Seth Mandel: How Trump’s Anti-Semitism Crackdown Has Already Changed Education
The secretary of education is Linda McMahon, and she has moved fast. As the Times notes, four days after her confirmation hearing she had the department announce its prioritization of campus anti-Semitism. McMahon, like the rest of the Trump team, hit the ground running.Seth Mandel: Hamas Supporters Know Exactly What They Are Defending
Indeed, the speed with which the new administration has taken action on numerous fronts has frequently caught the White House’s targets and the Democratic opposition completely off-guard.
And the higher-education landscape was already changing by the time Trump took office. As of today, 148 schools representing 2.6 million students have adopted policies of “institutional neutrality,” according to the Heterodox Academy. Rather than putting out institutional statements on every passing piece of news, schools officials have balked at such activism ever since the American intifada began. Officials were caught between not wanting to align their schools with Hamas and their fear of student anger at any acknowledgement of Israel’s right to exist.
Fear, cowardice, whatever you want to call it, the universities have succumbed to it rather than stand up for their Jewish students. All those 148 schools adopted neutrality before Trump brought the hammer down on Columbia. Institutional neutrality, therefore, is only going to grow.
Meanwhile, Trump’s executive orders limiting DEI—so-called diversity, equity and inclusion programs that have ended up turning U.S. institutions into playgrounds of racial and ethnic power struggles and a major catalyst of anti-Semitism on campus—have already seen some schools close certain administrative offices. The University of Virginia dissolved its DEI office just days ago.
Focusing on the institutions has, and will continue to have, profound effects on university responses to anti-Semitism. That doesn’t mean the White House is wrong to punish students where appropriate, especially if the universities won’t do so. But so far, Trump’s White House is well on its way to getting schools to discipline their own—or lose the gravy train of taxpayer money. Either eventuality would mark a significant departure from the prevailing, and unacceptable, status quo.
During the course of the 2008-2009 war, Operation Cast Lead, Hamas hid among the civilian population and then ghoulishly embraced the fauxtography trend to deflect blame for the Palestinian deaths that Hamas was responsible for.The Government Has a Strong Case for Deporting Hamas Sympathizers
In early 2009, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a fiery post about the world’s “pornographic” obsession with anything that can be labeled Jewish moral failure. Goldberg specifically mentioned Hamas’s parading of dead Palestinian babies:
“Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I’ll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble — and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I’ve seen in my life. And it’s typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they’d learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.”
I recount all this because—as Oct. 7, 2023 and its aftermath showed—the amount of support for Hamas and the obsession with demonizing the Jews, all with the willing collaboration of the media, is a song played on repeat. The details get worse, sure: Both Hamas and the Western media reached new depths of depravity in their own ways over these past 16 months. Hamas’s supporters in the West, meanwhile, gathered in celebration of evil in unprecedented numbers.
One does not want to believe that all or most of these people know what it is they are supporting. One does not want to believe that members of the media are aware of the egregious ethics breaches their outlets routinely engage in. One does not want to believe that the only way to put a stop to this long-running cycle of horror is to destroy Hamas.
But we are now nearly two decades into the era inaugurated by Hezbollah and Hamas in 2006. Supporters of Hamas didn’t abandon their cause when they saw Hamasniks dancing around with the dead bodies of captive children, because it’s what one expects of Hamas. News organizations didn’t institute reforms in 2006 precisely because they expected to be using those same tactics again and again. And Hamas itself is immune to change.
Sure, there’s the occasional ignoramus on the Internet or a college campus. But for the most part, everyone knows what they’re doing here. It’s a depressing realization, but it is our unambiguous reality. And we cannot change that reality unless we face it.
Here in the U.S., the Trump administration has been cracking down on the pro-Hamas movements that have established themselves in the universities. On Saturday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Mahmoud Khalil, a foreign national holding a green card and affiliated with Columbia University. ICE apparently intends to revoke his residency status for his role in violent campus protests, but yesterday a federal judge ruled that he cannot be deported without his case being heard. Andrew C. McCarthy examines the legality of the deportation attempt:
The Trump administration has . . . chosen a tough case to start with: a lawful permanent resident alien (LPR)—a status in which the alien enjoys the most robust protection that our law provides for non-Americans. Still, the administration should prevail for the reasons best articulated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio: an alien privileged to reside in the United States, even a green-card holder, should not be able to engage in activities that would form a legal basis to exclude the alien from entering our country in the first place.
Section 1182 of federal immigration law controls the categories of aliens who may be excluded from the United States. In the category of national security, the statute mainly targets aliens who have “engaged in terrorist activity,” who are “members” of terrorist organizations, or who have received paramilitary training from terrorist organizations. Fortunately, though, there is additional latitude: an alien may be excluded if he has “endorsed” or “espoused” terrorist activity. . . . The statute defines terrorist activity to include violent attacks and the planning of such attacks. That should be sufficient to bar from entry into the United States aliens who support Hamas.
If the government can prove that Khalil was in a campus group that endorsed or espoused Hamas’s atrocities against Israel, it should be able to deport him regardless of his LPR status. And if it can deport him, there are likely to be thousands of others who can be deported, too—and should be.
Brendan O'Neill: The memory-holing of a pogrom
Is there also ‘shock’ outside of the Netherlands over this trial of suspected Jew hunters? Over this chilling spectacle of a pogrom being pored over in a court of law in 2025? Remarkably, no. There’s mostly silence. You will search in vain for coverage in the non-Dutch press of this latest development in the Amsterdam pogrom. Is Europe’s press bored with this story of Jews being hunted on the streets of a European capital? Yes, what a drag that we might have to grapple with the fact that there was an organised and violent hounding of ‘cancer Jews’ on our continent in the 21st century. After all, Europe is meant to be a paragon of liberalism and diversity, and so much more morally superior than those populist oafs who’ve taken over in America. We can’t let a pesky little thing like a Jew hunt interfere with that narrative.Joe Rogan and the Jews
There’s an even more sinister reason for Europe’s silence on this ‘trial of the Jew hunters’ in one of our most enlightened cities. Many have clearly bought into the pogrom denialism that spread like a pox in opinion-forming circles in the immediate aftermath of this street hunt for Jews. Western leftists devoted the same amount of moral energy to denying the truth of the Amsterdam pogrom as they normally devote to uncovering racism absolutely everywhere. The same people who for years decried everything from white women wearing their hair in cornrows to the scuffing of a page in the Koran as ‘racism’ were now shrugging their shoulders over a literal Jew hunt. ‘Maybe the Maccabi fans brought it on themselves’, they essentially said.
To the rational observer, it was clear from the start that what happened in Amsterdam was a pogrom. The first ‘trial of the Jew hunters’ took place in December. Five men were convicted of violence. One had boasted in the WhatsApp group about joining the ‘Jew hunt’ – his words. He later kicked Maccabi fans and grabbed one by the throat. Another described his victims as ‘cowardly [Jews]’. The men, along with around 900 others, were part of the virtual chat which, the court heard, had shared information for the purposes of ‘violence against people of Jewish descent and / or supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv’. Four of the five men were jailed, one was given a community order.
So we have known since the end of last year that the mob in Amsterdam called its evil endeavour a ‘Jew hunt’. We know they incited each other to ‘beat up some fucking Jews’. We know they gabbed about cleansing Amsterdam of this ‘cancer’ of Jews. We know from last week’s trials that they joked about the Holocaust too, and invoked Hitler, and chuckled about gas, and allegedly beat an Israeli with a belt, and allegedly carried out an attempted manslaughter. All of it done with a ‘clearly anti-Semitic character’, as De Telegraaf said.
