The Biggest Losers Are American Universities

The plan to suppress students at American universities and paint them as "anti-Semitic" had been almost fully developed before they began protesting against the Gaza massacres. Israel has been preparing this plan for a long time, and it never lost sight of these crucial sites that cultivate opinion and decision makers and shape the future of governance in the United States.
Despite past efforts to garner the sympathies of students, thirty US student groups added their names to a statement that held Israel responsible for what happened due to its oppressive and colonial policies immediately after October 7th. Israel lost its mind, and Netanyahu's government realized that the hundreds of millions it had spent to tame American educational institutions could go to waste if it didn't act quickly to retain control.
We remember the protest movements in American universities at the beginning of the war and after the first massacres committed in Gaza. Students were threatened with being doxed and having a list of their names sent to corporations so that they would fail to find employment after graduating.
These demonic punitive measures were not conceived by university administrators, they are a result of direct Israeli actions toward US bodies.
In cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and under the supervision of Minister Eli Cohen and the Ministry of Diaspora, a task force of prominent figures, including lawyers, was formed. Its role was to reach out to influential Jews, as well as US officials, unions, and civil institutions, and demand that the pressure, intimidate, and defame students, professors, and even staff who expressed sympathy for the Palestinians. The coordination began then, and preparations for the ongoing confrontation with the universities and their students were made.
The first campaign to repress dissent succeeded in quelling the flames of students’ fury, and we stopped hearing of these protests until over thirty thousand had died and $26 billion in additional aid for Israel was passed in Congress to help it keep massacring Palestinians.
The sit-ins and demonstrations have returned. They have been particularly powerful in Columbia University, which has begun to inspire students across the globe. The plan was published by "Yedioth Ahronoth'' on November 26, 2023, and the steps laid out under the headline "Shaming and Pressuring Donors: Israel's Strategy Against Anti Semitism On US Campuses” are being implemented to the letter.
The plan includes an economic dimension, with students threatened with high costs in terms of employment opportunities Unions have already been contacted to join the effort to push back against the protesters. Israel also pressures Jewish and other donors to withdraw investments from the universities that do not comply with its demands. It has also sought to influence the federal government, pushing it to deprive universities accused of "anti-Semitism" of funding.
Apparently, university presidents are being contacted and threatened as well, and this is also part of the plan. We first saw this when the presidents of elite universities were questioned before Congress in late 2023, which compelled the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill, and Harvard, Claudine Gay, to resign. As for Columbia University Nemat Shafik, who is of Egyptian origin, she is facing pressure to resign despite having tried to appease the Jewish lobby by allowing the police to enter the campus, arrest, persecute, and beat her students- an extremely reprehensible thing to do.
Another element of this plan developed in advance was to engage with the US Department of Justice to discuss legal weapons that could be used to punish protesters, file lawsuits against them, and drag them to court. Lawsuits filed against the universities themselves were also discussed.
The plan emphasizes the need to avoid directly linking any of these actions to Israel and to make the same charge of everyone who is punished, "anti-Semitism."
As for the task of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it is to launch social media campaigns and send influential figures to universities in the United States to support pro-Israel marches and promote a narrative that stresses the need to respect diversity and human rights.
This demonic and comprehensive plan seeks to clamp down on innocent students and academics who want nothing more than peace, an end to the killing, and to dissociate from a criminal project. They are being bullied financially, punished through the manipulation of the judiciary, intimidated, and threatened.
These are the same people who had protested against corruption, racial discrimination, the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, and for action to curb climate change and to protect women. Back then, they were given the opportunity to protest peacefully, but there has not been as much tolerance for their opposition to the killing of Palestinians. This time, Israeli ministries intervened as if they were addressing a domestic matter.
Although these scenes are reminiscent of totalitarian and oppressive countries’ practices, it should not come as a surprise that American students are being treated viciously for holding sit-ins on their university campuses. Beatings, inspections, incrimination, imprisonment, trials, and expulsions are punishments worthy of gangs and bandits, not students, researchers, and professors.
It should not surprise us given the stakes and the intertwined interests of various actors. Indeed, the elections will be held soon, and the Republicans exploit anger and division.
When Benjamin Netanyahu calls what happens in American universities "horrific"- claiming that “antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities," and that "the response of some university presidents has been shameful," and asks officials to "do more"- his intervention was not seen as a provocation by a great power or its officials.
His assertions did not stir anger because the coordination regarding university students continues, as do the discussions. The biggest losers in all of this are American universities; they are losing their credibility and independence, which were once revered globally and made them dream destinations for top achievers. Today, to serve Israeli interests, these prominent universities are portraying themselves as corner stores and institutions beholden to lobbies and corrupt groups. Indeed, the students' battle is significant, fierce, and long, and it might take years for these institutions to regain some of the credibility and prestige they have lost.