RSS
University of Michigan Police Arrest Anti-Zionist Protesters After Sabotage Attempt
Law enforcement clash with pro-Hamas demonstrators at the University of Michigan on Aug. 28, 2024. Photo: Brendan Gutenschwager/X
Anti-Zionists roiled the University of Michigan campus on Wednesday, staging a protest that aimed to sabotage one of its biggest fall events.
Organized by a group which calls itself the “Tahrir Coalition,” the demonstration saw 45 students and non-students stage a “die-in” on the Diag section of campus without prior authorization from university officials, according to The Daily Michigan. The demonstration was timed to coincide with Festifall, an annual fair which the university says draws over 8,000 people and big spending sponsors who pay as much $50,000 to participate.
The demonstration lasted for two hours, the Daily added. In that time the protesters chanted “Israel bombs, U of M pays, how many kids did you kill today?,” as can be seen in footage which emerged online. They also waved signs showing images of civilian victims of the Israel-Hamas war.
Counter pro-Israel protesters descended on the Diag too, chanting “Bring them home,” referring to Israeli hostages who have been held captive by Hamas in Gaza since the Palestinian terror group’s Oct. 7 invasion of the Jewish state. Ultimately, University of Michigan law enforcement arrested four Tahrir Coalition members, one of whom is a university employee, after they ignored repeated calls to clear the area.
“The university has been clear that we will enforce our policies related to protests and expressive activity, and will hold individuals accountable for their actions in order to ensure a safe and inclusive enforcement for all,” university spokeswoman Colleen Mastony told the Daily in a statement addressing the incident. “Today, a group of approximately 50 individuals sought to disrupt a university event and were asked to disperse. For more than an hour, they were given multiple warnings that made clear they were blocking pedestrian traffic and violating university policy.”
One of the protest organizers, student Assmaa Eidy, accused the school of squelching free speech by clearing a demonstration it did not authorize.
“It’s been a continuation of the university trying to suppress us, villainize us, and criminalize us and use any attempt they can to limit our freedoms to protest and essentially our right to protest the genocide that they’re complicit in,” she said in an interview with the Daily.
Anti-Zionist activity at the University of Michigan has starter earlier than normal this academic year, which is barely a week old.
As The Algemeiner previously reported, a slew of anti-Zionist candidates at the University of Michigan secured election to Central Student Government (CSG) last semester by running as the Shut It Down party, whose platform promised to sever the university’s ties, both financial and academic, to Israel, according to The Detroit News. Since assuming power, its members have shredded the budget for the summer term approved by the previous administration and vowed to block funding for student clubs during the upcoming fall semester.
Founded in the months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, Shut It Down (SID) allegedly committed multiple election code infractions to amass its newfound and unprecedented power. According to The Michigan Daily, students banded together to contest their election victory, citing multiple instances in which they campaigned in proscribed areas and violated other rules regulating the use of posters and email communications. SID ultimately overcame the challenge following a controversial hearing which the student government, breaking precedent, conducted in secret.
SID announced its plans to defund student clubs in July, with its chair, Shubh Agrawal, saying in remarks quoted by the Daily, “The university of Michigan is one of those institutions [whose] $6 billion of the endowment are implicated in the genocide or occupation of people of Palestine. And the University of Michigan does not deserve to function as normal while it continues to do those things.”
The party’s actions prompted the university to dispossess CSG of the power of the purse.
“The University of Michigan will make funding available to registered student organizations who apply for funding for the fall semester,” Colleen Mastony, University of Michigan assistant vice president of public affairs, told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “UM’s vice president for student life and dean of students notified the Central Student Government on August 19 of the decision to immediately institute a temporary funding process. This step was taken at the request of senior leaders within the CSG assembly, after the CSG president in June vetoed a budget resolution that had been passed unanimously by the assembly. The veto impacted the summer budget only. University funding will remain in place until a budget is passed.”
Anti-Zionist activists at other college campuses are also testing administrators, pushing the boundaries of their conduct and daring a response.
On Monday, anti-Israel agitators vandalized an administrative building at Cornell University, a provocation which marked an early test of the resolve of its recently appointed interim president, Michael Kotlikoff, who announced new policies on “institutional neutrality,” discipline, and encampments around the time of incident.
According to the Cornell Daily Sun, the agitators graffitied “Israel Bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” on Day Hall. They also shattered the glazing of its front doors.
“We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration really cares about: property,” the students told the Cornell Daily Sun, which agreed to conceal their identities. “With the start of this new academic year, the Cornell administration is trying desperately to upkeep a facade of normalcy knowing that, since last semester, they have been working tirelessly to uphold Cornell’s function as a fascist, classist, imperial machine.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post University of Michigan Police Arrest Anti-Zionist Protesters After Sabotage Attempt first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.
In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.
At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Nearly half of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.
The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.
Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.
“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”
Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.
Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.
The post New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events
A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.
The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.
Incidents reported by the group include:
- At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
- A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
- In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”
CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”
The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”
Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.
A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”
CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”
In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.
Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”
The post Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.
The post IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on first appeared on Algemeiner.com.