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University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Academic Department Deletes Letter to Students Accusing Israel of ‘Genocide’
Illustrative: Thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators from the Midwest gather in support of Palestinians and hold a rally and march through the Loop in Chicago on Oct. 21, 2023. Photo: Alexandra Buxbaum/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The Department of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has deleted a statement from its website accusing Israel of “genocide” and “settler colonial violence.”
“We are committed to critical if sometimes difficult conversations about the historical context of Israel’s ongoing genocide and occupation of Palestine,” said the letter, posted on Dec. 18 and cosigned by the Department of Asian American Studies and the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies.
“We affirm the value of Palestinian life, and we know a free Palestine is only possible through queer, racial, gender, reproductive, and environmental justice. We offer our classrooms as a space for you to take refuge and find the strength to change the world together,” it continued, while suggesting that Israel’s existence fosters anti-Black racism.
The letter, which was addressed to the departments’ students, has since been taken down from the university website.
This is not the first time that academic departments at UIUC have waded into politics. Amid the 2021 conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, four departments at the school — Gender and Women’s Studies, Urban and Regional Planning, Asian American Studies, and History — issued statements pledging “solidarity” with Palestinians and variously accused Israel of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler colonialism. After over 40 faculty members lodged a complaint about the statements, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (UIUC) administrators said that the school would not ask academic departments to abstain from political advocacy.
That policy has since been revised and, according to an Algemeiner source, is the reason why the Department of Latina/Latino Studies deleted the letter.
“Faculty have the academic freedom to sign any petition they want, although one would hope they’d exercise good judgement, do basic fact-checking, and avoid endorsing inflammatory statements,” Academic Engagement Network (AEN) executive director Miriam Elman told The Algemeiner on Friday in a statement commenting on the letter. “Academic units, and especially degree-granting departments, should not be issuing politicized, divisive statements that establish orthodoxies, chill dissent, and alienate and marginalize those who may disagree — especially students and vulnerable junior faculty.”
Elman noted that it’s unlikely that Jewish and Zionist students will “feel welcome and respected in these departments” and cheered “the university leaders who intervened swiftly to remove the statement from official university channels.”
According to documents shared with The Algemeiner, since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, extreme anti-Zionism, as well as platforming of individuals who have promoted antisemitic conspiracies and tropes, has exploded at UIUC. Two months after the attack, the Women & Gender in Global Perspectives Program added two virulently anti-Zionist panelists, Susan Abulhawa and Laila El-Haddad, to what was scheduled to be a one-on-one conversation featuring a pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian speaker.
Abulhawa has accused Israel of committing “a dozen kristallnachts [sic],” referring to the infamous pogrom carried out against Jews in Nazi Germany in November 1938. Abulhawa’s viewpoints are so controversial that a sponsor of an Australian festival she was scheduled to participate in pulled its support. After Oct. 7 she also rationalized Hamas’ massacre on her Facebook page.
El-Haddad is a member of a pro-Palestinian think tank that has regularly shared articles celebrating Hamas’ violence and promoting false allegations of Israeli apartheid and genocide.
Later, the event was canceled after Abulhawa allegedly refused to share a stage with a Zionist. In its place, the school’s Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) held a panel in which UIUC Students for Justice in Palestine member Sara Hijab said, “I hope you realize the evil Zionism is and that it has no place anywhere in the world.” Labor and Employment Relations professor Augustus Wood added, “The armed resistance should not be referred to in crude inhumane terms such as terrorists,” apparently referring to Hamas.
US college campuses have experienced an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents — including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students— since Oct. 7. Between that day and Dec. 18, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 470 antisemitic incidents on college campuses , and during that same period, antisemitic incidents across the US skyrocketed by 323 percent compared to the prior year.
Last month, the ADL called out American colleges and universities in an open letter, reminding them of their obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment and intimidation.
