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SJP Violated UNC’s Policies; Why Isn’t the Group Suspended?
Students sit on the steps of Wilson Library on the campus of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US, Sept. 20, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Drake
What will it take for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) to suspend the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter (UNC-SJP) on campus?
One day after Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis, took 240 hostages, and raped and tortured many others on Oct. 7, UNC-SJP proclaimed on social media: “It is our moral obligation to be in solidarity with the dispossessed, no matter the pathway to liberation they choose to take. This includes violence.”
On Oct 12, UNC-SJP held a “Day of Resistance Protest for Palestine” on campus. The event flier celebrated terrorism by featuring a Hamas paraglider en route to kill Israelis and commit other atrocities. In a widely circulated video, a protester shouted, “All of us Hamas.”
Given that UNC is now being probed by the Federal government for its treatment of the Jewish community, it seems like a prudent time for the school to take action against SJP for violating university policies.
State Rep. Jon Hardister (R) — the NC House Majority Whip — wrote the following to UNC’s Vice President for Safety & Emergency Operations, to UNC’s Provost, to UNC’s Chief of Police, and to other campus officials: “I do believe the use of paraglider imagery in the pamphlet that was circulated is out of bounds and could be construed as inciting violence.”
Writing to a member of the Board of Trustees, UNC’s Provost, Christopher Clemons, stated, “There is no doubt the flyer represents a celebration of violence and murder.”
Before the rally, UNC-SJP publicly “recommended” protestors wear “face coverings” to this outdoor event, even though campus policy states that masks may not be worn to “conceal identity.” UNC-SJP also posted on social media that “masks are required for all events going forward.” Students, faculty, and community members with whom I have spoken see as an attempt to conceal the protestors’ identities.
A UNC student told me that Jewish students who were silently counter-protesting this event on Oct. 12 were approached by two masked activists who allegedly said, “Let’s fight,” and allegedly brandished knives. An Israeli professor was pushed down stairs.
Fifty UNC students — the majority of whom are Jewish — wrote to a US senator: “Jewish students at UNC do not feel safe.” They report that on Oct. 12, UNC-SJP members allegedly “threatened several peaceful protesters with violence, and some brandished pocket knives and threatened our members.”
The next day, W. M. “Marty” Kotis III — a member of UNC’s Board of Trustees — sent an email titled “Free Speech vs Inciting Violence Line” to the Provost and other UNC leaders, pointing out that in Sept. 2023, UNC provided its SJP chapter with $1,380 in funding.
Kotis wrote, “We want to support protected free speech — but there are classes of speech that are not protected — inciting violence, true threats, fighting words and obscenity are four of them.”
Kotis wrote to the Chancellor and other UNC officials: “This recent [Oct. 12] protest seems to violate NC Statute 14-12.8 as well as University policy.”
The statute forbids individuals in North Carolina from wearing masks or other coverings to “conceal the identity of the wearer.”
In October, UNC-SJP held a “a week of action” with five events. The flier stated, “MASKS REQUIRED AT ALL EVENTS.”
In response, a leader of the Jewish community on campus wrote to the Chancellor: “For all of the SJP programs this week they are requiring masks to preserve the anonymity of those present. As we saw on Thursday [Oct. 12], the masks are also a sign of intimidation allowing people to say and do things they would not feel comfortable doing if they were being held accountable … it highlights the real security concern and fear Jewish students have of this group on campus.”
A tour guide recently told a woman I met that UNC’s campus had become unsafe due to SJP rallies.
On Nov. 28, I attended the event “No Peace Without Justice: A Round-Table Talk about Social Justice in Palestine,” hosted by several UNC departments. A speaker, Rania Masri, told the audience, “Oct. 7 for many of us from the region was a beautiful day” and added, “Let us demand the eradication of Zionism.”
There were SJP activists in attendance. As this picture shows, people were sitting closely together inside and not one person appeared to be masked. Yet, when protesting outside, we have seen that most SJP activists and their allies wear masks. It seems clear that masking is about concealing the identities of protestors and not about health safety.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has just opened an investigation to determine if UNC “responded to alleged harassment of students based on national origin (shared Jewish ancestry) in a manner consistent with the requirements of Title VI.”
A group of more than 100 UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School (KFBS) graduates, students, and professors sent an email to Dean Mary Margaret Frank asking that KFBS resources not be used by SJP or “any other UNC affiliated groups that have engaged in violent antisemitic rhetoric on campus.”
