April 20, 2025, Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University and Harvard Square scenes with students and pedestrians. Photo: Kenneth Martin/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect.

Harvard University students will vote this week on an anti-Israel measure calling for divestment from the Jewish State, amid rising concerns about the growth of antisemitism across the political spectrum.

According to The Harvard Crimson, the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee — a self-described revolutionary movement which issued some of the world’s first endorsements of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel — overcame objections expressed by the Harvard Undergraduate Association, a student government body, to place the idea on this academic year’s fall survey. Another group, working in concert with PSC, prevailed over the HUA as well, and added a survey question which aims to build a consensus of opposition to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.

“Should Harvard disclose its investments in companies and institutions operating in Israel?” asks PSC’s question, which was originally framed to accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. “Should Harvard divest from companies and institutions operating in Israel?”

PSC’s diction was edited at the behest of the administration, which determined that it was “leading” and contravened school rules.

“The commission emphasizes that the survey process is designed to foster an environment where students can share their perspectives freely and without pressure,” Harvard’s Election Commission told the Crimson in a statement. “It is not intended to serve as a platform for activism or advocacy by any particular group.”

The US campus antisemitism crisis has kept Harvard University in the headlines.

In October, school officials disclosed a $113 million budget deficit caused by the Trump administration’s confiscation of much of its federal contracts and grants as punishment for, among other alleged misdeeds, its admitted failure to combat antisemitism on its campus.

According to Harvard’s “Financial Report: Fiscal Year 2025” the university’s spending exceeded the $6.7 billion it amassed from donations, taxpayer support, tuition, and other income sources, such as endowment funds earmarked for operational expenses. Harvard also suffered a steep deficit in non-restricted donor funds, $212 million, a possible indication that philanthropists now hesitate to write America’s oldest university a blank check due to its inveterate generating of negative publicity — prompted by such episodes as the institution’s botching the appointment of its first Black president by conferring the honor to a plagiarist and its failing repeatedly to quell antisemitic discrimination and harassment.

“Even by the standards of our centuries-long history, fiscal year 2025 was extraordinarily challenging, with political and economic disruption affecting many sectors, including higher education,” Harvard president Alan Garber said in a statement. “We continue to adapt to uncertainty and threats to sources of revenue that have sustained our work for many years. We have intensified our efforts to expand our sources of funding.”

Harvard is also in court fighting a lawsuit which alleges that administrative officials violated civil rights law by declining to impose meaningful disciplinary sanctions on two students who allegedly assaulted a Jewish student during a protest held to rally anti-Israel activists just days after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israeli communities.

The university’s lawyers contend that the Jewish student, Yoav Segev, has not backed his claim with evidence and that his grievance is founded not in any legally recognizable harm but a disagreement regarding policy.

“Mr. Segev’s allegation, then, is not that Harvard failed to take action, but simply that he disagrees with the actions taken after the investigation,” a motion to dismiss the suit says, adding that the school believes Segev’s contention that Harvard “conspired” to deny him justice cannot be substantiated.

Segev had endured a mobbing of pro-Hamas activists led by Ibrahim Bharmal and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, who stalked him across Harvard Yard before encircling him and screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as he struggled to break free from the mass of bodies which surrounded him. Video of the incident, widely viewed online at the time, showed the crush of people shoving keffiyehs — traditional headdresses worn by men in the Middle East that in some circles have come to symbolize Palestinian nationalism — in the face of the student, whom they had identified as Jewish.

Nearly two years after the assault, Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo have not only avoided hate crime charges but also even amassed new accolades and distinctions — according to multiple reports.

After being charged with assault and battery, the two men were ordered in April by Boston Municipal Court Judge Stephen McClenon to attend “pre-trial diversion” anger management courses and perform 80 hours of community service each, a decision which did not require their apologizing to Segev even though Assistant District Attorney Ursula Knight described what they did as “hands on assault and battery.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

A February 2023 protest in Washington, DC calling for an end to executions and human rights violations in Iran. Photo: Reuters/ Bryan Olin Dozier

The Islamist regime in Iran has ramped up its executions in what one human rights watchdog group described as “an unprecedented increase compared to previous years,” leading observers to raise alarm bells over Tehran’s crackdown on dissent.

Iran has executed 1,286 human beings so far this year through the end of October, according to a new report by the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA).

The organization identified 31 recent executions on murder and drug-related charges, adding, “As of the time of this report, prison authorities and responsible institutions have not publicly announced these executions.”

While most of the executed are accused of murder or drug charges, human rights groups say these charges are often fabricated, conceal the real crime of political opposition, and target minority groups as Baluchis, Kurds, and Arabs.

The Times reported on Sunday that family members of political prisoners on Iran’s death row now wait by their phones in a state of terror and trauma. “Every phone call is a nightmare for me, especially in the morning. It might bring heartbreaking news,” one woman in Tehran told the British paper. “Every night I go to bed with the same dread of what tomorrow may bring.”

The increase in executions — usually carried out by hanging at dawn — have reportedly inspired hunger strikes among prisoners around the country.

One unnamed Iranian activist in exile described to The Times how the executions served as intimidation against those who would resist, saying that “the noose has become the regime’s loudspeaker” and “every hanging is a message: we are still in charge.”

Amnesty International called the increase in killings “state-sanctioned murder on an industrial scale.” Human rights groups have noted the current pace is the highest since 1988, when the regime infamously executed thousands of political prisons, and has already surpassed last year’s total of 1,001.

“Over the past year, as its nuclear program and network of militant proxies have been severely weakened, the regime has become even more reliant on domestic repression,” Shahin Gobadi, of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told The Times.

