Free Republic

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” host Jake Tapper reacted to 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump comparing the situation on college campuses to Charlottesville by stating that “There has been some anti-Israel sentiment and there has been some antisemitic sentiment,” but “most of them” were “peaceful, most of them in support of Palestinian rights” and “that’s not what the neo-Nazis in the Unite the Right rally were doing. That was not a peaceful march that turned into something ugly. It was ugly from the word go.”

<p>At least nine protesters were handcuffed and loaded into police cruisers at a peaceful, pro-Palestinian protest Wednesday at the University of Texas hosted by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a registered student group and a chapter of the national Students for Justice in Palestine. And several more were arrested at the university's South Lawn.</p>

Dozens have been arrested at NYU and Yale, and Columbia cancels in-person classes as discord over the war in Gaza grows among students across the country.The president of Columbia University announced a midnight deadline for students and others to reach an agreement about dismantling an encampment on campus set up in protest. The encampment was set up four days ago on the Manhattan campus’ West Lawn. On Thursday, police made more than 100 arrests when they were called in about an encampment on the South Lawn, and for which Columbia was criticized. Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said in a...

By Jonathan Chait, who’s been a New York political columnist since 2011. This week, The Atlantic published an account of how the war between Israel and Hamas has convulsed a campus (in this case, that of the author, Stanford sophomore Theo Baker). The most explosive details in the story showed activists endorsing violence or anti-Semitism, which has fed directly into the cycle of anger and fear felt by both Jewish and Muslim students. This has predictably set off the same progressive eye-rolling that occurs any time the mainstream media reports on crazy things happening on the left. “Incredibly brave for...

Harvard College suspended the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and ordered the group to “cease all organizational activities for the remainder of the Spring 2024 term” or risk permanent expulsion, according to an email obtained by The Crimson. The suspension comes amid a wave of pro-Palestine student demonstrations across the country, with students staging occupations at universities including Columbia and Yale Universities. Though there have not been occupations at Harvard this semester, the University restricted access to Harvard Yard on Sunday in anticipation of student protests. The PSC was one of several student organizations, including some unrecognized student organizations, to...

A Jewish Yale University student journalist reporting on an anti-Israeli protest at the Ivy League school Saturday night was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag – while her assailant has gone unpunished. Sahar Tartak, the editor-in-chief of the Yale Free Press, was covering the protest – which saw hundreds of students camping at the campus in support of Palestinians – when she was suddenly surrounded by demonstrators. Tartak said she and a friend were singled out for wearing Hasidic Jewish attire as the crowd formed a blockade around them to interfere with their filming.

Fatah, the “moderate” ruling party of the Palestinian Authority, has admitted on live television that Hamas steals humanitarian aid and kills aid workers in the Gaza Strip. The admission, captured by Palestinian Media Watch, confirms what Israel has been saying all along — and goes further, stating that Hamas is not only responsible for endangering aid workers by hiding among them, but also asserts that Hamas has been killing aid workers directly. Palestinian Media Watch reported (original emphasis):

Days after the Biden administration gave its blessing to a newly formed Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank, the PA handed out dozens of bonus payments for security forces who were involved in attacks on Israelis. According to the PA's official news outlets, the Palestinian General Intelligence Service on April 4 provided a grant to 36 families of agency officials who died or were imprisoned as a result of their involvement in anti-Israel security crimes. The reports did not identify the recipients of the grant or its amount, but the purpose was clear. "Service Director in Jenin Adnan Abu...

The Iron Dome missile-defense system intercepted at least two projectiles heading for Netivot. Palestinian terrorists fired a barrage of rockets towards the southern Israeli city of Netivot from Gaza on Thursday night, sending over 40,000 people running for shelter for the first time in nearly three months. The Iron Dome missile-defense system intercepted at least two projectiles heading for the city, local reports said. The last time air-raid sirens sounded in Netivot, located about eight miles from the Strip, was on January 16. The Magen David Adom emergency medical service said there were no reports of serious injuries in the...

A Muslim emergency medicine physician, Dr. Thaer Ahmad, said he walked out of a meeting with President Joe Biden on Wednesday because of disagreements over the Hamas-Israel war. The symbolic action underscores the deepening division within the Democrats’ intersectional coalition over the Palestinian conflict. Only 47 percent of Democrats approve of Biden’s handling of the Hamas-Israel war, a recent Gallup poll found, down 13 points since October, underscoring a major problem for Biden’s reelection chances. Ahmad turned his back on Biden out of respect for his fellow Palestinians, he told NPR. He said the White House needs to do more...

