The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have come under fire this week for ordering the arrest without charges of an acclaimed documentary filmmaker while he was working on a movie exposing the internal security service's alleged injustices.

Avraham Shapira, a 29-year-old father of four from Yitzhar in Samaria, was arrested on Aug. 22 and put in administrative detention for six months, Channel 14 reporter Shimon Riklin revealed on Monday.

"Avraham Shapira, with whom I worked on my film 'The Shin Bet Knew,' was arrested by the Shin Bet under administrative arrest on Aug. 22," Riklin said on Monday, noting that the detention of his cameraman will likely prevent the documentary from being released in November.

Attorney Adi Keidar of the Honenu legal-aid group representing Shapira called the arrest "a serious violation of freedom of speech." Shapira's investigative documentaries have aired on Israel's Kan public broadcaster and were screened at various film festivals in recent years.

Shapira is currently working on "an investigation about the activities of the Shin Bet in the 1990s, including embarrassing affairs for the Shin Bet such as the use of instigator agents, the use of [undercover ISA agent] Avishai Raviv among the settlers and other stories that will shake the country," said Keidar, echoing accusations that the Shin Bet was partially responsible for the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The Shin Bet issued a statement on Monday claiming that the filmmaker is a "violent and extreme activist involved in directing hilltop youth and young men to carry out violent activities in the Samaria region.

"Shapira was arrested as part of a police investigation on suspicions that he took part in the terrorist events in Kfar Jit on Aug. 15, during which a Palestinian was murdered, and four houses were set on fire," according to the Shin Bet. Jit is five miles northwest of Yitzhar, south of Nablus.

"He did not cooperate, and in the absence of a criminal [prosecution] alternative, it was decided to put him under administrative arrest due to the great danger of his continued activity," the agency said. "The false claim that Shapira was arrested for being a 'film director' is unfounded."

Jerusalem asserts that administrative detention is necessary to prevent attacks or to detain dangerous terror suspects without sharing evidence that could endanger vital intelligence sources. Since Gallant took office in December 2022, the use of administrative detention against Jewish Israelis has reached an all-time high, right-wing groups have claimed.

"Gallant became a marionette and a rubber stamp of the Shin Bet," Tally Gotliv, a fellow lawmaker for the ruling Likud Party, tweeted on Monday. "Utilizing its thuggish power and based on despicable lies, the Shin Bet convinced Gallant to approve the administrative arrest of film director Avraham Shapira, a resident of Yitzhar, a man of values ​​and good."

"All because Shapira 'dared' to touch the holy of holies and take part in a film dealing with Rabin's murder and the Shin Bet's involvement in the incident," the Israeli coalition lawmaker added in the post on X.

Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) tweeted: "This is how the system works: The draconian administrative arrests started out against the hilltop boys, a quiet group that rarely receives media attention and the public stage, and when the Shin Bet saw that this passed quietly, they expanded the use also against those who dare to criticize them.

"Avraham Shapira, a respected documentary filmmaker and a father of children, was picked up from his home and arrested, without evidence and without a trial because he dared to reveal the truth," she added.

The arrest was also criticized by the family of Elyakim Libman, a 23-year-old security guard who was murdered during Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova music festival near Israel's southern border. Shapira was working on a documentary commemorating Libman's life and heroism after his remains were discovered some four months ago.

"Avraham received an administrative arrest order, which is supposed to be used against our enemy who wants to destroy us and not against brothers from among our people," father Eliyahu Liebman wrote in a sharp letter to Shin Bet head Ronen Bar cited by local news outlets.

"Not only did the Shin Bet not do its job and failed us twice when it did not protect our Elyakim Shlomo and his uncle Shneur Shlomo [who was murdered by a terrorist in 1998], after whom Elyakim is named. Now, it also hurts us in the soft underbelly by not allowing Avraham to continue working on the materials he captured in difficult moments, with great sensitivity during the long and difficult search for Elyakim," he said.

