In an ongoing insult to Jews around the world, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said at the 32nd Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council meeting on April 23, 2025 that the two Jewish “Temples were in Yemen.”
PA President Abbas claiming the Jewish Temples were in Yemen, April 23, 2025
Abbas falsified history in an attempt to deny Jews any rights or privileges at their holiest location. The fact that it was an insult to over 2 billion Christians who believe that Jesus was in Jerusalem and not Sanaa was a slight he was willing to make to claim the site as purely Islamic.
The United Nations adopted the same position. In a 1949 map of the holy places in Jerusalem, the Temple Mount was marked as only holy to Muslims, while the Western Wall was marked as holy to both Muslims and Jews.
1949 UN map of Jerusalem’s holy places
The United States should therefore adopt a resolution called “Status of the Temple Mount,” similar to the twisted United Nations resolutions called “Status of Jerusalem,” to correct the wrong. Its passage in Congress will serve as a template for other countries to adopt before being submitted to the United Nations General Assembly.
Key phrases should be included in the resolution, to combat the disgraceful UN remarks about Jewish rights:
The United States abhors the “aggressive and dangerous” comments made by the president of the Palestinian Authority which “could inflame tensions and lead to a religious war that has no boundaries.”
Comments made by the PA president “serve the forces of extremism around the world.”
Incendiary remarks that deny Jews their heritage and history “do absolutely nothing to improve the lives of Palestinian Arabs,” and simply “push back the Middle East peace process.”
“The Temple Mount built by King Herod two thousand years ago has been and will always be the holiest location of Judaism.”
On December 9, 2021, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) expressed his disgust with a December 3 UN General Assembly resolution about Jerusalem saying “The recent vote by the United Nations disavowing Jewish historical ties and exclusivity to the Temple Mount—the holiest and most sacred Temple in Judaism—is an outrageous act of religious persecution. This is a transparent effort, supported by 129 nations but opposed by the United States, to rewrite history, cleanse the holy area of its religious ties to the Jewish faith and deny that Israel has roots to the Middle East…. The Jewish Temple, located in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City, is holy ground to Jews and it belongs solely to their faith. I object to any effort to ethnically cleanse the Jewish people from their sole historic claim to this land and temple.”
It is time for U.S. Congress to endorse a resolution to correct the shameful religious persecution and ethnic cleansing of Jews, by passing the “Status of the Temple Mount” resolution.
ACTION ITEM
Write Paul Gosar (if you are in his district), your representatives in Congress and the White House (comments@whitehouse.gov) to clearly stand by historic truth and correct the ongoing slander and religious persecution of Jews. “In light of the ongoing antisemitic insults by the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations, please pass a resolution which clearly states that the Jewish Temples stood on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem and that the site has been the holiest site for Jews for 3,000 years. https://primarybowman.com/2025/04/29/resolution-recognizing-the-jewish-temples-stood-on-the-temple-mount-in-jerusalem/“
Liberal media has rallied to liberal universities.
Newspapers like The New York Times call the Trump administration’s investigations into campus antisemitism as a targeted attack on institutions of higher learning, with over-sensitive Jews acting as useful pawns. The Times reporting actively omits and whitewashes the calls for violence against Jews to frame the discussion as impinging on minority rights for its remaining readers.
Consider the story of Kehlani, an anti-Israel singer who called “Long live the Intifada” in one of her music videos. She was invited and then disinvited to sing at Cornell when Jewish students found out about her coming to a campus-wide event. Under the banner “Campus Crackdown,” the Times headline was that her “support for Palestinians” and “her stance on the war in Gaza” led to her cancellation, leading to students being disappointed.
The article did not shy away from her call for intifada, and provided context that while some Jews might infer it as a call for violence, pro-Palestinian voices “regard it as a cry for liberation and freedom from oppression.”
At no point in the article did the Times discuss the 1,000 Jews slaughtered in the Second “Intifada,” including babies blown apart in pizza stores by Jew-haters like “journalist” Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi who lives freely in Jordan.
At no point did the Times describe the environment at Cornell, where a professor celebrated the slaughter and rape of people in Israel on October 7, 2023, saying he has “exhilarated” because “Hamas has punctured the [Israel’s] illusion of invincibility” during a student-led protest a week later off-campus. Russell Rickford was invited back to campus to teach this 2024/5 academic year according to Insider Higher Ed, because his comments were made “in his free time.”
The Times did not write about student Patrick Dai who threatened to kill Jews (in his free time), who was sentenced to 21-months in jail in August 2024.
Instead, the article highlighted “a queer person of color” who was “disappointed” at the cancellation of Kehlani’s performance. It listed a “Gambian-British citizen” who left the country, fearing “possible deportation.”
Why omit the targeting of Jews in the story about antisemitism?
Because the media wants to define antisemitism by its own distorted lexicon, and to shield the systemic Jew-hatred on campus from the Trump administration. If Jews are intimidated, harassed or unable to enjoy campus life, that’s too bad because any modifications might strip fun and opportunities from victims of preference.
