Latest news with #antiIsraelProtests
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Gal Gadot 'reluctant to ever film in London again' after antisemitic protests
Gal Gadot has been left 'scarred' and 'reluctant to ever film in London again' following a wave of anti-Israel and antisemitic protests that have dogged the production of her latest film. The Wonder Woman star, 40, is currently in the UK shooting The Runner, a political thriller, but has faced persistent demonstrations from pro-Palestinian activists who accuse her of 'normalising war criminals' because of her past support for Israel and mandatory service in the Israeli Defence Forces. According to a source close to the production, Ms Gadot has told friends she is 'reluctant to ever film in London again' and has found the experience 'scarring'. The source added that those working on the film had become increasingly exasperated by the scale of the disruption, which began earlier this month, and by what they perceived as a lack of firm action by police. But last week the Metropolitan Police finally took action. They confirmed that five people were arrested at a filming site in Westminster for attempting to disrupt the production. Two of the arrests were for offences committed at previous protests, while three were for action on the day. The Wonder Woman star, 40, is currently in the UK shooting The Runner, a political thriller, but has faced persistent demonstrations from pro-Palestinian activists who accuse her of 'normalising war criminals' because of her past support for Israel and mandatory service in the Israeli Defence Forces 'While we absolutely acknowledge the importance of peaceful protest, we have a duty to intervene where it crosses the line into serious disruption or criminality,' said Superintendent Neil Holyoak. 'I hope today's operation shows we will not tolerate the harassment of or unlawful interference with those trying to go about their legitimate professional work in London.' Protests have taken place over at least 20 days, with activists sharing filming locations on social media and attempting to block access. One poster, circulated ahead of filming at YY London earlier this month, read: 'Last time her filming location was circulated, filming was successfully interrupted and activists made the point loud and clear. No to IDF soldiers in our city. No normalising war criminals!! Free Palestine.' Last month, protesters targeted Ms Gadot while she was filming on Waterloo Bridge, waving Palestinian flags and placards, banging saucepan lids, and blaring sirens. Chants included 'Gal Gadot, you can't hide,' while signs read 'Trash Gadot not welcome in London' and 'Stop starving Gaza.' Officers from Scotland Yard dispersed the group, but no arrests were made at that time. A Metropolitan Police spokesperson confirmed the recent operation followed weeks of similar disruption 'solely because an actress involved in the production is Israeli.' Ms Gadot has not commented publicly on the protests, but her treatment has sparked widespread condemnation. The Campaign Against Antisemitism has condemned the sustained targeting of Ms Gadot, a mother-of-four, warning it reflects a wider climate of hostility toward Jewish people in the UK. A spokesperson told the Mail: 'We welcome the arrests of individuals who have allegedly been harassing Gal Gadot and her colleagues during filming. At least the financial cost of allowing the mob unfettered freedom to spew their bile is motivating the authorities to act, even if the social cost has yet to be acknowledged. 'With Ms Gadot reportedly reconsidering her business in the UK, it remains to be seen whether this is too little too late. Our polling shows that less than half of British Jews feel welcome in the UK. 'Here is an example of a foreign Jew being made to feel unwelcome. We have all learned the hard way that 'Free Palestine' activism does not end with mere rhetoric. The time has come to clamp down once and for all.' The experience stands in stark contrast to her previous time filming in the UK, including work on Wonder Woman 1984, which shot scenes in London in 2018 without incident. Her latest visit has unfolded against a backdrop of growing concern over antisemitism in Britain, with the UK increasingly viewed as a hotbed of hostility toward Jewish figures in public life. Ms Gadot has also faced similar protests in the US. Demonstrators disrupted her Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in May, chanting 'Shame on Gal Gadot' and waving Palestinian flags. Days later, her star on the Walk of Fame was defaced, with vandals scrawling 'Baby killer' and altering her surname to 'Greestien'—a misspelling of her family's original Jewish name, Greenstein. Stickers with inflammatory messages like 'Israeli snipers target children' were also found. The Campaign Against Antisemitism called the graffiti 'a modern manifestation of medieval antisemitic tropes,' likening it to the blood libel.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NY city and state lawmakers condemn CUNY chancellor after anti-Israel melee at Brooklyn College: ‘Step up or step down'