Pretending to recruit for a pro-Hamas fraternity on a college campus taught two Jewish comedians how much future leaders can be sheep.

Zach Sage Fox, the CEO and founder of a production company, and Yechiel Jacobs posed as recruiters for a fictitious pro-Hamas fraternity and sought members. 

In a 90-second video titled “Rush Hamas” that they posted on social media, the two comedians don red visors, sunglasses and red tank tops that approximate the word “Hamas” in Greek Letters—eta, delta, mu, delta, sigma.

“It’s back to school season, and you know what that means,” they say. “Antisemitism.”

“We’re starting a new fraternity,” they say, gesturing to the text on their shirts. “Hamas.”

They ask one group, “Are you guys anti-Israel?” Several students say that they are. “We’re putting together a Hamas fraternity,” the two say. “This is a Hamas represent come together.”

Some students identify themselves as freshmen at New York University. The undercover comedians are told another student goes to Columbia University. “Dude, Columbia is like one of the biggest like Jew-hating schools out there,” the duo says.

“You down?” they ask a girl wearing headphones. “Yeah,” she says, as she appears to sign.

“Just a quick sig,” they tell others, using shorthand for “signature.”

“Throw me your sig right here,” they tell another.

“Don’t you need, like, our emails or something?” one student asks. “Yeah. Yeah. Emails and signatures,” the duo says.

The terms and conditions of the new “fraternity,” the duo says, include “taking a road trip to Jewish-owned businesses to protest.”

“We’re literally going to be, like, chanting outside of synagogues, like harassing Jews,” they tell another student. “Keffiyeh fashion show,” they say to another student. “It’s a lot of fun.”

They also appear to tell students, “Death to America.”

“We’re doing this anti-Zionist keg stand,” they tell a student in a head covering. They tell others, “Obviously chant to obliterate Israel.” To another, they say “boycotting Jewish businesses, protesting synagogues, all the good stuff.”

“What do you think, kick out all of those Jews?” they tell someone on a park bench. “Burning Israeli and American flags, you down for that?” they tell another. “I’m down for that,” he says.

“Some of the schools are starting to crack down on the encampment,” they tell a student. “We want a safe space for Jew-haters.”

“All the proceeds, like, go to funding terrorism,” they say. “Awesome.”

They also talk of a “Hamas-themed formal,” where everyone wears green and keffiyehs.

“Antisemitism on college campuses is rampant,” the video concludes. “We can’t end it until we expose it.”

Fox told JNS that the duo hid a camera in a tree in Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan and stuck to a corner of the park. It took only 30 minutes to talk to dozens of people, about half of whom agreed to sign up for the fraternity, Fox said.

He sees the experience, in which the duo spoke to students from NYU, Columbia and Pace University, as a “social experiment,” he told JNS.

“I’ve been making videos uncovering Jew-hate for months now, but with the rise in antisemitism particularly on college campuses last spring, I was curious to see if it simmered or spiked going into the fall semester,” he said. He added that a hidden camera was a good way to see if “antisemitism could be accepted in a casual way.” 

“It was pretty shocking to see how many students were willing to sign up for a Hamas fraternity, especially when we kept giving them the terms and conditions of what we would be doing as a Greek organization: harassing Jewish businesses and synagogues,” Fox told JNS.

“It’s one thing to not know much about Israel or Jewish people,” he said. “We’re a tiny people and country. But these are some of the most privileged kids in the world to attend NYU and Columbia university, and that privilege is largely from being American.” 

Fox told JNS that “just to hear the casual acceptance of hearing ‘death to America’ and not standing up to say anything was pretty insane.”

The comedian told JNS that his fellow funnyman, Jacobs, “is an extremely talented and brave guy who absolutely crushed this experiment with me.”

“Ultimately, the social experiment showed how easy it is to convince college students to hate Jews and Israel, especially when there is a group or social element involved,” Fox said. “College students are looking for community when they arrive, and I think our viral video showed just how much young people are willing to tolerate if they think they will be able to make friends and discover a sense of belonging.”

