Pouring Blood on the Doors of Jews: Suspension or a Government Grant?
We have examples of both
Another week has rolled by, bringing a mix of good and bad news on the antisemitism front, including stories so insane they make you laugh and cry at the same time. But before we dive into the digest, a note to readers: if you read our posts in email, keep an eye out for the words “Message clipped. Click here to view entire message.” Substack clips posts which are deemed too long for email. Be sure to click that button to see the entire newsletter, or read the newsletter on Substack.
Good News: Some Universities Are Taking Action Against Antisemitic Actions
Whether due to sudden epiphany or in response to executive orders, some university administrators are doing the right thing—enforcing law and order on campus and dishing out penalties to campus thugs. This week adds to the list of examples we covered previously.
Universities Toughen Penalties Against SJP, Antisemitic Activity on Campus (Haley Cohen for Jewish Insider, February 12, 2025)
Members of Bowdoin University Students for Justice in Palestine who set up an anti-Israel encampment last week inside the college’s student union building are now facing disciplinary action from the school — including prohibition from attending classes pending permission from the dean’s office.
At Columbia University last month, administrators launched an investigation — together with law enforcement — just hours after anti-Israel demonstrators used cement to clog the sewage system in the School of International and Public Affairs building and sprayed the business school with red paint. [Editors note: They really did this — we covered this toilet activism here!]
Days before that, Columbia suspended a student who participated in a masked demonstration in which four people barged into a History of Modern Israel class, banged on drums, chanted “free Palestine” and distributed posters to students that read “CRUSH ZIONISM” with a boot over the Star of David.
The University of Michigan announced last week that Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, the campus’ SJP chapter, would be suspended for up to two years. Weeks earlier, George Mason University barred the leaders of its SJP chapter from campus for four years after they were caught vandalizing a university building.
The recent crackdowns on SJP and its affiliated groups — along with other episodes of anti-Israel extremism on campus — are the latest indication that university administrators are approaching antisemitic incidents with a new seriousness since the Trump administration issued executive orders aimed at deterring campus antisemitism.
UCLA Suspends Students for Justice in Palestine After Vandalism at UC Regent’s Home (Jaweed Kaleem for the LA Times, February 12, 2025; archived version here)
UCLA administrators said Wednesday they were suspending two Students for Justice in Palestine organizations after masked pro-Palestinian campus activists protested outside the Brentwood home of University of California Regent Jay Sures last week, vandalizing his property and surrounding his wife while she was in her car.
Chancellor Julio Frenk said in a campuswide message the decision by the UCLA Office of Student Conduct was an interim suspension while internal judicial procedures over the groups — Students for Justice in Palestine and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine — took place.
From the Chancellor’s message:
At UCLA, there is always room for discourse and for passionate debate of different points of view. In fact, they are vital to institutions of higher learning. Discourse helps us question our ideas and see new perspectives, and it ultimately leads to growth. Rigorous, healthy dialogue is central to everything we do to advance knowledge.
What there should never be room for is violence.
No one should ever fear for their safety. Without the basic feeling of safety, humans cannot learn, teach, work and live — much less thrive and flourish. This is true no matter what group you are a member of — or which identities you hold. There is no place for violence in our Bruin community.
That is why I am personally letting you know that the UCLA Office of Student Conduct has issued an interim suspension today to two registered student organizations, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine (GSJP), based on its review of initial reports about the groups’ involvement in an incident last week at the home of UC Regent Jay Sures.
As has been reported publicly, both in the press and in social media posts by the groups themselves:
On February 5, 2025, individuals affiliated with the student groups harassed Mr. Sures and members of his family outside his home.
Individuals surrounded the vehicle of a Sures family member and prevented that family member’s free movement.
Individuals pounded on drums, chanting and holding signs with threatening messages such as “Jonathan Sures you will pay, until you see your final day.”
Individuals vandalized the Sures home by applying red-colored handprints to the outer walls of the home and hung banners on the property’s hedges.
More graphic details about what exactly the miscreants have done can be found here: UCLA Activists Target Jewish UC Regent’s Home in Anti-Israel Protest (Michael Starr for the Jerusalem Post, February 6, 2025).
