Mideast War blowback

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Protests commemorating the upcoming 76th anniversary of the Nakba and calling for a cease-fire in Gaza were seen around the world this weekend.

The “Nakba,” which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the forced removal of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in preparation for the founding of Israel in 1948. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, some Jewish militias massacred Palestinian civilians, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, and hundreds of thousands of them were forced to flee their homes, according to the United Nations. Although the Nakba is not believed to have happened in one day, it's widely commemorated on May 15.

Over the weekend, crowds gathered in cities around the world, including in the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland. Protesters marched with Palestinian flags and signs calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, as well as for displaced Palestinians’ right to return to their homes.

Additional protests in more countries, like Wales, Germany and Belgium, are planned for this week.

In Brooklyn, New York, hundreds of people gathered at the Barclays Center on Saturday to call for an end to what many believe is a genocide in Gaza, as well as to call on the U.S. to stop sending weapons to Israel.

Protesters chanted, "We want justice. You know how? Stop bombing Rafah now." Some brought drums, which they played along with protest chants.

New York City Police Department officers in riot gear were seen closing in on protesters at one point and arresting them. More than 160 people were taken into custody over the course of the protest, according to the NYPD.

Hamed Yaghi and Souad Yaghi, a brother and sister from Connecticut, came to the Brooklyn protest to honor the victims of the Nakba, which they say not many people know about.

"We hope that everyone that sees the protest tries to research the history of Palestine," 20-year-old Hamed Yaghi told NBC News.

Elsewhere in New York, protesters blocked traffic on the Manhattan Bridge on Saturday.

In Seattle, protesters gathered to commemorate the Nakba at Westlake Park. In videos circulating online, protesters are heard chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, the occupation has got to go."

U.K.
Protesters were seen in multiple cities in the United Kingdom on Saturday, including Bristol and London.

In Bristol, protesters carried signs that read, "Free Palestine."

Protesters wearing and waving Palestinian flags also gathered in Northamptonshire on Saturday.

Another protest commemorating the 76th anniversary of the Nakba is planned in central London this Saturday.

Canada
Hundreds of protesters could be seen in Montreal at Westmount Square on Saturday calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

A few protesters held a banner that read, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

A large gathering of protesters was also seen in Toronto near the U.S. Consulate.

Australia
On Sunday, protesters gathered in Melbourne at State Library Victoria.

One protester held a sign in support of health care workers in Gaza that read, "YOU ARE NOT ALONE."

The Netherlands
In Amsterdam, protesters held a large Palestinian flag in the city center, video posted on social media showed.

10.000 against the settler colonial state and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine," one protester wrote in a caption on X accompanying the video.

New Zealand
Supporters of Palestinians were seen in New Plymouth on Sunday carrying a sign that read, "STOP THE GENOCIDE."

Also on Sunday in Auckland, protesters gathered at Aotea Square with instruments including drums and saxophones called for a "free Palestine."

Ireland
A small group of protesters in Fingal chanted "Free, free Palestine" over the weekend in a video shared by local politician John Burtchaell.

Two men accused of plotting to gun down Jews in an Islamic State-inspired attack in northwest England were held without bail Tuesday after appearing in a London court.

Walid Saadaoui, 36, and Amar Hussein, 50, were accused of planning to use machine guns to kill Jews, police and military personnel, prosecutors said in Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

The duo face charges of preparing terrorist acts between December 13 and May 9.

A third man, Bilel Saadaoui, 35, was accused of making arrangements for the expected death of his brother, co-defendant Walid Saadaoui.

He pleaded not guilty to a charge of failing to disclose information about an act of terrorism.

A third man, Bilel Saadaoui, 35, was accused of making arrangements for the expected death of his brother, co-defendant Walid Saadaoui.

He pleaded not guilty to a charge of failing to disclose information about an act of terrorism.

Paris memorial honoring people who distinguished themselves by helping to rescue Jews in France during the country’s Nazi occupation in World War II was defaced Tuesday with painted blood-red hands, vandalism decried as “unspeakable” by the Paris mayor.


PARIS, France — A Paris memorial honoring people who distinguished themselves by helping to rescue Jews in France during the country’s Nazi occupation in World War II was defaced Tuesday with painted blood-red hands, vandalism decried as “unspeakable” by the Paris mayor.

