Situational Update

There is quite a lot of unconfirmed information regarding the successful operation in Lebanon yesterday against Hezbollah terrorists. I have tried to capture some analysis based on what I have read so far. More details I’m sure will be revealed in the coming days.

• The Times of Israel reports: Israel hid explosive material inside pagers that Hezbollah recently ordered from a Taiwanese company, according to a New York Times report that follows the mass detonation of the beepers. Citing American and other unidentified officials, the report says the explosives were placed in the made by Gold Apollo before they were delivered to Lebanon, along with a switch so they could be set off remotely. The Taiwanese company later said that the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that has the right to use the Taiwanese firm’s brand. “The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,” he says.
  • It is reported that between 3,000-5,000 pagers were included in the recent order, with the US newspaper reporting some of the devices were given to Hezbollah’s allies in Syria and Iran, while adding that the attack only affected those that were turned on and receiving messages.
  • Israel injected explosives into the batteries of the pagers and detonated them by raising the temperature of the batteries. The planting of the explosives was carried out well before the devices came into the hands of Hezbollah
  • Up to three grams of explosives were hidden in new pagers that went “undetected” by Hezbollah for months, a security source has told the Reuters news agency.
  • YNet reports: Lebanon’s health minister reported Tuesday night that the number of injured in the explosions of communication devices in Lebanon and Syria has reached approximately 4,000, with 400 in critical condition. Additionally, 11 people have been confirmed dead. Around 500 Hezbollah operatives have lost their eyesight.
  • NYT Columnist David French posts: From a law of war standpoint, Israel’s pager bombs represent one of the most precisely targeted strikes in the history of warfare. I can’t think of a single widespread strike on an armed force that’s embedded in a civilian population that’s been more precise. It’s remarkable.
  • John Spencer posts: If all the reports are true (*hint they never are). On top of the physical damage to Hezbollah, the psychological impact is massive. Not being able to trust their equipment, to communicate. Possibly leading to making big mistakes in areas like operational security.

**Side note, if you have not watched the show Tehran on Apple TV, I highly recommend doing so now.

• It has now been authorized for release that the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet), successfully foiled a bomb plot by Hezbollah aimed at a former senior security official. The attack was set to be carried out in the coming days.
• According to the IDF: Ahmed Aish Salame al-Hashash, the Head of the Islamic Jihad’s Rocket and Missile Unit in the Rafah area, was eliminated in an intelligence-based strike. At the time of the strike, al-Hashash was embedded and operating inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Yunis.

The Numbers

Casualties

• 1,674 Israelis dead including 713 IDF soldiers (346 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza: +4 from Sunday)
• IDF reports that four Israeli soldiers were killed and several others were wounded during fighting in southern Gaza’s Rafah yesterday, the IDF announces.

  

  • Cpt. Daniel Mimon Toaff, 23, a deputy company commander in the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion
  • Staff Sgt. Agam Naim, 20, a paramedic with the 401st Armored Brigade’s 52nd Battalion. Naim is the first female soldier to have been killed during the IDF’s ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
  • Staff Sgt. Amit Bakri, 21, of the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion.
  • Staff Sgt. Dotan Shimon, 21, of the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion.
• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 2,282 (+2 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 436 (+1 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
  • 4,448 (+7 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 669 (+1 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
• According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 41,252 (+232 since Sunday) people have been killed in Gaza, and 95,497 (+575 since Sunday) have been injured during the war.
  • We also encourage you to read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
  • The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled “Gaza Health Ministry.” The analysis found that “9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data” and that “an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates.”
• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.

