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      US House votes to pass antisemitism bill in response to campus protests

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      The US House of Representatives has voted to pass an antisemitism awareness bill, a controversial measure sponsored by a New York Republican amid controversy over pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses in Manhattan and across the US, as Israel’s war with Hamas drags on.The bill passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support.Mike Lawler’s bill will “provide for the consideration of a definition of antisemitism set forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for the enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws concerning education programs or activities, and for other purposes”.Democrats opposed it as a messaging bill meant simply to boost Republicans on a hot-button issue and trap Democrats into taking politically awkward votes.The American Civil Liberties Union opposed the bill, telling members: “Federal law already prohibits antisemitic discrimination and harassment by federally funded entities.“[The bill] is therefore not needed to protect against antisemitic discrimination; instead, it would likely chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.”The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), which “works to ensure a just, secure and peaceful future for Palestinians and Israelis”, has defined the shifting meaning of “antisemitism” in US political discourse.“Traditionally,” the FMEP says, “‘antisemitism’ has meant hostility and prejudice toward Jews because they are Jews – a scourge that has imperiled Jews throughout history, and is a source of resurgent threats to Jews today.“In recent years there has been an energetic effort to redefine the term to mean something else. This new definition – known today as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s ‘working definition of antisemitism’, is explicitly politicised, refocusing the term to encompass not only hatred of Jews, but also hostility toward and criticism of the modern state of Israel.”In the House on Tuesday morning, the Illinois Republican Mary E Miller acted as speaker pro tempore to oversee debate on the Republican antisemitism awareness bill.As a choice, it was not without irony. Miller made headlines in 2021, when as a newly elected member of Congress she was forced to apologise after saying in a speech at the Capitol: “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’ Our children are being propagandised.”Representatives for Miller did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.Introducing the bill with Lawler sitting beside her, Michelle Fischbach, a Minnesota Republican, said: “Jewish college students have faced increasing antisemitism. And since 7 October there has been an over 300% increase in incidents on campuses.”More than 1,100 people were killed on 7 October, when Hamas attacked Israel. More than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the subsequent Israeli offensive.Fischbach continued: “Students are supposed to be protected from harassment. But it has been made abundantly clear that the leaders of these institutions are not going to do anything to stop it. Instead, they are allowing large-scale harassment to reign, forcing Jewish students to stay home. Since these institutions refuse to protect their students, it is time for Congress to take action.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTeresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat from New Mexico, spoke in answer to Fischbach. She quoted Thomas Massie, a rightwing Republican from Kentucky, as saying the bill was “a political trap … designed to split the Democrat [sic] party and get them stuck” on an issue over which the party is divided.Leger Fernandez also said a different bill should be considered, to “designate a senior official at the [US] Department of Education to combat antisemitism on college campuses”.In his own remarks, Lawler listed alleged outrages on college campuses and said: “We must give the Department of Education the tools to identify and prosecute any antisemitic hate crimes committed and hold college administrators accountable for refusing to address antisemitism on their campuses.”Democrats, he said, were “tripping over themselves because of electoral politics” in states with large Muslim populations which traditionally vote Democratic.Debate then descended into back-and-forth over whether the bill was necessary to defend Jewish students, as Republicans claimed, or an illegitimate attack on free speech, however abhorrent that speech might be, as some Democrats said.In closing, Leger Fernandez said: “We need to remind everybody we all condemn 7 October. We all have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation.“We have taken up these resolutions over and over again. And once again, our Republican colleague [Massie] has spoken the truth when he has said that these are sticky resolutions simply intended to divide the Democrats.“Let’s not work on division. Let’s come together in love, and in belief, and [use] our individual strength to push back against the hatred that we see, and to do it in a manner that is not partisan.” More

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      What do the US campus protests mean for Joe Biden in November?

