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jewish voice for peace
Jewish Groups Denounce Latest 'Cynical' GOP Hearing Equating Criticism of Israel With Antisemitism
"Israel is a nation state, not a Jewish person," said Rabbis for Cease-Fire. "Criticism of Israel's genocidal assault is not equivalent to antisemitism."
Mar 27, 2025
Following the Republican Party's latest hearing on antisemitism on college campuses—part of a campaign in which discrimination against Jewish people has been conflated with calls for Palestinian liberation and opposition to Israel's U.S.-backed killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza—the rights organization Rabbis for Cease-Fire on Thursday said it rejected "the basic premises" of the hearing.
The hearing held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on Thursday, titled "Antisemitic Disruptions on Campus: Ensuring Safe Learning Environments for All Students," was part of an effort to "instrumentalize concern for Jewish safety to shield Israel from accountability," said the group.
The committee scheduled the hearing as supporters of Palestinian rights and the First Amendment have grown increasingly alarmed by the Trump administration's abductions, via Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), of several students who have participated in Palestinian rights protests and spoken out against the U.S. government's support for Israel's assault on Gaza and the West Bank.
But while more than 1,400 academics signed onto an academic boycott of Columbia University over its refusal to stand up to the Trump administration and defend students who have exercised their First Amendment rights, warning that the GOP's agenda and the school's actions "endanger all students, staff, and faculty," Republicans on the committee spoke only about rising antisemitism on college campuses.
Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said that "antisemitic incidents on college campuses were up almost 500% between 2023 and 2024, totaling 1,200 reports."
Cassidy cited the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which compiles reports on what it views as campus antisemitism, including expressions of hostility toward Jewish people—but also calls for divestment from Israel and the presence of "anti-Zionist groups" who oppose Israel's policies in Palestine.
While the ADL has loudly condemned pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses—some of which have been led by Jewish students—it dismissed outcry over what appeared to be a Nazi salute displayed by far-right billionaire Elon Musk, an ally of President Donald Trump, at an inauguration event in January.
Rabbis for Cease-Fire said Thursday that "repression of political dissent regarding U.S. involvement in the genocidal assault of
Palestinians is not in the best interest of Jews and has nothing to do with Jewish safety."
"To suggest it does actually threatens Jews by taking away civil rights and liberties in our name," said the group.
The group also clarified that by definition, Trump's efforts to rid college campuses of students who speak out against Israel's U.S.-backed military operation is not confronting antisemitism.
"Antisemitism is a bias against or hostility toward Jewish people because they are Jewish, regardless of nationality," said Rabbis for Cease-Fire. "Israel is a nation state, not a Jewish person. Criticism of actions carried out by the state of Israel is a political position and Israel, like every state, must be criticized for illegal and unjust actions, and held to account for war crimes. Criticism of Israel's genocidal assault is not equivalent to antisemitism."
The group added that the vast majority of pro-Palestinian campus protests "were not and are not antisemitic: they are focused on holding Israel and the United States accountable for collaborating on a brutal 18-month assault on Palestinians in Gaza that has claimed over 60,000 lives and destroyed schools, mosques, hospitals, libraries, and tens of thousands of homes."
The hearing was held a day after thousands of Boston-area residents assembled in Somerville, Massachusetts to speak out against ICE's abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student and visa holder who was reportedly targeted for writing an op-ed criticizing the school's response to a call for divestment from Israel.
"Jewish people's fear of antisemitism is being exploited to to carry out a broad attack on higher education and free speech," said the rabbis. "This administration's policies are designed by far-right Christian nationalists and are antisemitic themselves. These hearings falsely proclaim that their goal is 'safe learning environments for all students.' In fact, this is actually making learning environments unsafe through universities' draconian rules prohibiting free speech and assembly that result in suspension and expulsion of students, and their use of local police to control and arrest students."
"These hearings are a wholesale attack on higher education as a primary location of the democratic values of the free speech, open dialogue, and political dissent that Trump and the Republicans want to destroy," the group added.
Rabbis for Cease-Fire was joined by other Jewish-led groups in denouncing what Bend the Arc: Jewish Action called "another cynical antisemitism hearing."
"This is Trump's cronies using the guise of caring about Jews to further its agenda of deporting student activists and instilling fear to silence political dissent," said Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Miller credited Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) with using the hearing to condemn Trump's amplification and defense of antisemitism from the far-right, such as in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 and his association with Musk.
But the hearing was part of a growing body of evidence that "Trump and his cronies do not care about Jews or Jewish safety," said Miller. "Their attacks on student activists are part of an authoritarian power grab and an attempt to silence the movement for Palestinian rights. We must stand together and fight back against fascism."
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Entire Families Wiped Out as Israel Resumes Genocidal Assault on Gaza
"All of this is made possible by the U.S. government, which has funded and fueled these atrocities," said Jewish Voice for Peace.
Mar 18, 2025
Once again, entire families are being wiped out by Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip after U.S. President Donald Trumpreportedly gave the green light for the key American ally to resume its assault on the Palestinian enclave.
