Trump Administration addresses antisemitism, DEI with Executive Orders and taskforces. Universities resist change as antisemitism surges in the medical profession.

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Introduction

The Trump Administration has begun to take action against universities and pro-Hamas students. Following on Executive Orders in February, the administration appears set on making an example of Columbia University by suspending research grants. Detention of foreign students have expanded but deportations have stalled as a result of Federal lawsuits. Media sources have blamed Jewish organizations for the crackdown, while right wing sources have suddenly featured a variety of antisemites and Holocaust deniers. More troubling is evidence of anti-Israel and antisemitic bias being built into Wikipedia and then used by AIs. This lays the groundwork for new types of antisemitism that are seemingly legitimated by AIs.

Analysis

Editor’s Note

The enormous growth of BDS-related antisemitism since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack has required the BDS Monitor to be greatly expanded. Readers are reminded that a shortened version appears in The Algemeiner.

Protests and attacks

Protests and attacks aimed at Jews and broader society in support of ‘Palestine’ and ‘Gaza’ continued in March despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and protests in Gaza against Hamas. Examples included: 

Talks by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett were also protested at Columbia University and Harvard Business School and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) protestors also disrupted a University of Oklahoma regents meeting. Finally, a pro-Israel speaker, Rawan Osman, was shouted down at Radboud University in the Netherlands and had to be escorted from the premises by police.

In an incident that shows the unity of anti-American and anti-Israel forces, police stated the suspect in the arson and shooting attack on a Las Vegas Tesla dealership, Paul Hyon Kim, has “potential communist & pro-Palestine affiliations.”

Politics

After a February series of Executive Orders targeting antisemitism and DEI, and limiting indirect costs for biomedical research, the Trump Administration has now taken new steps, beginning with cuts to university grants and efforts to deport foreign Hamas supporters. Columbia University is the leading target of the effort.

One former Columbia student who led pro-Hamas protests, Syrian-born Mahmoud Khalil, a noted opponent of Israel, was detained and his green card revoked on the grounds of his support for Hamas. Khalil, who received an MA in 2024, was the public face of the revolutionary communist-Islamist umbrella group ‘Columbia University Apartheid Divest’ (CUAD) and negotiated with the university during the spring 2024 building takeover. CUAD has called for the “total eradication of Western civilization” and has distributed Hamas and other literature calling for violence.

Another Palestinian student, Leqaa Kordia, whose student visa had been terminated in 2022 for non-attendance, was arrested by Federal authorities for her role in a building takeover. A third self-deported to Canada. Several Columbia dorm rooms were also searched by Federal authorities.

A massive legal effort was quickly launched for Khalil involving the ACLU and other entities funded by progressive foundations and individuals. The network of Khalil’s defenders, which includes lawyers who have been members of SJP and related organizations and who have coached pro-Hamas protestors, argue that he is being illegally detained and denied his civil rights. A Federal judge in New York City has blocked his deportation while Khalil described himself as a “political prisoner.”

The Federal government argues that under the terms of the Immigration and Nationalization Act of 1952 the Secretary of State has unchallenged authority to remove holders of green cards and visas from the US and that no specific crimes need be alleged. Nor, as many left wing commentators have alleged, are First Amendment rights infringed. The US Government also reported that Khalil had withheld information on his residency application.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio commented “If you tell us when you apply for a visa, I’m coming to the U.S. to participate in pro-Hamas events, that runs counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States of America. It’s that simple. So, you lied. You came – if you had told us that you were going to do that, we never would have given you the visa. Now you’re here. Now you do it. You lied to us. You’re out.” Rubio and other Federal officials warned that additional detentions and deportations will occur and indicated that over 300 visas have been revoked thus far.

