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‘Zionist Pig!’ Antisemitic Discrimination at American University Alleged in New Civil Rights Complaint
Illustrative: Thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators from the Midwest gather in support of Palestinians and hold a rally and march through the Loop in Chicago on Oct. 21, 2023. Photo: Alexandra Buxbaum/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Shocking allegations of antisemitic assault, discrimination, and harassment at American University in Washington DC were unveiled on Wednesday in a new complaint filed with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish on Campus.
According to the complaint, pro-Hamas supporters spat on a Jewish Israeli student, someone graffitied swastikas in dorms for first-year students, and four Jewish students were charged with student conduct violations for recording video footage of pro-Hamas agitators tearing down missing persons posters of Israelis who were taken hostage by the Palestinian terrorist group on Oct. 7.
Shared with The Algemeiner on Wednesday, the complaint alleges egregious violations of Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in programs and activities that receive federal funding. The document begins with a summary of incidents experienced by Ben Enzer, a music and computer science major who, in addition to managing a rigorous course load, works two jobs as a teacher’s assistant and piano tutor to put himself through school. He is a Jewish Israeli American.
Enzer lost family and friends during Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel and has since then participated in events held to commemorate their lives. After leaving one such event held on campus, pro-Hamas protesters who saw him wearing an Israeli flag shouted “Zionist pig” at him. Two others riding on scooters with their faces concealed by keffiyehs — traditional headscarves worn in the Middle East that have become symbols of solidarity with the Palestinians against Israel — and N95 masks spat on him.
According to the complaint, although Enzer reported the incident to campus authorities and filed an additional complaint with the school’s Title IX office, which handles all reports of alleged discrimination, the university never responded to him, forcing him, at the advice of his mother, to avoid further harm by concealing his Star of David. Despite doing so, the spitting incidents continued, happening four more times. He was also called a “Zionist killer.”
Enzer allegedly had no recourse until the occurrence of an incident that was reported by The Eagle, American University’s campus newspaper, in November. He and other musicians had organized a recital, scheduled to take place on Dec. 10, and had posted around campus advertisements promoting the event. Someone later vandalized the advertisements, writing “Death to the Zionists Hitler was right” and drawing a swastika on them. American University refused to commence an investigation of the vandalisms, the Brandeis Center alleges, and two FBI officers dressed as civilians attended the recital to protect Enzer and his guests from violence.
“That the FBI needed to be called in demonstrates the level of physical threat to which [Enzer] was subjected. The situation on campus for Jews like [him] has deteriorated to such a degree because AU has long been derelict in its duty of care and protection of Jewish students on campus,” the complaint says.
“The university’s response to the incidents targeting [Enzer] has been wholly inadequate. It took the administration five days to contact [Enzer] after the vandalism incident, and even then, only one dean emailed him, nearly a week after the event, to inquire about his well being,” the document continues. “This was only after [Enzer] notified his professors that the administration had not offered him any support. AU’s failure to investigate the spitting incident [he] reported left the student feeling abandoned by the university and demonstrated the university’s lack of care and concern.”
The Algemeiner received permission to use Enzer’s name, which is redacted from the complaint where he’s described anonymously.
American University has ignored other antisemitic incidents on campus, according to the allegations. After Oct. 7, swastikas were graffitied three times in the first-year dormitory Letts Hall, as well as in a bathroom and on the doors of the residences of two Jewish students. A fourth vandalism was aborted when the student being targeted opened their door, causing the perpetrator to flee. One student whose door was vandalized was contacted by a person assumed to be involved in the incident in a text message that read, “I know who you are, Jew.”
The Brandeis Center added that 2023 was the third year in a row that swastika graffiti appeared on campus. In 2021 and 2022 the Nazi symbol was graffitied in bathrooms during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, two of the holiest holidays in the Jewish religion. The civil rights organization alleges that American University never launched a serious investigation of the incidents, essentially enabling the behavior.
One of the last examples of alleged civil rights violations cited in the complaint touches on an issue that has received ample media attention in the months following the atrocities of Oct. 7: tearing down missing persons posters of Israelis who were taken hostage by Hamas. At American University, tearing down posters of any kind constitutes a violation of the student code of conduct. However, the Brandies Center alleges, the school’s administration did nothing when pro-Hamas supporters tore down missing posters of Israelis. It did, however, file disciplinary charges against Jewish students who recorded them committing the act.
“By turning the situation on its head and treating the perpetrators as the victims, the university demonstrated a disregard for the facts, held its Jewish and Israeli students to a double standard, enforced its own code of conduct in a discriminatory fashion, and retaliated against Jewish students for attempting to engage in the legally protected activity of attempting to protect their civil rights,” the complaint says.
The Brandies Center went on to describe numerous other incidents of alleged discrimination and bullying in the classroom. It is asking the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to conduct a thorough investigation of its claims and has, in the interim, asked American University to suspend disciplinary proceedings against the Jewish students who filmed the vandalisms of missing persons posters, review its processes for investigating antisemitism, and begin compensating Enzer for lost wages and emotional suffering he has endured as a result of the treatment to which he was allegedly subjected during the fall semester.
American University did not respond to a request for comment for this story and has not yet responded publicly to the allegations, which are among the most damaging lodged against a US university since Oct. 7.
“Jewish students deserve consistent support from their university administrators, not harassment for standing up against antisemitism,” Jewish on Campus founder and CEO Julia Jassey said in a statement on Wednesday. “We urge a swift investigation and a campus climate where no student has to endure such harassment.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Zionist Pig!’ Antisemitic Discrimination at American University Alleged in New Civil Rights Complaint first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.