Mideast War blowback

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The Trump administration is continuing its battle against Harvard University — this time, canceling $2.7 million in grants and threatening to stop the enrollment of international students.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday announced the cancellation of two DHS grants to the school, declaring it "unfit to be entrusted with taxpayer dollars."

Noem also said she sent a letter to Harvard demanding "detailed records" on foreign student visa holders’ "illegal and violent activities" by April 30.

If Harvard does not meet that deadline, it’ll immediately lose its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, she warned.

The release alleged Harvard’s foreign visa holders participated in riots and spewed antisemitic hate targeting Jewish students following the Hamas incursion against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

"If Harvard cannot verify it is in full compliance with its reporting requirements, the university will lose the privilege of enrolling foreign students," a DHS news release said.

The two canceled grants were: an $800,303 grant for Implementation Science for Targeted Violence Prevention, which Noem said "branded conservatives as far-right dissidents in a shockingly skewed study," and a $1.9 million Blue Campaign Program Evaluation and Violence Advisement grant that Noem alleged "funded Harvard’s public health propaganda."

"Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism — driven by its spineless leadership — fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security," Noem said in a statement. "With anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology poisoning its campus and classrooms, Harvard’s position as a top institution of higher learning is a distant memory. America demands more from universities entrusted with taxpayer dollars."

An immigration judge has denied bond to Rümeysa Öztürk, her lawyers said Thursday, the latest development in the case of the Tufts University student from Turkey whose arrest on a Massachusetts sidewalk was captured in a viral video.

Öztürk, 30, was on her way to meet friends to break the Ramadan fast on March 25 when she was surrounded and detained by plainclothes immigration agents in Somerville, a Boston suburb. She was then taken to an immigration detention center in Louisiana.

Her lawyers have asked a federal judge in Vermont to order her release as the immigration case plays out. They argue that Öztürk’s student was visa revoked in retaliation for an op-ed she co-wrote for her student newspaper about the war in Gaza.

A group of protesters is planning to set up tent encampments on Columbia University campuses this week in protest of the war in Gaza, according to three people familiar with the planning and a recording of a meeting to plan the action shared with NBC News.

The planned encampments come just over a year after students first erected about 50 tents on a university lawn to protest the war and drew the world's attention.

Planning for the encampments has been shrouded in secrecy.

The coordinating meeting took place at a community center on Tuesday night in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, approximately 12 miles from campus, according to screenshots of Signal messages from organizers and a person who was at the meeting.

Invitations for the meeting were largely distributed in person or verbally over the phone, according to the person who attended the meeting and asked not to be named due to fears of discipline from the school.

More than 100 people were present at the gathering and all wore masks to conceal their identities, according to the person. It is unclear if all of the participants were Columbia students, the person said.

The student organizers did not introduce speakers by name and instead used Signal usernames and code names — including the beloved Pokémon “Squirtle” and words such as “butterfly” — to distinguish one another, according to the recording.

Organizers have also refrained from referring to the upcoming encampments as "encampments," according to screenshots of Signal messages from the organizers and conversations with two people familiar with the planning for the protests. In writing, and verbally, participants have designated the encampments with a code name, the “circus."

Organizers asked demonstrators not to arrive on campus wearing masks on the days of the protests, which they said could alert campus security officers, according to the recording.

“This year feels so much more organized and careful,” the person who was at the meeting said.

Students are planning to erect an encampment on Thursday at the university's main campus in Manhattan's Morningside Heights neighborhood and a second encampment on Friday at the university's nearby Manhattanville campus, according to the recording.

"When we take over the lawn, our goal is to unify the space and make it our own," one of the organizers said, according to the recording.

Thursday’s encampment was planned to start at 1 p.m. on the West Butler Lawn of the university’s main campus, where encampments were set up last year, according to the recording, and disperse before nightfall or before police enter the campus.