Remarkably, it took almost a week for UCLA to respond to these acts of vandalism and harassment. But, hey, better late than never. As Nellie Bowles put it: “Pouring blood on the door of Jews has never gotten anyone at UCLA in trouble before, so these suspensions hit hard.”
More good news from The Free Press (River Page, February 13, 2025):
This week, Boston University’s Board of Trustees rejected two petitions calling for the university to divest from Israel. President Melissa L. Gilliam affirmed the decision saying, “The endowment is no longer the vehicle for public debate.” Gilliam noted that the decision does not end BU’s long tradition of free speech and academic freedom. With an estimated 4,000 Jewish undergraduate students, BU has one of the largest Jewish student populations of any private university.
Also from The Free Press (TGIF: Be (My Limestone) Mine? February 14, 2025):
→ In sort of good news: The U.S. has issued sanctions against International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan. It’s in retaliation for the arrest warrants he issued against Israeli leadership. Mind your own business, ICC. No one elected you people. Why do you never arrest Houthis? Go busy yourself somewhere else. Go do some coke at the coke store.
What Is SJP and Why Should It Be Banned?
For a primer on SJP, take a look at the short documentary produced by a Circle member (We Bear Witness: Episode 6. Unmasking SJP and BDS). As documented by reports by the National Association of Scholars and AMCHA, SJP and analogous faculty organizations have been the main drivers of antisemitic activity on campuses. These organization openly align themselves with Hamas and call for violence—e.g., chanting “The only solution—Intifada revolution.” Cracking down on their activities on campus should be a no-brainer. And, no, banning these organizations does not infringe on free speech:
Cary Nelson, former president of the American Association of University Professors, emphasized that cracking down on SJP activity does not suppress political speech. “An SJP chapter that has its campus recognition withdrawn can still post messages on Instagram or X, so its group speech rights remain intact,” Nelson told JI. “Students and faculty remain free to endorse SJP messages.”
“Moreover, some banned SJP chapters continue to organize campus events,” Nelson said. “But the bans cancel campus funding and send the message that violating laws or campus regulations have consequences, including public condemnation.” Nelson also pointed out that even with the new rules, on many campuses, SJP’s faculty partners, Faculty for Justice in Palestine, retain recognition and can function as SJP surrogates.
For more on SJP’s activities, read on.
Antisemitism at Universities Still Going Strong
And now on to the not-so-good news, of which, unfortunately, there is no shortage.
First, a few examples from The Free Press (TGIF: Be (My Limestone) Mine? February 14, 2025):
→ And what of the Jews: It hasn’t exactly been a good week for my tribe, and it’s probably the moment to admit I’ve started seeing a therapist. Let’s begin our session:
Georgetown Law planned to host a terrorist, Ribhi Karajah, to speak about “Palestinian Prisoners.” A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror group, Ribhi was jailed for knowing about plans for a 2019 West Bank bombing and not stopping it (i.e., basically for being a member of PFLP). Now he’ll be feted on campus. Big Ribhi on campus! The bombing managed only to kill one Jewish teenager, though, so the honorary diploma is magna cum laude, not summa. It’s different. …
→ Oh, you thought I was done? The Massachusetts Teachers Association made a special “Resources on Israel and Occupied Palestine” web page for teachers across the state to use. It features a dollar bill folded up into a Star of David, to explain that Israel gets lots of money, which the president of the teachers association defended, saying: “we provide imagery, we provide resources for our members to consider, in their own intelligent, professional way.” Words are violence and students must be shielded from the mean ones. Antisemitic imagery, though? Exposure therapy. Just pictures. Trust the experts.
And two Australian nurses were playing around on Chatruletka, a video chatting service that pairs random people together to talk. Fun! They were paired with an Israeli influencer and thought it was a good time to say they would kill any Israeli who came into the hospital (and claimed to have already killed some, apparently).
“One day your time will come and you will die the most,” the female nurse says to the Israeli. “Listen to me when your time comes, I want you to remember my face so you can understand that you will die the most disgusting death.”
