29.10.25
Editorial Note
Earlier this month, the Yale Daily News reported on a petition initiated by a student protesting a course on Iranian-American relations taught by Robert Malley, a former U.S. special envoy to Iran.
The petition is titled “No Safe Haven for Fascist Regimes at Yale,” and takes issue with four people who are on the course syllabus while having “long-standing ties to the Islamic Republic.”
Malley, who was a special envoy for Iran during the Biden administration, was investigated in 2023 and placed on leave by the State Department due to concerns over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. In 2024, the Jackson School of Global Affairs at Yale offered him a position.
Malley’s Yale course is titled “Adversaries by Design: Deconstructing the Iran-US Relationship.” The course offers an “in-depth look at relations between the United States and Iran from the 1979 Islamic revolution to today. The course does not purport to offer a comprehensive history of the bilateral relationship, but rather to examine the past in order to better appreciate the two governments’ worldviews and the reasons behind a more than 40 year-old antagonism that remains one of the world’s most dangerous. Our goal is to try to put ourselves in the shoes of US and Iranian decision-makers, internalize their respective narratives and assessments of the past, and seek to understand why each sees acts toward the other as they do. We focus in particular on the two nations’ sense of (in)security, Iran’s and the US’s regional roles and ties to Mideast state and non-state actors, the nuclear question and nuclear negotiations, as well as the role and impact of US sanctions. The course will closely follow unfolding events and examine possible future scenarios in light of these historical lessons. Guest lecturers will join to offer Iranian and US perspectives.”
Hadi Mahdeyan, the student behind the petition, told the Yale Daily that Malley’s syllabus features Iranian individuals with long-standing ties to the Islamic Republic, such as: “Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Islamic Republic’s longtime foreign minister, now sanctioned by the U.S. government for enabling repression and supporting terrorist proxies; Hossein Mousavian, a former regime diplomat associated with the 1990s Mykonos assassinations in Berlin and known for promoting antisemitic and pro-terrorist narratives; Ali Vaez, a figure documented to have coordinated commentary with regime officials, amplifying propaganda during nuclear negotiations; Trita Parsi, known for promoting positions favorable to the Islamic Republic and downplaying its human rights abuses, has also been seen numerous times in private meetings with regime officials.” Mahdeyan also published an article, “Tehran’s unofficial embassy at Yale,” where he discussed these issues.
Malley has an extensive role in shaping American policy towards Iran and its Axis of Resistance. This role complicated American and Israeli efforts to stop Tehran’s strategy of regional domination.
Malley’s father, Simon, was aJewish-Egyptiancommunist-aligned journalist and activist based in Paris, whose Cold War views on American alleged imperialism and subjugation of the Third World influenced Malley’s worldview, favoring dialogue with adversaries, emphasizing negotiation over coercion, and displaying a deep skepticism toward U.S. military intervention.
Malley found an outlet for his views while serving in the Clinton administration, where he oversaw the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio. He participated in the 2000 Camp David Summit, where Yasser Arafat, a close friend of his father, rejected what was widely regarded as a generous peace proposal and walked away from the negotiations.
Malley co-authored influential articles that assigned significant responsibility for the summit’s failure to Israel, by stating “Blaming Arafat for the failure of the peace process is a dangerous mistake” – a position that generated considerable controversy and shaped perceptions of his later diplomatic approach.
Malley’s anti-Israel position increased after he became the director of the Middle East project at the International Crisis Group (ICG) in 2002. He was known for advocating dialogue with groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s regional proxies, arguing that a durable peace required understanding their motivations rather than isolating them. This approach drew heavy criticism from U.S. and Israeli officials, who viewed it as legitimizing extremist movements. However, it appealed to President Obama, who appointed Malley to lead the nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Tehran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif credited Robert Malley with helping to shape the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in a manner favorable to the Iranian regime. Conservative American observers and the Israeli government, in particular, were sharply critical of Malley’s influential role in crafting the agreement.
After returning to the ICG, Malley focused much of his attention on protecting the Houthis, the increasingly crucial Iranian ally who controlled a strategically critical position on the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. The Iranian regime supplied the Houthis with a substantial arsenal of missiles and drones. These advanced weapons enabled the militants to operate far beyond Yemen, striking targets in southern Israel and disrupting maritime traffic through the Red Sea. By providing both strategic guidance and material support, Iran ensured that the Houthis furthered Tehran’s regional ambitions while complicating U.S. and Israeli efforts to contain the threats.
