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Ohio State University Accused of Ignoring Antisemitism, Strongly Denies Claims
A student walks by Mershon Auditorium on the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, on Sept. 21, 2023. Photo: Barbara J. Perenic via REUTERS CONNECT
Three major nonprofit organizations have joined forces as co-litigants in a civil rights complaint alleging that Ohio State University (OSU) has grossly foundered in responding to numerous incidents of antisemitic harassment and discrimination since Oct. 7, thus violating Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act.
The university’s alleged neglect began just weeks after the Hamas terror group’s massacre of Israeli civilians, according to the complaint — which was filed by StandWithUs (SWU), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
In November, five Jewish students on their way to an off-campus event were brutally assaulted by two men who had detained and interrogated them to determine if they were Jewish, the complaint said. Finding their answer, the two men allegedly shouted “Free Palestine!” and slugged one Jewish student each, breaking one’s jaw and the other’s nose and leaving one of them bleeding effusively. The complaint added that OSU Medical Center employees cut deeper wounds into their psyches by denying one of the injured students more than one visitor and prohibiting the other a seat in the waiting room, forcing them to stand “outside in the freezing cold for over five hours.” No one, the complaint added, has explained why the Jewish students were treated so callously.
“Since Oct. 7, Jewish students on campuses nationwide have faced unprecedented antisemitic harassment and discrimination,” StandWithUs chief executive officer Roz Rothstein said in a press release announcing the action. “Ohio State University is no exception. Antisemitism is expressed openly; blatant verbal and physical threats and attacks on Jewish students often go unaddressed by the administration. By filing this Title VI federal complaint, we aim to hold the administration accountable.”
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in programs and activities that receive federal funding.
On campus, maltreatment of Jewish students has been allegedly common and unpunished. Between December and February, anti-Zionists there, both students and non-students, have ordered Jewish students to remove articles of clothing bearing pro-Israel slogans, desecrated mezuzahs, disrupted Shabbat dinners held by OSU Hillel by screaming “Free Palestine,” and pantomimed “white power” hand gestures after stealing Israeli flags. In one shocking incident, a non-student who strayed on campus refused to sign a petition denouncing antisemitism that was being circulated by Jewish students and told them that he wanted to murder Jews. He was, however, apprehended by the police and banned from campus.
“We believe all the evidence shows that despite a pattern of escalating harassment and intimidation, Ohio State University administrators, faculty, and staff repeatedly failed in their duty to protect Jewish and Israeli students from such attacks,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a press release announcing the legal action. “We urge the US Department of Education to investigate these incidents and compel the university to take immediate action to address the pervasively hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students on OSU’s campus.”
On Wednesday, Ohio State University shared with The Algemeiner a lengthy statement denying that it has been lax in addressing antisemitism and insisting that several of the incidents cited in the civil rights complaint have never been reported to the university. The school added that it has fully adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been widely embraced by Jewish organizations, governments, and civic institutions around the world.
“Through both our words and, importantly, our actions, we continually reaffirm and communicate messaging focused on our expectations regarding an environment of respect and compassion during this extraordinarily difficult time for many on our campuses,” the school said in a response sent to StandWithUs, the main principal litigant of the complaint. “It is very disappointing that your letter to us does not accurately represent what has occurred at Ohio State or the university’s strong and ongoing response, which is outlined below. Please be assured the university has both acted and spoken.”
The response added that the university has increased police “presence” on campus and pressed charges against the students who vandalized a mezuzah at OSU Hillel. Further contradicting the complaint, the school said that the assault of Jewish students by two men occurred not during a walk but outside a bar off campus, continuing a conflict that had begun inside.
“We have received information from parents and other external stakeholders indicating they heard the victims in this case were assaulted on their way home from the Chabad house near campus,” it continued. “This information is not accurate. The assault occurred when the victims left a bar near campus where the altercation is believed to have begun before it escalated outside of the bar.”
StandWithUs fired back on Tuesday in a statement acknowledging that it has amended the complaint to reflect newly emerged details but arguing that OSU has still left much undone.
“While OSU’s response identifies a number of ways the administration asserts it is working to address the antisemitic climate on its campus, the reality is that between the time of OSU’s response and the filing of this complaint, based on information from students and campus stakeholders, that hostile climate has not improved,” Rothstein said. “To the extent that there are factual discrepancies between the complaint’s allegations and OSU’s understanding of these matters, this is one of many reasons OCR intervention is necessary; it is far too common for administrators to misunderstand the realities of contemporary antisemitism.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Ohio State University Accused of Ignoring Antisemitism, Strongly Denies Claims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
JNS.org – The Israeli airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed a secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, 19 miles southeast of Tehran, Axios reported on Friday.
