As Colleges Tune Out for the Summer, Antisemitism Moves to Other Areas

The shape of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and antisemitism was changed again in June by deadly attacks on Jews by “free Palestine” terrorists, by the Israeli and American attack on Iranian nuclear and regime facilities, and by the victory of Democratic Socialist BDS supporter Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor.

Taboos about bashing Israel in politics have been broken, as have taboos regarding overt expressions of antisemitic hatred in politics as well as culture.

BDS and antisemitism in June were dramatically reshaped by the war against Iran, and by expanding unrest in the US aimed at the Trump administration’s enforcement of immigration laws. The US attack against Iranian nuclear sites raised fears of Iranian backed terrorism directed against Jews and Jewish institutions to even higher levels.

In the case of street protests over immigration enforcement and then Iran, the same networks which had mobilized against Israel in 2023-2024 have been at work. These include pro-Hamas organizations, National Students for Justice in Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Within Our Lifetime, which have urged their members to join protests. Protests in Los Angeles and other cities against immigration enforcement prominently featured Mexican, Palestinian, Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flags as well as slogans like “Death to the occupation, from the West Bank to LA.”

Individual attacks included:

• In Boulder, CO, an Egyptian illegal immigrant, Mohammed Sabry Soliman, shouted “death to Zionists” as he doused a group of elderly Jewish marchers with flammable liquid, setting several on fire;
• A brick with the words “Free Palestine” thrown through the window of a kosher supermarket in Brookline, MA;
• On Long Island, three Jewish owned businesses were vandalized in one night and a Jewish center was vandalized with a banner reading “50,000 dead Gazan children”;
• The windows of a Jewish-owned cafe in San Francisco were smashed and vandalized with “Intifada,” “Death 2 Israel is a Promise” and “Die Zionist.” Several assaults of Jewish individuals were also reported in San Francisco;
• In Ohio Jewish Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) was the target of a driver who attempted to run him off the road while yelling “death to Israel” and waving a Palestinian flag. “Northeast Ohio man” Feras Hamdan was arrested;
• In Britain, terrorists from the Palestine Action group broke into an Royal Air Force base and vandalized aircraft. The organization, which is suspected of being Iranian-funded, was then finally proscribed as a terrorist group by the British government sparking massive and violent street demonstrations. A pro-Israel counter-protestor, whom the London police chief complained was “damned stupid,” was threatened with arrest;
• A Holocaust memorial and synagogue in Paris were vandalized, as was a Holocaust memorial in Ottawa. An unnamed city employee was later arrested and charged;
• A Melbourne synagogue was vandalized twice in the same week with “Iran is da bomb” and “Free Palestine”;
• A group of more that 100 domestic terrorists attacked a Belgian defense factory and destroyed over $1 million of equipment thought intended for Israel. The equipment was actually intended for Ukraine.

A variety of incidents were reported on campuses including the destruction of a flower garden at the University of Michigan, for which Pro-Hamas activists took responsibility, swastikas carved into the exterior of a building at Georgetown University, and spray-painted Hamas slogans at Williams College, the University of Portland, the University of Denver, and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

The conflict between Israel and Iran has also raised the potential of attacks against Americans and Jews. The FBI announced that it was increasing surveillance of of Iranian cells in the US over fears of attacks. The FBI also arrested 11 Iranian illegals on various charges including several with Hezbollah connections. In one case, a pro-Israel summit in Dallas was canceled after organizers received “indirect and direct threats made by American, pro-Hamas, Jihadist groups, who issued calls to ‘target’ the Israel Summit and the private facility where the event was slated to be held.”

Underscoring the connections between Hamas and supporters in the West, freed hostage Shlomo Ziv reported that his captors had shown him images of protests at Columbia University and claimed that “You see, we have our own people everywhere,” and “that Hamas has an ‘army’ operating out of Gaza that focuses specifically on media and sending Hamas propaganda and messaging throughout America.”

Connections between Hamas and protestors at Columbia were also alleged in the Federal indictment of Tarek Bazrouk, who is being held on several charges of assault against Jewish individuals. Bazrouk is alleged to have been a member of a chat group that received updates from Hamas’ Al Qassam brigades spokesman.

Universities and colleges continue to reel from the Trump administration’s funding cutbacks and threatened restrictions of foreign students. While state allocations to public universities have been cut, private universities have yet to face additional pressures such as increased endowment taxes. Among those announcing cuts and layoffs was Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Many universities which provided bridge funding to researchers have now begun to scale back support. Efforts to solicit corporate and private funding have increased. In one case, Harvard University has turned to a Turkish private equity firm to fund a lab while Georgetown University continues to expand its dependence on Qatari donations, which includes ownership and operation of the School of Foreign Service in Doha. Yale University reportedly has begun to sell of its holdings in private equity in order to raise cash.