“Shockingly, many students engaging in this activity — including harassment, intimidation, and other clear violations of student codes of conduct — have not faced consequences,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote. “Universities have by and large been derelict in their duty to protect Jewish communities on campus, in many cases raising serious concern under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Simply put, to date, there have been too few consequences — that must change.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Academic Department Deletes Letter to Students Accusing Israel of ‘Genocide’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist
Louis Theroux first visited the West Bank in 2011 to film a documentary titled Louis and the Ultra-Zionists, part of his long-running series for the BBC. Back then, he at least seemed to possess a trace of journalistic curiosity. Even the title signaled a degree of editorial caution — framing his subjects as a small, ideological fringe rather than representative of Israeli society as a whole.
At the time, Theroux made an effort to clarify that he was profiling a narrow segment of Israelis. He showed legally purchased Jewish homes (sold by Arab landowners, no less) and acknowledged the regular — and at times deadly — terror attacks faced by Israeli civilians living in the area, often requiring military protection. There was condescension, certainly. But there was also context.
Fast-forward to 2024, and the curiosity is gone — though the bemused, slightly smug expression remains. His new BBC documentary, Louis and the Settlers, drops even the soft qualifiers. No “ultra.” No nuance. Just “settlers.” And with that, Theroux makes it clear: half a million Israelis living in the West Bank are one and the same — extremists who, we’re told, want every last Palestinian removed from the land.
This time, the documentary doesn’t begin with questions. It begins with conclusions. And Theroux uses a brief, unrepresentative snapshot of life in the West Bank to draw sweeping indictments of the entire Israeli state.
The message is unmistakable: Israel is the problem. Settlers are the villains. And Palestinians are passive, blameless victims of a colonial project.
Within the opening minutes, Theroux plants his ideological flag. He refers to the West Bank as “Palestinian territory” and describes every Israeli community within it as illegal under international law — a sharp departure from his more qualified approach 14 years earlier.
And while his personal views seep in throughout the film, they become crystal clear during one exchange at a checkpoint, where an Israeli soldier casually refers to their location as “Israel.” Theroux shoots back: “We’re not in Israel, are we?”
And just like that, the BBC and Louis Theroux have redrawn Israel’s borders. No Knesset debate needed.
2/ October 7 is barely mentioned. When it is, it’s framed as a pretext for settlement expansion. A massacre becomes a motive. Civilians butchered in their homes are brushed aside to serve Theroux’s storyline. pic.twitter.com/3HeZyIfOVq
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 30, 2025
Erasing History to Blame the Massacre
The timing of this return trip is no accident. The film comes in the shadow of the October 7 Hamas massacres — the day 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, families were burned alive in their homes, and children were dragged into Gaza. And yet, Theroux barely mentions it.
The few passing references to October 7 serve not to inform the audience — but to imply that Israel may be exploiting its own dead to justify further expansion. It’s not an investigation. It’s an accusation. And it allows him to skip over thousands of years of Jewish history in order to frame the current war in Gaza as a convenient cover story for Israeli “aggression.”
Take Hebron, for example. Theroux tells viewers that “in 1968, the year after [the West Bank] was occupied by Israel, a community of Jewish settlers moved in illegally. They now number some 700.” He fails to mention that in 1895 — decades before the modern state of Israel existed — Hebron had a Jewish population of 1,429.
Jews have lived in Hebron since antiquity — it’s where, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs. Modern records date the community back centuries, despite discrimination under Ottoman rule and bans on Jewish prayer at holy sites. In 1929, Arab rioters carried out a massacre, wiping out Hebron’s Jewish population. Dozens were murdered; the rest were expelled. Under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, Jews were banned from the city entirely. When they returned after the Six-Day War — not as colonists, but as a displaced community coming home — Theroux picks up the story there and calls it “illegal.”
On the Six-Day War itself, Theroux offers no context. No mention of the Arab armies preparing to destroy Israel. No mention of Israel’s preemptive strike against an existential threat.
According to The Settlers, Israel simply “occupied” — full stop.
