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Time of India
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
"They're all terrorists": Adin Ross accuses HasanAbi's community during xQc discussion
Image via:In a blazing Kick stream on July 7, 2025, superstar streamer Adin Ross ignited outrage after labeling fellow creator Hasan 'HasanAbi' Piker's audience 'terrorists.' In a joint rant with Félix 'xQc' Lengyel, Ross went on a tirade against HasanAbi's Twitch channel for being unmoderated, and that his community was rife with dangerous ideology. The Controversial Accusation The drama started when the duo covered streamers' political leanings and content moderation styles, before turning their attention to HasanAbi. Adin Ross was not holding back: 'His chat, are terrorists. Like, his chat are... I'm not joking. Watch his stream. They like... they're all terrorists. I'm not even joking." Ross's blanket statement was greeted with instant alarm throughout the streaming community, with many observers labeling it a reckless and incendiary generalization. Critics argued that yes, HasanAbi has cultivated an active political community, but labeling that group terrorists is unethical and immoral. Political Streams and Platform Wars HasanAbi, the ex-political pundit turned Twitch superstar, has grown an audience by streaming leftist politics and news. His controversial opinions have earned him fervent admirers and equally fervent critics. The Twitch streamer has suffered sanctions prior, including one ban after citing the manifesto of the Jewish Museum shooter in Washington, D.C. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Is it legal? How to get Internet without paying a subscription? Techno Mag Learn More Undo Twitch's community guidelines surrounding violent and extremist content were referenced as the rationale behind his temporary suspension. Meanwhile, Ross and xQc, now mostly on Kick, have frequently cast themselves as the provocative, unfiltered option to Twitch's more sanitised platform. Their content often borders on being as funny as it is controversial. Ross's recent tweet seems to have crossed the line for many. xQc Remains Neutral Curiously, xQc did not back nor dispute Ross's audacious claim during the stream. Although he appeared uneasy, he allowed the moment to pass without major resistance. Famous for his unpredictable but deliberate off-stream antics, xQc has generally avoided political controversy, rendering his silence notable, if not unexpected. Internet Reacts Social media was immediately ablaze with response. HasanAbi fans called Ross's remarks dangerous rhetoric, while some of Ross's supporters said he was being hyperbolic and condemning online extremism, not literally calling people terrorists. Many creators were already chiming in, calling on Ross to explain or withdraw the comment. Thus far, neither Ross or HasanAbi has posted any official follow-up. Adin Ross's remarks underscore the increasing ideological fault lines in the streaming realm, where free speech, content moderation, and political bias often intersect. Does this most recent controversy result in apologies, bans, or escalation remains to be seen, the internet is definitely watching. Game On Season 1 continues with Mirabai Chanu's inspiring story. Watch Episode 2 here.
Al Jazeera
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Why we need to retire the term ‘pro-Palestinian'
A July 5 CNN article reported on three incidents in Melbourne, Australia: attempted arson at a synagogue, a confrontation at a restaurant and three cars set on fire near a business. The piece was scant on the details of the alleged crimes and the identities of the perpetrators, but it did clarify that the business 'has been targeted by pro-Palestine protesters in the past'. That the author chose to conflate activism in support of the Palestinian cause with violent acts that are low on facts and high on conjecture is indicative of how Western media have come to operate. Media reports are increasingly linking by default acts of aggression to activism they call 'pro-Palestinian'. Here are more examples: Before his name was released, we learned that a gunman shouted, 'Free, free Palestine,' in a shooting rampage that killed two Israeli embassy staff members outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, on May 21. Reports linked the suspect to what news outlets described as 'pro-Palestinian' advocacy. When on June 1 an Egyptian national attacked demonstrators voicing support of Israel in Colorado, the media also linked the incident to 