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Sarah Lawrence College: When Students Come Back to Campus and Find Hate on the Wall
A vandalized wall at Sarah Lawrence College, which also contained other expletives. Photo: provided by the author.
I walked onto the Sarah Lawrence campus after Thanksgiving break and I saw it immediately — an entire wall covered in spray paint: “ZIONISM IS RACISM + GENOCIDE,” “F** NORMALIZATION,” and at the bottom, in red, “FREE PALESTINE.”
It was not a poster that could be removed, nor a handheld sign carried by students for an hour and then forgotten. It was painted directly onto the physical heart of the college, on a building that every student must pass on the way to classes, dorms, the dining hall, and the library.
I stopped walking — not out of shock, which is hard to muster after the last 14 months, but out of something closer to recognition. This is what Jewish students have been telling me for years: the hostility is no longer atmospheric or abstract. It is literal. It is on the wall.
There are many ways to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On a truly open campus, students would do exactly that: argue, challenge, learn, read history, confront complexity. They would take intellectual risks, not moral shortcuts. But graffiti like this is not an argument. It is an accusation — an act of ideological reductionism that targets not ideas, but people.
For Jewish students, especially those who identify as Zionist, this lands one way: You are unwelcome here. You are immoral. You are dangerous.
This is the part administrators pretend not to understand: Zionism is not an exotic ideology. For most Jewish students, it is the simple belief that the Jewish people — like any other people — have a right to self-determination and safety. It is an affirmation of peoplehood, identity, and continuity.
Even students who criticize Israeli governments, who oppose settlements, who long for a two-state solution, still recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland. To equate that belief with racism and genocide is to cast those students — by virtue of something core to their identity — outside the bounds of moral community.
When that message is spray-painted on a central wall, its effect is not symbolic. Every student sees it — and not just Jewish students. Its message — that Israel commits genocide and is inherently evil — is etched into the mind of every student who sees it. And many will just accept it as fact. In 20 years, these students will be the ones running American governments and corporations.
For years, Sarah Lawrence has struggled with the dynamics this moment exposes. I have written repeatedly about the school’s culture of ideological sorting and quiet intimidation — an environment where the loudest voices enforce the narrowest moral boundaries.
Students report that they self-censor. They tell me they avoid certain courses. They confide that dissent is treated as betrayal. They describe a campus where activism substitutes for analysis, and where social risk-taking is punished far more swiftly than academic laziness.
Jewish students hesitate before raising their hand in class. They scan the room before mentioning Israel. They avoid posting anything online about their identity. They watch friendships quietly erode. They walk campus angry and also in fear (and after all the violent attacks on Jewish students, those fears are justified).
One student told me she now takes a longer route to her dorm each evening — not because she fears debate, but because she is tired of being told, in giant letters, that her very existence is genocidal. Another confided that she now speaks in one course only when she’s certain no one will turn her comments into accusations. These are not abstractions. They are the lived experiences of 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds trying to learn on a campus that tells them they are a moral problem.
University leaders, by contrast, often default to vague bromides about free discussion and open dialogue.
In theory, those are admirable commitments. But in practice, they evade the real issue: the climate created when a minority community’s identity is treated as inherently illegitimate. Administrators know perfectly well how group-based invective affects other communities. They know how words can undermine belonging. They would never allow a wall to remain covered in sweeping condemnations of any other minority group.
Only when the target is Jews do they behave as if the harm is ambiguous, as if the insult might still count as “conversation.”
Nor is Sarah Lawrence alone. Across the country, campuses have seen similar eruptions of anti-Zionist hostility. The pattern is national: the word “Zionist” has become a socially permissible euphemism for “Jew,” giving cover to old prejudices dressed in the language of justice.
Universities cannot resolve the geopolitics of the Middle East. But they can absolutely control how they respond to explicit acts that undermine trust, safety, and dignity. They can distinguish between critique and dehumanization. They can insist that campus discourse meet the minimal standards of civility. They can refuse to let slogans replace scholarship. And they can recognize that Jewish students deserve the same institutional protections as any other minority community.
This requires courage — moral, civic, and institutional. It requires telling activists on all sides that a university’s purpose is not to reenact global conflicts, but to learn about them with rigor and respect. It requires resisting the drift toward ideological litmus tests. It requires defending the idea that disagreement should not mean denigration.
At Sarah Lawrence, where the ideals of openness and inquiry are already fragile, it becomes a warning. Either the college recommits itself to pluralism, open inquiry, and mutual respect, or it allows a new orthodoxy — one rooted in fear, exclusion, and performative moralism — to become permanent.
Jewish students will remember which path their institution chooses. And so should everyone else.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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UN Official Speaks at Same Event in Qatar as Hamas Leader, Iranian Foreign Minister
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
A United Nations official who has been criticized for using her role to denigrate Israel spoke at the same event in Qatar over the weekend as a senior Hamas official and Iran’s top diplomat.