Hostages (no change since Wednesday)

• Marc Schulman writes that “the Army released a final report concluding that an investigation found Hamas-held hostages Sgt. Ron Sherman, Cpl. Nik Beizer and civilian Elia Toledano were likely killed as an unintended consequence of an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. The precise cause of their deaths, however, remains uncertain. IDF forces recovered the bodies on December 15th, 2023; however, until now, the cause of death has not been officially declared.
• There are currently 97 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza
• On October 7^th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
• During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
• 146 hostages in total have been released or rescued
  • The bodies of 37 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
• 8 hostages have been rescued by troops alive
• This leaves 101 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
  • 31 hostages are assumed to be dead and held in captivity
  • Thus, at most, 70 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
• Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of 2 IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

The North

Source: Swords of Iron: an Overview | INSS

Listen/Watch

Call Me Back with Dan Senor: One Year Since October 7th – with Sam Harris

• As we approach the grim one-year anniversary of 10/07, we are featuring a dedicated series in which we take a longer horizon perspective, asking one guest each week to look back at this past year and the year ahead.
• For the second installment of this special series, we sat down with Sam Harris – philosopher, neuroscientist, bestselling author and podcaster.

• Link: One Year Since October 7th – w – Call Me Back – with Dan Senor

Rocket Alerts

• Two days ago, the Houthi terrorists caused 113 rocket alerts, including in Tel Aviv

Source: Rocket Alerts in Israel

What We Are Reading

The Distance between September and October is Far More than a Month by Clarity with Michael Oren

• Twenty-three years ago last week, on September 11, 2001, nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial aircraft and crashed them into the Pentagon, a field in rural Pennsylvania, and the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Close to 3,000 Americans were killed. Nearly a year ago, Hamas terrorists attacked the State of Israel, overrunning communities, army bases, and a music festival, murdering 1,200.
• The two events—9/11 and October 7—were similar in multiple ways. Like al-Qaeda, Hamas is a Sunni Jihadist organization that sanctifies mass violence to conquer the Middle East, and eventually the world, for radical Islam. Both are recognized as terrorist groups by the U.S. and most of the Western world. Al-Qaeda and Hamas alike are viciously anti-Semitic and sworn to destroy the Jewish State. The attacks of 9/11 and October 7 identically caught their victims unawares and spurred them to mount large-scale retaliations.
• But there the similarities end.
• In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States never once considered negotiating with al-Qaeda. Instead, the U.S. hunted down and eventually killed al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama Bin Laden. By contrast, the U.S. has engaged in prolonged and detailed talks with Hamas, often treating it as a legitimate and honest negotiator. It has expected Israel to do the same.
• On October 7, Hamas took 251 hostages—the equivalent of more than 8,000 Americans. Al-Qaeda took no hostages, yet even if it had, it is unlikely that the United States would have refrained from waging war. It would almost certainly not, in exchange for securing the hostages’ freedom, agree to a ceasefire with Al-Qaeda and allow it to reorganize and rearm. It’s hard to imagine that, as part of that deal, the U.S. would have released dozens of convicted killers from its jails.
• By no longer insisting, as they did last October, that Hamas must be destroyed—by now seeking a prolonged ceasefire that may enable Hamas to declare victory—the United States risks emboldening jihadists worldwide. The result could be an acute spike in terrorist attacks across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The path to the next 9/11, perhaps even more catastrophic, could open.
• Link: The Distance between September and October is Far More than a Month: Clarity with Michael Oren

Five key challenges for Israel after latest Houthi missile attack – analysis by Seth J. Frantzman in The Jerusalem Post