A Smear Disguised as a Documentary@LouisTheroux didn’t come to Israel to report—he came to delegitimize. His latest BBC film erases Palestinian terrorism, and casts Israel as the villain in a pre-written script—all while calling it journalism. pic.twitter.com/m4Fs2MJ0H2
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 5, 2025
Palestinian Terrorism? Not Even a Footnote.
Theroux visits Evyatar, a small Jewish community near the Palestinian town of Beita, and uses it as a stand-in for the entire West Bank. Beita is depicted as a symbol of peaceful resistance: a proud, ancient Palestinian village standing firm against violent settlers backed by IDF soldiers.
It’s a neat story. Too neat. Because missing from the story are years of organized, violent riots from Beita — complete with Molotov cocktails, burning Stars of David, and Nazi swastikas. All carefully omitted to preserve the narrative: Palestinians peaceful, settlers aggressive. Facts that don’t fit? Left on the cutting room floor.
Meanwhile, Israeli nationalism is treated as something sinister and unsettling — a moral aberration to be examined. The notion that Jews might want sovereignty or security is met with thinly veiled suspicion. Yet Hamas’ goal of a Jew-free Palestine, explicitly laid out in its charter, is never mentioned. Nor is the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” policy, which literally incentivizes terrorism by rewarding those who murder Israelis — including women and children.
These aren’t fringe details. They’re central to understanding the region. And Theroux knows it. He just doesn’t care.
The BBC’s Complicity
That The Settlers aired on the BBC — a publicly funded broadcaster once seen as a gold standard of global journalism — says plenty. Not just about Louis Theroux’s agenda, but about the institutional direction of the BBC itself. This wasn’t a rogue filmmaker sneaking bias past the editors. This was bias built into the foundation — signed off, packaged, and broadcast under the banner of credibility.
There is, of course, no problem with scrutinizing Israeli policy, and no issue with questioning the settlement enterprise or highlighting the tensions in the West Bank. But journalism — real journalism — demands context. It demands precision. It demands at least a passing familiarity with the full scope of the story.
Theroux offers none of that. He arrives with a predetermined script and casts his roles accordingly: Hero. Villain. Victim. Oppressor. And when reality refuses to cooperate? It’s left out.
Louis Theroux didn’t return to Israel to understand it. He returned to flatten it. To reduce its complexity to a morality play — and to ensure everyone knows the antagonist is.
The Settlers isn’t a documentary. It’s a hit piece. And the BBC handed him the camera — then applauded the performance.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl

Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Photo: Screenshot
The Indian government announced on Thursday that its military forces had killed “Pakistan’s most wanted terrorist,” who was connected to the 2002 murder of Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.
On Wednesday, India launched “Operation Sindoor,” which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claims is targeted at dismantling “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The operation came after Pakistani terrorists killed 26 Hindu tourists in Kashmir last month amid escalating tensions between the two countries.
In a post on X, the BJP confirmed that during this week’s operation, the Indian army killed Islamist terrorist Abdul Rauf Azhar, who was involved in numerous terrorism plots, including the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament, and the 2016 Pathankot Air Force base attack.
– कंधार प्लेन हाईजैक
– पठानकोट आतंकी हमला
– भारतीय संसद आतंकी हमला#OperationSindoor में मारा गया मोस्ट वांटेड पाकिस्तानी आतंकी अब्दुल रऊफ अजहर। pic.twitter.com/NKuRwptldH— BJP (@BJP4India) May 8, 2025
Azhar’s involvement in the 1999 hijacking led to the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born al-Qaeda member with close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence services, who later was involved in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of 38-year-old Pearl, who was covering the war on terror as a journalist when he was abducted.
In a statement on X, Pearl’s father, Judea, addressed initial reports regarding Azhar’s death and his connection to his son’s murder.
“I want to clarify: Azhar was a Pakistani extremist and leader of the terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed. While his group was not directly involved in the plot to abduct Danny, it was indirectly responsible. Azhar orchestrated the hijacking that led to the release of Omar Sheikh — the man who lured Danny into captivity,” he said.