The attack on the Wall of the Righteous comes in the context of tensions and anger in France over the Israel-Hamas war. Antisemitic acts have surged in the country with the largest Jewish and Muslim populations in western Europe.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the memorial was vandalized overnight Monday to Tuesday. She said she has filed a complaint with the Paris prosecutor.

Ariel Weil, the mayor of Paris’ central districts, posted photos on the social media platform X of the damage. The photos showed more than two dozen blood-red hands painted on the memorial’s stonework and others on a wall in the Paris neighborhood.

Dozens of anti-Israel student protesters took over CUNY Graduate Center’s library Tuesday night and “renamed” it after a university in Gaza destroyed by airstrikes.

The demonstrators hung Palestinian flags as well as banners and signs inside the Mina Rees Library on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue with their new name for it: “The Al Aqsa University Library” — after the oldest public university in Gaza, which has been near-flattened by Israel’s bombardment of the territory.

“Disclose. Divest. We will not stop, we will not rest,” the roughly 30 students chanted as they stood and sat inside the building lobby, according to a clip shot by an independent video journalist.

Another 50 protesters stood outside the doors of the public university but were blocked from entering.

Inside the university building, the student protesters read the names of 94 Palestinian professors recently killed during the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Organizers said they took over the library building — and “de-occupied” it — as part of the push to demand CUNY divest $8.5 million from weapons, tech and surveillance companies “complicit in zionist settler-colonialism and genocide of the Palestinian people.”

The protesters are also demanding CUNY drop all charges against students who were arrested during a police raid on a City College encampment.

“From New York to Palestine, protesting is not a crime,” they chanted in the lobby. “From CUNY to Palestine, protesting is not a crime.”

The traditional celebration of the Jewish state is scheduled to take over Fifth Avenue on June 2 and is expected to bring thousands of supporters to Manhattan — along with hundreds of cops during a months-long spike in antisemitism throughout the five boroughs as the Mideast war rages.

“There is no way [they] would not have the parade,” a Manhattan cop told The Post on Tuesday. “The city and the organizers would not give in to the protesters.

“There will be a double [police] detail — that is, the usual cops that line the parade route and another detail to deal with the protesters.”

Mark Treyger, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, which sponsors the event, said, “We are dotting every I and every T in terms of safety.”

The relatives of some of the Israeli hostages still being held by Palestinian Hamas terrorists as part of the conflict are expected to attend the parade.

The NYPD plans to beef up its typical deployment of about 700 cops along the parade route to ensure that anti-Israeli protesters don’t crash the march and spark trouble, the police source said.

The event, which dates to 1964, will mark the first major Israeli celebration in the city since Oct. 7, when Hamas pulled off its sneak massacre in Israel that prompted the continuing war in the Gaza Strip.

“We’re going to continue to make this parade safe and secure,” said Treyger, a former Brooklyn councilman and onetime city Education Department rep for Mayor Eric Adams. “It is certainly the most important parade in recent memory — certainly in my lifetime.”

In a statement to The Post on Tuesday, Adams said the city is 100% behind the parade.

“There is no denying that our city — along with the rest of the nation — has seen an alarming rise in anti-Israel and antisemitic protests and rhetoric,” the mayor said. “But make no mistake, New York City will never cower in the face of those trying to divide us.

“On June 2, New Yorkers from all walks of life will be able to celebrate Israel, similar to how they have done for more than a decade, and I look forward to personally participating in this year’s event, as I have done for years,” he said.

Treyger, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, added, “There’s a lot of enthusiasm and support for the parade.

“There’s great interest from Jewish families and friends of Israel in the tri-state region.”

As for themes, he said the return of the hostages is on everyone’s mind.

After attending a Holocaust commemoration last week, a young man decided to survey the nearby anti-Israel encampment at his alma mater, the University of Amsterdam.

The tension and anger on display at the Roeterseiland campus on May 6 made the Jewish man feel unsafe immediately upon crossing the illegal checkpoint that the anti-Israel students set up there, he told The Times of Israel under the condition of anonymity.

The northern European-looking man — who wasn’t wearing Jewish or Israeli symbols — was proven right to be afraid. Within minutes, a person wearing a keffiyeh around his face and holding a wooden plank hit him on the head in an incident that shocked countless viewers for the savage violence on display in videos and images taken there of multiple assailants attacking multiple people.