• Currently, none of these groups fears consequences. Before October 7, it was believed that Hamas had been afraid to attack. Furthermore, Hezbollah was largely deterred after 2006 from launching new attacks on Israel.
• However, the deterrence has rapidly eroded. While militias in Iraq might have been worried at one time about launching drone attacks on Israel, they now brag about it.
• The Houthis may have once been focused on a war against Saudi Arabia. However, seeing how the West abandoned Riyadh during that war, they realized that they could get away with broader attacks. In October and November 2023, they also quickly learned that they could target Eilat and ships in the Red Sea without facing a major retaliation.
• The IDF is waging a tactical war on terror in the West Bank, for instance. Instead of altering its strategy in the West Bank, the IDF is stepping up its operations to tackle the growing terror threat.
• What is the end goal and strategy? Simply put, it is primarily to go after gunmen, which becomes another “mowing the grass” or “whack-a-mole” tactic.
• Will this defeat the terrorists or lead to another round with them? That is the key question. The Hamas rocket threat has now been largely defeated, but the group still launches a rocket each day or every two days, continuing to threaten Ashkelon and other cities.
• The Houthis have also been able to threaten Israel, despite Israel’s air defenses working well. Israel has multi-layered air defenses such as the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow 2, and Arrow 3. They are all successful; this war has given them an unprecedented workout.
• However, the enemy is constantly changing its capabilities. It uses drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. It finds various ways to threaten Israel while also trying to attack from different directions. Iran’s escalation against Israel since October 7 is designed to isolate the Jewish state. This has prevented Israel from pushing other agendas, such as economic and diplomatic initiatives.
• It is an attempt to roll back the success of the Abraham Accords. Iran wants to force Israel to fight endless low-level wars along all its borders. While Israel does that, Iran is on the march in the region.
• Link: Five key challenges for Israel after latest Houthi missile attack – analysis

Hamas On The Ropes: A Progress Report by Jonathan Schanzer in Commentary

• The Israel Defense Force (IDF) announced today, September 12, that the southern army of Hamas in Gaza, called the Rafah Brigade, had been dismantled. The spokesman’s office said 2,000 Hamas fighters had been killed, and that 80 percent of the tunnels in the area had been destroyed. This comes just days after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared that Hamas no longer existed as a military force in Gaza, and that it was time for Israel to head north because a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is looming.
• There can be no doubt that Hamas is a spent force. The estimates of Hamas fighters killed during this war vary, but it’s safe to say that the number stands at 18,000 or even more. That’s roughly two-thirds of the fighting force Hamas boasted on October 7. Thousands more Hamasniks have been injured and will not be returning to the battlefield (many have received treatment in Turkey). Still more thousands have been captured during the fighting and are in Israeli custody, where interrogators are extracting intelligence that continues to help Israel neutralize Hamas across the Gaza Strip.
• The leadership of Hamas is also in shambles. The Israelis took out the high-profile military/political leader Saleh Arouri in Lebanon in January. Then they eliminated deputy military commander Marwan Issa in March. After that, the Israelis took out elusive military commander Mohammed Deif. And finally, on July 31, they pulled off the brazen killing of political chief Ismael Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran. There are few recognizable Hamas leaders left. But the only one who matters now is Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 attacks, who recently consolidated power and is endeavoring to lead Hamas from deep within the Gaza tunnels as the Israelis hunt him.
• Recent reports suggest that morale is abysmal within the remaining ranks. Hundreds of mid-level commanders have been killed. Gaza’s infrastructure has been hammered, and Israeli engineers are slowly but surely destroying the subterranean labyrinth that is currently the only place the remaining fighters can hide.
• Despite all this good news—and it is unmistakably good news—four obvious challenges remain before Israel can fully pivot out of Gaza.
  • First, there is no way the Israeli public will allow for a withdrawal from Gaza without recovering the hostages.
  • Second, Israel must deal with the Philadelphi Corridor, the thin patch of dirt that runs astride the Gaza-Egypt border.
  • The third challenge is the low-level insurgency that is expected to continue well after the hard fighting is done.
  • And finally, there is the post-war period. Regardless of who steps in to help fill the administrative void (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, several European countries and the United States are among those rumored to be open to such a role), the IDF will not and cannot allow other forces to handle security in Gaza.
• The hope now is that the IDF footprint needed in Gaza will diminish significantly over time. Israelis would welcome the opportunity to begin to put the last eleven months in the rear view. But they all know that this long war is far from over. Iran continues to direct its proxies to attack the Jewish state. More immediately, a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon beckons. It’s unclear when that battle will unfold, but it promises to be far more taxing than the tough and brave slog Israel appears ready to conclude.
• Link: Hamas On The Ropes: A Progress Report

Maj.-Gen. Dan Goldfus: The IDF’s hero of Khan Yunis and destroyer of Hamas’s tunnels, by Yonah Jeremy Bob in The Jerusalem Post