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      The policies of Joe Biden and Democrats towards Israel, which have prompted thousands of students across the country to protest, could affect the youth vote for Biden and hurt his re-election chances, experts have warned, in what is already expected to be a tight election.Thousands of students at universities across the US have joined with pro-Palestine rallies and, most recently, encampments, as Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 people.Some of the protests began as a call to encourage universities to ditch investments in companies that provide weapons and equipment to the Israeli military. But as the Biden administration has continued to largely support Israel, the president has increasingly become a focus of criticism from young people. Polling shows that young Americans’ support for Biden has been chipped away since 2020.With Biden narrowly trailing Trump in several key swing states, it’s a voting bloc the president can ill afford to lose.“The real threat to Biden is that younger voters, especially college-educated voters, won’t turn out for him in the election,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.“I wouldn’t expect that the protesters on campuses today are going to vote for Trump, almost none of them will. That’s not the danger here. The danger is much simpler: that they simply won’t vote.”Turnout could be key to Biden winning November’s election, given the devotion of Trump’s base, and there are signs that Biden’s handling of the situation in Gaza is already costing him support.In Wisconsin, which Biden won by just 21,000 votes in 2020, more than 47,000 people voted “uninstructed” in the state’s Democratic primary, as a protest against the government’s support for Israel. It came after more than 100,000 voters in Michigan’s Democratic primary cast ballots for “uncommitted”: Biden won the state by just 154,000 votes four years ago.Biden triumphed in Pennsylvania by a similarly small margin, and average polling shows him currently trailing Trump in the state, albeit by less than two points. Protests at campuses at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh probably have Biden’s campaign worried.“In states like Pennsylvania, the margins are going to be so small, that it’s at least possible that a couple thousand people not turning out, or voting for one of the third-party candidates, could swing the election one way or the other,” Zimmerman said.In April, a Harvard poll found that Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points among 18- to 29-year-olds, down from a 23-point lead Biden had at the same point in 2020. In the same survey, 51% of young Americans said they support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, while just 10% said they were opposed.Just as worrying for the voting figures was the sentiments Harvard unearthed. Nearly 60% of 18-to 29-year-olds said the country is “off on the wrong track”. Only 9% believe things are “generally headed in the right direction”.On Tuesday, even the College Democrats of America – a centrist, Biden-supporting organization – criticized their own party.“Each day that Democrats fail to stand united for a permanent ceasefire, two-state solution, and recognition of a Palestinian state, more and more youth find themselves disillusioned with the party,” the group said in a statement.The White House said that Biden had “reiterated his clear” opposition to Israel invading the Gaza city of Rafah, where about 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering, in a call with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, over the weekend.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe administration said Biden had also “reaffirmed his ironclad commitment to Israel’s security”. That came after Biden said he condemned “the antisemitic protests”, although the president added: “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”Zimmerman said “the most obvious” precedent for student protests influencing an election was in 1968, when Lyndon B Johnson dropped his re-election campaign in the face of anti-Vietnam war protests. Those protests, which had begun in 1965, weren’t the only reason for Johnson’s dropping out of the Democratic primary, Zimmerman said, but played a major role.The Vietnam-era movement grew to something much larger in scale than the current demonstrations, although with hundreds of students arrested so far, there is evidence the movement is growing, and according to National Students for Justice in Palestine, an advocacy group, there are more than 50 encampments at universities around the US.“A heavy-handed response to protests is basically not going to put them down. It’s just going to increase the protests and strengthen them, because then it becomes a question of free speech,” said Ralph Young, a history professor at Temple University whose work has focused on protest movements in the US.If the protests against Israel’s conduct – and against Biden’s ability or willingness to reel Israel in – continue, it will not be an issue for Trump. In a Gallup poll in March, 71% of Republicans said they approved of “the military action Israel has taken in Gaza”, compared with just 36% of Democrats.“The main negativity on this is for the Democrats. What Biden needs in order to win is a very heavy turnout of Democrats. If he loses even 10% of the Democratic vote and even if that does not go to Trump, I think the chances are slim for Biden to get re-elected,” Young said.“If there is a ceasefire, or if things ease up, then maybe cooler heads will prevail and things will settle down. Maybe then the protests will not have as much of an impact on the election. But the longer they go on, the more impact they will have.”Biden v Trump: What’s in store for the US and the world?On Thursday 2 May, 3-4.15pm ET, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live More