The violence unfolded in the presence of two police officers who did not detain anyone at the event.

The man is one of many Jews and non-Jews who, despite being aware of the proliferation of antisemitism and anti-Israel vitriol in Europe and around them, were nonetheless shocked by the speed and force of how these sentiments have exploded on campuses across the continent and beyond.

Witnesses and anti-racism professionals observing this trend have offered multiple explanations for it, including the increased involvement of pro-terrorist groups like Samidoun on campuses in the Netherlands and beyond, as well as police inaction and anti-Israel actions by some faculty.

“For many years now, we in the Jewish world have feared that the words of anti-Israel incitement would turn into antisemitic violence that would change our everyday lives,” said the man. “This fear is now a reality.”

The man sustained only minor injuries in the assault, in which anti-Israel protesters began indiscriminately hitting people they associated with a gathering by some 10 pro-Israel counter-protesters. (The man was not part of that counter-protest, he told The Times of Israel.)

Another victim had head injuries that required medical treatment. Police did not immediately reply to a query by The Times of Israel on whether they had detained the suspected assailants, and why their officers failed to stop the assaults. Police have in recent days arrested dozens of anti-Israel activists at encampments in the Netherlands.

Anti-Israel agitation gone global
The violence at the University of Amsterdam in recent months is part of a global campaign of anti-Israel agitation, which often features antisemitic attacks or intimidation at or around illegal encampments set up by hundreds and sometimes thousands of students on campus.

In North America, this phenomenon surprised many. But the eruption of hostility and its intensity seems to have caught off guard even European Jews and their allies, who for years have faced significant expressions of anti-Israel and antisemitic violence.

Across Europe, even seasoned observers of this are discovering that they are unprepared for the new reality on campus after October 7.

A Christian woman whose husband is a Jewish studies scholar at the University of Hamburg was, on May 8, assaulted so severely at an on-campus lecture about antisemitism that she had to be hospitalized, she told The Times of Israel.

The assault happened after one woman accused the woman’s husband of being a “child killer,” shouting at him. The “child killer” allegation is among the slogans frequently heard on Western campuses, along with calls for a “global intifada” and “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” — phrases that many interpret as calling for killing Jews and ethnically cleansing them, respectively.

His wife took out her phone to film the vitriol, she said, speaking anonymously due to legal reasons. “Naively, I even asked her permission to film it,” the scholar’s wife recalled. She was aware of this hate speech being used against perceived pro-Zionists, but she didn’t expect to be assaulted.

A third woman, identified by Der Spiegel as a 26-year-old who was born in Somalia, began at a certain point to choke and punch the scholar’s wife, throwing her to the ground and leaving her concussed.

“I have been following the development of antisemitism for years, and especially in recent months, yet I never expected this. Clearly, I had misjudged the danger,” she said.

The scholar’s wife recalls hearing a woman complaining to police over the phone at the lecture hall that “a Jewish woman just assaulted a Muslim woman,” she said. “Immediately there was this attempt to flip the narrative and make me the aggressor, under the assumption that I’m Jewish,” the scholar’s wife said.

Not isolated incidents
At the University of Amsterdam, a 24-year-old psychology student had felt relatively safe for months after October 7 even as anti-Israel mobilization happened around her, the student told the Het Parool newspaper anonymously for an article published Saturday.

The student had continued to attend campus events and lectures even as hostility to Israel rose over its war on Hamas, which began after terrorists on October 7 murdered some 1,200 people in Israel and abducted 252.

Nausica Marbe, a prominent Dutch-Jewish author and journalist who has written extensively about antisemitism, sees the riots and the interview with the rector as a historically significant moment, she told fellow journalist Joop Soesan on his podcast Sunday.

“It looked like images from a documentary,” Marbe said of the rector’s interview, which has caused a national uproar. “It was as though I were watching something on Netflix about what happens when a civilized society falls prey to terrorists, who hold hostage people in high positions. It is unbelievable. It is beyond my comprehension.”

The European Union on Wednesday urged Israel to end its military operation in Gaza’s Rafah “immediately,” warning that failure to do so would undermine ties with the bloc.

