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US Government Launches Investigation Into Antisemitic Harassment at California University
The US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has launched an investigation into Chapman University to determine whether school administrators ignored antisemitic bullying and harassment perpetrated by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Prompted by a complaint filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the inquiry will review a slew of charges, including that the school — located in Orange, California — stood down when SJP, which the Brandeis Center describes as a “national anti-Jewish hate group,” refused to admit Jews into its club or allow them at their events, a privilege it has granted Jews at other universities to protect itself against accusations that anti-Zionism is antisemitic.
SJP’s alleged discriminatory behavior predates the Hamas terrorist group’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7 by a year, the complaint says. In Oct. 2022, a Jewish student with a “Jewish sounding surname” was blocked from joining SJP, with the group delisting them from a “listserv,” an electronic mailing service. The student attempted to join the group again after Oct. 7. They were rejected again. The complaint says that other Jewish students with “Jewish-sounding” names were treated similarly.
SJP allegedly went beyond a kind of racial discrimination not practiced openly in the US since the 1950s. According to the complaint, one of its members sent a death threat to a Jewish student after Oct. 7 because she responded to a post in which he wished for “death to all Israelis who follow Zionism,” asking if he hoped that she would meet the same fate. “F—k yeah I want you and all Zionist trash bags dead the f—k kinda question is that,” the SJP member responded. Afterward, the complaint continues, he inundated the Jewish student with “messages accusing her of not being a real Jew” and claiming that “Zionism is terrorism.”
The Brandeis Center stresses that the student who issued the threat was never punished by the university. While the school did investigate his behavior, it declined to restrict his access to campus. Since then, he has allegedly threatened another Jewish student, whom he badgered for their address, with death and filmed himself desecrating a memorial on school grounds which commemorated the over 1,200 people murdered by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7. The onslaught in southern Israel was the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
The university’s alleged neglect was a material failure and violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Brandeis Center hopes OCR’s investigation will show.
“Antisemitism continues to run rampant on college campuses. Too many universities are refusing to do what’s needed to address these civil rights violations. It is imperative that federal officials enforce the law,” Kenneth Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center and a former US assistant secretary of education, said in a statement on Monday. “It is about time that the federal government is finally investigating Students for Justice in Palestine’s discriminatory activities. We welcome this outcome and look forward to pursuing the case to implement needed remedies to address past violations and stop future wrongs.”
Chapman University did not respond to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Chapman is not the only higher education institution against which the Brandeis Center has filed a legal complaint.
The group, founded in 2012 by Kenneth Marcus, sued Harvard University in federal court last month, alleging that administrators there have been ignoring antisemitism since before Oct. 7 prompted an explosion of anti-Jewish hatred across the world. Focusing on the conduct of Harvard Kennedy School professor Marshall Ganz, the group’s complaint alleges that Ganz refused to accept a group project submitted by Israeli students because they described Israel as a “liberal Jewish democracy.”
Ganz castigated the students over their premise, the Brandeis Center says, accusing them of “white supremacy” without allowing them to defend themselves. Later, Ganz allegedly forced the Israeli students to attend “a class exercise on Palestinian solidarity” and the taking of a class photograph in which their classmates and teaching fellows “wore ‘keffiyehs’ as a symbol of Palestinian support.”
The Brandeis Center is also fighting civil rights violations at K-12 schools.
It recently prevailed in case brought forth on behalf of a North Carolina middle schooler who was bullied for being “perceived” as Jewish. The Community School of Davidson agreed to settle a complaint alleging that it failed to address a series of heinous antisemitic incidents in which a non-Jewish student, whose name is redacted from public record, was called a “dirty Jew,” told that “the oven is that way,” and battered with other denigrating comments too vulgar for publication.
“The Jewish community was slower than we should have been to grasp the threat posed by antisemitism in higher education. Now we’re in danger of repeating the same problem in elementary and secondary education,” Marcus told The Algemeiner during an interview earlier this month. “It is horrifying to acknowledge, but the fact is that the situation in many high schools is starting to replicate some of our most worrisome campuses. Elementary schools are not safe either. One ramification is that college campuses may get even worse, as entering freshmen arrive after having already been indoctrinated while in elementary and secondary schools.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Blinken Lays Out US Hopes for Syria’s Political Transition
The United States on Tuesday laid out its hopes for Syria’s political transition following President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, saying it would recognize a future Syrian government that amounts to a credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governing body.
It is the clearest definition outlined by Washington since Syria’s opposition militias overthrew Assad in a shockingly fast takeover after 13 years of civil war. Assad and his family fled to Russia.
The Biden administration, along with governments in the region and the West, has been scrambling to find ways to engage with the Syrian rebel groups including leading rebel faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group formerly allied with Al Qaeda and which is designated a terrorist organization by the US, European Union, Turkey, and the UN.
Blinken’s statement did not mention HTS but made repeated emphasis on the need for any future Syrian government to be inclusive and respect the rights of minorities while ensuring that Syria is not used as a base for terrorism.
“This transition process should lead to credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governance that meets international standards of transparency and accountability, consistent with the principles of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254,” Blinken said.
“The United States will recognize and fully support a future Syria government that results from this process,” he added.
The United States cut diplomatic ties with Syria and shut down its embassy in Damascus in 2012.
Washington in 2013 designated HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani a terrorist, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. It said the Nusra Front, the predecessor of HTS, carried out suicide attacks that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian vision.