A bipartisan group of nine New York City and state lawmakers is demanding Brooklyn College take swift action after a mob of anti-Israel protesters brawled with cops on campus Thursday, resulting in more than a dozen arrests. 'It is unacceptable but not surprising that almost two years after October 7th — after an investigation into CUNY and several public hearings — we are still grappling with disruptive and criminal behavior against Jewish students, encampments and masked agitators on campus,' reads a May 9 letter to Brooklyn College chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez exclusively obtained by The Post. The letter was signed by Councilmembers Inna Vernikov, Farah Louis, Mercedes Narcisse, and Robert Holden, and Assemblymembers Kalman Yeger, Lester Chang, Eric Ari Brown, Jamie Williams and Alec Brook-Krasny. The chaos erupted around 4:50 p.m. Thursday after a group of agitators attempted to start a tent encampment on the Bedford Avenue campus as students were studying for finals. The protesters 'erected tents on the Brooklyn College quad in violation of college policy,' a Brooklyn College spokesperson said in a statement. 'After multiple warnings to take the tents down and disperse, members of CUNY Public Safety and NYPD removed the tents and dispersed the crowd,' he added. 'The safety of our campus community will always be paramount, and Brooklyn College respects the right to protest while also adhering to strict rules meant to ensure the safe operation of our University and prohibit individuals from impeding access to educational facilities.' The NYPD arrested at least 14 people during the fracas. However, police waited 'for hours' outside the school's gate before they were allowed on campus to disperse the rioters, the lawmakers' letter said. Judge Jonathan Lippman — a highly respected, retired state chief judge — conducted a damning 10-month probe into antisemitism at CUNY schools at Gov. Kathy Hochul's behest last year. Among the findings were that the state schools' own professors at times fanned the flames of campus antisemitism, and that the CUNY system needs a major overhaul to address the 'alarming' problem. The lawmakers pointed to an incident on Thursday in which faculty members 'stood in lockstep' with the anti-Israel protesters chanting 'We don't want no Zionists here,' including a staffer named Zeno Wood — who the group claims 'showed the middle finger' to a Jewish student. The school's website lists Wood as a piano technician at Brooklyn College. He did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment on Sunday. Among the demands outlined in the letter is an investigation into Wood, as well as any other faculty members who took part in the protest. The pols further called for those who are alleged to have engaged in misconduct to be terminated. The group also requested extra security at the school's Hillel house, the college's off-campus home for Jewish life, which they say protesters targeted after cops escorted them off campus. Additionally, they said the school must 'immediately' prohibit facial coverings except for medical reasons across the CUNY system, and allow NYPD to enter campus grounds as soon as safety officers secure the buildings during unlawful disruptions. The letter requires a response no later than the end of business on Monday, May 12. Vernikov went a step beyond the letter and called on the chancellor to resign if he didn't sort out the chaos. 'There are only two ways to end the pro-terror anarchy that has infested our campuses: for the CUNY Chancellor to either step up or step down,' she told The Post Sunday. 'We are far past the time of allowing leadership at the top to play politics with the lives of Jewish students. Inaction isn't going to slide anymore.' The incident at Brooklyn College came a day after dozens of masked anti-Israel radicals stormed Columbia University's Butler library, resulting in 80 arrests. The Ivy League school handed out dozens of interim suspensions to students involved in the takeover pending further investigation. In March, Columbia agreed to adhere to a series of Trump administration demands aimed at curbing campus antisemitism, under threat of losing around $400 million in federal funds.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Maggie Gyllenhaal's daughter Ramona Sarsgaard arrested during Columbia protests
