An IDF Vet Seeks a Campus Safe Space
On antisemitism hysteria, Israeli commander whistleblowers, Gaza’s killing fields, and the next phase of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank
Quick editor’s note for new readers: I send this out every Saturday or Sunday. It opens with a short reflection on what’s been on my mind, followed by a weekly news roundup organized by region—Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, the US, and occasionally elsewhere. The stories come from American, Arab, Israeli, and European outlets, as well as firsthand testimony, with links to the sources provided throughout, along with my own reporting.
“Please help me, I cannot continue to bear witness to all of this.”
You might expect those words from someone enduring Israel’s 20-month-long campaign of mass murder in Gaza. But they came from an American IDF veteran at Columbia, Miles Rubin, pleading with administrators to let him attend class via Zoom because a pro-Palestine rally was scheduled the next day. Rubin’s request was denied, and he was “forced to drop the course or risk falling further behind.”
This, pulled from a 225-page legal complaint filed by five Jewish students against Columbia last year, was an example of the “severe and pervasive” antisemitism that the students were forced to endure.
Here are a few more.
If there were actual evidence that these sign-flashing students were antisemitic, you’d think the lawyer would’ve included it in the complaint. But apparently, the term “antisemite” here simply means someone who called the IDF “savage”—a label many Israeli soldiers would probably wear as a badge of honor.
As for the question posed to Rubin, I’d imagine this could be a tough thing to hear if you’ve killed Palestinians. But without even getting into whether this kind of confrontation is warranted, it’s worth asking: If an American military vet were asked how many Iraqis he’d killed, would he be able to claim discrimination?
Rubin also takes issue with hearing phrases like “resistance is justified.” Funny enough, his own father once wrote that seeing him in uniform was like seeing “a resistance fighter in the Warsaw Ghetto,” or “Moshe Dayan,” Israel’s famously ruthless military chief who once said, “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”
I read every incident attributed to Rubin and found only two that, if true, clearly qualify as antisemitic. Both stem from the same event:
Now, I’ve attended dozens of pro-Palestine rallies since October 7—always swarming with fellow Jews, by the way—and have never heard anything antisemitic. On the rare occasion when someone does cross a line, from what I’ve heard, they’re typically shouted down. But assuming Rubin’s account is accurate, then yes—saying “Fuck you Jews” and “Fuck the Jews” is definitely bad and antisemitic! If the complaint were limited to that, I’d think: a lawsuit is a bit excessive, but the grievance itself is valid.
But that little caveat about the “misfired rocket” gives the whole game away: If the real issue was conflating Israel with all Jews, why even bring it up? By the time this complaint was filed in June 2024, that claim had already been debunked, and Israel’s pattern of bombing hospitals was no longer in dispute. Even Columbia’s own Task Force on Antisemitism seemed to acknowledge as much in a March 2024 report.
But the legal complaint doesn’t let pesky facts get in the way of hurt feelings, a dynamic that played out in the classroom as well:
Never mind that Rashid Khalidi is one of the most respected living historians on Israel/Palestine. Or that he’s mentored countless Jewish students. Or that even Larry Summers—who’s spent the last 20 months berating universities for failing to “protect” Jewish students—apologized for suggesting Khalidi was antisemitic, months before this complaint was even filed.
None of that is relevant here. According to the complaint, just exposing a Middle East history major at an Ivy League school to a Palestinian scholar’s views on Israel qualifies as antisemitism.
The irony of Miles Rubin’s particular case is that he previously described his time in the IDF as “the most miserable period of my life.” The Israeli soldiers, whom he “didn’t find particularly welcoming,” teased him mercilessly for his poor Hebrew. They even shot rubber bands at his face! But there was one bright spot, he wrote, of his time in the Israeli army: “The opportunity to participate in some exciting military operations, including apprehensions of terror suspects. This is what I came here to do.”
This is what he came here to do: to be the one with the power, the one with the big gun, kicking ass and taking names. But at Columbia, the dynamic changed. The other side didn’t have guns—they had signs and stickers, chants and slogans, history lessons from Palestinian scholars, and a flood of images from Gaza. Confronted with the consequences of actions he once took pride in—and with the carnage wrought by the country he loved—he immediately recast himself as the victim, demanding protection from the emotional discomfort of facing a worldview that threatened his own.
