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Republican Senators Introduce New Campus Antisemitism Bill: ‘Jewish Students Deserve to Be Safe’
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rick Scott (R-FL) have introduced a new bill that would expand the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to cover antisemitic discrimination on college campuses and codify in law a policy that was previously enacted via executive order during the Trump administration but not followed through by its successor.
Coming nearly a year after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel prompted an explosion of antisemitic hate incidents in US higher education, most notably at the country’s elite schools, the “Preventing Antisemitic Harassment on Campus Act” would levy “escalating penalties” on colleges repeatedly found to have ignored antisemitism, empower the US Department of Education to “monitor private lawsuits” filed by Jewish students against their colleges, and ensure that colleges respond to antisemitic discrimination as rigorously as other hatreds.
For decades, the American Jewish community was one of the only ancestral groups not covered by the Civil Rights Act even as it expanded to provide protections for women and other minorities. In 2019, former US President Donald Trump issued an executive order on combating antisemitism that enforced civil rights protections for Jewish students and recognized Zionism’s centrality to Jewish identity. Since taking office in 2021, the Biden administration has continuously delayed strengthening the order with all of the necessary Department of Education guidance that would enforce it.
If passed, the Rubio and Scott bill would make the Civil Rights Act’s applicability to antisemitism explicit.
“Colleges and universities claim to value diversity and inclusion but have failed to address dangerous antisemitic incidents that have been plaguing campuses for the past year,” Rubio, the principal author of the bill, said on Tuesday in a press release. “My Preventing Antisemitic Harassment on Campus Act is a critical step toward ensuring that our educational institutions carry out their responsibility to protect Jewish students from hate and discrimination.”
Scott added, “Jewish students deserve to be safe, and any college or university in this nation that’s enabling antisemitism on campus and leaving students terrified for their safety must be held accountable. Colleges and universities must reject all forms of hate and prejudice and hold those accountable who are complicit in the rise of antisemitism we are seeing on college campuses across the country. I am proud to join Senator Rubio in introducing the Preventing Antisemitic Harassment on Campus Act to address these issues head-on.”
Anti-Israel activity on college campuses has reached crisis levels in the 11 months since Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught, according to a new report released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) last week. Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents, 52 and 38 respectively. Harvard University, the University of California-Los Angeles, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, the report continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
The ADL also provided hard numbers on the number of pro-Hamas protests which struck campuses across the country following Oct. 7, a subject The Algemeiner has covered extensively. According to the report, 1,418 anti-Zionist demonstrations were held at 360 campuses in 46 states during the 2023-2024 academic year, a 335 percent increase from the previous year.
“Jews and/or Zionists were associated with greed and bloodthirstiness or compared to rodents and other animals,” the report said. “In one incident on April 19, 2024, at the encampment at Yale University, a protester displayed a sign depicting a shirtless Joe Biden cradling and breastfeeding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is drinking drops of blood from dollar signs on Biden’s bosom.”
ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said that the report’s findings were unprecedented and he called on college officials to address the existential threat campus antisemitism poses to the Jewish community.
“The antisemitic, anti-Zionist vitriol we’ve witnessed on campus is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, the anti-Israel movement’s relentless harassment, vandalism, intimidation, and violent physical assaults go way beyond the peaceful voicing of a political opinion. Administrators and faculty need to do much better this year to ensure a safe and truly inclusive environment for all students, regardless of religion, nationality or political views, and they need to start now.”
Other antisemitic incidents from the 2023-2024 academic year included an assault on Jewish students at Columbia University’s Butler Library, a pro-Hamas activist’s spitting on a Jewish student at the University of California-Berkeley, and the sharing of an antisemitic cartoon by Harvard University faculty, a violation of school policy for which no one was punished.
Legislation addressing the issue has, at times, been opposed by US lawmakers, particularly members of the Democratic Party. In July, Democratic members of the House Ways and Means Committee all voted against the University Accountability Act (UAA), which would tax universities found to have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by failing to prevent or respond to antisemitic hate incidents. Both bills were introduced by Republican lawmakers — including Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), and Drew Ferguson (R-GA). Democrats denounced the bill, as well as another addressing campus antisemitism, as inane and potentially injurious to higher education, according to Jewish Insider.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Biden: Israel Should Mull Alternatives to Striking Iran Oil Fields
US President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
JNS.org – US President Joe Biden suggested on Friday that Israel should consider alternative targets rather than attacking Iranian oil fields in response to the Islamic Republic’s massive ballistic missile attack on the Jewish state earlier this week.
“The Israelis have not concluded what they’re going to do in terms of a strike, that’s under discussion. If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields,” Biden said during a rare appearance at a White House press briefing.
“No administration has helped Israel more than I have—none, none, none. I think Bibi should remember that,” added the president, using Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname.
A day earlier, Biden said that the possibility of hitting Iran’s oil assets and infrastructure was “in discussion,” while noting that Jerusalem maintains freedom of action.
“First of all, we don’t ‘allow’ Israel. We advise Israel,” he said.
On Tuesday, Iran fired more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel, leading the entire civilian population of the Jewish state to be ordered into bomb shelters. One Palestinian was killed and two Israelis were lightly injured by the attack.
In April, Iran conducted its first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory, launching some 300 missiles and drones, the vast majority of which were shot down in a multinational effort. One girl was wounded.