Maggie Gyllenhaal's daughter Ramona Sarsgaard was arrested during the chaotic anti-Israel protests at Columbia University on Wednesday, police sources said. Sarsgaard, 18, who attends Columbia College, was slapped with a desk appearance ticket for criminal trespassing, the sources said. The actress's daughter — who Gyllenhaal shares with husband Peter Sarsgaard — was one of nearly 80 agitators arrested while storming the university's Butler Library on Wednesday evening as students prepared for final exams. At least two school safety officers were injured in the melee, officials said. As of Thursday, the elite Morningside Heights school had handed down at least 65 interim suspensions to students who were part of the chaos, pending further investigation, a school official said. It's unclear if Sarsgaard was one of those suspended. Video obtained by The Post showed a line of protesters led out in zip ties by NYPD officers and onto waiting police buses following the ruckus, which started when demonstrators shoved past a security guard at the library's front entrance, disrupting focused students. Once inside, they draped large signs over bookshelves, scrawled 'Columbia Will Burn' on a glass case inside the library, and marked tables with colored tape. Another 33 individuals, including those from affiliated institutions, and an unspecified number of alumni, were also barred from campus, the official said — as Columbia faced public pressure to take strong action against the rabble-rousers. Little is known about Sarsgaard's personal life and she doesn't appear to have ever publicly spoken out about the Israel-Gaza war or the ensuing protests that have roiled college campuses nationwide. It's also not known what she is studying at Columbia, but she follows in the footsteps of her famous mother, who graduated from the Ivy League school with a bachelor's degree in English literature before appearing in dozens of films including the 2008 blockbuster 'The Dark Knight.' Her uncle, Jake Gyllenhaal, attended the prestigious university for two years before dropping out to concentrate on his acting career. And her grandmother, Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, is also a Columbia alum, according to reports. Naomi's first husband, American history expert Eric Foner, is currently listed as a professor within Columbia's Department of History. Her second husband, Stephen Gyllenhaal, is Maggie and Jake's dad. Sarsgaard's parents have had roles in films that explore parts of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Gyllenhaal, 47, starred as a British-Israeli billionaire who uses her family business to promote peace and resolution between Israel and Palestine in Sundance TV's spy thriller miniseries 'The Honorable Woman.' The series was released in July 2014, in the midst of a bloody, 50-day long battle launched by Israel in the Gaza Strip that left over 2,250 people killed on both sides. At the show's premiere in the Big Apple on July 23, 2014, Peter Sarsgaard wore a peace sign T-shirt and told his two daughters – who were seven and two years old at the time – that there was 'a lot of war going on,' Variety reported. In an interview about the series with the Hollywood Reporter, Gyllenhaal said the war 'feels like an impossible situation.' 'I just mean it can be so difficult to have a conversation about what is happening in Israel and Palestine right now. [The show] very consciously does not take a side; it doesn't say, 'We believe this, and we don't believe that.' We lay out aspects of the conflict, and we ask the audience to think and feel for themselves. I'm really hungry for that, and I bet a lot of other people are too,' she told the outlet. Just last year, Peter Sarsgaard, 54, starred in 'September 5,' a movie based on the true story of the 1972 Munich Massacre, in which a group of Palestinian terrorists stormed the Olympic Games, taking Israeli athletes hostage. While filming the movie in 2024 – just months after Hamas's vicious, Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel – onlookers would yell 'Zionist propaganda' in the film crew's direction, the Irish Times reported in February. The film 'has a Swiss director. We have German producers and we have American producers, but I don't think any of them are Zionists so far as I know,' Peter Sarsgaard told the outlet. 'My position has always been that what was true in 1971 is still true today – about the Palestinians and the Israelis,' he said. Reps for Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard did not immediately respond to requests for comment. When The Post paid a visit to Sarsgaard's ritzy Cobble Hill townhouse on Friday, an unidentified woman swiftly shut the front door after a reporter identified herself and asked for Ramona. A Columbia spokesperson declined to answer questions about Sarsgaard's role in the protest and whether she faced disciplinary action, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. — Additional reporting by Khristina Narizhnaya
Daily Mail
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Columbia University's brutal move against anti-Israel protesters as school desperately tries to curry favor with Trump
