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‘We’re Not Going Anywhere’: Jewish Student Targeted at UC Santa Barbara Condemns Hate Campaign
University of California, Santa Barbara student body president Tessa Veksler on February 26, 2024. Photo: Instagram
A Jewish University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) student body president who was left hateful messages saying “Zionist not welcome” near her office stated emphatically on social media that “we’re not going anywhere.”
Tessa Veksler issued the statement on Monday night following the discovery at the school’s Multicultural Center of over a dozen messages, written on placards, calling her a “neutral ass b—,” as well as saying “resistance is justified,” “you can run but you can’t hide Tessa Veksler,” and “get these Zionists out of office.” In marker, someone else graffitied “Zionist not welcome” on a door, just inches away from a mezuzah.
“I am floored by today’s events. I am deeply upset by the blatant antisemitic messages displayed at UCSB’s Multicultural Center (we see the irony, right?),” Veksler said in an Instagram post. “This is dehumanizing and rooted in antisemitism.”
She continued, “This incident is not an isolated event but rather a culmination of neglecting to adequately address the implications of such speech and actions within our university. UC Santa Barbara must not remain complicit in the targeting, intimidation, and discrimination against its Jewish students. Silence perpetuates discrimination against Jewish students.”
The Algemeiner has asked University of California-Santa Barbara to comment on this story.
Tessa Veksler is a fourth year political science major who was elected in April 2023 as president of UCSB Associated Students (AS), making history by becoming the school’s first ever Shabbat observant student body president. At the time, she told The Algemeiner that becoming president was always a “far-distant” goal of hers. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from which her family emigrated in the 1990s, compelled her to run.
“When the conflict started, I was one of the only Ukrainian students within student government, and so many students turned to me for advice,” she said during an interview. “In working to help international students in Ukraine I realized how very few resources were available and that the ones that were available were not well known.”
Since then, Veksler has become one of the most recognized student leaders of the pro-Zionist movement on campus, traveling to colleges across the country to speak to other students about the centrality of Zionism to Jewish identity and the importance of resisting antisemitism. She made friends everywhere she went.
“Tessa Veksler is a woman of valor,” Danielle Yablonka, a Florida Atlantic University graduate and activist-model who met Veksler during programs held by Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC), told The Algemeiner on Tuesday.
US colleges and universities have experienced an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents — including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students — since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Between Oct. 7 and Dec. 18, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 470 antisemitic incidents on college campuses alone.
The Algemeiner has reported on numerous incidents that followed the attack, which was the single deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
“Once again, we are seeing Jewish students in student government being targeted on the basis of the Jews’ shared ancestry and ethnicity,” Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law told The Algemeiner in a response to this latest outrage. “Demanding that a Jew disavow their ancestral heritage to be student body president is outrageous, immoral, and unlawful. It’s incumbent upon the university to put a stop to this baseless harassment and discrimination of Jewish students.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘We’re Not Going Anywhere’: Jewish Student Targeted at UC Santa Barbara Condemns Hate Campaign first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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CIA Director Says More Detailed Gaza Ceasefire Proposal Due in Days
William Burns, nominee for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, testifies during his Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 24, 2021. Tom Williams/Pool via REUTERS
The head of the CIA, who is also the chief US negotiator for an end to the Gaza war and release of hostages held by Hamas, said a more detailed ceasefire proposal would be made in the next several days.
After 11 months of conflict in Gaza, CIA Director William Burns said he was working very hard on “texts and creative formulas” with mediators Qatar and Egypt to secure a ceasefire, by finding a proposal which satisfies both parties.
“We will make this more detailed proposal, I hope in the next several days, and then we’ll see,” said Burns, speaking at a Financial Times event in London alongside Richard Moore, head of Britain’s MI6 foreign spy agency, in an unprecedented joint public appearance.
Burns added that it was a question of political will and he hoped leaders on both sides recognized “the time has come finally to make some hard choices and some difficult compromises.”
He said 90% of the paragraphs had been agreed but the last 10% were always the hardest.
“My hope is that you know, they’ll recognize what’s at stake here and be willing to move ahead on that basis,” he said.
Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.
BACKING UKRAINE
In an joint op-ed for Saturday’s FT newspaper, Burns and Moore highlighted joint efforts to help Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the British spy chief said it was critical the West maintained its support.
Discussing Ukraine’s offensive into the Kursk region of Russia where Kyiv has seized land, Moore called it an “audacious and bold” move to try and change the game.
“It’s too early to say how long the Ukrainians will be able to hang on in there (in Kursk),” he added, saying the incursion had brought the war home to ordinary Russians.
While Burns called the offensive a “significant tactical achievement” for the Ukrainians. But while he said it had exposed the Russian military’s vulnerabilities, he did not see any evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power was weakening.
“It did raise questions on the part of people we could see across the Russian elite about where is this all headed,” he said.
Burns also disclosed that earlier in the conflict he had been sent by US President Joe Biden to meet one of his Russian counterparts to warn him of the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.
“There was a moment in the fall of 2022 when I think there was a genuine risk of the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons,” the CIA director said. “We’ve continued to be very direct about that. So I don’t think we can afford to be intimidated by that saber rattling or bullying.”
In their op-ed, the spy chiefs also warned about a reckless campaign of sabotage being waged across Europe by Russian intelligence operatives.
“I think Russian intelligence services has gone a bit feral, frankly, in some of their behavior,” Moore said. “The fact that they are using criminal elements shows you that they’re becoming a bit desperate … It’s become a bit more amateurish.”
He added: “Amateurish can actually be more reckless and more dangerous as well.”
The post CIA Director Says More Detailed Gaza Ceasefire Proposal Due in Days first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Blinken to Travel to UK Monday to Discuss Middle East, Ukraine
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a joint news conference with President of the Dominican Republic Luis Abinader at the National Palace, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, September 6, 2024. Photo: Roberto Schmidt/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to travel to the United Kingdom on Monday, the State Department said, a week after Britain suspended some arms export licenses with Israel over equipment that could be used in the war in Gaza.
In the trip slated to go through Tuesday, Blinken will open the US-UK Strategic Dialogue, “reaffirming our special relationship,” Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson, said on Saturday.
Blinken will also meet with senior government officials to discuss issues including the Indo-Pacific, the AUKUS defense pact between the US, Australia, Britain and the Middle East, and collective efforts to support Ukraine in the war against Russia.
Britain said on Sept. 2 it was immediately suspending 30 of its 350 arms export licenses with Israel, saying there was a risk such equipment might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in Israel’s war with Hamas in the densely populated Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
The administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running to succeed him, is under pressure from critics of the war to suspend some arms deliveries to Israel, Washington’s closest Middle East ally. A US official said in July the Biden administration would resume shipping 500-pound bombs to Israel but would continue to hold back on supplying 2,000-poind bombs over concerns about their use in Gaza.
CIA Director William Burns, chief US negotiator for an end to the war in Gaza, said in London on Saturday that a more detailed ceasefire proposal would be made in the coming days.
The post Blinken to Travel to UK Monday to Discuss Middle East, Ukraine first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove: If you own a share like this, Israel could owe you some money
The Jewish Colonial Trust was established on March 20, 1899. The first Zionist bank was the brainchild of Theodor Herzl who understood that funding would be required to make his vision of a Jewish homeland a reality. Each share cost one English pound, the equivalent of $280 today. (Herzl bought the first 1,000 shares which was a […]
The post Treasure Trove: If you own a share like this, Israel could owe you some money first appeared on The Canadian Jewish News.
The post Treasure Trove: If you own a share like this, Israel could owe you some money appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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