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jewish voice for peace
University Officials Welcome the Genocide Apologists and Condemn the Protesters
A protest and its aftermath at the University of California, San Diego illustrates the moral myopia of administrators.
Jul 03, 2025
Evidencing America’s profound moral depravity is the targeting of campus protesters rather than the genocidal actions of America’s closest ally Israel. President Donald Trump, members of Congress, Christian and Jewish nationalists, and university task forces on antisemitism all charge campus protesters with widespread antisemitism through singling out and demonizing Israel. Ominously, these accusations have prompted universities to impose far-reaching restrictions on campus speech and assembly which match or exceed the crackdowns of the McCarthy era. Consequently, while Israel’s genocide endures, to the silence or approval of leading political, media, and university leaders, it is the protesters who have been substantially silenced.
Granted, within the surge of campus protests in 2023-2024, a few protesters crossed the line into crude antisemitism or other offensive behavior. The partisan university task force reports on antisemitism at places like Harvard, Columbia, and UCLA have seized upon these scattered instances and lumped them with controversial but defensible chants, such as “Globalize the intifada,” to paint a manufactured picture of rampant hostility toward Jews. Conveniently, neither the task forces nor university officials address the cause of these protests: the ongoing destruction of Gaza, judged to be genocide by Amnesty International and other human rights groups, and the complicity of many U.S. universities. To illustrate this moral myopia, I review a recent tempest at UC San Diego.
On May 19, the Murray Galinson San Diego Israel Initiative (MGSDII) collaborated with UCSD’s School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) to host a lecture by Ido Aharoni, a leading Israeli propagandist. In response, the UCSD Faculty Defense Group, GPS students, and the San Diego chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) converged in waging a vigorous protest. While the first two groups featured silent protests, SJP recited, with the help of amplification, multiple chants, including “Israel is an apartheid state. Genocide you celebrate” and “UCSD, you can’t hide. You’re supporting genocide.” Although the atmosphere was heated and a few participants yelled out “baby killer,” “Zionists not welcome here,” and personal insults at attendees entering the lecture hall, the protesters avoided direct altercations and did not try to shut down the talk.
Ironically, in her rebuke of the protests, Dean Freund urged that UCSD continue “to uphold the values that define our community: curiosity, compassion, and a shared commitment to a more peaceful and just world.” The protesters did just that.
An irate MGSDII staff accused the demonstrators of hurling “dangerous antisemitic slurs” and asked for punitive action. Obligingly, the UCSD chancellor and the faculty senate chair issued a joint message that curiously declared anti-genocide protests “an affront to the mission of our university” and promised an investigation for violation of university rules. Dean Caroline Freund apologized for “the disappointment and discomfort this caused for many in attendance, as well as for others in our broader community.”
Following a familiar pattern of selective outrage, Dean Freund and the chancellor ignored the circumstances prompting the dissent. Most importantly, the event was a university platforming of a professional propagandist who founded the government’s “Brand Israel” program. The MGSDII, which funds visiting teaching positions by Israelis, sponsored the talk as part of its mission to exert “a significant potential impact on the image of Israel that is different to, but on par with or exceeding, results of pro-Israel advocacy organizations.” “[M]ore than ever,” it proclaimed in an email blast after October 7, “we need to bring Modern Israel studies to our university classrooms to counteract the hate and biased education being taught by too many faculty.”
The MGSDII chose well in sponsoring Aharoni. Just two months earlier at San Diego State, he boasted of Israeli accomplishments, praised the U.S.-Israeli alliance, defended Israel’s assault on Gaza, and attacked campus protesters. For good measure, Aharoni quipped “I hope he’s deported to Gaza” in reference to the then-detained Columbia graduating student Mahmoud Khalil. As a skilled diplomat, Aharoni evaded the one critical question he received. The MGSDII was right to see the UCSD event as another propaganda opportunity, this time where the dean was lending prestige by introducing the speaker.
A second important dynamic ignored by Dean Freund and the chancellor was the chilling of Israel-related protests for the past year. In spring 2024, UCSD had become a hotspot for Gaza protests. On May 1, a coalition led by the campus chapters of SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) assembled an encampment that grew to several hundred participants. The organizers avoided violent altercations with counterprotesters and facilitated cultural, educational, and religious activities, including an anti-Zionist Jewish Shabbat service, that attracted many visitors. This remarkable display of community activism ended abruptly on May 6 when the chancellor authorized police in riot gear to demolish the encampment and arrest resisters.
Although the city has not filed criminal charges, UCSD has disbanded the SJP and JVP chapters, withheld diplomas from graduating students, and consigned continuing students to a prolonged academic probation while they await completion of investigations. In the fall of 2024, the UC and Cal State systems released revised time, place, and manner regulations, which prohibit encampments, establish new restrictions on protests, and impose harsher sanctions. Combined with the draconian moves from the Trump administration, UCSD’s crackdown has had the intended effect. As professor Gary Fields, a faculty mentor to many UCSD protesters reflected, “What happened in the aftermath of the encampment is that there is still on our campus a climate of surveillance and fear—and self-censorship.”
