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UMass Amherst Student Government Passes BDS ‘Reaffirmation’
Baker Hall at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Photo: Wikipedia Commons.
The Student Government Association (SGA) of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) proposed and passed on Friday a resolution which “reaffirmed” its previous endorsement of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel just a few days after Jews and Israelis marked the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on the Jewish state.
“Be it further resolved, that the UMass Amherst Student Government Association University Undergraduate Senate continues to urge the UMass Amherst administration, board of trustees, and UMass Foundation to divest from all direct and indirect financial investments and official university partnerships with Raytheon and other defense contractors, all corporations affiliated with Israel Defense Forces, and entities on the BDS list,” the resolution said.
It continued, “Undergraduate Senate continues to affirm the rights of students to protest and make demands of UMass administration and affirms that any talks or implementation surrounding divestment should include democratic oversight from faculty, students, and staff.”
The measure, titled “The Reaffirmation,” also contained spoils for anti-Zionist and pro-Hamas fellow travelers, imploring the university, for example, to drop disciplinary charges filed against students who last semester lived illegally in a “Gaza solidarity encampment” site from which they refused to leave unless administrators complied with their demands for a boycott of Israel.
Coinciding with mass mourning of the Oct. 7 victims, the resolution reopened old wounds, a UMass student — Aviva, who has requested that her last name be withheld from this article — told The Algemeiner. She also argued that, having taken place on Shabbat, the resolution seemed to reveal the intention of its sponsors to exclude Jews from the debate.
“We see time and time again that student governments around the country basically put these votes up on nights such as Shabbat or other holidays when they know the Jewish students cannot show up and that, if they did, their argument would not withstand rigorous debate,” Aviva said, noting that many Jewish students did eventually decide to attend the SGA session. “And we saw that the other night, that there were so many holes in their argument that they were unable to confidently answer many questions both from senators and community members who supported the reaffirmation and who did not.”
A palpable tension choked the air in the room once the senators realized they would have to see in person a people they had contrived to treat as board game pieces, she continued. Forced to discuss the matter at hand with an audience comprising more dissenters than anticipated, some SGA members defended themselves, arguing that the session was, at its core, a performance — a pantomime of resistance against corporate power which would bear little on decisions rendered by the trustees who mange the university’s endowment.
Others claimed, falsely, that it was necessary because UMass’s investments are heavily concentrated in Israeli businesses and others linked to it. However, whether the vote was a performance or not, its happening so soon after the Oct. 7 anniversary, and on Shabbat, indicated that SGA had chosen Jews and Zionists as its target audience, Aviva explained.
“They don’t mention any other countries [besides Israel]. To me, that’s blatant antisemitism. Another problem is that the concerns of Jewish students were brutally disregarded during the question and answer portion of the session,” Aviva continued. “One Jewish student stood up and said that she had experienced an assault on campus and asked the members of Senate who supported the resolution what they would do to protect Jewish students on campus, to which he responded something like, ‘I’m more worried about Jewish students who were mistreated by cops.’”
The hearing went on in this way, according to Aviva, with the anti-Zionist senators accusing Israel of crimes against humanity while imposing their opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Jewish students as established facts. At some point, SGA president Colin Humphries said that his earlier call to be “respectful of one another” — as quoted by The Massachusetts Daily Collegian — had been ignored and that their militancy had cut deep. A Jewish senator, he noticed, exuded distress, causing him to walk to where she sat and console her.
“They were snickering and making fun of people,” Aviva said. “The president, as well as vice president, of SGA has supported more than a few questionable ideas during his tenure, taking stances that don’t really make sense, but it was telling that he felt so nervous in that room that he needed to move to the back of the room to protect a Jewish student. That really shows that this isn’t a safe campus environment, a president feeling nervous and scared for one of his legislators.”
Ultimately, the anti-Zionist caucus of UMass SGA notched yet another legislative victory. The “reaffirmation” passed overwhelmingly and will be forwarded to the university’s leadership. Aviva believes, however, that SGA can still be a force for good and that one ingredient of reforming it is increased Jewish representation.
“This reaffirmation was so painful because Jewish senators were in the process of talking about ways to build bridges, to build community within SGA and between the larger campus student body,” she said. “That being said, I think SGA has the power to really bring people together. Electing more Jewish senators and chairs of different committees would be an amazing start.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post UMass Amherst Student Government Passes BDS ‘Reaffirmation’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
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