According to the ADL, antisemitic attacks in the US reached record levels in 2024. Campus antisemitism jumped 84% from 2023 to 2024, accounting for 18% of all incidents, also an all-time high.
The Times would not write about that either.
Americans are fed distorted media which sanitizes institutions rife with Jew-hatred. The Times raises alarms about “campus crackdowns” because Trump is shattering universities’ “illusion of invincibility,” of tramping Jewish rights with billions of taxpayer dollars.
There really may be only one solution: a revolution to intifada the universities.
Protest outside of AIPAC conference in Washington, DC in June 2023, months before the October 7, 2023 massacre
Radical Islamists and their supporters have attempted to enlist the world in banning Jews.
They have attempted to ban Jews from living in certain locations.
They have attempted to ban Jews from praying at their holiest locations.
They have attempted to ban Jews from having “normal” interactions with other groups under the banner of “BDS.”
They do this by placing Jews under concocted banners such as “illegal settlers” and “colonists.”
And they do this, whether Jews live in Jerusalem or not, in the “West Bank” or not, or in Israel or not.
If Jews want to visit their second holiest site of the Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs in Hebron, the anti-Jewish media bannerizes Jews regardless of the location of their homes.
The radical socialist-jihadi horde bannerize the Jewish holy site under their colonized name “Ibrahimi Mosque” because all of the other Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs buried at the site prove it is a site especially holy for Jews. They recharacterize Jews walking around as “storming” and “forcing” their way into places they do not belong.
Anti-Jewish organizations and governments label any Jew who wants to visit their holiest sites as “extremists,” while Muslims visiting the same sites which are less holy than for Jews receive no such callout.
Bannerizing Jews happens in the Jewish diaspora as groups block Jews from attending classes under the banner that Jews are “Zionists” and consequently “enemies” who must be confronted everywhere. People may just call Jews “they” under the banner “from Gaza to Detroit” or a complicit component of “the ownership class” and “empire.”
The blatant discrimination against Jews is happening with alarming frequency as people rename Jews and Jewish sites to mask the antisemitism. Bannerizing Jews is rank Jew hatred and must be confronted.
At its founding after World War II, the United Nations was declared a bold and righteous institution designed to bring about world peace. To accomplish its mission, it granted itself certain powers under the presumption that the agency’s role and workers were impartial and noble.
Alas, people are people, and the UN’s corruption and partiality grew over the years. It has made the UN not only a deformed shadow of its mission but a deeply dangerous and immoral tool cloaked in nobility.
When United Nations “peacekeepers” were deployed in Africa and Haiti, their role was to stop fighting between warring groups. However, during the deployment, many soldiers raped local women and some young boys. Investigations of the incidents confirmed multiple accounts of sexual assault, and noted that the UN’s shield of immunity protected the rapists, putting the local population at further risk.
Many UN “peacekeepers” have been accused of rape and shielded from prosecution by the UN’s cloak of immunity.
Over the past decades in Gaza, thousands of local Arabs join UNRWA, the UN’s “temporary” agency to house and educate the descendants of internally displaced Arabs who left homes a few miles away. It pays well and provides protection to carry out rapes and massacres like the one they perpetrated on October 7, 2023 in Israel.
Or so the UN terrorists hoped.
After many UNRWA workers were proved to have taken part in the barbaric massacre and provided material support to the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group Hamas, victims of the atrocities and their families sued the UN. The UN claimed “immunity” from prosecution and the U.S.’s Biden administration agreed, stating “Because the U.N. has not waived immunity in this case, its subsidiary, UNRWA, retains full immunity, and the lawsuit against UNRWA should be dismissed due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”
In a pathetic attempt to mask its complicity, the UN fired some of the UNRWA workers, several of whom were already dead. It would not prosecute the fired living workers and left such matter of justice to local Gazans and Hamas to manage. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said he fired the workers “in the interest of the Agency,” not as a matter of justice for thousands of butchered, raped and injured civilians in Israel.
It was a despicable display of inhumanity cloaked in virtue.
UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had enough. On April 14, 2025, he introduced legislation called the LIABLE Act to strip immunity from toxic bodies like UNRWA. Upon introducing the legislation, Cruz said “The United Nations Relief and Works Agency officials have for decades knowingly provided support to Hamas terrorists, including salaries and materials. That support facilitated Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7th, which was the worst one-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and included the murder and kidnapping of dozens of Americans. Those victims and their families deserve the ability to hold UNRWA accountable, and the LIABLE Act would give them that opportunity.“
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
The United Nations has morphed into something deeply corrupt and unjust long shielded from prosecution, even for heinous actions. Perhaps the LIABLE ACT is the first domino to end the invincibility of barbarism under cover of white hats.
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.
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.
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.
University of Illinois professors protesting cuts to federal funding, February 2024Al Aqsa faithful in Karachi, Pakistan, April 2022. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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 multipleone-sidedanti-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.
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.
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.
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.
First One Through 