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University Presidents Are Betraying Students By Giving Into Anti-Israel Demands
We’ve all seen the headlines: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters continue to set up encampments and lead disruptive anti-Israel protests at commencement ceremonies, in lecture halls, and at other events.
SJP chapters and their counterparts, including those in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) umbrella, remain committed to their unified post-October 7th message to eliminate Israel, incite violence against all who oppose them, and to whitewash Hamas’ terrorism.
This isn’t a secret. As early as October 8th, SJP chapters across the country praised the Hamas attacks, and five days later, many participated in a “Global Day of Resistance.”
Now, in the face of the belligerent and hateful protests organized by these same bad actors, the presidents of a few academic institutions have chosen to give in to an ignorant and illiberal mob, seeking to placate the bigoted demands of the Hamas terror supporters and their useful idiots.
What’s Happening
As part of an April 30th agreement with encampment organizers, Brown University President Paxson promised to invite a delegation of students to meet with members of the Brown Corporation to discuss “divestment.”
On May 1st, negotiations between encampment organizers and President Schill at Northwestern University, resulted in a pledge to “provide a forum for ethical and social issues that may be raised by members of the Northwestern University.”
On May 2nd, Rutgers University also agreed to “discuss the divestment request” with five student representatives.
On May 8th, Occidental College’s President Stritkus and the Board of Trustees agreed to “hold a vote on pro-Palestinian protesters’ calls to divest from companies with ties to Israel.”
In reality, these type of boycott and divestment initiatives have been prohibited by 37 state legislatures.
Why? Because if these BDS policies were enacted, their intended targets’ livelihoods would be put in jeopardy on the basis of who they are, not because of any Israeli policy that someone might oppose. Calls to divestment are really calls to divest from and destroy the Jewish State.
Furthermore, the anti-Israel protesters aren’t just calling for the destruction of Israel; they are essentially advocating for a monopoly on the truth.
These radical antisemites would turn their schools into brainwashing diploma mills akin to the Soviet era universities that produced pseudo-scholarship that gave credence to antisemitic conspiracies like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. At the end of the day, do we want our future leaders to be responsible critical thinkers, or do we want them to be loud mindless drones working to promote a foreign, illiberal cause?
If Presidents Schill, Holloway, Paxson, and Stritkus believe that by feeding morsels to the proverbial crocodile they will be satisfied, those presidents are sorely mistaken. They are encouraging lawlessness and abetting radical antisemites in their attacks on Israel — but also on Jewish students and faculty. The “channels of communication” are already being abused. One must wonder what tomorrow’s demands might be once today’s have been met.
Since 2021, for example, the SJP chapter at U Chicago has insisted on the boycott of classes taught by Israeli professors with dozens of Instagram posts attempting to associate courses and faculty members with baseless claims of racism, genocide, and the spread of “Zionist propaganda.”
One positive step is US Congressional hearings to hold administrators accountable and responsible. This is a step in the right direction, given that funding for these public and private universities should be challenged if they are not complying with Federal anti-discrimination laws.
Donors to private institutions also have a responsibility to insist that their funds are not being used to instill what is clearly antisemitism in the next generation of leaders.
We must also examine the role of faculty in the alarming and deep-seated hate-mongering that currently holds American higher education captive. There is precedent for revoking tenured status due to “moral turpitude,” such as when a professor was fired in 2020 after using a racial slur. Among other strategies, we must pressure university stakeholders to apply this same standard to the radicalized tenured faculty members who have been inciting Jew-hatred unabated for decades.
If anything is crystal clear, it is that Jewish students very often cannot count on their university administrations to stand up for their right to live without fear. Students must continue to press that leadership to take strong action. At the same time, the spectacle of recent months has exposed many across America — of all backgrounds — to how flawed, unethical, and in need of redress much of higher education really is.
Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.
The post University Presidents Are Betraying Students By Giving Into Anti-Israel Demands first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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