The male nurse says: “You have no idea how many Israeli. . . dog came to this hospital and. . . ” he gestures as if cutting his throat. “I literally sent them to Jahannam.” As online rage brewed, the hospital where they work, Bankstown Hospital in Sydney, quickly took down a picture of a Palestinian activist they’d hosted at the hospital. Wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea about anything.
Anti-Zionist Faculty at UC Santa Cruz Defy the Law and Betray Jewish Students (Tammi Rossman-Benjamin for Algemeiner, February 12, 2025)
Prominently displayed on UCSC’s campus-wide Events page was an announcement for an Education Department talk subtitled, “Centering an Anti-Zionist Commitment in (Early Childhood) Teacher Education,” clearly suggesting the speaker would be advocating for instilling in children as young as pre-school age a hatred of Israel and its supporters.
The only thing missing from the announcement were the words “Jews not welcome here”—though that message came through loud and clear.
Tellingly, this talk was also promoted on the website of UCSC’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapter, a group that shares the speaker’s “anti-Zionist commitment” and passion for expressing that commitment in educational spaces. It’s worth noting that more than 40% of the university’s Education Department’s core faculty have publicly allied themselves with this group, which was established a few weeks after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, massacre, mutilation, rape, and kidnapping of more than 1,400 Israelis.
UCSC’s FJP is one of more than 160 chapters of the FJP National Network, a project of the US arm of the Hamas-linked Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Established as the academic brigade of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, FJP is tasked with promoting an academic boycott of Israel, or academic BDS, urging faculty to boycott their school’s Israel-related programming, agreements, or projects, with the ultimate goal of eliminating Zionism and Zionists from academia.
Since its founding, UCSC FJP has diligently executed its marching orders, engaging in academic BDS-compliant behavior that has included: calling on faculty to cancel classes “in solidarity with Palestine” and praising graduate instructors for withholding students’ final grades to blackmail the university into boycotting Israel; co-authoring statements demanding the school cut all ties with Israeli universities, including popular study abroad programs, and boycott Jewish campus organizations such as Hillel; and rallying students and faculty to participate in an anti-Zionist march to disrupt a Jewish student-led “Unity Walk,” posting: “UCSC … Let’s make it clear — Zionism is not welcome on our campus.”
The Education Department is not the only UCSC academic unit with a significant number of faculty openly expressing an “anti-Zionist commitment.” Nearly half of the Anthropology Department’s core faculty are affiliated with FJP or have signed a public statement in support of academic BDS, as has one-quarter of the Literature Department.
But first prize goes to the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Department (CRES), 85% of whose core faculty, including the department chair, are either members of FJP, have expressed public support for academic BDS, or both. Several CRES professors brazenly display their “anti-Zionist commitment” on their office doors, visually accosting Jewish students with a bevy of anti-Zionist propaganda that includes posters reading “Anti-Zionist Vibes Only,” “From the River to the Sea” and “WHY THE F*** DO MY TAXES PAY FOR ISRAELI HEALTHCARE AND PALESTINIAN GENOCIDE?”…
An even graver threat to Jewish students is the UCSC Academic Senate. Tasked with reining in faculty abuse, it has instead defended and amplified it. An FJP-authored resolution intended to shield anti-Zionist faculty from accountability was overwhelmingly passed by the Senate. Perhaps the fact that 20% of its Executive Committee has either expressed support for academic BDS or affiliates with FJP has something to do with the Academic Senate’s abdication of this crucial shared governance responsibility.
Given UCSC’s unbridled faculty antisemitism, it’s no surprise it ranks 4th worst in the nation on AMCHA Initiative’s Anti-Zionist Faculty Barometer, receiving a “5 – Extreme” rating. Without serious intervention, UCSC’s institutionalized “anti-Zionist commitment” and the antisemitism it incites will only worsen.
Sound like anything going on at USC?
Tammi finishes her article with several action items, which any university can and should adopt.
Here’s what needs to happen:
First the implementation of academic BDS and its promotion by UCSC faculty or groups like FJP must be banned. A terrorist-linked boycott that shuts down the academic freedom and educational opportunities of students and faculty and incites virulent antisemitism has no place on a college campus.