That “is how I believe so many have been willing to take part in these vile encampments and Jewish-hating clubs on campus,” he added.

At press time, the video had more than 250,000 views on X and, Fox said, more than a million views on Instagram.

Todd Wolfson, the freshly minted president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), wasted no time in issuing his battle cry. Claiming that “fascist” politicians are “within striking distance of the annihilation of American higher education as we know it,” Wolfson urged all those “who care about higher education, academic freedom and the future of democracy” to “prepare for the fight ahead.”

Ironically, an AAUP statement released a few days later revealed that the real threat to “higher education, academic freedom and the future of democracy” is Wolfson’s AAUP and its leaders.

Reversing its 2005 position acknowledging that academic boycotts, which call for cutting all ties to targeted academic institutions and scholars, are “inimical to academic freedom,” the AAUP’s latest statement on the matter claims that academic boycotts are perfectly compatible with academic freedom. The statement even argues these boycotts “can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with higher education.”

What gives? Why did the organization that has been setting the professional standards for higher education since 1915 and is widely acknowledged as the protector and defender of academic freedom in the American academy twist itself into pretzel-like contortions, claiming that what it once considered “inimical” to academic freedom is now perfectly acceptable, and can even contribute to protecting academic freedom? In a word: politics.

Both the AAUP’s 2005 pronouncement and the just-announced reversal of it were directly responsive to calls from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), the academic arm of the BDS movement. The AAUP’s flip-flop is a testament to the growing foothold of PACBI in academia, and its success in bringing the antisemitic fight to dismantle the Jewish state not only to college and university campuses, but to academic associations like the Middle East Studies Association, the American Anthropological Association, and yes, the AAUP.

Since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7 last fall, PACBI’s efforts have taken a quantum leap. On more than 100 U.S. campuses, chapters of the PACBI-affiliated group Faculty for Justice in Palestine have been established for the express purpose of bringing academic BDS into classrooms and the campus square.

Tellingly, the AAUP’s decision to give license to academic boycotts comes as several of its members who openly champion academic BDS have recently filled key roles in the association. For instance, Wolfson has not only signed a letter endorsing a call to action that involves incorporating academic BDS into faculty members’ teaching and research, he is also a member of an FJP chapter at his institution, Rutgers University, that openly advocates for academic BDS. Isaac Kamola, director of the association’s new Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, is also a member of an FJP-affiliated group at Trinity College and signed a letter in support of a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions that was voted on at the American Political Science Association’s annual conference in 2019. Rana Jaleel, who took over as chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure in 2024, was an early supporter of PACBI’s academic BDS campaign.

In addition, three of the five members of AAUP’s regional council, as well as presidents and executive board members of several campus chapters, including at New York University, the University of California, the University of Maryland, Syracuse University and the University of Michigan, have publicly endorsed an academic boycott of Israel. 

It’s hard to deny the once-storied AAUP, esteemed for its commitment to academic integrity, has been captured by activists who are more concerned with advancing their political goal of dismantling the Jewish state than with advancing the group’s scholarly mission.

This shift from scholarship to anti-Israel politics, as expressed by the AAUP’s approval of academic boycotts, not only corrupts AAUP’s mission and degrades its reputation, it can cause real harm to higher education in America and beyond.

What few people realize is that although an academic boycott of Israel ostensibly targets Israeli universities and scholars, there is simply no way it can be implemented without directly suppressing the educational opportunities and academic freedom of students and faculty on U.S. campuses, as well as inciting antisemitic animus and harm towards Israel’s on-campus supporters.

Specifically, implementing academic BDS means boycotting the educational programs in or about Israel on one’s own campus, and seeking to cancel or shut down Israel-related events and activities; encouraging academic programming and campus events that portray Israel in a wholly negative light, as a pariah state unworthy of normalization; shunning collaborations with Hillel and other Jewish organizations and the students and faculty who affiliate with them; and denigrating, protesting and harassing members of the campus community who express positive views about Israel.

