RSS
Pro-Hamas Student Group That Cheered Oct. 7 Massacre Wants to Defend Harvard in Legal Fight Against Trump
An “Apartheid Wall” erected by Harvard University’s Palestine Solidarity Committee. Photo: X/Twitter
A pro-Hamas student group whose campus activism heightened scrutiny of antisemitism and far-left extremism at Harvard University has filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit the school filed to halt the Trump administration’s confiscation of its taxpayer-funded grants and contracts.
Legal counsel for the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), provided by the controversial Palestine Legal nonprofit, submitted the document on Monday to the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, The Algemeiner has learned. Endorsing Harvard’s push for a summary judgement in its favor, the court filing argues that the school’s alleged neglecting to restrict antisemitic demonstrations did not violate the civil rights of Jewish students.
“The expression of views critical of Israel — even where it personally offends — is not actionable harassment under Title VI [of the US Civil Rights Act],” wrote Palestine Legal attorney Radhika Sainath. “Defendants have not specifically alleged what actions they believe created a severe or pervasive hostile environment for Jewish students in violation of Title VI — or what educational programs or activities were limited or denied by such acts.”
Sainath continued, comparing Jewish Zionists to segregationists who defended white supremacy during Jim Crow, while comparing anti-Zionists — who have been trafficking racial slurs and epithets about African Americans on social media during the Gaza war — to the civil rights activists of the 1960s.
“Many white parents who supported segregation were discomforted — even frightened — by the prospect of Black children attending schools with their children. But advocacy for the rights of Black Americans to live as equal citizens was not anti-white any more than advocacy for the equal rights of Palestinians is anti-Jewish,” Sainath charged. “In fact, it is opposition to equal rights of Black people that is discriminatory, just as opposition to equal rights for Palestinians is discriminatory.”
The PSC’s entrance into Harvard’s historic legal fight with the Trump administration comes 20 months after it prompted worldwide outrage and condemnation for endorsing Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel in a statement which alleged that “millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison.”
Mere hours after images and videos of Hamas’s atrocities — which included sexual assaults, abductions, and murders of the young and elderly — spread online, the campus group said, “The coming days will require a firm stand against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.”
Those remarks triggered a cascade of events in which Harvard was accused of fostering a culture of racial grievance and antisemitism and important donors suspended funding for various programs. Additionally, the school’s first Black president, Claudine Gay, resigned in disgrace after being outed as a serial plagiarist. Her tenure was the shortest in Harvard’s history.
More incidents followed over the next several months. In one notorious episode, a mob of anti-Zionists — including Ibrahim Bharmal, editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review — were filmed following, surrounding, and intimidating a Jewish student. A pro-Hamas faculty group also shared an antisemitic image depicting a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David, containing a dollar sign at its center, dangling a Black man and an Arab man from a noose.
Meanwhile, Harvard acted disingenuously to deceive the public and create a false impression that it was working to combat antisemitism, according to a shocking report issued by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce. One section of the report claimed that the university formed an Antisemitism Advisory Group (AAG) largely for show and did not consult it in key moments, including when Jewish students were harassed and verbally abused. So frustrated were a “majority” of AAG members with being part of what the committee described behind closed doors as a public relations facade that they threatened to resign from it.
The slew of incidents made Harvard University the face of campus antisemitism and a major target for a surging conservative movement, led by US President Donald Trump, which blamed elite higher education for declining civic patriotism, the rise of antisemitic violence across the US, and the spread of “woke” ideologies which undermine faith in liberal, Western values. After Trump won a historic second, non-consecutive term in office, the school was, within a matter of months, pummeled by a volley of punitive measures, including the confiscation of some $3 billion in federal funds.
“Harvard is an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart,” Trump said in April, writing on his Truth Social media platform. “The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER and HATE [sic]. It is truly horrific. Now, since our filings began, they act like they are all ‘American Apple Pie.’ Harvard is a threat to democracy.”
In suing the administration to stop the actions, Harvard said the Trump administration bypassed key procedural steps that must, by law, be taken before sequestration of federal funds is enacted. It also charged that the administration does not aim, as it has publicly pledged, to combat campus antisemitism at Harvard but to impose “viewpoint-based conditions on Harvard’s funding” — an argument it supported by pointing to the funding freeze being connected to Trump’s calling for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat,” a wishlist of conservative policy reforms.
Now, PSC is defending Harvard by arguing that the very policies which set off what is arguably the most tumultuous period in Harvard’s history should be preserved. Drawing more comparisons to unrelated political conflicts, Sainath called for both ruling in Harvard’s favor and rescinding the university’s recent adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.
“Though the university purports to be addressing antisemitism, conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism via a politicized definition does not make it so, any more than it would be an act of anti-Russian discrimination to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or anti-Hindu discrimination to protest India’s human rights violations in Kashmir,” she concluded. “Indeed, it is only Palestinians on campus, and those advocating on their behalf, who are constrained from engaging in political critiques of their own peoples’ subjugation, dispossession, and killing.”
