RSS
New York Times Turns Students Who Harassed Jews into Victims
A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri / File.
In October, after anti-Israel protesters menaced visibly Jewish students at The Cooper Union college library, The New York Times was among the many news outlets to cover the incident. Two months later, on Dec. 18, the newspaper again reported on the disturbance — this time, to recast the agitators who caused Jews to fear for their safety as the situation’s real victims.
What stands out from the incident, the Times tells readers, isn’t the harassment of students, or the disruption of studies — and certainly not the radicalization that has led so many students to align with campus groups that celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre and march against the target of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Rather, insists reporter Sharon Otterman, “the episode at the library and its aftermath show how a brief moment, free of context or nuance, can be repurposed by partisans in service of broader political rhetoric during a war in which information is an important weapon.”
When a Cooper Union student is quoted lamenting that frightened students were forced “into this awful position,” it wasn’t about the besieged Jews. It was about the protest leaders.
Jewish students at Cooper Union are in the library as protestors pound on the door.
Listen with sound on. pic.twitter.com/pwYRo5KA9X
— Yashar Ali (@yashar) October 25, 2023
The paper’s apologia for those who marched on the library is consistent with how it has treated other anti-Israel extremists since Oct. 7.
The Times recently came to the defense of those tearing down posters of men, women, and children abducted by Hamas, casting the heartless act by profanity-spewing vandals as a “release valve” for the “anguished.” Another recent piece was dedicated to whitewashing the slogan calling for a Palestine “from the river to the sea,” saying it is not necessarily a call for a Palestine from the river to the sea. (That geography requires the elimination of Israel.)
One piece goes so far as to listing ways to wear kaffiyehs, or Middle Eastern head scarfs, included “wrapped around the face” — in the manner of Palestinian terrorists or the pro-violence, anti-Israeli protesters who mimic them — as just another run-of-the-mill way of fashioning the scarf. (It is traditionally worn over the head, not as a disguise.)
In its Cooper Union reprise, the Times craftily slants the report to bolster its preferred narrative. The piece wastes little time before downplaying the incident as follows:
The pro-Palestinian protesters had dispersed just a few minutes later and no one was injured or arrested, but the story seemed to grow more dire the further it traveled. Posts that went viral falsely claimed that the library had been barricaded to protect the students inside from an angry mob, and that the police were afraid to get involved.
It is true that there were no objects were used to “barricade” the library doors. Instead, as the piece acknowledges 15 paragraphs later, “a security guard shut [the library’s] large gray doors and stood outside them.” The effect was the same, leading protesters to later say they were “angry about being kept out,” as the newspaper admits.
And if the college, which acknowledges that the library was closed for 20 minutes, isn’t willing to say it was closed to protect the students inside, there is nonetheless video footage in circulation in which someone can be heard telling a student, “I wouldn’t recommend leaving right now.” (He replies, “I wasn’t planning on it.”)
One of the Jewish students told CBS, “The librarians ran over to us and they were like, ‘We tried to warn you, but we just got notice that they’re coming down.’”
So if viral posts indicated that the library was barricaded to protect students, these claims were incorrect only on the margins.
After suggesting concerns about the Jews in the library were excessive, the newspaper then shifts attention from them, with the first quotation in the article serving to re-frame the story to cast those banging on the library glass as imperiled:
“Off-campus groups are very motivated to weaponize these protests,” said Angus Johnston, a historian of student activism at Hostos Community College in the Bronx. But the stakes of campus activism are now perilous. “What, 20 or 30 years ago, could have been an incident that nobody would find out about unless they were actually there has now become one that can be circulated globally and be a life-changing experience.”
Readers are left to believe Johnston is a dispassionate scholar of activism, though he is far from a neutral observer on this topic. On Oct. 7, as Hamas was mowing down Israeli civilians in their homes an at a music festival, Johnston took to social media to express indignation. Not about Hamas’ rampage — but about those distressed by it. “Lots of folks expressing moral outrage about Palestinian tactics today who I’ve never seen expressing similar outrage about Israeli tactics, ever,” he wrote on X.