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      Dozens arrested at Columbia University as New York police disperse Gaza protest

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      Dozens of students have been arrested after hundreds of New York City police officers entered Columbia University on Tuesday night to clear out an academic building that had been taken over as part of a pro-Palestinian protest.Live video images showed police in riot gear marching on the campus in upper Manhattan, the focal point of nationwide student protests opposing Israel’s war in Gaza. Police used an armoured vehicle with a bridging mechanism to gain entry to the second floor of the building.Officers said they used flash-bangs to disperse the crowd, but denied using teargas as part of the operation.Before long, officers were seen leading protesters handcuffed with zip ties to a line of police buses waiting outside campus gates. NYPD spokesman Carlos Nieves said he had no immediate reports of any injuries following the arrests.View image in fullscreen“We’re clearing it out,” police yelled as they marched up to the barricaded entrance to the building.“Shame! Shame!” jeered many onlooking students still outside on campus.One protester at Columbia, who only gave their name as Sophie, told the Guardian that police had barricaded protesters inside buildings before making arrests. “It will not be forgotten,” she said. “This is no longer an Israel-Palestine issue. It’s a human rights and free speech and a Columbia student issue.”The police operation, which was largely over within a couple of hours, follow nearly two weeks of tensions, with pro-Palestinian protesters at the university ignoring an ultimatum on Monday to abandon their encampment or risk suspension. On Tuesday, Columbia University officials threatened academic expulsion of the students who had seized Hamilton Hall, an eight-story neo-classical building blocked by protesters who linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.The university said in a statement on Tuesday it had asked police to enter the campus to “restore safety and order to our community”.View image in fullscreenIt said: “After the university learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice. Columbia public safety personnel were forced out of the building, and a member of our facilities team was threatened. We will not risk the safety of our community or the potential for further escalation.”The university reiterated the view that the group who “broke into and occupied the building” was being led by individuals who are “not affiliated with the university”.It added: “The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing.”View image in fullscreenNew York congressman Jamaal Bowman said he was “outraged” by the level of police presence at Columbia and other New York universities. He said on X: “The militarization of college campuses, extensive police presence, and arrest of hundreds of students are in direct opposition to the role of education as a cornerstone of our democracy.”Bowman has called on the Columbia administration to stop the “dangerous escalation before it leads to further harm” and allow faculty back on to campus.Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, has requested that police retain a presence until at least 17 May “to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished”. Earlier, Shafik said efforts to reach a compromise with protest organisers had failed and that the institution would not bow to demands to divest from Israel.Separately, the New York Times reported dozens of arrests at City College of New York, part of the City University of New York system (CUNY), when some students left Columbia and moved north to the campus where a protest sit-in was still in effect.One protester who offered their name as OS, told the Guardian: “We need to keep protesting peacefully and the truth needs to come out. This is a genocide happening in front of us, and the people in power are allowing this to happen.“It’s scary to speak out because so many people are losing their tuition or being fired from jobs.”An NYPD official confirmed that CUNY had requested that police enter the campus to disperse protesters.An encampment at the public college has been going since Thursday and students had attempted to occupy an academic building earlier on Tuesday.At a Tuesday evening news briefing, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by “outside agitators” who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness.Adams suggested some of the student protesters were not fully aware of “external actors” in their midst.“We cannot and will not allow what should be a peaceful gathering to turn into a violent spectacle that serves no purpose. We cannot wait until this situation becomes even more serious. This must end now,” the mayor said.Neither Adams nor the university provided specific evidence to back up that contention.One of the student leaders of the protest, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian scholar attending Columbia’s school of international and public affairs on a student visa, disputed assertions that outsiders had initiated the occupation. “They’re students,” he told Reuters.View image in fullscreenHamilton Hall was one of several buildings occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protest on the campus. This week, student protesters, displayed a large banner that reads “Hind’s Hall”, renaming it in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza City who was killed by Israeli forces earlier this year.Columbia journalism professor Seyma Beyram, said on X that she and her journalism school colleagues were trapped on one block surrounded by police barricades. “All I can document right now are students getting put on one of the buses.”On Tuesday night, Columbia’s student radio station reported that Jelani Cobb, the dean of the journalism school, was threatened with arrest if he and others in the building came out. “Free, free, free Palestine,” chanted protesters outside the building. Others yelled: “Let the students go.”At CUNY as the police moved off, one student said: “We de-escalated , and now the police are leaving. We’re proud of standing up for something. All we’re saying is were not happy university tuition fees are being used to fund wars, and we want to see what we can do about it, but without violence.”Reuters contributed to this report More