'pro-Palestinian protests'. Softly landing on the term 'pro-Palestinian' allows reporters to meet editorial standards for brevity. But brevity is not a fixed journalistic value. Accurately informing the public is. The word 'pro-Palestinian' has become political shorthand for a well-worn and misleading coupling: Palestinian advocacy and violence. Stripped of critical context, the term offers news consumers a reductive explanation – a violent act distilled and opaquely linked to 'Palestinian' entities as imagined and understood through a narrow and distorted lens. A failure to engage with contexts is not neutral omission. Rather, it is an affront to knowledge processes and a bow to power structures that govern mainstream journalistic storytelling. What historical, cultural and religious claims do Palestinians make? Most news consumers in the West are unprepared to answer this question. In a closed information ecology, they rarely encounter these claims in full – or at all. Like many who have followed the historical arc of all things Palestine or reported on it, I've used the term pro-Palestinian myself. It felt functional at the time: concise and seemingly understood. Now, however, that shorthand misleads. Any word that is prefaced by 'pro-' demands honest re-examination. When circumstances shift and new meanings emerge, the hyphenation clanks as anachronistic. We're in one of those moments – a circumstance that is the epicentre of global opprobrium, humanitarian collapse and spectacular moral failure. To describe activism and peaceful protests against the genocidal violence in Gaza as 'pro-Palestinian' is disparaging. Opposing the strategic starvation of a trapped population is hardly pro-Palestinian. It is pro-humanity. Is it 'pro-Palestinian' to call for the end of violence that has claimed the lives of more than 18,000 children? Is it 'pro-Palestinian' to call for the end of starvation that has killed dozens of children and elderly? Is it 'pro-Palestinian' to express outrage at Gaza parents forced to carry body parts of their children in plastic bags? The term 'pro-Palestinian' operates within a false linguistic economy. It flattens a grossly unequal reality into a story of competing sides as if an occupied, bombarded and displaced people were an equal side to one of the most advanced armies in the world. Gaza is not a side. Gaza is, as one UNICEF official put it, a 'graveyard for children'. It is a place where journalists are killed for bearing witness, where hospitals are obliterated and universities reduced to rubble, where the international community is failing to uphold minimal standards of human rights. In an era of impatience with rigour, 'pro-Palestinian' is the rhetorical crutch that satisfies the manufactured need for immediate alignment (fandom) without critical thought. It permits bad-faith actors to stigmatise dissent, dismiss moral clarity and delegitimise outrage. To call Elias Rodriguez, who carried out the shooting in Washington, DC, a 'pro-Palestinian' shooter is a framing device that invites readers to interpret words of Palestinian solidarity as potential precursors to violence. It encourages institutions, including universities, to conflate advocacy with extremism and put a chill on free expression on campus. Obfuscations in the conventions of reportage, euphemism or rhetorical hedging are the last things we need in this catastrophic moment. What's needed is clarity and precision. Let us try something radical: Let us say what we mean. When people protest the destruction of lineage and tillage in Gaza, they are not 'taking a side' in some abstract pro-and-con debate. They are affirming the value of life. They are rejecting the idea that one people's suffering must remain invisible for another's comfort. If people are advocating for human rights, then say so. If they believe that Palestinian life is worthy of dignity, safety and memory, say so. And if they are calling for the 'liberation' of Palestine and use phrases like 'free Palestine' – phrases charged with decades of political, historical and emotional weight – that too deserves clarity and context. Liberation and freedom in most of these calls do not imply violence but a demand for freedom from occupation, siege, starvation, statelessness, and killing and imprisonment with impunity. Collapsing these diverse expressions into a vague label like 'pro-Palestinian' blurs reality and deepens public misunderstanding. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
News18
21-06-2025
- Politics
- News18
What's Behind The Left-Islamist Contract?
