Anti-Israel protests encampments spread to over 40 US, Canadian universities

The anti-Israel protest encampment at Columbia University on Thursday has spread to more than 40 university campuses in the U.S. and Canada.

The list includes prominent academic institutions like Harvard, MIT, and George Washington University, as well as California State Polytechnic University, the University of Michigan, Brown and Humbolt.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump blamed President Joe Biden for not stopping the tsunami of antisemitism and Israel-hatred sweeping across American campuses since the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre of over 1,200 Israeli Jews.

"Charlottesville was a little peanut. This is tremendous hate, and we have a man that can’t talk about it because he doesn’t understand it," Trump said referencing Biden and the controversial 2017 White Supremacist March in Charlottesville, for which Trump faced criticism for not intervening.

White House Spokesperson Andrew Bates accused Trump of downplaying far-right antisemitism while describing Biden as a lifelong opponent of Jew-hatred and racism.

"Minimizing the antisemitic and white supremacist poison displayed in Charlottesville is repugnant and divisive. That moment compelled President Biden to run in 2020, because he has fought antisemitism and hate his entire life," Bates stated.

Biden describes himself as a Zionist, but he is currently struggling to balance his support for Israel against Hamas and the pressure from far-left Democrats demanding a stronger policy toward Israel. The tension is heightened with only months ahead of the upcoming presidential elections in November.

Jewish students and staff have urged U.S. authorities to step in and stop the vitriolic hatred against Israel and Jews at a number of U.S. campuses in recent months.

Michael Oren – a prominent American-born historian and former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. – recently emphasized that the mass anti-Jewish campus protests are organized and financed by external players.

“These demonstrations are orchestrated and funded from outside. These aren’t spontaneous demonstrations,” Oren told The Media Line. He urged the FBI to investigate the money trail behind the violent campus protests, which he warned threatened both Jews and Western society.

Recent anti-Israel protests in the U.S. and Europe have featured explicitly antisemitic and genocidal slogans such as "Burn Tel Aviv to the ground" and "Hamas give them hell." In addition, the widely-used Palestinian and anti-Israel slogan – "From the River to the Sea" – implies the eradication of the Jewish state.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has called for the resignation of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik after the university has emerged as the epicenter of U.S. campus antisemitism.

“This President Shafik has shown to be a very weak, inept leader, Johnson said in an interview with talk show host Hugh Hewitt, referring to Shafik’s tolerance for radical antisemitic Hamas supporters.

“They cannot even guarantee the safety of Jewish students? They’re expected to run for their lives and stay home from class? It’s maddening," he emphasized.

“Every leader in this country – every political official, every citizen of good conscience – has to speak out and say that this is not who we are in America, and we got to have accountability and that’s why my colleagues and I are going to be working on,” Speaker Johnson pledged.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the surge of anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments spreading across American universities and college campuses. In a video statement on Wednesday, Netanyahu condemned the rallies led by “antisemitic mobs” and urged administrators to stop them.  

"What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s. It’s unconscionable. It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally. But that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful,” Netanyahu argued.