UNC-SJP has boasted on social media about purposely disrupting the campus: “On Friday, November 17, a group of about 40 members of SJP and allied organizations occupied South Building for a total of 3 hours, shutting down administrative operations for the day.” A video taken from this shutdown shows masked activists chanting, “Intifada Intifada, long live the Intifada.”
When walking on UNC’s campus, I have personally seen chalkings calling for “Intifada” and “From the river to the sea,” which Jews understand as calls for violence and genocide. Another chalking says, “Long live the PFLP!” The PFLP is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the United States has designated a terrorist group.
University officials need to take the safety of their students seriously, as Elizabeth Magill learned from her recent resignation as President at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kotis wrote to UNC’s chancellor about the shutdown of South Building: “It violates our honor code and federal protections. It constitutes harassment. Such calls for genocide or global jihad present a clear and present danger to our campus.” He added, “The disruption violated Policy 1300.8.”
This policy states that “Students, staff, and faculty shall be permitted to assemble and engage in spontaneous expressive activity as long as such activity is lawful and does not materially and substantially disrupt the functioning of the constituent institution.”
The SJP chapter at Rutgers University was recently suspended, in part, for “disruptive or disorderly conduct” and for “occupying” the business school. Four or more SJP chapters have been suspended nationwide since the attacks of Oct. 7. It is time for UNC to hold its SJP chapter accountable for inciting violence, purposely concealing their identities during protests, disrupting campus administration, and creating a hostile campus environment for Jewish students.
Peter Reitzes writes about issues related to antisemitism and Israel.
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Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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White House Cites Biden Clash With Netanyahu Over Iran as Proof of President’s Mental Fitness
US President Joe Biden hosts the 2023 Teacher of the Year event at the White House in Washington, US, April 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Amid growing concerns over US President Joe Biden’s mental fitness, key White House officials are suggesting his foreign policy discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including a clash over how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented military attack on the Israeli homeland earlier this year, serve as evidence that he is still capable of leading from the Oval Office.
Biden and Netanyahu engaged in a heated back-and-forth in the immediate aftermath of Iran launching a massive missile and drone salvo at Israel in April, according to a new report by the New York Times. The US and other allies helped Israel shoot down nearly every drone and missile. The attack caused only one injury.
However, the Times revealed that while Netanyahu initially wanted to respond to Iran in a forceful way, Biden threatened to withhold US support in the event of a major Israeli retaliatory strike, arguing it would risk sparking a regional conflict in the Middle East.
“Aides present in the Situation Room the night that Iran hurled a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel portrayed a president in commanding form, lecturing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone to avoid a retaliatory escalation that would have inflamed the Middle East,” the Times reported. “‘Let me be crystal clear,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.’”
“Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks,” the report continued. “‘You do this,’ Mr. Biden said forcefully, ‘and I’m out.’ Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.”
Israel’s military response was small and appeared aimed at minimizing the risk of escalation.
The Times report, headlined “Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome,” came on the heels of Biden delivering a widely-panned presidential debate performance last Thursday against former US President Donald Trump. Biden’s performance, which oftentimes appeared incoherent and muddled, set off alarm bells in Democratic circles, sending the president’s allies scrambling to extinguish concerns over his age and mental acuity.
While highlighting rising concerns, the news story also noted instances in which, according to aides, Biden appeared coherent and capable, citing the exchange with Netanyahu and his handling of the Iranian missile attack more broadly as one such example.
However, an anonymous Biden administration official told the Times that they are unsure whether Biden could hold his own against adversarial foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia.
On Wednesday, the White House directly attributed quotes to Netanyahu in which the Israeli premier reportedly said he found Biden “very clear and very focused” during his visit to Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. According to a White House spokesperson, Netanyahu also reportedly cited the “more than a dozen phone conversations, extended conversations with President Biden” as evidence of the commander-in-chief’s vitality.
“Some White House officials adamantly rejected the suggestion of a president not up to handling tough foreign counterparts and told the story of the night Iran attacked Israel in April,” the New York Times reported. “Mr. Biden and his top national security officials were in the Situation Room for hours, bracing for the attack, which came around midnight. Biden was updated in real time as the forces he ordered into the region began shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. He peppered leaders with questions throughout the response.”
During its first direct attack on Israeli territory, Iran in April launched roughly 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state.