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      The overreaction to US campus peace protests doesn’t feel free or brave | Cas Mudde

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      Across the world people have been shocked by social media footage of heavily armed law enforcement officers arresting peacefully protesting students and professors at university campuses around the United States. The so-called “land of the free and home of the brave” looks neither free nor brave – except for the brave protesters who continue to stand up to state and university repression.Although government repression of student protests is not unique to either the US or this particular period, the current orgy of state repression is very much an illustration of the current crisis of liberal democracy as it is squeezed by both illiberalism and neoliberalism.But let’s take a step back. Ever since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October, many university campuses have been on edge. As Israel’s retaliation in Gaza reached what the United Nations has called genocidal levels, student protests started to appear at some university campuses. Although there were troubling incidents of antisemitism – and Islamophobia – the protests, overall, are neither antisemitic nor violent. This notwithstanding, the far right has jumped on them to intensify its attack on universities.The far right has portrayed universities as “hotbeds of terrorist sympathizers” and “wokeness” that threaten core “American values” like freedom of speech. In far-right propaganda, universities are the dystopian future of the whole country, where women, non-whites and LGBTQ+ people oppress “real Americans”, ie white, Christian conservatives. And their propaganda has paid off. When Donald Trump launched his campaign, the public image of universities in the US was already not in great shape.In 2015, a modest majority of 57% of Americans had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. Since then, it has plummeted to just 36% in 2023. Although the biggest drop was among Republicans (-37%), confidence also decreased among independents (-16%) and Democrats (-9%). This is not that surprising, given how far-right talking points are feverishly amplified by “liberal” media like the Atlantic and the New York Times.Ironically, the mismatch between perception and reality couldn’t be greater. Academia has always been a thoroughly conservative industry and universities have rarely been hotbeds of radicalism, particularly in the global north. But since the rise of the neoliberal university in the 1980s, higher education has become highly commodified and universities have been turned into “edufactories”, run by professional administrators on the basis of market principles.Although there are fundamental differences in financial and political dependence between perversely rich private universities like Harvard, with an endowment of almost $50bn, and poorer public universities like the many community colleges across the country, the neoliberal logic of contemporary higher education has made university administrators increasingly submissive to assertive private donors and public politicians (who are, predominantly, advocating for rightwing causes).What sets the current student protests and state repression apart is not just the intensity but the scope. While the rightwing attacks in the past decade have mainly targeted public colleges in Republican-dominated states such as Florida, the past week saw state repression of protesting students at such universities (like the University of Texas at Austin), but also at private universities in Republican-dominated states (like Emory University in Atlanta), and even at private universities in Democratic-governed states (like Columbia University and the University of Southern California).The starting signal for the current repression was the congressional hearing on antisemitism last December, in which Republican politicians grilled three flustered presidents of Ivy League universities on the allegedly antisemitic protests at their campuses. Afterwards, far-right activists intensified their accusations of antisemitism and plagiarism and with success: two of the three university presidents that testified – Claudine Gay of Harvard and Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania – resigned nearly a month after the hearing.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEncouraged by this success, another congressional hearing was organized in April, in which Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, president of Columbia University, did not even try to defend her faculty and students. In fact, she threw several faculty under the bus. The lead of her antisemitism task force said they believed that student slogans like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “long live intifada” were antisemitic. Outraged students responded by intensifying their protests, which again increased rightwing pressure to “act”, to which Shafik quickly responded by inviting the NYPD onto campus.As so often, state repression of a relatively small and localized protest gave rise to the rise of a much bigger and broader protest movement that spread across the country – from New York to California and from Michigan to Texas. Moreover, given that graduation season is only weeks away, university administrators are going into full panic and repressive mode. The University of Southern California has already canceled its main graduation ceremony, which was supposed to feature a speech by a Muslim valedictorian, out of “security concerns”.Let there be no doubt that the current attacks on US universities are a major political victory for the far right. Not only do they mobilize and unify the conservative base, they also divide that of the liberal opposition. But there are also major lessons for liberal democrats in the country. First, neoliberal universities are no match for illiberal politics. Second, no university is safe: this is not a private versus public university or red state versus blue state issue. And, third and finally, the current attacks are just a small prelude to what the return of Trump will mean for liberal democracy in general and higher education in particular.
      Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today More

