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‘Useless Pigs’: Anti-Israel Demonstrations Rage at Yale University, Forcing Police Intervention
Anti-Israel demonstrators at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut on April 22, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
Police were dispatched to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut on Monday to quell an illegal demonstration of anti-Israel activists that has been raging on the campus since Friday and resulted in the assault of a Jewish student.
Some 47 students were arrested early on Monday for trespassing, according to the Yale Daily News. They, and many others, had been camped outside Beinecke Plaza, claiming to starve themselves to protest Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza and the university’s links to Israel and companies that manufacture military armaments. The paper reported on Sunday that Assistant Dean Hannah Peck offered them a chance to leave without consequences.
The reported “deal” included no punishments for the demonstrators as well as a meeting with the chair of Yale’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility — which would provide a platform for the activists to push the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
Nonetheless, the university’s overture was repelled, and on Monday, Yale Police Department officers arrived at Beinecke Plaza, sealing off the area and dismantling tents in which the students were living for over a week. They were, the News explained, once again invited to leave and avoid criminal charges but refused to do so.
As police entered, a mass of students formed to chant, “Officer, officer, can’t you see? You’re on the wrong side of history” and other slogans comparing the officers, many of whom were Black or non-white, to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). However, the officers ultimately cleared the protesters from the area by 8 am, forcing them to move their demonstration off-campus. Displeased that order had been restored, some students proceeded to verbally abuse the officers, calling them “useless pigs” and shouting “shame on you” at them.
“The university made the decision to arrest those individuals who would not leave the plaza with the safety and security of the entire Yale community in mind and to allow access to university facilities by all members of our community,” a Yale spokesperson told The Algemeiner on Monday. “Yale provides detailed guidance on free expression, peaceable assembly, and requesting the use of on-campus outdoor spaces. Since the protest started, the university and the Yale Police Department worked to reduce the likelihood of confrontations and arrests.”
However, numerous reported confrontations did ensue during the conflagration, despite Yale’s assurances of its efforts. On Saturday, a male protestor — whose identity was concealed by a keffiyeh that he wrapped around his visage — jammed the wooden tip of a Palestinian flag into the eye a Jewish Yale student, Sahar Tartak.
Tartak, who said she was singled out for wearing Hasidic Jewish attire, was at the scene to report on the protest for The Yale Free Press, an effort that the protesters by forming a human chain around the Beinecke Plaza encampment. After the assault, a mob of anti-Zionist protesters prevented Tartak from pursuing the assailant.
“After this Yale student jabbed my eye with his flag, I tried to yell and run after him,” Tartak wrote on X/Twitter. “But the people in this video made a human blockade to stop me from confronting my assaulter. They stood in front of me in a line throughout the night.”
Later, she told Fox News: “He had anonymity because of the keffiyeh. The organizers encourage anonymity at these events because it creates immunity, so that students can physically assault people like me and get away with it.”
Tartak managed to stay on the scene, capturing and sharing footage of the demonstration. In one video shared on X, a throng of students swayed side to side in rhythmic synchronization with an antisemitic hip-hop song, which said, “F—k Israel, Israel a b—ch … N—ga, it’s they land, why you out here tryna [sic] rob it. Bulls—t prophets, y’all just want the profit.”
Other footage showed an apparent melding of minds between Yale University students and Islamist terrorist organizations, with many shouting “Death to America” and other slogans calling for the destruction of Israel and all of Western civilization.
On Monday, Yale University told The Algemeiner that punishments for those involved in this weekend’s events are forthcoming but admitted that administrators will only go so far in holding them to account.
“Students who were arrested also will be referred for Yale disciplinary action, which includes a range of sanctions, such as reprimand, probation, or suspension,” the university said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Useless Pigs’: Anti-Israel Demonstrations Rage at Yale University, Forcing Police Intervention first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Palestinian Arrested for Murdering Israeli Teen in West Bank Terror Attack
Israeli settlers look for 14-year-old Benjamin Achimeir, who was found murdered after he went missing in the area near the village of al-Mughayyer, in the West Bank, April 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS /Mohammed Torokman
Israeli security forces said on Monday that they arrested a Palestinian man for allegedly killing a 14-year-old Israeli in the West Bank earlier this month in what authorities described as a terrorist attack.
Ahmed Dawabsha, 21, a resident of the West Bank town of Duma near Ramallah, was arrested overnight for his alleged involved in the murder of Benjamin Achimeir, who was found dead on April 13, a day after he went missing while herding sheep.
Dawabsha “implicated himself” in the April 12 attack near the West Bank outpost of Malachei Shalom during an interrogation, according to a joint statement from Israeli police, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and the Shin Bet security agency.
The security forces led an “intelligence and operational effort in an attempt to trace the identity of the terrorist,” the statement added.
The Shin Bet said there had been significant developments in the investigation over the past day that led to the suspect’s arrest.
The post Palestinian Arrested for Murdering Israeli Teen in West Bank Terror Attack first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Anti-Israel Protesters Interrupt Chelsea Handler Comedy Show Because of Her Support for Jewish State
Chelsea Handler. Photo: YouTube screenshot.