Second, professors who abuse their positions to engage in anti-Zionist activism must be sanctioned. While faculty are free to engage in political activism on their own time and dime, guaranteeing they will not bring their political commitments onto campus and into their classrooms or administrative offices should be a requirement of continued employment at the university.
Third, departments that believe working towards dismantling the Jewish state is part of their core disciplinary mission should themselves be dismantled.
Fourth, an Academic Senate that screams loudly to protect the academic freedom of anti-Zionist faculty but loses its voice entirely when it comes to prosecuting those same faculty members’ abuse has forfeited the privilege of shared governance.
Fifth, UCSC officials who are unable to curb faculty antisemitism and comply with the law should be replaced.
And finally, if UCSC refuses to change course, the Federal government should make good on its promise to revoke funding from schools permitting institutionalized antisemitism.
UCSC has sent a clear message: Jewish students who identify with the sole Jewish state — as a large majority of Jews do — are unwelcome. The question now is whether lawmakers, donors, and the public will allow a publicly funded university to function as an incubator for faculty-led antisemitism — or finally demand real consequences.
We couldn’t agree more.
US Taxpayers Are Funding Antisemitism—Globally and Locally
As more information about USAID becomes public, we find out that this organization funds not only ridiculous Woke projects, but also shells $$ to various groups that are quite openly aligned with Jihadists. Take the following, for example.
From the The Free Press Newsletter (River Page, February 13, 2025):
The U.S. Agency for International Development spent thousands of taxpayer dollars to fund the education of an al-Qaeda terrorist. Anwar al-Awlaki, a jihadist with ties to the 9/11 hijackers, received “full funding” to attend Colorado State University in 1990, according to USAID documents shared with Fox News. After graduating in 1994 with a degree in civil engineering, al-Awlaki taught Islam and recruited terrorists at mosques across the United States. In 2011, the graduate was killed in a U.S. air strike at the order of President Obama.
From The Free Press’s weekly TGIF (February 14, 2025):
→ U.S. pays for all sides of the war: Now that USAID has been laid bare by the boys of DOGE, more strange facts about its spending are coming to light. In Gaza, USAID seems to have been basically a group committed to fighting against Israel, so we were essentially funding both sides of the war. Exciting!
USAID sent money to organizations whose leaders promoted or were tied to various terrorist groups. Like: Six days before October 7, USAID awarded $900,000 to a Gaza charity that the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was involved with. USAID also funded a Gazan “educational and community center” controlled by an association whose leader once said that Jerusalem needed to be cleansed “from the impurity of the Jews.” (This is all from a great Free Beacon story.)
These sound like little numbers, but it adds up. In the aftermath of the war, USAID provided more than $2 billion for aid in Gaza, which was and is completely controlled by Hamas (the war’s gone great, why do you ask?). Samantha Power, who led USAID under Biden, reportedly tried to rewrite Biden admin statements to be harsher toward the Jewish state, and she at one point refused to meet with the Israeli ambassador until a ceasefire had been reached.
Americans like to watch a fair fight, so on some level I respect making sure everyone got a few billion. It’s why the Super Bowl wasn’t satisfying. We need Hamas to have a little pep in their step, so we must turn a blind eye when Samantha Power is driving a tank over enemy lines and leaving the keys. That’s philanthropy.
Finland, WTF?
Woke antisemitism is a global phenomenon, as a recent story from Finland illustrates. Writing for Tablet, Izabella Tabarovsky describes her cancellation in Finland (“Canceled ... in Finland,” Tablet, February 11, 2025):
In recent days, two Finnish universities canceled my scheduled appearances on their campuses, turning me briefly into a minor celebrity in the country. Åbo Akademi University, in Turku, barred me from delivering my keynote address at an international conference on antisemitism set to take place on its campus. The University of Helsinki killed what was supposed to be a public talk. The title of both lectures: “From the Cold War to University Campuses Today: The USSR, the Third World, and Contemporary Antizionist Discourse.” The two schools caved to a smear campaign orchestrated by a “pro-Palestinian” Instagram account that weaponized my pro-Israel social media posts for the purpose.
