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Sanders Urges Progressives to Vote for Harris, Suggests She Can Be Pressured to ‘Change US Policy’ Against Israel

US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to the media following a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, US, July 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Monday encouraged progressives to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, arguing that the current vice president could be pressured into changing her position on the Israel-Hamas war if she wins next week’s US presidential election. 

I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza. I am one of them,” Sanders said in a newly released video shared on his social media channels. “Israel had a right to defend itself against a horrific Hamas terrorist attack of Oct. 7.”

Sanders, one of the most prominent anti-Israel critics in Congress, has vehemently condemned the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Hamas-ruled Gaza, from which the Palestinian terrorist group launched its brutal massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. The Vermont independent was among the first US lawmakers to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and has also introduced a measure to block offensive arms transfers to Israel, accusing the Jewish state of waging “war against the Palestinian people.”

“Some of you are saying, ‘How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?’ And that is a very fair question,” Sanders said in his video.

Since officially replacing US President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket in July, Harris has faced a high-pressure campaign from progressive activists, urging her to adopt a more adversarial posture against Israel. Thus far, Harris has continued to voice nominal support for Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Democratic nominee has also refused activist demands to endorse the implementation of an arms embargo against Israel. 

However, Harris, whose record has raised concerns among allies of Israel, has also attempted to court votes from disillusioned Arab American voters across the United States. The Democratic nominee has made a point of expressing sympathy with civilians in Gaza during many of her speeches. The vice president reportedly held a secret meeting with Dearborn, Michigan Mayor Abdullah Hammoud in an attempt to repair relations with Michigan’s Arab American voting bloc. 

Sanders argued that political progressives could successfully shift Harris’s position on Israel if the vice president wins the White House next week.

“I promise you, after Kamala wins, we will together do everything that we can to change US policy toward [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Sanders said. “An immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages, a surge of massive humanitarian aid, the stopping of settler attacks on the West Bank, and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian people.”

The progressive lawmaker cautioned his supporters that Republican nominee Donald Trump will be a more strident ally of Israel if he were to win the election. 

“Donald Trump and his right-wing friends are worse,” Sanders said. “Trump has said Netanyahu is doing a good job and has said Biden is ‘holding him back.’ He has suggested that the Gaza Strip would make excellent beachfront property for development. And it is no wonder Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in office.”

In addition, Sanders warned that a Trump victory could result in an erosion of progress in a litany of progressive priorities, including climate change and abortion rights. 

“If Trump wins, to be honest with you, the struggle against climate change is over,” Sanders said. “While virtually every scientist who has studied the issue understands that climate change is real and an existential threat to our country and the world, Trump believes it is a hoax.”

The post Sanders Urges Progressives to Vote for Harris, Suggests She Can Be Pressured to ‘Change US Policy’ Against Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Russian Drone Strikes Jewish School in Kyiv, Causing ‘Significant Damage’

A Russian drone struck the Chabad-run Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov

A Russian drone struck the main Jewish school in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early on Wednesday, causing “significant structural damage” but resulting in no injuries at the school.

The drone hit hours before students were expected to arrive, but officials reported several injuries in a neighboring residential building. The drone caused heavy damage to several areas within the school, including classrooms, the student lounge, and a school shuttle, but spared a gas station located just 50 meters away.

Part of the Russian drone landed in the playground of the Chabad-run Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov

“The school’s reinforced windows, equipped with protective film, prevented further harm to the interior of the structure,” said a statement from the Or Avner Chabad educational network, which runs the Perlina school.

Damage to the Chabad-run Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine caused by a Russian drone, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov

Perlina’s principal, Elena Vasilivna, noted that the school also doubled as a home for some of its students.

“Some of our students are refugee children from other cities, and sometimes they have to sleep at the school; we have rooms specifically for such cases,” she told The Algemeiner.

Vasilivna noted that she had updated all the parents, “assuring them we would do everything to resume classes as quickly as possible.”