The AAUP’s reversal of its long-standing opposition to academic boycotts marks a significant blow not only to Jewish students and faculty but to the future of higher education and the society that vitally depends upon it. By condoning an academic boycott that replaces genuine scholarship with political activism aimed explicitly at dismantling the Jewish state and purging Zionism and Zionists from the academy, the AAUP has made a mockery of the professional standards it has, for more than 100 years, been relied upon to uphold. It has shown itself to be a deeply corrupt organization, antithetical to the core principles of American higher education, and wholly unworthy of the public’s trust.

The Republican Party’s message for U.S. Jewish voters ahead of the presidential election is essentially the same as Google’s former motto, according to the party’s Jewish spokeswoman. 

“We stand against evil,” Elizabeth Pipko, a former model, told JNS last week, on the sidelines of the Republican Jewish Coalition summit in Las Vegas. “There’s no other message that we need, because we’ve seen what happens with weak leadership.” 

After reading in the news about Hamas executing six hostages, including the Israeli-American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Pipko told JNS that the election is “not even political anymore.”

“People tell me all the time this is an election about life or death, and unfortunately, now I have to share that sentiment, because people are dying,” she said. “People are being slaughtered by an evil that’s not just an enemy of Israel, but it’s an enemy of ours too.”

“If people don’t realize that—that it’s so much deeper than Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, left, right—I don’t know what else there is to say,” she said.

Republican Jews naturally made hay of Israel as a political issue during their Las Vegas gathering. Pipko, who started in politics as co-founder of a movement to bring Jewish Democrats into the Republican Party, told JNS that the Jewish state presents a winning issue for the party beyond just for Jews, and that Republicans should address it broadly.

“They should hammer it home very strongly. I plan to do that, not only because I support Israel as strongly as I do, but because Israel is symbolic,” Pipko said. “Support for Israel against an enemy like Hamas is everything that we believe in and stand for as a country.”

“We should not only be encouraging support for Israel, but explaining, especially to young people, why in the Middle East, we have this close relationship with Israel, why we share enemies with Israel,” she said.

Pipko said that such a message is particularly important as the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks approaches.

“What happened on Oct. 7 could happen on our soil as well without strong leadership,” she said. She added that if Americans had reelected Donald Trump, rather than electing Joe Biden, “maybe Oct. 7 wouldn’t have happened.” 

Former President Donald Trump has been making the same point as he runs for his old seat, and he did so addressing attendees of the summit remotely.

Pipko told JNS that even though Trump only appeared virtually, there was palpable excitement in the room.

“That’s what matters, right?” she said. “Virtually everyone was screaming. We saw some people crying. They’re hopeful, and I’m very excited to be a part of it with everyone who seems really, really eager to elect President Trump in 60 days.”

A few months into her role with the Republican National Committee, Pipko is ankle-deep in election season media politicking, and conceded that “it’s going to get so much worse over the next two months.” 

“It’s an honor, because I don’t think people realize, for me, I’m doing this as a Jew,” who will mix religion and politics in a way few will in a political spokesperson’s role, she said.

“It’s the kind of pressure that I live for, because I know it’s an honor that God let me in this position,” she said. “It’s one I can’t let go to waste.”

The U.S. embassy in Jerusalem released a “security alert” earlier this month noting what has been reported for more than a month—that Israel is delaying a digital entry procedure for visitors from visa-exempt countries until next year.

The Electronic Travel Authorization program will be open, on a voluntary basis, until Dec. 31, per the U.S. embassy. “During the pilot phase, submitting an application will be voluntary and free,” it stated. “Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, all travelers to Israel from visa-exempt countries must have a valid visa or ETA-IL approval before traveling to Israel, and it will cost 25 shekels to submit the application.”

It added that authorizations are good for two years. JNS sought comment from the embassy about whether it recommends that travelers apply during the pilot phase.

