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This Passover at Georgetown, an Anti-Israel Referendum in the Spirit of Pharaoh
The Rafik B. Hariri Building at Georgetown University in Washington, DC was vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti on Oct. 16, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
“Mah nishtanah halilah hazeh?” Why is this night different from all other nights? Jews around the world read these words in the Haggadah, the ancient Passover guide that tells the story of Pharaoh’s oppression of the Jewish people in Egypt. While the first night of Passover may be different from all other nights, the insistence of the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) to hold an anti-Israel campus wide referendum over the Passover holiday is sadly more of the same antisemitism that has overtaken the campus. Once again, Jews are being singled out for unequal treatment at Georgetown.
GUSA’s scheduling of the referendum during Passover is no oversight. GUSA broke its own rules to advance the referendum without the approval of the Senate’s Policy and Advocacy Committee (PAC), which typically determines whether to send legislation to the full Senate. According to one GUSA senator, John DiPierri, “Every single rule related to our procedure was broken.” Another, senator Saahil Rao, complained that this directly impacted the referendum that was advanced: “There’s obviously a lot of controversial language within this referendum, and I thought we should have debated as a senate on how to present this issue to the student body in the most objective way possible.”
By rushing the resolution, GUSA has organized a Passover crisis for Georgetown’s Jewish community. While haste is nothing new for people who still eat unleavened bread for eight days to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt, the spiraling antisemitism that has seized college campuses since Hamas’s brutal attack on Oct. 7, 2023, is something else entirely.
Seventy-three percent of American Jewish college students surveyed in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre said they have personally experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism. In particular, 87 percent of Jewish college students are concerned that anti-Israel protests and petitions to boycott the State of Israel lead to hate crimes and violence against Jewish students, according to February 2025 polling.
Unfortunately, Georgetown already has a poor track record of protecting its Jewish students. A series of protests chanting for the destruction of Israel escalated on Sept. 20, 2024, to a vandalism incident where the John Carroll statue outside Healy Hall was spray-painted with an inverted red triangle, a symbol used to indicate planned retribution against primarily Jewish individuals. Students have reported a series of antisemitic incidents at Georgetown, and the Chabad rabbi was struck several times by a Lyft driver.
Worse yet, the permeation of anti-Jewish ideas into the Georgetown ethos is not just random; it’s institutional. Georgetown previously hired Nader Hashemi as the director of its Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) after he had publicly presented a conspiracy theory that the man who attacked Salman Rushdie in an attempt to fulfill Iran’s fatwa to assassinate the author of The Satanic Verses was being secretly orchestrated by Israel’s Mossad. Jonathan Brown, chair of the university’s Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies and son-in-law of convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad member Sami Al-Arian, has repeatedly made comments like: “Israeli security forces are lunatics. Israel is insanely racist.”
Even Georgetown’s medical school is infected with the plague of antisemitism. Multiple medical students posted disturbing content on social media, mocking the Oct. 7 massacre and invoking classic antisemitic tropes — from accusing Jews of global control to justifying terror as “resistance.” Jewish medical students, a small minority at Georgetown, described a climate of fear, harassment, and professional retaliation, with messages like “Free Palestine” sent privately during Zoom classes. Perhaps Georgetown’s policies are partially compromised by its close relationship with Qatar, a major Hamas financier. Georgetown’s campus in Doha hosted a panel in 2024 titled “Israel’s war on Palestinians.”
Georgetown has also platformed figures like Mohammed El-Kurd, who publicly praised Hamas’s atrocities as “resistance” and plays into ancient blood libel tropes by accusing Israelis of harvesting Palestinian organs and “a thirst for blood.” These actions have placed Georgetown under federal scrutiny — and raise urgent questions about whether its institutional culture protects bigotry under the guise of free speech.
The Hebrew word Haggadah means “telling” in English. On account of the Passover referendum targeting Georgetown’s small Jewish community, we must take stock of what Georgetown — a university that espouses Jesuit values such as “respect for each person’s individual needs and talents” — is telling the world. When Jewish students are cornered, intimidated, and treated as pariahs during the very holiday that celebrates their emancipation, it is not just reprehensible. It is also symbolic.
Let us be clear: Jewish students do not ask for special treatment. They ask for equal treatment. And just as in every generation, we are commanded to see ourselves as if we, too, were taken out of Egypt. Freedom and safety for Jews are not relics of an ancient story. They are also urgent demands for today.
Hen Mazzig is an Israeli writer, speaker, and Senior Fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute. He’s appeared as an expert on Israel, antisemitism, and social media in the BBC, NBC News, LA Times, Newsweek, and more. Follow him on: @henmazzig
The post This Passover at Georgetown, an Anti-Israel Referendum in the Spirit of Pharaoh first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hezbollah Says Lebanon Move on Army Plan Is ‘Opportunity,’ Urges Israel to Commit to Ceasefire
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and members of the cabinet stand as they attend a cabinet session to discuss the army’s plan to disarm Hezbollah, at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, Lebanon, September 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Hezbollah official Mahmoud Qmati told Reuters on Saturday that the group considered Friday’s cabinet session on an army plan to establish a state monopoly on arms “an opportunity to return to wisdom and reason, preventing the country from slipping into the unknown.”
