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Virginia Student Suspended After Reporting Antisemitic Incident at School, Parents Say
Langley High School students displaying an antisemitic image. Photo: Screenshot
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), a school division in Northern Virginia, has been sharply criticized for allegedly suspending an Asian-American student who exposed antisemitism at his high school.
School officials accused a student at Langley High School of leaking to the public a photograph of other students drawing and holding for display a US flag in which its stars were replaced with 25 swastikas and the words “Free Palestine” were written in between the stripes, the Fairfax County Times reported. The image had been drawn during a meeting of the Muslim Students Association.
The image was shared across the school, as anti-Israel students staged a “walkout” earlier this month, carrying another sign with swastikas on it and chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a slogan widely interpreted to be a call for the destruction of Israel, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Langley school administrators reportedly suspended two students: the Muslim student who drew the swastikas on the US flag and an Asian-American student whom school officials said had publicized the photo that was widely circulated on social media.
Parents and local leaders expressed outrage at the school for disciplining a student for reporting antisemitism, arguing it will deter others from coming forward to expose such bigotry. On Friday, parents held a demonstration outside FCPS’s administrative building in Falls Church, Virginia, to protest both the student’s suspension and what they described as unheeded concerns about rising antisemitism in FCPS schools going back several years.
“What really has upset me about this is that the only way that they can prove that there is something is to take a picture, and then the student got suspended for taking a picture,” one parent of a student attending Langley High School told a local CBS affiliate covering the protest. “There’s a history of trying to silence or not allowing these images to come to fruition to show that we have a problem here.
FCPS has denied suspending the student for exposing an act of antisemitism.
“No student at Langley High School was suspended for reporting an incident of antisemitism to school administrators,” FCPS superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid told WUSA. “We will continue to denounce all acts of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and hatred in any form.”
Speaking to WUSA9, Eric Rozenman, a Jewish activist and writer, alleged that the country can plausibly deny suspending a student for reporting antisemitism because its student code of conduct is a mammoth document comprising vague rules and regulations, many of which can be cited as sufficient cause for sending a student home.
“They can make that claim because they have a long list of bureaucratic regulations in the student handbook about what is and isn’t permitted,” Rozenman said, explaining that the incident is an example of the FCPS’ allegedly insufficient approach to addressing antisemitism, an issue that is currently being probed by the federal government.
In Nov. 2022, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) launched an investigation into a complaint, filed by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), alleging that Jewish students in the county continually face harassment and a hostile learning environment. Chants of “Heil Hitler,” swastika graffiti, and scheduling of important tests on Jewish holidays are some of the indignities Jewish students have endured without recourse to school officials, the complaint said.
The complaint also alleged that antisemites work for the school board, hampering FCPS’s ability to confront the scope of the problem and enact meaningful reforms. In May 2021, during Israel’s last conflict with Hamas, FCPS official Abrar Omeish tweeted, “Israel kills Palestinians & desecrates the Holy Land…apartheid & colonization were wrong yesterday and will be today, here and there.”
“We want [FCPS] to be able to recognize what is antisemitic and anti-Jewish in the first place,” Rozenman said during Friday’s demonstration. “Take it just as seriously as they would take something that was anti-Black, anti-gay, or anti-Muslim. This is the thing they’re not doing. They can’t recognize it or don’t want to act.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Virginia Student Suspended After Reporting Antisemitic Incident at School, Parents Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel ‘Concerned’ with Russia’s Violation of Estonian Airspace as Tallin Requests NATO Article 4 Consultation
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Saturday that Jerusalem was “concerned” with the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian jets.
This comes after three Russian military jets violated NATO member Estonia’s airspace for 12 minutes on Friday in what its government branded an “unprecedentedly brazen” incursion. It is the latest in a series of recent military actions by Russia that have rattled the alliance.
Earlier this month Poland shot down Russian drones in its airspace with the backing of aircraft from its NATO allies.
Tallin meanwhile decided to request NATO Article 4 consultations over the violation, Prime Minister Kristen Michal said on Friday. Article 4 stipulates that members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will consult together whenever, in the view of any of them, the territory, political independence or security of any of them comes under threat.
US President Donald Trump made it clear he was not pleased with the situation.
“I don’t love it. I don’t like when that happens. Could be big trouble,” Trump told reporters.
NATO polices the airspace of Estonia and other Baltic nations in its “Baltic Sentry” mission.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Can Overcome Any Return of Sanctions
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian vowed on Saturday that Iran would overcome any reimposition of sanctions on it through a so-called “snapback” process, after the U.N. Security Council voted not to permanently lift sanctions on Tehran.
“Through the ‘snapback’ they block the road, but it is the brains and the thoughts that open or build the road,” Pezeshkian said in remarks carried by state television.
“They cannot stop us. They can strike our Natanz or Fordow (nuclear installations attacked by the US and Israel in June), But they are unaware that it is humans who built and will rebuild Natanz,” Pezeshkian said.
The Security Council move came on Friday after Britain, France and Germany launched a 30-day process last month to reimpose sanctions, accusing Tehran of failing to abide by a 2015 deal with world powers aimed at preventing it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran denies having any such intention.
“We will never surrender in the face of excessive demands because we have the power to change the situation,” Pezeshkian was quoted as saying by state media.
The “snapback” process would reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran unless an agreement is reached on a delay between Tehran and key European powers within about a week.
The snapback would reimpose an arms embargo, a ban on uranium enrichment and reprocessing, a ban on activities with ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, a global asset freeze and travel bans on Iranian individuals and entities.
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US Seeks Congressional Approval to Sell $6 Billion in Arms to Israel
The U.S. Capitol building is seen in Washington, U.S., December 6, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/Files
i24 News – The US administration of President Donald Trump is seeking congressional approval for a weapons deal with Israel to the tune of some $6 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
While the proposed deal was first sent to congressional leaders before Israel’s controversial strike in Doha—targeting the leadership of Hamas, the jihadist Palestinian group with which Israel is at war—it is understood the incident had no effect on the administration’s willingness to push the sale through the legislature.
The proposed sales include a $3.8 billion deal for 30 AH-64 Apache helicopters and a $1.9 billion deal for 3,250 infantry assault vehicles, the report said, citing official documents.
The arms would be paid for by US-provided foreign military financing, according to the documents.
Presently, the administration is seeking the approval of the four top Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it is understood.
The leaders of the two panels usually must sign off on major foreign weapons deals before the administration sends wider notification to Congress and the public.