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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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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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