In the end, the complaint perfectly crystallizes what this whole campus antisemitism hysteria is about: the conventional wisdom on Israel/Palestine changed, and it freaked a lot of people out. I’m sure plenty of whites felt the same way during the civil rights movement. Some were probably even unfairly called racists just for being white. Such is life! There were far more urgent concerns. The ones who understood that—and chose to listen rather than retreat into fear—probably came out better for it.
Much has already been written about how Israel and its defenders fuel antisemitism by insisting its actions represent all Jews. And I don’t doubt that many Jewish students genuinely fear for their safety on campus. But nobody promised the arc of history would bend politely—a little perspective wouldn’t kill them.
ICYMI: To read about Columbia students facing real targeted harassment, be sure to check out my investigation into former assistant professor Shai Davidai’s false claim of exoneration.
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Here’s this week’s roundup.
Gaza
Commander Testimonies
The Israeli outlet ynet published a remarkable exposé of IDF commander testimonies that contradict Israel’s official Gaza war narrative. The officers say the public is being “misled” into thinking the war could end soon, when in reality it would take “at least a decade of fighting” to destroy Hamas. They admit to killing “hundreds of hungry Palestinians,” and describe a strategy focused less on fighting Hamas than on demolishing buildings and homes.
Notably, ynet chose not to translate the article from Hebrew to English, as it often does. You can read the most revealing excerpts in this thread I published on X.
War on Children
Since October 7, Israel has killed 953 infants under the age of one in Gaza, including nine on the day they were born, according to the Health Ministry. (MEE)
A UN-backed report found that ten children per day lose one or both of their legs in Gaza. (Global Protection Center)
An international doctor in Gaza said that teenage boys are frequently arriving at hospitals shot in the testicles. (MEE)
Israel killed a family of 13, including seven children, in an airstrike on their Gaza City home. The IDF blocked rescue attempts for eight hours with drone strikes, even as some were filmed alive under the rubble, begging for help. By the time rescuers got through, they were all dead. (Haaretz)
Also on Tuesday, Israel killed 11-year-old aspiring journalist Lama Nasser Al-Badrasawi and her whole family in an airstrike on their Gaza City home:
Here’s what a friend of Lama’s mother (Samah) wrote: “Samah was not only Lama’s teacher and producer but also her biggest fan. She had a detailed vision for Lama’s future, insisting that once the war ended, Lama would be educated to become ‘the voice of Gaza.’”
Now they are all dead: Lama, her mother, her father, and all of her siblings. (Palestine Chronicle)
Starvation
More than 6,000 UNRWA aid trucks packed with food and medicine sit idle outside Gaza, barred from entry by Israel. (+972)
Children are scavenging food scraps from garbage heaps:
Here’s audio of hungry children crying through the night in displacement tents that you can send to anyone in your life supporting the war on Gaza.
Death Traps
The Media office in Gaza reported on Sunday that the death toll of aid seekers at GHF sites has risen to 995, with another 6,011 injured and 45 missing. (Drop Site)
New footage emerged of machine gun fire near a GHF “aid site.”
