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Why Are Pro-Hamas Students and Protestors Being Turned Into Victims?
A pro-Palestinian protester holds a sign that reads, “Faculty for justice in Palestine,” during a protest urging Columbia University to cut ties with Israel, Nov. 15, 2023, in New York City. Photo: Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Last week, Columbia’s interim president resigned after eight turbulent days since she accepted conditions given by President Trump to receive approximately $400 millions in Federal funds.
A few days after agreeing to the deal, however, it was clear that she either didn’t intend to fully honor it — or that she was trying to pacify both sides. She resigned (or was forced to do so) when it became clear that one cannot sit on two chairs. Perhaps she realized that she and Columbia University were not poised to accept Trump’s demands to cancel the withdrawal of Federal funds after all.
The most recent events on Columbia’s campus indicate that the university did not just cave in to the anti-Israel mob, but that a significant number of faculty and students are the mob.
Certain professors urged pro-Palestinian students to skip classes and wear Hamas style-masks in protest to Columbia accepting Trump’s conditions. Columbia’s news president will be Claire Shipman, a journalist who was a member of Columbia’s Board of Trustees for many years and became its co-chair in 2023. Is she going to implement the requirements needed to restore Federal funding to Columbia? I doubt it, as I did not get the impression that the Board of Trustees was truly ready to accommodate Trump’s demands.
Mainstream media outlets have claimed that the requirements imposed by the Trump administration are ways to limit academic freedom, free speech, independent scholarship of Middle Eastern studies, and more.
Somehow the media omitted several major things that have been happening on campus, such as: incitement of violence, support of terrorism, destruction of property — and, perhaps most importantly, denial of civil rights to Jewish students and faculty through harassment, intimidation, and denial of access to Columbia’s (and Barnard’s) campus.
Progressives and other Americans are lamenting the suppression of free speech at rallies supporting a major terrorist group (Hamas), which the organizers claim were peaceful, when they actually weren’t. These students are complaining that they are afraid to even come to campus now.
Apparently, it did not occur to them that their actions had the same effect on Jewish students — or it did occur to them, but the Jews deserved it because, after all, they are white supremacists and settler-colonialists.
What struck me as perhaps the most dangerous step was transforming pro-Hamas and violent rioters to victims who are suffering under Trump and Marco Rubio’s actions. It is the same method used and perpetuated by Palestinians since Israel was founded in 1948 — and the same inversion that blames Israel (the victim of October 7) for launching a defensive war in Gaza to prevent such an atrocity from ever happening again.
And yet many gullible journalists, intellectuals, university professors — and also quite a few Jews — believe and help propagate these lies.
These protesters have well organized system of lawyers who standby to file a lawsuit against the US government — and a well-coordinated media network to get out their talking points. (And don’t forget, many of these progressive protests featured materials that claimed to be from the “Hamas Media Office.”)
Some foreign students want to support terrorist organizations — and also call for violence and other actions against the West. Is it any surprise that they may have violated the terms of their academic visas and other programs by doing so?
Now those students and professors who justified the Oct. 7 attack are speaking out against the latest action — but does free speech really have no limits when one is supporting terrorist massacres and terror supporters?
If so. American colleges — and the students they serve — are in serious, serious trouble.
Dr. Jaroslava Halper has been a professor of pathology at The University of Georgia in Athens, GA for many years. She escaped from communist Prague because of antisemitism, and lack of freedom and free speech. The gradual increase of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in certain circles in her second homeland, and the devastating October 7 massacre by Hamas, led her to realize that more active engagement is necessary to combat antisemitism, including anti-Zionism.
The post Why Are Pro-Hamas Students and Protestors Being Turned Into Victims? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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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.”
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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.
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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.