On “Accountability and Justice:” Fifteen Democratic Senators And The UN Human Rights Council

Nothing sounds so lofty as the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), a global organization that should theoretically be at the vanguard of protecting civilians around the world. Alas, it made itself into a highly biased joke by having ten standing items during each session to cover broad matters, with an exception for a single region – Item 7 – being dedicated to the “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”

On April 5, 2024, amid the Gazan-initiated war on Israel, the UNHRC went to town on Israel, passing the outrageously biased Resolution 55/28 with a vote of 28 in favor, 6 opposed, and 13 abstentions. The Global South was joined in voting for the resolution by Belgium, Finland and Luxembourg from Europe. The chickens which abstained were: Albania, Benin, Cameron, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, France, Georgia, India, Japan, Lithuania, Montenegro, Netherlands, and Romania.

The eight pages of vitriol went well beyond actions during the war. It went beyond settlements. It went beyond withholding taxes.

It implicitly backed Gazans’ genocidal war against Israel stating that the council “reaffirm[s] the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation in accordance with international law.” This statement labeled the State of Israel as a “colonial” power, stripping it of rights of defense and designating it a rightful target for attacks.

The antisemitic text even decried Jews living in their holiest and capital city of Jerusalem. It criticized Israel for archeological excavations near the Temple Mount.

Only in three spots (marked in light blue) in the long list condemning Israel was there any expression that Gazans were doing anything wrong. Each related to the immediate situation of war and none condemned the thousands of Gazans who initiated the war killing 1,200 people, raping women and abducting 251 people, nor the Gazan leaders who threatened to commit the barbaric attacks again and again.

In multiple locations (highlighted in orange), the UNHRC demanded that countries withhold supplying arms to Israel and not take any actions against groups around the world which support the Hamas-led war against Israel. It urged countries to not supply Israel with “dual use” items like jet fuel or facial recognition software which could have both civilian and military purposes.

The text is a sickening farce, especially considering the heading of the resolution which highlighted “the obligation to ensure accountability and justice.” The text of the resolution clearly showed the HRC’s belief that only Israel should be held accountable, while Gazans should be absolved of their actions under the UN’s ode for the Stateless Arabs of Palestine (SAPs)‘ “legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence.”

In April 2025, one year after this shameful resolution passed, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tried to pass two resolutions in the U.S. Senate to block America’s sale of arms to Israel. His introduction to the vote lambasted AIPAC as a nefarious organization, and then called the Israeli government “racist and extremist” engaged in a “barbaric war against the Palestinian people,” even though the Israeli military constantly warns civilians to move out of battlefields and has the lowest civilian-to-combatant death toll of any modern urban war.

Fourteen senators joined Sanders in voting to block the arms sale to Israel in the middle of the multi-front war, including Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).

The fact that all fifteen senators voting against supplying Israel weapons during the war were Democrats should not be a surprise. According to a March 2025 Gallup poll, Republicans favor Israel over SAPs by 75% to 10%, while Democrats favor SAPs over Israelis by 59% to 21%. This is a continuation of a trend that started BEFORE Gazans’ October 7 atrocities, as highlighted in Gallups’ February 2023 poll.

It begs us to answer the framework of “the obligation to ensure accountability and justice” in general, even before applied to war. What is the baseline that the UNHRC and Democrats (HRC & D) see the Arab-Israeli conflict?

The HRC&D seemingly believe that Israel is a colonial power and SAPs have a legitimate fight for “liberation.” In such framework, even leaders of Hamas’ “political bureau” are regular “civilians entitled to protection,” (as stated by HRC). HRC&D prioritize imposing sanctions on Israeli Jewish “settlers” in the immediate aftermath of October 7 (as urged by Sen. Van Hollen in November 2023).

The HRC&D baseline for considering “accountability and justice” is that Arabs are justified in fighting Israel, while Israeli Jews are wrong for just living.

Anyone and everyone should be upset with the loss of so much civilian life in the war which started eighteen months ago. But the number of dead on each side obscures the fundamental issue in the conflict is the competing views that Israel is a legitimate sovereign state or a colonial outpost which should be combated by “any means necessary.”

Masked anti-Israel agitators at Columbia University call for the destruction of Israel

While the UN Human Rights Council and fifteen Democratic senators have not gone so far to endorse a genocide of Jews in Israel, they are actively seeking to shield Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups and their supporters which seek the destruction of Israel from proper measures of justice.

Related articles:

The Deep Flaws In The UN’s “Peace” Coordinator (August 2024)

The Only Way The Conflict Can End (November 2023)

Hamas Should Face ‘Maximum Justice’ (October 2023)

The Collective Punishment Of Terrorism (June 2023)

Terrifying Trifecta Of Anti-Zionism (April 2023)

The Noxious Anti-Semitism Of “European Settler Colonialism” (September 2022)

Gaza, The Terrorist Enclave (February 2021)

The United Nations’ Adoption of Palestinians, Enables It to Only Find Fault With Israel (March 2016)

“The Day After” The Hamas War, For Israel

Many countries have pressured Israel to develop a plan for “the day after” the war for Gazans. It is a curious question, as many of those same countries have condemned Israel for operating in Gaza and demand that it leave immediately. Furthermore, they all know that any plan developed by Israel will likely be viewed with hostility and rejected outright by Gazans.

