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CUNY chancellor denounces anti-Israel law school graduation speech as ‘hate speech’
(New York Jewish Week) — The chancellor and board of trustees of the City University of New York have denounced a May 12 graduation speech at CUNY School of Law in which a student harshly criticized Israel.
Fatima Mousa Mohammed’s speech, in which she praised the law school as, in her view, a rare place where students could “speak out against Israeli settler colonialism,” was “hate speech,” according to a statement released Tuesday by Chancellor Felix Matos Rodríguez and the board of the public university system.
While the system cherishes free speech, the statement said, Mohammed’s remarks “unfortunately fall into the category of hate speech as they were a public expression of hate toward people and communities based on their religion, race or political affiliation.”
The statement went on, “The Board of Trustees of the City University of New York condemns such hate speech.”
The statement comes more than two weeks after the law school graduation ceremony where Mohammed was selected by her classmates to offer a commencement address. The ceremony was widely watched in part because part of the graduating class turned their backs on and booed Mayor Eric Adams, another speaker.
“As Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards, as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestininan homes and businesses, as it imprisons its children, as it continues its project of settler colonialism… our silence is no longer acceptable,” Mohammed said in her speech.
Later in her speech, she encouraged “the fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism and Zionism around the world.”
Pro-Israel advocates have long accused CUNY of tolerating antisemitism in part because of student and faculty expressions of anti-Israel sentiment, and the speech quickly drew criticism. The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York called the speech “incendiary, anti-Israel propaganda” in a statement on May 12.
“Unfortunately, this particular commencement speech cast aside the principle of seeking truth in a shameless attempt to vilify CUNY’s constructive engagement with Israel and the New York Jewish community and to denigrate Israel’s supporters on campus while trading in antisemitic tropes,” the statement said.
On Monday, the New York Post, a right-wing tabloid, put Mohammed on the cover, identifying her as “stark raving grad.”
Ritchie Torres, a pro-Israel Democratic congressman from the Bronx, tweeted about the speech on Sunday, writing that it was “anti-Israel derangement syndrome at work.”
“Imagine being so crazed by hatred for Israel as a Jewish State that you make it the subject of your commencement speech at a law school graduation,” he wrote.
And Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, whose New York congressional district includes the heavily Orthodox city of Monsey, tweeted in response to the video that he is “finalizing legislation to strip universities of their funding if they engage in and promote anti-semitism.”
“CUNY should be ashamed of itself — and should lose any federal funds it currently receives,” Lawler wrote.
CUNY’s law school has been a target of pro-Israel advocates for some time because of student activism against Israel. In December 2021 and May 2022, respectively, student and faculty associations each voted in favor of a resolution to support the Palestinian-led movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, known as BDS.
The law school enrolls about 700 students at its Queens campus and is known for attracting left-wing students who are interested in public service legal work. Last year’s commencement ceremony ignited a similar controversy after Nerdeen Kiswani, who is part of a group that has called to “globalize the intifada,” was the student-selected speaker. The term “intifada” generally refers to two violent Palestinian uprisings in the late 1980s and early 2000s, and the group’s call is widely seen by pro-Israel advocates as calling for violence.
The law school’s Jewish students’ association has been a vocal supporter of pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus, saying in a May 21 statement backing Mohammed that criticism of her speech had come from “external zionist organizations” that were spreading lies about her.
“The organizations currently attacking Fatima and the rest of CUNY Law’s student body, with absurd and false claims of antisemitism, are doing so against the wishes of the majority of CUNY Law’s Jewish students, who wholeheartedly stand with Fatima and have been grateful to have her as our classmate throughout law school,” the group said in the statement, which was also signed by 18 other student groups.
CUNY, which operates 25 undergraduate and 15 graduate schools, has recently signaled that it is committed to fighting antisemitism on its campuses. In September 2022, the system allocated $750,000 for initiatives to “counter antisemitism” with the JCRC-NY and in May, launched a social media campaign in partnership with the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, an organization launched by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft in 2019.
In their statement condemning Mohammed’s speech, the system’s chancellor and trustees noted that CUNY is and always has been a diverse institution.
“This speech is particularly unacceptable at a ceremony celebrating the achievements of a wide diversity of graduates, and hurtful to the entire CUNY community, which was founded on the principle of equal access and opportunity,” the chancellor and trustees’ statement said.
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Israel Pounds Lebanon with Heaviest Airstrikes of the War as Hezbollah Pauses Attacks
Rescuers work at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon, April 8, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Israel carried out its heaviest strikes on Lebanon since the conflict with Hezbollah broke out last month, even as the Iran-aligned group paused attacks on northern Israel and Israeli troops in Lebanon under a two-week US-Iran ceasefire.
Consecutive explosions shook Beirut, sending smoke billowing across the capital, as Israel’s military said it had launched the largest coordinated strike of the war. More than 100 Hezbollah command centers and military sites were targeted in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, it said.
The strikes killed dozens and wounded hundreds, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. In Beirut, Reuters reporters saw people on motorcycles picking up wounded and transporting them to hospitals because there were not enough ambulances to get them in time. A group of firefighters worked to put out flames in a car park after one strike left more than a dozen cars scorched and mangled.
The head of Lebanon’s syndicate of doctors, Elias Chlela, called in a written statement for “all physicians from all specialties” to head to any hospital they could to offer help. One of Beirut’s biggest hospitals said it was in need of donations of all blood types.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said overnight that the ceasefire suspending the six-week-old US-Israeli war against Iran did not apply to Lebanon, and the Israeli military said operations against Hezbollah there would continue.
