The Israel–Hamas war has become an international problem on college campuses around the United States with both Jewish and Palestinian students feeling unsafe. Over the past month since the October 7th Hamas attack on Jews in Israel killing over 1,500.
Jewish students at schools nationwide have been harassed including some at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and Cornell. The antisemitism at Cornell University, the Ivy League institution about 200 miles north of New York City in the town of Ithica drew international attention.
At today’s daily briefing from the office of the Prime Minster in Tel Aviv spokesperson Tal Heinrich addressed the problem.
“Just two weeks ago a Cornell professor described the Hamas attack on Israeli citizens as exhilarating. Heinrich stated. Is there any wonder that Jews on college campuses are concerned about their safety?”
“The virulence and destructiveness of antisemitism is real and deeply impacting our Jewish students, faculty, and staff, as well as the entire Cornell community,” Cornell President Martha E. Pollack said in a statement. But Cornell was not the only university where Jewish students were the targets of hate speech and anti-Israel protesters.
College campuses from California to Florida saw rallies for and against the war between Israel and Hamas. The rhetoric against Jewish and Palestinian students prompted action from the White House where President Joe Biden took action to protect students.
Monday Biden condemned the alarming increase in antisemitic incidents at U.S. schools and colleges. In a statement from the White House announced that the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have been hosting calls with campus law enforcement officials to offer support and address threats.
According to Associated Press Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Domestic Policy Adviser Neera Tanden plan to visit a university campus this week to hold a roundtable discussion with Jewish students, the White House said. Education Department officials have already been visiting campuses across the country to address antisemitism in recent weeks, with more planned this week in New York City and Baltimore.
In another very important move today the Justice Department is in the process updating a process to report federal discrimination complaints, making it clear that antisemitism and Islamophobia are prohibited by the 1964 Civil Rights Act.