Columbia University has suspended dozens of students and barred alums and others who participated in anti-Israel protests inside the school´s main library earlier this week. Shocking videos posted online Wednesday evening showed dozens of people wearing keffiyehs and masks banging drums in a sprawling room at the Butler Library and hanging signs. They repeated anti-Israel slogans for nearly an hour and renamed the library 'Basel al-Araj Popular University' after a Palestinian militant whom Israel has accused of planning a large scale attack, according to the New York Times. But when the raucous demonstrators tried to leave the library, they were blocked by security guards at the Ivy League university unless they showed a proper school identification - leading to an hours-long standoff. Now, the Ivy League institution in Manhattan placed more than 65 students on interim suspension and barred 33 others, including those from affiliated institutions such as Barnard College, from setting foot on campus, in what is seen as an attempt to gain favor with Donald Trump. Interim suspension generally means that a student cannot come to campus, attend classes or participate in other university activities, according to Columbia's website. The university declined to say how long the disciplinary measures would be in place, saying only that the decisions are pending further investigation. An undisclosed number of alums who also participated in the protest are also now prevented from entering school grounds, according to Columbia. Now, the Ivy League institution in Manhattan placed more than 65 students on interim suspension and barred 33 others, including those from affiliated institutions such as Barnard College, from setting foot on campus, in what is seen as an attempt to gain favor with Donald Trump Roughly 80 people were arrested in connection with the Wednesday evening demonstration at the university's Butler Library. Most face trespassing charges, though some may also face disorderly conduct, police have said. The mask-clad protesters pushed their way past campus security officers, raced into the building and hung Palestinian flags and other banners on bookshelves. Some protesters also scrawled phrases on library furniture and picture frames, including 'Columbia will burn.' In one of the videos from the scene, guards could be seen telling the protesters they will be arrested for trespassing if they did not produce their school ID cards. The blockage soon led an angry mob to try to push through the shuttered doors of the library, chanting 'Let us out, let us out, let us out' while their counterparts on the outside chanted 'Let them out.' The group then continued to push and shove at the security guards, leaving one woman visibly injured on the ground. In the end, nearly 70 demonstrators were taken into custody for trespassing, and at least one protester and two security guards were injured in the assault - which came as university officials try to appease the Trump administration to regain some of its federal funding. New York City police in helmets and other protection broke up the demonstration at the request of university officials, who denounced the protests as an 'outrageous' disruption for students studying and preparing for final exams. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said his office will be reviewing the visa status of those who participated in the library takeover for possible deportation. The chaotic scene began at around 3pm when the protesters first entered Butler Library, pushing past a library security guard carrying tote bags and backpacks before heading up the stairs to the main reading room. Columbia University Apartheid Divest - which is taking credit for the demonstration - claimed at the time that more than 100 people stormed the library. 'The flood shows that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia's profits and legitimacy,' it said in a statement. 'Repression breeds resistance - if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruption on this campus,' the group warned. It said it was demanding 'full financial divestment from Zionist occupation, apartheid and genocide; an academic boycott of all compliant institutions, including the cancelation of the Tel Aviv Global Center; cops and ICE off our campus' and an end to 'Columbia's occupation of Harlem.' The group also demanded 'amnesty for all students, staff, faculty and workers targeted by Columbia University's discipline.' The scene prompted public security officials at the school to evacuate students who were not involved in the disruption from the library, the Times reports. Meanwhile, guards told the demonstrators that they would not be allowed out if they did not produce their school ID. Eventually at around 5.20pm, a group of about seven people were allowed to leave the building - while the remainder presumably refused to show their IDs. A few minutes later, one protester was seen being brought out in handcuffs by the university's public safety department - which now employs several dozen peace officers who have the authority to make arrests. In an apparent attempt to be let out of the library, the fire alarm began sounding at around 5.30pm, before going silent a few minutes later. The situation then turned more chaotic, leaving one protester injured and escaping through the back entrance of the library in a stretcher. Soon after, demonstrators in support of the protesters inside the building also began assembling outside - chanting 'no cops, no KKK, no fascist USA' as they too tried to overpower the security guards blocking their way. By around 7pm, Columbia University's Acting President Claire Shipman announced she had called police to the scene. 