• There is a reason that incoming Northern Corps and Multi-Domain Joint Maneuver Array Maj.-Gen. Dan Goldfus is considered one of the rising stars of the IDF.
• Israel Defense Forces Brig.-Gen. Itzik Cohen of Division 162, along with Brig.-Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa of Division 36 (also becoming a major general but in a less upwardly mobile position), Brig.-Gen. Barak Hiram of Division 99, and Brig.-Gen. Moran Omer of Division 252 have all played important roles in the invasion of northern Gaza. So what is so special about Goldfus?
• One of the reasons that South African-Israeli Goldfus – promoted from brigadier general to major general in May – is joining the high command (others to hold his next post have gone on to become IDF chief, IDF deputy chief, and IDF intelligence chief) is that he is both the hero of Hamas’s defeat in Khan Yunis and the general who broke up the terrorist group’s network of tunnels.
• The Magazine learned that in the initial stages of the war, Goldfus’s forces were required to focus on basics, such as recording the size of the tunnels, their volume, and their depth. Likewise, they just needed to get used to the aspect of the tunnels and to dig into them, gather photos, and study them. Over time, this systematic approach began to help build more confidence.
• Eventually, Goldfus realized that the Hamas tunnels were not separate systems but one massive decentralized network. This conclusion was reached when he and his top advisers found a convergence of trends.
• In his view, Khan Yunis tunnels are different from Rafah tunnels, which are different from Jabalya tunnels, which are different from Shejaia tunnels. And there were different kinds of diggers in Khan Yunis and for each area.
• According to Goldfus, some people thought he was crazy, but he was convinced that under their feet was a single giant network. These were not separate strategic tunnels, tactical tunnels, or separate areas. In his narrative, it was a single giant network from which it was possible to enter around Erez in northern Gaza and come out at Rafah and Egypt – like the process of water seeping through and flowing down a mountain.
• Goldfus disapproves of those who lack the patience to utilize a systematic approach to destroying the tunnels. His approach is that the IDF must be systematic and produce and utilize deep knowledge to maximize achievements within the minimum time necessary.
• In his next challenge in the Northern Command, Goldfus will focus mainly on a variety of land forces, but he will also work with the Air Force and others to attempt to improve the holes in the military’s air defense. Although he has not yet fully assumed his new position, his view on using the older anti-aircraft Vulcan defense system to protect against drones is that, if used, it should remain the last line of defense.
• Link: Maj.-Gen. Dan Goldfus: The IDF’s hero of Khan Yunis and destroyer of Hamas’s tunnels

Antisemitism

American Association of University of Professors under fire for reversing opposition to academic boycotts by Haley Cohen with Commentary

• Just weeks after the American Association of University Professors reversed course and dropped its longtime opposition to academic boycotts, faculty members on several campuses, days into the new academic year, have started implementing aspects of a boycott of Israel by not assigning articles written by Israeli scholars, refusing to invite Israeli academics to conferences or declining to write study abroad letters for students wishing to spend a semester in Israel.
• Critics accuse the AAUP of deserting its commitment to academic freedom – and although the policy does not mention Israel — particularly concerned are pro-Israel campus leaders who say the change will be used to promote the boycott of the Jewish state and as a result have negative consequences for Jewish and Israeli students and faculty.
• “When an academic boycott is approved — and we’re going to see some of them approved in the next year or two because the process is underway — then students are empowered to demonstrate against faculty members who have research relationships with Israel,” warned Cary Nelson, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor emeritus in the English department who served as the AAUP president from 2006-2012.
• The policy change is “not just speech and words,” Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, told Jewish Insider, outlining various steps she said are already being taken on some campuses. “There has been wall-to-wall condemnation from academics and organizations that aren’t even [necessarily] in the pro-Israel space, they are just in the academic freedom space,” Elman said, adding that “this is the wrong move for a storied organization.” The AAUP did not immediately respond to a request for comment from JI regarding the criticism.
• Nelson pointed to the anti-Israel encampments that infiltrated universities last year. Even on campuses where there haven’t been violent demonstrations, the potential threat “contributes to an increasingly nasty campus atmosphere,” Nelson told JI. “You’re still afraid of the violence because even if it’s not on your campus it’s happening on the campus across the state.” The change in AAUP’s policy will exacerbate this rhetoric, and make Zionist students and faculty “feel in danger,” Nelson said.
• Nelson said he does not believe AAUP will reverse the policy because of the “anti-Zionist and antisemitic” decision-makers, which includes members who are active faculty participants in campus chapters of SJP and other anti-Israel groups.
• The pushback is also meant to prevent students “from being victims of this move towards anti-Zionism and antisemitism,” Nelson told JI. But he added that students have several groups on campus, such as Hillel and Chabad, to find support.
• Link: American Association of University of Professors under fire for reversing opposition to academic boycotts: Jewish Insider

