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University of Connecticut Rejects Dialogue With Pro-Hamas Group After Antisemitic Incident Targeting President
UConnDivest, a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spinoff demonstrating at University of Connecticut. Photo: UConnDivest/Instagram
University of Connecticut administrators have canceled a planned meeting with UConnDivest (UDC), a spinoff of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), following the group’s creating what a local newspaper described as an antisemitic caricature of President Radenka Maric, who is Jewish.
According to The Hartford Courant, UDC on Monday distributed an illustration portraying Maric as a devil-like figure with red horns against a backdrop of money and missiles. The tactic continued a smear offensive SJP has been waging against Maric since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, which has included creating altered images in which the face of a clown — graffitied across the forehead with the phrase “I Genocide — is imposed on her visage. In other communications, SJP has accused Maric of being both a puppet and puppet master, one who facilitates a genocide of Palestinians and, as it said in May, “inherently sides with ruling class interests.”
Maric’s administration, aiming to calm the campus months after she ordered the arrests of some two dozen pro-Hamas protesters, still agreed to hold several meetings with UCD to discuss their demands for a boycott of Israel and amnesty for protesters facing criminal charges despite their repeated violations of school rules and promotion of antisemitic tropes. The first of what was to be a series of meetings was held in late August. They were slated to continue throughout the fall semester, but after UCD’s latest outburst, the administration has stated that its patience is exhausted and that a dialogue with the students cannot continue.
“Whatever the intent, these images are examples of grotesque and unacceptable antisemitism that will be instantly recognizable to countless Jews,” high-level university officials on Thursday told UCD in a letter, portions of which were shared by the Hartford Courant. “It is deeply wrong and dangerous to deploy imagery such as this. Depicting a Jewish female administrator with ‘devil horns,’ as a pig, or using obscene and vulgar expressions, are not amusing caricatures — they are dark and troubling images deeply rooted in history that have been associated with hatred and violence for centuries, in addition to being openly misogynistic.”
The letter continued, “We witnessed expressions and actions that are deeply disturbing, counter to our values as an inclusive community, and make further meetings or discussions with your student group at this time untenable.”
UCD responded to the letter by vowing to continue its behaviors until its demands, which include a face-to-face standoff with Maric, are met.
“UConnDivest is fighting to end the genocide of Palestinians and to end the violence and oppression imposed upon so many other peoples around the globe,” the group said in an Instagram post. “UConnDivest will never cease speaking out against human rights abuses and fighting for what is right. Our Palestinian siblings are forever in our hearts.”
Writing to the Courant, the group accused the university of fabricating antisemitism allegations to sidestep Israel’s war with Hamas.
“UConnDivest condemns the administration’s weaponization of antisemitism to deflect criticism over its involvement in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” it said.
Pro-Hamas and anti-Zionist groups are already resuming the disruptive behavior they perpetrated last academic year, when Jewish students across the US were assaulted, spit on, and threatened with mass murder.
In August, pro-Hamas students at Cornell University vandalized an administrative building, graffitiing “Israel Bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” on it and shattering the glazings of its glass doors. Earlier this month, several resident assistants employed by Rutgers University left an antisemitism awareness program because a speaker explained that Hamas’s antisemitism and desire to destroy the world’s only Jewish state precipitated the Oct. 7 massacre. Weeks earlier, a masked man poured red paint on the Alma Mater sculpture at Columbia University, symbolizing the spilling of blood.
Anti-Israel activity on college campuses has reached crisis levels in the 11 months since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, according to a new report the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued on Monday.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — paints a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents, 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California, Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, the report continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where in one incident anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
The ADL also provided hard numbers on the number of pro-Hamas protests which struck campuses across the country following Oct. 7, a subject The Algemeiner has covered extensively. According to the report, 1,418 anti-Zionist demonstrations were held at 360 campuses in 46 states during the 2023-2024 academic year, a 335 percent increase from the previous year.
“The antisemitic, anti-Zionist vitriol we’ve witnessed on campus is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement announcing the report. “Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the anti-Israel movement’s relentless harassment, vandalism, intimidation and violent physical assaults go way beyond the peaceful voicing of a political opinion. Administrators and faculty need to do much better this year to ensure a safe and truly inclusive environment for all students, regardless of religion, nationality, or political views, and they need to start now.”
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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