Other enforcement actions quickly followed, including:

  • A Lebanese born physician at Brown University, Rasha Alawieh, who has family ties to Hezbollah, was detained and deported from the US after returning from Lebanon where she attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah. Her former supervisor refused to say whether her support for terrorism would have compromised her application had it been known;
  • A Hamas supporting fellow at Georgetown University, Badar Khan Suri, was also detained and informed he will be deported. His wife, Mapheze Ahmad Yousef Saleh, is the daughter of a Hamas official, facts ignored by most media reports. A Federal judge has ruled Suri must remain in the US pending a hearing;
  • A BDS supporting Turkish graduate student at Tufts University, Rumeysa Ozturk, was taken into custody and her visa revoked;
  • A foreign Cornell University graduate student who had been arrested for leading pro-Hamas protests including a building takeover, Momodou Taal, had his visa revoked. Taal, who has urged protestors to take the “cue from the armed resistance in Palestine,” had preemptively filed a Federal lawsuit alleging the administration’s efforts had forced him to withdraw from “public engagement” and “deprived” his friends “of their rights to listen” to his “ideas and suggestions;”
  • A Federal judge blocked the arrest of Columbia graduate student Yunseo Chung, a South Korean born permanent resident of the US. She had previously been arrested at a pro-Hamas rally in New York City.

Observers have noted that the Biden Administration routinely blocked visas for non-violent Israelis while exercising no oversight on foreign anti-American revolutionaries such as Khalil and Taal. Ominously, mainstream media coverage of detentions emphasized the alleged role of Jewish organizations such as Betar USA and Canary Mission in identifying individuals.

In an effort to pressure Columbia University the Federal government suspended $400 million in grants. The impact was felt largely in medical and scientific research fields, with researchers warning of mass layoffs and other consequences. Johns Hopkins, the nation’s largest university recipient of research funds, also saw $800 million in contracts terminated, a move that quickly prompted some 2000 layoffs.

One effect of the cancelation was to set up a confrontation between faculty in the sciences and medicine, who receive the vast bulk of grants, and those in the humanities and social sciences, many of whom have supported the pro-Hamas protestors and are responsible for politicizing classrooms and the campus as a whole. Other critics warn that Title VI enforcement regarding antisemitism will become an overwhelming and irreconcilable burden on institutions in the manner that Title IX was on gender issues.

To pressure Columbia into compliance the Trump Administration issued a letter stating the conditions for grants to be restored, including a mask ban, adoption of the IHRA definition, and, most controversially, placing the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department under receivership for five years.

In response the university issued a statement which was falsely described in the press as acceding to the administration’s demands but which upon examination cleverly sidestepped them. For example, students wearing masks would be required to remove them upon request from security or other officials, and all Middle Eastern studies programs including Israel studies were placed under nominal supervision of a provost with the vague promise of ‘review.’

Reports regarding a conversation between university president Katrina Armstrong and faculty members saw her acknowledging the risk of “devastating” Federal cuts while minimizing the policy changes, in what was described in the press as “strategic ambiguity by sending mixed signals to different constituencies—one for the public and one for faculty.” Despite these obvious evasions, Education Secretary Linda McMahon has stated that negotiations with the university are on the right track.

In contrast, an unnamed faculty member called the situation “the biggest crisis since the founding of the republic,” while another complained the university had not pushed back hard enough against accusations that it was a “hotbed of antisemitism.” For their part, masked pro-Hamas protestors marched across campus soon after the putative ‘mask ban’ was announced.

Late in the month Armstrong unexpectedly resigned. She was replaced by board of trustees co-chair and journalist Claire Shipman, who had been quoted calling the 2023 Congressional hearings on campus antisemitism “Capitol Hill nonsense.”

Targeting Federal grants to universities was not limited to problems of antisemitism and foreign students. Some $100 million in grants to the University of Maine system were temporarily frozen to force the university to reevaluate its compliance with the administration’s new definition of Title IX which is explicitly based on biological sex. After consultations with the state the funding was restored. The administration also froze $175 million in funding for the University of Pennsylvania over its policy of permitting biological males to compete in women’s sports.