A more relevant question for Israel is what the day after will look like for Israel.

There are many aspects to that question.

  • What is the plan for rebuilding Israeli towns near Gaza? Will there be new codes for security, safe rooms, layouts of the streets and homes, etc.?
  • How will Israel manage security with Gaza? Will it construct a different type of fence and monitoring system to better protect Israelis? Arm the military bases there differently?
  • Will it allow work permits for Gazans, and if so, how will it manage it?
  • How will it monitor materials flowing into Gaza as part of a rebuilding operation?
Gazans smash through security fence into Israel on October 7, 2023

As it relates to what the world most wants to hear, a restart of a political process with the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) in Gaza and East of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL), much depends on reforms made by the counterparty.

It will also depend on the United Nations.

First, the UN must clearly state that the future of their so-named “Palestinian Refugees” who never lived in Israel will not move into Israel. Their future is in a future state of Palestine, which the UN claims already exists and is “occupied.” As part of crystalizing that, it must announce plans to close all UNRWA operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

Second, to bring Israel to the table and engage with the UN as part of the process, the UN Security Council should revoke UNSC 2334, a blatantly antisemitic resolution. That resolution demands an ethnic cleansing of all Jews from E49AL, including Judaism’s holiest location, the Old City of Jerusalem.

Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN (left) and US Secretary of State, John Kerry (right) enabled the antisemitic UNSC 2334 to pass in the waning days of the Obama administration

There is precedent for such action. In 1991, the UN rescinded UNGA 3379, which declared that Zionism was a form of racism, to get Israel to participate in the Madrid Conference, which ultimately yielded the Oslo Accords. Such action ended the First Intifada and could help end the Iranian Proxies Intifada of today.

The UN has long been the biggest instigator of the regional conflict by making promises to local Arabs on behalf of Israel, and then pressuring Israel to meet those demands. It is time for the UN to either shift course and be constructive with each party, or desist from the matter.

Israel is engaged in a war in Gaza it didn’t start or want, and will end immediately if Hamas surrenders and returns all of the hostages. Israel doesn’t need a plan for “the day after” in Gaza but should be consulted to ensure that a new regime will bring stability in the region and be a counterpart with whom to coordinate the transfer of goods and people.

Israel should be focused on its own “day after” plans. To the extent that the world wants to encourage a path to an eventual “peace process,” the UN needs to make significant reforms, including rescinding UNSC 2334.

Related articles:

The Three “Two-State Solution”s (December 2023)

UN “Peace Coordinator” Before And During Hamas Massacre (October 2023)

The UN Has No Interest in Mid-East Peace, Just a Palestinian State (October 2021)

The Only Precondition for MidEast Peace Talks (June 2016)

The Israeli Peace Process versus the Palestinian Divorce Proceedings (June 2015)

The Al Aqsa-fication Of Federal Research Grants

Amid the rampant antisemitism at universities and claims of suppression of free speech, another troubling dynamic is emerging: the “al Aqsa-fication” of federal research grants to universities.

For background, the al Aqsa Mosque sits in the Old City of Jerusalem atop the Jewish Temple Mount. It is considered by Muslims to be its third most holy site. Muslims – and the United Nations – insist that the site is purely Islamic and prayer is only permissible to Muslims, despite the fact that it is the holiest site for Jews. The site’s religious matters are managed by a Jordanian Islamic waqf which insists that the “status quo” of barring non-Muslims from praying be maintained. They warn of violence and death should the status quo be altered.

Thousands of Jews praying at the Western Wall Plaza on Passover, beneath the Temple Mount which has a ban on Jewish prayer

And so it has begun for university federal grants, amid Hamas’s genocidal war which it named the “al Aqsa Flood.”

Americans are being schooled by liberals and scientists about the absolutely critical nature of the research work that universities perform. People are learning from the elite that people will die if their essential work stops due to a lack of funding. The academics bemoan any oversight that is not purely from within the academy, despite being funded by taxpayers.

Both al Aqsa (for Muslims) and federal research grants (for universities) see the root of the threat coming from Jews.

When Jews visit their holiest site on the Temple Mount, Islamic radicals claim they are desecrating it with “filthy feet.” University officials similarly think the government should be banned from any involvement in their work under the banner of “academic freedom.”

“Al-Aqsa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They [Jews] have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, September 2015

When Islamic radicals promote violence at the Temple Mount to block any non-Islamic presence, their leaders shout “we welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.” We are now witnessing professors rallying around universities, ripping up diplomas, locking arms with anti-Israel protestors and demanding that the universities not give an inch to the government’s demands to protect Jewish students.

University research is the academy’s al Aqsa Mosque. The liberal administrations are the waqf which demand absolute control. They are warning everyone that should the status quo change because Jewish human rights and dignity are trampled with impunity, people will die.

Universities are bemoaning the “Judaization” of their research, as they feel under assault by unholy people in their sacred domain. When Israel introduced metal detectors onto the Temple Mount after Islamic radicals started to stockpile weapons on the site, the faithful rioted and managed to get Israel to remove the protective measures. The universities are now engaged in similar protests seeking the same goal: purity without oversight and guardrails.