In 2002, the Jewish-American journalist was abducted and killed by a group of Islamist terrorists connected to Azhar’s militant network, which had ties to al-Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terror group aiming to separate Kashmir from India and incorporate it into Pakistan.

On Jan. 27, 2002, an email was sent to several Pakistani and US media organizations, which included several photos, stating that Pearl was being held in “inhumane” conditions to protest the US treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in Cuba. Photo: Screenshot
Originally stationed in New Delhi as the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, Pearl later moved to Pakistan to investigate terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.
After kidnapping Pearl at a restaurant in Karachi, southern Pakistan, the Islamist terrorists, who identified themselves as the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, accused him of being an Israeli spy and sent the United States a list of demands for his release.
However, Washington did not meet their demands, and Pearl was ultimately executed after being held captive for five weeks.
His wife, Mariane Pearl, gave birth to a baby boy, Adam D. Pearl, in Paris later that year. On the Daniel Pearl Foundation website, she said, “Adam’s birth rekindles the joy, love, and humanity that Danny radiated wherever he went.”
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Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete. Photo: Screenshot
A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete just days before the Tunisian island was set to host its annual Jewish pilgrimage, which is expected to draw thousands of visitors.
On Wednesday morning, two Jewish men — owners of a jewelry shop in the center of the island, located off Tunisia’s southeast coast — were physically assaulted by a man carrying a large knife.
Although the attack was halted when one of them screamed — alerting members of the local Jewish community who subdued the assailant — one of them was left severely injured.
URGENT !!! Tentative de meurtre dans la
communauté juive de Djerba.
Un homme a tourné hier dans tous les magasins pour demander s’il appartenaient à un Juif et est revenu
ce matin avec une machette tentant, cette fois, de tuer
le propriétaire juif. pic.twitter.com/hxYBvrJFMV— Radio Shalom (@radioshalom94_8) May 8, 2025
According to local media reports, the attacker had surveyed the island the day before, visiting several stores to identify those owned by Jews. Local police arrested him shortly following the assault.
After the attack, one of the owners was admitted to the hospital with severe injuries. The 50-year-old Jewish man had his fingers severed during the assault and underwent surgery to reattach them.
גורמים בקהילה היהודית בתוניסיה לכאן חדשות: מוכר יהודי נדקר בשוק באי ג’רבה על ידי תושב שאינו יהודי. לפי הגורמים, לפני כשבועיים נדקרה באזור תיירת מצרפת שזוהתה בטעות כיהודייה @kaisos1987 @OmerShahar123 pic.twitter.com/AbG7LA6m97
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) May 8, 2025
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned the attack and expressed his wishes for a swift recovery to the victims.
“This attack comes two years after the previous deadly assault that claimed Jewish lives and the lives of security personnel during the Lag BaOmer celebration,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“I call on the Tunisian authorities to take all necessary measures to protect the Jewish community,” Saar continued.
I strongly condemn the attack on a Jew in Djerba, Tunisia today. I wish a speedy recovery to the injured.
This attack comes two years after the previous deadly assault that claimed Jewish lives and the lives of security personnel during the Lag BaOmer celebration.
I call on the…— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) May 8, 2025
Djerba is home to the majority of Tunisia’s Jewish community, numbering about 2,000 people, and is also where the renowned El Ghriba Synagogue, one of North Africa’s oldest synagogues, is located.
The attack comes just a week before Jewish pilgrims are expected to arrive on the island for the Lag B’Omer holiday, when thousands gather annually for three days of festivities. The annual pilgrimage to El Ghriba Synagogue, scheduled for May 15 and 16 this year, draws visitors from around the world.
The synagogue has been targeted in multiple terrorist attacks over the years, including in 1985, 2002, and 2023.
Two years ago, a shooting at the synagogue claimed the lives of two Jewish cousins and three police officers. Aviel Hadad, a 30-year-old Israeli goldsmith, and Ben Hadad, a 42-year-old Frenchman who had traveled to join the festivities, were among the victims.
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