Daniel Eleff, founder and CEO of the Cleveland-based discount website DansDeals, told JNS that there is no need for travelers to apply for the digital entry until the very end of the year at earliest.

“Israel’s ETA requirements were announced before the horrific Oct. 7 pogrom took place. Due to the current war, Israel’s tourist numbers are down more than 80% from their peak,” Eleff said. “It’s no surprise to see that something that causes any additional friction, like an ETA form, be postponed.”

Eleff won’t be surprised to see the program postponed further.

“The ETA-IL is more about political reciprocity than security, so implementing it is hardly an urgent concern,” he told JNS. “Visitors to Israel should just ignore it for now and see what happens in late December.”

“If implementation is not further postponed, you can apply for one for free at the end of December, and it would be valid for two years from the application date,” he said.

The University of Pennsylvania—whose embattled president Liz Magill resigned in December after testifying before a House committee that it wouldn’t necessarily violate school rules to call for genocide of all Jews—has created a new Title VI office of “religious and ethnic inclusion.”

The entity responds to recommendations of the Philadelphia school’s Jew-hatred task force and its Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community, it stated.

The office “ensures that Penn can continue to fulfill its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and under Penn’s own policies, to protect students, faculty and staff from discrimination based on their religion, ethnicity, shared ancestry or national origin,” the university stated. The office also provides a “critical central point of contact for Title VI training and compliance,” it said.

“Over the past year, our campus and our country witnessed a disquieting surge in antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of religious and ethnic intolerance,” stated Dr. Larry Jameson, the school’s interim president. “This type of prejudice is simply unacceptable, and has no place at Penn.”

The school expects to open the office this fall under the co-leadership of Majid Alsayegh, who founded a project management firm and who works in interfaith dialogue, and Steve Ginsburg, a former Anti-Defamation League executive.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) delivered remarks on the Senate floor on Monday honoring the Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose body Israel recently recovered in the Gaza Strip and identified, and his parents, who sought so hard for his release.

Goldberg-Polin, who had ties to the senator's state "was one of the young people at the music festival on Oct. 7 in Israel during the heinous Hamas attack that sparked so much death and destruction," Durbin said. "He lost part of his arm trying to protect others from grenades, only to find himself taken hostage."

"His parents, Rachel and Jon, spent the next 329 days of his captivity crisscrossing the globe on a desperate quest to save their son and end the ghastly war," the senator added on the Senate floor. "Can there be a crueler fate for a parent than suffering the daily plea and waiting for a horribly injured child’s release?"

"Hersh is no longer with us, but the heroic lengths his mom and dad made to save him touched many of us deeply, including me," he said.

The Illinois Democrat also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, upon whom he said the lesson "has been lost" and who, he said, "with each passing day seems to step deeper into the pernicious and ruthless trap set by Hamas."

"He seems to have no long-term plan for stability, failed to secure the release of the hostages, created a terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and appears more concerned with his far-right coalition’s political survival than a viable path forward," Durbin stated.

"Let me be clear: There are those in the region who want to destroy Israel, and the nation has a right exist and a right to defend itself. But I worry the current prime minister is pursuing a highly counterproductive strategy,” he added. "He is alienating allies in the region and abroad who want to help with a path forward, creating even more suffering and animosity among the Palestinian people and pursuing political survival above all else."

The senator concluded by quoting the "Middle East expert" and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, a longtime critic of the Israeli government, saying that there must be a ceasefire and "long-term, two-state vision."

Joseph Edelman, CEO of the investment firm Perceptive Advisors, announced in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday that he is resigning as a trustee of Brown University due to a scheduled October vote over whether to divest from the Jewish state.

“I disagree with the upcoming divestment vote on Israel,” wrote Edelman, who has been a trustee at the Ivy League school in Providence, R.I., since 2019. “I am concerned about what Brown’s willingness to hold such a vote suggests about the university’s attitude toward rising antisemitism on campus and a growing political movement that seeks the destruction of the State of Israel.”