There will be a second encampment that is expected to be more robust and begin the next day. It is unclear when the Friday encampment will begin, but according to the recording, students plan to stay indefinitely and expect arrests to be made.

Organizers chose to stage Friday's encampment at the Manhattanville campus — the site of the university's business school — because it is not gated off to outsiders, unlike the main campus, according to a person who attended the meeting.

A speaker at the meeting also said that the site of the second encampment was aimed at protesting the university's gentrification of Harlem, according to the recording.

"Any action that we do will bring police, will bring repression and we thought about that deeply and we're aware of that," a speaker at the meeting said to applause. "And we're stuck in this situation where inaction is also violence."

Organizers of the upcoming protests have distributed several guidelines, obtained by NBC News, to student protesters. These guidelines cover legal risks associated with protesting, best practices for encounters with law enforcement and strategies for securing their digital presence.

The document on digital security advises that students communicate only through encrypted messaging services such as Signal, over the phone, or in person. It also suggests that students turn off Wi-Fi on their phones while protesting to avoid being traced by the university.

Another form shared by the organizers and obtained by NBC News asks students to provide "all the information necessary to support your legal defense" for their emergency contacts in the event of arrest.

It asks for student protesters to list any medical conditions, insurance information, prescriptions, if they have dependents, where their government IDs are, their address and how emergency contacts can access their apartments or homes.

"Given the Trump Administration’s commitment to pursuing federal action against pro-Palestine protestors and the abduction of our comrade Mahmoud Khalil, we are now asking students to prepare not only for potential arrest and jail for several hours or overnight, but for the possibility of prolonged jail time," the form reads. "Give serious thought to the question of how you would prepare for weeks or months in jail."

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked officials from moving a Palestinian student from Columbia University who was taken into custody during his naturalization interview in Vermont.

U.S. District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford extended a previous temporary restraining order that keeps the student, Mohsen Mahdawi, in the state, where he is a resident. Mahdawi is being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Vermont.

Lawyers for Mahdawi, a pro-Palestinian activist, had filed a motion for his release, arguing that he is not a flight risk.

“Mr. Mahdawi has deep community ties, a long history of being actively invested in the peace process, and nearly 80 individuals who can attest to his character,” the filing said.

However, Crawford declined to rule whether the federal government can continue to detain Mahdawi, or whether the court has jurisdiction over his habeas petition challenging his detention. The judge set a hearing for next week, at which he could decide to release him.

Mahdawi, who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank and is a U.S. permanent resident, was taken into custody last week by armed agents from the Department of Homeland Security.

Mahdawi walked into what he thought was the “final stage” of the long pathway to citizenship, raising his right hand, answering questions and signing a document that “he was willing to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America,” his attorneys said in court filings.

“It was a trap. At approximately 12:00 P.M., the USCIS official informed Mr. Mahdawi that he needed to ‘check’ on some information and would be right back,” the court filings said. “ICE agents, masked and visibly armed, entered the interview room and shackled Mr. Mahdawi.”

The head of Harvard University doubled down on his defiance against the Trump administration Wednesday, saying the Ivy League school would not compromise on certain issues despite the federal government’s threat to freeze more than $2 billion in funding.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News' Lester Holt, Harvard President Alan Garber said the school had “no choice” but to fight back against what it believes is federal overreach and an illegal attempt by the government to withhold funding as leverage to control academic decision-making.

“We are defending what I believe is one of the most important lynchpins of the American economy and way of life — our universities,” Garber said.

In a letter on April 11, the Trump administration outlined a list of “critical reforms” it wanted Harvard to make to keep $2.2 billion in grants. The reforms included allowing the government to audit whom the school hires and admits for at least the next three years.

When Harvard rejected the demands, the administration said it would freeze the funding, citing the school’s unwillingness to seriously address antisemitism and the harassment of Jewish students.

Harvard sued the federal government on Monday to halt the funding freeze.

Speaking about the issue for the first time on Wednesday, Garber said the lawsuit was necessary to protect the school’s independence and constitutional rights, as well as the future of higher education in the United States.