Ignoring the Iranian influence, Malley argued in a February 2021 Foreign Affairs article that the Trump administration’s decision to designate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in Yemen by obstructing aid delivery and complicating ongoing diplomatic efforts. The humanitarian crisis “initiative” was to be repeated in Gaza later.
Once back in the Biden administration as Special Envoy for Iran, Malley oversaw the delisting of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and resisted subsequent efforts to reinstate the designation, even as the group’s actions since the onset of the Gaza War virtually paralyzed maritime traffic in the Red Sea.
Militarily, the Houthis employed their increasingly sophisticated Iranian-supplied missiles and drones to launch direct attacks against Israel, underscoring their transformation from a marginal Yemeni insurgent movement into the most assertive and successful member of the Axis of Resistance.
Malley’s persistent defense of the Houthis, consistent with his broader strategy of accommodating the Islamist regime in Tehran, puzzled many observers. An investigative report, “Inside Iran’s Influence Operation,” published by Semafor, an American news website, offered possible explanations for this stance. The article revealed that Malley was one of the top names in Iran Expert Initiative (IEI), essentially an influence operation to promote Iran’s interests in the United States and Europe. The article, based on a trove of leaked documents from Iran’s Foreign Ministry, indicates that Malley was instrumental in hiring some of the academics and think-tankers on the IEI list for the Pentagon.
Malley has never been accused of providing information to the Iranian regime.
The issue of deep-rooted Iranian influence in American universities such as Yale is clear.
The Iranian legal scholar, Helyeh Doutaghi, the deputy director of a liberal project at Yale Law School, was fired from Yale University following allegations that she was directly connected to Samidoun, a designated terrorist organization.
Iran follows Yale closely. For example, the Iranian media,Tasnim, reported in April that “Yale Students Stage Overnight Protest against Visit by Israeli Minister,” by announcing that “More than 200 students at Yale University held an overnight demonstration on Tuesday to protest a planned visit by Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The protest began around 6 p.m. (22:00 GMT) with about 25 participants. By 9:30 p.m. (01:30 GMT), eight tents had been set up, and the number of demonstrators had grown significantly.” Such detailed reporting raises the question of whether Iran was involved in organizing the protest behind the scenes.
Worth noting that there are numerous courses and events at Yale on Iranian culture, history, and language.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) takes the Malley affair further. A published report in August 2023, questioned “The Robert Malley affair: Did the President’s Top Negotiator Effectively Spy for Iran?”
According to the IPT report, Malley was among several Biden administration members who met in Washington with pro-Iranian propagandists.
IPT states that “The details of Malley’s suspension remain murky, just as the extent of the damage he may have done during his job as an envoy to Iran.” Murky indeed. In October 2024, media reported that the “FBI probes whether Iran envoy Malley committed crimes in handling of classified info.”
Malley’s anti-Israel position is glaring. Last July, he co-authored an article for the Guardian, “France and Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state won’t stop Israel’s onslaught,” arguing that “Israel will continue to bomb, starve and seek to ethnically cleanse Gaza; it will carry on land grabs, home demolitions, displacement of Palestinians, and will further entrench its presence in the West Bank.”
The Iran-Yale-Malley triangle should be exposed. To recall, IAM repeatedly reported how Jews or Israelis are recruited to serve an anti-Israel agenda. Yale University provides the platform.
IAM will continue to update the issue.
REFERENCES:
Student’s petition objects to authors in Iran course’s syllabus
An Iranian student who started an online petition takes issue with authors included in the syllabus for former U.S. diplomat Robert Malley’s course on U.S.-Iran relations.
RISHI GURUDEVAN 5:18 AM, OCT 10, 2025
A student petition is protesting the syllabus of a course about Iranian-American relations taught by Robert Malley, a former U.S. special envoy to the country.
The petition, titled “No Safe Haven for Fascist Regimes at Yale,” which had achieved over 140 signatures by Thursday night, takes issue with four people it describes as being on the course syllabus and having “long-standing ties to the Islamic Republic.”
Malley, formerly the U.S special envoy for Iran during the Biden administration, was first investigated and placed on leave in 2023 due to concerns over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Malley has denied wrongdoing.
Malley’s course “Adversaries by Design: Deconstructing the Iran-US Relationship” is the only course he is teaching this fall. He was hired in 2023, months after he was put on leave by the State Department.
Hadi Mahdeyan ’27, an Iranian student who started the petition, described his shock at reading the syllabus for Malley’s course.
“Growing up in Iran and being in the middle of all the nuclear negotiations and the protests and the government oppression, this has always been something that I’ve been familiar with,” Mahdeyan said in an interview with the News.