The Al Jazeera Forum, which took place over the weekend in Qatar, featured speakers including Hamas former leader and current senior figure Khaled Meshaal, Iran’s foreign minister, and Francesca Albanese — the UN’s notoriously controversial special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories.
Writer and Open Source Intelligence researcher Eitan Fischberger noted that Albanese, whose job centers around human rights, would be speaking at the same event as the leader of Hamas — the terrorist organization that has ruled Gaza since 2006 and committed the October 7 attack on Israel — and Iran’s foreign minister — who is part of the regime that reportedly killed tens of thousands of civilians while they were protesting against the government.
And Albanese was not the only speaker whose professional focus is on human rights but ended up speaking at a conference with some of the world’s most notable human rights abusers. According to the Al Jazeera Forum website, a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a professor of international law, and a humanitarian and climate activist also spoke at the event. Additionally, at least one American professor — who teaches at the University of Maryland, College Park — spoke at the forum.
While Albanese spoke at the event, she discussed Israel being a “common enemy of humanity.”
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The Anti-Defamation League responded to her appearance and comments at the forum, writing, “When will the world stop allowing Albanese to dress up hateful bias against Jews, Israel and endorsement of terrorism, as righteous indignation? ADL has long been calling for Albanese to be found in breach of the UNHRC code of conduct and to be separated from her mandate.”
The Israeli Director of the Digital Diplomacy Bureau wrote that “the mask is finally off” and that there is “No need for satire – reality writes it better.”
Albanese’s appearance at a conference with a Hamas leader is the latest chapter of her extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In 2024, the UN launched a probe into Albanese’s conduct over allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations. UN Watch explains that in “November 2023, Ms. Albanese conducted a lobbying trip to Australia and New Zealand in which she did not conduct any investigation pursuant to her mandate. Contrary to her denials and those by the UN, this report documents how the trip was partially funded by ‘external’ groups, most likely pro-Hamas lobby groups in those countries.”
Also in 2024, Albanese claimed Israelis were “colonialists” who had “fake identities.” Previously, she defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” at a time when over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza terrorists at Israel. Last year, US lawmakers called for the firing of Albanese for what they described as her “outrageous” antisemitic statements, including a 2014 letter in which she claimed America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”
Albanese’s anti-Israel comments have earned her the praise of Hamas officials in the past.
In response to French President Emmanuel Macron calling Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel the “largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century,” Albanese said, “No, Mr. Macron. The victims of Oct. 7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”
Video footage of the Oct. 7 onslaught showed Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas celebrating the fact that they were murdering Jews.
Nevertheless, Albanese has argued that Israel should make peace with Hamas, saying that it “needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas.”
When asked what people do not understand about Hamas, she added, “If someone violates your right to self-determination, you are entitled to embrace resistance.”
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Somalia Warns Israel Against Military Base in Somaliland, Signs Defense Pact With Saudi Arabia
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud delivers the opening keynote speech during the 17th Al Jazeera Forum, themed ”The Palestinian Cause and the Regional Balance of Power in the Context of an Emerging Multipolar World,” in Doha, Qatar, on Feb. 7, 2026. Photo: Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has warned Israel against establishing a military base in the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, as Mogadishu bolsters strategic ties with Middle Eastern states amid mounting regional tensions.
At the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha on Saturday, Mohamud sounded the alarm over a potential Israeli military foothold in the Horn of Africa, while once again condemning Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as a “blatant breach of international law.”
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east.
During Saturday’s event, Mohamud insisted that an Israeli military base in Somaliland would offer no real defensive benefit and would primarily serve as a springboard for foreign interventions.
“A base is not a tourist destination — it is a military facility, and military means either attack or defense,” he said during a speech. “There is no part of Somalia that Israel has any need to defend.”
“We will fight to the full extent of our capacity,” Mohamud continued. “We will confront any Israeli forces that enter, because we oppose this and will never allow it.”
For years now, Somalia has hosted military facilities for foreign powers, including Turkey and Egypt.
Mohamud’s remarks came after Israel last year became the first country to officially recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state — a move expected to reshape regional power dynamics as the two governments deepen political, security, and economic cooperation.
At the time, regional powers — including Egypt and Turkey — condemned Israel’s diplomatic move, saying it undermined Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
According to experts, the growing Israel-Somaliland partnership could be a “game changer” for Israel, boosting the Jewish state’s ability to counter the Yemen-based Houthi terrorist group while offering strategic and geographic advantages amid shifting regional power dynamics.
Unlike most other states in the region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability — qualities that make it a valuable partner for international allies and a key player in regional cooperation.
“Israel’s interference in Somalia’s sovereignty will not be tolerated,” Mohamud said during his speech. “The African continent rejects any attempts to change borders through military force or unilateral actions.”
