“Oct 7 2023”

University is supposed to be a time when we think critically about the world around us, learn how to conduct proper research, and formulate personal opinions. The disinformation being spread throughout campuses proves the exact opposite.

As a Jewish student at the Toronto Metropolitan University, I’ve noticed campus-wide propaganda and hateful rhetoric against Israel – including being compared to Nazi Germany – that has dehumanized the Jewish population. It has made me feel less safe when walking through the halls or attending classes, including the conflicting decision of whether to wear my Star of David or Hamsa in public.

MONTREAL — In a 2008 Commentary Magazine article , Ruth Wisse, who in her youth was a Jewish studies pioneer at McGill University, issued a warning to diaspora Jews: if Arab “rejectionism” of Israel’s legitimacy, including the need for Israel’s elimination, comes to be accepted as normal, then not just the Jewish state, but Jews everywhere, will be regarded as “politically idiosyncratic once again.”

That is exactly what has been happening in plain sight at our universities for decades. The October 7 massacre gave wings to the rejectionists, ripping away the coy, tissue-thin facade of anti-Zionism to reveal the coiled antisemitism it had barely concealed. As a result, since October 7, Jewish students who consider attachment to Israel a natural component of their identity haven’t known a full day’s ease on campus.

Lack of academic rigor encourages mindless, mirthless, and militant mediocrity.

Why the outburst of campus protests in recent years, culminating in the sizable and sometimes violent demonstrations at such prestigious universities as Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern, and Stanford? While many factors are at work, one that seldom gets mentioned: boredom. Students often have a lot of free time. TikTok, Instagram, drinking, sex, and internet porn do not provide adequate fulfillment.

The Israeli military says it will hold a daily “tactical pause of military activity” along a road in southern Gaza to enable more humanitarian aid to enter, but emphasised that there is no ceasefire and combat would continue in Rafah.

The pauses, which are said to have begun on Saturday, will last from 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) until 19:00 local time until further notice.

They will only affect a route that leads northwards from the key Kerem Shalom crossing, which Gaza shares with Israel.

A Labour candidate was forced to abandon leafleting outside a mosque on Friday after a crowd barracked him as a “Zionist devil” with “the blood of Palestinian children on his hands”.

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, who is fighting for re-election as the MP for Slough in Berkshire, was driven off by men hurling abuse over Labour’s stance on the conflict in Gaza.

Videos posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, show Mr Dhesi handing out flyers to men leaving the Masjid al-Jannah mosque in the centre of Slough after Friday prayers.

Attempts to intimidate, by a small group campaigning for an opponent, won’t deter me from continuing to speak up for all, including for peace in Palestine.

Grateful to all, especially from our Muslim community, who were appalled by such behaviour and sent messages of support.🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/i1EMBwYuD2

— Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (@TanDhesi) June 14, 2024

Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in a blast that engulfed their armoured vehicle in southern Gaza, in the biggest loss of life for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a single incident since January.

The deaths came amid continuing fighting around Rafah in which at least 19 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes.

According to the IDF, the squad of combat engineers were in a convoy of half a dozen armoured vehicles returning from a mission at about 5am on Saturday morning in the Tal al-Sultan area of the southern Gaza city when their vehicle was destroyed.

A senior Hamas official has admitted the terror group has no idea how many of Israel’s remaining 120 hostages in Gaza are alive or dead.

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesman and political bureau member, told CNN that “no one has an idea” how many of them are still living, and said that any deal to release them must include guarantees of a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.

The limited release of Israeli hostages is a crucial part of a three-part ceasefire plan that international brokers including the US, Qatar and Egypt are trying to help negotiate between Hamas and Israel.

It has been more than 250 days since Hamas plunged the people of Gaza into war by slaughtering more than 1,100 people in southern Israel and taking some 250 hostages back across the border into the Palestinian-controlled territory.

And while western media coverage indicates that the ensuing suffering among Gazans hasn’t seriously dented Hamas’s popularity, one dissident on the ground is speaking out about a clandestine movement within Gaza to displace the terrorist organization from power.

There is no such a thing as a “moderate Muslim”.

Every day is a Charlottesville now, but hardly anyone notices.

The small central-Virginia city is a metonymy for the 2017 white-nationalist “Unite the Right” rally that created national shock waves and rocked the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

The antisemitic rhetoric and menacing nature of that event — in a different, left-wing form — are being replicated all over the country in openly hateful pro-Hamas protests.