The course syllabus, available on Canvas, lists three of the four people cited in the petition. Articles by former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, former Iranian diplomat and Princeton researcher Seyed Hossein Mousavian, as well as four by scholar Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, are all assigned. Malley was formerly the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group.
The News was not able to independently verify that the fourth person listed on the petition, Trita Parsi — the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft — was on any version of the syllabus. Outside of this course, Parsi is listed on the website of the Jackson School’s Grand Strategy Program as a guest “involved in the program.”
In an email to the News, Malley wrote that “the syllabus includes a wide array of voices. In this class, for example, we will be joined remotely by a former Trump administration official, a former Biden administration official, a former Iranian official, as well as several analysts and experts on issues affecting U.S./Iran relations.”
“Similar to all the courses I teach at Yale, my objective in this class is to give students the tools to look at the world through multiple perspectives,” Malley wrote.
Mahdeyan’s petition advocates for Yale to audit instances in which individuals associated with the Iranian government are “platformed.”
A University spokesperson did not respond to the News’ request for comment.
Siena Galesi-Grant ’28, a student in the course on Iran, described it as her favorite of the “quite a few foreign policy and Middle East courses” she had taken at Yale. She said she had no qualms about the content of the syllabus or Malley’s security clearance.
Mahdeyan, who is not in the course, said he took issue not just with the syllabus, but with Malley himself teaching the class, adding that he doesn’t believe that there can be a “productive discussion” given what he described as Malley’s connections to the Iranian government.
“I am always more than willing to engage with any student on campus who wishes to discuss the class, my perspective, my background, or any substantive issue — including of course members of the Yale community who disagree with my views,” Malley wrote to the News.
Mahdeyan admitted that he had declined an invitation to meet with Malley.
“He’s being given institutional authority that I don’t agree with,” he said. Mahdeyan added that speaking with Malley would “just legitimize this class.”
In the fall of 2023, Malley taught his first course at Yale — “International Politics of the Middle East: Perception and Misperception in Four Crises.”
Sophia Stone contributed reporting.
RISHI GURUDEVAN
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No Safe Haven for Fascist Regimes at Yale
Korosh Menitar and 19 others have signed recently.
The Issue
Petition to Yale University Leadership and Relevant U.S. Government Authorities
We, the undersigned students, alumni, Iranian-Americans, and concerned allies, call on Yale University and the U.S. government to urgently review the platforming of sanctioned and regime-affiliated figures tied to the Islamic Republic in Iran in U.S. academic institutions.
At Yale, former U.S. diplomat Robert Malley, whose security clearance has been suspended and who is under FBI investigation, is teaching while assigning a syllabus that features individuals with long-standing ties to the Islamic Republic, including but not limited to:
- Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Islamic Republic’s longtime foreign minister, now sanctioned by the U.S. government for enabling repression and supporting terrorist proxies.
- Hossein Mousavian, a former regime diplomat associated with the 1990s Mykonos assassinations in Berlin and known for promoting antisemitic and pro-terrorist narratives.
- Ali Vaez, a figure documented to have coordinated commentary with regime officials, amplifying propaganda during nuclear negotiations.
- Trita Parsi, known for promoting positions favorable to the Islamic Republic and downplaying its human rights abuses, has also been seen numerous times in private meetings with regime officials.
These individuals are not neutral scholars. They are functionaries, propagandists, or advocates for the Islamic Republic. Their presence in U.S. classrooms risks legitimizing an authoritarian system that persecutes women, minorities, and political prisoners, and endangers Iranian refugees and dissidents studying in America.
We respectfully call on Yale University to:
- Audit courses and events that the platform sanctioned or regime-affiliated individuals.
- Publicly disclose whether funding linked to Qatar or the Islamic Republic is subsidizing these activities.
- Establish safeguards to prevent Yale’s name from being used to launder authoritarian propaganda directly linked to designated state sponsors of terrorism, such as the Islamic Republic in Iran.
We also call on the U.S. government, including the Department of Education, the Department of Treasury (OFAC), and the FBI, to:
- Review Yale’s activities for compliance with sanctions law and foreign influence regulations.
- Ensure that federal funds are not indirectly supporting projects tied to the Islamic Republic.
- Protect the safety of Iranian refugee and dissident students from exposure to regime agents on U.S. campuses.
Academic freedom is a pillar of higher education, but it cannot be used as cover to normalize the narratives of sanctioned officials and advocates of the Islamic Republic. Both Yale University and the U.S. government have a duty to safeguard truth, integrity, and the security of students.