The inhumane conditions of Iranian prisons also act as a tool to repress those who would speak out for freedom. Those who have escaped describe being packed so tightly into cells that they needed to sleep in shifts under lights that remained on permanently.

On Thursday, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) released a report about Goli Kouhkan, a victim of child marriage who has lived on death row in Iran, scheduled for execution in December.

“Girls are married off at age 13 or even younger, and subjected to decades of beatings and rape, with no real possibility of divorce or escape,” said Bahar Ghandehari, director of advocacy at CHRI. “Many are often killed by family members if they try. Courts must consider these circumstances as mitigating factors when sentencing.”

Ghandehari explained how “the Iranian regime is deeply complicit in these killings because it does not take even the most basic measures to end child marriage or to protect girls and women from domestic abuse — situations that all too often end in death, although it is usually that of the woman.”

Zahra Rahimi co-founded the Imam Ali Popular Students Relief Society and has described the process by which child brides are forced into marriages in Iran.

“The judge will ask questions such as, ‘What is the price of meat? If you want to buy something for your home, what do you buy?’ and based on the girl’s answers, he will determine whether she is ready for marriage,” Rahimi said. “In this process, there is no lawyer, psychologist, doctor, expert, or trusted person to talk to the child … Where the court did not allow marriages to take place [for example, when the girls were under 9 years old], the girls were sent into ‘temporary marriages’ until they turned 13, and then their marriage would become legal.”

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa attends the 20th East Asia Summit (EAS), as part of the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hasnoor Hussain

South African Jews have strongly denounced their government’s foreign policy toward Israel, urging officials to reopen the country’s embassy in Tel Aviv, which has remained closed for two years amid Pretoria’s deepening hostility toward the Jewish state since the start of the war in Gaza.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) on Tuesday blasted the government for abandoning its own citizens abroad by keeping the Tel Aviv embassy closed. 

The group said the resulting vacuum has created serious difficulties for thousands of South Africans in Israel and forced SAJBD to take on crisis-response duties that should fall to the state.

“This knee jerk, virtue signaling exercise did nothing to contribute to the peace deal that thankfully other governments, including the United States and several Arab nations, were able to achieve, through hard work and negotiations with both sides of the conflict,” SAJBD’s national director, Wendy Khan, wrote in a column for the South African Jewish Report, referring to the US-backed ceasefire to halt fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Kahn also slammed the government for its glaring double standard: during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June, the South African embassy in Tehran proactively contacted citizens in the Islamic Republic to offer consular assistance and support — yet no comparable effort was made for South Africans in the Jewish state, even as civilian areas there were directly targeted by Iranian missiles.

“It was left to the SAJBD to arrange for the repatriation of South African citizens when the war ended, arranging for three Ethiopian Airlines flights to be added to bring South African citizens home,” Kahn said. “This was a task other governments arranged for their citizens.”

South Africa closed its embassy in Tel Aviv on Nov. 17, 2023 — exactly two years ago — citing concerns over the war in Gaza, in a move that marked the beginning of an increasingly hostile campaign against Israel. 

According to Kahn, President Cyril Ramaphosa assured SAJBD at the time that the closure would last only “for the duration of the war” in Gaza. However, even though a ceasefire has been in place for over a month now, the embassy remains closed.

“The war has ended, and we therefore call on Ramaphosa to honor his commitment of reopening the embassy in Tel Aviv,” she said. 

Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct.7, 2023, the South African government has taken an openly hostile stance toward the Jewish state, emerging as one of its fiercest critics and seeking to undermine it on the international stage. 

Last month, the South African Medical Association (SAMA) cut all ties with the Israel Medical Association (IMA) in one of the country’s latest attempts to boycott Jerusalem, prompting the resignation of at least 80 Jewish doctors and medical professionals.

SAMA is also urging the World Medical Association (WMA) to suspend the IMA’s membership until “meaningful changes” are made.

In its statement, SAMA set several conditions for lifting its suspension, including the release of Palestinian medical personnel, condemning the destruction of Gaza’s health-care system, opposing the blockade of essential medical supplies, and ensuring adequate medical care for all individuals under Israeli control.

The local Jewish community slammed SAMA’s decision, labeling it “underhanded.”

“Instead of representing our country’s medical professionals, they have chosen political expediency over the interests of their members,” SAJBD said in a statement.

“This action will serve only to alienate members of the association, causing unnecessary division and creating rifts between professionals and communities in our country,” the statement read. 

This move came as diplomatic relations between the two countries continued to plunge, with South Africa pulling its diplomats from Tel Aviv, hosting Hamas representatives at a government-backed conference, and pursuing its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Most recently, South Africa insinuated that Israel is seeking to “cleanse Palestinians” out of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The apparent accusation came after the surprise arrival of 153 Palestinians on a chartered flight that landed in Johannesburg last week. The group arrived without departure stamps from Israel in their passports.

South African border police kept the Palestinians on the plane for several hours before Ramaphosa allowed them entry on a standard 90-day visa exemption.

“We are suspicious, as the South African government, about the circumstances surrounding the arrival of the plane,” Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told reporters.

“We do not want any further flights to come our way because this is a clear agenda to cleanse out Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank and those areas, which South Africa is against,” he added. “It does look like it represents a broader agenda to remove Palestinians from Palestine into many different parts of the world and is a clearly orchestrated operation.”

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, an agency called Al-Majd was behind the flight in addition to others chartered for those fleeing Gaza and had contact with the Israeli government. Al-Majd, which is reportedly operated by a dual Israeli-Estonian national, says on its website that it seeks to “provide aid and rescue efforts to Muslim communities in conflict and war zones.”