Israel unilaterally abrogated the crumbling eight-week cease-fire early Tuesday, unleashing a wave of ferocious strikes on the already flattened Gaza Strip, killing at least 404 people—including 174 children, 89 women, and 32 elders—and wounding at least 562 others, with the death toll expected to rise, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
"We were shocked late at night to see strikes and attacks on Gaza like in the early days of the war," Momen Qoreiqeh, who lost more than two dozen relatives in an Israeli airstrike on their Gaza City home, toldAl Jazeera. "I was with my family and suddenly there was a huge attack on our residential block. The attack killed so many people from my family, some of them we still haven't recovered from under the rubble."
"So far we've managed to recover about 26 bodies from my family and 20 other people who were with us," he added.
Ramy Abdu, founder and chair of the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor—which has published numerous reports on alleged Israeli war crimes and acts of genocide in Gaza—said his sister's family was killed in an Israeli strike on their home in Gaza City.
"This morning, Israel killed my sister, my heart, Nesreen, and her beloved sons and daughters: Ubaida, Omar, and Lian, along with Ubaida's wife, Malak, and their children, Siwar and Mohammed," Abdu said on social media.
According to Al Jazeera, the family had survived many Israeli airstrikes over the years.
"Israel may kill us at will, burn us alive, and tear us apart, but it will never succeed in uprooting us from our land," Abdu
wrote in a separate post. "Justice and accountability await—no matter how long it takes."
Al Jazeera also reported that Dr. Majda Abu Aker, an OB-GYN at a Rafah clinic run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and more than a dozen other people were killed in a strike on her house in Rafah's al-Jenaina neighborhood. At least 10 of the dead were from the same family; the youngest victim was a girl who was just three days old.
Fifteen people, most of them members of the Barhoum family, were reportedly killed when Israeli forces bombed al-Mawasi.
Six members of the same family were also reportedly killed while trying to flee in a car in Abasan, east of Khan Younis.
Ahmed Abu Rizq, a teacher who survived Tuesday's airstrikes, described to Al Jazeera the horror and chaos he witnessed at a local hospital, where he saw "blood everywhere" and arriving families carrying the "remains of their children."
Al-Shifa Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya said that "every minute, a wounded person dies due to a lack of resources," as Israel has imposed a " complete siege" on Gaza since October 2023 that has been blamed for widespread starvation and sickness. The South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice cites the siege, which has been called a "genocidal act" by an independent United Nations commission and human rights groups.
Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, said later in the day that Tuesday's strikes are "only the beginning" and will continue until Hamas frees all the remaining hostages it took on October 7, 2023 and is destroyed.
During a meeting with the U.S. Zionist lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar affirmed that Tuesday's bombings were not a "one-day attack."
Palestine defenders around the world took to the streets to protest the renewed Israeli onslaught. In London, thousands of demonstrators turned out for an emergency protest organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Protests also took place in cities including Ramallah, Dublin, Berlin, Jerusalem, Manchester, and Belfast, and are planned for Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York, and elsewhere.
United Nations officials condemned Tuesday's strikes, with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres writing: "I am outraged by the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. I strongly appeal for the cease-fire to be respected, for unimpeded humanitarian assistance to be reestablished, and for the remaining hostages to be released unconditionally."
Human rights groups also condemned Israel's renewed aggression, with Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard calling Tuesday "a desperately dark day for humanity."
"Israel brazenly resumed its devastating bombing campaign in Gaza... again wiping out entire families in a matter of hours," she said. "Palestinians in Gaza—who have barely had a chance to start piecing together their lives and continue to grapple with the trauma of Israel's past attacks—have woken up once more to the hellish nightmare of intense bombardment."
"Today, we are back to square one," Callamard lamented. "Since March 2, Israel has reimposed a total siege on Gaza blocking the entry of all humanitarian aid, medicine, and commercial supplies, including fuel and food, in flagrant violation of international law. Israel has also cut off electricity to Gaza's main operational desalination plant. And today the Israeli military has once again started issuing mass 'evacuation' orders displacing Palestinians."
Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch's Israel and Palestine director, said: "The reported killings of hundreds of Palestinians amid Israel's renewed assault on Gaza is alarming. The Israeli authorities have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, including forced displacement and extermination, and acts of genocide during the assault on Gaza."
"Other countries should urgently act to prevent further mass atrocities, including by suspending arms transfers to Israel, supporting the International Criminal Court and executing its arrest warrants, and imposing targeted sanctions on officials responsible for laws-of-war violations," Shakir added.
The American Human Rights Council (AHRC) condemned "the restart of the Israeli genocidal policy of starving and bombing the Palestinians in Gaza" and noted that "the victims of the Israeli genocidal acts are primarily infants, children, women, and the elderly."
"AHRC urges the Trump administration to uphold its peace promise," the group added. "The current Israeli escalation of war crimes and the ongoing Israeli weaponization of food, water, and medicine are resulting in avoidable deaths and suffering. The U.S. can put a permanent end to this war but for political expediency is choosing not to."