If his first sentiment — during an invasion by an antisemitic terror organization known for murderous suicide bombings of city buses and restaurants — is to criticize those upset by the invasion, it should hardly be surprising that his main problem after Jewish students were intimidated by an angry mob was with those alarmed by the angry mob. That’s what The New York Times wanted. So that’s what the newspaper set out to get.
After focusing extensively on the distress of one of the anti-Israel activists, the newspaper continued downplaying the distress of the Jewish students. One sentence did made mention of the students being “visibly worried.” Another noted, “There is nervous laughter, and also concern.” And the reporter shares that a student “asks if the police were there.” But the piece neglects to share that there were six calls to 911 over concerns for the student’s safety. (Elsewhere, the reporter author cited an article that mentions these calls, so she would have been aware of it.)
And when the newspaper did eventually get around to sharing that a pro-Israel student “had felt threatened ‘when there were chants calling for the murder of Jews being chanted at me from my fellow students,’” the reporter immediately follows with doubts:
During the protest outside the school, students chanted various slogans, including the disputed phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” but they denied they were calling for violence.
That others of the “various slogans” more explicitly endorsed violence apparently wasn’t fit to print. “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” shouted students, who by the time of their October 25 demonstration would have known the murderous, horrifying extent of the “resistance” they were justifying. Another chant called for an intifada, the name given to bouts of deadly anti-Israel violence. The anti-Israel crowd continued its “intifada” calls while besieging the library, the Forward reported.
Instead of giving readers the opportunity to understand what the besieged students might have meant when referencing the threatening chants, the reporter chose to cast doubt on their truthfulness. That, apparently, is what it takes to defend anti-Israel extremists.
Gilead Ini is a Senior Research Analyst at CAMERA, the foremost media watchdog organization focused on coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, where a version of this article first appeared.
The post New York Times Turns Students Who Harassed Jews into Victims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Students of Columbia University Affiliate School Petition Administration to Hire Pro-Hamas Professor
The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Columbia University, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, on April 25, 2024. Photo: Reuters Connect
Students of the Union Theological Seminary (UTS), an affiliate school of Columbia University, are pushing the institution to hire an academic who was just terminated for defending the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Dr. Mohamed Abdou, a visiting professor in modern Arab studies who defended Hamas after the terrorist group slaughtered over 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others during its Oct. 7 onslaught, was reportedly relieved of his duties at Columbia University as of Sunday. Following Abdou’s firing, UTS students circulated a petition calling on the seminary to extend the anti-Israel academic an offer of employment.
“We condemn Columbia University’s efforts to stifle any mobilization around [the Palestinian] cause and its repressive, anti-Palestinian victimization of Dr. Abdou,” the petition reads.
“We ask the UTS administration to hire Dr. Abdou for the 2024-2025 academic year,” the petition continues.
During a US congressional hearing on campus antisemitism in April, Columbia President Minouche Shafik promised lawmakers that the university would terminate Abdou at the conclusion of the school year, citing his repeated public endorsements of violence against Israel and endorsement of terrorist groups.
During a Jan. 5 interview with Revolutionary Left Radio, Abdou heaped praise on Hamas, referring to the terrorist organization as a “resistance” and dismissed criticism of the terrorist organization as “white supremacy.” In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, many pro-Palestinian groups have similarly defended Hamas a a “resistance” group and referred to the Oct. 7 atrocities as “self-defense.”
On Jan. 16. the Columbia Middle East Institute tapped Abdou to serve as lead instructor for a course on “Decolonial-Queerness & Abolition.” According to the course description, students analyzed “Euro-American informed modernity animated by (neo)liberal-Enlightenment values (free will/humanity, secularism, racial capitalism)” and “contemporary conceptualizations of family, kinship, and friendship in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities within the context of settler-colonial societies (as the U.S./Canada) as well as in postcolonial nations and regions (as Southwest Asia, Africa, and the Middle East) that arguably never underwent adequate decolonization.”
Abdou faced intense criticism after a student recorded and circulated a course lecture in which he denounced Israel as a “settler colonial” entity that was inspired by American-style beliefs on private property, gender, and sexuality.