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      Pro-Palestinian protesters take over Columbia University building

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      Dozens of protesters have taken over a building at Columbia University in New York, barricading the entrances and unfurling a Palestinian flag out of a window in the latest escalation of demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war that have spread to college campuses across the US.Video footage showed protesters on Columbia’s Manhattan campus locking arms in front of Hamilton Hall early on Tuesday and carrying furniture and metal barricades to the building, one of several that was occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protest on the campus.Posts on an Instagram page for protest organisers shortly after midnight urged people to protect the encampment and join them at Hamilton Hall.The student radio station, WKCR-FM, broadcasted a play-by-play of the hall’s takeover – which occurred nearly 12 hours after Monday’s 2pm deadline for the protesters to leave an encampment of about 120 tents or face suspension. Representatives for the university did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment early on Tuesday.Universities across the US are grappling with how to clear out encampments as commencement ceremonies approach, with some continuing negotiations and others turning to force and ultimatums that have resulted in clashes with police.View image in fullscreenDozens of people were arrested on Monday during protests at universities in Texas, Utah and Virginia, while Columbia said hours before the takeover of Hamilton Hall that it had started suspending students.Demonstrators are sparring over the Israel-Hamas war and its mounting death toll, and the number of arrests at campuses nationwide is approaching 1,000 as the final days of class wrap up. The outcry is forcing colleges to reckon with their financial ties to Israel, as well as their support for free speech. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus.At the University of Texas at Austin, an attorney said at least 40 demonstrators were arrested on Monday. The confrontation was an escalation on the 53,000-student campus in the state’s capital, where more than 50 protesters were arrested last week.Later on Monday, dozens of officers in riot gear at the University of Utah sought to break up an encampment outside the university president’s office that went up in the afternoon. Police dragged students off by their hands and feet, snapping the poles holding up tents and zip-tying those who refused to disperse. Seventeen people were arrested.The university said it was against code to camp overnight on school property and that the students were given several warnings to disperse before police were called in.The plight of students who have been arrested has become a central part of protests, with the students and a growing number of faculty demanding amnesty for protesters. At issue is whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students through their adult lives.The Texas protest and others – including in Canada and Europe – grew out of Columbia’s early demonstrations that have continued. On Monday, student activists defied the 2pm deadline to leave the encampment. Instead, hundreds of protesters remained. A handful of counter-demonstrators waved Israeli flags, and one held a sign reading: “Where are the anti-Hamas chants?”While the university did not call the police to remove the demonstrators, school spokesperson Ben Chang said suspensions had started but could provide few details. Protest organisers said they were not aware of any suspensions as of Monday evening.Columbia’s handling of the demonstrations has prompted federal complaints.A class-action lawsuit on behalf of Jewish students alleges a breach of contract by Columbia, claiming the university failed to maintain a safe learning environment, despite policies and promises. It also challenges the move away from in-person classes and seeks quick court action requiring Columbia to provide security for the students.Meanwhile, a legal group representing pro-Palestinian students is urging the US Department of Education’s civil rights office to investigate Columbia’s compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for how they have been treated.A university spokesperson declined to comment on the complaints. More

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      ‘Do not bow’: ex-Black Panther praises pro-Palestinian student protesters from prison