“I find it morally reprehensible that holding a divestment vote was even considered, much less that it will be held—especially in the wake of the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” he wrote, accusing the school of acting “not based on facts or values but based on weakness toward student activists.”

“The university leadership has for some reason chosen to reward, rather than punish, the activists for disrupting campus life, breaking school rules and promoting violence and antisemitism at Brown,” he added. “Brown’s leadership admits the looming divestment vote is designed to buy good behavior from pro-Hamas activists, many of whom are adherents of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which seeks the destruction of the Jewish state through political and economic warfare.”

Brown agreed to hold the vote in exchange for anti-Israel protesters dismantling an encampment at the university.

“I consider the willingness to hold this vote a stunning failure of moral leadership at Brown University,” he concluded the 500-word op-ed. “I am unwilling to lend my name or give my time to a body that lacks basic moral judgment. I hereby resign from the board of trustees.”

The Brown Daily Herald, a student publication, reported that Edelman gave $1.65 million to Brown in 2014 for its brain science institute and that his family foundation donated $800,000 to Brown in 2022.

In July, the heads of three House committees—on education, oversight, and ways and means—urged the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the Palestine Chronicle and its parent nonprofit People Media Project, which they said “appear to be at the very least complicit in supporting Hamas and at worst full-fledged financiers of terrorism.”

The letter came after the revelation that a writer from the publication both supported Hamas and held Israeli civilian hostages in his home. But despite this context, a major U.S. investment advisory firm uses Palestine Chronicle as a source to assign damaging ratings to a major U.S. company that does business in Israel.

A source familiar with the practices of the New York-based MSCI told
JNS that the firm, which is already under separate multi-state investigations for assigning damaging investment ratings to an Israeli military defense contractor and Israeli banks, uses information from the publication to assign a “severe controversy” rating to the construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar. It also assigns a similar rating to the telecommunications company Motorola.

JNS sought comment from MSCI, which has consistently denied supporting or practicing boycotts against Israel.

In a 2024 report on Caterpillar, MSCI cites a Palestine Chronicle article about British college students calling on their university to divest from Caterpillar, because the company makes equipment used for demolitions in Judea and Samaria.

Socially-conscious investors often turn to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings of firms like MSCI for guidance on investment options and could be swayed from investing in companies accused of poor corporate practices, including human-rights violations.

“College campuses can just have votes and movements and generate press coverage, and that’s enough to create a severe ESG controversy for an American company,” Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS.

“It’s so wild,” added Goldberg, the architect of the first Illinois law barring boycotting Israel.

Abdallah Aljamal, a former spokesman for Hamas’s labor ministry in Gaza and a writer for the Palestine Chronicle in Gaza, was found to have held three Israeli hostages in his home.

In addition to Palestine Chronicle, MSCI used other information from other groups that support boycotting the Jewish state, including Al Jazeera, Human Rights Watch, War on Want and Amnesty International in its Caterpillar report, per the JNS source.

The JNS source also said that MSCI tagged Motorola with three controversies, including one “severe” controversy, related to the company’s dealings in Israel-controlled territory.

The severe controversy is based on Motorola’s supply of surveillance equipment used to detect human movement near the security barrier that Israel built in response to numerous Palestinian suicide bombings during the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005.

The systems also surveil perimeters around Jewish communities beyond the Green Line to prevent terrorist attacks.

MSCI classifies a class action wiretapping lawsuit filed against Motorola this year in U.S. district court as only a “minor” controversy, according to the JNS source. The suit was brought against the company and the Massachusetts State Police, which used Motorola technology to surreptitiously record citizens without a warrant, in violation of the state wiretap law.

A state police audit found more than 180 likely cases of covert recordings that weren’t turned over to prosecutors.

“The growing body of evidence makes clear that MSCI is intentionally inflicting economic harm on firms operating in Israel on a discriminatory and politically motivated basis,” Goldberg told JNS. “Any state with an anti-BDS law should be activating that law right now.”