GHF guards in Khan Younis gassed and fenced in starving Palestinians at an “aid site,” triggering a deadly stampede that killed at least 21 people. Gaza health officials reported clear signs of gas poisoning on the bodies. (Drop Site)
This is how the Israeli outlet ynet covers the challenges at the GHF sites:
On Saturday, Israeli troops shot into crowds of starving Palestinians approaching a food aid site in Rafah, killing at least 32. The IDF said that troops had fired “warning shots,” consistent with past soldier testimony of “communicating with gunfire.” (NYT)
Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of displaced Palestinians near the Zikim crossing on Sunday, killing over 60 and wounding more than 100. (NYT)
US envoy to the UN Dorothy Shea urged the Security Council to rally behind the GHF and stop “echoing incorrect information” that could undermine it. (MEM)
One of 60K
Le Monde profiled four of the young Gazans killed by Israel in the Al Baqa café bombing. I recommend reading the story of 19-year-old boxer Malak Mesleh in full:
General Annihilation
Israeli soldiers have reportedly stolen hundreds of donkeys from Gaza—animals Palestinians relied on to flee bombardment and carry the disabled, wounded, and dead—and shipped them to France under the guise of “rescue,” as part of a PR campaign. (MEM)
Israel has carved a new corridor straight through Khan Younis, slicing the city in two as part of its growing web of military control zones. (MEM)
Under Israel’s ban on sea access, dozens of displaced Gazans have been shot dead while trying to cool off, fish, or wash themselves, transforming Gaza’s last refuge from the deadly heat into a killing zone and deepening the starvation crisis by obliterating the fishing industry. (Haaretz)
A Red Crescent emergency worker described burying the dead in Gaza: “We couldn’t distinguish a child from a woman or a young man from an elder. It was just flesh and bones and torn body parts. We had to collect everything into white bags and bury them together in a shared grave. The tombstone reads: ‘Unknown family – Tal Al-Hawa Massacre.’” (New Arab)
Church Bombing
An Israeli tank shelled Gaza’s only Catholic church, famous for its nightly phone calls with Pope Francis, killing two Orthodox Christian civilians who had taken shelter there and injuring twelve. (WaPo)
After Trump reportedly made an angry call to Netanyahu, the Prime Minister issued a rare apology (Times of Israel):
Ethnic Cleansing Support
Israel’s Mossad chief traveled to Washington to seek US help in pressuring countries like Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Libya to accept mass “voluntary” relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. (Axios)
The Consensus
Omer Bartov, the Israeli American Holocaust and genocide scholar who has been warning of Israel’s “genocidal intent” since November 2023, now says: “My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.” (NYT)
Israeli Casualties
Three Israeli soldiers were killed and an officer severely wounded in northern Gaza’s Jabalya after an explosion inside their tank; while initial reports blamed a missile strike, the IDF now claims it was caused by ammunition detonating from within. (Haaretz)
Ceasefire
Hamas says it offered a deal to release all captives in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal, and humanitarian aid, but Netanyahu rejected it. Hamas warned it won’t return to partial deals if talks collapse again. (Al Jazeera)
West Bank
Chutzpah
Less than a week after settlers beat 20-year-old Palestinian-American Sayfollah “Saif” Musallet to death in Sinjil, they returned to seize more land from the village, expanding the illegal Givat Haroeh outpost without any interference from police or the Israeli government. (MEE)
Months before the murder, Israel had turned Sinjil into a caged-off death zone—sealing residents inside with barbed wire, cutting off access to farmland, and leaving dozens of homes exposed to settler lynchings. (+972)
A CNN crew on its way to Sinjil to report on the murder was ambushed by settlers who first hurled stones at their car, then reappeared after police left and smashed the rear window with a club as the journalists fled. (Times of Israel)
This Week in Pogroms
Settlers have killed five Palestinians in two weeks as part of an escalating campaign east of Ramallah aimed at clearing villages and farmland that stand in the way of annexing the Jordan Valley; since October, 12,000 Bedouins have already been displaced. (Mondoweiss)
Settlers slaughtered 117 sheep, stole 350 more, and beat Palestinians in a violent dawn raid on Bedouin families in al-Miteh in the Jordan Valley. (MEE)
On Monday, Israeli settlers stormed the Palestinian village of al-Minya near Bethlehem, erected tents in its center, uprooted 1,500 olive saplings, and beat a 60-year-old man, fracturing his jaw and hand. (MEE)
On Tuesday, invading settlers assaulted a Palestinian man in Susiya, Masafer Yatta. In Umm Nir, six settlers beat 65-year-old Mousa Nawaj’ah in his own yard as he stepped out to feed his dogs. (MEE, Times of Israel)
Settlers have begun building an illegal outpost in the town of Salem, east of Nablus. (MEE)
The Annexation
The Palestinian Authority is nearing collapse as Finance Minister Smotrich continues to block $890 million in owed tax revenues—including customs duties, VAT, and income taxes from Palestinians working in Israel—leaving workers unpaid, hospitals defunded, and the government reliant on “handouts from the world” to prevent mass strikes and total social breakdown. (Haaretz)
Israel is reviving long-stalled plans to build over 3,400 settler homes in the E1 corridor, a move that would slice the West Bank in two and, as Smotrich openly admitted, “kill the Palestinian state de facto.” (Haaretz)
The UN warned that mass displacement in the West Bank has hit levels not seen since Israel occupied the territory in 1967. (MEE)
Israel stripped the Palestinian-run Hebron municipality of authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque—site of the 1994 massacre by settler Baruch Goldstein—and handed it to a settler religious council. Locals warn that Al-Aqsa Mosque could be next. (Israel Hayom)
Israel is threatening to demolish Jenin’s only disability rehabilitation center, Al-Jaleel, which has already been damaged and raided multiple times. (Al Jazeera)
(You can read more about Israel’s suffocation of Palestinian life in the West Bank here: The Annexation of the West Bank Is Complete.)