In the U.S., the censorship of “wrong-thinking” speakers, including Jews who hold Zionist beliefs, has become so commonplace that it’s practically a nonevent. But this was Finland’s first major controversy of this kind, and my photo got splashed across the local press. It was also a first for me, forcing me to confront head-on the same cowardice, hypocrisy, and stupidity that the American academy has displayed for years—especially in the wake of Oct. 7.
The details of the story are damning and deeply disturbing—Izabella’s full article is a worthwhile read. As a curious historical detail, Izabella reminds us about Finland’s contributions to the Soviet-led antisemitic propaganda back in the seventies and eighties:
When Moscow launched its rabid anti-Israel propaganda campaign in 1967 and started building its “Anti-Zionist International,” Finnish intellectuals were drawn in as well. In 1975, Finnish writer Matti Larni, whose book castigating the U.S. made him popular in the USSR, published a piece about Israel in the Literary Newspaper—the Soviet Union’s most influential cultural publication. Larni’s article echoed key Soviet talking points, branding Israel a Jewish supremacist, racist state and depicting Soviet Jewish immigrants in Israel as miserable, regretful traitors longing to return to their Soviet motherland. In 1980, the article was republished in Zionism: Truth and Fiction, a collection edited by Yevgeny Yevseyev—one of the USSR’s most viciously antisemitic ideologues with close ties to the KGB, who played a pivotal role in shaping the key tropes of Soviet “anti-Zionist” ideology.
Another Finnish name appears in the Soviet 1984 propaganda pamphlet Criminal Alliance of Zionism and Nazism. The pamphlet recounts, in English, a press conference staged by the “Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public”—a notorious KGB front designed to vilify Israel and Zionism to foreign audiences under the guise of representing Soviet Jews. The entire event was dedicated to spreading the toxic equation of Zionism with Nazism—a cornerstone of Soviet anti-Israel propaganda—to international audiences. Known as Holocaust inversion, this false equivalence is widely viewed by scholars of antisemitism as a potent tool of incitement against Jews, used by both the far right and the far left. As Deborah Lipstadt has noted, the trope contains a grain of Holocaust denial, exaggerating “by a factor of zillion any wrongdoings Israel might have done,” while simultaneously diminishing, by the same factor, the acts of the Germans. The USSR and its Western enablers—including, it seems, the Finnish ones—played a significant role in embedding this inversion among the global left.
Izabella’s story is by no means unique. Jewish and pro-Israeli speakers are often targeted in such cancellation campaigns. Readers may recall biologist Jerry Coyne being cancelled in Amsterdam last year—or an angry mob shouting down an Israeli speaker in Berkeley.
Now How about Some Humor in the Face of Adversity
We admire people who can laugh in the face of hardship and even atrocities. This is what Jews can do, and we believe this is one of the factors contributing to the resilience of the Jewish nation. This week’s story is related to the recent release of three hostages who were so emaciated they could barely walk, a telltale sign of the inhumane treatment they received. The insanity is how some in the mainstream media have portrayed their release. From The Free Press’s TGIF (February 14, 2025):
The BBC has been covering the hostage releases in a curious way. Seeing the three starved Israeli hostages trotted across stage by Hamas, the BBC chyron read simply: “Concerns over appearance of hostages on both sides.” Or there’s this presenter on BBC Arabic speaking as the hostages were handed over to the Red Cross: “Of course, they are very precious to the Hamas fighters.” So very precious. Like little treasures who need to be chained to the furniture.
This coverage inspired this video from Eretz Nehederet:
And for good measure another video from the same group:
The universities that eventually "responded" to the overt antisemitism, harassment, disruptions, building occupations, assaults/violence, etc. on their campuses deserve no credit for doing so. The correct path was obvious to any moral person this minute this nonsense started, and they only (barely) pushed back when forced, or confronted with the possibility of any sort of a penalty. The so-called elite universities that tolerated this protracted criminality fully disgraced themselves. The only silver lining is the universities made it clear to the world that they are scams.
The Red CRoss crossed over human ----this must be the reason why they shook hands with Hammas.