The transition process and the new Syrian government should also facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance to all in need, and ensure that any chemical or biological weapons stockpiles are safely destroyed, Blinken added.
US President Joe Biden and his top aides described the moment as a historic opportunity for the Syrian people who have for decades lived under the oppressive rule of Assad but also warned the country faced a period of risk and uncertainty.
Meanwhile, a top White House official said on Tuesday that US troops will be staying in Syria after the fall of Assad as part of a counter-terrorism mission focused on destroying Islamic State terrorists.
“Those troops are there for a very specific and important reason, not as some sort of bargaining chip,” US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said in an interview at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York.
US troops “have been there now for the better part of a decade or more to fight ISIS … we are still committed to that mission.”
Asked directly whether US troops are staying, Finer said, “Yes.”
Separately, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday that the US has asked HTS to help locate and free missing American journalist Austin Tice as it liberates the country’s prisons in the aftermath of Assad’s overthrow.
Washington is telling all parties in Syria that Tice, who was abducted in Syria in 2012, is a top US priority, Miller told a press briefing.
“In all of our communications with parties that we know talk to HTS, we have sent very clearly the message that as they move through Syria liberating prisons, that our top priority is the return of Austin Tice,” he said.
“We want anyone who’s operating on the ground in Syria to be on the lookout for him, and if they do find him, to return to him to us safely as soon as possible.”
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Iran, Russia to Finalize Establishment of ‘International Union Against US Sanctions’
Iran’s initiative to form an international alliance with Russia against US sanctions will soon be completed, according to an Iranian lawmaker spearheading the effort.
Abbas Goudarzi, a member of Iran’s parliament and the Iran-Russia Parliamentary Friendship Group, provided the update on Monday on the sidelines of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) hosted by Moscow, Iranian media reported on Tuesday.
Goudarzi said the International Union Against US Sanctions aims to “neutralize the oppressive sanctions of the US, to form a new economic world without the US, and to conduct economic relations and trade without relying on the dollar,” according to state-run media outlets.
In his remarks, the Iranian lawmaker also highlighted the importance of Iran and Russia establishing closer ties, in part to confront the US on the global stage. He added that Iran and Russia’s cooperation is growing and that such a relationship is necessary for both countries to combat sanctions imposed on both by several Western countries.
For the past two years, Iran and Russia have been working on a major comprehensive bilateral agreement to strengthen cooperation in a wide array of areas. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in October that the “treaty on a comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and Iran” will include closer defense cooperation.
Officials from both countries have said in recent months that the deal will be signed in the near future without elaborating.
“Economically and culturally, our communications are being strengthened day by day and becoming more robust,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reportedly told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in a meeting in Turkmenistan earlier this year. “The growing trend of cooperation between Iran and Russia, considering the will of the top leaders of both countries, must be accelerated to strengthen these ties.”
Pezeshkian has also committed his country to deeper ties with Russia to counter Western sanctions.
For years, the US and several of its allies, especially in Europe, have imposed sanctions on both Iran and Russia for several reasons, ranging from human rights abuses to aggressive military actions.
In September, for example, the US, Germany, Britain, and France imposed sanctions on Iran for transferring ballistic missiles to Russia for Moscow to use in its ongoing war against Ukraine. Iran denied supplying Russia with the weapons.
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Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Pick for Intel Chief, Dodges Press Questions on Controversial Assad Views
US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, faced scrutiny on Monday over her sympathetic views toward Bashar al-Assad, scurrying away from a press gaggle on Capitol Hill after being asked for her views on the Syrian president’s removal from power.
Gabbard, a combat veteran and former US congresswoman from Hawaii, was meeting with senators tasked with voting whether to confirm or deny her nomination to be the country’s top intelligence official. When asked by journalists for her thoughts on the overthrow of the Assad regime, Gabbard glanced up, smiled, and quickly left the room.
Exiting her Senate meeting, however, Gabbard made a brief statement in which she mentioned Syria but not Assad.
“I want to address the issue that’s in the headlines right now: I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has made over these last few days with regards to the developments in Syria,” Gabbard said on Monday.
Gabbard has previously been labeled an Assad “apologist” over her repeated refusals to forcefully condemn the Syrian government during the country’s civil war, which began in 2011. Assad has been accused of war crimes during his regime’s brutal crackdown on rebel forces, which ultimately prevailed in toppling him on Sunday. The long-time Syrian ruler was also an ally of Russia and Iran, allowing the latter to use Syrian territory to send weapons to terrorist proxies across the Middle East.
In 2017, Gabbard held a private meeting with Assad in Syria and refused to condemn him afterward, saying that it is “important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace.”
In 2019, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Gabbard appeared to again give Assad the benefit of the doubt, saying, “The evidence needs to be gathered and, as I have said before, if there is evidence that he has committed war crimes, he should be prosecuted as such.”
Gabbard has also made controversial comments on Russia, claiming that American and Western “hostility” motivated President Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea. She also repudiated attempts to sanction Russia, stating that “Russian people are a proud people and they don’t want the US and our allies trying to control them and their government.”
Nonetheless, Gabbard has also espoused pro-Israel views. In the year following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7, she has often defended the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Gaza and accused pro-Palestinian protesters of being part of a “radical Islamist organization.” She has also criticized a UN resolution which would have called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group, stating that “we have to be realists about the threat that continues to exist for the people of Israel. So as long as Hamas is in power, the people of Israel will not be secure and cannot live in peace.”
The post Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Pick for Intel Chief, Dodges Press Questions on Controversial Assad Views first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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