Liberals see the Trump administration seizing grants like Jews moving into homes in Jerusalem’s Old City. A governmental audit of the purpose of research is vilified like archeological excavations near the Temple Mount. All are condemned as acts of sabotage which threaten the very stability of society.

The discussion of the government’s oversight and control of billions of dollars of research grants is inflaming passions. Like the Islamic faithful who rally when they see Jewish presence near al Aqsa, the global academy is outraged at the challenge to the “status quo” of unfiltered money. The Mourabitoun (men) and Mourabitat (women) on university campuses have taken up positions both physical and ideological.

As the world watches Jews being routed from universities without basic protections, we are witnessing the emergence of a new blood libel, that Jews will be the root cause of millions of deaths as medical research is cut.

There is the holy and profane. The world is normalizing and entrenching antisemitism by placing the Islamic waqf and elite universities on the side of the angels, while simultaneously accusing Jews of being aligned with the underworld for the audacity of demanding basic human rights.

Related articles:

The Disappearing Jew (July 2024)

The Big Lie About Al Aqsa Mosque Access Is Really About Jews (March 2024)

Considering Campus Antisemitism (November 2023)

Oh Abdullah, Jordan is Not So Special (August 2017)

Tolerance at the Temple Mount (November 2014)

Will Columbia’s New President Ask Alumni To Fund Scholarships For 40 Gazans?

Columbia University is cycling through yet another president. The latest leader is Claire Shipman, who takes over the “Interim/ Acting” role from Katrina Armstrong, who had the title for a short few months.

In taking over the position, Shipman offered no words to alumni about 1) the rank antisemitism on campus, 2) the perceived threat to “free speech” which anti-Israel rioters use as a red herring to mask the stink of their abhorrent conduct, nor 3) the financial sword hanging over the institution with the Trump administration’s demand for change. Instead, Shipman said she would attempt to be “transparent” about her efforts to navigate through this challenging time and sought a “partnership” with alumni.

Will Shipman openly review her responses to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) demands, including that the university commit to $10 million for a Gaza “resilience fund” which will finance scholarships for as many as 40 students from the West Bank and Gaza for five years? Will Shipman partner with the Gaza Scholarship Initiative of the Center for Arab American Philanthropy in such effort? Will she feel compelled to have a similar donation drive for Israelis impacted by Hamas’s genocidal war?

CUAD wanted to make sure that antisemitic professors like Joseph Massad, who praised the October 7 massacre, would be “protected.” Will the school hire White Supremacists to teach students that Black people liked being slaves? Will Andrew Tate teach a class on Women’s Studies? Shipman’s letter said she “love[s] the sharp argument, the intellectual sprawl, the sense that anything feels possible.” Will vile racists be welcomed onto campus for a wide-ranging test of free speech?

CUAD demanded the reinstatement of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Will Shipman grant the KKK a chapter at Columbia as well?

Dozens of professors signed an open letter to university administrators to protect professors like Joseph Massad, including Columbia Law’s “Human Rights Institute” team of Kelsey Jost-Creegan and Bassam Khawaja. The institute is funded by Kathy Surace-Smith, a university trustee. Will fellow trustees sway Shipman’s course of actions?

How transparent will Shipman be with her alumni donors and what kind of feedback will she incorporate into her action plan?

She may think she’s deciding between constituents, aligning with either students, faculty, alumni, trustees, or the government with competing desires. She may be debating who will provide the most funding or people over the long term. Or perhaps she just wants to test the parameters of “intellectual sprawl,” tickling the edges of harassment and intimidation.

Would a Gaza fundraiser help clarify her calculus?

Shipman said she wants to hear from you. Contact her and the school at officeofthepresident@columbia.edu, alumdev@columbia.edu and secretary@columbia.edu. The phone number is (212) 854-9970

Related articles:

The Trump Letter To Columbia DEFENDS Research (March 2025)

Ignoring Columbia’s – And The Education Industry’s – Systemic Antisemitism (July 2024)

Columbia University Completely Fails Mission. And Jews (October 2023)

The Americanization Of The Zayed International Center

In the year 2000, the United Arab Emirates president Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Nahayan announced a $2.5 million gift to the Harvard Divinity School to endow a professorship of Islamic studies “to promote a better understanding of Islam among the non-Muslim people of the world.” In 2003, after students at Harvard flagged the Abu Dhabi-based Zayed International Center for Coordination and Follow-Up (ZICCF) long list of anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish speakers and articles, Harvard felt compelled to return the gift. The Sheik announced closing the center with a press release that acknowledged that ZICCF “had engaged in a discourse that starkly contradicted the principles of interfaith tolerance.”

MEMRI noted that its work and translation of Arabic into English helped shed light on the centres conspiracy theories including that America and Israel committed the attacks of 9/11, that the Protocol of the Elders of Zion is true, as well as Holocaust deniers.

The Arab world was apoplectic at the closing of the centre and Harvard’s return of the gift. Al-Sharq Al-Awsat in London wrote that ZICCF had “an educational mission that allows the exploration of various points of view on issues of international significance. But it was accused of radicalism when the Americans and Zionists did not like the opinions expressed in it… The Centre was obliterated in order to silence it and to make an example to others. And the astonishing thing about all this is that it happened amidst calls to democratize the Arab world… to allow freedom of expression and to fight despotic regimes… [It] shows that the fierce influence that Zionism has on the American decision-making has extended outside the U.S.”