And yet still leftists said it wasn’t a pogrom. Still we saw headlines like ‘The pogrom in Amsterdam that wasn’t’. Still we were told that the Maccabi fans had it coming because they yelled offensive slogans and tore down a Palestine flag. These fans brought the ‘spirit of Israeli fascism’ to the Netherlands, one observer said, and folk in Amsterdam just fought back. It was victim-blaming on steroids, as grotesque as when anti-Semites said the Jews of Germany brought Kristallnacht on themselves by being such economic disruptors. Nothing better sums up the turbo-smug racial paternalism of the modern left than the fact that gangs of men said ‘We carried out a Jew hunt!’ and these people essentially replied: ‘No you didn’t. You were just protesting. Bless.’ They don’t only know better than Jews, you see – they know better than Arabs, too.
The pitiless cynicism of so many observers following the Amsterdam pogrom exposed the neo-racist cruelty of identity politics. Their denials of the Jew hunt were fuelled by a warped belief that Jews can never be victims. After all, Jews are part of ‘the privileged’ and Arab migrants are part of ‘the oppressed’. And how can ‘the privileged’ suffer a pogrom at the hands of ‘the oppressed’? They sacrificed the truth of Amsterdam’s Jew hunt at the altar of ideology. They threw Jews under the bus in the service of their own self-aggrandising worldview. They memory-holed a pogrom to preserve their virtue. Other people did the same in Europe 80 years ago. They were not the good guys.
The truth is we have no idea what the real story is. But as we’ve been trying to point out at Tablet for years now (see here and here), the sorts of questions we’re now forced to ask about Rogan are, in at least one sense, similar to the sorts of questions that guys like Carroll are posing about wealthy Jewish sex traffickers collecting blackmail on behalf of Mossad. That is to say, both are downstream of the hall-of-mirrors reality we now live in, in which the cumulative effect of two decades of official lies, secrecy, propaganda, and censorship has combined with the destabilizing impact of digital media on our collective psychic health. All of us know, just as Carroll and Cooper and Carlson and Rogan do, that we have been misled by people we cannot quite name, in ways we cannot quite understand, for reasons we can’t quite put our finger on. And good luck finding the truth in the pages of The New York Times, which everyone knows is for suckers. As Jacob Siegel wrote for Tablet in 2023, “Americans who want to join in their country’s civic life now find that the main way to participate is by following the trail of clues leaked by official sources while trying to solve elaborate, rigged puzzles about the nature of reality. It’s no surprise the country is going nuts.”Trudeau successor’s Israel views a mystery, Jewish leaders say
Carroll did manage to say one true thing, though, which is that Oct. 7 opened the door for “interest” in his favorite subject. But the reason is not that Americans are, all of a sudden, interested in pulling back the veil on the Jewish power that secretly controlled their lives. It was that the attacks and their aftermath exposed that Jews (including the mythical Israel lobby) are not nearly as powerful as they have been made out to be; that there is a huge, potentially lucrative audience for those who could explain that the murdered, kidnapped, and raped Israelis really had it coming; and that Jews cannot silence their opponents but in many cases are reduced to asking for pity, which, as anyone with a basic understanding of human psychology will tell you, only invites more sadism.
Which is to say, the attacks put blood in the water. What we’re seeing now are the sharks.
Mark Carney, who won more than 85% of the Liberal party votes on Sunday to succeed Justin Trudeau as the Canadian prime minister, has been relatively quiet about Israel and antisemitism in Canada, Jewish leaders told JNS.Author’s attack on ‘dehumanisation’ of Hamas triggers walkout at heated LSE event
“He’s made it his business to say nothing,” the Canadian-Israeli lawyer Vivian Bercovici, who was Canada’s ambassador to Israel from 2014 to 2016, told JNS.
Bercovici has asked Carney “on many occasions” on social media to speak out about the “complete lack of law enforcement with respect to the pro-Hamas demonstrations, particularly those in Jewish neighborhoods” but hasn’t received a response back, she told JNS.
“It is very clear—the threatening and menacing environment in some cities in Canada,” said Bercovici, who lives in Israel. “We know there are huge problems in schools. Kids are getting beaten up.”
Carney’s silence “left us with a vacuum,” she said.
Trudeau, who has drawn extensive criticism from the right for not being vocal enough about Jew-hatred but whom supporters say has a strong track record on Jewish issues, stepped down from office on Jan. 6. The next federal election is due no later than Oct. 20, but it could be called earlier. Carney is expected to be sworn in this week.
Bercovici told JNS that Canadian Jews are relieved that Carney’s chief of staff will be Marco Mendicino, a parliamentarian representing the Jewish-heavy Eglinton-Lawrence district.
Mendicino has spoken out against Jew-hatred and has broken with Trudeau on Canadian policy toward Israel. But Bercovici told JNS that she thinks Mendicino has only supported Jews “when it suited him” and Carney naming the parliamentarian chief of staff “means nothing to me.”
“Right now, I think we’re all kind of in a black hole with no clue,” she said, of Carney. “You’ve got a very large Jewish community in Canada, and it does seem that the threats and concerns just aren’t really being taken seriously.”
“The fact that he’s chosen very deliberately to say nothing says a lot,” she said.
Bercovici thinks that there is “no reason to surmise” that Carney will take “a different view of anything” than Trudeau did.
The co-author of controversial new book Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters has denounced the “dehumanisation of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups”.Jews protest launch of Hamas ‘propaganda’ book at London School of Economics
Speaking at an event titled Understanding Hamas at the London School of Economics (LSE) on Monday evening, Helena Cobban said: “Hamas is not well understood in this country or the United States. It has been systematically misrepresented in the corporate media in much of the west for a long time prior to 7 October and most especially since then. I am trying to represent a broad range of specialist views on the topic.”
Cobban, a British-American writer on international relations, told the audience she had coined the term ‘disrepresentation’ to describe how Hamas has been let down by the mainstream media, which “actively puts out falsehoods” to deliberately misrepresent the movement and its actions”.
She added: “This suppression of vital information about Hamas and the other resistance movements has been responsible for a lot of public ignorance we now see.”
Cobban was later sharply challenged by both the chair, Michael Mason from LSE’s Middle East Centre, and members of the audience, after asserting: “It is important to note, both by the recent Israeli military investigation and many Israeli investigative journalists, that a lot of what Hamas did on 7 October was attack military targets.”
Some audience members staged a walkout during the Q&A section of the event.
Mason introduced the panel – which also included Professor Jeroen Gunning from King’s College, Dr Catherine Charrett, senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Westminster and Mouin Rabbani a Dutch-Palestinian Middle East analyst – by expressing his “ethical unease” about the book’s “moral one-sidedness”.
Mason also cautioned the panel that he would terminate the event if they crossed the line into statements in support of Hamas.
London’s Jewish community rallied on Monday against a London School of Economics (LSE) book launch that has been accused of providing a platform for the Hamas terror group.Belgian author acquitted over antisemitic column, Jewish groups condemn ruling
About 100 members of the Jewish community took part in the protest at the prestigious university, where an event was taking place by authors Helena Cobban, a British-American international relations writer, and Jordanian-American journalist Rami George Khouri on their book “Understanding Hamas: And Why That Matters.”
A separate, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel counter-demonstration was also held in support of the book launch.
Several members who attended staged a walkout during the Q&A part of the event, the UK Jewish News reported.
At the panel, Cobban argued that Hamas, which actively calls for the destruction of Israel and has carried out hundreds of deadly attacks against civilians, had been “systematically misrepresented” in history.
Cobban charged that the mainstream media “actively puts out falsehoods to deliberately misrepresent the movement and its actions.”
“This suppression of vital information about Hamas and the other resistance movements has been responsible for a lot of public ignorance we now see,” she said.
“It is important to note, both by the recent Israeli military investigation and many Israeli investigative journalists, that a lot of what Hamas did on 7 October was attack military targets,” Cobban falsely claimed.
