We call on Columbia to stand up to authoritarianism | Open Letter

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Written by Open letter Open letter

Published: 25 March 2025 25 March 2025

To the Columbia University administration,

As journalists who were trained by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and who are steeped in America’s long traditions of free speech and academic freedom, we write to you to express our horror at the events of the past week. 

The Trump administration has sent immigration enforcers into university-owned student housing and university public spaces at Columbia, has arrested and sought to deport Mahmoud Khalil – not for having committed any documented crimes, but for the thoughts that he has expressed; and has forced another student, Ranjani Srivasan, to flee to Canada after her visa was revoked, also apparently for thought crimes.

It has sought to financially cripple the university by withholding $400m in federal funds. And it has demanded the university shut down or restructure departments it deems to be politically problematic, and that it alter its criteria for who to admit to incoming student cohorts.

We come from diverse political backgrounds and worldviews; some of us were deeply alienated by last year’s campus protests around the war in Gaza, others of us were sympathetic to the students. Regardless of our political views, however, we firmly believe that the federal government should have no role in policing Columbia’s academic structures, in shaping course requirements and personnel choices made by the university, in dictating admissions strategies, and in terrorizing students for expressing political views that the first amendment clearly protects.

Yet, astoundingly, all of these changes are now being accepted by Columbia University in the vain hope of deterring a predatory government from cutting off federal funds and decimating the university’s science research facilities. The university higher-ups have sold out students and faculty alike in their efforts to access federal dollars.

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Mexico Recognizes Palestine: A Historic Gesture of Solidarity

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Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller

Published: 24 March 2025 24 March 2025

In a significant diplomatic move, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has officially recognized Palestine as a state, marking a historic moment in international relations. Sheinbaum, who enjoys an 80% approval rating and is Jewish, reaffirmed her commitment to Palestinian human rights as she welcomed the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to Mexico, Nadya Rasheed.

Read more at Pressenza

The new definition of antisemitism is transforming America – and serving a Christian nationalist plan

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Written by Itamar Mann and Lihi Yona Itamar Mann and Lihi Yona

Published: 23 March 2025 23 March 2025

Redefining antisemitism in the law was never about Jewish safety. It is about consolidating authoritarian power under the veneer of minority protection....

The establishment clause of the US constitution, for instance, prohibits the state from intervening in religious disputes. By adopting the IHRA definition into law, the US government has in effect taken sides in an intra-Jewish debate, recruiting Zionist Jews to side in a war against its ideological opponents. The redefinition of antisemitism is therefore not only an attack on political dissent – it is an intrusion into Jewish religious life. By codifying support for Israel as a requirement for being Jewish, these laws function as a state intervention in an ongoing Jewish theological and ethical debate.

By pushing against the legal redefinition of antisemitism, Jews can refuse to surrender their identity to the state. By continuing to anchor it firmly in their communities, they can resist the instrumentalization of Judaism against others.

Reclaiming religious freedom from the state, as part of this act of resistance, would not just protect Jewish dissenters – it would offer a broader framework for resisting state attempts to control religious identity. No government – not the Israeli government, and surely not the American government – should have the power to define what it means to be a Jew.

Read more on The Guardian

Israeli settler violence is rapidly emptying Jordan Valley of Palestinians

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Written by Dikla Taylor-Sheinman and Georgia Gee | +972 Magazine Dikla Taylor-Sheinman and Georgia Gee | +972 Magazine

Published: 21 March 2025 21 March 2025

Khirbet Samra is one of the last Palestinian shepherding communities in the West Bank’s eastern flank. State-backed settler militias are driving them out.

From large-scale livestock theft, to home raids and beatings, the violence and displacement spiked in the Jordan Valley after the Israeli military launched “Operation Iron Wall” in January — an offensive that has displaced more than 40,000 Palestinians, primarily in northern West Bank refugee camps — the day after U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration. 

“It’s very systematic and well planned,” explained Dror Etkes, founder of the Israeli organization Kerem Navot, which monitors settlement activity in the West Bank. Trump’s return and the new military assault in the West Bank, Etkes continued, provided “a clear sign for the settlers to escalate their violence to expel more Palestinians.”

Now, Israel’s takeover of the Jordan Valley is almost complete. Khirbet Samra is located east of the Allon Road, a north-south highway Israel built in the 1970s to connect settlements and lay the groundwork to annex the territory east of the road, which runs along the border with Jordan. But while Israel has been working for decades to ethnically cleanse the Jordan Valley, over the past two years, it has accelerated its efforts at an alarming pace: 100,000 dunams of land east of the Allon Road have been nearly emptied of Palestinians, according to a forthcoming joint report by Yesh Din, an Israeli anti-occupation nonprofit organization, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel.

Read the full article at +972 Magazine