*****
Hadi M Petition Starter
Iranian student at Yale University
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OPINIONIran
Tehran’s unofficial embassy at Yale
Robert Malley, who negotiated the JCPOA, will teach a course on the U.S.-Iranian relationship that feature speakers with ties to the Iranian regime.
U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley speaks to “VOA Persian” at the State Department in Washington, March 7, 2021. Credit: VOA Persian via Wikimedia Commons.
HADI MAHDEYAN READ FULL BIO +
(Aug. 29, 2025 / JNS)
The excitement I once felt arriving at Yale University from Tehran in 2023 for my studies quickly turned into concerns about my safety as an anti-regime Iranian. At school, I witnessed the unchallenged authority of Islamic Republic sympathizers in American universities. Faculty tied to the regime have long presented themselves as presumptive Iranian voices, normalizing the regime’s illegitimate rule by erasing the realities of Iranians living in Iran.
Yale’s fall 2025 course catalogue, for instance, features a class by now-disgraced U.S. diplomat Robert Malley, who led negotiations for the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, under former President Barack Obama.
Malley’s class will “examine the past in order to better appreciate the two governments’ worldviews” and place students “in the shoes of U.S. and Iranian decision-makers.”
Course assignments for “Adversaries by Design: Deconstructing the Iran-U.S. Relationship” have students cosplaying as diplomats for the regime, as if this is some benign Model U.N.-like exercise rather than a calculated attempt to humanize the theocratic, colonizing dictatorship responsible for the majority of crimes against humanity in the region since 1979.
The course revolves around defending Malley’s failed magnum opus, the JCPOA, and his syllabus mentions having guest lecturers such as Ali Vaez, Hossein Mousavian and Mohammad Javad Zarif, all of whom have acted on behalf of the regime at one time or another. Malley purports to offer “Iranian perspectives,” but the class will likely only feature Islamic Republic officials and supporters.
One might wonder how it’s possible for a former U.S. government official who lost his security clearance and had close contact with Islamic Republic agents to lecture at an elite American university. But fear not! This is Yale, a Western institution where enabling the ideologies of designated terrorist groups is appropriate under the pretense of academia. And this isn’t an isolated incident for Yale.
In a prior semester, Yale offered “Shi’i Islam, History and Legal Thought,” which mirrored a typical Iranian university course, uncritically featuring works by Ali, the first Shia imam, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The instructor was Latifeh Aavani, whose signature appears on a 2017 letter endorsing former Iranian Regime president Hassan Rouhani, the butcher responsible for the 2020 “Bloody November” massacre in Iran. Her father is a scholar of the Basij, a part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a close friend of the Khomeini family and board member of the “Institute of Wisdom and Philosophy” alongside Ayatollah Khamenei’s brother.
While teaching about Sharia law, the JCPOA and U.S.-Islamic Republic relations won’t necessarily spread the regime’s ideology, uncritically platforming Islamic Republic sympathizers certainly will.
This tradition of laundering the regime’s propaganda goes back years. A glowing Yale Daily News article from 1979, “Yale Student Leads Forces of Khomeini in Washington,” reports on doctoral candidate and Muslim fundamentalist, Shariar Rouhani, who left his studies to become the ayatollah’s official spokesman in Washington.
Aside from national security concernsassociated with indoctrinating the next generation of leaders into treating the regime favorably, Malley’s “advocacy” has brushed aside the suffering of my people.
I remember forming my earliest memories in the summer of 2009, the summer of the Green Movementprotests in Iran, jumping over pieces of glass. Streets were filled with green worn by anti-regime protesters. The air was heavy with the smell of gunpowder and tear gas, a smell that lingered as I grew up in Tehran.
After the “Bloody November” protests in Iran in 2019, Malley suggested in The New York Times that the massive public protests were reason enough for the Islamic Regime’s paranoia of an “Israeli-Saudi-U.S. plot,” seemingly justifying the regime’s mass murder of peaceful protesters. Members of the International Crisis Group, of which Malley is the former president and CEO, further distorted reality, asserting that Iranians are “not demanding a radical shift.”
I didn’t hear about these lies until much later. Nor did any other Iranians in Iran. We were experiencing a total shutdown of the internet, cell service and electricity. What we heard were gunshots from the regime and the chants of protesters: “We don’t want, we don’t want, the Islamic Republic.”
While Malley and his think-tank employees desperately falsified the reality in Iran, the Islamic Republic murdered at least 1,500 innocent Iranians in less than three days.