Several women interrupted Chelsea Handler’s comedy show in Richmond, Virginia, on Friday night in a coordinated effort to protest the Jewish comedian’s support for Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
The incident took place at Handler’s show Little Big Bit**h at the Altria Theater. In a video that was shared on social media, one female audience member at the show stood up and shouted at Handler, “Murder. Mass Murder.” The pro-Israel comedian first replied, “I can’t hear you,” before adding, “Oh, honey, please. This is not what this night is for.” She then asked security guards to remove the protester from the audience.
Female demonstrators in the audience also yelled “Palestinian babies — you’re a genocide supporter” and “Free Palestine.” Some audience members who got frustrated by the show’s interruption helped authorities identify the protesters and were told by one of the activists, “You guys should be this angry about genocide, not people standing up.”
“Be angry about genocide and people dying — children are dying with our tax dollars,” shouted the same protester, referring to the US providing aid to Israel amid its war against Hamas terrorists controlling the Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. After an audience member answered, “They should die,” the female protester replied, “They should die? Say that on camera.”
One protester was arrested by police and can be seen in the video being escorted away from the show in handcuffs. Handler also told the protesters, “Do you know that I’ve been on tour for a year and a half and this is the only city two people stand up? You guys really owe me an apology.”
The protesters appeared to be associated with the organization Here 4 The Kids, which said in an Instagram post that the demonstrators on Friday night “forced other white people to confront our American complicity in GENOCIDE, begging them to no longer remain silent after 195 days of massacre.”
“These are protestors who are AGAINST the indiscriminate slaughter of human beings,” the organization added, before telling Handler: “YOU owe Palestinians an apology. YOU owe every single orphaned Palestinian child AN APOLOGY. YOU owe HUMANITY an apology. Demand a Free Palestine.”
Handler said in 2022 that she stands with the Jewish community in its fight against antisemitism and in February of this year filmed a video with Israeli activist Noa Tishby to address misinformation being spread about Israel during the ongoing war in Gaza. She said in the clip that she is “pro-Palestinian and anti-Hamas, and it is OK to question Israel’s policies and still be pro-Israel.” She also called Israel “our greatest defense in the Middle East for all of Western democracy and Western values.”
Although Handler has been critical of Israel over the years, she joined hundreds of celebrities in signing on open letter in October that thanked US President Joe Biden for supporting Israel after it launched a war targeting Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The open letter also called on Biden to “not rest until all hostages are released.” Days after the Oct. 7 attacks, Handler, condemned Hamas and its “barbarism” in a statement.
The post Anti-Israel Protesters Interrupt Chelsea Handler Comedy Show Because of Her Support for Jewish State first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Hostage Families Make Passover Plea for Return of Missing Loved Ones
Rachel Goldberg, US-Israeli mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists into Gaza while attending a music festival in southern Israel, holds photos of her son in their home, in Jerusalem, Oct. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Relatives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza will mark the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover, a week-long festival that celebrates freedom, with a renewed plea to the government to make a deal to return their missing loved ones.
Passover, starting on Monday evening, is traditionally observed with a Seder, a holiday feast when families gather and celebrate the biblical account of the Israelites’ freedom from Egyptian slavery.
This year, many families in Israel are expected to leave empty seats at the table to represent those killed or taken hostage in the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 last year.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s 23-year-old son Hersh was captured and taken to Gaza after his arm was blown off on Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists attacked the Supernova music festival in southern Israel. She said this year’s Passover would be more profound than ever and urged the government to find a way to return the hostages.
“All of the symbolic things we do at the Seder will take on a much more profound and deep meaning this year,” Goldberg-Polin, a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, told reporters.
She would be participating in a Seder with friends and family, but they have been clear if they are unable to do it or “if 15 minutes in, we just can’t do it, and we need to cry, then we will cry.”
Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people and abducted another 253 in southern Israel on Oct. 7, triggering the war in Gaza.
EMPTY CHAIR
Some of the hostages were freed in a November truce, but efforts to secure another deal to release the remaining 133 captives appear to have stalled for now.
“As we gather around the Seder table to commemorate and celebrate our journey from slavery to freedom, our hearts are heavy with the plight of the 133 Israelis who remain in captivity in Hamas’ terror tunnels,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on X on Monday.
“The days ahead will see increased military and diplomatic efforts to secure the freedom of our hostages … There is more to come. We will prevail.”
Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened a ground offensive to destroy remaining Hamas battalions in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, the only part of the enclave where Israel has not sent in troops.
Israel‘s Hostage and Missing Family Forum, the organization representing most of the families of the hostages, urged families to place an empty chair at their Seder table with a portrait of a hostage.
Goldberg-Polin said she hoped for a ceasefire in Gaza, for the hostages to return, and an end to the “quagmire of misery and trauma.”
“Something that we need all of our leaders to be doing, all of them, is to make the decision to care about and love their own people more than they hate their enemies,” she said.
The post Israeli Hostage Families Make Passover Plea for Return of Missing Loved Ones first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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