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University of Minnesota President Admits Agreeing to Anti-Israel Terms to End Protest Despite Not Understanding Language
University of Minnesota Interim President Jeff Ettinger in a message posted on June 12, 2023. Photo: Screenshot
University of Minnesota interim president Jeff Ettinger told the state senate on Tuesday that he signed an agreement to appease pro-Hamas student activists and end their illegal occupation of the campus despite not understanding the inclusion of an Arabic word justifying the use of violence against Israel.
The protesters and the university reached an agreement last month to end a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment — a collection of tents in which the students lived for several weeks and refused to leave unless the administration agreed to boycott and divest from Israel. In a statement issued by the university, school officials used the term “thawabet,” a key component of the ideology of the anti-Zionist movement, which asserts its intention to eliminate Israel and establish a Palestinian state in its place.
“That was a mistake by our administration,” Ettinger told Sen. Ron Latz (D), who questioned him about the decision on Tuesday. “The way things transpired that day, we ended up doing the final versions of that document at five in the morning. Those had been the topics — I mean they were kind of characterized by the students as their ‘demands’ — we looked at them as topics. But clearly, I didn’t even know what that word meant, so clearly to repeat that word then in a communication back was a mistake by the administration.”
In 2010, a founder of the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Bilal al-Hassan, explained thawabet in an interview with the anti-Zionist website Electronic Intifada.
Al-Hassan explained that the concept historically represents opposition to United Nations Resolution 181, a decision rendered by the nascent body in 1947 which partitioned British Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states and led to the establishment of Israel the following year. Thawabet, he continued, was central to the founding charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a terrorist organization which evolved to be recognized as the official representative and governing authority of Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank. For al-Hassan, “liberating” Palestinians meant reversing the 1947 settlement and expelling Jews from the area.
In 1996, the PLO — led at the time by Yasser Arafat — voted overwhelmingly to remove the call for mass terror and elimination of Israel from its charter to signal that it was negotiating a settlement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in good faith. At the time, Arafat had met in person with two Israeli prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, as part of the Oslo Accords, a peace process that was fervently supported by former US President Bill Clinton. Arafat lobbied for the move, saying, as reported by The New York Times in 1996, that failing to do so would harm efforts to establish a Palestinian state.
This, al-Hassan told Electronic Intifada, was an ideological and tactical failure.
“The PLO was destroyed with the alteration of the charter,” he said. “The reason that the thawabet now play an important role in our struggle is that it is now an expression of a politico-historical position against the path of the negotiated settlement — that we usually refer to as the Oslo process — and against the Palestinian Authority’s engagement with this process, its departure from thawabet, and its retreat in the face of the ongoing Zionist colonization of our country. It goes without saying that goals of the struggle such as the return of the refugees and the liberation of the land and people are central pillars of thawabet.”
It is not clear why the University of Minnesota incorporated what has been understand to mean a call for violence and rejection of peace between Israelis and Palestinians into an official statement which, in addition to apologizing to the pro-Hamas protesters, granted them amnesty and promised a meeting with top school officials to discuss the possibility of divesting from Israel. Latz noted during Tuesday’s hearing that the students had clearly stated their support for terrorism during the May encampment.
“I didn’t know what that word meant,” Ettinger repeated.
However, the University of Minnesota has given intellectual harbor to extreme anti-Zionist views before, appointing earlier this month an anti-Zionist scholar, Raz Segal, as director of the school’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies — a decision that Ettinger walked back after community organizations noted that Segal justified Hamas’ Oct. 7 atrocities less than a week after they were committed.
Ettinger, who was subjected to a faculty no-confidence vote revoking Segal’s appointment, will soon leave office. The University of Minnesota’s incoming president, Rebecca Cunningham, will be inaugurated in July.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
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