The UCSD protest of Aharoni marks a courageous effort to revive anti-genocide protests. I would have preferred a more disciplined message that did not insult attendees. Moving forward, protesters would be well advised to devote more planning in coordination with faculty and veteran protesters to wage effective protests. The Faculty Defense Group got the balance right in its press statement: “Our aim in this protest is not to cancel or censor the speech of Ambassador Aharoni. Instead, we want to call attention to the one-sidedness of the event at a time when speech on our campus, and campuses everywhere, decrying the genocide perpetrated by Israel and enabled by the U.S., is being censored and criminalized.”
Above all, students are right to be angry. These frightening times demand robust protest, including the dreaded “disruption” that panics so many university officials. As of June 25, the official death toll in Gaza has surpassed 56,000. Having just joined Israel in a lawless attack on Iran, the U.S. continues to bestow Israel complete impunity to wreak destruction throughout Gaza and the West Bank. Ironically, in her rebuke of the protests, Dean Freund urged that UCSD continue “to uphold the values that define our community: curiosity, compassion, and a shared commitment to a more peaceful and just world.” The protesters did just that. Let us hope that Dean Freund and campus officials across the country absorb the lessons from the brave students on what moral responsibility demands.
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Mamdani Shows Pro-Palestine Politics Can Win, Activists and Writers Say
Zohran Mamdani's opponents "made it a referendum on anti-Zionism being antisemitism," said journalist Spencer Ackerman. "They lost."
Jun 26, 2025
Following state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani's upset victory in New York's Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday, progressive writers and activists are making the case that strident support for Palestine was one of his key assets.
In the weeks leading up to Election Day, the 33-year-old democratic socialist was peppered with accusations of "antisemitism" from supporters of his centrist opponent, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
They singled out Mamdani's past calls to boycott Israel over human rights violations, his criticisms of Israel following the October 7, 2023 attacks, and his sponsorship of legislation to penalize nonprofits that fund illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
But contrary to expectations that this would make his campaign a dead letter in the city with America's largest Jewish population, he not only defeated Cuomo by more than seven points on the first ballot, but did so with large amounts of Jewish support.
"Cuomo was counting on the idea that Zohran's support for Palestinian rights would be a liability for him, but what last night showed was that that's not true," said Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action in comments to Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
Mamdani's victory came at a historic nadir for pro-Israel sentiment among Democratic voters. In a Quinnipiac poll conducted from June 22 to 24, 63% of Democratic voters said they felt the U.S. was "too supportive of Israel," an all-time high.
That translated to how New Yorkers viewed the primary. In a May 28 poll from Emerson College, 46% of the Democrats surveyed said they did not think it was important for the city's next mayor to have pro-Israel views, compared to just 33% who said they believed it was.
Mamdani's view of Israel's actions in Gaza, which he has described as "genocide" and "war crimes," increasingly reflects that of Democratic voters. Cuomo, who previously served as part of the legal team defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against war crimes charges, insisted that using such harsh language toward Israel's human rights abuses was fueling anti-Jewish hate crimes at home.
"They made it a referendum on anti-Zionism being antisemitism," journalist Spencer Ackerman, a supporter of Mamdani, told The Forward, a Jewish publication. "They lost."
Despite repeated questioning about his foreign policy stances on the campaign trail, Mamdani did not apologize or back off his stances. In comments to Al Jazeera, Heba Gowayed, a sociology professor at the City University of New York, said that his unwillingness to flip on his past stances only bolstered his sense of authenticity.
"The fact that he refused to back down from his position on Palestine is huge," Gowayed said. "In an atmosphere where we've been told that holding that position is politically disqualifying, it was a movement that not only insisted on this position but was, in a sense, predicated on it."
Mamdani's victory was not simply despite Jewish voters. He won in large part because of Jewish support. A poll from May showed him to be the second-most popular candidate among Jewish New Yorkers, behind only Cuomo.
He also forged a critical alliance with New York's highest-ranking Jewish elected official, Comptroller Brad Lander. Not only did Lander encourage his chunk of supporters to rank Mamdani, but he helped him fight back against the spurious accusations from the Cuomo camp, accusing the former governor, who has come under fire in the past for making negative remarks about Jews, of "trying to weaponize antisemitism for his own political gain."
Mamdani also received endorsements from influential progressive Jewish groups, including JVP Action and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), who said the Democratic establishment took for granted that Jewish voters cared only about Israel.
Sophie Ellman-Golan, a spokesperson for JFREJ, a New York-based group with more than 6,000 members, said that Jewish New Yorkers were galvanized by Zohran's optimistic message about making the city affordable and prosperous for everyone.
"There's a fixation on, because we are Jews, we must be primarily focused on Israel," she told The Times of Israel Wednesday. "This is not to say these issues don't matter to Jews, of course they do, but we are also New Yorkers, and we are dealing with the same material conditions that other New Yorkers are."
Ellman-Golan elaborated in comments to the independent publication The Handbasket.
"Jewish New Yorkers are just like other New Yorkers. We also want affordable housing and childcare, and excellent public transit, and for this city to be a place where we can build a future," she said. "That's what Zohran ran on, and that's why New Yorkers—Jewish and non-Jewish alike—voted for him!"