Twenty years later, the fountain of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism under the cloak of free speech is home-grown and widespread.

Columbia University student holding sign with arrow at fellow students holding Israeli and American flags to be targets of Hamas rockets

The faculty is anti-Western values. The teachers’ unions and lesson plans are antisemitic and anti-Israel. The student body and groups are infused with Jew hatred and anti-American venom.

This is not a problem that can be cancelled with a returned check. It is now an ingrained feature of the American educational system.

President Donald Trump announced his intention to root out the problem. He announced plans to close the Department of Education, to revoke visas and expel foreign students who promote terrorist groups and ideologies, and to withhold U.S. government grants to institutions that have essentially Americanized the Zayed International Centre.

US President Donald Trump holds an executive order to start dismantling the Department of Education (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)

It will not be enough.

Advancing Holocaust education in the schools will not be enough.

Providing transparency of foreign donations to schools through the DETERRENT Act will not be enough.

Increasing the tax rate on university endowments will not be enough.

Passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act will not be enough.

They are needed and helpful but systemic changes should be implemented throughout America’s schools.

  • Teacher unions – and all municipal unions – must be barred from contributing to any politician and making statements on any political races.
  • Tenure should be abolished in all schools.
  • Charter schools and private schools should receive funding proportionate with the number of students in the district attending those schools.
  • Schools that fail to teach minimum skills in critical subjects like math should be defunded and/or closed.
  • Teachers and administrators that vilify a segment of the population should be terminated and lose their pensions.

Other steps are also needed as people get their information from toxic sources outside of school. TikTok and any other foreign-owned media companies should be banned, based on a scale of level of concern of the country and content. Phones should be banned from classrooms so students can focus on learning skills and not lured by fake news and vortex of peer dynamics.

People may believe that the Trump administration’s actions to reverse both the decline of skills and increase in antisemitism in schools are draconian. In truth, a systemwide overhaul is needed.

Related articles:

Racism In The Old and Antisemitism In The Youth (February 2024)

Considering Campus Antisemitism (November 2023)

Brown University Discussion of “New Antisemitism” Slams Zionism (November 2023)

The Problem With Antisemitism On College Campuses Stems From Where Jews And Arabs Focused Their Donations (October 2023)

Follow the Money: Democrats and the Education Industry (November 2020)

The Wide Scope of Foreign Interference (November 2020)

On Accepting and Rejecting Donations (September 2019)

Two Democratic Senators Gaslight Jewish Attorney During Confirmation Hearing

Reed Rubinstein is a Senior Vice President of America First Legal and a former Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Education General Counsel (acting and delegated), and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury. He was nominated to be a Legal Advisor to the State Department by President Trump and had a confirmation hearing on March 25, 2025 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

During the hearing, only a handful of Democratic senators asked Rubinstein any questions, preferring to spend their time on Mike Huckabee who is nominated to be the US ambassador to Israel. Astonishingly, TWO of those senators – Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) accused Rubinstein of believing in and promoting false anti-Israel and antisemitic conspiracy theories about the State Department and public school education.

Sheehan On Obama Administration Funding Group To Oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “Conspiracy Theory”

At 49:30 of the hearings, Sen. Shaheen said to Rubinstein “I’ve heard these conspiracy theories before. But I have been here through the Obama administration, the first Trump administration, through the Biden administration, and I can tell you that I never heard anybody at any of those administrations talking about a multi-front war trying to overthrow the Israeli government. I don’t believe it and I hear you saying that and try to justify that as a conspiracy theory.”

Sen. Shaheen gaslighting Reed Rubinstein during confirmation hearing, March 2025

One would hope that Shaheen, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has heard about the Obama administrations efforts to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through a group called OneVoice Israel (OVI), as there was a formal investigation.

The Senate performed a review of almost $350,000 which were granted by the State Department to OVI in 2014. The grant was quite large for an international NGO, as most State Department overseas grants average around $15,000. OneVoice built a large database of Israeli voters and then “absorbed and funded an Israeli group named Victory15 or “V15” and launched a multimillion-dollar grassroots campaign in Israel. The campaign’s goal was to elect “anybody but Bibi [Netanyahu]” by mobilizing center-left voters,” according to the report.

OVI originally got its State Department grant in September 2013 to “execute a grassroots campaign in conjunction with Secretary of State John Kerry’s effort to sustain negotiations
between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.” The outreach effort was to run from October 15, 2013 to July 15, 2014, and the State Department made its final payment of grant funds to OVI on August 25, 2014, with the grant period ending on November 30, 2014. In addition to the $350,000 handed to OVI, the State Department gave the group $40,000 for outside consultants and another $115,000 to OneVoice Palestine, a sister NGO. It is estimated that over 1.3 million Israelis were exposed to OVI’s campaign, about 16% of the population.