The emergence of leftist ideology as a tool of political Islam is a phenomenon that has been widely observed around the world in recent years The shooting of two Israeli embassy employees in front of the Jewish Museum in Washington last month was an example of the threat Jews face around the world today. The attacker had shouted the slogan 'Free Gaza" as he opened fire, killing a young couple. Early this month, global media fondly reported how environmental activist Greta Thunberg sailed up on Israeli shores in a boat laden with just a truckload of aid supplies for the Gazans. But the ideological significance of these two events lies beyond the 'liberation" of Gaza. The Washington incident bore all the hallmarks of an Islamist terrorist attack. But the terrorist in this case was not an Islamist, but an activist from a far-left political party. Similarly, what lies beneath the delicate veneer of Greta Thunberg's activism is a stark portrait of the New Left politics. For the Left, all the problems in the world are caused by colonisation, imperialism, the Western capitalist system and, of course, the 'genocide" they accuse Israel of carrying out. The majority of those on board the 'Freedom Flotilla" boat with Greta Thunberg were either extreme leftists or those who openly support Hamas-Islamist terrorism. Prominent among them was Rima Hassan, a far-left French politician and member of the European Parliament, who praised the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, and shamelessly called it legitimate. The emergence of leftist ideology as a tool of political Islam is a phenomenon that has been widely observed around the world in recent years. French researcher Pierre-André Taguieff coined the term 'Islamo-leftism" in 2002 to describe this. He said that political Islam and the Left are joining hands for some chosen common goals, and that this is a threat to republican values, Western culture, and secular norms. On the surface, this cooperation may seem impractical. The leftists see religion as a bane, but ironically jump into bed with the political Islamists who plan to install theocratic governments. These two ideologies are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, going by their stated missions, but they cooperate to fulfil their ulterior motives. This paradox might look intractable, but recent developments show that both these groups have no qualms about engaging in this opportunism. There are certain ideas that act as the catalyst for this convergence. Some of them include the hatred for Jews, blind opposition to the United States, hostility to Western culture, and, in India, the demonisation of nationalist politics. In fact, these two groups are birds of the same feather in their stance on democracy as well. The constraints on building a society based on Marxist-Leninist thought are nationalism, market capitalism, and a social system driven by religion and morality. Political parties that stand for strong nationalism are the thorn in the side of the Left all over the world. Similarly, for the Islamists, nationalism is the first hurdle in their attempts to establish religious state enclaves wherever possible in the world. Only nationalist movements and governments can stop them from skillfully using their demographic advantage to create the ultimate theocratic empire. The primary foe of all nationalist political movements around the world is Islamism. The next is the Left. And these two are the closest allies in fighting nationalist movements in democratic countries. This can be seen in India, France, Britain, the United States and elsewhere. In return for helping their causes, political Islam gives unconditional support to the so-called anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-colonial policies of the Left. Beyond that, Islamists also implicitly, and perhaps deceptively, support the neo-liberal ideologies espoused by the Left. The contradictions that emerge from this cooperation can be glaring. For example, ultra-left feminists join Islamists in their pro-Gaza marches, turning a blind eye to the fact that the Islamists are the ones who have scaled the pinnacle of misogyny. LGBT people are coming under rainbow flags to fight alongside Islamists, who sentence homosexuals to death in countries where they have established their preferred social order. Such conflicts are no longer news to us. In Kerala, some years ago, an Islamist extremist movement held marches against the central government's Citizenship Amendment Act. The protesters held banners with the slogan 'Save the Republic" in a vain attempt to give a self-righteous afterglow to their conceited agenda. What an irony! 'Republic" is the cornerstone principle of democratic and secular statehood. Here, the very same forces that aspire to establish a religious state were using the perceived dangers to the republic as a campaign plank! What fate would befall the republic if these forces gained political power or if they achieved demographic superiority? You won't have to look far out into Afghanistan or Syria to know; just look at nearby Bangladesh. More shockingly, it was revealed later that the extremist Islamists who mobilised people under the slogan 'Save the Republic" had prepared a secret blueprint to abolish the Republic and establish a religious state in India within a few decades. Here, parallels can be drawn to how the Left treated Indian democracy soon after the country gained independence. The Marxists continued to harbour revolutionary ambitions, considered the Constitution and the democratic framework as a bourgeois system that needed to be overthrown, and believed limited participation in democracy would be an interim stage before class struggle was amplified to usher in revolution. Democracy is an interim arrangement for communists until they seize total power. For Islamists, democracy is merely a hiding place until complete religious rule