Connect with us

RSS

US Congress Demands Document Dump From Columbia University as Antisemitism Investigations Continue

Pro-Hamas protesters demonstrating at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect

Columbia University must hand over disciplinary records to the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce to prove that it is keeping multiple pledges to punish perpetrators of antisemitic discrimination, the new committee chairman, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), wrote to the school on Thursday.

“One only has to review the past letters this committee has sent to the university and the reports issued by both this committee and the House of Representatives to see that Columbia has failed to uphold its commitments, both because the disciplinary process has failed and because the campus administration has refused to enforce its preexisting rules,” Walberg wrote. “Columbia’s continued failure to address the pervasive antisemitism that persists on campus is untenable, particularly given that the university receives billions in federal funding.”

Walberg went on to list a series of alleged antisemitic incidents which fostered the committee’s suspicion that Columbia is being dishonest with Congress, Jewish students, and the public. Shortly after interim Columbia president Katrina Armstrong took office in September, he said, Columbia’s faculty Senate ensured that an anti-Zionist group’s disruption of a course taught by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with bullhorns would not be classified as an antisemitic incident and go unpunished; the university’s main anti-Zionist group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), has planned and carried out acts of property destruction while continuing to distribute antisemitic imagery at its rallies; and, in December, someone assaulted a Jewish student and stole his Israeli flag near a CUAD rally, continuing a pattern of violence which began during the 2023-2024 academic year.

The university has seen other disturbing events this academic year, as previously reported by The Algemeiner, though it has levied disciplinary sanctions to those who have been identified and vowed to do so against those who remain at large. Last month, for example, it banned from its campus multiple masked individuals who disrupted an active class and proceeded to utter pro-Hamas statements while distributing antisemitic literature. Later, it denounced a group of students who poured concrete into toilets located inside its School of International Affairs as “deplorable,” adding that it is “acting swiftly to address this misconduct.”

However, Columbia has a history of amnestying violent and destructive anti-Israel protesters. In August, an education committee report revealed that only a few students who were involved in occupying the Hamilton Hall administrative building in April 2024 were ultimately punished despite the university’s threatening to expel them.

“The failure of Columbia’s invertebrate administration to hold accountable students who violate university rules and break the law is disgraceful and unacceptable,” former education committee chair Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said at the time in a blistering statement. “More than three months after the criminal takeover of Hamilton Hall, the vast majority of the student perpetrators remain in good standing. By allowing its own disciplinary process to be thwarted by radical students and faculty, Columbia has waved the white flag in surrender while offering up a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who participated in these unlawful actions.”

Today, Columbia must operate in a new political and legal landscape, as the re-election of US President Donald Trump to a rare, nonconsecutive second term in office brought to Washington, DC a chief executive who has vowed not only to purge antisemitism from American schools but also to go as far as taxing the endowments of colleges and universities which refuse to aid the effort. So far, Columbia has remained high on the list of the Trump administration’s priorities, and earlier this month it announced that the university is one of five higher education institutions which will be subjected to an exhaustive investigation of antisemitism that will be led by the Department of Education’s (DOE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

In Thursday’s letter, Walberg stressed that Washington will accept nothing less than complete accountability and disclosure. To that end, he has requested that “complete case files” for nearly a dozen alleged antisemitic and pro-Hamas incidents on the campus be submitted to the committee “no later than” noon, Feb. 27.

“The fact that Columbia has allowed these activities to continue to take place on campus is of deep concern to the committee,” he concluded. “Unfortunately, Columbia’s trustees, interim president, and deans have not met their promises or commitments. Their negligence has created a hostile environment for members of Columbia’s Jewish communities and resulted in severe disruptions to the university’s learning environment.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post US Congress Demands Document Dump From Columbia University as Antisemitism Investigations Continue first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

Continue Reading

RSS

Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

Continue Reading

RSS

Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News