For the past 46 years, virtually all Iranian academics have been killed, banned or silenced by the regime for committing thought crimes, which means that regime sympathizers are the ones teaching policymakers and academics. The Iran that Malley and his cohorts present is a facade, the Islamic Republic’s fading illusion of ideological unity and control.
During the genocide of Iranians in the 1980s, Malley was a Yale student and said nothing. In 2021, as Hamas terrorists were preparing for the Oct. 7 massacre, Malley said that he speaks with Hezbollah and Hamas, and that “They have their own rationality … none of them are crazy,” as if having an internal logic justifies their genocidal actions and aspirations.
In 2023, it was reported that Malley helped “fund, support and direct an Iranian intelligence operation designed to influence the United States and allied governments.” And now he’s been given free rein to spread his dangerous rhetoric at Yale. This alone should disqualify him from his post.
The Islamic Republic is evil, but it is not competent. Like all failing dictatorships, violence and deceitful strategies are used to maintain legitimacy. That’s why the regime’s main “soft power” is manipulating the world’s ignorance. Unfortunately, it is succeeding with classes like the one being taught by Malley.
Unlike Iranian students who face imprisonment and death for demanding academic freedom, students in the West have the privilege to demand accountability and transparency from their institutions without fear.
Past and present Yalies need to reach out and demand an explanation for their school’s hiring policies. The school should impose an audit on Malley’s class and put more effort into supporting diverse views on Iran. Additionally, all community members interested in maintaining Yale’s reputation as an elite institution should protest this blatant attempt to indoctrinate students.
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Ex-Yale prof encourages Iran to target U.S. military bases in social media post
Helyeh Doutaghi was fired from Yale University in March following allegations that she was directly connected to a designated terrorist organization.
Doutaghi has recently taken to social media and encouraged Iran to attack United States military bases in the Middle East.
Michael Duke ’26 | New York Correspondent
June 24, 2025, 3:46 pm ET
A former Yale University professor who was previously terminated for allegations of being linked to a terrorist organization has encouraged Iran to target U.S. military bases.
Helyeh Doutaghi, a former educator at Yale University, recently made the comments about a potential Iranian attack on X.
Internet personality Eyal Yakoby published a screenshot of Doutaghi’s June 12 X post.
“[A]ll US military bases in the region, the occupied Palestinian territories, and any state that enables aggression by allowing its airspace or territory to be used for attacks against Iran,” said Doutaghi, commenting on a separate post that stated that Iran has the right to defend itself.
Yale News reported that Doutaghi was placed on administrative leave from her position at Yale on March 6 after she was accused of being connected to the international Samidoun network—a designated terrorist organization.
Doutaghi reportedly refused to cooperate with the university, resulting in her contract being terminated. According to The New Haven Register, Doutaghi later claimed that she was experiencing retaliation for her support for Palestine.
Many of Doutaghi’s X posts reflect anti-West and anti-American sentiments.
“The West will not remain untouched by the barbaric violence it is inflicting upon our homelands,” Doutaghi said in a June 15 X post. “A deepening energy security crisis is coming. Global trade routes and energy flows will suffer. The cost of complicity will be felt.”
Regarding the United States, specifically, Doutaghi posted on Saturday that, “America’s direct military assault on Iran will conclude its decline as an empire-just as Israel’s aggression on Iran has put an end to its military illusion and exposed the fragility of its settler-colonial project.”
In another post on Monday, Doutaghi commented on the intercepted Iranian attack on U.S. bases in Qatar, saying “Morning: Iran hits a US proxy. Afternoon: Iran hits a US base. And some still can’t see the empire crumbling.”
Campus Reform contacted Yale University for comment but has not received a response by publication. This article will be updated accordingly.
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Yale University suspends Iranian scholar in AI-backed crackdown on Palestinian solidarity
March 14, 2025 – 22:22
TEHRAN – USA’s Yale University has suspended Iranian scholar Helyeh Doutaghi, Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project, following a smear campaign by the AI-powered Israeli outlet Jewish Onliner.
The case underscores the escalating use of technology and state power to silence pro-Palestine voices during Trump’s second administration, exposing the hypocrisy of U.S. claims to defend free speech while weaponizing McCarthyist tactics against dissenters.
Doutaghi, an Iranian-born international law expert and associate research scholar at Yale Law School, was placed on administrative leave within 24 hours of Jewish Onliner’s March 3 article accusing her of ties to Samidoun, a pro-Palestine group sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury.
The Zionist outlet, exposed by Haaretz as an AI-driven bot network with ties to Israeli military entities, labeled Doutaghi a “terrorist” for her outspoken criticism of the Israeli regime’s war crimes in Gaza.