is implemented. Both of these groups use the principles that are the cornerstones of democracy as needed and then abandon them by the wayside. The left-wing and progressive parties in Iran helped Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini establish a fundamentalist religious state. Islamists, who accepted the help of the Left as much as they could, persecuted leftists and expelled them from the country after the establishment of the religious state. In India, the Left and the progressives boosted Islamist radicalism by converging with their pseudo-fight for the republican fundamentals of the Constitution. The progressives were too dumb to realise that the CAA was the only remedy to protect the republican rights of the minorities who are persecuted by Islamist radicals in the neighbouring theocratic countries. Yet, they would shamelessly walk under a banner raised by the Islamists. History is witness to the fact that such contradictions have not caused any kind of psychological conflict for the leftists and Islamists. They are merely united in their struggle against nationalist politics. Some left-wing political organisations in Germany and France decided to cooperate with Hitler's Nazi party for certain specific political goals. Similarly, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem nursed a desire to exterminate the Jews of Israel in the early 1940s with Hitler's help. This cleric went to Germany and directly requested help from Hitler to annihilate the Jews. Germany has, thankfully, parted with its Nazi past, but the Islamist bigots have not. They still seek the annihilation of the Jews. And they have an able and trusted partner in the Left and the so-called progressives, who blindly demonise Israel. And, these two ideologies, which have not hesitated to cooperate with the most evil fascist forces in world history, now say that democratically elected nationalist governments are fascists! Because the concept of nationalism and the system of democracy are the ultimate obstacles to the goals that both these groups chase. Political Islam and the Left are strategically aligned to disparage, disrupt, and destroy the concept of nationalism. They help each other in this endeavour. Elijah Muhammad, who carved out Islam's identity in America as a religion for blacks and the oppressed, called white Americans 'blue-eyed devils". The Americans, who implemented the 'exploitative" system of market capitalism, are the same devils in the eyes of the Left. Elijah, who created the massive movement called the 'Nation of Islam" to promote his religion, had the stated goal of establishing a separate, ultra-religious Muslim state in the United States. Elijah's follower Louis Farrakhan described Hitler as a great leader. The accusation of racism or racial discrimination is a formula that can be used to oppose whites, Jews, and capitalists all at once. Elijah used the slogan of liberation from racial discrimination to foster the Islamist movement. This is the very foundation of the New Left, which argues that the Western world order and its cultural, economic, and political systems are based on racial and communal discrimination. Social justice is an aspirational goal, but for the far Left and the Islamists, it's only a false, delusional and deceptive vanguard that can be jettisoned at will at a later point. We saw this Left-Islamist collaboration later during the 'Black Lives Matter" movement. The leaders of this movement were those who described themselves as trained Marxists. This movement also used the same style and tactics as Islamist street revolutions seen in various countries in recent times. The BLM, which tried to overthrow the 'racist" American system, was appealing to the Islamists who were eager to destroy the 'Judeo-Christian" Western system. A handful of extreme left-wing members of the US Congress representing the Democratic Party were the most vocal supporters of this neo-Marxist anarchist movement. Not uncharacteristically, they are also the ones who support fundamentalist Islamists in America and fan the flames of anti-Semitism. In Kerala, radical Islamist parties used sweet left-wing and progressive slogans to recruit non-Muslims who were at the bottom of the socio-economic system. The tactic was to use secular-social justice slogans in the interim to gain momentum for movements that were formed with the ultimate aim of building a religious state. In a bizarre paradox, the Left, which professes to eradicate religion, joins hands, as a temporary measure, with those who seek to build a religious state. The ultimate victims of this alliance are democracy, true secularism, individual freedom, and economic prosperity. Another stark irony of this Left-Islamist alliance is that those who seek to implement religious dictatorships also praise communist dictators. Osama bin Laden and the communist autocrat of Venezuela are equally heroes for them. In India, the Leftists and Islamists lead the campaign to oppose the ruling nationalist party on all fronts. In a recent controversy in Kerala, it was the Leftists who took the lead in mocking the concept of 'Mother India" on social media with astonishing aggression. That campaign started after the governor of Kerala garlanded the Bharat Mata portrait at a function at the Raj Bhavan, and one of Kerala's communist ministers boycotted the event over the niceties relating to the depiction of Mother India as a goddess. The concept and idea of Mother India is something that Islamist fundamentalists find hard to digest. The Left knows that by making fun of that concept and image, they would win the votes and hearts of the Islamists. Their grandstanding on secularism is a smokescreen; there is no idealism that they would not hesitate to surrender at the altar of Islamism for crass political goals. It is curious to note that the Left and Islamism began to fly the same flag at a time when democracy