By the end of the targeted grant period in July 2014, the Kerry Israeli-Palestinian peace plans were in shambles. By August, OVI leadership decided to use its now large infrastructure for direct political purposes, to “SHIFT SUPPORT WITHIN THE KNESSET AWAY FROM LIKUD/RIGHT WING COALITION BY ADVOCATING TO ‘SWING’ CENTRIST VOTER’S [sic] POLICIES AND SUPPORT POLITICAL CANDIDATES WHO EMBRACE AN EXPEDITED NEGOTIATION TOWARD A [TWO-STATE SOLUTION] AND THE END OF SETTLEMENT EXPANSION.” When Netanyahu announced new elections in December 2014, OVI quickly absorbed the “anybody but Bibi” V15 into its organization to oust Netanyahu.

The Senate initiated an inquiry into this funding matter in February 2015. It found that “OneVoice did inform at least two State Department officials of its political plans, and it did so during the grant period. The Department took no action in response.”

To summarize the facts in Sheehan’s dismissal of the “conspiracy theory,” the State Department handed roughly $500,000 in total to organizations which built up a large infrastructure inside Israel which was used to try to replace Netanyahu in the 2015 elections. It is unclear whether this was directly at the behest of the Obama Administration or was simply a byproduct of the anti-Netanyahu left-wing US State Department’s animus towards Netanyahu, engaging in election tampering against an American ally.

To put that $0.5 million in perspective, the entire Israeli budget for the 2015 election was $62 million.

Kaine On K-12 Public School Anti-Israel, Antisemitic, Woke Education “Conspiracy Theory”

At 1:24:45 of the hearing, Sen. Kaine took aim at a post that Rubinstein made on LinkedIn saying “‘K-12 teachers are almost all products of extreme left teachers’ training programs in the colleges, then the same leftist antisemite professors provide training on MENA [Middle East and North America] and other issues. The system is not fixable.'” Kaine continued “A lot of us on the committee have parents, spouses, kids who are K-12 teachers who work in education programs, training K-12 teachers. A lot of us like me were governors appointing boards of universities with intimate knowledge of teacher training programs. There can be a bad apple in any organization but I got to say I read a comment like that – and it strikes me along the lines of what Senator Shaheen was asking – a kind of political fantasy or conspiracy that doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing that a careful lawyer offering narrow advice would say.”

Sen. Kaine gaslighting Reed Rubinstein during confirmation hearing, March 2025

Perhaps Kaine is ignorant or has put on blinders about the hatred being instilled by public school teachers into the next generation of students. Here are just a few:

The non-partisan American Jewish Committee (AJC) issued a report in December 2024 that “Leaders and activists within the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) have waged an aggressive campaign that has encouraged K-12 teachers to become pro-Palestinian activists and bring anti-Israel propaganda into their classrooms.” The documented MTA initiatives included “promoting multiple one-sided anti-Israel resolutions,… Sponsoring programming, including a webinar that purported to address “anti-Palestinian racism” which was dedicated to attacking the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish state,” and “curating and promoting on its website anti-Israel educational resources that it encourages members to bring back to their schools.”

In October 2023, right after the Hamas October 7 massacre in Israel, the Oakland Education Association, a teacher’s union, condemned “apartheid” and “genocidal” Israel. The OEA handed out material from Teach Palestine, with curriculums for educators. It suggested that in situations that get “pushback from Zionist parents,” to pivot the conversation to “compare youth incarceration in the U.S. and Palestine.”

In November 2023, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT 59) union produced a resolution which “condemn the role our government plays in supporting the system of Israeli occupation and apartheid, which lies at the root of the Palestinian Israeli conflict.”

Teacher union in Minnesota calling Israel an “apartheid” country and at fault for the Hamas-initiated war

In February 2025, the  Santa Ana Unified School District of California settled a lawsuit for using “courses that were developed in secret and infected with anti-Semitism.” Committees at the school said “Jews are the oppressors,” and “racist” and worked with outside groups who decried “Zionist control.”

There is a new group called The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (founded mostly by professors of the University of Santa Ana) which is trying to decouple the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies program in universities, and place it in “settler colonial studies” and put it in the context of “repressive work and solidarities” since “Zionism’s project extends beyond the borders of Palestine.” These efforts are being pushed in the University of California school systems and at New York University. The organization markets a “toolkit” for use by anti-Israel protestors.

In May 2024, Teachers Unite and a handful of other groups including NYC Educators for Palestine took their high school students out of class to protest Israel at the Department of Education headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

Also in May 2024, Portland Oregon’s teacher union, the Portland Association of Teachers, had a meeting about how to teach students both inside and outside of the classroom how to be anti-Zionists, complete with a website to disseminate propaganda.

In August 2024, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) leaders and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) teachers hosted a panel on how to teach the “struggle for Palestine” to young students and best practices to bring the minors to political protests.

In September 2015, third grade students in Ithaca, NY heard from anti-Israel activists Bassem Tamimi and Ariel Gold about the supposed evils of Israel.

Professors all over the country have given “extra credit” to students who participate in anti-Israel protests. Students for Justice in Palestine are encouraging it on social media.

There are cases all around the country. In addition to Teach Palestine, teachers are encouraged to use materials from “Decolonize Palestine,” which is designed with animation for young students. It vilifies Israel as a racist colonial endeavor always designed to oppress local Arabs.