Yale conducted no independent investigation, instead relying on AI-generated disinformation to justify interrogating Doutaghi under conditions she described as a “predetermined guilty verdict.”
Denied religious accommodations during Ramadan and access to campus, Doutaghi condemned the university’s actions as “retaliation against Palestinian solidarity” and a “blatant act of Zionist McCarthyism.”
Yale’s links to war profiteers and Zionist donors
Yale’s appointment of David Ring from Wiggin and Dana for Doutaghi’s interrogation hints at a possible conflict of interest.
Ring, a State Department appointee and advocate for defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, profits from F-35 jets used by the Israeli regime in Gaza.
Doutaghi noted Yale’s financial ties to these firms, stating the university “prioritized Zionist donors over fairness.”
Eric Lee, Doutaghi’s lawyer, accused Yale of “bending the knee to Trump’s dictatorship,” linking her suspension to the administration’s “Catch and Revoke” policy.
This initiative, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, uses AI to revoke visas of international students accused of supporting Palestinian rights—a policy that entangled Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card-holding Columbia graduate detained by ICE for leading pro-Gaza protests.
Double standards in free speech
The U.S. government’s selective enforcement of free speech is striking. While platforms such as Jewish Onliner are allowed to spread AI-generated disinformation unchecked, Iranian and Palestinian advocates face censorship, deportation, and even death threats for expressing their ideas.
The Trump administration’s designation of 60 universities under investigation for “antisemitism”—a pretext to criminalize pro-Palestine speech—highlights this hypocrisy.
Doutaghi warned that “Zionist McCarthyism treats solidarity with Palestine as a crime,” drawing parallels to Cold War purges in the U.S.
Khalil’s detention, she noted, exemplifies the criminalization of dissent: “This is not about national security—it’s about silencing resistance to U.S. imperialism and Zionist settler-colonialism.”
Her case has galvanized demands to defend academic freedom and Palestinian rights as legal battles continue.
“This is the last refuge of a crumbling empire,” she asserted, urging resistance against “brute repression masquerading as law.”
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Yale Students Stage Overnight Protest against Visit by Israeli Minister
April, 23, 2025 – 16:52
| World
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – More than 200 students at Yale University held an overnight demonstration on Tuesday to protest a planned visit by Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The protest began around 6 p.m. (22:00 GMT) with about 25 participants.
By 9:30 p.m. (01:30 GMT), eight tents had been set up, and the number of demonstrators had grown significantly.
“We’re here, and we’re staying the night,” a protest organizer said through a megaphone.
Ben-Gvir is currently on his first tour of the United States, with stops in New Haven and New York.
Shabtai, a Jewish organization at Yale, invited Ben-Gvir to speak.
In comments to the student newspaper, Shabtai founder Shmully Hecht said: “At a personal level I believe it is specifically unapologetic events such as this one that has preserved Yale as a more moderate safe haven for Jews in the current toxic Ivy community of extremism.”
The Sumud Coalition, a pro-Palestinian student group at Yale, said the demonstration was led by independent students opposed to Ben-Gvir’s visit and Yale’s silence on the matter.
The protest comes in the wake of April 2024 demonstrations, during which students urged Yale to sever financial ties with weapons manufacturers over Israel’s war in Gaza.
During those protests, US police arrested 48 people, including 44 Yale students, while clearing the first of two encampments.
Israel launched the US-backed war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023 after a retaliatory operation by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas. At least 51,266 people have been killed in the brutal war so far.
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France and Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state won’t stop Israel’s onslaught
Hussein Agha and Robert Malley
Netanyahu’s government will be emboldened by what amounts to a distraction. The priority must be ending the butchery in Gaza
Wed 30 Jul 2025 11.00
Almost two years into a conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives, amid an Israeli military campaign and humanitarian blockade that have reached apocalyptic proportions, and faced with their own powerlessness as they bear witness to what growing numbers of experts call a genocide, Emmanuel Macron has announced France’s dramatic next step: it will recognize a Palestinian state in September.
Keir Starmer quickly followed suit, stating that the UK would do likewise unless Israel took actions – including ending the appalling situation in Gaza and committing to a process leading to a two-state solution – he surely knows it will not. Palestinians rejoice; Israelis seethe; the Trump administration denounces the move and issues dire warnings. It is all profoundly pointless. The step is utterly disconnected from reality and at odds with its purported goals. It will do nothing to end Israel’s onslaught. It will not bring the parties any closer to a two-state solution. It will boost Benjamin Netanyahu’s political fortunes. The Palestinian people will end up the biggest losers.