'The individuals who disrupted activities in Butler Reading Room 301 still refuse to identify themselves and leave the building,' she said. 'Due to the number of individuals participating in the disruption inside and outside the building, a large group of people attempting to force their way into Butler Library creating a safety hazard and what we believe to be the significant presence of individuals not affiliated with the university, Columbia has taken the necessary step of requesting the presence of the NYPD to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community. 'Requesting the presence of the NYPD is not the outcome we wanted, but it was absolutely necessary to secure the safety of our community,' Shipman added. She concluded by saying the university 'strongly condemns violence on our campus, antisemitism and all forms of hate and discrimination, some of which we witnessed today. 'We are resolute that calls for violence or harm have no place at our university.' Officers were soon captured on cell phone video entering the library - which caused a shriek from inside. Within half an hour of Shipman's announcement, demonstrators were seen being escorted out of the building, their hands restrained behind them with zip ties. Police have since confirmed they responded to a 'trespassing scene' at the Ivy League university and charges against the protesters were pending. But the chaotic scene had already attracted the attention of elected officials, with Mayor Eric Adams taking to X to condemn the demonstration. 'As I've said repeatedly, New York City will always defend the right to peaceful protest, but we will never tolerate lawlessness,' he said. 'To our Jewish New Yorkers, especially the students at Columbia who feel threatened or unsafe attending class because of these events: know that your mayor stands with you and will always work to keep you safe.' New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also said she was briefed on the situation and was grateful for the public safety officials who kept students safe, according to ABC 7. 'Everyone has the right to peacefully protest. But violence, vandalism or destruction of property are completely unacceptable.' Rep. Elise Stefanik went even further, writing: 'While Columbia students try to study for finals, they're being bombarded with chants for a "global intifada." 'Not a single taxpayer dollar should go to a university that allows chaos, antisemitism and civil rights violations on its campus,' she said, agreeing with President Trump's decision to revoke more than $400 million in federal funding from the Ivy League school for its prior 'mishandling' of protests against Israel. In a letter on Tuesday, school officials said the funding cut resulted in 180 staff members being laid off. 'Columbia's leadership continues discussions with the federal government in support of resuming activity on these research awards and additional other awards that have remained active, but unpaid,' the letter said. 'We are working on planning for every eventuality, but the strain in the meantime, financially and on our research mission, is intense.' It now remains unclear whether Wednesday's chaos will lead the Trump administration to further revoke the school's funding. But officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told Fox News they were monitoring the situation - and will fingerprint everyone who was arrested to determine if they are noncitizens. Those who are may then face deportation. 'Time to make a point,' an ICE official said. The State Department also warned foreign students about the consequences of breaking the law. 'Foreign university students in America have been put on notice: If you break the law or support terrorism in our country, we will revoke your visa,' it said.
Daily Mail
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Nepo-baby whose mom and uncle are both A-List stars 'is arrested at latest Columbia anti-Israel protests'
Maggie Gyllenhaal 's daughter Ramona was arrested during violent anti-Israel protests at Columbia University this week, reports say. The star's daughter, who she shares with actor Peter Sarsgaard, is a student at the New York college, which has been hit with a wave of protests in recent months. After the most recent protest on Wednesday night, Ramona was reportedly slapped with a desk appearance ticket for criminal trespassing, sources told the New York Post.