Belgian author Herman Brusselmans was acquitted Tuesday by the Ghent Criminal Court of charges of Holocaust denial, racism, and incitement to hatred, despite outcry from Jewish organizations over his violent antisemitic remarks. The court ruled that his column in Humo magazine last August did not constitute a criminal offense, citing freedom of expression, as reported by VRT NWS.Israeli doctor faces anti-Israel protests while speaking in Oslo
Brusselmans sparked widespread condemnation after writing in his column about the war in Gaza, “I get so furious that I want to ram a sharp knife through the throat of every Jew I meet.” He also described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “small, fat, bald Jew” who wanted to “wipe out the entire Arab world.” Antisemitism is at a record high. We're keeping our eyes on it >>
The column was condemned by Jewish organizations and Belgian officials, including Israel’s ambassador to Belgium, Idit Rosenzweig-Abu, who wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “What if someone said in the Belgian press, ‘I’m so angry I want to stick a knife in the neck of every Muslim I meet’?”
Brusselmans later defended himself by claiming he was using exaggeration, irony, and sarcasm to express frustration over the war. Jewish groups, however, dismissed his remarks as dangerous incitement.
Dr. Ronit Almog, a senior obstetrician-gynecologist at Ichilov Hospital, traveled to Oslo, Norway, as a guest of honor at an event marking International Women's Month. Invited by the Israeli Embassy, she delivered a lecture on Israel’s cutting-edge medical innovations and efforts to promote women’s health. However, her visit coincided with a surge in anti-Israel sentiment in the Norwegian capital, turning her into an unofficial goodwill ambassador amid growing hostility.Kippahs, condoms and Ireland's 'boycott Jews law'
"Walking through Oslo and seeing the anti-Israel protests flood the streets was shocking," Dr. Almog recounted, according to a press release. "The sheer number of demonstrators, the hostility in the air—it was an unsettling and painful experience. Feeling such deep hatred toward Israel firsthand was truly difficult."
Keep calm and carry on
Despite the tense atmosphere, Dr. Almog remained focused on her mission. She participated in podcasts, press interviews, and Norwegian television appearances, using every opportunity to showcase Israel’s contributions to medicine and humanitarian aid.
The timeline for the Irish government publishing and enacting its Boycott Bill is unknown as are the arrangements it will make to ensure its enforcement. Most of the discussion relating to it has obsessed on demonising Israel and minimal consideration has been given to its practical application in the real world outside politics. Many questions require answer.'Very big concern' in US about Ireland's stance on Palestine
They include:-
Will there be created a special unit similar to Nazi stormtroopers involving Irish customs and police ( the Gardai) to detect and confiscate criminalised Jewish produced goods?
Will all travelling into Ireland from Israel arriving at an Irish airport or port be stopped, questioned, their luggage and person searched to ensure they are not importing any offending goods?
Will such travellers be profiled to ensure all Jewish entrants into Ireland and non Jewish travellers returning from the Holy Land are so treated, with members of Ireland’s Jewish community and Irish Christian groups supportive of Israel specifically targeted?
Will Muslim and other travellers into Ireland who visit Israel be similarly treated or exempt from such treatment?
Will those entering and leaving a synagogue be the subject of questioning and search to ensure nothing in their possession or worn originated or was purchased in East Jerusalem or the West Bank from someone Jewish?
Will the law apply to goods purchased or produced on the West Bank or East Jerusalem before the Bills enactment?
On the understanding that anyone who arrives in Ireland from anywhere may have visited Israel at some time and purchased some such goods or could be importing them into Ireland from any location, will every traveller into Ireland have to sign a declaration that they have no such goods and be subject to a discretionary search?
Will Rabbis returning to or visiting Ireland be a particular target?
Will religious items such as a kippah, talis, siddur or Haggadah automatically generate suspicion?
Will a kippah wearing traveller have to prove its provenance?
Will there be raids on Irish retail outlets to check the origin of goods being sold and signs posted warning shoppers to not purchase tainted Jewish goods?
Will particular products like dates, avocados, humas, tehina, olives, grapes, figs, citrus fruits, etc particularly generate suspicion?
Will the provenance of any goods being imported from Israel have to be established, no matter who purchased them? For example, if a tourist visiting Jerusalem or Bethlehem purchases a souvenir there from an Arab merchant, could it be confiscated if it cannot be proved it was manufactured by a Christian, Muslim, Bedouin, or Druze manufacturer?
Will it be illegal to import into or sell in Ireland any tech or medical equipment any part of which was invented or produced in East Jerusalem or the West Bank by a Jewish person or Jewish-owned company?
Could an Irish citizen returning to Ireland, having had a pacemaker inserted in Israel following a cardiac incident, be arrested for its importation because its creation was partly contributed to by a Jewish West Bank or East Jerusalem resident?
Will the thuggish, childish activities of Ireland’s BDS campaigners, which include raiding supermarkets, attacking avocados, harassing and intimidating shoppers and staff, and much anti-Israel invective, be validated by the Bill?
The above are a small number of the questions relevant to the application and enforcement of an Irish government produced version of the malign discriminatory 2018 Boycott Bill. This ridiculous government promised legislation which is of no relevance to ending the Israel/ Gaza war, the release of hostages nor to resolving Israeli/ Palestinian conflict dominated political exchanges in the Dáil in the first week of its sitting after formation of Ireland’s new/ old government.
Twenty four members of parliament spoke in a debate in favour of the measure in various forms but not a single one addressed its possible enforcement nor could identify what goods it might apply to or their value. Out of the 24 speakers only three made a brief ritual reference to the fate of the hostages held still in Gaza.
In 1979, Ireland enacted a nonsensical law that required those seeking condoms to first obtain a medical prescription and doctors to determine how many condoms per month a man should be permitted. Importation of condoms for sale without prescription was criminalised but individual could import as many as they wished for personal use. Arriving in Dublin airport customs officials could in theory determine whether the number of condoms in a persons luggage was excessive. This farcical law made Ireland the subject of international ridicule, was never enforced and was ended in 1985.
The new Occupied Territories law now promised by the Irish government will not so much result in international ridicule but more likely international opprobrium and ignominy as blatantly antisemitic. The likelihood is the Irish government will be saved from itself by the EU denying the law its prior approval or the EU’s courts invalidating it as contrary to EU law.
Whether this Nazi copycat law will be critically referenced by President Trump when Ireland’s premier visits the White House this Wednesday to celebrate St Patricks Day is currently the subject of much speculation in Ireland and an Irish government concern. There is concern that it could undermine the bonhomie at the presentation of a bowl of shamrock.
As for me, it is important I make a declaration of interest. I have a habit of purchasing a new kippah when visiting the old city in Jerusalem and the Temple wall. I normally would also have a previously purchased one on my person. Should the law be enacted I want to know will I be arrested and prosecuted for attempting to import both or just my latest purchase upon my return to Dublin and will either or both be confiscated?
There is “very big concern” about Ireland’s position on Palestine in the United States, a Washington-based journalist has warned ahead of the Taoiseach’s visit.Moroccan man handed two-year jail term after praising terror attack in Israel
Micheál Martin has arrived in Texas today, where he will begin a week of engagement to celebrate Ireland’s national day.
On Wednesday, he will hand over the traditional bowl of shamrock to Trump in the Oval Office - despite significant differences in Irish and US foreign policy.
While the Irish Government is preparing to ban the import of goods from Israel’s occupied territories, the US-Israel alliance remains as strong as ever.
Last week, Trump issued a “last warning” to Hamas to hand over the final Israeli hostages, warning them, “Not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don't do as I say.”
On The Hard Shoulder, journalist Susan Garraty warned Mr Martin that American politicians are extremely unhappy with Ireland's stance on the conflict in Gaza.
“Let me tell you, in all the years I’ve been here in Washington,” she said.
“In all the years I’ve been associated with Ireland and the US, I’ve never felt Ireland really called out on many levels for their position on the Palestinians.”
A Moroccan Islamist activist has been sentenced to two years in prison for “incitement to hatred” over social media posts praising a terror attack in Israel, his lawyer says.NYPost Editorial: Team Trump's crackdown on campus hate is a defense of decency and a push against perverted privilege
Redouane El Kastit, a member of the banned but tolerated Al Adl Wal Ihssane movement, was sentenced by a court in Tangier late Monday, his lawyer Mohamed Serroukh tells AFP.
