Hundreds of pro-Israel students met in Washington this week for the Israel Campus Coalition’s national summit.
Jacob Baime, the group’s CEO, told JNS that the 21 months since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent rise of anti-Israel and antisemitic protests on campus marked a “new moment” for students who support the Jewish state.
“As horrible as everything has been, as horrific as it’s all been since Oct. 7, there’s the silver lining of a huge surge in Jewish pride and interest in the issue,” Baime said. “This is a major turning point, and I don’t think that we’re going back. This is one of those moments, like after the Six-Day War, when there’s this new surge of identity and pride.”
Some 700 undergraduates across the political spectrum and a range of religious observance met at the Capital Hilton from Sunday to Tuesday to hear from elected officials and hold workshops on campus organizing that ranged from how to fundraise to Krav Maga self-defense training.
Baime said college campuses remain the leading indicator for anti-Israel activism in American society because of how much effort anti-Israel groups invest in students.
“Campuses are the domain that our adversaries invest most heavily in to try to end the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Baime told JNS. “The support for Hamas and for the Oct. 7 massacre started on campus, and then it quickly spilled into the city streets and the public square. But the reason it started on campus is that our adversaries invest very heavily there.”
“American Muslims for Palestine has their annual convention for Palestine, and for years now, the only ancillary track is the campus activism track, where they train anti-Israel students to take over student governments, and they introduce BDS, and so on and so forth,” he added. “We need to match that level of sophistication, that level of coordination and that energy, and I think that’s part of what we’re building here.”
‘The information war is the vanguard’
Universities across the country are considering what to do about lawsuits from Jewish students and accusations from the Trump administration that the schools illegally fostered antisemitic and anti-Israel discrimination.
On Tuesday, the University of California, Los Angeles became the latest university to make a deal, settling a $6.45 million suit from three Jewish students. Harvard University is reportedly considering a $500 million settlement with the Trump administration after Columbia University agreed to pay $221 million to resolve its discrimination probe.
While federal investigations are making progress to turn the tide against anti-Israel forces, Baime told JNS that the information war against Israel remains one of the greatest challenges for pro-Israel advocates.
“The information war is the vanguard of all this—the main front,” Baime said. “If Joe Rogan is hosting Holocaust deniers on his podcast, that fundamentally influences everything that the students are experiencing day to day in this conversation.”
He added: “I don’t have any illusion that we’re going to convince Joe Rogan to stop platforming antisemites, but I think we can boost up other voices that can compete.”
