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Why Is Duke Letting an Anti-Israel Hate Monger Teach — and Why Are Leaders Not Investigating?
Duke University. Photo: Ilyse Whitney / CC BY 2.0.
Let’s examine one department at Duke University to better understand the antisemitic fervor being experienced throughout academia, the campuses, and in academic publications.
Frances Hasso is Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke “with secondary appointments in the Department of History and the Department of Sociology.” In 2024, she excitedly announced on X, “HAMAS OFFICIALLY DEFEATS ISRAEL!”
In 2024 and 2025, Hasso repeatedly made social media posts using the antisemitic slur “Zio.” For example, she tweeted “Just another Zio grifter … his page is for donations.”
A column in the politically left Slate explained, “‘Zio” [is] an anti-Jewish slur popularized by David Duke and his neo-Nazi followers.”
On Oct. 7, 2023, while Israelis were actively being murdered, raped, tortured, and dragged as hostages into tunnels in Gaza, Hasso shared the following post with her accompanying comment that she agrees “1000 percent”:
Anyone who mischaracterizes legitimate Palestinian resistance against colonial occupation as aggression or any other liberal inspired adjectives is not a friend of the Palestinians but a collaborator with liberal obscurantism & mass confusion that only benefits the colonialists.
The same month, Hasso posted, “The US empire cannot end soon enough.”
In late December 2023, The New York Times published an in-depth report detailing sexual assaults against Israelis during the Oct. 7 Hamas-led pogrom.
Hasso signed a letter calling the Times’ report “disgraceful.” She and the other signatories stated they, “Firmly reject The Times’ discreditable report and its exploitation of women’s bodies and struggles as a means to fabricate assault incidents and push propaganda for an unlawful occupation, thereby abetting the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
Just last month, Hasso shared a post on X, in which the original poster said, “Noone was raped on October 7.”
It is concerning — to say the very least — that the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the gender and feminist program at Duke University rejected a prominent report on sexual assaults against Israelis. Perhaps the motto at Duke should be: Believe all women, except Israeli and Jewish women.
In November of 2023, Hasso was a panelist at the scandalous, “A Round-Table Talk about Social Justice in Palestine,” hosted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). The event — which I attended — began with the audience being shown a short anti-Israel propaganda film titled “Gaza Concentration Camp,” chosen by Hasso. The film narrator stated that on Oct. 7, “Palestinians didn’t break through a border to enter Israel. … They destroyed a fence separating them from the homes they were forced out of.”
The film did not mention any of the Hamas-led atrocities on Oct. 7.
In a now-infamous moment at the event, a panelist, Rania Masri, said: “Oct. 7 for many of us from the region was a beautiful day. It was the day in which we saw that, we saw our brothers, we saw our fathers, we saw men break out of a concentration camp.”
Husso made no comment or objection to this.
Students took dutiful notes. Not a single panelist, moderator, or professor in the room objected to Masri’s hateful comments or even looked concerned.
Since the event, UNC administrators have made multiple apologetic statements distancing the university from Masri’s hateful comments.
But as far as I am aware, Hasso did not distance herself from Masri. In fact, the next year, Hasso made a post on X congratulating Masri for speaking out against the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, tweeting, “Great job @rania_masri.”
Hasso recently shared a post alleging that “Israel keeps trying to kill Israeli hostages… all as [an] excuse to prolong the Genocidal plan of erasing two million Palestinians from Gaza. Israel’s priorities are Nazi’s war-time policies – fastracking Genocide (Final Solution).”
According to the US Department of State, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is one example of antisemitism.
It is simply depraved to say that the government of Israel is trying to kill its own citizens being held hostage.
The Duke student newspaper estimates that tuition, board, and fees at the university for undergraduates will total $92,042 for the 2025-26 academic year. Why would Jewish families — or any families at all — pay such huge costs to send their children to be “educated” by professors like Frances Hasso?
Peter Reitzes writes about issues related to antisemitism and Israel.
The post Why Is Duke Letting an Anti-Israel Hate Monger Teach — and Why Are Leaders Not Investigating? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.