In July 2024, the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union and teachers union with around 3 million members held its annual meeting. It included resolutions to boycott Israel and praise the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel (NBI 8). NBI 9 urged the NEA and other trade unions to “pressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the US, to stop funding it.” NBI 74 sought to publish a list of government officials who accept money from groups supporting Israel.

In April 2021, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) which has roughly 1.7 members said that “American Jews are now part of the ownership class,… who want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.” Herself a Jew, her large base got the message that Jews are the 1% who are coming to steal opportunities from the 99%. In AFT’s July 2024 annual convention, there were seven anti-Israel resolutions.

If Senator Kaine doesn’t understand the deeply antisemitic nature of teachers unions, he should be removed from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.


While Jews are suffering a horrible spike of antisemitism in the United States in the aftermath of the worst slaughter of Jews in Israel in 1,000 years, two Democratic senators took public aim at a Jew for supposedly promoting “conspiracy theories” about anti-Israel and antisemitic activity. It was gaslighting at the highest level, an affront to Jews everywhere.

ACTION ITEMS

Contact Sen. Shaheen and Sen. Kaine about your extreme disappointment with their public gaslighting of Jews about antisemitism and anti-Israel activities in the United States today.

Related articles:

A Democratic-Majority Congress Would Not Investigate Antisemitism At Colleges (July 2024)

Ignoring Columbia’s – And The Education Industry’s – Systemic Antisemitism (July 2024)

Gaslighting Gas Chambers and Indigenousness (September 2023)

Follow the Money: Democrats and the Education Industry (November 2020)

The Democratic Party is Tacking to the Far Left-Wing Anti-Semitic Fringe (January 2017)

The Democrats’ Slide on Israel (July 2014)

The World Zionist Congress Is Ideological, Not Regional

The World Zionist Congress is holding elections now through May 4, 2025.

To read the news, one would think that this is a matter of Jews around the world getting to vote for Jewish and Israel-related matters, with each country getting a vote based approximately on the percentage of the Jewish population in that country. For example, the United States which has roughly 40% of global Jewry gets 152 of the 525 delegates at the WZC (29%) and Israel get 38%. There are only 13 other countries which are participating in the elections which will get 33% of the delegates: Romania, Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Venezuela, Sweden, Spain, France, Peru, England, Hungary, Brazil, and Uganda. Israel gets the majority of delegates.

The allocation based on country would suggest that countries represent a unit but that is far from the case. The 22 US slates are competing aggressively AGAINST each other with religious right and left attacking the other, as well as political left and right. The handful of centrist parties tout unity to appeal to the middle swath of Jews.

The reality is that religious and political affiliations and philosophies are driving the delegates, not their countries of origin.

Consider Jamie Geller, an American influencer who moved to Israel several years ago. Despite not living in the US, she is using her platform from Israel to try to get the vote out for Aish Ha’am in America, in which she says she chairs the advisory committee.

The surprising big winner of the 2020 WZC US election was Eretz Hakodesh which had over 20,000 votes and secured 16.2% of the American delegates. The enormous slate of delegates in 2025 – multiples larger than any of the 22 slates – is packed with ultra-Orthodox rabbis and influencers who are directing their communities to vote for that slate. Much of the community is opposed to the secular nature of the State of Israel and look at local rabbinic positions that support (like Rav Avrohom Gurwicz, Rosh Yeshivas Gateshead) and oppose (like Rav Malkiel Kotler from BMG in Lakewood) participating in the election, but also look at international opinion (like Rabbi Dov Landau of Bnai Brak who opposes voting).

The center and right in Israel are not the only influencers on the American votes. The left-wing flank, consisting of A New Union, Hatikvah, Arza-Reform and Jewish Future, have gotten Israelis like Yair Golan of the Democrats Party, to lobby votes for left-wing slates.

The global nature of lobbying makes sense. After the elections, all 525 delegates will be together for votes regarding priorities and allocation of resources. The country of origin makes much less difference over the next five years.

Which leads one to conclude that the enormous effort placed on the US elections is misplaced tactically.

While Israel and US Jewry account for over 80% of world Jewry, they get only two-thirds of the delegates. Most of the rest of world Jewry doesn’t even hold elections. That leaves one-third (174) of the delegates getting an outsized impact relative to the Jewish population in the 13 countries holding elections or some sort of convention: Romania (9,000), Canada (393,000), Argentina (175,000), South Africa (75,000), Venezuela (6,000), Sweden (15,000), Spain (13,000), France (490,000), Peru (2,000), England (292,000), Hungary (47,000), Brazil (92,000), and Uganda (2,000). That’s a total Jewish population in these 13 countries of roughly 1.611 million. That equates to roughly 108 delegates per million Jews compared to only 27 per million for the United States, FOUR TIMES THE IMPACT.

Influencers should target international markets, not the United States to get real influence at the WZC. The aggressive marketing in the US may get more followers on Instagram but yield much less than focusing on Jews in Brazil and Hungary.

Many people discussing the election are not that concerned about the outcome and are using this time to engage millions of Jews with Israel. Some slates, like Israel365, are using the election to further engage Christian Zionists who cannot vote in the WZC elections but are very influential in US politics. The left-wing Israeli Policy Forum is showcasing new voices whom they hope will become emerging leaders.