El Kastit was arrested on February 5 and charged with “incitement to hatred,” “discrimination,” and “insulting a public body” after about 15 posts he made on Facebook, his lawyer says.
According to the prosecution, the posts described a late-January stabbing of five people in Tel Aviv by a Moroccan national as the start of a “blessed racist campaign.”
El Kastit denies making the posts on social media, the lawyer adds.
He was also accused of posting a photo of the attacker and praising his Moroccan identity.
“The court considered this an endorsement of a terrorist act,” Serroukh says.
The lawyer says he will appeal the “harsh ruling.”
With the reported arrest and likely deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a noncitizen ringleader of antisemitic protests at Columbia and Barnard, ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate. Hooray!Education Department issues warning to 60 universities under probes for alleged Jew-hatred
This follows Friday’s nixing of some $400 million in federal grants to and contracts with Columbia for its failure to comply with anti-discrimination laws, even as Trump’s Education Department is eyeing four other universities (to start) for similar treatment.
Khalil, despite finishing his graduate studies at the school in December, stuck around — plainly with an eye to continuing the disruptions that included this month’s Barnard building takeovers.
This movement was never merely about protest: Ever since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, it has sought to intimidate America with passion and force — occupying campus quads, blockading and/or rampaging through libraries, harassing and assaulting visible Jews.
Nor is it truly a student movement: As arrest records show, even actions on campus include gobs of older “career” radicals, often leading the worst excesses.
Yet far too many campus authorities have done as little as possible to stop it, hiding behind “free speech” concerns that plainly don’t cover this behavior.
The U.S. Department of Education sent notices to 60 colleges on Monday warning that they could face consequences if they fail to meet their obligations, under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, to protect Jewish college students from harassment.Harmeet Dhillon condemns anti-Semitism at confirmation hearing, vows to address religious discrimination
Linda McMahon, the U.S. education secretary, stated that university leaders must do more to combat Jew-hatred on campus.
“The department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” she said. “U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers.
“That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws,” she added.
The 60 schools that received letters are under active investigation for alleged antisemitic harassment under the act, which prohibits institutions that receive federal funds from discriminating on the basis of race, color, and national origin. The latter has been interpreted to include Jewish ancestry.
The Education Department announced last week that it is committed to addressing a backlog of complaints about alleged Jew-hatred that went unaddressed during the Biden administration.
‘Enforce their own rules’
Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center and a former U.S. assistant secretary of education, told JNS that receiving a letter from the Office for Civil Rights has a strong effect on a university administration, though not as strong as a letter from the Department of Justice, which announced last week that it will be visiting 10 universities to investigate campus Jew-hatred.
“You might say that a call from the DOJ concentrates the mind like the prospect of a hanging,” he said. “A call from the Office of Civil Rights is more like a heavy-duty laxative.”
Marcus told JNS that the Office for Civil Rights process is often slow and time-consuming, “especially for complex cases involving many parties, adding that “the Trump administration has cut through that process in various ways.”
“They have commenced proactive self-directed investigations,” he said, “rather than passively waiting for cases to arrive, and this is something that the Biden administration refused to do, despite repeated requests.”
At her confirmation hearing for assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon condemned anti-Semitism and said that discrimination on the basis of religion would be an “appropriate target for the civil rights division.”White House says Columbia University activist detained for distributing ‘pro-Hamas propaganda’
During the Feb. 26 hearing, Senator Chuck Grassley asked Dhillon a question about federal funding that goes to universities that discriminate on the basis of race. Dhillon responded by strongly condemning anti-Semitism at universities throughout the country.
“Senator, we have a problem throughout the United States, not just on the basis of race throughout the United States but also on the basis of religion,” Dhillon began. “We’ve seen anti-Semitism sweep the nation, and it is very problematic that many people of the Jewish faith are barred by professors and fellow students from access to the classroom.”
“So, yes, in addition to race, I would see religious discrimination and other forms of discrimination on campus as an appropriate target for the Civil Rights Division,” Dhillon concluded.
Later in the hearing, Dhillon was asked by Senator Josh Hawley about whether she would “vigorously” enforce Title VI violations by anti-Israel students, to which Dhillon immediately responded that she would.
“Let me ask you about anti-Semitism on America’s campuses,” said Hawley during the hearing. “Will you commit to vigorously enforcing Title VI violations related to anti-Semitism to make sure we root out this scourge on America’s campuses?”
“Absolutely, Senator, I would certainly commit to that,” Dhillon replied.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says a Columbia University anti-Israel activist was detained for deportation due to support for the Hamas terrorist group.ICE takes action against anti-Israel protester at Columbia
Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia and a lead protest organizer on the campus, was detained on Saturday by federal authorities and is being held pending legal proceedings in New York.
“Mahmoud Khalil was an individual who was given the privilege of coming to this country to study at one of our nation’s finest universities and colleges and he took advantage of that opportunity by siding with terrorists, Hamas terrorists,” Leavitt says at a press briefing.
“This is an individual who organized group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda fliers,” Leavitt says.
Khalil attended a protest last week at Barnard College, a Columbia affiliate, during which activists handed out pamphlets from the “Hamas media office.”
“This administration is not going to tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organizations that have killed Americans,” Leavitt says.
The Free Press reporter and Columbia University graduate Maya Sulkin joined 'America's Newsroom' to discuss the arrest as antisemitism spreads on college campuses and the possibility of the university losing its federal funding.
Columbia anti-Israel agitator was probed as national security threat, source says — as judge holds up deportation
Columbia University protest ringleader Mahmoud Khalil was being investigated as a potential national security threat, a source said Monday — as President Trump warned that the anti-Israel agitator’s bust will be the “first arrest of many.”2023: Eugene Kontorovich: Biden’s ‘violent settler’ Israeli visa ban would bar those who simply disagree with his terrible policies
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was “presented with intelligence” that determined that Khalil — a Syrian-born Palestinian who received his graduate degree from the elite school in December — was a threat to national security, a White House source said.
It wasn’t immediately known what intelligence Rubio was shown. But the source said the Department of Homeland Security has been “gathering intel” on those “actively engaging in supporting Hamas” — not just everyday protesters — since Trump’s executive order cracking down on anti-Israel demonstrators in the US on green cards.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed this in a statement that also alleged Khalil — who was a driving force behind many of the anti-Israel protests, building takeovers and encampments that have plagued the Ivy League school for more than a year — was involved in activities tied to Hamas.
“On March 9, 2025, in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism, and in coordination with the Department of State, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student. Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” she said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced visa restrictions on Israelis in response to “settler violence.”Leftist Jews protest deportation of Hamas supporter who terrorized Columbia
Britain and Belgium plan to follow suit, and other European Union countries will likely jump on the blacklist bandwagon.
The United States frequently uses such visa restrictions to block those guilty of gross human-rights abuses, tyrannical foreign despots and nationals of state sponsors of terrorism.
But this is a far cry from that — it’s simply a big step in the Obama-Biden administrations’ deep delegitimization of those who oppose a “two-state solution.”
The president has broad power to deny entry to foreign nationals — despite the furor over President Donald Trump’s executive orders in this area.
Barring those guilty of crimes is certainly an excellent reason for exclusion, and the Biden administration should enforce such limits far more vigorously at the porous southern border, where millions are coming from the world’s most violent countries.
But the new “violent settler” ban is in fact not about settlers or even violence.
It is instead a vastly vague prohibition that gives the administration discretion to exclude Israelis whose mere beliefs, place of residence or religious practices don’t comport with the Bidenites’ foreign-policy views.
The administration can ban anyone “involved in undermining of peace, security or stability in the West Bank.”
The restrictions are not limited to criminal or violent acts.
