Connect with us

RSS

US Lawmakers Grill Elite University Presidents on Raging Campus Antisemitism

University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill testifies about campus antisemitism before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Dec. 5, 2023. Photo: Screenshot

US lawmakers on Tuesday held a highly anticipated hearing on surging antisemitism at American universities, with members of both political parties directing sharp questions at three elite university presidents about deep hostility to Israel and the Jewish community on their campuses.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce organized the hearing — titled “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism” — amid an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents, including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students, at college campuses across the US.

Some of America’s most elite universities have become hubs of such activity, including Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

For over three hours, presidents Claudine Gay of Harvard, Elizabeth Magill of Penn, and Sally Kornbluth of MIT largely evaded questions about the consequences of antisemitic incidents on their campuses, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act — which governs access to educational information and records by public entities — while declining to confirm whether students had been disciplined for antisemitic harassment.

All three administrators vowed to vigorously combat antisemitism but denied that their universities were responsible for fostering it, calling the rise in anti-Jewish hate a societal problem.

Addressing Jewish students’ complaints of anti-Israel bias in the classroom, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) asked Gay whether a lack of intellectual diversity on elite college campuses tips the balance of ideas in favor of far left academics who use their platforms to promote extremist anti-Zionist viewpoints.

“What I’m focused on is making sure that we are bringing the most academically talented faculty to the campus and that they’re effective in the classroom,” Gay said.

Magill also came under fire. Since September, her administration has been excoriated for refusing to cancel an anti-Zionist festival that featured several speakers who have been accused of promoting antisemitic conspiracies and violence against Israel. The school refused to cancel the event or ask that it be hosted off-campus. Last month, Magill expressed regret and apologized for not promptly condemning the festival.

“Antisemitism has no place at Penn, and our free speech policies are guided by the United States Constitution,” Magill said, responding to questions about former Pink Floyd vocalist Roger Waters’ invitation to the event. A recent documentary exposed several of Waters’ inflammatory antisemitic statements.

“Our approach to speech, as I identified, it follows and is guided by the United States Constitution, which allows for robust perspectives,” Magill said.

During questioning by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who was recently accused of minimizing the Hamas terror group’s mass rapes of Israeli women during its Oct. 7 massacre, Kornbluth said she was “deeply troubled” by recent events and overseeing several faculty attempts aimed at cooling the campus climate.

“There have been lunches, there have been meetings for our Israeli and Jewish students with Jewish faculty, for our Arab students with Arab and Muslim faculty, but now they’re working to figure out how to bring them together,” she said. “If we’re all going to live together and work together collectively, we have to move beyond formal training, which we are committed to, but to actually real dialogue, and to actually model constructive and civil dialogue for our students. That’s what being in university is all about.”

MIT officials last month told Jewish students to avoid the campus’ main building after it was taken over by anti-Israel activists.

During Tuesday’s hearing, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers condemned antisemitism but also blamed the other side for allowing anti-Jewish hate to fester.

Republicans on the committee alleged that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs supported by the political left have fostered the kinds of tribalism that unleash antisemitism, and that progressives coddled pro-Hamas supporters. Democrats, meanwhile, claimed that Republicans have ignored Islamophobia and aimed to defund federal institutions that monitor civil rights violations.

Nonetheless, attempts were made at bipartisanship. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the committee’s chairwoman, quoted a Nov. 29 speech by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) denouncing antisemitism, although she argued he fell short of recognizing how “race-based ideology” has augmented the problem.

“Senator Schumer hasn’t put the pieces together, but the picture is all too clear now to American Jews,” Foxx said to the university presidents. “Institutional antisemitism and hate are among the poison fruits of your institution’s cultures.”

Throughout her remarks, Foxx linked what she described as Harvard’s far left curriculum to its students blaming Israel for the Hamas atrocities across southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7. In the aftermath of the onslaught, and amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, anti-Israel students at Harvard mobbed a Jewish law student, surrounded him, and screamed “Shame!” into his ears.

In his opening remarks, the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), argued that antisemitism on college campuses “did not start with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives,” while charging that Republicans squandered previous opportunities to discuss campus discrimination.

“While my colleagues claim to be committed to combating discrimination on campus, they’re also contradictorily and simultaneously stoking culture wars that can be divisive and discriminatory,” Scott charged. “Moreover, House Republicans are proposing significant cuts to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the very office responsible for upholding students’ civil rights and investigating discrimination claims. You can’t have it both ways.”

Tuesday’s hearing came days after a new poll, released by Hillel International, found that 37 percent of Jewish college students have felt the need to hide their Jewish identity on campus since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered and 240 others taken as hostages into Gaza. The survey also found that 35 percent of respondents said there have been acts of hate or violence against Jews on campus. A majority of those surveyed said they were unsatisfied with their university’s response to those incidents.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post US Lawmakers Grill Elite University Presidents on Raging Campus Antisemitism 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