Following Shafik’s congressional testimony, Abdou claimed that the Columbia president “lied” about his firing and accused her of “misrepresenting” his opinions. He reiterated his support for Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are backed by Iran.
Abdou’s public support for terrorism has caused a firestorm of controversy with Columbia students and alumni, calling into question the university’s commitment to fostering a tolerant and safe environment for Jewish and Israeli students.
Abdou indicated gratitude for the petition on X/Twitter, saying that he is “indebted for this generous initiative.” He called on his supporters to sign and spread the petition “as far [and] as wide as possible.”
The post Students of Columbia University Affiliate School Petition Administration to Hire Pro-Hamas Professor first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Australian War Memorials Vandalized With Pro-Hamas Graffiti
A war memorial in Canberra was vandalized by anti-Israel graffiti. Photo: Screenshot
Multiple memorials near the Australian War Memorial have been defaced with anti-Israel graffiti as Australian policymakers grapple with how to manage a rise in antisemitism that has continued unabated since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Located on Anzac Parade — named in honor of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) — near downtown Canberra, vandals spray-painted pro-Hamas messages onto sites dedicated to those who died fighting for Australia in war. The messages included “Free Palestine,” “Free Gaza,” “Blood on your hands,” and “From the river to the sea” — the last of which is a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The Australian National Korean War Memorial, Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial, and the Australian Army National Memorial were all targeted over the weekend, as well as a wall between the memorials along Anzac Parade.
The incidents sparked outcry among Australian lawmakers and members of the Jewish community. In parliament, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the vandalism as “criminal” and called for the perpetrators to “get exposed publicly as well for who they are. We know what they are — they’re unworthy of having any respect and any leniency as a result of their own actions.”
The Australian Jewish Association wrote on X/Twitter in response to the desecration of the war memorials, “The anti-Israel movement is one of the ugliest Australia has ever seen.”
Condemnation of the vandalism by Australia’s politicians was not universal, however. On the far left, Green Party Senator Jordan Steele-John refused to support a motion from a fellow lawmaker condemning the memorials’ desecration. “War memorials are not politically neutral spaces,” Steele-John argued to the Senate.
Adam Brandt – the leader of the Green Party who days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel condemned “Israel’s occupation — declined to comment on whether vandalism is a legitimate form of protest.
Over 17,000 ANZAC soldiers fought in Korea and 60,000 in Vietnam. ANZAC forces also participated in the Gallipoli campaign of World War I.
Australia’s Senate has faced growing calls to recognize a Palestinian state. Recently, Fatima Payman — a newly elected senator and member of the majority Labour party — was suspended by Albanese after voting against the Labour Party’s official position when she supported a Green Party motion for Palestinian statehood.
Meanwhile, the city council of Sydney — one of Australia’s largest and wealthiest cities — last week passed a motion calling on lawmakers to review its investment portfolio to determine whether it is linked to companies which provide arms and other services to the state of Israel. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who is not formally affiliated with any political party, backed the idea to move toward adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Such political steps have come amid a surge in antisemitic incidents across Australia.
In just the first seven and a half weeks after the Oct. 7 atrocities, antisemitic activity in Australia increased by a staggering 591 percent, according to a tally of incidents by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
In one notorious episode in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas onslaught, hundreds of pro-Hamas protesters gathered outside the Sydney Opera House chanting “gas the Jews,” “f—k the Jews,” and other epithets.
The explosion of hate also included violence such as a brutal attack on a Jewish man in a park in Sydney in late October.
Pro-Hamas sentiment has also led to vandalism. Last month, the US consulate in Sydney was vandalized and defaced by an unidentified man carrying a sledgehammer who smashed the windows and graffitied inverted red triangles on the building. The inverted red triangle has become a common symbol at pro-Hamas rallies. The Palestinian terrorist group, which rules Gaza, has used inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “the red triangle is now used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence.”
