Jewish Leader, US Diplomat Weigh in after Australia Cancels Visa for Pro-Israeli Blogger
A Jewish organisation has responded after a right-leaning influencer was barred from entering Australia on a charity tour.
Prominent American Israeli tech advisor and blogger Hillel Fuld was due to arrive in Australia to present on behalf of Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of Australia's State Emergency Service or the Red Cross.
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Letters to the Editor: Why pro-Palestinian protests can actually help protect Jewish students
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Yahoo
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Arizona Gov. Hobbs vetoes antisemitism bill, citing 'attack' on public schools
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have allowed students and their parents to sue K-12 and university teachers and potentially make them pay damages for teaching or promoting antisemitism. Hobbs announced the veto of House Bill 2867 in a letter June 10. In it, she said the bill was "not about antisemitism" but rather, "it's about attacking our teachers. It puts an unacceptable level of personal liability in place for our public school, community college, and university educators and staff, opening them up to threats of personally costly lawsuits." She rebuked the Legislature, writing, "It is disappointing to yet again see this Legislature single out and attack our public education system." The governor said despite the veto, she continues to stand with the Jewish community against hate and remains "committed to fighting antisemitism in all its forms." Students who experience antisemitism in the classroom already can report unprofessional conduct to the State Board of Education, Hobbs said. She said she was "confident that by using those tools, we can fulfill our moral and legal responsibility to eradicate hate and discrimination in our public school system." Hobbs also pointed to several Jewish groups that opposed the bill, including the National Council of Jewish Women Arizona, the Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center and the Rabbi Joseph H. Gumbiner Community Action Project. HB 2867 would have prohibited teachers, administrators, contractors and volunteers at K-12 public schools and public or private universities from: teaching or promoting antisemitism; requiring students to advocate for anti-Semitic points of view; and receiving professional development "in any antisemitism" that creates a "discriminatory" or "hostile" environment. The proposal provoked concern from public-school advocates about exacerbating the teacher shortage and had raised red flags about First Amendment violations due to what the proposed law considered "antisemitism." The Arizona Education Association, the main teachers' union in the state, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona had urged Hobbs, a Democrat, to veto the bill. The teacher's union said the bill "weaponizes legitimate concerns about antisemitism to attack public education" by stripping teachers of professional liability protections. The ACLU said it would "chill the First Amendment rights of students, teachers, speakers and administrators" and target those who criticized Israel. The bill included specific examples of speech the state would have prohibited, which a Federal District Court in Texas said amounted to "viewpoint discrimination that chills speech in violation of the First Amendment" when used to punish university students. Arizona's bill mostly applied to teachers, but one provision targeted university student groups — a fact First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh said was "pretty clearly unconstitutional." Supporters of the bill, such as sponsor Rep. Michael Way, R-Queen Creek, said it was needed because existing anti-discrimination laws "either weren't clear enough or didn't contain the necessary enforcement mechanism to address this problem." Rep. Alma Hernandez, a Democrat from Tucson and co-sponsor of the bill, was another vocal proponent of the legislation. Neither she nor Way immediately responded to requests for comment regarding Hobbs' veto. Could teachers be sued? Under a bill on Hobbs' desk, Ariz. teachers could be sued for what they say in classroom Taylor Seely is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at The Arizona Republic / Do you have a story about the government infringing on your First Amendment rights? Reach her at tseely@ or by phone at 480-476-6116. Seely's role is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Gov. Hobbs says antisemitism bill an 'attack' on schools
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The Trump administration plans to eliminate a Department of Homeland Security terrorism prevention program that former government officials and experts say has helped thwart attacks in the United States. The DHS budget submitted to Congress last month cancels the $18 million terrorism prevention grant program, saying it 'does not align with DHS priorities.' 'That line should be quoted after every future mass casualty event in this country,' said a current senior DHS official who declined to be named, citing fear of being fired. Former DHS officials say they believe the modest program, which costs about 4% of the military's marching band budget, has stopped violent attacks. It is designed to prevent a type of terrorism that has become increasingly common: lone-wolf attacks by individuals who are not members of an organized group. Examples include the recent firebomb attack in Boulder, Colorado, on demonstrators marching in support of Israeli hostages; the murder of a young couple outside the Capitol Jewish Museum; the killing of 14 people in a New Year's attack in New Orleans; and the shooting of a United Health Care executive in Manhattan. 'When people say, 'You can't prove prevention doesn't work,' I ask them, 'Do you go to the doctor? Do you have a smoke detector in your home?' Then you believe in prevention,' said Bill Braniff, a Biden administration appointee who oversaw the program as the director of DHS's Center for Prevention Partnerships and Programs. John Cohen, a former senior DHS counterterrorism official in the Obama and Biden administrations, said the threat is growing. 'Why was DHS created? To help the nation be better prepared to stop terrorist attacks following Sept. 11,' he said. 'We have had since January a number of school shootings and four terrorist incidents — all by people who fit those behavioral profiles.' The White House and DHS did not respond to requests for comment. The program, formally known as the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program, recently drew scrutiny when ProPublica published an article about Braniff's successor, a 22-year-old former Trump campaign worker with no relevant experience. But the larger issue, experts say, is that the program is being zeroed out. They call that a short-sighted decision in an era when alienated loners are attempting mass violence attacks at a greater frequency than ever. 'Do I know for certain that we helped to avert school shootings and mass casualty attacks? I am 99% sure that we helped to avert a number of them,' said Braniff, who now heads the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University. Interest in and demand for the program is high and spans the country. In 2024, DHS reported receiving 178 eligible applications from 47 U.S. states and territories requesting $98.9 million for $18 million in available grants. The money funds state and local programs designed to help identify people who are radicalizing and potentially violent. They included school-based threat assessment teams, mental health teams and programs designed to inoculate children against extremist messages on social media. Specific examples are difficult to cite, in part because many cases are confidential, and in part because it's difficult to draw a straight line between a government program and a thwarted attack. But DHS documents cite a 2022 case as an example of how they believe the program helped stop a school shooting. After an outreach campaign at Palm Beach State College in Florida urging students to be vigilant about online threats of violence, a student anonymously reported to authorities about online posts threatening a mass shooting. Among the posts, according to court records, were threats to commit a 'massacre,' and an inquiry, 'who's selling an AR-15?' Authorities arrested and charged a young man, who ultimately was sentenced to probation and also was the subject of a risk protection order, records show. 'This is not the time to be ending that office,' said Cohen, the former senior DHS counterterrorism official. 'This is the time to be expanding activities that are designed to detect emerging threats." This article was originally published on