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest U.S. Muslim civil rights group, said that "President Trump must stop the madness after the government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu renewed its genocide and slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, during the holy month of Ramadan."
"Without strong actions to push back against this renewed orgy of slaughter, mass destruction, forced starvation, and ethnic cleansing, the Israeli government will continue to act with impunity and our government will remain as complicit with genocide as it was under the Biden administration," Awad added.
The U.S. group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—which has organized numerous protests against the assault on Gaza—said: "This is a campaign of extermination. This is genocide."
"All of this is made possible by the U.S. government, which has funded and fueled these atrocities," JVP noted. "Over the last 17 months, the U.S. has spent over $17 billion in military funding to the Israeli government's campaign of extermination and apartheid against the Palestinian people, and continues to sell the Israeli military more weapons."
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)—a Quaker organization that has worked in Palestine for decades—said that "there are no words adequate to express the devastation of watching bombs rain down again on people who have already endured more than 17 months of a U.S.-backed genocide."
"Our hearts are with AFSC staff, families, partners, friends, and all Palestinians in Gaza—we are holding you in the Light and we will continue the relentless struggle to end these atrocities," the group added.
Progressive U.S. lawmakers also denounced the renewed Israeli assault and demanded an end to American armed aid, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, writing on social media that "the Israeli apartheid regime has resumed its genocide, carrying out airstrikes all across Gaza and killing hundreds of Palestinians."
"This comes after a complete blockade of food, electricity, and aid," Tlaib added. "They will never stop until there are sanctions and an arms embargo."
Netanyahu has not allowed any food, water, or fuel into Gaza in two weeks. Now he has resumed bombing, killing hundreds of people and breaking the ceasefire that had given Gaza a chance to live again. NO MORE MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL.
— Senator Bernie Sanders ( @sanders.senate.gov) March 18, 2025 at 7:57 AM
The Gaza Health Ministry says that at least 48,964 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces over the past 529 days. At least 112,481 others have been wounded, and an estimated 14,000 more are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings.
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Facing Calls to Resign for Caving to Trump and GOP, Schumer Postpones Book Tour
"The only way to stop an authoritarian advance is to disrupt it, to make every step costly, to slow its march through whatever means necessary," wrote one Democratic strategist. "Instead, Schumer is helping smooth the path."
Mar 17, 2025
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has opted to postpone events promoting his forthcoming book amid sustained outrage over his decision to back a Republican-authored government funding plan that bolsters President Donald Trump's lawless assault on federal agencies.
Schumer's (D-N.Y.) office attributed the decision to reschedule the book tour events—including one that was supposed to take place in Baltimore Monday night—to "security concerns."
The anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace was planning to hold a demonstration outside the Baltimore venue. Other progressive activists highlighted Schumer's upcoming tour dates after he announced he would vote with the GOP on the funding package, rebuffing calls from Democratic lawmakers, advocacy groups, and the largest union of federal workers to oppose the legislation on the grounds that it would effectively greenlight Trump's destruction of federal departments and illegal spending maneuvers.
Much of the Democratic Party erupted in fury following Schumer's decision to support the Republican bill, and he quickly faced calls to step down as Senate minority leader.
"The passage of this dangerous Republican funding bill is a travesty," Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the progressive advocacy group Indivisible, said in a statement Saturday. "The ongoing administrative coup led by Donald Trump and Elon Musk is a constitutional crisis. The authoritarians stripping away our rights and trying to loot the government to enrich the billionaires are a five-alarm fire."
"Senator Schumer should step aside as leader," Levin added. "Every Democrat in the Senate should call for him to do so, and begin making plans for new leadership immediately. Indivisible will be encouraging our groups and activists to talk to their Senators at town halls, community events, and office visits about the urgent need for a minority leader who’s up for the fight this moment demands."
Schumer has thus far brushed off calls to resign, telling The New York Times in an interview published over the weekend that while there is "spirited disagreement on which was the right vote," he and members of his caucus "have mutual respect" and "are all united, no matter how people voted on this vote, to continue fighting Trump."
But Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid argued Monday that Schumer "is stuck in 2005," believing that "if Democrats just wait long enough, if they hold the line and play nice, Republicans will suddenly come to their senses."
"Democrats like Schumer still behave as though the system will self-correct, that if they abide by procedural norms long enough and let Trump-Musk exhaust themselves, the fever will break. But the people dismantling democracy aren't waiting," Shahid wrote. "They are exploiting every available lever of power—hollowing out agencies, capturing the courts, stripping Congress of oversight—at a breakneck pace. The only way to stop an authoritarian advance is to disrupt it, to make every step costly, to slow its march through whatever means necessary. Instead, Schumer is helping smooth the path."
"Defending democracy requires more than safeguarding institutions in the abstract—it requires upholding the values those institutions were meant to serve," he added. "Right now, we are witnessing Musk's corporate coup and state capture in real-time. Politics is about knowing what time it is, and I'm not sure Chuck Schumer has the answer."
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