The long-anticipated closure of the Department of Education also began in March with widespread layoffs and the shutting of regional offices. Key student loan programs are unaffected and will be shifted to the Small Business Administration. Critics claimed that effort would terminally damage American education, along with science and technology, with Democrats in particular pointing to the closure of regional Office of Civil Rights offices.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit claiming layoffs at the department are “are unlawful and harm millions of students, school districts, and educators across the nation.” The AAUP and the Middle East Studies Association filed another lawsuit which alleged the administration was creating a “climate of repression” on campuses and stifling free speech.

In response, the administration pointed to an ‘inexplicable backlog’ of antisemitism related cases that it asserted the Biden Administration had left unreviewed. Others noted that moving the Office of Civil Rights to the Department of Justice was a simple and logical fix. The Office of Civil Rights also warned another 60 additional institutions of investigations regarding incidents of harassment and intimidation of Jewish students. It opened an additional 45 investigations of colleges and universities regarding the “use of racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities.”

In other enforcement action, the Federal Taskforce to Combat Antisemitism announced it would be visiting ten campuses as part of its investigation. Reports also indicate that the Trump Administration was examining sanctions on Qataris thought to be funders of Students for Justice in Palestine and other anti-Israel and anti-American groups.

The chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has promised hearings in order to “hold accountable universities and colleges which have created a hostile-work environment for their Jewish employees.” The EEOC also opened a civil rights investigation of Columbia University over the treatment of maintenance workers who were repeatedly forced to clean antisemitic and racist graffiti from the grounds. Two maintenance workers were also injured during a building takeover.

The Environmental Protection Agency has began efforts to claw back $20 billion in funding for ‘green’ non-profits created toward the end of the Biden Administration, staffed by former Democratic officials, some of which had made grants to ‘grassroots’ groups organizing anti-Israel protests.

Congressional action against campus antisemitism also accelerated in March. Legislation was passed in the House which would require colleges and universities to publicize their policies for handling civil disturbances such as pro-Hamas protests, make students convicted of protest-related crimes ineligible for loans, and create an excise tax on university endowments.

In an effort to undermine the legislation Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) introduced amendments which would force universities to report investments in or gifts from countries targeted by the ‘International Criminal Court’ and ‘International Court of Justice.’ As Tlaib made clear in remarks, this is aimed only at Israel. The amendments were overwhelmingly rejected.

Additional legislation would expand Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include religious discrimination, mandate penalties for educational institutions who are repeat violators, and direct the Department of Education to oversee private lawsuits against colleges and universities. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has again introduced resolutions to cut arms sales to Israel. The vote will be a test of remaining Democratic support for Israel.

Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on campus antisemitism were held, with Democrats spotlighting J Street and other groups opposed to the IHRA definition. In a significant move, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) held hearings on campus antisemitism and foreign funding of universities. In a strange development, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) vigorously rejected the notion that Qatar plays a negative role by funding American universities and gave a bizarre defense of the kingdom. The HELP Committee has also launched an investigation of American Muslims for Palestine, the parent of SJP, demanding financial records that might detail support for pro-Hamas campus protests.

At the local level a court has halted a Pittsburgh ballot referendum which would have prohibited the city from dealing with any entity connected to Israel. The court pointed to probable fraudulent signatures and other irregularities on the petitions. The Somerville (MA) city council also voted to permit activists to collect signatures to present the resolution on the November ballot.

Five Vermont municipalities, Plainfield, Thetford, Newfane, Winooski, and Brattleboro, similarly voted in favor of the so-called “Apartheid Free Pledge” which included the statements “WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people; WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; and WE DECLARE ourselves an apartheid-free community and to that end, WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.” Five other municipalities voted the measure down.

In a bizarre turn, at a Ramadan ceremony the mayor of heavily Muslim Paterson (NJ), Andre Sayegh, declared the town “Capitol of Palestine in America” and the “fourth holiest in the world.” The town has instituted “halal food programs in public schools, school closures on Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha and citywide broadcasting of the Adhan (Islamic call to prayer).”