Summary Executions
The Israeli military killed a 20-year-old Palestinian man near Jenin on Monday. (MEE)
On Friday in Ya’bad, south of Jenin, Israeli forces shot 13-year-old Amr Qabha seven times in the back, neck, and groin from 10 meters away, then beat and handcuffed his father as he cradled his still-living son. Soldiers blocked ambulances for 40 minutes as Amr bled to death. The IDF later claimed, as it often does, that the boy was a “terrorist” who threw an explosive, but provided no evidence. (DCIP, Haaretz)
Quiet Part Out Loud
In an interview with Piers Morgan, settler leader Daniella Weiss declared “the Gazans finished their chapter of history,” defended mass displacement as divine entitlement, and dodged Morgan’s questions about her feelings on the death of 20,000 children in Gaza. (Haaretz)
Israel
Searching For Accountability
Over 30 countries gathered in Bogotá to convene The Hague Group, an international coalition led by Colombia and South Africa, to accuse Israel of genocide and chart concrete steps to stop it. (Drop Site)
The Hind Rajab Foundation filed a criminal complaint in Portugal against Israeli sniper Dani Adonya Adega, accusing him of executing four Palestinian civilians during a declared truce. (MEM)
Targeting the Watchdogs
All three members of the UN commission investigating Israeli war crimes and structural discrimination in Palestine quietly resigned in the days surrounding the Trump administration announcing sanctions on Francesca Albanese. (Times of Israel)
On Friday, Israel refused to renew the visas for the heads of at least three UN agencies in Gaza, which the UN humanitarian chief said was “explicitly in response to our work on protection of civilians.” (EuroNews)
A British-Israeli lawyer linked to Netanyahu’s inner circle warned ICC prosecutor Karim Khan he and the court would be “destroyed” unless he withdrew the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. (Al Jazeera)
The King of Israel
Netanyahu released a video insisting Israel’s security chiefs misled him before October 7 and denied receiving critical intelligence. (Times of Israel)
The father of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the Israeli American who was taken captive on October 7 and killed in captivity, told Netanyahu, “Please do not take credit for ‘achieving the release’ of Hersh. This is offensive to Hersh and to our family.” (Facebook)
The father of another slain hostage, Ori Danino, said a senior Israeli official—identified by opposition leader Yair Golan as Netanyahu—told him he could “still deal with 200 more bereaved families,” while also delaying disclosure of the Biden-backed hostage deal to his cabinet in hopes it would “fade out” (Haaretz)
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee attended Netanyahu’s corruption trial, and they took a lovely photo together. (Times of Israel)
The Government
Netanyahu’s ruling coalition shrank to a one-seat majority after the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party quit over a draft bill targeting their long-held military exemptions, forcing deeper reliance on far-right ministers who oppose any truce with Hamas. (Bloomberg)
Israel is adding $12.5 billion to its defense budget through 2026 to fund its ongoing wars. (Times of Israel)
Israel’s energy minister announced they’ve cut off UNRWA’s water and electricity. (X)
Torture Camps
Dr. Hossam Abu Safia’s lawyer shared a bleak update on his condition after more than six months in Israel’s notorious Ofer prison:
The lawyer later said he was being fed two spoonfuls of rice per day. (MEE)
Samir Al-Rifai, a 53-year-old Palestinian father of five with heart conditions, died in Israeli custody just one week after his arrest, marking the 74th known Palestinian to die in Israeli prisons since October 7. (MEM)
Suicide Crisis
Four Israeli soldiers have died by suicide in the past two weeks. (Haaretz)
Popular Opinion
The IDF officer who called Palestinians “human animals” and said, “There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction; you wanted hell, you will get hell,” was forced to retire amid public pressure over letting too much aid in. (Haaretz)
A Haaretz op-ed argues that “As the Bodies Pile Up, the Israeli Public Remains Indifferent to the Daily Killing in Gaza.”
