The crisis across America’s campuses is causing some controversy over the current definition of antisemitism, as written by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. It’s a definition which has been adopted by countries across the globe. Author Kenneth Stern led the drafting of that document, and he joins the show with a warning that it’s being used to stifle free speech.
We look at how university administrators have responded to Palestine solidarity protests by students with Frederick Lawrence, former president of Brandeis University and now the CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and a lecturer at Georgetown Law School. Brandeis was founded in 1948 by the American Jewish community in the wake of the Holocaust and named after the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, the celebrated free speech advocate Louis Brandeis. Lawrence says the nationwide university crackdown on student…
BBC News reports: Israeli officials are increasingly concerned that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is planning to seek arrest warrants for their military and political leaders on suspicion of war crimes. Reports suggest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be among them. The ICC, based in The Hague, has been investigating Israel’s actions in the occupied territories for the past three years – and more recently the actions of Hamas as well. It has the power to charge and try individuals…
Wired reports: “Join your local Militia or III% Patriot Group,” a post urged the more than 650 members of a Facebook group called the Free American Army. Accompanied by the logo for the Three Percenters militia network and an image of a man in tactical gear holding a long rifle, the post continues: “Now more than ever. Support the American militia page.” Other content and messaging in the group is similar. And despite the fact that Facebook bans paramilitary organizing…
Arun Kundnani writes: In the summer of 2020, millions of teenagers, outraged by the police killing of George Floyd, took to the streets of American towns and cities as part of the largest protests against police brutality in U.S. history. Though years have passed, that energy has not entirely dissipated. Many of the young people who protested in 2020 are now college students campaigning for the U.S. to withdraw its support for Israel’s war in Gaza. They constitute the cutting…
David N. Myers writes: UCLA, the top-rated public university in the United States, experienced one of the darkest nights in its 105-year history on Tuesday. Over the course of my 33-year career at UCLA, I have never seen anything so terrifying take place. Around 11 p.m., a group of masked counter-demonstrators made their way to the Royce Quad in the heart of campus and began to attack the encampment set up last week by demonstrators opposing the war in Gaza….
The Los Angeles Times reports: When dozens of counterprotesters swarmed UCLA late Tuesday night, attacking the Palestinian solidarity encampment at the center of campus, university authorities were quickly overwhelmed. Law enforcement sources told The Times there were only a few UCLA police officers on hand. They tried to stop the violence but were no match for the crowd and had to retreat, having been attacked themselves, the sources said. A group of unarmed private security guards was there as well….
The Washington Post reports: House Republicans are seeking to unite their unruly majority around an evergreen conservative cause, devising a strict response to the wave of pro-Palestinian protests that have roiled college campuses across the country in recent weeks. GOP leaders this week announced plans for new oversight investigations of elite universities where — in the words of House Republican Whip Tom Emmer (Minn.) — “pro-terrorist anti-Semites [are] taking over.” And on Wednesday, they passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which…
Settler violence and Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank have surged since October 7. Residents have been displaced, homes have been attacked and Palestinians have been killed and injured. More than a dozen countries, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Australia have condemned the violence, and some have announced visa restrictions on anyone found to have taken part in the attacks. But these restrictions miss a big loophole: dual nationals. It is estimated that…
Thomas B. Edsall writes: It has become clear that one constituency — young voters, 18 to 29 years old — will play a key, if not pivotal, role in determining who will win the Biden-Trump rematch. Four years ago, according to exit polls, voters in this age group kept Trump from winning re-election. They cast ballots decisively supporting Biden, 60 to 36, helping to give him a 4.46-point victory among all voters, 51.31 percent to 46.85 percent. This year, Biden…
A war following the Hamas attacks of October 7 continues to take its toll on civilians. Israel’s stated aim in this conflict was to remove Hamas and bring hostages home. But in this documentary for “In Real Life,” on-the-ground reporting and open-source intelligence show how the conflict has expanded, growing into a campaign of clearing and claiming land — from Gaza to the West Bank. Hamas fighters first breached the border with Israel at the Erez border crossing. 1,200…
Middle East Eye reports: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for the “utter destruction” of Rafah and other cities in Gaza while slamming Israel’s ongoing hostage negotiations with Hamas. “No half jobs. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat, total and utter destruction,” Smotrich said, referring to the two cities in Gaza and the Nuseirat refugee camp. Smotrich’s remarks underscore the pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces among members of his governing coalition to press ahead with an attack on Rafah, the…
As Biden administration and U.S. college and university administrators increasingly accuse peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters on school campuses of antisemitism, we speak with Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies Omer Bartov, who visited the student Gaza solidarity encampment at UPenn alongside fellow Israeli historian Raz Segal. “There was absolutely no sign of any violence, of any antisemitism at all,” says Bartov, who warns antisemitism is being used to silence speech about Israel. “There’s politics, and there’s prejudice. And…
Richard Hall writes: Historical comparisons between the mass protests of 1968 and today’s student demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza are both imperfect and hard to avoid. It’s been just 10 days since Columbia University students pitched the first tent on the campus lawns, and already the protests have galvanised a generation of college students much in the same way the Vietnam war did 56 years ago – spreading from coast to coast. It is not just the scale of the…
Mother Jones reports: In early 2021, Stephen Miller—former White House senior adviser to Donald Trump and architect of the 45th president’s hopeful second-term mass deportation agenda—announced his next venture: America First Legal (AFL). Paraded as “the long-awaited answer to the ACLU,” AFL fights for Trumpist values in the legal system. And the group is prolific: In its three years of existence, AFL has taken on more than 100 legal actions—between lawsuits filed, complaints lodged with the US Equal Employment Opportunity…
The Times of Israel reports: Israel is making a concerted effort to head off feared plans by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials, an Israeli government source told The Times of Israel on Sunday. The National Security Council is leading the campaign, according to the source. The Foreign Ministry is also involved. “We are operating where we can,” said an Israeli diplomat. The first source said the major…