Free Republic

Virginia Commonwealth University has become the latest epicenter of violent protests, as pro-Hamas supporters occupied parts of the campus, leading to a tense standoff with riot police. Authorities issued a shelter-in-place order for all students. The confrontation began Monday morning when a group of student protesters established what they called a “Liberation Zone” outside the James Branch Cabell Library on VCU’s Monroe Park campus. The group displayed Palestinian flags and chanted “Free Palestine,” demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and calling for VCU to sever all financial ties with Israel. As the day progressed, tents were erected, and protesters fortified...

In a riveting Dr. Phil primetime episode, Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas’s cofounder, charged that there is “lots of hatred” against Jews in Islamic culture, insisting that “the vast majority” of Palestinians support Hamas, that October 7 was “an attempt for ethnic cleansing” and part of a “holy war,” and that without Israel as a common enemy, the Palestinians “would kill each other.” He also mocked pro-Palestinian activists for “giving Hamas cover,” saying the terror group would “massacre them with no mercy” while accusing them of supporting “the enemy of civilization,” and insisting they belong in a “mental asylum.”...

A Jewish family was accosted by raging pro-Palestinian lunatics while they were shopping at an upscale shopping mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The website, Stop Antisemitism, first reported the incident. The family, which included a 12-year-old and 16-year-old, were targeted because one of the kids was wearing a t-shirt supporting the Israeli Defense Forces.

March 24, 2009 On Campus: The Pro-Palestinians' Real Agenda During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah. Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber. I was told, for instance, that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel’s “apartheid system” is worse than the one that existed in South Africa and that Operation Cast Lead was launched only because Hamas was beginning to show...

ANALYSIS: Protesters took to the streets in past conflicts; today their presence may be strongest online. In May, saddened that she had failed to stop the war in Iraq that took her son's life and made her the face of opposition, Cindy Sheehan tearfully quit the anti-war movement. She had concluded that her son Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist killed in an April 2004 battle in Baghdad, had "died for nothing." "Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next 'American Idol' than how many people will be killed in the next few months," Sheehan...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hundreds of demonstrators rallied Sunday against the possible war with Iraq and "racist witch hunts" by U.S. authorities following the Sept. 11 attacks. Police swiftly arrested close to a dozen protesters who breached barriers near the White House. Continuing a weekend of demonstrations after a huge and peaceful rally Saturday, the protesters shouted and waved a U.S. flag with a peace symbol instead of stars in the field of blue. They then marched toward the White House from their opening rally by the Justice Department, and 10 who climbed over chest-high fencing were pinned to the ground...