In New York City, reports indicate that city controller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander had unilaterally divested holdings in Israel Bonds from city pension funds. Lander falsely claimed that this was done because no other city or state pension funds held Israel Bonds. In contrast, former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, currently apparent frontrunner for mayor, has made combatting antisemitism a keynote of his campaign. Beleaguered incumbent Eric Adams also warned Jewish leaders that one unnamed candidate, clearly Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, was “spewing antisemitism.”

In a measure of how visceral antisemitism has become in New York City, Governor Kathy Hochul was forced to cancel an event on the City University of New York campus over security concerns. Hochul is also reported to be considering a mask ban for the New York City subway as part of statewide budget talks in order to mitigate antisemitic harassment by pro-Hamas protestors.

The utility of antisemitism as a Democratic Party organizing issue was also demonstrated as former congressman Jamaal Bowman announced formation of a super PAC specifically aimed at pro-Israel candidates. Bowman stated that “Any candidate that supports Benjamin Netanyahu and genocide more than their constituents, any candidate that’s tied up with corrupt crypto money, any candidate tied up with the real estate lobby as opposed to renters, we’re going to go after those candidates very aggressively.”

 Criminal investigations related to the Democratic Party funding portal ActBlue appear to be intensifying over allegations regarding its involvement in terror financing and that it is designed to evade campaign funding laws. The platform had been the portal for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights to raise funds without oversight. Both are connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the BDS movement in the US. The platform is also being investigated for its role in funneling foreign contributions and ‘smurfing’ or using small donors to bundle thousands of donations without their knowledge.

Other funding sources appear to link the pro-Hamas movement in the US and various terrorist organizations. Echoing remarks made by her predecessor, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard noted that “some assessments” suggest foreign support for groups such as SJP. She would not specify whether these were state or non-state actors. A new report also indicated that a number of US-based foundations provided funds to NGO’s associated with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PFLP. These NGO’s are in turn leading supporters of BDS.

In the international sphere anti-Israel politics in Canada continue to target the Jewish community. A list of Canadian Jews who served in the Israeli military has been circulated, apparently to spur the government from banning the practice. Concerns regarding the targeting of those individuals have also been expressed.

The Islamization of Toronto was also demonstrated in an official police podcast in which two Muslim officers commented favorably on the number of ‘reverts’ or converts to Islam who had appeared after the Hamas massacres of October 7th . They further claimed it was Islamophobic to deem pro-Hamas protests as pro-terrorism.

The New Zealand Parliament is debating a bill introduced by the Green Party condemning the ‘unlawful occupation of Palestine’ and which calls for cutting of trade relations and the exclusion of Israeli officials. The Oxford (UK) City Council also passed a BDS resolution.

The Palestinian Authority has proposed that the United Nations Human Rights Council establish a permanent ‘human rights’ court outside the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the express purpose of prosecuting Israelis. The goal would be to bypass the ICC which is currently sanctioned by the US.

Finally, the Copenhagen City Council voted to rename a site “Palestine Square.” The move was supported by the Red-Green Alliance, the Social Liberal Party,  Socialist People’s Party, and Alternative, and the ‘Danish-Palestinian Friendship Association.’

University Administrations

Apparently in response to the Trump Administration’s harshening policies universities have taken new measures against pro-Hamas protestors:

A number of institutions such as New York University and Brown University have warned international students not to travel overseas and risk detention on return.

Yale Law School terminated an Iranian academic, Helyeh Doutaghi, linked to the proscribed PFLP support group Samidoun, after she had refused to cooperate with the university’s investigation. Doutaghi revealed in an interview that Yale had been aware she was “a long-time organizer in the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonialist movements” and that she “was led to believe that my politics, and my intellectual work, and my organizing work is really an asset to the team.” She added “I will use everything and anything at my disposal to fight this fascist dictatorship of the United States.”

University policies and finances continue to change in response to the Trump Administration’s withholding of grants and overall efforts to reduce the role of the Federal government in funding various enterprises. Hiring freezes have been announced at a number of institutions including Harvard University, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California system.

Despite the turmoil that has ensued on campuses since October 7, and many high profile defections of wealthy donors, new statistics indicate that overall contributions to universities increased in 2024. The largest increase came from foundations, 10.1%, evidence that left wing institutions were intentionally compensating for drops in giving by high net individuals, while contributions by alumni increased 4.4%.