Team Biden considers Jews living in the West Bank — especially building or buying homes there — an “obstacle to peace,” despite the US position that such communities are not illegal.
The administration has even called visits of Jews to their holy sites “provocative.”
But it wasn’t just the radical fringe of the Squad who came to Khalil’s defense.Left-wing lawmakers condemn ICE detention of Columbia protest leader, while pro-Israel Democrats are more circumspect
The Senate Judiciary Democrats social media account, under Sen. Dick Durbin, falsely argued: “Mahmoud Khalil exercises his First Amendment rights… but, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio didn’t agree with what he said.” Senate Judiciary Democrats warned: “This should terrify everyone.”
At least, all foreign nationals who support terrorists and are involved in violence.
The White House X account however replied by once again quoting Trump: “This is the first arrest of many.”
Locally, Attorney General Letitia James announced that she was “extremely concerned about the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, an advocate and legal permanent resident of Palestinian descent.” Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander, an ally of Linda Sarsour, condemned the move as well, arguing that deporting a non-citizen for violating the terms of his visa by breaking the law was somehow a “violation of the First Amendment.”
Jewish leftist groups, especially those part of the Soros network, quickly joined the outcry, even as they had remained silent when Jewish students were being terrorized at Columbia.
Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, a far left group chaired by Alex Soros and formerly headed by Stosh Cotler, an anti-Israel activist and former sex club dancer, who now serves as a senior adviser, falsely described the Syrian national as “a New Yorker” who was “detained for constitutionally protected speech” and argued that “the White House’s authoritarian actions are being falsely done in our name as Jews.”
Amy Spitalnick, the former press secretary for the anti-Israel Soros lobby J Street, who took over and turned the Jewish Council for Public Affairs into an anti-Israel leftist group, attacked the Trump administration for cutting funding to Columbia over its tolerance for the harassment of Jewish students and faculty, and objected that “Khalil has still not been charged.”
Other leftist front groups, including Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which denied the existence of minority antisemitism; New York Jewish Agenda, co-founded by teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten, who had previously accused Jews of being oppressors and who had opposed the campaign against Hamas; and the Nexus Project, which accused Jews of “weaponizing antisemitism” all rallied on behalf of a leading figure in campus hate.
If Not Now and its co-founder Simone Zimmerman described immigration authorities as “the American Gestapo” and Jews fighting antisemitism as “Nazi collaborators” for supporting Jewish students.
The ADL, however, broke from the anti-Israel left by praising Trump’s move, tweeting, “We appreciate the Trump Administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism—and this action further illustrates that resolve by holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions.”
The reactions to the detention of Mahmoud Khalil finally brought into focus the true attitude of Democrats toward the Hamas campus riots, Jewish students and the United States of America.
Behind the false excuses is the reality that top Democrats supported the Hamas campus riots.
None of their justifications for defending Khalil hold the slightest drop of water. Khalil was a visa holder who was made a resident alien under the Biden administration. Aliens, resident or otherwise, are not citizens and can be deported on national security grounds and for other violations. The same people now clamoring about freedom of speech on college campuses cheered when students were censored for supporting Trump or the First Amendment, or even wearing a politically incorrect Halloween costume. They advocated mass censorship of social media to eliminate “misinformation” about the pandemic, the election and anything else.
They are not defending Mahmoud Khalil because they support free speech, but because they support Islamic terrorism, Hamas and the destruction of America and Israel.
Left-wing lawmakers condemned the Trump administration’s decision to detain Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who was a leader in anti-Israel campus protests, while several pro-Israel Democrats were taking a wait-and-see approach, underscoring the scourge of campus antisemitism while also acknowledging the need for due process.Tlaib, Who Ignored US-Israeli Captives, Calls To ‘Bring Home’ Pro-Hamas Activist, Says He Was “Abducted”
The administration accused Syrian-born Khalil, a green card holder, of organizing pro-Hamas protests, although the precise legal justification for his detention and potential deportation remained unclear. A federal judge temporarily halted Khalil’s deportation pending a legal challenge.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, repeatedly defended Khalil, posting “Free Mahmoud Khalil” and accusing the administration of arresting Khalil because administration officials “didn’t agree with what he said” in his legitimate exercise of free speech rights.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) characterized the arrest and detention as a potential overreach, stating that the university disciplinary process should handle any violations of Jewish students’ rights.
“In the context of the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, DHS must produce facts and evidence of criminal activity. Absent evidence of a crime, such as providing material support for a terrorist organization, the actions undertaken by the Trump administration are wildly inconsistent with the United States Constitution,” Jeffries said in a statement. “A judge has blocked this egregious removal pending further action and, along with [New York] Attorney General Letitia James, we will continue monitoring this developing situation closely.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) posted, “If the federal government can disappear a legal US permanent resident without reason or warrant, then they can disappear US citizens too.” Other progressive lawmakers also suggested that U.S. citizens could be targeted next.
According to ICE, Khalil was transferred to a Louisiana facility; his whereabouts had been unclear earlier on Monday.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) collected signatures from fellow lawmakers on a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, which she planned to send on Tuesday morning, a source familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider.
A New York federal judge on Monday temporarily halted the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Hamas Columbia graduate who was instrumental in organizing violent pro-Hamas riots at Columbia and other locations.Rashida Tlaib becomes lone House lawmaker opposing cracking down on Mexican cartels' border tunnel system
Khalil, a 30-year-old of Palestinian descent who grew up in Syria, was arrested on Sunday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the Department of State revoked his student visa for directing “activities aligned with Hamas.”
Rashida Tlaib, a Hamas supporter who serves in US Congress and has ignored the plight of US-Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas, jumped to Khalil’s defense, claiming he was “abducted” by the “lawless administration.”
Tlaib wrote on X. “We all have to fight back against fascism. This is a test case and it couldn’t be more important we stop this and bring him home.”
“Mahmoud’s rights are our rights. If they can illegally abduct him and shred his legal rights, they will never stop. Anyone this lawless administration disagrees with can be targeted.”
The House of Representatives passed a bill aimed at cracking down on Mexican cartels' use of tunnels underneath the southwestern border to smuggle illegal immigrants and illicit items the U.S.Cuomo declines to weigh in on ICE arrest of anti-Israel Columbia activist
The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in a 402 to 1 vote – with the lone dissenter being Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. Fox News Digital reached out to her office for comment but did not immediately hear back.
The bill is led by Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., but enjoys bipartisan support thanks to its lone Democratic co-sponsor, Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif.
It's also backed by six other House Republicans, including Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on border security.
The legislation, titled the Subterranean Border Defense Act, would direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to submit an annual report to Congress about cartels' use of tunnels and how U.S. law enforcement was looking to combat it.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is so far staying silent with regard to the arrest by federal agents on Sunday of a Palestinian student activist who played a leading role in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University last year — as several primary rivals for New York City mayor condemn the move.Dems Rally for Columbia U Jihadist Whose Group Endorsed Hamas and Murder of Jews
A spokesperson for Cuomo, a Democrat who announced his mayoral bid a week ago, did not return requests for comment from Jewish Insider on Monday. He has otherwise declined to publicly address the matter.
His hesitation to weigh in on the politically charged issue suggests that Cuomo — who has been courting Jewish and pro-Israel voters — is taking a cautious approach to the Trump administration’s polarizing crackdown on campus protests even as he indicates that combating rising antisemitism is among his top priorities.
“The law must be aggressively enforced and our New York should go even further and be at the forefront, leading the fight against the global rise of antisemitism,” Cuomo said in a 17-minute kickoff video, which featured an image of an anti-Israel demonstration outside of Fordham University.
In today’s article “Leftist Jews Protest Deportation of Hamas Supporter Who Terrorized Columbia“, I discussed the outpouring of support for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia U pro-terror campus organizer from Syria, from Democrats including the Senate Judiciary Committee, AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and the rest of the Squad, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Mayoral candidate Brad Lander.Columbia Professors Cancel Classes in Solidarity With Pro-Hamas Activist in ICE Custody
Now there’s a letter signed by Reps. Tlaib, Omar, and the rest of the Squad, along with 11 other members of Congress, including Rep. Al Green, and a few other Congressional Black Caucus members, hailing the pro-Hamas riots at Columbia and accusing Israel of “oppression” and a “brutal assault” and describing Khalil as a “political prisoner”.