faced the greatest threat in history. The Communist International (Comintern) was formed in 1919 under the leadership of the Soviet Union to unite the world's communist forces and implement global revolution. At the 1920 Comintern conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, Vladimir Lenin described Islam as the religion of oppressed countries. He said the communists, who were inherently anti-religious, should give privileges and special consideration to Muslim religious sentiment. Going a step further, Comrade Grigory Zinoviev, a prominent Bolshevik and Lenin's confidant, called for a 'jihad" against the Western capitalist powers. That announcement was the first sign of the Left and Islamism joining hands in the name of anti-imperialist sentiment. This is the jihad that was carried out by a radical leftist activist in Washington last month. A man who once worked for a Marxist-Leninist movement, the Party of Socialism and Liberation, shot and killed two innocent people. He said he did it for the liberation of Gaza. How could someone who worked for a party that sought to overthrow the capitalist economic system and the Western system have the motivation to support Hamas and shoot innocent people dead? History offers more ample clues to solving this seemingly intractable question. In 1994, the leader of Britain's far-left Socialist Workers' Party wrote an article explaining the connection between the Left and Islamism. In this article, titled 'The Prophet and the Proletariat", he argued that Islamism can fill the void where the Left is powerless or absent. Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a radical leftist thinker from Latin America, became a terrorist in the 1970s and led the attacks on the French embassy in The Hague and the OPEC headquarters in Vienna. Born in Venezuela, he became a dyed-in-the-wool leftist after his education in Moscow. This staunch Marxist-Leninist later converted to Islam and praised Osama bin Laden as an 'immaculate martyr". Ramirez, who carried out hundreds of terrorist attacks around the world, said during his trial in France that no one else had killed more people than he for the liberation of Palestine. If his claim is taken literally, Hamas would be ashamed of the fact that it was a leftist 'fellow traveller" who killed more Jews than they did. Michel Foucault, a prominent figure in the 20th-century left-wing intellectual movement, was an ardent admirer of the Iranian religious revolution. Foucault, who visited Tehran twice in 1978, saw the revolution only from a Marxist perspective and said it was a revolt of the underclasses. When Iran, a secular country with civil liberties and women's freedom, was conquered by the Islamists, this leftist thinker gloated that 'politics was regaining spirituality". In Kerala, some mainstream television channels and newspapers described the 2021 takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban as a 'wonderful" moment. The Left offers unbroken ideological brotherhood to the Islamists who flaunt a merely pretentious and deceptive use of democratic, secularist, and civil rights slogans. The Left-progressive alliance doesn't even have any qualms about stitching up electoral partnerships with the extremists. As the Left supports the Islamist hardliners, a large number of people who sympathise with the broader leftist ideology fall into the trap and end up amplifying Islamism. This Left-progressive ecosystem lends pseudosecular-republican cover to the Islamists, and mainstreamises, legitimises, and intellectualises their bid for sabotage. top videos View all In Foucault's philosophy, the Western world lost its revolutionary verve after the French Revolution. Surprisingly, Foucault said he found the heights of revolutionary heroism and 'political spirituality" in the Islamist street revolution in Iran that created a religious state, replacing a secular one. In Indian college campuses, Foucault-esque 'political spirituality" finds its voice only when there is an Islamist cause to be upheld. Let's try to see why the Left's revolution is intertwined with the religious revolution of Islamism. We know what the cornerstones of Marxism-Leninism are: materialism, class struggle, struggle against the powers of capital and imperialism, revolution, and so on. But what happened to these ideologies? Did the Marxists create the beautiful communes they promised? The ideology that imposed bloodshed, poverty, and chaos in several countries for decades, and denied religious and personal freedom, later dumped the lofty goals and chased new ones. When the wheels of revolution stopped turning and those who were in the vanguard established dictatorships and farcically turned the followers into slaves, victims, and fools, fundamental leftist thought disappeared or became irrelevant. Today, the hard Left's main planks are anti-semitism packaged as anti-zionism, the theory of institutional racism, support for gender anarchy in the name of feminism and the like. The New Left throws into this heady cocktail their time-worn platitudes of colonialism, apartheid, imperialism, capitalism, climate activism, and, not to mention, genocide. The Left accuses Israel of all these, dramatically conjuring up the image of a perfect enemy in the Jewish state. The Islamists also do the same thing; in their blinkered view of Palestinian exceptionalism, all other problems in the Muslim world can be simply ignored and all venom directed against Israel. This mutually beneficial narrative is the glue that keeps the Left-Islamist contract in its place. The author is a senior journalist who has worked in India and abroad, and is currently a financial journalist in Europe. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. tags : gaza Islam israel jew Left Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: June 21, 2025, 23:02 IST News opinion Opinion | What's Behind The Left-Islamist Contract?