University administrations also continue to reject calls to divest from Israel. Boston University, the University of Washington, and Princeton University became the latest institutions to reject announce they would not consider divestment policies. The University of Minnesota adopted an institutional neutrality policy.

To appear in compliance with new Federal guidelines the University of Michigan announced the complete dismantling of its enormous DEI program that had among other things bypassed normal methods to place faculty members into departments. As part of this diversity statements for faculty applicants will be ended, a policy also announced by the University of California system. Other reports, however, indicated that at the Flint campus at least the DEI program had simply been renamed the “Wolverine Hub of Opportunity, Persistence, and Excellence.”

UCLA announced a new initiative to combat antisemitism based as usual on enhanced student training and reporting. At California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt a new lawsuit alleged that administrators told Jewish students to “hide their Jewish identity to avoid being targeted.”

Internationally, however, the University of Cape Town governing council narrowly voted to retain its complete boycott of Israeli universities despite having lost two-thirds of its donors as a result, in addition to cuts from USAID and the NIH. The university’s chief fundraiser resigned after the initial Israel boycott vote and the head of the history department, who sued the university over infringements to academic freedom, warned of the financial and reputational impacts. Members of the council have proposed seeking “alternative funding from other countries supportive of South Africa” for funding.

Responding to student pressure including violence the University of Amsterdam announced it was ending an exchange program with Hebrew University. Critics, including Dutch politicians, noted the university retains relationships with Chinese institutions.

At Goldsmiths, University of London an independent investigation of antisemitism prompted by the labeling of noted antisemitism research David Hirsch as a “far right white supremacist” by a student union president foundered as nine organizations refused to participate on the grounds the effort “marginalizes Palestinians.” The organizations claimed the effort failed to account for the “social and political context where unfounded accusations of antisemitism are used to silence Palestinian voices and those who stand with them”.

Faculty

Faculty members reacted with shock to the Trump Administration’s funding cuts to higher education. Columbia University faculty an “emergency vigil” to condemn what one called the “larger conservative agenda hell-bent on destroying universities as we know them.” Some canceled classes in sympathy with Mahmud Khalil and the Columbia and Barnard chapters of the AAUP called for “an immediate vote of the full faculty regarding the future” of Barnard president Laura Rosenbury and an investigation into the events surrounding on campus arrests.

Nationally some 650 Jewish faculty members signed an open letter condemning the Trump Administration and claimed “destroying universities in the name of Jews risks making Jews in particular less safe by setting them up to be scapegoats.”

Many faculty condemned the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, including some 2000 Jewish faculty members “united in denouncing, without equivocation, anyone who invokes our name – and cynical claims of antisemitism – to harass, expel, arrest, or deport members of our campus communities,” and the administration’s “use [of] Jews as a shield to justify a naked attack on political dissent and university independence. All against the backdrop of Trump pardoning white supremacists and platforming neo-nazis.” Another group of more than 100 Jewish faculty at Berkeley signed a similar letter.

 Faculty members have also continued what is now a strong trend towards presenting conferences endorsing ‘anti-Zionism’ or ‘non-Zionism.’ Following examples at Boston University, Brown University, and Columbia University, the Africa-American Studies Department at Princeton University will present a two day conference on “The Anti-Zionist Idea: History, Theory, and Politics.”

 The trend was reinforced by a conference on ‘scholasticide’ sponsored by the American Association of University Professors at which speakers alleged Israel had deliberately destroyed Gaza’s education infrastructure. The conference builds on the continuing series of articles attacking Israel (and the Trump Administration) in the AAUP’s magazine and is designed to lend further support of the association’s endorsement of boycotts.

