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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.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
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