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Vandals Desecrate American, Israeli Flags at Northwestern University
People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
Northwestern University in Illinois has condemned the vandalizing of American and Israeli flags on campus amid an explosion of pro-Hamas demonstrations at universities around the world.
More than a dozen Northwestern students put up 1,200 Israeli and American flags on Sunday to show solidarity with the two allied countries and remember the 1,200 people murdered by Hamas terrorists in southern Israel on Oct 7. When the students returned hours later, the flags were torn and stained with red paint, left in ruins.
“Northwestern’s commitment to freedom of expression does not include vandalism,” university president Michael Schill said in a statement issued on Monday. “The university will investigate these incidents thoroughly, and if individuals from Northwestern can be identified, we will pursue disciplinary action.”
Schill added that the vandals “tore down” the flags and graffitied them with red paint, actions he described as “unacceptable.”
Northwestern University is one of over a hundred schools where anti-Zionist student groups took over sections of campus in recent weeks and refused to leave unless administrators agreed to condemn and boycott Israel.
Earlier this month, the school acceded to key demands put forth by the protesters, agreeing to establish a new scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contact potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, and create a segregated dormitory hall to be occupied exclusively by Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim students. The school — where a mob of protesters shouted “Kill the Jews!” during the nearly three-week long demonstration — also agreed to form a new investment committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
Schill defended the agreement in a column published in The Chicago Tribune, arguing that it precludes the possibility of boycotting Israel.
“This resolution — fragile though it might be — was possible because we chose to see our students not as a mob but as young people who are in the process of learning,” Schill wrote. “It was possible because we tried respectful dialogue rather than force. And it was possible because we sought to follow a set of principles, many of which I would argue are core to the tenets of Judaism.”
Schiller added that the university already offers several residence halls which are segregated by race, ethnicity, gender, and religion.
Northwestern University is not the only school that was targeted by vandals directing their ire at the Israeli flag. On Monday, a local Fox affiliate reported that University of Delaware student Jenna Kandeel, 23, went on what police called an “antisemitic tirade” in which she screamed antisemitic epithets while spitting on Israeli flags that formed part of a memorial commemorating the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Kandeel now faces two criminal charges with a hate crime enhancement and, the report added, is barred from being on school property.
“We need to be lucid enough to recognize the daylight — miles of it, in this case — between protest and hate,” Delaware attorney general Kathy Jennings said in a statement. “The Holocaust is not ancient history. Eighty years later, the world’s Jewish population still has not recovered; its survivors are still with us; and I fear that we still have not learned its lessons. Seeing this ignorance on display, particularly in an increasingly antisemitic climate, should be a wake up call. We still have work to do.”
On Tuesday, a group that calls itself “The Resistance” claimed responsibility for vandalizing the University of California Office of the President — located in the city of Oakland — and infesting it with insects.
“Using a fire extinguisher filled with red paint, we covered the facade and smashed seven windows. Then, with access to the building, we released 500 cockroaches inside and emptied a second fire extinguisher onto the interior,” the group said in a statement. “As anti-colonial anarchists and communists we offer this act of material and spiritual solidarity with the hopes of shattering the illusion that resistance is limited to a single site.”
Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, college campuses across the West have become hatcheries of antisemitism. Both students and faculty have demonized Israel and rationalized Hamas’ atrocities — which included numerous sexual assaults of Israeli women — and incidents of harassment and even violence against Jewish students have increased dramatically. Earlier this year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) measured the rise of antisemitism on college campuses, finding a 321 percent surge in antisemitic incidents.
The onslaught of hate has caused Jewish college students to feel distracted and unsafe, according to a new Hillel International Survey.
An astounding 61 percent of Jewish students reported that “antisemitic, threatening, or derogatory language” about Jews was uttered during demonstrations at their schools, while 58 percent said that “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” made them feel “less safe.” Others reported being unable to focus or sleep well. The survey — conducted by Benenson Strategy Group on behalf of Hillel International, and to which 310 Jewish college students responded — also found that 40 percent of Jewish students have resorted to concealing their Jewish identity to avoid discrimination.
“Jewish students, and all students, deserve to pursue their education and celebrate their graduations free from disruption, antisemitism, and hate,” Hillel International chief executive officer Adam Lehman said on Monday in a statement announcing the survey results. “Our findings demonstrate that a majority of Jewish students surveyed have experienced bias and discrimination in their classroom and academic experiences based on faculty and staff abusing their authority in support of the rule-breaking and unlawful anti-Israel encampments and protests.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Vandals Desecrate American, Israeli Flags at Northwestern University first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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California Superintendent Vetoes Measure to Fly Israeli Flag at Schools
Illustrative: An Israeli flag and an American flag fly at an airport. Photo: Christoper Pike via Reuters Connect
A California superintendent has nixed plans to display the Israeli flag on the grounds of campuses administered by the Beverly Hills Unified School District, overruling a decision reached by the local school board because he said the gesture may provoke a security threat.