Lebanon’s cabinet on Friday welcomed a plan by the army that would disarm Hezbollah and said the military would begin executing it, without setting a timeframe for implementation and cautioning that the army had limited capabilities.
But it said continued Israeli military operations in Lebanon would hamper the army’s progress. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Lebanese information minister Paul Morcos stopped short of saying the cabinet had formally approved the plan.
Qmati told Reuters that Hezbollah had reached its assessment based on the government’s declaration on Friday that further implementation of a US roadmap on the matter was dependent on Israel’s commitment. He said that without Israel halting strikes and withdrawing its troops from southern Lebanon, Lebanon’s implementation of the plan should remain “suspended until further notice.”
Lebanon’s cabinet last month tasked the army with coming up with a plan that would establish a state monopoly on arms and approved a US roadmap aimed at disarming Hezbollah in exchange for a halt to Israeli military operations in Lebanon.
Qmati said that Hezbollah “unequivocally rejected” those two decisions and expected the Lebanese government to draw up a national defense strategy.
Israel last week signaled it would scale back its military presence in southern Lebanon if the army took action to disarm Hezbollah. Meanwhile, it has continued its strikes, killing four people on Wednesday.
A national divide over Hezbollah’s disarmament has taken center stage in Lebanon since last year’s devastating war with Israel, which upended a power balance long dominated by the Iran-backed Shi’ite Muslim group.
Lebanon is under pressure from the US, Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah’s domestic rivals to disarm the group. But Hezbollah has pushed back, saying it would be a serious misstep to even discuss disarmament while Israel continues its air strikes on Lebanon and occupies swathes of territory in the south.
Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem last month raised the specter of civil war, warning the government against trying to confront the group and saying street protests were possible.
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UK Police Arrest Dozens at Latest Protest for Banned Palestine Action
Demonstrators attend the “Lift The Ban” rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, September 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
British police arrested dozens more people on Saturday under anti-terrorism laws for demonstrating in support of Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian group banned by the government as a terrorist organization.
Britain banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation in July after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged military planes. The group accuses Britain’s government of complicity in what it says are Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
Police have arrested hundreds of Palestine Action supporters in recent weeks under anti-terrorism legislation, including over 500 in just one day last month, many of them over the age of 60.
On Saturday, hundreds of demonstrators gathered near parliament in central London to protest against the ban on Saturday, with many holding up signs that said: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
London’s Metropolitan Police said officers had begun arresting those expressing support for Palestine Action. Police did not say how many arrests were made but a Reuters witness said dozens of people were detained.
Palestine Action’s ban, or proscription, puts the group alongside al-Qaeda and ISIS and makes it a crime to support or belong to the organization, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
“I can be unequivocal, if you show support for Palestine Action – an offense under the Terrorism Act – you will be arrested,” Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said on Friday. “We have the officer numbers, custody capacity and all other resources to process as many people as is required.”
Human rights groups have criticized Britain’s decision to ban the group as disproportionate and say it limits the freedom of expression of peaceful protesters.
The government has accused Palestine Action of causing millions of pounds worth of criminal damage and says the ban does not prevent other pro-Palestinian protests.
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Macron’s Meeting with American Jewry ‘Won’t Happen’ Amid Palestinian Recognition Drive, Surge in Antisemitism
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference in Paris, France, June 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
i24 News – French President Emmanuel Macron attempted to set up a meeting with American Jewish leaders later this month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
i24NEWS has learned that the meeting won’t happen, firstly because Macron was only available for the meeting ahead of the UN General Assembly during Rosh Hashanah, and yet, a person invited to meet with Macron and who has knowledge of the discussions told i24NEWS the sit-down simply wasn’t going to happen, anyway.
“I think the organizations, for the most part, would not have participated,” the person said, adding that AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee would have likely received invitations, among other entities.
“The guy has a 15% popularity rating in France. It’s not our job to help him out,” the person said.
Asked by i24NEWS whether Macron’s push for greater Palestinian state recognition or his lack of action in tackling antisemitism at home led to the stance of organized American Jewry, the person said it’s more of “the climate” which allows one to say ‘Look, the American Jews met with me,’ regardless of the content.”
The person said they are sure, if a meeting would have happened, that everybody in the room would have taken a hard line with Macron, including his “statements on Israel, the failure to respond to antisemitism” and France’s announcement this summer that it will recognize a Palestinian state later this month, and is leading an effort to get more countries to do the same.
But, the person told i24NEWS they are convinced that, in the end, while no final decision actually had to be taken, there was enough pressure that a consensus would have been reached to decline the meeting.
Of the timing of Rosh Hashanah allowing for leadership to not be forced to officially say no to Macron, the person said “G-d saves us every time.”
Another source familiar with the matter noted that it cannot be ruled out that Macron may eventually succeed in arranging a meeting with certain representatives, as the organizations are not a single unified body. However, he is unlikely to be welcomed by the overwhelming majority of groups representing American Jewry.
i24NEWS has also learned that French President Emmanuel Macron explored the possibility of visiting Israel ahead of the convention, but was advised by the Prime Minister’s Office that the timing was inappropriate. The message came as Macron continues to push for recognition of a Palestinian state, a move Israel strongly opposes. Sources further told i24NEWS that Israel is weighing additional retaliatory measures against Macron, including the potential closure of the French consulate in Jerusalem, which primarily serves Palestinians in the West Bank.