Who is all this for?
The pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia University which resulted in riots, violent assaults, vandalism, pro-terrorist propaganda and harassment of Jews on campus operated as part of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition. Khalil served as a negotiator for the group during its occupation. CUAD’s members included Students for Justice in Palestine or SJP whose current tagline is “Long live the student intifada & glory to our martyrs.”
Some Columbia University professors canceled in-person classes on Monday in support of Mahmoud Khalil, the student activist and foreign national whom the Trump administration moved to deport over his pro-Hamas campus organizing. The cancellations—which came amid a pressure campaign from the school's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter—put the professors at odds with Columbia's provost, who emailed "faculty colleagues" Monday morning to issue "a reminder that faculty must meet all scheduled classes."SOAS student charged for celebrating October 7, inviting Hamas support
Less than two days after Khalil's Saturday night arrest, at least three faculty members—English professor Joseph Albernaz, philosophy lecturer Ruairidh MacLeod, and an unnamed third—emailed students to cancel courses or remove attendance requirements, emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. MacLeod ditched his "discussion requirement for today's Marx class," citing "sensitivity to the situation arising from the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil." Albernaz went as far as to give every student an "A" on an upcoming midterm scheduled for Thursday, saying he was "sickened at the news of the ICE detainment of a student." The third instructor canceled courses for the rest of the week, arguing it was "unsafe to continue teaching as usual."
"I cannot see how I can hold a typical class right now under these current conditions, nor how you can be expected to prepare for an exam, so I am cancelling in person class tomorrow and cancelling the mid-term scheduled for Thursday (everyone will receive an ‘A’ on the midterm)," Albernaz wrote in his email. Email from English professor Joseph Albernaz
The cancellations came as Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine distributed sample emails for students to send to their professors calling for no in-person courses for the rest of the week. They also came around the same time Columbia provost Angela Olinto emailed faculty members to stress that, amid "a stressful time for many on campus," classes and exams "will continue as usual, in person."
A student at the School of Oriental and African Studies was charged last Tuesday for allegedly endorsing and celebrating the October 7 massacre in a speech and inviting support for Hamas, the London Metropolitan Police announced on Monday.‘Perverted’: Student fees funded Uni of Sydney pro-Palestine activism on campus
Camden resident Sarah Cotte faced two charges for supporting a proscribed organization – once on a WhatsApp group and once for an October 2023 speech that circulated on social media.
“We at SOAS Fight Racism Fight Imperialism (FRFI) express our unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian armed resistance who have broken free from their open-air prison in Gaza and are rising across an occupied country, against the Zionist state, which has been bleeding Palestine dry for nearly 80 years,” Cotte allegedly said in her speech. “Israel has existed for 27,540 days, but in less than one day, it has been nearly brought to its knees by righteous armed resistance.”
A now-deleted Met press release about Cotte’s arrest stated that the speech was made on October 19, but an FRFI North London activist bragged in a Monday Instagram post that the speech was made on October 9, two days after the “Operation al-Aqsa Flood.”
Watchdog GnasherJew brought attention to the incident in 2023, and United Kingdom Lawyers for Israel and other activists said that they had reported Cotte to the police. The FRFI North London activist on Instagram criticized the police for arresting Cotte at the behest of “Zionists on Twitter.”
Jewish community leaders have lashed the University of Sydney after it was revealed mandatory fees were used by the student representative council (SRC) to fund pro-Palestine activism events on campus.UK opposition leader ‘truly shocked’ by media watchdog report on BBC
Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory told SkyNews.com.au it was “perverted” Jewish students were being forced to fund “extremist events” on campus.
It was also revealed multiple SRC members who are paid annual allowances from fees collected by students are also organisers of the Students for Palestine Coalition which was in part responsible for the pro-Palestine encampment last year, as well as striking outside Labor MPs’ offices, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s.
The University of Sydney’s SRC actively attended and used funds to resource pro-Palestine protests and events, the Daily Telegraph first reported on Tuesday.
Student activists, who were among the elected, were also responsible for establishing the pro-Palestine encampment which was disbanded in June last year and have used thousands of dollars to fund rallies and strikes.
In 2024, each student was hit with a $174 mandatory Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) per semester, with the University receiving $22 million in funds.
Of that money, the SRC, whose motto is ‘activism, advocacy, representation’, and whose logo shows the university with an Aboriginal flag on top, received almost $3 million.
British Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has urged the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to address extremism and antisemitism within BBC Arabic, the U.K. Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) reported on Monday.Douglas Murray wins ‘major’ libel claim against The Observer
In a letter to the BBC Board, Badenoch expressed being “truly shocked” by findings that suggest the service has become “a regular platform for race-hate, extremism and the endorsement of terror.”
Her intervention follows the release of a report by CAMERA documenting years of extremism by the news service, which reaches approximately 38 million people across Arabic-speaking regions.
“A new report by CAMERA makes for shocking reading, even for those familiar with these problems. It reveals flagrant and appalling antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. A public service broadcaster appears to have become a regular platform for race-hate extremism and the endorsement of terror. This has been going on for years,” Badenoch wrote in her letter.
The Conservative leader further stated, “BBC Arabic is intended to provide high-quality trusted news for the hundreds of millions of people who speak Arabic. It should uphold the highest standards of public service broadcasting. Instead, it seems the BBC World Service may be fomenting extremism and misleading audiences while funded by the taxpayer and licence fees. This is simply unacceptable and must stop.”
BBC Arabic, which is the BBC World Service’s largest and most heavily funded foreign-language service, has been documented by the media watchdog as providing a platform to terrorists, presenting apologists for terror as independent “experts,” allowing extreme views to go unchallenged and repeatedly echoing the language of Hamas, according to the report.
The CAMERA dossier catalogs multiple concerning incidents in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, including the BBC’s refusal to dismiss five BBC Arabic staff who liked or shared social media posts celebrating the Hamas terror attack.
Author and journalist Douglas Murray has been awarded “substantial damages” in a libel claim against The Guardian Media Group.Jerusalem pushing UN agencies to take over for UNRWA
An article, written by author Kenan Malik and published in The Observer newspaper last year, accused the conservative commentator of “supporting violent racist attacks” against migrants during the nationwide anti-immigrant protests.
Unrest erupted across 27 different cities in the UK following the brutal murder in July of three young girls carried out by Axel Rudakubana, and the injuring of 10 others during a dance party in Southport.
Malik, in his August article entitled “The roots of this unrest lie in the warping of genuine working-class grievances”, alluded to an interview between Murray and the ex-deputy prime minister of Australia John Anderson in which they discussed Islam and immigration.
Daniel Meron, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said on Monday that Jerusalem is working to secure U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations to replace the responsibilities of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the embattled agency whose mandate focuses only on Palestinians.Police raid leading Palestinian bookstore in East Jerusalem for 2nd time in a month
“We, the state of Israel, are working to find substitutes to the work of UNRWA inside Gaza,” Meron told reporters, noting that Israel is “encouraging U.N. agencies and NGOs to take over,” each assuming control “in its own field that they specialize in.”
Israel banned UNRWA from operating inside the country, including in Jerusalem, at the end of January and cut off communications with the U.N. agency. Those decisions, dictated by Israeli legislation, came about after Israel presented evidence of the agency’s deep ties to Gazan terror groups, including Hamas.
UNRWA officials, and those of other U.N. agencies, have said consistently that there is no other agency or combination of groups that could replace UNRWA’s infrastructure or breadth of services in Gaza, including providing humanitarian aid, medical care and education.
Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general, said that UNRWA will “stay and deliver” its mandate from the U.N. General Assembly “until it is no longer possible to do so in a principled manner.”
Meron said that “there has been serious work” conducted with other agencies to ensure that Gazans “will not suffer” as those agencies assume UNRWA’s responsibilities.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, told JNS in a Monday press briefing that he was unaware of any conversations between U.N. agencies and Israeli officials about assuming UNRWA’s responsibilities.
Police raided a leading Palestinian bookstore in East Jerusalem for the second time within a month on Monday, briefly detaining one of the owners and seizing several books.Hamas used ceasefire to exploit Gazans, local says
Officers detained 61-year-old Imad Muna, who manages the family-run Educational Bookshop, at around noon. He told reporters shortly after his release that police took the keys to the shop, scoured its shelves, then proceeded to arrest him without a warrant.
Law enforcement sparked international outcry for a similar raid in February on two of the store’s locations, in which officers arrested Imad’s son and his younger brother, Ahmad and Mahmoud Muna, and held both in detention for two days.
Though they were granted a search warrant in February, police had not received approval from the State Attorney’s Office to investigate the booksellers for incitement, Haaretz reported at the time.
Police said they conducted Monday’s raid after receiving a complaint from a caller who alleged he saw “books containing inciting content” while browsing the shelves of the store’s branch on Salah a-Din Street, which caters to English-speaking readers.
“They all came as if it was the biggest emergency ever,” recounted Imad’s son Ahmad Muna. “There were students coming out of the school across the street, buses waiting for the students to pick them up, and they just closed the whole road.”
A total of 10 police officers — four in uniform, six in plainclothes — partook in the raid, he added.
Imad said that police confiscated some 40 books to bring to the station where he was detained for questioning. Most of the books police examined displayed the words “Palestine,” “Palestinians” or “Gaza” on their covers.
Among them were works by left-wing linguist Noam Chomsky, historian Rashid Khalidi and late communist Knesset member Emil Habibi. Police released the bookseller later that afternoon along with most of the confiscated books, save for three titles that police did not name.
Imad recalled the title of only one of the seized books, “Israel and the Clash of Civilizations” by British journalist Jonathan Cook.
Gaza City - They declared victory and handed out sweets as if the war had ended. But for the people of Gaza, the suffering never stopped. The ceasefire lasted nearly 50 days before collapsing, yet in that time, the killing did not end, and none of the disasters that have devastated Gaza were addressed.MEMRI: Hamas Political Bureau Deputy Chair Khalil Al-Haya To Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: 'We Have Come To Meet With You Today When We Are All Proud, And This Great Victory Is Jointly Ours And Iran's'; Khamenei: 'You Have Triumphed Over The Zionist Regime And In Fact Also Over America'
Thousands of bodies remain buried beneath the rubble, an unbearable reminder that life in Gaza is defined by destruction. Chaos rules every aspect of daily existence. Salaries and personal bank deposits are stolen by powerful, well-known figures who control the cash flow, taking a 20% cut for themselves.
The economic crisis deepens, with no solutions for the broken currency system or Gaza’s battered transportation sector. Public transit remains unsafe, yet fares have not changed—another burden on a population that can barely afford to live.
The black market thrives, preying on desperation. Cooking gas sells for 10 times its usual price, diesel and gasoline are unaffordable, and frozen meat, often in dangerously unhealthy conditions, is priced beyond reach. Housing is obscenely expensive, despite the lack of water and electricity. The streets are not streets anymore but mountains of rubble, with trash piling up in every corner.
Municipal workers can do nothing to clean up the devastation because there is no equipment—no trucks, no tractors, no resources. The concept of rebuilding is a fantasy. Schools, kindergartens, universities—education itself—remain in limbo, and government institutions are completely paralyzed. Daily life is suffocated by frustration, with no hope on the horizon.
For many, escape has become the only dream. Some have already left Gaza. Many more want to, but they are trapped.
In advance of Islamic Revolution Day, in February 2025, Iranian regime officials held a series of meetings in Tehran with a delegation from the Hamas leadership. The main event was the February 8 meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who praised Hamas for its accomplishments in the struggle against Israel, calling them a victory over the U.S. as well, and committed to providing continued Iranian support until "Palestine's absolute victory" was achieved. Hamas Leadership Council chairman Muhammad Isma'il Darwish thanked Iran for its years-long support and stressed the importance of preparing the coming generations of fighters, as part of the understandings with Khamenei for continued support until Jerusalem's liberation.MEMRI: Columns In Afghan Daily Analyze Trump's Gaza Plan: 'If Trump Seeks The Complete Elimination Of The Palestinian Issue, He Will Still Call It A Pursuit Of Peace'
In the following days, the Hamas delegation, which included Hamas political bureau deputy chairman Khalil Al-Haya and Hamas West Bank leader Zaher Jabarin, met with top Iranian officials, among them Majlis speaker Mohammad Baqr Qalibaf, Supreme National Security Council secretary general Ali Akhbar Ahmadian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Hamas leadership presented the "victory of the resistance in Gaza" as a joint achievement with Iran. On February 9, Ahmadian, the Supreme National Security Council secretary general, announced that Hamas' struggle proves Israel's weakness and that it can be destroyed, and promised continued Iranian support for the Palestinian resistance. Hamas Leadership Council chairman Darwish called the October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel a historic turning point symbolizing the triumph of the oppressed over the patronizing arrogance led by the U.S., while emphasizing that the war was ongoing and that Hamas was planning its next stages.
According to a report in the online Arab daily Al-Rai Al-Yawm, the visit was aimed at strengthening Hamas-Iran ties, against the backdrop of the crisis following the assassination in Tehran of Hamas political bureau chairman Isma'il Haniyeh in July 2024.[1] The report stated, citing an Arab source, that during the visit, there was discussion about Hamas' request for political asylum in Iran should it be forced out of Qatar by pressure from the Trump administration, assuming that Turkey would not be able to guarantee a safe haven.[2]
On February 7, 9 and 11, 2025, an independent Dari-language Afghan daily Hasht-e-Subh published three columns by writer Shujauddin Amini examining U.S. President Donald Trump's proposals for Gaza, including making it a tourist attraction and moving Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, and the likely repercussions the proposals will have on the region and Israel.Spanish police arrest 11 suspected members of Pakistani Taliban in Barcelona
"It is well known that Amman and Cairo harbor deep resentment toward Hamas. If two million Hamas-supporting Palestinians settle in the Sinai Desert, near Israel, the radicalization of the youth within this large population is inevitable, and the harm will not only affect Tel Aviv but will also extend to Egypt. The same scenario may repeat in Jordan," Amini wrote.
The columns, titled "Decoding What Trump Said," argue that Trump's plan, which he said surprised even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is driven by personal ambition rather than strategic consultation. "When Gaza is emptied of its population, Israel, through relentless bombardment and perhaps even the use of 'bunker-buster bombs,' will ensure that no trace of Hamas, its members, or its military capabilities remains," the author wrote, while adding "the destruction of Hamas has not been achieved."
Spanish police have arrested 11 Pakistani nationals on suspicion of belonging to the banned terrorist organization, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).Iran nuclear advances spark UN Security Council meeting
According to Spanish media, a joint operation by the National Police, Mossos d'Esquadra, and the Italian Polizia di Stato led to the arrests in Barcelona. The suspects are accused of ties to a Pakistani-origin terrorist organization that promoted violent actions—including murders and beheadings—via encrypted communication channels.
Investigations reveal that the group, allegedly linked to TTP and also known as the “Pakistani Taliban,” operated with a hierarchical structure. The organization used instant messaging platforms to indoctrinate followers and identify potential targets in Europe.
The Spanish National Police stated that the investigation is part of the third phase of an ongoing operation that has resulted in 30 arrests in Spain over the past three years. Of the detainees, ten were apprehended in Barcelona and its metropolitan area, while one was arrested in Italy.