Chicago Tribune
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Jay Tcath: The phrase ‘Free Palestine' is freeing no one, but it is killing some of us
Twice in a recent two-week period, two men were arrested for terrorist attacks while invoking 'Free Palestine.' For them, the phrase served as a rallying cry sanctioning violence. Their targets were, in the deadly Washington, D.C., attack outside the Jewish Museum, a young couple, and in Boulder, Colorado, people attending a vigil for the 58 hostages held by Hamas. For the two suspects — neither of whom is Palestinian — the phrase 'Free Palestine' was a license to kill. They are not the only ones who understand it that way. It was just two months ago when the official residence of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was set ablaze after a Passover Seder event. The perpetrator, who has confessed, cited the governor's views on Palestine. Another 'Free Palestine' chanter struck and killed an elderly California Jewish man with a bullhorn in November 2023. Not all 'Free Palestine' chanters understand it as a call to violence. Yet the phrase's intentional lack of specificity is a big part of its utility: What the user means is left to the audience's interpretation. There are several prevalent understandings, ranging from noble to murderous. 'Free Palestine' can mean the justified yearning for Palestinians to enjoy the full freedoms, prosperity and security to which all people are entitled. It can be a desperate plea for new, elected leaders. Hamas has governed Gaza with an iron fist — and no elections — since 2007, and the West Bank hasn't voted since 2006. This indifference to basic democracy does not portend well for what freedom would look like in a free Palestine. For others invoking it, the phrase's imprecision is precisely the point. 'Free Palestine' can be exploited for misleading purposes. The lack of specificity avoids answering the most revealing question: Would a free Palestine be alongside Israel or instead of Israel? Of course, Hamas and many of its global advocates shamelessly reject the 'alongside' option. In Gaza and elsewhere, they threaten anyone willing to accept such a peaceful compromise. Other 'Free Palestine' supporters are unwilling to pay the negative public relations cost of acknowledging that 'instead of' is their nonnegotiable option. Why? Because their 'instead of' option can only be realized with the annihilation of a sovereign United Nations member country populated by 10 million Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Druze and others. Editorial: We mourn the slayings of two young Israeli Embassy workers, and the crime's Chicago tiesThe 'instead of' option glorifies killing Jews, be it on Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel; in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; in Washington; in Boulder; and God knows where next. While we don't know where the next 'Free Palestine'-inspired attack will happen, we do know, tragically, it isn't a matter of whether it will happen. It is simply a matter of when. In most instances, 'Free Palestine' is protected free speech in the United States. But after this most recent series of 'Free Palestine'-motivated attacks and with an accompanying deafening silence of condemnation from most pro-Palestinian groups, is it so unreasonable to ask that those promulgating it own up to what it does and doesn't mean to them? And for us Jews. The murderers do not indulge the lie of most pro-Palestinian advocates that there is a distinction between Jews and Zionists. Neither the California, Washington, Harrisburg or Boulder offenders bothered to inquire about their victims' identities or ideologies before attacking. Whether the victims were even Jewish or Zionist, or how they understood 'Free Palestine,' was irrelevant. Politicalized catchphrases are proliferating. While many may seem innocuous, they can be dog whistles that are understood differently by different audiences. Our business, civic, educational, faith, media and political leaders have learned how to navigate these linguistic minefields. They now need to tune their antennas to the violent impact that 'Free Palestine' and the demonization of Zionists are having on American Jews. Those of us yearning for both Israeli-Palestinian peace and Jewish safety worldwide understandably want to know what 'Free Palestine' means to those in our midst. The Boulder attacker planned his violence for a year, authorities say. There are undoubtedly others right now planning their own attacks to 'Free Palestine.' Such would-be assailants should know whether their attacks are endorsed or opposed by the 'Free Palestine' campaign they have adopted. We already know how two people over the last three weeks understood the phrase's imprecision. And we have seen and heard all too many applauding this resistance. Attempting to define the meaning of another group's self-understanding is likely to evoke accusations of mansplaining. But in the absence of a widely embraced peaceful definition of 'Free Palestine,' being accused of insensitivity is easy to bear. We Jews are just trying to freely celebrate a Seder, visit a museum and rally for hostages. That yearning involves no duplicity or threats to others. Jay Tcath is executive vice president of the Jewish United Fund.
