Anti-Israel protesters target college graduations, disrupt campus life

A video has emerged of a Columbia University anti-Israel protester ripping apart their diploma after walking across the stage for a recent commencement ceremony at the school. 

The incident happened during Columbia's School of Social Work Graduation Ceremony on Friday. 

A livestream of the event broadcast by the Ivy League university first showed a student walking across the stage while wearing handcuffs and a kaffiyeh scarf commonly worn by Palestinians. 

Once the student was handed her diploma, she then ripped it up in front of the audience, drawing cheers from her colleagues. 

"Columbia graduate rips up their diploma on stage in protest against Columbia University’s complicity in the genocide of Palestinians," the group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine wrote on Instagram. 

Columbia University cancelled its main commencement ceremony earlier this month following anti-Israel protests on campus. 

The school said "we will focus our resources on those school ceremonies and on keeping them safe, respectful, and running smoothly." 

Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, praised her husband's "amazing" Duke University Class of 2024 commencement speech on Instagram over the weekend after a group of anti-Israel protesters tried to interrupt him but found themselves drowned out by the rest of the audience.

The comic, who is Jewish and a co-chair of the university's Parents Committee, took the stage over the weekend to deliver remarks to a crowd of over 7,000 when the small demonstration broke out.

"Amazing crowd @dukeuniversity today where Jerry gave the commencement speech and received an honorary degree," Jessica Seinfeld wrote on her Instagram story. "There was a minimal interruption – a small group of protesters walked out."

"They were booed by the crowd and then the stadium chanted ‘Jer-ry!’" she added. "Jerry's speech was amazing and the grads and their parents gave him a standing ovation."

Seinfeld received an honorary degree and delivered his speech without further interruptions.

In a dramatic shift, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has revised its data pertaining to the number of Palestinian casualties in the seven-month-old Gaza war, reducing almost by half the number of women and children it previously said were killed in the hostilities between Israel and the Iranian-backed terror group Hamas.

According to an infographic published in OCHA’s daily report on May 6, the number of women killed in the fighting was said to be 9,500, while the organization, which admits to relying on figures from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, claimed that 14,500 children had been killed since the war began on Oct. 7. 

Two days later, in its May 8 report, the U.N. agency appeared to have cut the number nearly in half, showing instead that some 4,959 women and 7,797 children had been killed so far in the war, which began after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists infiltrated southern Israel from Gaza, slaughtering more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking some 240 people hostage. 

While the numbers on both sides remain high – the overall death count in Gaza is said by the Hamas-controlled ministry of health to have almost reached 35,000, with more believed to be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings – the sudden and unexplained change in numbers is alarming. 

Hamas’ death toll figures have been disputed by Israel, which claims more than a third of those killed are combatants, yet they have been widely and unquestioningly quoted by the international media, humanitarian organizations and world leaders, including President Biden. 

A Duke University graduate told ‘Fox & Friends’ on Monday that anti-Israel protesters who disrupted comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement speech on Sunday were booed by the audience at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, North Carolina. 

Dozens of students there walked out on Seinfeld’s speech, with some chanting “free Palestine,” according to videos of the ceremony posted on social media. The student protesters staged the walkout just as Seinfeld, who is Jewish and a vocal supporter of Israel, was introduced. Some students had carried Palestinian flags as they left the stadium. 

“What you are not seeing in the media is after these students walk out, and by the way – it's only 40 students – after they walked out, the entire stadium started booing them and eventually started chanting Jerry’s name, clearly in support of him being our commencement speaker,” Alanna Peykar said. 

Seinfeld has been vocal in his support of Israel multiple times since Hamas terrorists launched surprise attacks on residential areas in Israel on Oct. 7. 

“It’s very obvious that they oppose his point of view. But these students definitely went in there, they completely violated Duke’s rules,” Peykar also said. “They made it very clear to students that they are not allowed to bring in any signs, any flags, and these students completely violated the rules of Duke University.” 

Fox News’ Stephen Sorace contributed to this report. 

An anti-Israel protester holds a flag in front of a police line after demonstrators were told to disperse at the Shrine Auditorium, where a commencement ceremony for graduates from Pomona College was being held on Sunday, May 12, in Los Angeles, California. (AP/Ryan Sun)

It is hard to fight against an enemy whose reason for being is to eliminate you.  

So said author and Jewish historian Rick Richman in an interview as he answered the criticisms that are being leveled against Israel. These criticisms accuse the Jewish state of committing genocide in Gaza. 

Rather, it is Israel, he said, that is trying to prevent a genocidal operation perpetrated by Hamas.  

"It's extremely unfortunate to cheapen the concept of genocide," said Richman, "which is an attempt to eliminate people, and to attribute that word to a response by a people attacked as they were on Oct. 7th, by an explicitly genocidal terrorist organization whose charter calls for the elimination of the Jewish people."

Richman, author of the book, "And None Shall Make Them Afraid: Eight Stories of the Modern State of Israel," said the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests are filled with misinformation and misguided passions by young people, students and even faculty.

They have been lured, he said, into a political position by authorities who choose to ignore the facts surrounding the centuries of clashes between Jews and Arabs and their modern-day manifestations.

Jewish students across the United States have expressed concern for their safety and suggested school faculty, as well as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, are promoting antisemitic viewpoints that ratchet up the political temperature on campus. 