Leading up to the attack, Iranian officials had promised revenge for an airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria that they attributed to Israel. The strike killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a widely designated terrorist organization, including two senior commanders. One of the commanders allegedly helped plan the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the incident.
“After it was over, and almost all of the missiles and drones had been shot down, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu to persuade him not to escalate. ‘Take the win,’” Mr. Biden told the prime minister, without reading from a script or extensive notes, according to two people in the room. In the end, Mr. Netanyahu opted for a much smaller and proportionate response that effectively ended the hostilities,” the article added.
Days later, Israel responded to the Iranian aggression by launching a modest missile attack on an airbase near Isfahan. The Jewish state sought to show that it could effectively target key strategic locations in Iran while not escalating the conflict any further. Netanyahu insisted on launching a retaliatory attack against Iran, arguing that ignoring the Iranian strikes would incentivize more attacks against the Jewish state.
IRGC Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iran is waiting for “the opportunity” to launch a new round of strikes against Israel, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, potentially boosting Netanyahu’s argument that a smaller response would invite further attacks.
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Journalist at US-Based Nonprofit Promoted Stabbing Israelis, Depicted Rescued Hostage as Pig Drinking Blood: Report
Palestinian terrorists ride an Israeli military vehicle that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot
A journalist at a US-based nonprofit posted tutorials on how to commit stabbing attacks and depicted a rescued Israeli hostage as a pig drinking blood, according to newly surfaced social media posts.
Eitan Fischberger, a communications analyst and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) staff sergeant who first broke the story on X/Twitter, alleged that Mahmoud Ajjour, a correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle, posted disturbing images and videos to his Instagram page.
Fischberger posted screenshots and screen recordings of the posts.
According to The Chronicle‘s website, Ajjour is a photojournalist and correspondent for the outlet, which is a US-based 501c3, or nonprofit organization.
One of the posted images depicted Noa Argamani — an Israeli who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, and then rescued in an IDF special operation last month — as a pig drinking blood from a Coca-Cola bottle.
Here, for example, Ajjour posted a picture of Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, portrayed as a pig drinking the blood of Palestinians.
Noa, as you recall, was freed by Israeli forces in the same rescue operation in which Ajjour’s terrorist colleague was killed pic.twitter.com/oiLCqekxbl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
In Oct. 2015, Ajjour posted a picture of a masked Palestinian holding up a knife, with the caption, “I declare it a revolution.”
That time — from approximately Sept. 2015 to June 2016 — was referred to as the “knife intifada,” as there was an uptick in Palestinian terrorist attacks, particularly using knives, against Israelis in Jerusalem, along with other parts of Israel and the West Bank.
Ajjour also seems mighty fine endorsing stabbing attacks pic.twitter.com/xi2MnZVddl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
During that same month, Ajjour also reportedly posted a two-part tutorial on how to carry out stabbings with the caption, “May Allah protect them,” likely referring to those who were engaging in such attacks.
So much, in fact, that he uploaded a two-part instruction video showing off some best practices for stabbing Israelis pic.twitter.com/Z12rVo4Enx
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
Then, in 2023, after the son of a Hamas preacher was killed when a device he was trying to launch at Israel exploded, Ajjour mourned his death on Instagram. “Your father’s legacy is proud of you,” he wrote alongside a picture that included what appeared to be a Hamas flag.
And here, Ajjour mourns the death of Bara’a al-Zard, son of Hamas preacher Wael al-Zard.
Silly Bara’a died in an explosion caused by a device he was trying to launch at Israeli forces near the Gaza security fencehttps://t.co/vZR6IW0shF pic.twitter.com/ipQw55BYd7
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
This is not the first time a journalist from The Palestine Chronicle was alleged to have either supported or partaken in terrorism.
Abdallah Aljamal, who was a correspondent for The Chronicle, allegedly held three Israeli hostages in his home, according to the Israeli government. He was killed during a raid that rescued four hostages, including Argamani. After the allegations came to light, The Chronicle changed Aljamal’s status on its website from a correspondent to a contributor.
The Palestine Chronicle did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Fichberger wrote that he wants the US House Ways and Means Committee to investigate The Chronicle for what seems to have become a pattern.
“If The Chronicle is let off the hook for employing an actual terrorist hostage-taker, it would prove that the American counter-terror legal apparatus really is irreparably broken,” he wrote.
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