For Palestinians, the day after France’s announcement will be much like the day prior. Israel will continue to bomb, starve and seek to ethnically cleanse Gaza; it will carry on land grabs, home demolitions, displacement of Palestinians, and will further entrench its presence in the West Bank. Already, close to 150 countries recognize the State of Palestine, barely 20 fewer than the number that recognize Israel. The entity so recognized has no defined territory, no effective government, no sovereignty. It has, in short, none of the attributes that define a state. To the Palestinians will go empty statements and diplomatic gimmickry. To Israelis, the land, the resources, the wealth. Some deal.
If anything, the situation will worsen. The Israeli government feigns fury, but the fury will fade fast. Far from feeling embattled, Netanyahu’s government will be emboldened, grateful for anything that distracts attention from the slaughter it is conducting in Gaza and that, under cover of its anger, it will redouble. Domestically, Israel’s opposition may blame the prime minister for putting the country in this position, but it feels compelled to close ranks, unanimous in its condemnation of anything that hints at a Palestinian state. Hostility to Palestinian statehood is not the province of the current Israeli government alone. On the eve of 7 October, it pervaded Israeli society; in the wake of the bloodiest attack in the nation’s history, it has become an article of faith. A year ago, presented with a bill rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state, 68 members of the Knesset voted in favor; only the Arab parties voted against.
The damage may run deeper still. Having defied Israel, ignored its protestations, alienated its people, offered a prize to its foes, France and European governments that follow in its lead – as France hopes they might at a UN conference this week – might conclude that, for now, their work on behalf of the Palestinians is done. They will expect from them deep gratitude. They might feel relieved of any obligation to exert pressure on Israel where it really hurts and really matters – to impose tangible consequences, demand accountability, or enforce sanctions if it does not stop the war, end the siege, halt its settlement enterprise. Instead, the pressure will turn on the Palestinians to prove they are worthy of this munificent offering.
All this for what? The most absurd part of this endeavor is that it is taking place on behalf of what has become an imaginary goal. Worthy as it was, the quest for a two-state solution has come to an end. It succumbed to Israeli intransigence, Palestinian ambivalence, American fecklessness, and the rest of the world’s impotence. It failed under far more auspicious circumstances – when settlements were significantly fewer, Israel’s territorial encroachment less intrusive, Palestinian and Israeli politics more promising, popular backing on both sides greater. It failed when it might have had a chance and today it has none. Starmer illustrated the nonsense of his position even as he argued for it, justifying recognition of a Palestinian state by pointing to dwindling prospects of its coming about. The recurrent recitation of support for two states, whether by Joe Biden yesterday, Macron and other European officials today, Arab leaders at all times, is an empty lie that will not become truth by virtue of repetition.
The lie is a distraction. The priority today is to end the butchery in Gaza, which will not be done without imposing material costs on the Israeli government that is perpetrating it and depriving it of the weapons with which it does so. Beyond that is a need to reimagine creative approaches to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that renounce deceit and pretense, put aside the illusory goal of hard partition between two states, and seek a different pathway to dignified coexistence between the two peoples.
The irony is that recognizing a Palestinian state is of no interest to its purported audience: the Israeli and Palestinian people. They have a long and painful experience of such symbolic statements. The gains will be made by others, whose bitter verbal disagreements conceal a more cynical alignment of interests: recognition suits the Israeli government, which will not have to suffer from more punitive actions; the French and UK governments, which will not have to take them; and the Palestinian political system, which will cover its evident weakness with this futile victory. For the Palestinian victims of this most unimaginable of tragedies, it will end up doing nothing in the costliest of ways.
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- Hussein Agha has been involved in Israeli–Palestinian affairs and negotiations for more than half a century. Robert Malley has served in senior Middle East positions in several US administrations. They are the authors of the forthcoming Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel-Palestine
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FBI probes whether Iran envoy Malley committed crimes in handling of classified info
He has denied any wrongdoing, but Republicans want more information.
By Nahal Toosi and Joe Gould
05/10/2024 12:16 PM EDT
The FBI is investigating whether the Biden administration’s Iran envoy, Rob Malley, moved classified information onto his personal email, where it may have fallen into the hands of a foreign actor, according to a person briefed on the case and a letter from Republican lawmakers.
Investigators are trying to determine if any crimes were committed, according to the person briefed on the case and another person familiar with the matter. But it is not yet clear if the Department of Justice will bring any charges against Malley or what the scope of any charges might be. The people were granted anonymity to discuss a highly sensitive issue.
