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Network Behind Eruption of Anti-Israel College Campus Protests Revealed in New Report

The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Columbia University, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Photo: Reuters Connect

Anti-Zionist protests striking US colleges and universities across the country have been the result of “tightly coordinated” efforts backed by the financial power and logistical support of groups linked to terrorist organizations and some of America’s most prestigious philanthropic foundations, according to a new report.

In the wake of the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, the “exponential rise in antisemitic violence, incitement, intimidation, and harassment on and around campuses in the United States is not the product of spontaneous protests of individuals. Rather, they are tightly coordinated and well-funded by a network of radical and often antisemitic nongovernmental organizations,” stated the report by NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute. “Under the guise of human rights and justice, these NGOs work to undermine the economic, military, and other ties between the US and Israel, and to besiege and divide the US Jewish community.”

NGO Monitor noted that all of the groups in question supported and justified the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 and that many are linked to designated Palestinian terror organizations.

“A common feature of all these NGOs is non-transparent funding and structure,” added the report, which was released amid an explosion of anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses amid surging antisemitism since Oct. 7.

Since last week, college students have been amassing in the hundreds at a growing number of schools, taking over sections of campuses by setting up “encampments” and refusing to leave unless administrators condemn Israel and adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate the Jewish state from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination. Endorsing the BDS movement would entail universities shuttering academic programs linked to Israel, banning Israeli academics from campus, and divesting endowments of any holdings connected to Israel.

Footage of the protests has shown demonstrators chanting in support of Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus.

“The extremely troubling attacks at some of the most esteemed academic institutions, with protesters openly intimidating Jews on campus and endorsing murder and rape, are deeply concerning,” NGO Monitor president Gerald Steinberg said in a statement accompanying the new report. “Given the gravity of the situation, US authorities must initiate a public and transparent investigation into the groups responsible for antisemitism on university campuses.”

He added, “A central focus must be the secret funding that enables these NGOs and the question as to whether foreign states and terrorist entities are involved in bringing incitement to Ivy League schools and beyond.”

Beyond focusing on Israel and Gaza, the campus demonstrations have been theaters for the airing of antisemitic demagoguery not heard with such apparent mainstream acceptance in the Western world since the rise of the Nazis in Weimar Germany, a series of events which saw students emerge to express solidarity with Adolf Hitler’s vision of a world without Jews. The current students — drawn from organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Within Our Lifetime (WOL), and others — have been filmed calling for not only the killing of Israelis and Jews but also the dissolution of the US government and acts of terror on American soil.

These organizations have maintained both influential and radical friends, NGO Monitor explained in its new report released on Thursday, noting that JVP — a fringe anti-Israel group that has often joined forces to coordinate events with SJP — has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Other donors to JVP include the Open Society Policy Center and the Kaphan Foundation, among others.

As for SJP, one of its founders, Hatem Bazian, is also a co-founder of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an advocacy group that, according to a landmark report last year by the National Association of Scholars (NAS), “retains ties to terrorist groups operating in the Palestinian Territories.” AMP is a growing power player in the US Democratic Party and has led several legislative initiatives aimed at eroding Democratic support for Israel.

NGO Monitor also named in its report Within Our Lifetime, a New York City-based group headed by a former City University of New York (CUNY) student who once threatened to set a Jewish student’s Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sweater on fire while he wore it. Since Oct. 7, WOL has openly cheered Hamas’ atrocities as the “right to resist zionist [sic] settle violence” and “Resistance in all its forms. By any means necessary” — an apparent endorsement of Hamas’ abductions and sexual violence against Israeli women. The group’s funding is a source of mystery; the public cannot freely donate to it because a link to its donation platform, “Donorbox,” is broken, but it is widely believed that the Westchester Peace Action Committee (WESPAC), a nonprofit based in New York, is WOL’s principal funder.

Another group named in the new report, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), supports a network of allied groups, including AMP, JVP, and WESPAC. USCPR has received immense financial support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which has awarded it at least $355,000 since 2018.

Many of the same groups backing the ongoing protests have also been integral in the growth of the BDS movement. Indeed, a growing alignment of large philanthropic organizations with BDS has been fueling the movement’s growth on American college campuses, as was revealed in the NAS report from last year.

According to NAS’s findings, JVP as of last year had received $480,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, whose endowment was valued at $1.27 billion, since 2017, and the Tides Research Fund, a sponsor of Black Lives Matter, has given the group at least $75,000 since 2019. Between 2014 and 2015 alone, JVP brought in over half a million dollars in grants. Additionally, Palestine Legal, a lawfare group founded in 2012 to support campus BDS groups like SJP, is the beneficiary of generous funding from Tides Foundation, a pioneer of activist investment that has given over $1.5 million to anti-Israel initiatives, according to figures included in the report.

“Saturation of anti-Israel, pro-BDS sentiment on college campuses is a long term danger to US support for Israel by its simple normalization of demonizing the Jewish state,” NAS said at the time. “Beyond the problem of antsemitism, the importance of academia to the BDS movement’s growth and viability demonstrates the steady erosion of its political neutrality that has taken place over the past two decades.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Network Behind Eruption of Anti-Israel College Campus Protests Revealed in New Report first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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