“Oct 7 2023”

The federal Education Department said Monday that two universities failed to adequately protect both Jewish and Muslim students in the heated days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and during the war in Gaza that followed.

Both the University of Michigan and the City University of New York (CUNY) and several of its affiliated colleges agreed to reexamine some past cases and to conduct training, among other actions, to resolve federal investigations into student complaints amid the Middle East conflict. Jewish and Palestinian students have described harassment and other incidents of discrimination, with reports of hostile language, disrupted classes, vandalism and more.

To the outside world, they were a physician, a journalist. No one suspected their apartment had become a prison.

The 73-year-old general practitioner Ahmad Al-Jamal was a fixture of his community.

He worked mornings at a public clinic in the Gaza Strip refugee camp of Nuseirat and afternoons at his own small private clinic, where residents turned to him for procedures such as circumcisions. He also was an imam at a local mosque, where he was known for his beautiful voice when reciting the Quran.

But for the past several months, when he finished his duties each day, he would return home to the apartment he shared with his son, his daughter-in-law and their children—and the three Israeli hostages they were hiding there for Hamas.

It was common knowledge in Nuseirat that the Al-Jamal family was close to Hamas, according to local residents who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. But they said few people in the densely populated area in central Gaza knew of the secret locked in the small, darkened room in the family’s apartment.

How protesters and the university each see their fight

Inside of the University of Toronto protest encampment — marked by a tall fence reinforced with zip ties and guarded by bouncers — there was an art installation.

Using invasive plant species like the “dog-strangling vine,” a local florist was creating a “symbol of ongoing colonialization.”

The invasive species were meant to represent Zionists.

The paradox of this dehumanizing display, which sat underneath a Progress Pride flag, is that it was created in a place its architects say was founded on compassion.

Oh I’m sure everything will turn out just fine.

Islam is the religion of peace after all and I’ve been cured of my Islamophobia by Justin Trudeau’s shining example.

Reconciliation and mass slaughter will be just around the corner the minute Israel is dissolved.

University is supposed to be a time when we think critically about the world around us, learn how to conduct proper research, and formulate personal opinions. The disinformation being spread throughout campuses proves the exact opposite.

As a Jewish student at the Toronto Metropolitan University, I’ve noticed campus-wide propaganda and hateful rhetoric against Israel – including being compared to Nazi Germany – that has dehumanized the Jewish population. It has made me feel less safe when walking through the halls or attending classes, including the conflicting decision of whether to wear my Star of David or Hamsa in public.

MONTREAL — In a 2008 Commentary Magazine article , Ruth Wisse, who in her youth was a Jewish studies pioneer at McGill University, issued a warning to diaspora Jews: if Arab “rejectionism” of Israel’s legitimacy, including the need for Israel’s elimination, comes to be accepted as normal, then not just the Jewish state, but Jews everywhere, will be regarded as “politically idiosyncratic once again.”

That is exactly what has been happening in plain sight at our universities for decades. The October 7 massacre gave wings to the rejectionists, ripping away the coy, tissue-thin facade of anti-Zionism to reveal the coiled antisemitism it had barely concealed. As a result, since October 7, Jewish students who consider attachment to Israel a natural component of their identity haven’t known a full day’s ease on campus.

Lack of academic rigor encourages mindless, mirthless, and militant mediocrity.

Why the outburst of campus protests in recent years, culminating in the sizable and sometimes violent demonstrations at such prestigious universities as Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern, and Stanford? While many factors are at work, one that seldom gets mentioned: boredom. Students often have a lot of free time. TikTok, Instagram, drinking, sex, and internet porn do not provide adequate fulfillment.

The Israeli military says it will hold a daily “tactical pause of military activity” along a road in southern Gaza to enable more humanitarian aid to enter, but emphasised that there is no ceasefire and combat would continue in Rafah.

The pauses, which are said to have begun on Saturday, will last from 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) until 19:00 local time until further notice.

They will only affect a route that leads northwards from the key Kerem Shalom crossing, which Gaza shares with Israel.

A Labour candidate was forced to abandon leafleting outside a mosque on Friday after a crowd barracked him as a “Zionist devil” with “the blood of Palestinian children on his hands”.

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, who is fighting for re-election as the MP for Slough in Berkshire, was driven off by men hurling abuse over Labour’s stance on the conflict in Gaza.

Videos posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, show Mr Dhesi handing out flyers to men leaving the Masjid al-Jannah mosque in the centre of Slough after Friday prayers.

Attempts to intimidate, by a small group campaigning for an opponent, won’t deter me from continuing to speak up for all, including for peace in Palestine.

Grateful to all, especially from our Muslim community, who were appalled by such behaviour and sent messages of support.🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/i1EMBwYuD2

— Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (@TanDhesi) June 14, 2024