Media reports further suggest that one of the communication channels was managed exclusively by women, who not only promoted indoctrination but also played an active role in selecting potential victims.
The United Nations Security Council will hold a closed-door meeting on Wednesday to address Iran’s growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, diplomats confirmed to Reuters on Monday.Iran’s president says no to negotiations with US, tells Trump to ‘do whatever the hell you want’
Six member states requested the session—France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain and the United States—amid rising concerns over Tehran’s nuclear activities.
Western diplomats say they will also press Iran to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by providing necessary information about undeclared nuclear materials detected at multiple sites. Tehran has not yet commented on the planned meeting.
The IAEA has warned that Iran is rapidly enriching uranium to 60% purity—just short of the 90% needed for nuclear weapons. Western nations argue that such high enrichment levels have no civilian justification and are unprecedented among non-nuclear states.
The Islamic Republic has upped its stockpile of near-weapons grade uranium, currently possessing enough to build six nuclear bombs, according to an IAEA report seen by Reuters last week.
Israel sees “eye to eye” with the Trump administration on the Iranian threat, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday.
“I only say that we are committed to Iran not being a nuclear power,” Smotrich said in response to a question from JNS at a meeting of his Religious Zionism Party’s Knesset faction.
“The American president will decide how to do this,” he added, declining to expand further on the issue.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says Iran will not negotiate with the US while being threatened, telling President Donald Trump to “do whatever the hell you want,” Iranian state media reports.‘Cool’ new ad for Yad Vashem raises questions about Holocaust museum’s direction
“It is unacceptable for us that they [the US] give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want,” state media quotes Pezeshkian as saying.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations, a day after Trump said he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal.
While expressing openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports down toward zero.
Many Israelis were startled this week to see a TV ad touting the national Holocaust memorial and museum’s new theatrical offerings — including a sound and light show — urging the public to come discover “the other side of Yad Vashem.”Tory peer apologises for ‘grossly insensitive’ remarks about Jews
The ad raised questions about the direction taken by the institution dedicated to preserving the memory of the six million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany, with many suggesting that it had gone too far in efforts to target new audiences.
In the commercial, which began airing in Israel in the past week, a voice in Hebrew asks users what they think when they see the Yad Vashem logo, displayed over a staid gray background. Then, switching to dramatic music and fast-paced visuals, the voice invites viewers to discover “the other side of Yad Vashem,” which includes a stirring new light and sound show and musical and theatrical performances.
At one point in the 20-second TV commercial, a musician is seen playing the keyboard with a big smile on his face.
A Tory former minister has apologised for his “grossly insensitive” comments after he said Jewish people should “pay for their own” Holocaust memorial because they have “an awful lot of money” and “property everywhere”.Air Canada blames ‘display issue’ after in-flight map of Israel relabeled as ‘Palestinian Territories’
Lord Hamilton of Epsom made a personal statement in the upper chamber at the start of proceedings on Monday.
The Conservative peer had already issued an apology in the face of a backlash which saw his remarks branded “disgusting racism”.
Lord Hamilton has not been stripped of the Tory whip but his comments were condemned by the party as “completely unacceptable” and “flagrantly antisemitic”.
He was speaking in a House of Lords debate last Tuesday on legislation which would pave the way for a Holocaust memorial and learning centre to be built in a park next to parliament.
The site in Victoria Tower Gardens has been controversial, with concerns over the loss of green space in central London.
After passengers on a recent Air Canada flight discovered that Israel had been removed from the in-flight interactive map and relabeled as the Palestinian Territories, the Canadian flag carrier says that the change is the result of a “display issue.”
“Air Canada has been made aware of a display issue with the interactive map on the IFE systems of its B737 aircraft,” it says in response to an image posted on X of the altered flight map.
“The issue has affected other carriers using the same system and we are working with the third-party provider on a remedy,” it adds.
Last September, passengers noticed a similar change had been made to the interactive maps aboard a JetBlue flight. The airline similarly said that the map had been provided by a third party company, and decided “after a careful review” to switch to a new map vendor.Air Canada has been made aware of a display issue with the interactive map on the IFE systems of its B737 aircraft. The issue has affected other carriers using the same system and we are working with the third-party provider on a remedy.
— Air Canada (@AirCanada) March 10, 2025
Israel’s Matrix to snap up Magic Software in $2.1 billion IT services merger deal
Israeli information technology provider Matrix IT Ltd. has inked an initial agreement to buy rival Magic Software Enterprises Ltd. in a mega merger deal worth NIS 7.7 billion ($2.1 billion).Israel offers assistance to Argentina in wake of deadly floods
The Herzliya-based company said it has signed a memorandum of understanding for a merger deal with Or Yehuda-based Magic Software, which is traded in the US on the Nasdaq exchange and in Israel on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The NIS 7.7 billion valuation of the merged firm “would place it among the top 10 largest publicly traded IT services companies in the US and in Europe,” Matrix said.
Under the terms of the deal, Matrix will buy out the entire share capital of Magic. As a result, Magic’s shareholders will hold 31.125% of the merged company, and Matrix’s shareholders will own 68.875%.
Upon completion of the merger deal, Magic will be delisted from both exchanges, in the US and Israel, and become a subsidiary of Matrix. The deal is pending shareholder and regulatory approvals. The transaction is expected to be approved in the third of quarter of 2025.
Founded in 2001, Matrix is one of Israel’s largest tech companies, employing about 11,570 people, mainly in Israel. It is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange with a market value of about NIS 5.6 billion. During the challenging war period, the company generated a record NIS 5.58 billion in sales in 2024, an increase of about 6.6% versus the same period a year earlier. Among its partners and clients are AWS, Google, Oracle, HP, SAP, DELL-EMC, and BMC.
“Our activity in the defense system and defense industries continues to be extensive and keeps growing consistently,” said Matrix CEO Moti Gutman in November. “As a result of the war, we see continued investment by customers in cyber defense and in services and products for protection and recovery from attacks, as well as in infrastructure and solutions that enable business continuity and disaster recovery.”
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar offers Argentina assistance after deadly floods in the port city of Bahia Blanca, southwest of the capital Buenos Aires.Rare 17th-century Esther Scroll returns to Ferrara for Purim show
In a post on X, Sa’ar says he spoke with his Argentine counterpart Gerardo Werthein, and expressed “condolences for the victims and offered Israel’s assistance.”
“Israel stands with Argentina during these difficult days,” says Sa’ar.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also posts his condolences to Argentina’s President Javier Milei.
“On behalf of all Israelis, I send my heartfelt condolences to you and the families of those who tragically perished in Bahía Blanca following the horrific floods,” writes Netanyahu on X.
A rare 17th-century Esther Scroll, created in Ferrara, Italy, is returning to the city as part of a new exhibition at the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (MEIS).
The exhibition, “Beautiful Esther: Purim, A Timeless Story,” explores the biblical heroine Queen Esther and the Jewish festival of Purim through Renaissance paintings, historical manuscripts, and contemporary art.
The scroll, crafted in 1616 by Moshe Ben Avraham Pescarol, is on loan from the National Library of Israel (NLI) in Jerusalem. It is considered one of the earliest known illuminated megillot in which the illustrations actively contribute to the storytelling rather than serving merely as decoration.
“The National Library of Israel is delighted to collaborate with MEIS on this exhibition, allowing the Italian public to view this exceptional piece in its place of origin,” said Oren Weinberg, CEO of NLI. “It testifies to the richness of Italian Jewish book heritage and provides a visually stunning account of Esther’s story.”
The exhibition showcases rare artworks including “Esther before Ahasuerus” (c. 1475-1480) by Jacopo del Sellaio and “Vashti Leaves the Royal Palace” (c. 1475) by Filippino Lippi. It also features an interactive section where visitors can engage with contemporary reinterpretations of the Purim story.
Curated by Amedeo Spagnoletto, Olga Melasecchi, and Marina Caffiero, the exhibition runs from March 12 to June 15.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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