The clandestine site held sophisticated equipment used for testing explosives needed to detonate nuclear devices, the report read, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security acquired high-resolution satellite imagery of the facility, which showed that it was completely destroyed in Israel’s Oct. 26 attack.
Israeli and US intelligence agencies began noticing activity in the Taleghan 2 facility in the Parchin military complex in early 2024, which had been largely inactive since 2003, when the Islamic Republic froze its military nuclear program, according to Axios.
One unnamed US official quoted in the report said: “[The Iranians] conducted scientific activity that could lay the ground for the production of a nuclear weapon. It was a top secret thing. A small part of the Iranian government knew about this, but most of the Iranian government didn’t.”
Although President Joe Biden asked Jerusalem not to target Tehran’s nuclear facilities, the site in Parchin was chosen as a target because it was not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program.
This placed the mullah regime in a position where admitting a hit to the site would expose its efforts to resume activity forbidden by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Moreover, “The strike was a not so subtle message that the Israelis have significant insight into the Iranian system even when it comes to things that were kept top secret and known to a very small group of people in the Iranian government,” the report cited a US official as saying.
Last week, Rafael Grossi, the director of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Iran for the first time since May.
He is expected to meet with his agency’s board of governors in Vienna this week for a vote on a resolution to censure Tehran for its lack of cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Speaking about the tensions between Israel and Iran, Grossi said during a news conference in Tehran on Thursday that the Islamic Republic’s “nuclear installations should not be attacked.”
Earlier in the week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested that Iran’s nuclear facilities may be targeted.
Iran is “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal—to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel,” Katz said.
Israel’s two assaults against Iran’s air defense system this year have left the country vulnerable to future attacks, with all four of Tehran’s Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries destroyed, according to U.S. media.
On April 19, Israel took out one of the S-300 systems in response to Tehran’s first-ever direct attack against the Jewish state. On Oct. 26, in response to a second Iranian attack, Israel targeted 20 sites in Iran, destroying the remaining three.
“The majority of Iran’s air defense was taken out,” a senior Israeli official told Fox News.
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Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat
Houthi-mobilized fighters ride atop a car in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Yemen’s Houthi forces attacked “a vital target” in Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat with a number of drones, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Saturday.
The terrorist group has launched dozens of attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Hamas.
“These operations will not stop until the aggression stops, the siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted, and the aggression on Lebanon stops,” Saree added in a televised speech.
The Houthi attacks have upended global trade by forcing ship owners to reroute vessels away from the vital Suez Canal shortcut, and drawn retaliatory U.S. and British strikes since February.
The post Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
JNS.org – Muslim leaders in the United Stated who called for supporting President-elect Donald Trump at the expense of Democrat runner Kamala Harris are deeply disappointed with the former president’s Cabinet nominees, Reuters reported on Thursday.
“It’s like he’s going on Zionist overdrive,” Abandon Harris campaign co-founder Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, said about Trump’s recently announced picks.
“We were always extremely skeptical. … Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played,” Abdel Salam told Reuters.
Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, was cited as saying: “Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his secretary of state pick and others.”
Some political strategists believe that the Muslim vote for Trump, or the renunciation of Harris, helped tilt several swing states such as Michigan in the favor of the Republican candidate.
“It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement,” said Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network.
On Wednesday, Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his choice to be secretary of state.
Rubio is known for his staunch pro-Israel stance, including calling on Jerusalem earlier this year to destroy “every element” of Hamas and dubbing the Gaza-based terrorist organization as “vicious animals.”
Rubio joins a slew of pro-Israel officials Trump has tapped since he won the U.S. election, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as his U.N. ambassador with a seat in the Cabinet.
Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), told JNS that Trump’s focus so early in the transition process on Israel-related foreign policy picks is a mark of how his second administration will approach the region.
“That, in and of itself, signals that President Trump and his administration are going to take the region, the Middle East, the threats confronting Israel, seriously and take the U.S. friendship with Israel seriously,” Misztal said.
“The people that we’ve seen are known to be tremendously strong friends of Israel, first and foremost, but also very clear-eyed about the threats that the United States and Israel face together in the region.”
Before the election on Nov. 5, Trump promised Arab and Muslim voters he would restore stability in Lebanon and the Middle East, while criticizing the current administration’s regional policies during campaign stops targeting Muslim communities in Michigan.
Trump recently addressed Lebanese Americans, stating, “Your friends and family in Lebanon deserve to live in peace, prosperity and harmony with their neighbors, and this can only happen when there is peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Israel has been at war for more than a year on its southern and northern borders, ever since Hamas led a surprise attack on communities near the Gaza Strip border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting 251 more into the Palestinian enclave. A day later, Hezbollah joined Hamas’s efforts by firing rockets into Israel’s north.
The post Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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