 The conference trend builds on the growing establishment of ‘Palestinian studies’ within universities, based exclusively around the standard nakba narrative and which is in turn supported by growing sanctions against “anti-Palestinian racism.” The City University of New York has again advertised two positions in this area but after criticism has removed references to “settler colonialism, genocide and apartheid” from the job description that had created a firestorm of criticism including from New York Governor Kathy Hochul. The University of Washington has also created a ‘Faculty Committee on Scholarship of Palestine’ to lay the groundwork for future hires while the University of California at Santa Cruz announced a search for a lecturer on Palestinians.  

Students

Protests were widespread in response to the Khalil detention and the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement actions. Protests occurred at the University of Michigan, UCLA, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and other campuses, as well as in public locations including Philadelphia City Hall and the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City.

Media reports focusing on students in the wake of Khalil’s arrest predictably emphasized their fear of detention and deportation and the ‘chilling effect’ on speech. Cultivating this Columbia University’s journalism school dean, Jelani Cobb, advised international students not to publish anything on Gaza or Ukraine, warning “Nobody can protect you.”

For its part Columbia’s graduate student union demanded the institution declared itself a ‘sanctuary campus,’ sue the trump Administration, stop public safety patrols, and destroy all records related to disciplinary actions. The group Palestine Action also circulated an anarchist manual among Columbia University students describing how to organize into cells, evade surveillance, and carry out destructive acts such as attacking a building’s plumbing using cement.

Student BDS referendums continued to be voted on in March:

  • The University of Pittsburgh the student body voted in favor of the university revealing its financial investments and to divest from any arms manufacturers supplying Israel;
  • Boston University students voted in favor of an SJP proposed referendum calling on the school to divest from companies “actively complicit in human rights violations in the Middle East;”
  • The Harvard Law School student government passed a BDS resolution. The university administration rejected the demand;
  • The University of California at Davis Law School Association voted in favor of a BDS resolution authored by the National Lawyers Guild;
  • The Manchester University student union debated a resolution calling for a boycott of Israel, revoking the IHRA definition, and “recognising that, as an occupied nation, the people of Palestine have the right to armed resistance under international law.” The university condemned the statement.

In an important development, a lawsuit has been filed against a number of New York City pro-Hamas groups and their leaders including Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Mahmud Khalil, Nerdeen Kiswani of Within Our Lifetime, Maryam Alwan of Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, and Cameron Jones of Columbia Jewish Voice for Peace.

The suit, filed on behalf of hostage families, alleges that the “organizations and their leaders knowingly providing substantial assistance—in the form of propaganda and recruiting services—to, and in coordination with, a designated foreign terrorist organization, Hamas.”

The suit points to the fact that on October 8th 2023 SJP “handed out toolkits to its chapters, including those at Columbia University, urging ‘real’ support to Hamas (not just rhetoric), in response to Hamas’ ‘call for mass mobilization.’ ” It notes further that the captors of defendant Shlomo Ziv, who was taken hostage on October 7th, “bragged about having Hamas operatives on American university campuses” and “showed him Al-Jazeera stories and photographs of protests at Columbia University.”

An especially important allegation notes that “Three minutes before Hamas began its attack on October 7, Columbia SJP posted on Instagram ‘We are back!!’ and announced its first meeting of the semester would be announced and that viewers should ‘Stay tuned.” The likelihood that overseas elements had foreknowledge of the October 7th attack and thus participated in a conspiracy with Hamas may therefore be tested in court.

Student protests are set against institutional problems of demographics, including the decrease in the number of American high school students. The shifts in domestic applications and enrollment away from schools with high incidents of pro-Hamas support continue to be reported. For example, Emerson College, which was riled in 2024 by violent protests, has reported a 6% drop in enrollment, with many Jewish students transferring out. Anecdotal reports also indicate that Columbia University has become a less favored institution for students using application counseling services, with some students attempting to rescind their early decisions to attend.

Conversely, dependence of many American institutions on international students is a longstanding political and economic problem that is only now being recognized. At many elite institutions the number of international students, such as Columbia, is over half of the student body, which distorts the institution’s economics and culture.