New York City’s Laboratory for Hate, by Emily Benedek in Tablet Magazine

• On Tuesday night, Sept. 3, Ilya Bratman—U.S. Army veteran, CUNY English teacher, and Hillel executive director at eight CUNY and SUNY schools—hosted a welcome-back dinner for Hillel students at a kosher restaurant near Baruch College. Soon after their entrance into Mr. Broadway, guests were surrounded by a chanting, braying, mob.
• “CUNY, CUNY, You can’t hide. You support genocide!”
• “Terrorist! Terrorist! Terrorist!”
• “All Zionists are racist!”
• They blocked the doorway, preventing students and other diners from leaving, held photos of murdered babies in the students’ faces, and even hit a Hillel staffer. One of the male protesters, his face concealed by a mask, shoulders draped in a kaffiyeh, creepily formed his fingers in the shape of a triangle—Hamas’ symbol for a military target.
• Then the slurs got personal. To a clearly Jewish-looking couple walking down the street, “You ugly ass bitch! Go back to Brooklyn!”
• A seasoned Army veteran who saw action in Iraq, Bratman is naturally cool, engaging, and funny—a genuine hail-fellow-well-met. It’s the very beginning of the school year and everyone is distracted, and he desperately needs more press coverage to get the attention of the CUNY administration. Bratman grew up in the Soviet Union, so he believes that he understands where all this is headed. His instincts now tell him that violence is coming.
• Bratman reported several students and one faculty member he saw at the protest. The ADL called on Baruch College President David Wu to condemn the violence. Wu did not return a request from Tablet for comment. William C. Thompson Jr., the chairman of CUNY’s Board of Trustees, responded to Tablet via his press spokesman on Sunday, calling the protesters’ behavior “deplorable.” He said, “We will not condone hateful rhetoric and any member of the CUNY community who participates in any actions that intimidate, threaten, or promote hate and violence, will face disciplinary consequences.”
• Bratman believes that the large Jewish organizations like ADL and AJC should put their money where their mouths are and hire teams of lawyers to sue the colleges and students and faculty who are breaking the law—often repeatedly, and for months on end. He says that he’s tired of hearing excuses from the funders like: “the wheels of justice turn slowly.” In response, he says “we need to make the wheels turn faster. I guarantee you, if it was about a merger of two financial firms, lawyers would make that happen quickly.” The famed Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Right Under Law “is great,” he says, but its capacity is too limited to help the numerous colleges that are in need.
• Link: New York City’s Laboratory for Hate: Tablet Magazine

Campus Protest Encampments Are Unethical, by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic

• The practical, legal, and moral arguments against occupying the quad add up to a protest tactic with costs that far outweigh any benefits. Some of the problems with encampments are obvious, others subtle; taken together, they show that academic communities cannot thrive when any group uses coercion to try to force others to adopt its ideas––an approach that usually fails anyway. Activists should reject encampments as both unethical and ineffective.
• UCLA offers a case study in what’s wrong with encampments. Royce Quad is a space many students crisscross to access central parts of campus. On April 25, pro-Palestine protesters formed an encampment with barricades. Entrances were guarded by activists, many of them masked. They barred entry to students who support Israel’s existence. On April 30, an angry crowd gathered to protest the barricades and encampment. Counterprotesters “hid their faces behind masks and scarves,” CNN reported. “Some attackers sprayed protesters with chemical irritants, hit them with wooden boards, punched and kicked them and shot fireworks into the crowd of students and supporters huddled behind umbrellas and wooden planks, attempting to stay safe.” Authorities, who had failed to stop protesters from unlawfully occupying the quad, similarly did not intervene as counterprotesters unlawfully assaulted some of its occupiers.
• But nondisruptive encampments are the exception, not the rule, partly because crowds of young people behave unpredictably, and partly because disruption is often the point. Many student activists seem to feel justified not only in trying to persuade their college administrators and peers to adopt particular beliefs about the war in Gaza, but to intentionally disrupt their lives and educations to coerce agreement. “We as students will reclaim our power on campus––there will be no classes or compliance with our institutions so long as their shameless profiteering off of our genocide persists,” Students for Justice in Palestine declared in an open letter. While I found no survey data asking specifically about campus encampments, a recent national survey of current college students found that 41 percent believe “students have a right to occupy buildings or stage ‘die-ins’ to prevent normal activities from occurring on campus” to raise awareness about the war. And 27 percent said they have a right to disrupt classes.
• I share the dismay of student activists at innocent lives lost in Gaza. Even when disagreeing with some of their positions—such as their desire for an academic boycott of Israel, and their refusal to acknowledge the ongoing culpability of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran in fueling violence in the region—I happily and repeatedly defend their First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. Perhaps they are even correct that the best way forward today is an immediate cease-fire.
• But they are failed by sympathetic adults and peers who defer to their tactics as if “there’s no wrong way to protest”––a talking point that cannot withstand scrutiny. Even if it were possible to prove definitively that an undergraduate were on the wrong side of an ongoing war, that would not justify protesting the wrongheaded student by, for example, shouting ethnic slurs at her, walking behind her with a bullhorn mocking her physical appearance, or sneaking into her dorm room and urinating on her possessions, even though all of those tactics would disrupt the status quo and attract attention. There are plenty of wrong ways to protest––and plenty of right ways to protest, too.
• To illustrate that principle, he compared two demonstrations by anti-Israel activists. In the first, a student group got permission to cover a large portion of the main quad with a Palestinian flag for several weeks. A sign urged Honor the Martyrs, which many passersby found offensive, perhaps thinking, as I did, of terrorists who had murdered innocents. During certain hours, a table was staffed with students who explained their intent by saying that the group regards every Palestinian who has died at Israel’s hands since October 7—not merely killers in Hamas—to be a martyr, a distinction that helped me better understand their views.
• In the second demonstration, a group of students and faculty occupied a campus building with classrooms and offices, “a clear disruption of the learning of others and of the normal functioning of the University,” Alivisatos wrote. “After repeated warnings, the protesters were arrested.”
• Last spring’s encampments disrupted academic life, sometimes by design; broke practical, principled, legitimate rules; violated the civil rights of some fellow students; prompted many to fear for their physical safety; sparked violent altercations on some campuses; and failed to stop the war. They largely failed to advance divestment, too, and in isolated cases where progress was made toward that goal, there’s little reason to believe that Palestinians will thereby benefit. Alternative ways to advocate for Palestinians are less ethically fraught, more constructive, and no less effective, albeit less fun than camping on the quad. Should the tactic return, I fear that it will again end in senseless violence of one sort or another. Everyone involved deserves better than that.
• Link: Campus Protest Encampments Are Unethical

Anti-Israel Activism on U.S. Campuses, 2023-2024, a report by the ADL surveys the “new normal” for college students –since the Hamas terror attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, campus life across U.S. colleges and universities has been substantially altered. Jewish students, faculty and staff in particular, have faced a surge in both anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents.