The State Department said on Wednesday that while the Biden administration remains committed to a “two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians, it opposes the Palestinian effort to negotiate statehood at the United Nations. The Palestinian delegation to the U.N. said on Wednesday that it wants the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) to vote by the end of the month on giving the Palestinians full membership in the United Nations, which would be tantamount to conferring Palestinian statehood. The Palestinians first submitted a formal application for full U.N. membership in 2011. Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour (pictured) said 140 countries already...

More than two dozen Palestinian, Muslim and Arab groups across Chicago boycotted the White House's invitation to several community groups this week, citing the Biden administration's stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict. In a joint letter to the White House on Thursday, leaders of the groups said there was "no point in more meetings" since the administration "already knows the position of the aforementioned groups and our allies across the nation" to have an "immediate and permanent" cease-fire. The groups said "the White House has not only refused to call for a ceasefire, but also enabled this blatant campaign of ethnic...

The Biden White House was caught in a lie on Thursday as it tried to deny that it had tried to meet with the radical Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Chicago as part of an outreach to Arab-, Muslim-, and Palestinian-Americans. As Breitbart news has noted: In 2007-8, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. That case, in turn, led the FBI to discontinue its work with the organization. In 2009, a federal judge ruled that the government “produced ample evidence to establish” the ties of...

Australia will resume funding to the United Nations’ main Palestinian relief agency, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Friday, almost two months after pausing ties over allegations that some of the agency’s employees participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Australia had consulted with UNRWA and other donors and was satisfied the aid agency was not a terror organisation, Wong said. New and additional safeguards would protect aid money, and A$6 million ($3.9 million) in paused funding would be released immediately, she said. “We have children and families that are starving and we have a capacity along with...

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the United States should not send additional aid to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “war machine.” Partial transcript as follows: MARGARET BRENNAN: You have long been a critic of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The other night, President Biden was heard on a hot mic after the State of the Union address saying he has to have a come to Jesus talk with Netanyahu about letting humanitarian aid into Gaza. Have you spoken to President Biden about whether he’s had this conversation? If he hasn’t, what is he...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Saturday that he will propose that Spain’s parliament recognizes a Palestinian state. “I will propose granting Spain’s recognition to the Palestinian state,” Sánchez said. “I do this out of moral conviction, for a just cause and because it is the only way that the two states, Israel and Palestine, can live together in peace.” Sánchez added his voice to a chorus of other European leaders and government officials who have said that they could support a two-state solution in the Middle East as international frustration grows with Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories.

Former Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.) announced Thursday that he’s launching a long-shot bid for retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s (D-Mich.) seat. Amash left the Republican Party in 2019 following his criticism of former President Trump and switched to independent, however he is running in the GOP primary for the Senate seat. “Regardless of who wins the White House and Congress, the United States will remain deeply polarized,” Amash wrote in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, as he announced his candidacy. “What we need is not a rubber stamp for either party, but an independent-minded senator prepared to challenge...

When Hamas decided to drag the entire population of the Gaza Strip into another war with Israel on October 7, it did not care what would happen to Palestinian civilians. If the hostages were indeed held in an apartment of a Palestinian family, this shows that Hamas has no problem placing Palestinian civilians in harm's way. Consequently, Hamas has no right to complain about the death of civilians in the war it initiated against Israel while it uses its own people to hold innocent kidnapped Israelis. Hamas leaders leading lavish lives in Qatar and Lebanon do not care about the...

The Australian government said on Tuesday it will outlaw doxxing — the malicious release online of personal or identifying information without the subject’s permission — after pro-Palestinian activists published personal details of hundreds of Jewish people in Australia. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the proposed laws, which have yet to be drafted, would involve issuing take-down notices to social media platforms and imposing fines for the intimidation tactic. The government was responding to Nine Entertainment news reports last week that pro-Palestinian activists had published the names, images, professions and social media accounts of Jewish people working in academia and the creative...

On January 24, Stanford University held a forum on combating anti-Semitism. The event, which featured Stanford president Richard Saller and provost Jenny Martinez, was meant to reassure Jewish students that the university had their back amid the wave of anti-Semitism sweeping college campuses.... The events that transpired that night undercut that message. By the end of the evening, protesters had physically threatened Jewish students, harassed a rabbi, and told employees of the elite university that they would "find out where you live." David Schuller, 24, a yarmulke-wearing graduate student in Stanford’s physics department, found himself surrounded by a mob of...