The election is a tool to enlist people in preferred ideologies, even more than having influence on policy.

Related articles:

Unpacking The Ignored “Jerusalem Program” (March 2025)

Facts and Stats about the World Zionist Congress Elections (February 2020)

25,000 Jews Remaining (March 2019)

The Trump Letter To Columbia DEFENDS Research

To read progressive media, one would believe that the Trump administration is seeking to end “research and science” and “great debates” on the country’s campuses. That’s how papers like The New York Times understand the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia demanding change.

The New York Times article on March 20, 2025 misdirecting readers about the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia University

It could not be further from the truth.

The March 13 letter is just two pages long and covers nine points. Nowhere is “science” and “great debates” mentioned. “Research” is mentioned once, and the Trump administration’s letter is actively trying to protect it.

The first two points in the letter demand that the school must enforce consequences for the students that break university policies, including vandalism and harassment. It asks that the “Office of the President” handle such matters rather than the University Judicial Board, presumably because many members of the board are sympathetic to the student rioters.

The next three points build on this theme of discipline. It demands that the university adopt “time, place and manner rules,” – very common and ordinary measures – to prevent the disruption of “teaching, research and campus life” (emphasis added). It adds a mask ban so rioters can be held accountable and demanded a formalized university plan for groups that violate university policy.

The sixth point shifted from general disciplinary matters to define antisemitism, because that has been the crux of rioters’ conduct against Jews at Columbia. Presumably, it would help clearly define matters of free speech versus hate speech (to the extent that such thing exists).

The seventh bullet transitions back to discipline, empowering university security to arrest rioters.

The eighth point refers to a particular department within the school – the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department (MESAAS) – which is to be put under “academic receivership.” If there is a claim that Trump is coming after “research” and “great debates”, it must be in this discipline.

The ninth point seems to cover perhaps a related point to eighth – to make sure that admissions, including “international recruiting… conforms with federal law and policy.”

As seen above, the letter seeks to ensure the ability of students and faculty to do research (third bullet), albeit the MESAAS department has been marked as a problemed child.

The reality is that American universities have been trying to paper over their critical problems by importing students from the Global South, from those MESAAS countries. If there is a Trump target on academic research, it lies there, not in scientific matters, despite the Times claim that Trump is “imperiling the backbone of the nation’s research endeavors.”

America’s core problem lies in its PUBLIC K-12 schools which are FAILING TO TEACH MATH AND SCIENCE, with the US placing 25th among 37 OECD countries for 15 year olds. The country is relying more and more on international students – many deeply distrustful and anti-Western values – to fill the university’s STEM departments because America’s elementary and high schools have failed.

Progressive media will not place the blame squarely where it belongs – on the public school system – because it has long ago adopted the fiction that pouring billions of dollars into teacher unions will magically produce better educated students.

The Trump letter is an immediate call to make universities safe, not a call to dismantle research. The long-term fix is to remake America’s public schools, which have catered to teachers and administrators over students for far too long.

Related articles:

CUNY’s New Anti-Education Professor Of Intimidation (February 2025)

Ignoring Columbia’s – And The Education Industry’s – Systemic Antisemitism (July 2024)

Follow the Money: Democrats and the Education Industry (November 2020)

Context For “Intifada”

Hamas Defenders (like the Arab world and universities) and their defenders (politicians and progressive Jews) – HDDs – have tried to reeducate the West about both the English and Arabic languages.

At congressional hearings, HDDs told senators that “Intifada” just means “shaking off” and did not mean the slaughter of Jews, despite the Second Intifada killing 1,000 Jews – almost all civilians – and resulting in more restrictions on Palestinians, like the Security Barrier which ended that intifada.

Those hearings had the head of the Arab American Institute also share that “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” is not a call for killing Jews but just the liberation of local Arabs.

That same speaker said that “Glory to our martyrs” plastered on buildings might only be interpreted as antisemitic if the buildings were synagogues or Jewish centers, but simply free speech if it was in public where Jews would see it going to school.

WESPAC-backed Palestine Youth Movement masked members plastering “Glory To Our Martyrs” on top of the map of Israel, at train stations in New York

HDDs said there was no hate crime when professors said the massive slaughter of Jews on October 7 was “exhilarating” to a crowd, or when students held signs pointing at Jews that read “al Qassam next targets.” Not just not a crime, but not even hate.

Masked Columbia student calling for Hamas missile strike on Jewish students

They accuse Jews of being too sensitive.

When HDDs accuse Israel of committing “genocide” and behaving like “Nazis” committing “ethnic cleansing” while engaged in “apartheid,” they attempt to strip the victims of European and Arab countries’ atrocities of their history and memory and desecrate the memories of 6 million Jews.

As HDDs refer to the raping of Jewish women, burning families alive and kidnapping Holocaust survivors a form of “justified resistance,” they seek to insult the memories of the Jewish dead and have the world condemn the innocent as evil “occupiers.”

NYC mob waving flags of Palestinian terrorist groups including Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine chanting for “Intifada revolution” in front of exhibit about the Gazan slaughter of innocents at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023

It is an attempted institutional gaslighting of Jews.