Beginning on October 7 itself, some anti-Israel groups on campus set the tone for the rest of the school year, issuing statements of praise for the attack, and calling for Israel and Zionism to be eradicated. Such sentiment had profoundly negative effects on campus Jewish communities. The key findings are listed below.

• The 2023-2024 ADL annual report on anti-Israel activism on U.S. campuses tallied 2,087 anti-Israel incidents of assault, vandalism, harassment, protests/actions and divestment resolutions between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024, a staggering 477% increase in those categories compared to the same period in 2022-2023. This marks the highest number ever documented by ADL. These incidents included both blatant acts of antisemitism, as well as anti-Israel activity, which is not always antisemitic. Incidents encompassed efforts to co-opt campus institutions in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns, anti-Israel protests that disrupted campus operations and the dissemination of rhetoric or adoption of policies that marginalize, demonize or exclude Jews, Zionists or Israelis from campus life.
• Assaults: 28 assaults, 0 in 22/23: Twenty-eight assaults were recorded on approximately 20 campuses across the country in the following states: California (10), Massachusetts (4), New York (4), New Jersey (2), North Carolina (2) and one assault each in Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin.
• One assault occurred in March 2024, when anti-Israel protesters at Vanderbilt University shoved a security guard as they protested the university’s removal of a proposed amendment to align the school’s student government with the demands of the BDS movement. In April 2024, a Jewish student was punched in the face at an anti-Israel encampment located at the University of California, Berkeley after he refused to stop filming, despite the encampment being in a public location.
• Protests were the most frequent form of anti-Israel activity on college campuses throughout the academic year. The 1,418 protest actions tabulated during the 2023-2024 academic year took place across 46 states and Washington D.C., spanning approximately 360 college/university campuses.
• Vandalism: Of the 201 vandalism (compared to 9 in 22/23) incidents recorded, 42% took the form of graffiti, 28% involved fliers of Israeli hostages from October 7 being vandalized or torn down and 13% were of offensive stickers placed on campus property. Of the 26 stickering incidents, 38% involved white supremacist group Patriot Front affixing propaganda stickers that included anti-Zionist messaging.
• Harassment: 360 incidents, 24 in 22/23: Of the 360 harassment incidents tabulated during the 2023-2024 academic year, 38% took the form of verbal harassment, 23% involved individuals or Jewish organizations on campus experiencing direct harassment online/on social media and 20% involved cases of offensive literature, fliers and/or signs. The use of anonymous social media platforms is a tactic used in years past; however, their utilization to harass or issue threats of violence against Jews and “Zionists” (e.g. at Rutgers Newark, The Ohio State University, Vassar College and University of California, Santa Cruz) after the October 7 attack emerged as a disturbing trend this year.
• Removal of hostage fliers and disrupting events memorializing October 7: The mis- and disinformation surrounding the October 7 terror attack likely helped give rise to at least 57 recorded incidents of hostage fliers being taken down or vandalized. Additionally, at least five campus events were protested that featured October 7 survivors or their families. Activists contended that such events spread Israeli propaganda or were forms of “normalization” with Israel and Zionism. In November 2023, at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, protesters put up signs outside a lecture hall where an October 7 survivor was speaking that read “Warning, complicit in genocide.”
• Classic and Explicit Antisemitism: At some schools, there was a resurgence of classic antisemitic themes and tropes about supposed Zionist control, including over university decision-making. In other cases, Israelis, Jews and/or Zionists were associated with greed and bloodthirstiness or compared to rodents and other animals. In one incident on April 19, 2024, at the encampment at Yale University, a protester displayed a sign depicting a shirtless Joe Biden cradling and breastfeeding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is drinking drops of blood from dollar signs on Biden’s bosom. In another incident, on May 17, 2024, a speaker at University of California, Irvine’s encampment stated: “The chancellor of UCI is a Zionist Jew. You’re a Zionist Jew and the bad part is not that you’re a Jew, the bad part is that you’re a Zionist Jew.”

Link: Anti-Israel Activism on U.S. Campuses, 2023-2024: ADL

Sources: JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, and the Times of Israel