“Should Israel continue its military operation in Rafah, it would inevitably put a heavy strain on the EU’s relationship with Israel,” said a statement issued in the EU’s name by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

“The European Union urges Israel to end its military operation in Rafah immediately,” the statement said, warning it was “further disrupting the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza and is leading to more internal displacement, exposure to famine and human suffering.

The EU bloc of 27 countries — the main aid donor for the Palestinian territories and Israel’s biggest trading partner — said more than a million people in and around Rafah had been ordered by Israel to flee the area to other zones the UN says cannot be considered safe.

“While the EU recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself, Israel must do so in line with International Humanitarian Law and provide safety to civilians,” it said.

The law requires Israel to allow in humanitarian aid, the statement stressed. It called on Israel “to refrain from further exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and reopen the crossing point of Rafah.”

The EU also condemned a Hamas attack on the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel, saying it “has further obstructed the delivery of humanitarian relief.” Four IDF soldiers were killed and ten wounded in the attack. Days after the attack the IDF reopened the crossing?

Nearly 450,000 of the roughly one million Palestinians who had been sheltering in Rafah have evacuated in recent days as the IDF has escalated its operations in Gaza’s southernmost city.

“We call on all parties to redouble their efforts to achieve an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas,” the EU said.

The House on Thursday passed a Republican-led bill to condemn President Joe Biden's approach to Israel and force him to send arms shipments to the U.S. ally.

The final vote was 224-187. Sixteen Democrats voted for the bill, going against House Democratic leadership and President Biden

The measure is a culmination of the political fallout from Biden's recent pause of a bomb shipment to Israel and his pointed warning the U.S. won't supply weapons that could be used in an invasion of Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where more than a million civilians have sought shelter.

Republicans have seized on the actions to attack Biden, accusing him of betraying Israel due to political pressure. The White House and many Democrats have countered that the GOP-led bill is misleading and distorts Biden's policy on the Israel-Hamas war.

The bill, titled Israel Security Assistance Act, is largely symbolic as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said he won't bring it to the floor for a vote after the White House announced Biden would veto it should it make its way to his desk.

The legislation urges the "expeditious delivery" of defense articles and services to Israel, and reaffirms Israel's right to self-defense. It would withhold funds for certain administration officials such as secretary of defense and secretary of state until such defense articles are delivered.

The White House said the GOP bill was "unnecessary" and raised "serious concerns about infringement" on a president's authority.

In a press conference earlier Thursday ahead of the vote, Johnson criticized Schumer and Biden for opposing the bill.

"It is clear that Biden and Schumer have turned their back on Israel," he said. "They are carrying water for Iran and its proxies."

On Biden's pause of some American-made heavy bombs to Israel out of fear they'd be used in heavily populated areas in Rafah, Johnson said the administration was "defying the will of Congress."

"We want the president to hear this loud and clear … This is a catastrophic decision with global implications. It is obviously being done with political calculation and we can't let this stand," Johnson added.

While the bill garnered overwhelming support among Republicans, it forced a difficult vote for Democrats that put on display some of the differences within the caucus regarding Israel.

House Democratic Caucus chairman Pete Aguilar, at the party's weekly press conference on Wednesday, downplayed divisions in the party.

"We understand that there's different viewpoints within our own caucus on this, but overwhelmingly House Democrats will reject this overly political bill," Aguilar said.

Aguilar added that the "important thing" is Democratic support to protect Israel, noting the party provided significant votes to help pass the foreign aid package and government funding bill -- both of which included funds for Israel.

"That's overwhelmingly where we stand on these issues," he said.

Tensions at the University of California, Irvine campus escalated Wednesday as a group of several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters entered a lecture hall and surrounded the building, according to school officials.

The Irvine Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Department were called to the scene after the university called for mutual aid from local law enforcement agencies, UC Irvine said in an emergency update.

Authorities were seen putting protesters in zip-ties and escorting them away from the main protest area.

Among the total number of arrests, 19 individuals were not affiliated with the university, two were school employees and 26 were students.

"I was prepared to allow a peaceful encampment to exist on the campus without resorting to police intervention, even though the encampment violated our policies and the existence of the encampment was a matter of great distress to other members of our community," Chancellor Howard Gillman said in a letter to the community Thursday.

"And so after weeks when the encampers assured our community that they were committed to maintaining a peaceful and nondisruptive encampment, it was terrible to see that they would dramatically alter the situation in a way that was a direct assault on the rights of other students and the university mission," he continued.