A new poll found that 64% of Jewish Israelis support a temporary military occupation of Gaza after the war. (JPost)
Rioters chanting “death to Arabs” shattered MK Ayman Odeh’s windshield, hurled objects at him mid-speech, and smashed another car window as he fled, while Israeli police stood by, days after the Knesset nearly expelled him for a social media post celebrating the release of Palestinian and Israeli captives. (Haaretz)
Strikes on Syria
Israel bombed Syrian military sites in Damascus and the south despite mounting US pressure to “stand down,” claiming it was preventing a massacre of Druze civilians in Suwayda. (Axios)
Ben Gvir and several other high-ranking Israeli politicians called for Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to be “eliminated.” (MEM)
US
American Response to American Murdered
Saif Musallet’s father, who traveled to Sinjil from Florida to bury his son, asked why “America first” Trump is letting Israelis get away with murdering an American. (Zeteo)
Here’s a rundown of American officials’ responses:
President Trump: 🤐.
Secretary of State and noted Florida native Marco Rubio: 🤐.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: “I don’t have any information on it. I’ve heard different reports on it, but I just don’t have any information. Quite frankly, you do have some reports that come out of that part of the world that may not be fully verified, so I’m not exactly sure on the facts on that.” (Yahoo)
Senator Ashley Moody: crickets.
Senator Rick Scott: Daily posts in support of Israel.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor:
Tampa Congresswoman Kathy Castor:
Ambassador Mike Huckabee:
The victim’s father said Huckabee called him and said, “The violence needs to stop.” (The same week, Huckabee also visited the Palestinian-Christian village of Taybeh after settlers torched two churches and a cemetery and demanded “harsh consequences.”) (Zeteo, Haaretz)
A Shift?
On the other hand, moderate Senate Democrats like Elissa Slotkin and Chris Van Hollen are now openly condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank, accusing Netanyahu’s government of impunity and the US of indifference. Bernie Sanders says lawmakers are finally recognizing that “this is not just a moral issue, it’s a political issue.” (Axios)
Far-right One America News aired a blistering segment on settler violence hosted by Matt Gaetz, condemning the killing of Palestinian-American Saif Musallet and warning that “Israel rarely holds these killers accountable.” (Times of Israel)
Or Not
The US House of Representatives passed a defense appropriations bill that included hundreds of millions for Israel’s Iron Dome, which ensures it can bomb Gaza without the threat of retaliatory rockets. (House.gov)
Red-state lawmakers in Utah, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Idaho, Iowa, and Oklahoma are following Arkansas in advancing legislation to replace the term “West Bank” with “Judea and Samaria” in official documents. (ynet)
The Failing ADL
J Street declined to support the ADL’s campaign against the NEA, the largest teachers’ union in the country, which voted to sever ties with the group; J Street accused ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt of “demeaning the meaning of antisemitism.” (Forward)
Free Speech
Four CUNY Brooklyn College professors say they were fired without explanation after publicly supporting Palestinian rights. (Intercept)
Immigration
A 22-year-old Palestinian man with a valid visa was detained without explanation or legal counsel for nine days at Houston’s airport. (Mondoweiss)
Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome your thoughts, questions, etc. in the comments.
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Reading about Rubin's complaints of antisemitism made me revisit a lecture by Thomas Suárez, who traces the ideological & historical framework that allows someone like Rubin to claim discrimination for being confronted about military violence.
Israel self-identifies as THE Jewish state. It's an important distinction & it's framing & propaganda has made it nearly impossible these past 8 decades to question the Israeli state without appearing to attack Jews.
I assume your question of whether an American military vet would be able to claim discrimination if asked how many Iraqis he'd killed is a rhetorical one. I guess this question allows us to see the distinction more clearly. Israel posits itself as the only true expression of Jewish identity, & Suarez, and many other scholars, call this a hijacking of Jewish identity. This exceptionalism is built into Zionism & Suarez refers to the hijacking of Jewish identity as Israel's magic shield & energy source.
If anyone is interested in the lecture, here's the link -
https://youtu.be/RksThaJJ3eg?si=vu-iooaFixT8vrRh
Thank you for the painstaking work that goes into this each week 💕