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      In a powerful and rousing live address to students at the City University of New York (CUNY) on Friday night, the incarcerated Black political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal praised the pro-Palestinian movement growing at US colleges as being on the right side of history.“It is a wonderful thing that you have decided not to be silent and decided to speak out against the repression that you see with your own eyes,” Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, said while calling from Pennsylvania’s Mahanoy state prison. “You are part of something massive, and you are part of something that is on the right side of history.“You’re against a colonial regime that steals the land from the people who are Indigenous to that area. I urge you to speak out against the terrorism that is afflicted upon Gaza with all of your might, all of your will and all of your strength. Do not bow to those who want you to be silent.”As hundreds of students and supporters at the CUNY encampment in Harlem cheered, he continued, “This is the moment to be heard and shake the earth so that the people of Gaza, the people of Rafah, the people of the West Bank, the people of Palestine can feel your solidarity with them.”Abu-Jamal was a founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther party and went on to become a radio journalist as well as president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Association of Journalists. In 1982, he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner in Philadelphia in 1981.Abu-Jamal spent almost three decades in solitary confinement on death row before his death sentence was overturned by a federal court, citing irregularities in the original sentencing process.A prolific writer and critic of the US criminal justice system and Black struggle, Abu-Jamal is serving life without parole, and his supporters regard him as a political prisoner.View image in fullscreenStudent protests calling for divestment in Israel have spread across the US in the past 10 days – in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation cause as well as the Columbia University students who were arrested and suspended after administrators allowed the NYPD on to campus.Cuny is the largest public urban college in the US, with a large working-class Black and brown student and teaching body, with 25 campuses across the city’s five boroughs.The mood on Friday night in Harlem was buoyant despite the cold. Students wrapped up in donated blankets amid Shabbat rituals, Muslim community prayers, lectures and the screening of documentaries about the history of student protests, the South African apartheid regime and the Palestinian struggle.Nationwide, students – and a growing number of faculty – are demanding administrators disclose and divest from funds and corporations doing business with Israel in it. Those include Amazon and Google, which are part of a $1.2bn cloud-computing contract with Israel’s government, as well as manufacturers of weapons and other military equipment.Police have responded with brutality on some campuses, such as at Emory University in Atlanta, provoking international condemnation – and, in turn, more student protests.Joe Biden and many lawmakers have criticized the protesters as “antisemitic” despite the fact that Jewish students who reject Zionism are organizing many of the college protests.In response to the 7 October Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis and resulted in the kidnappings of more than 200 others, Israel has killed at least 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with thousands more buried under the rubble and presumed dead.Deaths from starvation and extreme heat are rising, according to UN agencies, amid ongoing Israeli attacks and blockades stopping the delivery of humanitarian aid that some US officials acknowledge could be a violation of international law.As the Israeli military appears to be preparing to launch an attack on Rafah in southern Gaza, where a million Palestinians have been displaced, Abu-Jamal urged students to expand protests.“The people of Gaza are fighting to be free from generations of occupation so it is not enough, brothers and sisters, it is not enough to demand a ceasefire,” he said. “Make your demand cease occupation, cease occupation, and let that be your battle cry because that is the call of history of which all of you are part.“You are part of something magnanimous, magnificent and soul changing, and history changing. Do not let go of this moment, make it bigger, make it more massive, make it more powerful, make it echo up into the stars. I am thrilled by your work – I love you.”The students erupted into chants of “brick by brick, wall by wall, free Mumia Abu-Jamal”.Abu-Jamal has a track record of supporting student movements and has been invited as a commencement speaker by numerous colleges. He participates in those commencements through recordings.He has published dozens of essays and several books – including 2017’s Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? – about his time on death row and the history of the Black Panthers.CUNY voted to divest from South Africa in 1984 by cutting ties with companies supporting the apartheid regime. Columbia was the first Ivy League university to sever financial links with the apartheid regime. More

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      Sanders hits back at Netanyahu: ‘It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable’