Police took down barricades from the encampment and people were asked to leave the building.

Protesters entered the Physical Sciences Lecture Hall on the UC Irvine campus at approximately 2:30 p.m. local time, according to the university.

Classes for the remainder of the day were canceled and school officials urged anyone in the immediate area to evacuate until further notice.

"Anyone currently in buildings in the vicinity of the protest are advised to exit buildings & leave area at this time," UC Irvine wrote in an update on X. "Please disregard all previous orders to shelter in place. If able, please leave immediately & continue to avoid the protest area until further notice."

By Wednesday night, police had broken up the campus encampment.

UCI said classes on Thursday would be remote.

Pro-Palestinian protesters have been present on the UC Irvine campus since establishing an encampment on April 29, according to the university.

On Tuesday, UC Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher announced that investments from companies that students are targeting in their call for divestment represent $32 billion, which is nearly one-fifth, of the UC system's overall assets.

Last month, the University of California president said the institutions would not boycott or divest from Israel.

French police on Friday shot dead an armed man who was trying to set fire to a synagogue in the northern city of Rouen. In Sweden, the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm was sealed off after a shooting early in the morning, according to local media reports.

In France, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, “National police in Rouen neutralized early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue.”

Police responded at 6:45 a.m. (0445 GMT) to reports of “fire near the synagogue,” a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP that the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar. He approached the police, who fired. The individual died.”

He made clear there were no victims other than the attacker.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it was currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

In Stockholm, police press officer Per Fahlström told newspaper Expressen that a police patrol heard loud bangs, suspected to be from a firearm. The area was cordoned off shortly after 2 a.m., and at 6:30 a.m. the police wrote that their investigations indicated there had been a shooting in the area.

Police at the Israeli Embassy were searching for traces of gunfire.

Fahlström did not comment on whether the embassy was the target of the suspected shooting.

The counter-protesters aren't students, the protesters for the most part are.

University of Michigan officials said the student groups who organized an encampment on campus are taking responsibility for protesting at Board of Regents members' homes, leaving fake body bags and toys — both painted with what appears to be fake blood. The incident occurred amid ongoing protests over campus investments in Israel.

Officials said that on Wednesday, about 30 students "staged demonstrations at the private residence of at least one U-M Board of Regents member and went to several others' residences."

The university said a few protestors were masked. The protestors left as police arrived.

"Activities included placing tents and fake corpses wrapped in bloodied sheets on the lawn, marching and chanting, and posting demands on doors," the university said in a statement. "The tactics used today represent a significant and dangerous escalation in the protests that have been occurring on campus. Going to an individual's private residence is intimidating behavior and, in this instance, illegal trespassing. This kind of conduct is not protected speech; it's dangerous and unacceptable."

The university said student groups Jewish Voice for Peace, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, and the Transparency, Accountability, Humanity, Reparations, Investment, Resistance (TAHRIR) Coalition are claiming responsibility.

An Instagram post from the former group's account included a caption reading, in part, "Regent Hubbard, we will hold you accountable for the 35,000+ Palestinians martyrs whose death (sic) you funded and profited from. No matter how many times you call on violent cops to brutalize students, cancel and move your meetings to hide from students, and refuse to admit this university's and YOUR complicity in genocide, we will continue to protest. You cannot hide."

Regents Sarah Hubbard and Jordan Acker posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that protestors came to their homes with demands early Wednesday morning.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson responded to Acker's post, calling Wednesday's protest "horrific and unacceptable," adding:

"As someone who once had armed protestors outside my home in the dark of night, I know the fear it invokes as you shelter inside trying to protect your child as you wait for law enforcement to arrive or the group to disperse. I am all for individuals' right to peacefully protest, but a line is crossed in incidents like these.

"A group of people targeting one person, at home, particularly at night, is menacing. And ineffective. If the goal is to change minds, history and my own experience underscore that protesting outside an official's home is rarely if ever effective at achieving the goals of those gathering — and oftentimes, it backfires. Protestors across the country have organized encampments, calling for the university to divest in Israel."

The counter-protesters aren't students, the protesters for the most part are.

"Many of us like to ask ourselves, What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now."
—Former U.S. Airman (Air Force) Aaron Bushnell