When HDDs testify that chants like “there is only one solution, Intifada Revolution,” require “context” and must be “targeted and pervasive” in order for school administrations to even consider taking action, they don’t pause to consider Jews being locked in rooms for their safety or fleeing campus because schools won’t protect them. FOR MONTHS.

Jewish students in downtown NYC barricade themselves in a library from a horde

They believe that Jews are too powerful to be at risk and are crying wolf.

The Democratic Socialists have declared every White person and Israeli part of the colonialist regime and are therefore all guilty and thereby legitimate targets for violence. Even babies.

Democratic Socialists of America siding with Hamas arguing that all forms of violence are legitimate in an effort of “liberation”

Jewish HDDs (they are mostly in the second ‘D’ in HDD) accuse their fellow Jews of being tools of antisemitic Republicans who are using them to dismantle the education system and suppress free speech. They add that those Jews who complain about antisemitism are right-wing racists who are putting international and minority groups at risk by complaining to authorities.

These Jewish members of the socialist-jihadi alliance don’t fret acting as fig leaves for genocidal antisemitic comrades.

That has become the American landscape into which Jews step out of their front doors every day. Walking the streets, quietly wearing a yellow ribbon for the hostages held by Gazans and members of the United Nations, they are accosted with accusations that Jews and Zionists are evil and deserve neither dignity nor empathy. Even more, that Jews must relinquish their history and rights or face the firing squad before a cheering crowd.

Diaspora Jews are being groomed for slaughter. The operators of the slaughterhouses are in the awkward early days of learning how to keep the human cattle from acting up as they get processed. For the moment, they are playing with language and attempting to invert victim and assailant to enlist sympathy from the masses to join in the massacre.

Watching their growing ranks including progressive and anti-Zionist Jews as well as politicians, empowers the HDD movement that it is on the right track.

Members of Jewish Voice for Peace take over Trump Tower on March 13, 2025

The context of the Global Intifada is that Jews and the Jewish State are considered part of the White Imperialist and Capitalist world. All are inherently guilty and therefore should not be allowed to defend themselves. HDDs are telling you that to be on the right side of history, everyone has to take up the cause and confront Zionists and White people wherever they are.

The pathetic joke is that the mantra is being stoked principally by foreign actors of the Global South on American soil under our own noses.

Gaza’s Defenders Condemn It (February 2025)

The Quantitative Shield For A Qualitative Problem (March 2024)

Jordan’s King Abdullah Excuses Palestinian Barbarity (October 2023)

Palestinian Inversion Of Facts Based On Refusal To Coexist (July 2022)

Hamas’s Willing Executioners (July 2021)

Names and Narrative: Zionist Entity and Colonial Occupier (May 2019)

The Palestinians aren’t “Resorting to Violence”; They are Murdering and Waging War (November 2014)

Eyal Gilad Naftali Klinghoffer. The new Blood Libel. (June 2014)

Take Action To End “East Jerusalem”

The New York Times is accelerating its attempt to redefine facts and U.S. policy, especially in regards to the State of Israel.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than attempts to educate its readers that “East Jerusalem,” is an actual city, even though it existed for only 18 years in its 4,000 year history from 1949-1967 because of war.

The Times wrote “East Jerusalem” no less than SIX times in an article on March 7 about a Hamas leader’s release from prison. Using the phrase repeatedly was meant to grant another victory to Hamas, in its “Al Aqsa Flood” war.

At the fifth mention of “East Jerusalem,” the Times wrote that “Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war in a move not recognized by most of the international community.” So what? Most of the “international community” considers homosexuality a disgusting offense and crime, yet the Times doesn’t append such comments when discussing the gay community.

The United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and only Israel. When President Donald Trump issued his statement of official recognition, he specifically referred to holy sites in the Old City of eastern Jerusalem saying “Jerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions, but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world. Over the past seven decades, the Israeli people have built a country where Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs. Jerusalem is today, and must remain, a place where Jews pray at the Western Wall, where Christians walk the Stations of the Cross, and where Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Jerusalem has been reunited under Israel for decades and the U.S. embassy in Israel straddles the area that was considered “no man’s land” during those horrible years of 1949 to 1967. It is time to be explicit that the United States recognizes the unified city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and does not recognize any place called “East Jerusalem.”

Location of new U.S. embassy to Israel

The Trump administration can cement such understanding with blessing Israel’s expansion of Jerusalem eastward in an area known as “E1.”

ACTION ITEM

Write the White House comments@whitehouse.gov to clearly state that the U.S. recognizes all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and endorse construction of homes in E1.

Write The New York Times CORRECTION editors corrections@nytimes.com to stop calling a place “East Jerusalem” or to similarly change policy for all historically divided capitals referencing East and West Berlin as well as East and West Beirut and in its articles.

related articles:

Next Paradigm Shift In Israel-Palestinian Conflict (January 2025)

NY Times Manufactures “Palestinian East Jerusalem” Narrative (April 2021)

Trump’s “eastern Jerusalem” and Biden’s “East Jerusalem” (May 2020)

Abbas’s Harmful East Jerusalem Fantasy (September 2018)

The Arguments over Jerusalem (May 2015)

The Democrats’ Slide on Israel (July 2014)

Jerusalem, and a review of the sad state of divided capitals in the world (May 2014)