“We will not compromise on certain issues,” said Garber, the head of Harvard since 2024. “We’ve made that very clear.”

Garber acknowledged that the Massachusetts campus has a “real problem” with antisemitism amid a war between Israel and Hamas that began after the group attacked Israel in October 2023.

In its lawsuit, Harvard outlined steps it has taken to curb incidents of antisemitism, including imposing "meaningful discipline" for policy violators, beefing up security, enhancing programs meant to address bias and hiring staff to support those programs.

Garber, who is Jewish, said the antisemitism issue has nothing to do with the research that the federal grants fund.

The research now at risk includes efforts to improve the prospects of children who survive cancer, to understand at the molecular level how cancer spreads throughout the body, to predict the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield, he said.

“Putting that research at jeopardy because of claims of antisemitism seems to us to be misguided,” Garber said. “The effort to address antisemitism will not be advanced by shutting off funding.”

He added that nearly all federal funding is directed toward the research the government has deemed high-priority.

Even if there is a short pause in funding, Garber said there are long-lasting consequences to the research. In some cases, he said it would be impossible to pick the projects back up.

There is so much at stake,” he said. “People leave their jobs. We have patients whose treatment in clinical trials might be interrupted. Animals that are used in research sometimes cannot continue to be maintained when the funding stops.”

Garber said he is “very concerned about Harvard’s future” and the partnership between the federal government and research universities that he said has improved lives and has made the U.S. a “technological powerhouse.”

“That partnership has been responsible over the decades for dramatic innovation in science and technology,” he said.

The White House on Wednesday defended its position and actions.

"The real threat to higher education comes when places like Harvard let their students’ civil rights get trampled in a spineless attempt to coddle pro-Hamas activists,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement. “President Trump is standing up for every student denied an education or safe campus because left-wing universities fail to protect their civil rights. Colleges are hooked on federal cash, and Mr. Garber’s public outburst only fuels the push to shut off the taxpayer money propping up their institution.”

An R&B singer who said, “F— Israel” has been disinvited from performing at Cornell University’s end-of-semester concert following outcry from Jewish students.

After a student board announced on April 10 that the singer, Kehlani, would headline the school’s annual “Slope Day” concert, the student group Cornellians for Israel called on the school to rescind the pick. Initially, Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff told students that it was “too late” to secure another performer and that the school had altered her contract to mitigate any political displays.

But in an email to the Cornell community this morning, Kotlikoff announces that Kehlani’s performance has been canceled.

“In the days since Kehlani was announced, I have heard grave concerns from our community that many are angry, hurt, and confused that Slope Day would feature a performer who has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments in performances, videos, and on social media,” Kotlikoff, who is Jewish, wrote in an email. “While any artist has the right in our country to express hateful views, Slope Day is about uniting our community, not dividing it.”

An alternative lineup for the event has not been announced, but Kotlikoff said that the school would “revise the process for researching and selecting performers” moving forward.

Kehlani released a music video last June that flashes the message “Long Live the Intifada,” a reference to two Palestinian uprisings against Israel, the latter of which killed an estimated 1,000 people. The previous month, in a video on X, she condemned other artists for staying silent on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying, “It’s f— Israel, it’s f— Zionism, and it’s also f— a lot of y’all too.”

The controversy surrounding the artist’s upcoming performance comes as Cornell is poised to lose $1 billion in federal funding from the Trump administration, ostensibly over its handling of campus antisemitism.

Rates of antisemitic incidents have experienced a “sharp decline” across the world more than a year after Oct. 7, 2023, according to the author of a new study from Tel Aviv University.

The study of global antisemitism, published this week, noted that the number of incidents decreased in many countries in 2024, including France, Britain, Germany, Mexico and South Africa, although rates broadly remain higher than they were before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

“Contrary to popular belief, the report’s findings indicate that the wave of antisemitism did not steadily intensify due to the war in Gaza and the humanitarian disaster there,” said Uriya Shavit, the report’s chief editor, in a press release. “The peak was in October-December 2023, and a year later, a sharp decline in the number of incidents was noted almost everywhere.”