Other entities have come rushing to Harvard’s defense by citing different reasons for restoring Harvard’s federal funding that stayed clear of Palestine Legal’s arguments seemingly justifying calls for a genocide in Israel. In another amicus brief, attorneys Daniel Cloherty, Victoria Steinberg, and Alexandra Arnold stressed on behalf of two dozen American colleges and universities — including Brown University, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Dartmouth College — the importance of the federal government’s role as a benefactor of higher education.
“For over 80 years, the federal government has invested heavily in scientific research at US universities,” the attorneys wrote. “This funding has fueled American leadership at home and abroad, yielding radar technology that helped the Allies win World War II, computer systems that put human on the Moon, and a vaccine that saved millions during the global pandemic.”
They added, “Broad cuts to federal funding endanger this longstanding, mutually beneficial arrangement between universities and the American public. Terminating funding disrupts ongoing projects, ruins experiments and datasets, destroys the careers of aspiring scientists, and deters investment in the long term research that only the academy — with federal funding — can pursue, threatening the pace of progress and undermining American leadership in the process.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Pro-Hamas Student Group That Cheered Oct. 7 Massacre Wants to Defend Harvard in Legal Fight Against Trump first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Trump Commends Israel for Striking Iranian Nuclear Sites, Says He Gave Tehran ‘Chance to Make a Deal’
US President Trump speaks to the media at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, Washington, DC, April 21, 2025. Photo: Andrew Leyden/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump commended Israel for its successful strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities and military leaders in social media posts on Truth Social.
“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done,” Trump wrote Friday morning.
Trump warned that Iran will face more attacks in the coming days if Tehran does not strike an agreement to suspend all uranium enrichment efforts.
“Certain Iranian hardliner’s spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse! There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end,” Trump continued.
In the early hours of Friday morning, Israel launched a large-scale military operation against Iran, named Operation Rising Lion, targeting key nuclear and military sites across the country. The strikes resulted in the deaths of several high-ranking Iranian officials, including Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Major General Hossein Salami, and two prominent nuclear scientists, Fereydoon Abbasi and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi. Explosions were reported in Tehran and other provinces, with significant damage to facilities in Natanz, Isfahan, Khondab, and Khorramabad.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described the operation as a preemptive measure to prevent Iran from advancing its nuclear weapons program. In retaliation, Iran launched over 100 drones at Israel, most of which were intercepted. The United States condemned Iran’s actions and reaffirmed its commitment to Israel’s defense, while distancing itself from the Israeli strikes by saying it was not involved in the operation.
The strikes followed a series of negotiations between the US and Iran since April 2025 aimed at reaching a deal over the latter’s nuclear program, which many Western governments believe is ultimately meant to develop nuclear weapons. Iran claims its nuclear activities are for peaceful, civilina purposes. following a letter from President Donald Trump to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei initiating dialogue.
Despite five rounds of discussions, including meetings in Muscat and Rome, significant differences remained, particularly over Iran’s uranium enrichment levels and the scope of international inspections.
Last month, Trump warned that failure to reach an agreement could lead to severe consequences, emphasizing the urgency of a deal. However, Iran’s leadership expressed skepticism, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei labeling US demands as “outrageous nonsense” and reiterating his opposition to Israel’s existence.
The failure to reach a nuclear agreement has led to heightened tensions in the Middle East, with both sides accusing each other of undermining the diplomatic process.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed that the United States did not participate in the planning of the Israeli operation. “This evening, Israel acted independently in its strike on Iran. The United States played no role in the attack, and our foremost priority remains the safety of American personnel in the region,” Rubio said in a statement late Thursday.
However, Trump told Axios om Friday that he believes that the strikes might have improved the chances of the US striking a nuclear deal with Tehran.
“Maybe now they will negotiate seriously,” Trump said.
The post Trump Commends Israel for Striking Iranian Nuclear Sites, Says He Gave Tehran ‘Chance to Make a Deal’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘Foreign Infiltration’: Qatar Funnels $1 Billion Into Georgetown University to Grow Influence, New Report Shows
Students, faculty, and others at Georgetown University on March 23, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect.
Georgetown University has received over $1 billion in funding from the Qatari government over the last two decades, according to a new report arguing the money has compromised the institution’s curricula development and positions on major geopolitical issues which bear on the national security of the US.
The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism Policy (ISGAP) on Tuesday released a report titled, “Foreign Infiltration: Georgetown University, Qatar, and the Muslim Brotherhood,” a 132-page document that reveals dozens of examples of ways in which Georgetown’s interests are allegedly conflicted, having been divided between its foreign benefactors, the country in which it was founded in 1789, and even its Catholic heritage.
“The Qatari regime targets Georgetown due to its unrivaled access to current and future leaders. Over two decades, that investment has paid off — embedding Muslim Brotherhood scholars and narratives deep within the American academic and political culture,” Dr. Charles Asher Small, executive director of ISGAP, said in a statement on the report. “This masterful use of soft power is not only about Georgetown. It is how authoritarian regimes are buying access, narrative control, and ideological legitimacy — and too many universities are willing sellers.”