More damage caused by the Russian drone that hit the Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov

“Throughout the war, we made sure to continue the school routine to provide the children with stability, a supportive atmosphere, and a place where they can play with their friends,” she added.

Kyiv’s Chief Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch also pledged the school would remain open, despite the attack. “Just as the school has remained operational throughout the war, so too will we continue to nurture our children’s souls, even in these challenging times,” he said.

Kyiv’s Chief Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch holds a fragment of a Russian drone that damaged the Chabad-run Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov

Markovitch hailed the “tremendous miracle” that students were not in the building at the time of the strike.

He visited the site of the impact, accompanied by several city officials, including Kyiv mayor and former boxing world champion, Vitalyi Klitschko.

Jewish communities in the embattled country, many of which are run by Chabad, maintain good relations with Ukrainian authorities.

President Volodymyr Zelensky even called Markovitch last week to wish him a happy birthday, gifting him a signed copy of his book with a personal dedication.

To mark 30 years since the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Ukrainian Postal Service recently issued a commemorative stamp featuring the famous 770 Chabad building located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in his honor and as a tribute to the Chabad movement and its activities in Ukraine.

Picture of the stamp.

Wednesday’s strike marked the 19th such assault on Kyiv by Russian forces in October alone, with more than 60 Iranian-produced Shahed drones launched across Ukraine that morning.

The post Russian Drone Strikes Jewish School in Kyiv, Causing ‘Significant Damage’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Lebanon, Israel Could Agree to Ceasefire Within Days, Lebanese Prime Minister Says

Smoke billows over Khiam, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher

Lebanon’s prime minister expressed hope on Wednesday that a ceasefire deal with Israel would be announced within days as Israel‘s public broadcaster published what it said was a draft agreement providing for an initial 60-day truce.

The document, which broadcaster Kan said was a leaked proposal written by Washington, said Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon within the first week of the 60-day ceasefire. It largely aligned with details reported earlier by Reuters based on two sources familiar with the matter.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he had not believed a deal would be possible until after Tuesday’s US presidential election. But he said he became more optimistic after speaking on Wednesday with US envoy for the Middle East Amos Hochstein, who was due to travel to Israel on Thursday.

“Hochstein, during his call with me, suggested to me that we could reach an agreement before the end of the month and before Nov. 5,” Mikati told Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television.

“We are doing everything we can and we should remain optimistic that in the coming hours or days, we will have a ceasefire,” Mikati said.

The draft published by Kan was dated Saturday, and when asked to comment, White House national security spokesperson Sean Savett said: “There are many reports and drafts circulating. They do not reflect the current state of negotiations.”

But Savett did not respond to a query on whether the version published by Kan was at least the basis for further negotiations.

The Israeli network said the draft had been presented to Israel‘s leaders. Israeli officials did not immediately comment.

Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah have been fighting for the past year in parallel with Israel‘s war in Gaza after Hezbollah struck Israeli targets in solidarity with its ally Hamas in Gaza.

Since Oct. 8 of last year, one day after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel, Hezbollah has been attacking northern Israel almost daily with barrages of missiles, rocket, and drones. The relentless attacks have forced about 70,000 Israelis to flee the northern part of the country, and Israel’s government has vowed to push Hezbollah away from the Lebanon border to ensure the displaced citizens can return to their homes.

The conflict in Lebanon has dramatically escalated over the last five weeks, with most of the 2,800 deaths reported by the Lebanese health ministry for the past 12 months occurring in that period.

Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the leaked ceasefire proposal.

But the Iran-backed group’s new leader, Naim Qassem, said earlier on Wednesday that it would agree to a ceasefire within certain parameters if Israel wanted to stop the war, but that Israel had so far not agreed to any proposal that could be discussed.

The post Lebanon, Israel Could Agree to Ceasefire Within Days, Lebanese Prime Minister Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Latest Pro-Hamas Faculty Group Formed at George Washington University

A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson

Anti-Israel faculty at George Washington University have founded a Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapter, according to an op-ed written by several professors who initiated the endeavor.