That position contradicted comments by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key intermediary in the US-Iran ceasefire talks, who had said the truce would include Lebanon.
Lebanon’s state news agency NNA had reported continued Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon earlier in the day, including artillery shelling and a dawn airstrike on a building near a hospital that killed four people. An Israeli strike on the southern city of Sidon killed eight people and wounded 22 others, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Hezbollah stopped attacking Israeli targets early on Wednesday, three Lebanese sources close to the group told Reuters. The group’s last public statement on its military activity was posted at 1 a.m. (2200 GMT Tuesday), saying it had targeted Israeli troops inside Lebanon on Tuesday evening.
The group is likely to issue a statement outlining its formal position on the ceasefire and on Netanyahu’s assertion that Lebanon is not included, the three Lebanese sources said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the situation in Lebanon, a former French protectorate, remained critical and called for Lebanon to be included in the deal. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, welcoming the US-Iran ceasefire, said Beirut would continue its efforts to ensure that Lebanon was included in any lasting regional peace agreement.
“Hezbollah was informed that it is part of the ceasefire – so we abided by it, but Israel as usual has violated it and committed massacres all across Lebanon,” senior Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi told Reuters.
‘LEBANON CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE’
Most of Wednesday’s strikes were in civilian-populated areas, Israel’s military said. Hours before the strike, the military had issued warnings for some areas of southern Beirut and southern Lebanon. No such warning was given for central Beirut, which was also hit.
Following the strikes, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee claimed on X that Hezbollah had moved out of its traditional Shi’ite stronghold in southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighbourhood to religiously mixed areas of the city, including in the north.
Addressing Hezbollah, he said, Israel’s military will “pursue you and act with great force against you wherever you are”.
More than 1,500 people have been killed in Israel’s air and ground campaign across Lebanon, including more than 130 children and more than 100 women, since March 2 when Hezbollah started firing rockets at Israel in solidarity with Tehran.
Israel has issued evacuation orders covering around 15 percent of Lebanese territory since then, mostly in the south and in suburbs south of Beirut. More than 1.2 million people have been displaced, according to Lebanese authorities.
Israel has also pledged to occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River as part of a “security zone” it says is intended to protect its northern residents.
“Hopefully a ceasefire will be reached,” said Ahmed Harm, a 54-year-old man displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs. “Lebanon can’t take it anymore. The country is collapsing economically, and everything is collapsing.”
Outside a school sheltering displaced people in Sidon, pillows and blankets were piled onto cars as some families held out hope of returning home soon. On an astroturf football field, one family had packed plastic bags with clothes, pots and pans, towels, sheets and blankets.
“We’re just waiting for the official decision from the top, so we can go back,” said Samar al-Saibany, who was displaced from a village in the south.
Local mayor Mustafa al-Zein said more than 28,000 people were sheltering in the area as of Tuesday night. He cautioned residents against trying to return before an official signal.
“In the south, give someone a signal to return, and he’ll return,” Zein said.
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‘A Lot of Work to Do’ to Reopen Strait of Hormuz, UK’s Starmer Says on Gulf Trip
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) hold a bilateral meeting at Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Wednesday there was still a lot of work to do to reopen the Strait of Hormuz following the US-Iran ceasefire, speaking during a visit to the Gulf.
Starmer will hold talks with regional leaders during the visit, which had been planned before the ceasefire was announced.
“We now … have a ceasefire, but there’s a lot of work to do, as you will appreciate, a lot of work to make sure that that ceasefire becomes permanent and brings about the peace that we all want to see,” he said in a speech to military personnel at a base in Saudi Arabia.
“But also a lot of work to do in relation to the Strait of Hormuz, which has an impact everywhere across the world.”
Starmer, who has been heavily criticized by US President Donald Trump for failing to support the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, has hosted multinational meetings on how allies could support the reopening of the key strait that is fundamental to oil and gas trade.
“It’s our job to make sure that the Strait is open, that we’re able to get the energy that the world needs out and stabilize the prices back in the United Kingdom,” Starmer told reporters.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper also spoke to her US counterpart, Marco Rubio, on Tuesday, about diplomatic measures to secure the reopening of the Strait, including last week’s UK-led meeting that brought together over 40 countries to discuss the issue.
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Netanyahu Backs US–Iran Ceasefire, Says Deal Excludes Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participates in the state memorial ceremony for the fallen of the Iron Swords War on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem on Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: Alex Kolomoisky/POOL/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement in the hours following the ceasefire agreement, announcing Israel’s support for the US-brokered two-week truce with Iran while clarifying that it does not extend to Lebanon.
In the statement, Netanyahu’s office said Israel backs the decision by US President Trump to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks, on the condition that Tehran immediately reopens the Strait of Hormuz and halts all attacks against the United States, Israel, and countries in the region.
The statement added that Israel supports Washington’s broader objective of ensuring Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile, or terrorism-related threat to regional and global security. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the United States has reassured Israel that these goals will remain central in the upcoming negotiations.
“The United States has told Israel that it is committed to achieving these goals,” the statement said, noting that these priorities are shared by the US, Israel, and their regional allies.
It also stressed that the ceasefire does not apply to Lebanon, stating explicitly that “the two-week ceasefire does not include Lebanon.”
In the hours following the announcement, Iran launched additional missile strikes targeting Israel and several Gulf states before tensions appeared to ease toward morning.