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Universities Make Concessions to Pro-Hamas Demonstrators, Expert Warns Capitulation Led by Faculty Pressure
Demonstrators rally at a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Students set up the encampment demanding that Northwestern divests from connections to Israel. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
At least two elite American universities have made concrete concessions to anti-Israel protesters who set up illegal “encampments” on school property, chanted antisemitic slogans, and vowed not to leave unless administrators agreed to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against the Jewish state.
For the past two weeks, college students have been amassing in the hundreds at a growing number of schools, taking over sections of campuses by setting up “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and refusing to leave unless administrators condemn and boycott Israel. Footage of the protests has shown demonstrators chanting in support of Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus. In many cases, activists have also lambasted the US and Western civilization more broadly.
The protests initially erupted across the US but have since spread to university campuses around the world, primarily in the West.
According to an announcement issued by Northwestern University in Illinois after hours of negotiations with the protesters, the school has agreed to establish a new scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contact potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, and create a segregated dormitory hall to be occupied exclusively by Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim students. Northwestern University — where a mob shouted “Kill the Jews!” as part of the ongoing protests — has also agreed to form a new investment committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
On Tuesday, meanwhile, Brown University in Rhode Island announced that it will hold a vote on divesting from companies linked to Israel in exchange for the students disassembling their encampment and abstaining from holding more protests until the school’s commencement on May 26, according to the Brown Daily Herald. The student newspaper added, however, that the university will not “at this time” drop criminal charges filed against 41 students who illegally occupied an administrative building in December.
Student involvement in promoting the BDS movement and anti-Zionism amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has been widely covered by major news outlets across the world. However, the role of university faculty in leading the push against Israel has received little attention.
On Wednesday, campus antisemitism expert Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, who founded the AMCHA Initiative watchdog group, told The Algemeiner that far more focus must shift to the faculty, who have provided material and intellectual support to the student protesters and, in many cases, are the individuals responsible for steering them into antisemitic movements fueled by anti-Zionism.
“So much of this has to do with faculty — it’s the missing piece for understanding all of what’s happening, but particularly administrative responses to it,” Rossman-Benjamin said. “The protesters were students who were protected, supported, and, in many cases, colluded with by faculty. Almost all of these encampments, especially the most vicious and antisemitic, have faculty groups that either have their back and are running interference with the university administrations or are actively conspiring and participating in what’s happening on campus, giving it academic legitimacy, inciting it, and encouraging the adoption of more antisemitism and aggression.”
Rossman-Benjamin added that when a university president concedes to the demands of a student mob, they do so at the insistence of faculty, who can prematurely end their employment by issuing votes of no confidence, a measure that all but guarantees a president will be removed from office. On Tuesday, such a vote took place at Barnard College — reportedly the first ever in the school’s history — in protest of President Lauren Rosenbury’s decision to suspend over 50 students for their involvement in staging an encampment there.
“It’s the faculty. Faculty are behind the vote of no confidence at Barnard College and also at [California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt],” Rossman-Benjamin continued. “Faculty run the university, and they are out of control. They have tenure, and university presidents do not. So, it’s not that administrators are capitulating to students. They are capitulating to the faculty, because they know that if they run afoul of the faculty, they are history. This has been happening for years and and is the consequence of allowing academic departments to become political soapboxes.”
Formally launched in 2005, the BDS campaign opposes Zionism — a movement supporting the Jewish people’s right to self-determination — and rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. It seeks to isolate the country comprehensively with economic, political, and cultural boycotts. Official propaganda issued for the campaign’s academic boycott delineates specific restrictions that adherents should abide by — for instance, denying letters of recommendation to students who seek to study in Israel — and says that it aims to ensure that “projects with all Israeli academic institutions should come to an end.”
Widespread adoption of BDS by universities would mark an “inflection point” in American history, Rossman-Benjamin explained.
“What is an academic boycott? The goal of it is to make sure that Israel is not normalized in the global academy,” she said. “What does that mean? No mention, no positive mention of Israel, which is about more than stopping study abroad programs. It’s about stopping and shutting down any flow of information about Israel that puts Israel in anything but a negative and demonic light. It’s completely against anything the university stands for, turning it on its end, and it uses the structure of the university to do that.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israel Says Missile Launched by Yemen’s Houthis ‘Most Likely’ Intercepted

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The Israeli army said on Saturday that a missile fired from Yemen towards Israeli territory had been “most likely successfully intercepted,” while Yemen’s Houthi forces claimed responsibility for the launch.
Israel has threatened Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement – which has been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Gaza – with a naval and air blockade if its attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group was responsible for Saturday’s attack, adding that it fired a missile towards the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
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Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel

People attend the funeral procession of Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 28, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Large crowds of mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran’s capital Tehran as the country held a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month’s aerial war with Israel.
At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Their coffins were driven into Tehran’s Azadi Square adorned with their photos and national flags, as crowds waved flags and some reached out to touch the caskets and throw rose petals onto them. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display.
Mass prayers were later held in the square.
State TV said the funeral, dubbed the “procession of the Martyrs of Power,” was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children.
In attendance were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as Khamenei’s son Mojtaba.
“Today, Iranians, through heroic resistance against two regimes armed with nuclear weapons, protected their honor and dignity, and look to the future prouder, more dignified, and more resolute than ever,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who also attended the funeral, said in a Telegram post.
There was no immediate statement from Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since the conflict began. In past funerals, he led prayers over the coffins of senior commanders ahead of public ceremonies broadcast on state television.
Israel launched the air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
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Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said it aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran.
Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war. Bagheri was being buried at the Behesht Zahra cemetery outside Tehran mid-afternoon on Saturday. Salami and Hajizadeh were due to be buried on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing Iran again, while Khamenei, who has appeared in two pre-recorded video messages since the start of the war, has said Iran would respond to any future US attack by striking US military bases in the Middle East.
A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had delivered a “major blow” to Iran’s nuclear project. On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Israel and the US “failed to achieve their stated objectives” in the war.
According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the war before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured.
Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians.
Israel’s health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.
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Pro-Palestinian Rapper Leads ‘Death to the IDF’ Chant at English Music festival

Revellers dance as Avril Lavigne performs on the Other Stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, in Pilton, Somerset, Britain, June 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
i24 News – Chants of “death to the IDF” were heard during the English Glastonbury music festival on Saturday ahead of the appearance of the pro-Palestinian Irish rappers Kneecap.
One half of punk duo based Bob Vylan (who both use aliases to protect their privacy) shouted out during a section of their show “Death to the IDF” – the Israeli military. Videos posted on X (formerly Twitter) show the crowd responding to and repeating the cheer.
This comes after officials had petitioned the music festival to drop the band. The rap duo also expressed support for the following act, Kneecap, who the BCC refused to show live after one of its members, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – better known by stage name Mo Chara – was charged with a terror offense.
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