Other universities and consortia have sued to have new indirect funding cuts revoked, and another court ruled that the National Institutes of Health must restore funding to a number of DEI and LGBTQ grants that had been terminated, calling the administration’s move “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community.” Yet another judge ruled that the administration had no power to bar international students from Harvard.

The administration’s losses in district courts over its ability to restrict foreign students and funding may also be pressuring it to compromise. Formal mechanisms to nominally protect Jewish students from harassment and intimidation are likely to be part of any agreement.

Elsewhere, universities have been pressured to take action to prevent the appearance of supporting antisemitic protests. Goldsmiths, University of London, published a long-awaited report documenting the extent of antisemitic harassment aimed at students and faculty. The independent report took three years to complete and does not name individuals responsible, but some indication was given when a number of organizations withdrew from engaging with the inquiry, charging that it “marginalizes Palestinians.”

The University of Toronto Governing Council was presented with an irregular motion that proposed banning encampments and adopting the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. Members of the council overwhelmingly rejected the proposals. University representatives apologized for letting a culture of antisemitism develop.

Efforts to reign in anti-Israel faculty and academic units have also been mixed. At Brown University, the notorious Center for Middle East Studies, a nexus of pro-Hamas activity and provider of K-12 resources, will become an independent unit. But at Harvard Divinity School the Religion and Public Life program, equally notorious for its hostility toward Israel and enthusiasm for Hamas, has been dismantled.

In contrast to ambiguous moves on the part of American institutions, universities in Europe continue to embrace BDS and anti-Israeli politics. Queen’s University in Ireland announced that it was following the example of Trinity College Dublin and ending all investment in Israeli companies and academic ties with Israeli universities. Increasingly European academics point to the attendance of students who have served in the military at Israeli universities as a rationale for boycotts.

With the summer break underway, faculty members are assessing the extent of damage to their institutions and professions caused by the Trump administration’s funding cuts and threats to foreign students. As key universities such as Harvard and Columbia inch toward concessions to administration demands, faculty members find themselves caught between their self-imposed cultural requirement to ‘resist’ Trump and the need to restore Federal funding.

States have also begun to introduce post-tenure reviews or eliminate tenure altogether for faculty.

Manipulation of tenure committees by radical anti-Zionist faculty members has long been a method to undermine and purge departments of pro-Israel scholars.

More evidence also continues to emerge regarding both the overall faculty support for pro-Hamas protests as well as individual cases of harassment and intimidation. One new lawsuit alleges that well known Israel hater, MIT professor Michel DeGraff, targeted Israeli graduate students with social media and letter writing campaigns which resulted in the students being harassed by strangers.

The intensity of antisemitic hatred among some faculty was illustrated in Britain where Middlesex University lecturer Tarek Younis demanded that “our work isn’t done until all Zionists are removed from our institutions and shamed, alongside all racists, into nothingness.” Younis also participated in a legal effort by Muslim lawyers to remove Hamas from the list of terror groups.

Another example came at the University of Sydney where biology instructor Fahad Ali was investigated by the police after stating on social media “F**k sanctions, I want Zionists executed like we executed Nazis.” A class action lawsuit has also been filed against the University of Sydney over explicit support for Hamas from other faculty members.

In an American example, well-known Israel opponent Jonathan Brown, chair of Georgetown University’s Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Alwaleed bin Talal chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service, called on Iran to conduct a “symbolic strike” against American forces in the Gulf region. The university administration claimed it was “appalled” by the statement.

BDS and anti-Israel activity on campus has diminished for the summer as activists participate in pro-Hamas, pro-Iran, and anti-Trump street protests. Several hunger strikes have ended including at Stanford University, while others have been launched — but the strategy attracted little attention this past academic year.

As if to illustrate the intersectional nature of opposition, BDS and Mamdani supporter, actor Cynthia Nixon, announced that her child has begun a hunger strike “for Gaza” along with other members of Jewish Voice for Peace. Nixon herself claims to have participated in a two day hunger strike in November 2023.

Finally, responding to the strikes on Iran, and in another illustration that the ‘Palestinian cause” is a stalking horse for broader anti-American and anti-Western movements, the National Students for Justice in Palestine attacked the US and Israel saying, “The unprovoked attacks the US and the Zionist entity have launched against Iran prove only one thing: imperialism in the region will not stop at suffocating Palestine. From Iraq to Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and now Iran, the Empire [sic] demands constant expansion and destabilization.”

The author is a contributor to SPME, where a version of this article was originally published. 

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