On Wednesday, Biden told reporters that he opposes an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, adding that he was crafting a response with the G7 group of leading democracies.
“The answer is ‘no,’” the president said when asked about targeting the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites. “We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but all seven of us agree that they have a right to respond, but they should respond proportionately.”
Biden declined to say what advice he was giving to the Jewish state and indicated that he had not spoken with Netanyahu since the Iranian attack.
“We’ve been talking to Bibi’s people the whole time. It’s not necessary to talk to Bibi,” he said.
“I’ll probably be talking to him relatively soon,” he added.
Biden spoke with the G7 leaders on Wednesday “to discuss Iran’s unacceptable attack against Israel and to coordinate on a response to this attack, including new sanctions,” per a White House readout.
Biden and the G7 “unequivocally condemned Iran’s attack against Israel,” the White House added. “President Biden expressed the United States’ full solidarity and support to Israel and its people and reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security.”
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump said on Thursday that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was fair game.
“They asked [Biden], what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran? And he goes, ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” Trump said during a town hall-style event in Fayetteville, N.C.
“I think he’s got that one wrong,” Trump said of Biden. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? I mean, it’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons. …
“The answer should have been: Hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later,” Trump added.
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Nasrallah’s Possible Successor Out of Contact Since Friday, Lebanese Source Says
Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after overnight strikes, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Sin El Fil, Lebanon October 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Joseph Campbell
The potential successor to slain Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been out of contact since Friday, a Lebanese security source said on Saturday, after an Israeli airstrike that is reported to have targeted him.
In its campaign against the Iran-backed Lebanese group, Israel carried out a large strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Thursday that Axios cited three Israeli officials as saying targeted Hashem Safieddine in an underground bunker.
The Lebanese security source and two other Lebanese security sources said that ongoing Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburb – known as Dahiyeh – since Friday have kept rescue workers from scouring the site of the attack.
Hezbollah has made no comment so far on Safieddine since the attack.
Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on Friday the military was still assessing the Thursday night airstrikes, which he said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.
The loss of Nasrallah’s rumored successor would be yet another blow to Hezbollah and its patron Iran. Israeli strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in the past few weeks, have decimated Hezbollah’s leadership.
Israel expanded its conflict in Lebanon on Saturday with its first strike in the northern city of Tripoli, a Lebanese security official said, after more bombs hit Beirut suburbs and Israeli troops launched raids in the south.
Israel has begun an intense bombing campaign in Lebanon and sent troops across the border in recent weeks after nearly a year of exchanging fire with Hezbollah. Fighting had previously been mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area, taking place in parallel to Israel’s year-old war in Gaza against Palestinian group Hamas.
Israel says it aims to allow the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to their homes in northern Israel, bombarded by Hezbollah since Oct.8 last year.
The Israeli attacks have eliminated much of Hezbollah’s senior military leadership, including Secretary General Nasrallah in an air attack on Sept. 27.
The Israeli assault has also killed hundreds of ordinary Lebanese, including rescue workers, Lebanese officials say, and forced 1.2 million people – almost a quarter of the population – to flee their homes.
The Lebanese security official told Reuters that Saturday’s strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli killed a member of Hamas, his wife and two children. Media affiliated with the Palestinian group also said the strike killed a leader of its armed wing.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike on Tripoli, a Sunni Muslim-majority port city that its warplanes also targeted during a 2006 war with Hezbollah.
Israel has meanwhile staged nightly bombardment of Dahiyeh, once a bustling and densely populated area of Beirut and a stronghold for Hezbollah.
On Saturday, smoke billowed over Dahiyeh, large parts of which have been reduced to rubble sending residents fleeing to other parts of Beirut or of Lebanon.
In northern Israel, air raid sirens sent people running for their shelters amid rocket fire from Lebanon.
ISRAEL WEIGHS OPTIONS FOR IRAN
The violence comes as the anniversary approaches of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and in which about 250 were taken as hostages.
Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, and which has lost key commanders of its elite Revolutionary Guards Corps to Israeli air strikes in Syria this year, launched a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday. The strikes did little damage.
Israel has been weighing options in its response to Iran’s attack.
Oil prices have risen on the possibility of an attack on Iran’s oil facilities as Israel pursues its goals of pushing back Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and eliminating their Hamas allies in Gaza.
US President Joe Biden on Friday urged Israel to consider alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields, adding that he thinks Israel has not yet concluded how to respond to Iran.
Israeli news website Ynet reported that the top US general for the Middle East, Army General Michael Kurilla, is headed for Israel in the coming day. Israeli and US officials were not immediately reachable for comment.
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France’s Macron Says Sales of Arms Used in Gaza Should Be Halted
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference in Paris, France, June 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
Shipments of arms used in the conflict in Gaza should be stopped as part of a broader effort to find a political solution, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday.
France is not a major weapons provider for Israel, shipping military equipment worth 30 million euros ($33 million) last year, according to the defense ministry’s annual arms exports report.
“I think the priority today is to get back to a political solution (and) that arms used to fight in Gaza are halted. France doesn’t ship any,” Macron told France Inter radio.
“Our priority now is to avoid escalation. The Lebanese people must not in turn be sacrificed, Lebanon cannot become another Gaza,” he added.
Macron’s comments come as his Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot is on a four-day trip to the Middle East, wrapping up on Monday in Israel as Paris looks to play a role in reviving diplomatic efforts.
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