“As we pass one year of a genocide funded by the United States and US universities that has expanded to bombing campaigns in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen, we and other conscientious members of GW’s faculty and staff have recently established a chapter of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine,” professors Peter Calloway, Helen DeVinney, Amr Madkour, Sara Matthiesen, and Dara Orenstein wrote in the piece, which was published on Monday by The GW Hatchet. “Though our chapter includes many more faculty in solidarity with the students who are unable to be named publicly for fear of retaliation, we want students, community members, and the administration to know that there are faculty at GW who are aligned with the movement for a free Palestine.”

A spinoff of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group with numerous links to Islamist terror organizations, FJP chapters have been opening on colleges since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. Throughout the 2023-2024 academic year, its members, which include faculty employed by the most elite US colleges, fostered campus unrest, circulated antisemitic cartoons, and advocated severing ties with Israeli companies and institutions of higher education.

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, in May, Harvard University’s FJP chapter published an antisemitic cartoon depicting a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David, and containing a dollar sign at its center, dangling a Black man and an Arab man from a noose. FJP members have also fostered unrest to coerce university officials into accepting their demands, and attempted, in some instances, to prevent police from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.

According to an AMCHA Initiative report published in September, titled “Academic Extremism: How a Faculty Network Fuels Campus Unrest,” the group’s presence throughout academia is insidious and should be scrutinized by lawmakers.

“Our investigation alarmingly reveals that campuses with FJP chapters are seeing assaults and death threats against Jewish students at rates multiple times higher than those without FJP groups, providing compelling evidence of the dangerous intersection between faculty activism and violent antisemitic behavior,” AMCHA said in a press release. “The presence of FJP chapters also correlates with the extended duration of protests and encampments, as well as with the passage of [boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement] resolutions on their campuses.”

The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage as a step toward the Jewish state’s destruction.

FJP, the report added, also “prolonged” the duration of “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” protests on college campuses, in which students occupied a section of campus illegally and refused to leave unless administrators capitulated to demands for a boycott of Israel. It also said that such demonstrations lasted over four and a half times longer where FJP faculty were free to influence and provide logistic and material support to students. Additionally, professors at FJP schools also spent 9.5 more days protesting than those at non-FJP schools.

Monday’s op-ed discussed extensively the disciplinary charges the university has filed against pro-Hamas protesters who occupied school property for several weeks during spring semester and committed other severe violations of school rules prohibiting unauthorized demonstrations and vandalism.

“Indeed, as GW faculty and staff, we bear witness alongside brave and visionary students — who are committed to disclosure and divestment and who call for our administration to treat students with dignity and respect using their voices, bodies, and organizing skills to fight for a better world for all,” they continued. “We urge the administration to drop the criminal disciplinary charges against students … and agree to students’ demands for disclosure of GW’s investments and divestments from entities enabling Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and beyond.”

The op-ed did not mention any antisemitism emanating from the anti-Zionist movement, nor the racist behavior and rhetoric of pro-Hamas students — a subject which The Algemeiner has covered since it began last semester, when US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited George Washington’s campus to discuss the benefits of a career in foreign policy with African American students.

In a pamphlet distributed to everyone who showed up to Thomas-Greenfield’s event, the GW Student Coalition for Palestine (GWSCP) accused the ambassador of being a “puppet,” alluding to the fact that she is a Black woman holding a distinguished presidential appointment. GWSCP, in addition to comparing Thomas-Greenfield to enslaved overseers, appeared to suggest that the color of Greenfield’s skin excluded the possibility that she is an agent of her own destiny. Later, GWSCP encircled GW Dean of Student Affairs Colette Coleman while a member of the group began “clapping in her face” and others screamed that she should resign.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Latest Pro-Hamas Faculty Group Formed at George Washington University first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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