“In light of heightened safety concerns around the displaying of flags on our campuses I have made the decision to take immediate action for the safety and security of our students,” BHUSD superintendent Alex Cherniss, a Republican, said in a statement. “Until further notice, no flags will be displayed on our campuses other than the flag of the United States of America and the flag of the State of California.”
As first reported by The Los Angeles Times, the move exercised Cherniss’s veto power over measures approved by the Beverly Hills Board of Education at a time when its voting to fly the Israeli flag prompted a bitter dispute that became an extension of a larger dialogue about the war in Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Times added that the board intended for the flag to fly as a symbol of solidarity with the Jewish community at a time of rising antisemitism in K-12 schools.
Another outlet, the Beverly Hills Courier, reported that the resolution which included the measure also established observance of Jewish Heritage Month in May and adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is used by governments and organizations across the world. Local leaders, some of whom are Jewish, told the paper that flying the flag constituted a gratuitous partisan action that undermined the spirit of their intentions.
“Just about two months ago, we spoke about how partisan materials — as an example, a Greek flag — would not be allowed,” Board of Education member Amanda Stern, who voted against the resolution because of the flag provision, told the Courier. “We really need to look at that so there is not preferential treatment for one group over another.
Rachelle Marcus, who is president of the board and joined Stern in opposing the resolution, told the Courier, “I don’t want to put something on the front of the school that will make us targets of any kind, especially with the students in our school.” However, others hold conflicting opinions, including board member Russell Stuart downplayed the significance of the symbolism of the Israeli flag, arguing that it “is not a direct endorsement of the Israeli government” or a “direct endorsement of any geopolitical topic.”
“It is support for our Jewish students and the Jewish community,” he added.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools is receiving increased attention, notably in California, after years of falling under the radar.
Last month, The Algemeiner reported that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD), which stands accused of refusing to address antisemitism, ruled that a teacher who allegedly showed her students antisemitic, discriminatory, and biased content violated policy when she screened an offensive video about the Holocaust in her classroom.
The move came without the prompting of the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, with which two Jewish civil rights groups, StandWithUs (SWU) and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition (BAJC), filed a complaint against the district in April.
Among other things, SWU and BAJC alleged that an SCUSD employee, Wilcox High School teacher Kauser Adenwala, screened a documentary produced in Turkey which compared the war in Gaza to the Holocaust. The graphic film at one point “displays a picture of a young Jewish child who was branded with a number by the Nazis during World War II and then suddenly shows an untraceable image of children with Arabic writing on their arms,” according to the complaint, which alleged the teacher’s conduct violated numerous district policies and potentially state law. However, she remains employed by the district to this day.
The district subsequently investigated the incident and said in an official letter that was just sent to BAJC on July 25 and obtained by The Algemeiner that Adenwala breached the Governing Board’s policies.
In April, a civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition alleged that the SCUSD allows Jewish students to be subjected to unconscionable levels of antisemitic bullying in and outside of the classroom.
The 27-page complaint, filed with the US Education Department, described a slew of incidents that allegedly fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities set off a wave of anti-Jewish hatred across the US. SCUSD students, the complaint said, graffitied antisemitic hate speech in the bathrooms, vandalized Jewish-themed posters displayed in schools, and distributed stickers which said, “F—k Zionism.” All the while, district officials enabled the behavior by refusing to investigate it and blaming victims who came forward to report their experiences, according to the complaint.
“SCUSD has allowed an egregiously hostile environment to fester for its Jewish and Israeli students in violation of its federal obligations and ethical responsibility to create a safe educational space for all students,” Jenna Statfeld Harris, senior counsel and K-12 specialist at StandWithUs Saidoff Legal, said in a statement at the time. “SCUSD leadership repeatedly disregards the rights of their Jewish and Israeli students. We implore the Office for Civil Rights to step in and uphold the right of these students to an inclusive education free from hostility toward their protected identity.”
In August, the Education Department promptly opened an investigation into allegations of antisemitism in Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) following the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) filing a complaint regarding the matter.
Jewish students allegedly experienced relentless bullying in BCPS, where students pantomimed Nazi salutes, treated campuses as a canvas for Nazi-inspired and antisemitic graffiti, and sent text messages threatening that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be summoned to kill Jewish students the bullies do not like, the ADL complaint said, noting that teachers behaved even worse than students. At Bard High School, an English teacher performed the Nazi salute three times and later admitted to administrative officials that he did so intentionally to harm “the sole Jewish student” enrolled in his class. Following the incident, he suggested that the student unregister for his class because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be discussed in it.