The post Australian War Memorials Vandalized With Pro-Hamas Graffiti first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Rabbi Tory Candidate Berated Outside British Mosque, Called a ‘Snake’ and ‘Child Killer’
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
A rabbi and Tory parliamentary candidate in England was berated with accusations of “smiling like a snake” and supporting the murder of children during a recent visit to a mosque in Greater Manchester, which has become a hub of antisemitic activity since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
Rabbi Arnold Saunders, the Conservative candidate for the heavily Jewish seat of Bury South, was invited last week to Bilal Mosque, located in the town of Prestwich, by its elders. During his visit, however, a member of the mosque began aggressively shouting at the elderly rabbi, who uses a cane, according to video circulated on X /Twitter.
“You are a snake”
WATCH the threatening way Rabbi Arnie Saunders was treated when he was invited to the Bilal Mosque in Prestwich, Manchester in his role as the Conservative candidate for Bury South by the mosque elders. That he was allowed to be abused, intimidated and have his… pic.twitter.com/X4PZTsteLq
— NW Friends of Israel (@NorthWestFOI) June 30, 2024
In the video, the enraged worshiper can be seen demanding that Saunders “condemn the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] in the strongest terms” for its military campaign targeting Hamas in Gaza.
“Don’t come to the house of Allah and try to engage with us when we know that what when you’re in your own places you’re saying that it is good that they are killing children,” the man continued.
“He’s happy that children are dying. Ask him to go,” he told mosque officials. “We don’t want to engage with these people.”
Muslim worshipers berate Rabbi Arnold Saunders outside of a mosque in Greater Manchester, England. Photo: Screenshot
“You come here and smile like a snake,” the protestor screamed at the rabbi as he stood up to leave.
Saunders attempted multiple times to respond to the man’s accusations but was repeatedly cut off. According to the video, other members of the mosque watching the exchange did not attempt to defend the rabbi.
British Jewish organizations quickly condemned the abuse of Saunders.
“We are disgusted by the abusive treatment of Rabbi Arnold Saunders … the footage clearly shows the rabbi was being targeted in this fashion due to his religion,” the UK’s main Jewish organization, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said in a statement. “We urge all who care about the health of our democracy to call out this bigotry.”
The Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Region (JRC) similarly lambasted the treatment of Saunders.
“Rabbi Saunders is a much respected communal figure and we unequivocally condemn his treatment in this video. It is unquestionably antisemitic and we expect action to be taken,” the organization posted to social media. “The fact he has been attacked emphasizes how individuals are importing the tragic conflict taking place in Israel and Gaza onto the streets of the UK.”
North West Friends of Israel, an organization supporting Jews in the northwestern UK condemned the scene as well.
“That he was allowed to be abused, intimidated and have his personal space invaded is disgraceful and shocking,” the group said. “He must have feared for his safety. By contrast two of the mosque elders were recently invited to the Jewish Community of Manchester Bury South Hustings and treated with nothing but courtesy and respect.”
Saunders’ opponent for the British parliamentary seat in Bury South, Labour lawmaker Christian Wakeford, wished the rabbi his best. “Despite political disagreements, Rabbi Saunders and I have always had an excellent relationship and I hope he is OK following this incident.”
Recently, Manchester has evolved into somewhat of a hub for antisemitic and anti-Israel activity following the Hamas terrorist attacks of Oct. 7.
Earlier this year, two Israeli survivors of the Oct. 7 atrocities were detained and subjected to discrimination while being processed at Manchester Airport. According to the JRC, the two individuals, who were traveling to the UK to discuss narrowly escaping the Hamas onslaught, were singled out upon presenting their Israeli passports and explaining why they were there. British Border Force officers allegedly forced the Israelis to submit to two hours of “detention and interrogation,” as well as abusive comments.
More recently, a world map on the wall of Manchester’s Airport was removed by airport authorities after they were notified by the organization UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) that the Jewish state was crossed out and instead labeled “Palestine.”
“While we are very grateful to Manchester Airport for its swift action, we are concerned that people are unable to walk past a map that mentions ‘ISRAEL’ without deleting its name,” ULKFI said of the incident. “This shows an extremely worrying attitude to the world’s only Jewish state.”
The post Rabbi Tory Candidate Berated Outside British Mosque, Called a ‘Snake’ and ‘Child Killer’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.