the details, meaning that we have advanced the discussions to a point where it’s in the nitty-gritty, and that is a positive sign of progress,” Sullivan told reporters in Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

On the Gaza issue, officials from the United States, Egypt, Qatar, and Israel met in Doha on Wednesday to follow up on talks that took place in Cairo over the weekend and extended to Monday.

Jerusalem’s delegation, composed of officials from the Israel Defense Forces, the Mossad, and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), had returned on Tuesday from the round of negotiations in Cairo.

The high-level Cairo talks ended on Sunday without a deal, but discussions continued on Monday with lower-level officials to attempt to bridge the remaining gaps.

“In Doha, the delegation is expected to meet with representatives of Egypt, Qatar, and the United States who are continuing the negotiations and work with Israel and Hamas,” according to Israel’s Channel 12.

US Special Coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk held talks on Tuesday in Doha with senior Qatari leaders ahead of Wednesday’s negotiations, the Associated Press reported, citing a US official.

While American officials have expressed optimism about closing a deal, Hamas has publicly rejected the terms on the table and is accusing the US of supporting Israeli demands. Egyptian officials have also expressed skepticism.

“At the end of the day, nothing is done until it’s done. And so we’re just going to keep working at this until we finally get the ceasefire-and-hostage deal across the line,” Sullivan said.

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European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday he has asked the bloc’s members if they want to impose sanctions on some Israeli ministers.

Borrell did not name any of the Israeli ministers to whom he was referring or specify which messages he had in mind. However, he was likely referring to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom he has previously suggested sanctioning.

In recent weeks, the EU foreign policy chief has publicly criticized Ben-Gvir and Smotrich for statements he has described as “sinister” and “an incitement to war crimes.”

“I initiated the procedure to ask the member states if they consider [it] appropriate to include in our list of sanctions some Israeli ministers [who] have been launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians, and proposing things that clearly go against international law,” he told reporters on arrival at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

Earlier this month, Borrell condemned comments by the two ministers in a post on X/Twitter and wrote, “Sanctions must be on the EU agenda.”

Borrell has previously come under fire for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and for accusing the Jewish state of using “starvation as a weapon of war” in Hamas-ruled Gaza — a claim furiously rejected by Israeli officials.

The ongoing war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded southern Israel, where they went on a rampage murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping over 250 hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.

Diplomats say it is unlikely the EU would find the necessary unanimous agreement among its 27 members to impose sanctions on Israeli government ministers.

But Borrell’s decision to float such a proposal indicates the level of anger among some European officials toward Israeli ministers.

Israel‘s foreign minister Israel Katz accused Borrell of targeting him with false claims that he had called for Palestinians to be displaced from the West Bank. “I oppose the displacement of any population from their homes,” he said.

Ireland, one of the EU’s most anti-Israel members, said on Thursday it backed Borrell’s suggestion.

“We will be supporting Josep Borrell’s recommendation for sanctions in respect of settler organizations in the West Bank who are facilitating [the] expansion of settlements, and also to Israeli ministers,” Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told reporters as he arrived at the Brussels meeting.

Martin also accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians in Gaza.

“This is a war against Palestinians not just against Hamas. The level of civilian casualties and dead is unconscionable,” he told reporters. “It’s a war on the population. No point in trying to fudge this.”

Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.

Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

Ireland has been one of Israel’s fiercest critics since Oct. 7, leading Israel’s ambassador to Dublin to warn that the European country is “not an hones broker” in the Middle East conflict.

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Strong majorities of American college students would not resort to the actions pro-Hamas activists perpetrated last academic year to protest Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, according to a new survey conducted by North Dakota State University’s Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth.

The responses — amassed for the annually conducted American College Student Freedom, Progress, and Flourishing Survey — showed that most students reject their classmates’ flagrant rule breaking and extreme tactics, which have in many instances included assaulting and harassing Jews on campus. The findings also revealed how today’s college students feel about free speech in the classroom, capitalism, artificial intelligence, and the future of the world.

According to the survey, 59 percent of 2,159 respondents, drawn from 466 colleges and universities across the US, said students do not have a right to occupy administrative buildings, while 80 percent disagreed that it is appropriate to “shout down” speakers whose opinions about Israel’s war with Hamas are contrary to theirs. Meanwhile, 73 percent said they would not disrupt classes to protest, and only 13 percent have even participated in campus demonstrations related to the Middle Eastern conflict.

However, the results showed varying opinions according to political ideology. For example, it found that “liberal/leaning” students are more likely to approve of shouting down speakers, disrupting classes, and preventing people they dislike from entering a venue in which they are scheduled to speak. More liberal students also reported participating in campus protests — 18 percent — while just eight percent of conservative students did.

Ideological differences emerged as well when students were asked “which side is right in the Israel-Hamas war?” According to the survey, 63 percent of liberals and 61 percent of conservatives said neither is “right,” but liberal students were four times as likely as conservatives to say that Hamas was in the right. A higher percentage of conservatives favored Israel. Sex divided opinion too, with women being slightly more likely to approve of Hamas.

The report also found that 72 percent of students who favor Hamas claim the right to occupy administrative buildings for the purpose of staging “die-ins.” They are, however, divided on the right to disrupt class — 49 percent said there isn’t one. Other questions revealed that most students do not view either capitalism or socialism favorably. About one-third worry that the advent of artificial intelligence will cause widespread unemployment.

Pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses, which caused an unprecedented crisis in academia last year, have fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students, causing them to feel distracted and unsafe, according to a Hillel International survey published in May.

An astounding 61 percent of Jewish students reported that “antisemitic, threatening, or derogatory language” toward Jewish people was uttered during demonstrations at their schools this past academic semester, while 58 percent said that “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” made them feel “less safe.” Others reported being unable to focus or sleep well.

The survey — conducted by Benenson Strategy Group on behalf of Hillel International, and to which 310 Jewish college students responded — found that 40 percent have resorted to concealing their Jewish identity to avoid discrimination. An overwhelming majority, 72 percent, said college administrators should clear encampments from school property and implement measures to prevent the disruption of commencement ceremonies.

“Jewish students, and all students, deserve to pursue their education and celebrate their graduations free from disruption, antisemitism, and hate,” Hillel International chief executive officer Adam Lehman said in announcing the results. “Our findings demonstrate that a majority of Jewish students surveyed have experienced bias and discrimination in their classroom and academic experiences based on faculty and staff abusing their authority in support of the rule-breaking and unlawful anti-Israel encampments and protests.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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