According to the report, the trouble begins with Washington, DC-based Georgetown’s decision to establish a campus on Qatari soil in 2005, the GU-Q located in the country’s Doha Metropolitan Area. The campus has “become a feeder school for the Qatari bureaucracy,” the report explains, enabling a government that has disappeared dissidents, imprisoned sexual minorities without due process, and facilitated the spread of radical jihadist ideologies.
In the US, meanwhile, Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding “minimize the threat of Islamist extremism” while priming students to be amenable to the claims of the anti-Zionist movement, according to ISGAP. The ideological force behind this pedagogy is the Muslim Brotherhood, to which the Qatari government has supplied logistic and financial support.
US lawmakers are currently moving to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as an official terrorist organization.
The ISGAP report calls on policymakers to take action now and prevent the university’s becoming any closer to a country whose ideals threaten US interests and ideals.
“It is time to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. As we saw, pro-Hamas antisemitism in the US has moved from rhetoric to outright terrorism on the streets of Washington,” Asher Small said, referring to the recent antisemitic shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers. “Just three miles from the site of the murders outside the Jewish Museum, Georgetown has been the center of a 50-year indoctrination campaign aimed at infiltrating the highest echelons of US society with murderous antisemitism.”
ISGAP chair Natan Sharansky, who is known across the world for his human rights advocacy, added, “Our goal is to protect liberal values and the principles of equality within the American academy, of which higher education is a vital institution of the very foundation of democracy. Sadly, our enemies with their billions understand this only too well.”
ISGAP’s report came out a month after the Middle East Forum released its own report exposing the extent of Qatar’s far-reaching financial entanglements within American institutions, shedding light on what experts described as a coordinated effort to influence US policy making and public opinion in Doha’s favor. The findings showed that Qatar has attempted to expand its soft power in the US by spending $33.4 billion on business and real estate projects, over $6 billion on universities, and $72 million on American lobbyists since 2012.
Georgetown University is not the only elite institution with questionable ties, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
According to a recent “preliminary” report published by nonprofit watchdog NGO Monitor, Harvard University is linked to anti-Zionist nongovernmental organizations and other entities acting as proxy organizations for terrorist groups that warrant scrutiny and reproach, .
Titled, “Advocacy NGOs in Academic Frameworks: Harvard University Case Study,” the report presented copious evidence that Harvard’s academic centers, including Harvard Law School, have come under the influence of Al-Haq and Addameer — two groups identified by the Israeli government as agents and propaganda manufacturers for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. The NGOs, the report added, influence research and institutional culture, tilting the ideological balance of the campus toward anti-Zionism.
“The report demonstrates the major contribution from prominent advocacy NGOs to the atmosphere of propaganda and antisemitism at Harvard, particularly through frameworks claiming human rights agendas,” Professor Gerald Steinberg, who authored the report alongside Dr. Adi Schwartz, said in a statement. “The close cooperation between prominent NGOs and Harvard academic programs warrants urgent scrutiny. The blurred lines between scholarship and advocacy threaten academic integrity and risk further inflaming campus tensions.”
Georgetown, meanwhile, has been the site of antisemitic incidents and rampant anti-Israel activism in recent months. In April, for example, a perpetrator graffitied an antisemitic message in a residence hall.
That same month, Georgetown’s student government had to reschedule an anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) referendum that it initially scheduled to take place during the Passover holiday following outcry from Jewish students.
Last year, a building at Georgetown’s campus in Washington, DC was vandalized with pro-terrorist graffiti indicating support for Hamas.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Foreign Infiltration’: Qatar Funnels $1 Billion Into Georgetown University to Grow Influence, New Report Shows first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Fragment of Yemeni Ballistic Missile Hits Palestinian Village After Israel Strikes Iran
A Houthi ballistic missile strike in the Palestinian village of Sa’ir. July 13, 2025. CREDIT: X/Twitter
The first ballistic missile fired against Israel in response to its strikes against Iran hit a Palestinian village in the West Bank, according to the Israeli military
The missile, fired by Yemen’s Houthi terrorist group, set off sirens across Israel on Friday evening as the country braced itself for an expected counter-attack from Iran. The missile impacted near Hebron in the southern West Bank in the Palestinian village of Sa’ir.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Since March 18, when the IDF resumed its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis in Yemen have launched 49 ballistic missiles and at least 11 drones at Israel, according to Israeli military data.
This is not the first time that Iranian and Houthis attacks against Israel have resulted in damage and casualties in Palestinian villages.
The only fatality from Iran’s mass missile attack in October 2024 was a Palestinian man from Gaza. The man was killed in the West Bank village of Nu’eima, near Jericho by falling fuselage from an intercepted missile.
In Iran’s second attack in April 2024, a 7-year-old Bedouin girl was critically injured when shrapnel from a ballistic missile hit her family’s home in a Bedouin town near the Negev city of Arad. She was hospitalized for more than three months.
The post Fragment of Yemeni Ballistic Missile Hits Palestinian Village After Israel Strikes Iran first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login