“The allegations that Baltimore City Public Schools tolerate virulent Nazi-inspired antisemitic harassment of its Jewish students is at once appalling and infuriating. When a teacher allegedly directs a Nazi salute toward a Jewish student, or non-Jewish students harass their Jewish contemporaries by saying ‘all Jews should die,’ we are not simply talking about contemptible bullying; we are talking about a shocking abdication of educator responsibility that constitutes unlawful antisemitic harassment under Title VI,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement announcing the action.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Rashida Tlaib Slams US for Enabling ‘Gaza Genocide’ at Pro-Hamas Conference in Detroit
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaking at a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, March 11, 2025. Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) lambasted the US government for supporting Israel’s war effort in Gaza and predicted that the pro-Palestinian movement would continue to grow as a political force while speaking at an extremist-linked gathering over the weekend.
Tlaib made the comments during her appearance at the second annual People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit on Sunday. Donning a keffiyeh draped around her shoulders, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress angrily accused the US government of helping facilitate a so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
“They thought they could kill us, rape us, imprison us, violently uproot us from our olive tree farms, starve our children to death, and we would disappear. Well, guess what? Now we’re in Congress, and we’re in every corner of the United States,” said Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress.
“Every genocide enabler, look at this room, motherf—kers we ain’t going anywhere. We are just growing and growing and growing,” Tlaib continued.
Tlaib dismissed the US federal government as being “the decaying halls of the empire” and argued that the Palestinian cause has won the broader cultural narrative regarding the war in Gaza.
“Outside of the decaying halls of the empire in Washington, DC, we are winning. They are scared,” Tlaib added.
Tlaib, one of the fiercest critics of Israel in Congress, encouraged the audience to continue their anti-Israel activism, arguing that federal lawmakers will not change the status quo in the Middle East. She claimed that lawmakers are “scared” of anti-Israel protesters and suggested without evidence that they are taking cues from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a lobbying group that seeks to foster bipartisan support for the US-Israel alliance, instead of listening to their constituents.
“Change doesn’t come from the cowards and warmongers in Congress. It comes from the streets. It comes from all of us mobilizing and seizing the power to resist and fight back,” she said.
Tlaib also appeared at last year’s conference. Her presence sparked immense backlash, with many pointing out the event’s platforming and veneration of terrorists.
Last year’s event featured speakers from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization.
Beyond Tlaib, the conference featured a litany of speakers who demonized Israel and venerated Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades and started the current war with its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of the Jewish state.
Eduardo Martinez, the progressive mayor of Richmond, California, refused to explicitly condemn Hamas and received a round of applause after he compared the terrorist group to small children defending themselves from a school yard bully.
“If Palestine were a schoolyard playground, I would be a Palestinian. And that part of me that couldn’t endure the abuse anymore would be Hamas,” he said.
Martinez framed the Oct. 7 atrocities, during which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating rampant sexual violence, as an act of self-defense.
“We don’t know who we are until circumstances push us beyond our limits,” he said.
Jenan Awaida, an activist affiliated with the radical Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) organization, said the conflict against Israel is part of a broader effort to dismantle Western institutions.
“We are dealing with a world system that facilitates genocide through the role of governments, corporations, media institutions, a system manufactured by greedy corporations and billionaires,” she said.
Omar Suleiman, a controversial imam and Islamic activist, issued a strong defense of the Holy Land Five — a group of leaders of the controversial Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), once the largest Muslim charity in the US. The US government shut down the HLF in 2001, accusing it of funneling money to Hamas, which is designated by the US (and several other countries) as a terrorist organization.
Suleiman said that the men were imprisoned “for the crime of feeding Palestinian children.”
Nidal Jboor, a medical doctor and political activist, encouraged the audience to “neutralize” political leaders in Israel, the United States, and Europe.
“We all know who they are, whether they are in Israel, Tel Aviv, in Washington, in Germany, in Europe. They need to be locked up. They need to be taken out. They need to be neutralized to save children, to save humanity,” Jboor said.
“Speaking up alone is not enough,” he said. “Now it’s time to escalate and to act.”
Abubaker Abed, a self-described “journalist” operating in Gaza, lavished praise on the Hamas terrorist group and suggested that every civilian in Gaza is assisting Hamas.
“Every single one in Gaza is a resistance fighter in their own way,” he said.
Abed celebrated the Oct. 7 slaughters on social media. In a January 2025 post, he showered praise on long-time Hamas leader and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, saying that the terrorist’s “love of resistance and land is seen very clearly.” In a March 2025 post, Abubaker posted that international supporters of the Palestinian cause should “attack your governments.” He also defended Hamas’s murdering of dissidents, saying that the victims were “collaborating” with Israel.