The study was conducted by Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and the Irwin Cotler Institute for Democracy, Human Rights and Justice. It collected tallies of antisemitic incidents in 2024 from “dozens of police departments, specialized agencies and organizations that monitor and combat antisemitism, Jewish communities, Jewish leaders, and media organizations,” which often employ differing standards and definitions of antisemitism.

Despite the overall downward trend, in some countries, including Australia and Italy, there was a notable spike in the number of antisemitic incidents, the report said. In Australia last year, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, there were 1,713 antisemitic incidents, compared to 1,200 in 2023. Italy saw 877 antisemitic incidents in 2024, compared to 454 in 2023, according to a Jewish watchdog group.

Report published in the same week as Anti-Defamation League report
The report was published the same week as another study of antisemitism in the United States by the Anti-Defamation League that reported 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the country, marking a 5% increase from the previous year.

The ADL found that the spike in the United States was partially attributable to an 84% spike in campus antisemitism after a year that saw widespread pro-Palestinian protests at universities. More than half of the total incidents counted were related to Israel or Zionism.

The Tel Aviv University report also discussed hate crime enforcement by local police departments and found that in Chicago in 2023, 10% of antisemitic incidents resulted in arrests. In Toronto, 6% of anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 resulted in arrest, and London had an arrest rate of 4% over the same period. In New York City between 2021 and 2023, about a third of antisemitic incidents resulted in arrests.

Protesters did not set up new tent encampments or demonstrate against the war in Gaza at Columbia University on Thursday as planned.

NBC News reported Wednesday that a group planned to set up tent encampments on the New York City school's main campus Thursday afternoon.

It is unclear whether the encampment planned for Friday will proceed.

Instead of protests Thursday, the scene on campus included students enjoying one of the first warm days in New York City this spring. Dozens of students lay out beach towels, snapped selfies under the sun and tossed around Frisbees.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies executed search warrants the morning of April 23 at homes in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Canton.

The Michigan Attorney General's Office said the raids are part of a vandalism investigation but a lawyer who spoke to several people whose homes were raided insisted they were targeted for their pro-Palestinian activism.

"Everyone who was raided has taken part in protest and has some relationship to the University of Michigan," said Liz Jacob, an attorney with the Sugar Law Center in Detroit, which is representing several protesters who say they've been effectively banned from campus. "We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted."

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's Office obtained the warrants. Office spokesman Danny Wimmer denied the homes were targeted because of protests.

"Our search warrants were not related to protest activity on the campus of the University of Michigan nor the Diag encampment," Wimmer said in a statement to the Free Press. "Today's search warrants are in furtherance of our investigation into multijurisdictional acts of vandalism."

He noted that "there is no immigration enforcement angle to the execution of these search warrants."

Jacob said the warrants were signed by Judge Michelle Friedman Appel.

Appel is chief judge in Oak Park District Court, whose jurisdiction includes Huntington Woods, where U-M Regent Jordan Acker, who is Jewish, lives.

In December, vandals spray-painted antisemitic graffiti on his car and smashed a window of his home while Acker and his family slept inside. Last June, vandals spray-painted obscenities and anti-Israel graffiti across the entrance to the Goodman Acker law firm in Southfield, using wording that leaders of the firm said was antisemitic, targeting Acker, the firm's senior partner.

Last month, vandals attacked the Ann Arbor home of U-M Provost Laurie McCauley, breaking a window and spray-painting pro-Palestine graffiti.

In May 2024, protesters paid an early morning visit to the home of another regent, Sarah Hubbard, who lives outside of Lansing. They taped a list of demands to her door, left body bags on her lawn, chanted slogans and posted a video of the protest online.

