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Students for Justice in Palestine Occupies Building at Sarah Lawrence College
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) members inside the Westlands administrative building at Sarah Lawrence College. Photo: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)/Screenshot
A mob of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) members has taken over the Westlands administrative building at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and vowed not to surrender it unless school officials adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
The action, the first of its kinds since the spring “uprising” of encampments on colleges across the US, appears to have been precipitated by the college’s declining to accept SJP’s divestment recommendations — which aim to compromise Israel’s national security and leave the world’s lone Jewish state vulnerable to jihadist extremists.
“Westlands is occupied,” SJP said in a series of statements published on Instagram on Thursday. “Students have occupied Westlands to demand immediate action on the genocide of Palestinians. Administration has failed to meet our disclosure deadline. Westland residents are safe: they can come and go at will. We need your support: Walkout to the south lawn, bring food donations, sign divestment proposal.”
SJP also called on students to obstruct justice, imploring them to amass “as many bodies blocking doors as possible” and instructing them to wear “mask [sic] and indiscernible clothing, hats, scarves, etc to support the student intifada.” Since then, National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), which coordinates activities at individual colleges, has cheered the insurrectionist behavior, using the same incendiary language as the students.
“ALL OUT TO SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE! DEFEND THE STUDENT INTIFADA! For over 400 days our institutions have ignored the genocide for our people in Gaza, we demand that they disclose their financial investments and they DIVEST FROM DEATH 
,” the group, which is linked to a slew of terrorist organizations, tweeted.
NSJP further urged the students to “bring keffiyehs, noise makers, and flags.”
Photos published by SJP show its members tied together on the floor to prevent being detained by the police and posing next to a large banner on which the phrase Dar al Fayoumi is written. Purportedly the name of a casualty of the Israel-Hamas war, SJP proclaimed that it is the new name of Westlands. Additionally, various social media reports by groups such as FreedomNews.tv, reported on Thursday that they have also set up an encampment outside the building.
The occupation of the Westlands comes amid concerns that the over 150 pro-Hamas groups operating on colleges campuses and elsewhere across the US are planting the seeds of domestic terrorism.
“The movement contains militant elements pushing it toward a wider, more severe campaign focused on property destruction and violence properly described as domestic terrorism,” researcher Ryan Mauro wrote in a recently published report, titled “Marching Toward Violence: The Domestic Anti-Israeli Protest Movement,” a project of the Capital Research Center (CRC). “It demands the ‘dismantlement’ of America’s ‘colonialist,’ ‘imperialist,’ or ‘capitalist,’ system, often calling for the US to be abolished as a country.”
Drawing on statements issued and actions taken by SJP and their collaborators, Mauro made the case that toolkits published by SJP herald Hamas for perpetrating mass casualties of civilians; SJP has endorsed Iran’s attacks on Israel as well as its stated intention to overturn the US-led world order; and other groups under its umbrella have called on followers to “Bring the Intifada Home.” Such activities, the report explained, accelerated after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, which pro-Hamas groups perceived as an inflection point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an opportunity. By flooding the internet and college campuses with agitprop and staging activities — protests or vandalisms — they hoped to manufacture a critical mass of youth support for their ideas, thus creating an army of revolutionaries willing to adopt Hamas’s aims as their own.
The result has been a series of the kinds of incidents seen in academia throughout 2024 fall semester since Hamas’s onslaught.
Last month, when Jews around the world mourned on the anniversary of Oct. 7, a Harvard University student group called on pro-Hamas activists to “Bring the war home” and proceeded to vandalize a campus administrative building. The group members, who described themselves as “anonymous,” later said in a statement, “We are committed to bringing the war home and answering the call to open up a new front here in the belly of the beast.”
On the same day, the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) issued a similar statement, saying “now is the time to escalate,” adding, “Harvard’s insistence on funding slaughter only strengthens our moral imperative and commitment to our demands.”
More recently, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student wrote a journal article which argued that violence is a legitimate method of effecting political change and, moreover, advancing the pro-Palestinian movement.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, pro-Hamas activists have already demonstrated that they are willing to hurt people to achieve their goals.
Last year, in California, an elderly Jewish man was killed when an anti-Zionist professor employed by a local community college allegedly pushed him during an argument. At Cornell University in upstate New York, a student threatened to rape and kill Jewish female students and “shoot up” the campus’ Hillel center. Violence, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), was most common at universities in the state of California, where an anti-Zionist activist punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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US State Department Revokes Visas of UK Punk Rap Act Bob Vylan Amid Outrage Over Duo’s Chants of ‘Death to the IDF’
Bob Vylan music duo performance at Glastonbury Festival (Source: FLIKR)
The US State Department has revoked the visas for the English punk rap duo Bob Vylan amid ongoing outrage over their weekend performance at the Glastonbury Festival, in which the pair chanted “Death to the IDF.”
The State Department’s decision to cancel their visas would preclude a planned fall concert tour of the US by the British rappers.
“The [US State Department] has revoked the US visas for the members of the Bob Vylan band in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants. Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on X/Twitter on Monday.
During a June 28 set at Glastonbury Festival, Bob Vylan’s Pascal Robinson-Foster ignited a firestorm by leading the crowd in chants of “Death, death, to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces. He also complained about working for a “f—ing Zionist” during the set.
The video of the performance went viral, sparking outrage across the globe.
The BBC, which streamed the performance live, issued an on‑screen warning but continued its broadcast, prompting criticism by government officials for failing to cut the feed.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and festival organizers condemned the IDF chant as hate speech and incitement to violence. The Israeli Embassy in London denounced the language as “inflammatory and hateful.”