Cori Bush, a former Democratic representative from Missouri, was slated to speak at the event. However, Bush quietly dropped out of the conference without providing an explanation.
During her tenure in Congress, Bush established herself as one of the most vocal critics of Israel. Bush repeatedly condemned Israel as a “genocidal” country and was one of the first members of Congress to call or a “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas.
The event offered several panels, touching on subjects such as US military aid, legal accountability, and grassroots organizing, all presented through an anti-Israel lens, according to the event website.
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Storm Stops Gaza-Bound Flotilla With Greta Thunberg, ‘Games of Thrones’ Actor,, and Terror Group ‘Coordinator’
Brazilian activist Thiago Avila speaks to Swedish activist Greta Thunberg during a press conference before the departure of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian expedition to Gaza, at the port of Barcelona, Spain, Aug. 31, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eva Manez
A flotilla of 20 boats which included participants from 44 countries, climate advocate Greta Thunberg, “Game of Thrones” actor Liam Cunningham, and a member of Samidoun (designated by the US and Canada as a “sham charity” for a terrorist group) left port in Barcelona on Sunday for Gaza only to return back within hours due to winds of approximately 35 miles per hour.
The anti-Israel assemblage of activists sought to break Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza to deliver aid, an effort previously pursued with Thunberg in June, and notably first attempted in May 2010 by the Free Gaza Movement which resulted in 10 deaths and dozens of injuries.
Global Sumud Flotilla Mission says it has mounted the largest effort to date to try penetrating the Israeli naval defenses and released a statement about the decision to delay the voyage’s launch, saying “we conducted a sea trial and then returned to port to allow the storm to pass. This meant delaying our departure to avoid risking complications with the smaller boats.”
Israel had reportedly already prepared to intercept the boats and then planned to administer “terrorist-level” detention conditions to the celebrity activists and the group of international participants.
One factor potentially fueling such firm punition for the flotilla’s passengers could be the presence of Jaldia Abubakra, a co-founder of Masar Badil Palestinian Revolutionary Path and the coordinator for the Madrid branch of Samidoun, an organization birthed through 2011 hunger strikes fomented by prisoners in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group.
Masar Badil confirmed Abubakra’s presence in the flotilla on Friday.
Samidoun, which identifies itself as a “Palestinian prisoner solidarity network,” is a radical anti-Israel advocacy organization that has taken part in pro-Hamas protests across the West, including in the US, Canada, and countries in Europe.
Germany banned Samidoun, whose demonstrations in Berlin have featured cries of “Death to the Jews,” in the days following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Samidoun previously described the Oct. 7 atrocities as an act of “heroic Palestinian resistance” and hosted a webinar for a Hamas official who pledged that the Palestinian terrorist organization will repeat its slaughter of Israelis “again and again” to bring about the Jewish state’s “annihilation.”
In October 2024, the US and Canada jointly imposed sanctions on Samidoun, explaining that the prominent anti-Israel group has been operating as a “sham charity” fundraising for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist group.
“Organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need, yet in reality divert funds for much-needed assistance to support terrorist groups,” Bradley Smith, acting US undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said at the time.
Months earlier, in June, YouTube shut down the group’s channel as well as that of its International Coordinator Charlotte Kates. In May 2019, the payment platforms PayPal, DonorBox, and Plaid discontinued support for Samidoun due to its terrorist affiliations.
Abubakra founded Masar Badil in 2021 with Khaled Barakat, a Samidoun leader, also described by Fatah as a “member in the central committee of the PFLP.”
The US banned Barakat from entering the country in 2024 due to his terrorist affiliations. In March of that year he praised the use of airplane hijackings as “one of the most important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”
Barakat and Kates attended the funeral for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in February 2025.
“This is my journey to Palestine. I am returning with the Freedom Flotilla, together with all the free people who have decided to break the siege, support the steadfastness of our people, and expose the crimes of the occupation before the world,” Abubakra said in a statement.
“We must assume our responsibility in the diaspora toward our people in Gaza, the West Bank, and all of occupied Palestine, which I see as one land from the river to the sea. After all, we are one people, with one cause and one destiny, and our rights are indivisible,” he added.
Kates wrote on X on Aug. 24, 2024, “Hate to self-post, but back in 2006, some zionist posted this video on youtube which was supposed to ‘expose’ me (and our movement). Inspired tonight to repeat that call today, 18 yrs later — We stand with the Palestinian resistance, with Hezbollah, with the resistance and people in Iraq. These are our troops, our freedom fighters, and we support them! And we must still work to build our resistance here [sic].”
That month, Kates traveled to Iran to receive the “Eighth Annual Islamic Human Rights and Human Dignity Award.” Other honorees at the ceremony included Ziyad Nakhaleh, a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader killed by Israel in July 2024.