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Why Are Veterans and Allies Fasting for Gaza?
Who will stop the genocide in Palestine, if not us? That is the question that the fasters are asking.
May 29, 2025
Last Thursday, May 22, a coalition named Veterans and Allies Fast for Gaza kicked off a 40-day fast outside the United Nations in Manhattan in protest against the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Military veterans and allies pledged to fast for 40 days on only 250 calories per day, the amount recently reported as what the residents of Gaza are enduring.
The fasters are demanding:
- Full humanitarian aid to Gaza under U.N. authority, and
- No more U.S. weapons to Israel.
Seven people are fasting from May 22 to June 30 outside the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, where they are present from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm, Mondays to Fridays. Many others are fasting around the U.S. and beyond for as many days as they can. The fast is organized by Veterans For Peace along with over 40 cosponsoring organizations.
Remarkably, over 600 people have registered to join the fast. Friends of Sabeel, North America is maintaining the list of fasters.
Who will stop the genocide in Palestine, if not us? That is the question that the fasters and many others are asking. The U.S. government is shamelessly complicit in Israel’s genocide, and to a lesser extent the same is true for the European governments. The silence and inaction of most Middle Eastern countries is resounding. Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran, the only countries to come to Palestine’s aid, have been bombed by Israel and the U.S., with the threat of more to come. Syria, another country that stood with Palestine, has been “regime changed” and handed over to former al-Qaeda and ISIS extremists.
On the positive side, some governments are making their voices heard. South Africa and Nicaragua have taken Israel and Germany, respectively, to the International Court of Justice—Israel for its genocide, Germany for providing weapons to Israel. And millions of regular people around the globe have protested loudly and continue to do so.
Here in the United States, Jewish Voice for Peace has provided crucial leadership, pushing back against the phony charges of “antisemitism” that are thrown at the student protesters whose courageous resistance has spoken for so many. University administrators have been all too quick to crack down on the students, violating their right to freedom of speech, but even these universities have come under attack from the repressive, anti-democratic Trump administration.
Peace-loving people are frustrated and angry. Some are worried they will be detained or deported. And many of us are suffering from Moral Injury, concerned about our own complicity. How are we supposed to act as we watch U.S. bombs obliterate Gaza’s hospitals, mosques, churches, and universities? What are we supposed to do when we see Palestinian children being starving to death, systematically and live-streamed?
Because our movement is nonviolent, we do not want to follow the example of the young man who shot and killed two employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. But we understand his frustration and how he was driven to take forceful action. We take courage from the supreme sacrifice of U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy, asking “What would you do?”
Student protesters at several universities around the country have initiated “hunger strikes,” often considered a protest of last resort. Now they have been joined by military veterans.
“Watching hundreds of people maimed, burned, and killed every day just tears at my insides,” said Mike Ferner, former Executive Director of Veterans For Peace and one of the fasters. “Too much like when I nursed hundreds of wounded from our war in Viet Nam,” said the former Navy corpsman. “This madness will only stop when enough Americans demand it stops.”
Rev. Addie Domske, national field organizer for Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), said, “This month I celebrated my third Mother’s Day with a renewed commitment to parent my kid toward a free Palestine. As a mother, I am responsible for feeding my child. I also believe, as a mother, I must be responsive when other children are starving.”
Kathy Kelly, board president of World BEYOND War, also in New York for the fast, said, “Irish Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire, at age 81, recently fasted for 40 days, saying ‘As the children of Gaza are hungry and injured with bombs by official Israeli policy, I have decided that I, too, must go hungry with them, as I in good conscience can do no other.’ Now, Israel intensifies its efforts to eradicate Gaza through bombing, forcible displacement, and siege. We must follow Mairead’s lead, hungering acutely for an end to all weapon shipments to Israel. We must ask, ‘Who are the criminals?’ as war crimes multiply and political leaders fail to stop them.”
Another faster is Joy Metzler: 23, Cocoa, Florida, a 2023 graduate of the Air Force Academy who became a Conscientious Objector and left the Air Force, citing U.S. aggression in the Middle East and the continued ethnic cleansing in all of Palestine. Joy is a now a member of Veterans For Peace and a co-founder of Servicemembers For Cease-fire.
“I am watching as our government unconditionally supports the very violations of international law that the Air Force trained me to recognize,” said Joy Metzler. “I was trained to uphold the values of justice, and that is why I am speaking out and condemning our government’s complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”
I spoke with VFP leader Mike Ferner on Day 7 of his Fast. The NYPD had just told him and the other fasters that they could no longer sit down in front of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. on the little stools they had brought. But Mike Ferner was not complaining.
He said: “We go home every night to a safe bed and we can drink clean water. We are not watching our children starve to death before us. Our sacrifice is a small one. We are taking a stand for humanity and we encourage others to do what they can. Demand full humanitarian relief in Gaza under U.N. authority, and an end to U.S. weapons shipments to Israel. This is how we can stop the genocide.”
More information about how you can participate or support the fasters is available at Veterans and Allies Fast for Gaza.
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