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      Bernie Sanders has hit back fiercely at Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli prime minister’s claim that US universities were being overrun by antisemitism on a scale comparable to the rise of Nazism in Germany.In a video posted on X, the progressive senator from Vermont – who is Jewish – accused Netanyahu of “insult[ing] the intelligence of the American people” by using antisemitism to distract attention from the policies of his “extremist and racist government” in the military offensive in Gaza.“No Mr Netanyahu, it is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that, in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed over 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 78,000, 70% of whom are women and children,” Sanders said.The two-and-a-half minute video listed a catalogue of further consequences of the war in the Palestinian coastal territory, including the destruction of infrastructure, hospitals, universities and schools, along with the killing of more than 400 health workers.Sanders, who sponsored an unsuccessful Senate bill in January to make US aid to Israel conditional on its observance of human rights and international law, said Netanyahu’s government had unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, causing “thousands of children [to] face malnutrition and famine”.In a blistering conclusion, he said: “Mr Netanyahu, antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people.“But please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal policies of your extremist and racist government. … It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions.”Sanders’ comments were a riposte to a video posted on social media by Netanyahu in which he waded in to protests sweeping American university campuses and claimed not enough was being done to combat a “horrific” rise in antisemitism.“Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” Netanyahu said. “They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.“It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally, but that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful. Now fortunately, state, federal and local officials, many of them, have responded differently. But there has to be more.”Netanyahu’s comments came against the backdrop of police deployments to break up pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and numerous other US campuses. In some universities, faculty members have been arrested, including the chair of the philosophy department and a professor of English and Indigenous studies at Emory University in Atlanta.Jewish students have reported feeling threatened by the protests and heated atmosphere that followed Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, resulting in the deaths of about 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of more than 200 others.Videos posted on social media have depicted anti-Israel protesters shouting “go back to Poland” and “go back to Belarus”, apparently at Jewish students. A congressional hearing earlier in April into a reported upsurge of antisemitism at Columbia heard allegations that Jewish students had been subjected to taunts of “F the Jews”.Last October’s attack triggered an overwhelming and continuing Israeli military response that has so far killed more than 34,000 Palestinians – according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza – and led to a burgeoning humanitarian disaster, accompanied by accusations that Israel is committing “genocide”.In his video, Netanyahu said Israel was being “falsely accused” of genocide and called it part of an “antisemitic surge”.“Israel tries to defend itself against genocidal terrorists who hide behind civilians,” he said. “Yet it is Israel that is falsely accused of genocide. Israel that is falsely accused of starvation and sundry war crimes. It’s all one big libel.“But that’s not new. We’ve seen in history that antisemitic attacks were always preceded by vilification and slander.”The Joe Biden White House, while resisting pressure to condition or limit weapon supplies to Israel, has voiced frustration over its resistance to allowing more humanitarian aid freely into Gaza and roundly criticised the recent strikes that killed seven workers from celebrity chef Jose Andres’s World Central Kitchen charity.Protests on campuses across the US continued on Saturday, with some protesting student bodies and universities locked in a standoff that saw demonstrators vowing to keep their movements going at the same time as college authorities moved to close down the encampments.Police in riot gear cleared protest tents on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston, while students shouted and jeered at them, the Associated Press reported. The university said the protest had been “infiltrated by professional organisers” with no connection to the institution, while some demonstrators had used antisemitic slurs.The picture of campus antisemitism run amok was lent further credence by Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard president and ex-US treasury secretary, who accused authorities at his former university of failing to act decisively against protesters occupying Harvard Yard.“This is the predictable culmination of the Harvard Corporation’s failure to effectively address issues of prejudice and breakdowns of order on our campus,” he posted on X. “There can be no question that Harvard is practicing an ongoing double standard on discrimination between racism, misogyny and antisemitism.”His comments provoked a sharp response from critics of Israel. “Your efforts to portray student demonstrators challenging Israel’s genocidal actions as ‘antisemitic’ are cheap & disingenuous,” wrote Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn). “These students should be commended for their courage & compassion, risking suspension & smears (like yours), to fight the most heinous crimes underway in Gaza.” More