“Millions of people tuned in to enjoy Glastonbury this weekend across the BBC’s output but one performance within our livestreams included comments that were deeply offensive,” the BBC said in a statement following the event.
“These abhorrent chants, which included calls for the death of members of the Israeli Defense Forces … have no place in any civil society,” Leo Terrell, Chair of the US Department of Justice Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, declared Sunday in a statement posted on X.
Citing the act’s US tour plans, Terrell said his task force would be “reaching out to the U.S. Department of State on Monday to determine what measures are available to address the situation and to prevent the promotion of violent antisemitic rhetoric in the United States.”
British authorities, meanwhile, have launched a formal investigation into Bob Vylan’s controversial appearance at Glastonbury. Avon and Somerset Police confirmed they are reviewing footage and working with the Crown Prosecution Service to determine whether the performance constitutes a hate crime or incitement to violence.
United Talent Agency (UTA), one of the premier entertainment talent agencies, dropped the duo, claming “antisemitic sentiments expressed by the group were utterly unacceptable.”
The band defended their performance on social media as necessary protest, stating that “teaching our children to speak up for the change they want and need is the only way that we make this world a better place.”
The post US State Department Revokes Visas of UK Punk Rap Act Bob Vylan Amid Outrage Over Duo’s Chants of ‘Death to the IDF’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Dem House Leader Hakeem Jeffries Urges Mamdani to ‘Aggressively Address’ Antisemitism in NYC if Elected Mayor
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
US House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY) urged Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani to “aggressively address the rise in antisemitism” if he wins the general election in November.
“‘Globalizing the intifada’ by way of example is not an acceptable phrasing,” Jeffries said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “He’s going to have to clarify his position on that as he moves forward.”
“With respect to the Jewish communities that I represent, I think our nominee is going to have to convince folks that he is prepared to aggressively address the rise in antisemitism in the city of New York, which has been an unacceptable development,” he added.
Jeffries’s comments come as Mamdani has been receiving an onslaught of criticism for defending the controversial phrase “globalize the intifada.”
Mamdani first defended the phrase during an appearance on the popular Bulwark Podcast. The progressive firebrand stated that he feels “less comfortable with the banning of certain words.” He invoked the US Holocaust Museum in his defense, saying that the museum used the word intifada “when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means ‘struggle.’”
The Holocaust Museum repudiated Mamdani in a statement, calling his comments “offensive.”
Mamdani has continued to defend the slogan despite ongoing criticism, arguing that pro-Palestine advocates perceive it as a call for “universal human rights.”
Mamdani, the 33‑year‑old state assembly member and proud democratic socialist, defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other candidates in a lopsided first‑round win in the city’s Democratic primary for mayor, notching approximately 43.5 percent of first‑choice votes compared to Cuomo’s 36.4 percent.
The election results have alarmed members of the local Jewish community, who expressed deep concern over his past criticism of Israel and defense of antisemitic rhetoric.
“Mamdani’s election is the greatest existential threat to a metropolitan Jewish population since the election of the notorious antisemite Karl Lueger in Vienna,” Rabbi Marc Schneier, one of the most prominent Jewish leaders in New York City, said in a statement. “Jewish leaders must come together as a united force to prevent a mass Jewish Exodus from New York City.”
Some key Democratic leaders in New York, such as US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, have congratulated and complimented Mamdani, but have not yet issued an explicit endorsement. Each official has signaled interest in meeting with Mamdani prior to making a decision on a formal endorsement.
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Israel Eyes Ties With Syria and Lebanon After Iran War
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar attends a press conference with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (not pictured) in Berlin, Germany, June 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
Israel is interested in establishing formal diplomatic relations with long-standing adversaries Syria and Lebanon, but the status of the Golan Heights is non-negotiable, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday.
Israeli leaders argue that with its rival Iran weakened by this month’s 12-day war, other countries in the region have an opportunity to forge ties with Israel.
The Middle East has been upended by nearly two years of war in Gaza, during which Israel also carried out airstrikes and ground operations in Lebanon targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah, and by the overthrow of former Syrian leader and Iran ally Bashar al-Assad.
In 2020, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco became the first Arab states to establish ties with Israel since Jordan in 1994 and Egypt in 1979. The normalization agreements with Israel were deeply unpopular in the Arab world.
“We have an interest in adding countries such as Syria and Lebanon, our neighbors, to the circle of peace and normalization, while safeguarding Israel‘s essential and security interests,” Saar said at a press conference in Jerusalem.
“The Golan will remain part of the State of Israel,” he said.
Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 after capturing the territory from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War. While much of the international community regards the Golan as occupied Syrian land, US President Donald Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over it during his first term in office.
Following Assad’s ousting, Israeli forces moved further into Syrian territory.
A senior Syrian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Syria would never give up the Golan Heights, describing it as an integral part of Syrian territory.
The official also said that normalization efforts with Israel must be part of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and not carried out through a separate track.
A spokesperson for Syria‘s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The 2002 initiative proposed Arab normalization with Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from territories including the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and Gaza. It also called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Throughout the war in Gaza, regional power Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said that establishing ties with Israel was conditional on the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Israel‘s Saar said it was “not constructive” for other states to condition normalization on Palestinian statehood.
“Our view is that a Palestinian state will threaten the security of the State of Israel,” he said.
In May, Reuters reported that Israel and Syria‘s new Islamist rulers had established direct contact and held face-to-face meetings aimed at de-escalating tensions and preventing renewed conflict along their shared border.
The same month, US President Donald Trump announced the US would lift sanctions on Syria and met Syria‘s new president, urging him to normalize ties with Israel.
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