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Teen Vogue’s Anti-Israel Narratives Amplify Hamas Talking Points

The bodies of people, some of them elderly, lie on a street after they were killed during a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Once known as a publication offering beauty, fashion, and lifestyle advice to teenage girls, Teen Vogue has evolved into an outlet that frequently platforms one-sided narratives, featuring writers who have openly expressed their support for terrorism and anti-Israel rhetoric online. 

Esraa Abo Qamar’s piece, “Scholasticide in Gaza Means There Are Almost No Schools or Colleges Left” is just the latest to be published in Teen Vogue’s new anti-Israel mission.

The story of Esraa Abo Qamar — who goes by Esraa Sameer on social media — is undoubtedly emotional and likely resonates deeply with Teen Vogue’s target audience. As a student at the Islamic University of Gaza, Esraa had to halt her studies in October 2023 due to the outbreak of the war. Any student passionate about their education would be heartbroken to learn that a girl the same age would be forced to abandon their studies because of conflict. 

Esraa frames Israel as the perpetrator in this story, leveraging her op-ed to falsely accuse Israel of not only committing genocide, but also “scholasticide,” whereby Israel is framed as deliberately destroying the education system in Gaza. 

The term “scholasticide” was termed by none other than a former Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official,

Karma Nabulsi. Nabulsi worked as an international spokesperson for the PLO from 1977-1990, when the organization was at its height of launching attacks against Israel. Using an emotionally charged and baseless term coined by a former member of a terrorist organization raises serious doubts about its credibility.  

Not once does Esraa mention the real culprit of the destruction of Gaza’s educational system — Hamas. Esraa fails to acknowledge that Hamas has hijacked the education system in Gaza to promote its own extremist agenda that prioritizes the destruction of the State of Israel over providing youth with a meaningful education. 

This education system has clearly worked to indoctrinate Esraa, who gleefully celebrated the Iranian regime’s October 1 missile attacks on her social media, writing “God is the greatest” over a video of missiles and calling it the “best view of my life.” 

Esraa’s Instagram story on the night of the Iranian regime’s missile attack, October 1, 2024.

Apparently, the education of Israeli students is less important, as Esraa omits that one of those missiles hit a school in Gedera.

Of course, the Hamas-run education system in Gaza doesn’t teach accurate history. Otherwise, Esraa would remember that Israel has not ruled Gaza for most of her life. While Esraa writes that Gazans have suffered under “violent military rule and apartheid” since 1948, her emotionally charged perspective on the history of Palestinians overlooks critical historical facts.

Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip from 1948 until 1967, when Israel took over the territory in a defensive war. Esraa further omits that Israel has not governed Gaza since 2005, when Israel disengaged from the territory. Since 2007, Gaza has been under the control of Hamas, which has imposed a brutal and oppressive regime that focuses on terrorizing Israelis and uprooting the Jewish State rather than taking care of its own civilians.   

Part of Hamas’ terrorism strategy comes from embedding themselves in civilian locations. In fact, Hamas has systematically taken advantage of the Islamic University of Gaza since the institution’s founding, using it as an outpost to indoctrinate students with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. On multiple occasions since October 7th, Hamas has used the university to manufacture weapons and launch anti-tank missiles. In other instances, Hamas’ own misfired rockets have hit schools in Gaza. 

The accusations that Israel destroyed Gaza’s water and sanitation sites and “weaponized starvation” similarly fall short when all the facts are presented. Since the start of the war, Israel has coordinated more than 1.3 million tons of aid to be distributed in the Gaza Strip and has worked to increase the supply of clean water throughout the war. 

However, these facts don’t matter to Esraa, who merely states in passing the reason for the war starting in the first place — Hamas’ vicious terror attacks on October 7, 2023, which stole the lives of more than 1,200 Israelis, many of whom were students and young adults. 

If facts don’t matter to Esraa, then neither do definitions, as she purposefully misrepresents Zionism to be a “religious nationalist ideology,” rather than the desire for the Jewish people to live in their historic national homeland.

Students protesting this in the US aren’t simply “activists” as Esraa claims but are rather denying the Jewish people of a basic right. Moreover, the pioneers of Israel were largely secular Zionists and founded the state on that approach rather than on religious ideals. 

Esraa does get one thing right in her article — war kills dreams. Unfortunately, Hamas has chosen to perpetuate a prolonged conflict against the Jewish people, depriving innocent individuals of their right to education and peace. 

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Teen Vogue’s Anti-Israel Narratives Amplify Hamas Talking Points first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”

He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.

Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.

Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.

But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.

He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”

He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.

He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.

He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.

He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”

Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.

“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.

SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY

Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.

Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.

Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.

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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly

US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.

A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.

Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.

On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.

“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.

Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.

Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.

WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”

“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.

“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.

JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel

Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.

The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.

While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.

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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis

Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot

Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.

“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”

Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.

“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.

Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.

She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.

The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”

Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”

The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.

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