The problem of elite schools like Columbia emphasizing student activism as a selling point, which subsequently dominates campus culture, points to the need to reform admissions processes. Similar problem have appeared in other contexts, such as the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, which is now dominated by anti-Zionist students. In the this case the downstream effects are felt particularly on campuses where Reconstructionist rabbis find employment.

Arts/Culture

Mainstream media continued to come under fire in March as egregious anti-Israel bias was exposed. The BBC was forced to withdraw a documentary on Gaza when it was revealed that the film was narrated by the son of a Hamas official and that Arabic terms were systematically mistranslated, substituting for example “Israeli” for “Jew” and “jihad” into “battle” in order to obscure the antisemitic intent of speakers. The BBC chairman called for an investigation.

The BBC also came under fire after requesting a guest from the Israeli Embassy in London who would be “critical of Netanyahu” saying it was a “serious mistake” that “clearly falls well below our standards.” Other reports indicated that a BBC Arabic source killed during an Israeli attack in Gaza, Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat, was a Hamas member.

The Washington Post is similarly ‘investigating’ one of its Middle East reporters, Heba Farouk Mahfouz, after social media posts were uncovered expressing support for Hamas and Hezbollah, including a response to criticism “If my anti-Zionist views hurt your Zio-Nazi feelings, FUCK OFF & SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Mahfouz, who has worked for the newspaper since 2016, publicly identified as an “anti-Zionist” prior to being hired.

In the entertainment sphere, the failure of the Disney live action version of Snow White highlighted the targeting of star Gal Gadot and the anti-Israel and anti-Trump politics of co-star Rachel Zegler. Gadot, who has been outspoken regarding Israeli hostages held by Hamas, has been repeatedly targeted, including at her recent Hollywood Walk of Fame event. New reports reveal that Gadot had been assigned bodyguards after death threats while Zegler, who had repeatedly badmouthed the original Disney film, had been warned that her outspokenness jeopardized the new film.

Reports continue to emerge regarding the hijacking of Wikipedia and Reddit by anti-Israel editors. A report by the ADL expanded earlier reporting regarding a small group of Wikipedia editors who have systematically manipulated entries regarding Israel, Hamas, and related historical topics to impugn Israel and Jews and whitewash terrorism.

Another recent report demonstrated how internal Wikipedia controls serve to cement anti-Israel narratives, including by placing a one year moratorium on editing a mendacious sentence regarding the history of Zionism. The role of a group called Tech for Palestine which coordinates activities on a Discord server in explicit violation of Wikipedia’s rules has also been highlighted. Wikipedia’s management has taken few steps to address the blatant manipulation of the universally used platform. Even more concerning is the use of Wikipedia and Reddit in training artificial intelligence systems such as GPT, Gemini, and Llama.

Trump Administration addresses antisemitism, DEI with Executive Orders and taskforces. Universities resist change as antisemitism surges in the medical profession.

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AUTHOR

Alex Joffe

Editor SPME / BDS Monitor

Alexander H. Joffe is an archaeologist and historian specializing in the Middle East and contemporary international affairs. He received a B.A. in History from Cornell University in 1981 and Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona in 1991. From 1980 to 2003 he participated in and directed archaeological research in Israel, Jordan, Greece and the United States. Joffe taught at the Pennsylvania State University and Purchase College, and has been Director of Research for Global Policy Exchange, Ltd., and The David Project, Center for Jewish Leadership.

Joffe's work is uniquely broad. Since 1991 he has published dozens of studies on the archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean and is a leading figure in contentious debates over the relationship between archaeology and politics in the Middle East. He has also authored numerous works on contemporary issues, including Middle Eastern environmental security threats from pollution and weapons of mass destruction. His work on the problem of dismantling intelligence agencies is widely cited by experts and democratic reformers alike.

In the past decade Joffe has written and spoken on topics as varied as the future of American Jews, the Palestinian refugee problem, and nationalism. During that time as well he has been deeply involved with combating the problems of campus antisemitism, the ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions' movement against Israel, and in educating Jews and others about threats to Israel and the West. His current projects include a biography of a British World War II general and several novels. He and his family reside near New York City.


Read all stories by Alex Joffe

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