Jacob said seven people were targeted in the April 23 raids. She said several of them are current U-M students and they were awakened early in the morning when police arrived with search warrants. She said several people were detained briefly while police searched their residences and confiscated cellphones and laptop computers.

No arrests were made.

Detroit FBI office spokesman Jordan Hall confirmed his agency was present in Ypsilanti, but declined to elaborate on the reason, saying only it was for "law enforcement activity."

It's unclear why the FBI would be involved in a vandalism complaint.

"It really sounds like multijurisdictional vandalism is a euphemism for the Attorney General cooperating with the Trump administration to target pro-Palestine protesters," Jacob said.

Two anti-Israel activists were wrestled to the ground after they ran onto the London Marathon route Sunday to disrupt the event and protest ties between Israel and the United Kingdom.
A marathon staffer intervened and wrestled the two Youth Demand activists away from the path of the marathoners, after they jumped the barriers and threw red powder at the Tower Bridge, according to a Metropolitan Police X/Twitter post. Police officers arrested the protesters on suspicion of causing a public nuisance.

The Met assured the public that the red chalk-based powder would not present a hazard to runners.

The British non-violent environmental and political activist group said in a statement that the activists called for a “full trade embargo” on Israel amid the war in Gaza, and for reparations by oil and gas companies to countries and communities harmed by climate change.

Kneecap, the Irish band that performed an anti-Israel act at Coachella, is under investigation by UK counterterrorism police following a report filed by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), the organization stated on Thursday.

In a statement on its website, UKLFI said Kneecap’s recent performance at Coachella “whipped up anti-Israel hatred amongst the crowd,” as they led their fans with anti-Israel chants.

“This behavior was particularly egregious at a music festival,” the organization said, “given that hundreds of young Israelis were brutally murdered, raped and tortured at a similar music festival on October 7, 2023.”

During their Coachella set, Kneecap projected a series of political messages, including accusations of genocide against Israel, condemnation of US military support for Israel, and the phrase, “F*** Israel. Free Palestine.”

Showing support for Hamas after October 7
The band also posted a message of support for Gaza on October 8, 2023, just one day after Hamas's attack on Israel. They shared a photo of themselves standing beneath a Palestinian flag with the caption: “Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.”

In response to the band’s actions, UKLFI said it had written to all UK venues where Kneecap is scheduled to perform this summer, warning them about the risks associated with hosting the group.

A UKLFI spokesperson said: “This band appears to enjoy courting controversy. However, if this involves support for terrorists as well as whipping up anti-Israel hatred amongst its audience, then they should be aware that they are not above the law.”

Hundreds of protesters gathered at Central Park in New York City on Sunday, calling for the release of the 59 hostages who have been held captive in Gaza for 569 days.

Among those attending were relatives of the hostages, including the parents of Itay Chen, the brother of Evyatar David, the brother-in-law of Omri Miran, and the aunt of released hostage Abigail Idan.

Israel’s under-23 fencing team won a gold medal at the European Championships in Estonia on Saturday, but joy over the victory was quickly marred when the Swiss team they defeated turned their backs during the Israeli national anthem.

The protest drew condemnation from Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who panned the Swiss for “disrespectful behavior” and being sore losers.

The Swiss Fencing Federation said it would probe the incident.

Israel’s team of Alon Sarid, Fyodor Khaperski, Yonatan Masika, and Itamar Tavor beat the Swiss 45–34 to take the gold medal. It was a remarkable achievement for the Israelis, who were ranked seventh at the start of the contest.

However, when the Israeli national anthem “Hatikvah” played, the Israeli team and bronze medalists turned sideways to face the flags, while the Swiss fencers — Yan Auri, Theo Broshar, Yonatan Fohriman, and Sven Vines — remained looking straight ahead.

Sarid said that though the teams shook hands before the contest, after the final ended “some avoided us,” in remarks quoted by the Ynet news site.

He said the Israeli team members was only made aware of the Swiss protest after the ceremony when they saw photos of the incident.