Business Upturn
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Business Upturn
Dr. Michael Lomax, Present and CEO of UNCF Issues Statement on Recent Antisemitic Attacks
WASHINGTON, DC, June 06, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, Dr. Michael L. Lomax, President and CEO of UNCF issued the following statement condemning the recent acts of anti-Semitic violence and reaffirming UNCF's unwavering commitment to standing against hatred in all its forms. 'In recent days, two acts of violence have struck at the heart of the Jewish community, stark reminders that hatred remains alive among us. In Washington, DC, a Jewish American woman and her Israeli fiancé were horrifically murdered as they left a reception at the Jewish Museum. In Boulder, Colorado, Molotov cocktails were thrown during a peaceful protest calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza. The intent of both violent incidents was clear: to sow fear, to spark terror, and to remind us that hatred, left unchecked, smolders and burns. As Black Americans, this flame is painfully familiar. We have seen it before, in the torches carried through darkened streets, in the crosses set ablaze on front lawns, and in the midnight knocks that tore fathers, mothers, and children from their homes. It is a hatred we know well, clothed in different garb but fueled by the same malevolent fire. The violence inflicted on Jewish Americans today echoes the terror that gripped Black communities during the Jim Crow era. Out of those long nights of fear, bonds were forged in the crucible of shared struggle. The relationship between the Black and Jewish communities was built on common purpose. It was Jewish brothers and sisters who marched with us in Selma, who stood with us in Birmingham, who bled beside us for civil rights. It was their pens that helped write the anthems of our movement and their moral clarity that strengthened our resolve. Today, as we confront this resurgent wave of anti-Semitism, we are reminded that the hatred that targets one of us threatens all of us. The same bigotry that demonizes the Jewish people fuels anti-Black racism, anti-LGBTQ animus, and every form of dehumanization that corrodes the soul of our nation. History teaches us that silence in the face of hatred is complicity. Our shared history teaches us that progress has always come when we stand together and raise our voices. At UNCF, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to stand against all forms of hatred. We are proud of the bridges built between the Black and Jewish communities, partnerships rooted in resilience and a common dream of freedom. We stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters, not as newly minted allies, but as partners bound by a shared legacy of resilience and a shared dream of liberation. As we raise our voices against the unresolved hatreds that linger from our past, we stand arm in arm, heart to heart, not just as witnesses to injustice but as architects of a future rooted in justice and love. We are resolute in our commitment to build a world where dignity and humanity prevail, knowing that when we fail to speak for others, we risk a future where no one is left to speak for us.' ### About UNCF UNCF is one of the nation's largest and most effective supporters of higher education and serves as a leading advocate for college-bound students. Since its founding in 1944, UNCF has raised more than $6 billion to support students' access to higher education, provide scholarships and strengthen historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Each year, UNCF supports more than 50,000 students at more than 1,100 colleges and universities across the country including 37 UNCF-member HBCUs. Through its efforts, UNCF has helped generations of students to get to and through college. We believe a college education plays a vital role in fortifying the pipeline of leaders and professionals who contribute to the advancement of our society. Our logo features the UNCF torch of leadership in education and our widely recognized trademark is, 'A mind is a terrible thing to waste.'® Learn more at or for continuous updates and news, follow UNCF on Instagram. Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with GlobeNewswire. Business Upturn takes no editorial responsibility for the same.