George Washington University student Sabrina Soffer, graduating early as a junior in December, told Fox News Digital that there is no balance of opinions among the faculty. While the school has emphasized diversity, Soffer claimed it is only diversity surrounding a singular idea. 

"Students are not learning how to think, but they're learning about what to think," she said. "There's no real academic rigor that surrounds learning how to think. So, they're just getting pushed to get a grade."

Soffer said that students spend a significant amount of time being fed "propaganda" on social media, which affirms the notions they are learning in class and keeps them isolated in their own "echo chamber."

She added that this conduct by faculty and students, in addition to the widespread acceptance of DEI, has turned George Washington into a "concerning" and "dangerous" environment.

"There's also no respect for American values in terms of, you know, there's a lot of anti-Western seedlings in the DEI idea as a whole. Binary notions, very false notion of the oppressor and the oppressed, where all White people are oppressors," Soffer said. "And, you know, Jews just don't fit into that framework at all. So, they're pinning, you know, false binary notions on entire societies when they don't even make any sense."

Amanda Silberstein, a second-year student at Cornell University, claimed that professors are participating in "illegal rallies" on campus and spouting "antisemitic ideologies" to impressionable students in the classroom.

A graduate twirls with her Palestinian flag cape during the Emerson College commencement ceremony at Boston University's Agganis Arena, on Sunday, May 12, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP)

Emerson College has released a statement slamming anti-Israel protesters who disrupted its graduation ceremony over the weekend in Boston, Massachusetts. 

"We are deeply disappointed that protesters disrupted our ceremony and we strongly disapprove of the acrimony they showed toward our speakers and leaders," Emerson College told Fox News Digital.

At the event Sunday, some students took off their graduation robes and left them on stage, while others emblazoned “free Palestine” on their mortar boards, The Associated Press reports.  

One woman, staring at a camera broadcasting a livestream to the public, unzipped her robe to show a kaffiyeh, the black and white checkered scarf commonly worn by Palestinians, the news agency added. 

"As we graduate, we enter a new chapter of life, transitioning from students of consciousness to people of consciousness, of people united for the liberation of Palestine, unafraid of state repression and violence," student Justina Thompson told WCVB. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

A graduate displays a message on his shirt, "No Grad in Gaza," during the Emerson College commencement ceremony at Boston University's Agganis Arena, on Sunday, May 12, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP)

Anti-Israel agitators across the U.S. disrupted commencement ceremonies on Friday and Saturday following weeks of demonstrations over the Israel-Hamas war that have disrupted campus life. 

The intensity of the demonstrations varied across commencement ceremonies, with some graduates engaging in disruptive behavior and others exhibiting silent demonstrations. 

Protests unfolded at Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Arizona, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UNC, UT Austin, Duke University and others.

The Associated Press has recorded at least 75 instances since April 18 in which arrests were made at U.S. campus protests. Nearly 2,900 people have been arrested at 57 colleges and universities. 

Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

Police clash with anti-Israel demonstrators at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, on Sunday, May 12. (AP/Ryan Sun)

The Los Angeles Police Department says it has arrested an individual for attempting to strike an officer after a crowd of anti-Israel protesters attempted to block access Sunday to a venue where a Pomona College graduation ceremony was happening. 

The southern California school had moved its ceremony to the Shrine Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles following concerns about an anti-Israel encampment that appeared near the commencement stage on campus, according to KTVU. 

“Protesters attempted to block the entrance of the venue from the Pomona College students and their guests,” the LAPD said on X. “One group of protesters charged at the responding police officers, and one protester attempted to strike an officer.” 

Images captured an intense standoff between police and anti-Israel protesters outside the venue. 

"The protester who attempted to strike an officer was arrested for battery on a police officer,” the LAPD said. 

Anwar Mohmed, a Pomona College senior, told The Associated Press that his school has been ignoring calls to divest from endowment funds from companies linked to Israel and the war in Gaza. 

“We’ve been time and time again ignored by the institution,” Mohmed told the AP outside of the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday. “So today we have to say, it's not business as usual.” 

A video has captured an anti-Israel protester disrupting a commencement ceremony at the Moody Center at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Footage shows an individual standing on stage and holding a Palestinian flag in front of a podium as the graduation ceremony was ongoing. 

Screaming and some jeering appeared to come from the crowd as the protester started walking around the stage. 

The clip ends with a security guard escorting the protester off stage, drawing cheers from the audience. 

Students at Princeton University protesting Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza have called an end to their hunger strike after just 10 days.

Princeton Divest Now, the student protest group that is calling for the New Jersey Ivy League university to divest from America’s Middle Eastern ally due to the high civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip, said additional strikers would be continuing their efforts.

"Due to health concerns of the 13 strikers who fasted for 10 days, the first hunger strike wave ended, and the second wave has begun," it wrote in a post shared on Instagram.

It added: "In the tradition of rotary strikes, seven new strikers are indefinitely fasting for a free Palestine."

The end of the "hunger strike" came after members initially vowed not to eat or drink again until a pair of demands were met.

"Participants will abstain from all food and drink (except water) until our demands are met. We commit our bodies to their liberation of Palestine. PRINCETON, hear us now! We will not be moved!" the group wrote in a post on May 3.