In a move to strengthen its defense capabilities amid increasing regional instability, Somalia signed a defense cooperation pact with Saudi Arabia on Monday, aimed at enhancing military ties and providing advanced technology and training for the Somali National Army.
According to officials from both countries, the deal is intended to safeguard the Red Sea, a strategic corridor between the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal that has increasingly drawn the attention of Gulf states.
Even though the newly signed memorandum is not a mutual defense treaty, Somali officials say it sets the stage for deeper military cooperation — a move analysts say has gained momentum following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland.
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‘Every Jew Will Die’: German Synagogue Receives Threatening Letter With Gun Cartridge
Illustrative: The exterior of the main synagogue in the German city of Munich. Photo: Reuters/Michaela Rehle
German authorities have opened an investigation into a death threat mailed to the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria (IKG) amid an ongoing rise in antisemitism across Germany.
The package, received by the IKG’s community center and the Ohel Jakob Synagogue on Thursday, contained a cartridge for a handgun and a note which included such intimidations as “all the Jews belonged shot” and “every Jew will die … I will cause all the deaths.”
The Bavarian police’s Criminal Department 4 launched a probe into the incident.
Munich’s leading synagogue has previously implemented security protocols for incoming packages.
“Every shipment is controlled. In this case, it immediately became apparent that the letter had a problematic content,” Vice President Yehoshua Chmiel told the Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper. “The escalation goes on and on … We receive a lot of threats. But a letter with a real cartridge is new.”
“We feel let down,” he added. “There are no acts against antisemitism. There are speeches, but they don’t help us.”
Ludwig Spaenle, who serves as the Bavarian state government’s commissioner against antisemitism, called the hate crime “evil and inhumane” before encouraging law enforcement in their investigation.
This latest incident comes as Jews in Germany are already on edge amid a relentlessly hostile climate.
In the city of Potsdam just outside Berlin, for example, members of the Jewish community have begun expressing second thoughts about a multi-year plan to develop a kindergarten out of fear that it could become a prime target for terrorists.
Evgueni Kutikow, chairman of the Jewish Community of Potsdam, said to Märkische Allgemeine that worries about antisemitism had grown and that “one mother called me crazy when I asked her if she would enroll her child in a Jewish daycare center.”
Kutikow has resisted canceling the kindergarten’s construction, however.
“As things stand now, I’m skeptical. But I’m also not prepared to abandon the project,” he said. “We don’t live in a bubble — we see what’s happening around us and across the world.”
Last month saw two antisemitic hate crimes in Germany targeting Andreas Büttner, the commissioner for antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany.
On Jan. 5, the Brandenburg state parliament received a death threat against him. The note warned, “we will kill you” and included an inverted red triangle, a symbol used by the Islamist terrorist group Hamas to designate targets.
This messaging mirrored an arson attack against a shed on Büttner’s property days earlier, when investigators also discovered inverted red triangles. Israeli Ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor posted on X at the time explaining that “attacks on those who think differently and attempted murder: That is what the Hamas triangle stands for — in Gaza as in Brandenburg. And the hatred of Israel goes hand in hand with hatred of our democracy. The rule of law must smash these terrorist organizations — and indeed, before they strike again.”
Following the attack, Büttner stated that “the symbol sends a clear message. The red Hamas triangle is widely recognized as a sign of jihadist violence and antisemitic incitement.” He added that “anyone who uses such a thing wants to intimidate and glorify terror. This is not a protest; it is a threat.”
On Jan. 13, another antisemitic act contributed to the growing climate of fear.
Police arrested an unnamed, 32-year-old man in Giessen in an attack on a synagogue. A judge would place him on a psychiatric hold, suspecting mental illness had contributed to his actions.
The suspect allegedly pushed over boxes which contained papers and then set them on fire outside the synagogue. A prosecutor’s statement read that “thanks to the swift intervention of a passerby, the fire was quickly brought under control, preventing the flames from spreading to the residential building and the synagogue.”
Police also believe the man performed a Nazi salute outside the synagogue that evening.
The commissioner to combat antisemitism in the German state of Hesse sounded the alarm after the arson attack, warning that it reflects a “growing pogrom-like atmosphere” threatening Jewish life across the country.
Germany, like most Western countries, has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents over the past two years, following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
According to official German government figures, antisemitic crimes jumped from 2,641 in 2022 to 6,236 in 2024, an increase of 136 percent.
“We are witnessing a growing number of antisemitic incidents. Ninety years ago, that hatred marked the beginning of the end,” Daniel Günther, the minister-president of Schleswig-Holstein, a state in northern Germany, said in a statement last month following the vandalism of a Holocaust memorial at a local synagogue in Kiel. “That is precisely why we cannot tolerate a single incident today. Every act must be investigated and punished under the rule of law.”