Malley, who declined to comment, has denied any wrongdoing. The insights from the letter and from the people with whom POLITICO spoke — including that a criminal inquiry is underway — add new details to prior reports that Malley’s handling of classified information was at issue.
Such cases are frequently murky and can take months, even years, to sort through, with the targets themselves often kept in the dark about what investigators are looking for or have found. And the question of whether Malley acted intentionally or mistakenly, if he is found to have done anything inappropriate, could also make a difference in what the Department of Justice decides.
The FBI declined to comment, saying it could “neither confirm nor deny conducting specific investigations.” The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Malley’s security clearance was suspended roughly a year ago, and he later went on full-time leave. As President Joe Biden’s envoy for Iran issues, Malley’s position included trying to revive the nuclear deal the United States and other nations had struck with Tehran. Iran hawks, many of whom view Malley as too soft on Tehran, have used the investigation into him to attack Biden’s policies toward Iran.
In response to queries from POLITICO, a State Department spokesperson said Malley was still on leave and defended its approach to questions about the situation from members of Congress, where Republicans in particular have been demanding more details. But the spokesperson also made clear the department would have little to say overall.
“Under long-standing policy, the department does not comment on individual security clearances. Nevertheless, the department has provided Congress with relevant information on personnel inquiries relating to Iran policy,” said the spokesperson, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal personnel issues. “We have been and will continue to be in frequent contact with Congress on issues pertaining to Iran.”
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote a letter this week to Secretary of State Antony Blinken seeking more information.
In the letter, the pair wrote that they have come to “understand” that Malley “allegedly transferred classified documents to his personal email account and downloaded these documents to his personal cellphone.” The letter continues: “It is unclear to whom he intended to provide these documents, but it is believed that a hostile cyber actor was able to gain access to his email and/or phone and obtain the downloaded information.”
The letter, dated Monday, was first reported by The Washington Post; POLITICO later obtained a copy.
McCaul and Risch did not detail how they’d learned about the allegations they laid out other than to say it was through “our own investigations.”
Classified information systems are kept separate from regular systems in the State Department, where Malley was based, and the letter did not describe what method Malley allegedly would have used to transfer classified information.
The person briefed on the case and the person familiar with the matter confirmed that authorities have been investigating allegations including whether Malley transmitted classified information to his personal email. The person briefed said the probe is also looking into whether Malley provided classified information to foreign officials, intentionally or unintentionally.
It is not clear whether those foreign officials were Iranians. But leaked documents involving Malley have appeared in the Tehran Times, a publication aligned with the Islamist regime in Tehran, so Iran may have made Malley a target of its hacks.
Some past cases involving diplomats’ use of classified information have fizzled out, but others have led to charges; the circumstances can vary widely.
In their letter, McCaul and Risch reiterated their frustrations with how little the State Department has shared with them and their aides about the case and why it took weeks to put Malley on full-time leave after his security clearance was suspended.
The letter included 19 questions for the secretary of State about the situation. They included asking about the status of the FBI investigation and whether Blinken or other senior Biden administration officials had played “any role in advocating for or against any criminal charges”.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jul/20/comment
Camp David: a tragedy of errors
This article is more than 24 years old
Robert Malley and Hussein Agha
Blaming Arafat for the failure of the peace process is a dangerous mistake
Special report: Israel and the Middle East
Fri 20 Jul 2001 01.49 BST
In accounts of the July 2000 Camp David summit and the following months of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, we often hear about Ehud Barak’s unprecedented offer and Yasser Arafat’s uncompromising “no”. Israel is said to have made a historic proposal, which the Palestinians, once again seizing the opportunity to miss an opportunity, turned down. The failure to reach a final agreement is attributed, without notable dissent, to Yasser Arafat.
As orthodoxies go, this is a dangerous one. Broader conclusions take hold. That there is no peace partner is one. That there is no possible end to the conflict with Arafat is another. For a process of such complexity, the diagnosis is remarkably shallow. It ignores history, the dynamics of the negotiations, and the relationships among the three parties. It fails to capture why what so many viewed as a generous Israeli offer, the Palestinians viewed as neither generous, nor Israeli, nor, indeed, as an offer. Worse, it acts as a harmful constraint on American policy by offering up a single, convenient culprit (Arafat) rather than a more nuanced and realistic analysis.
Each side came to Camp David with very different perspectives. Ehud Barak was guided by a deep antipathy toward the concept of gradual steps that lay at the heart of the 1993 Oslo agreement. He discarded a number of interim steps, even those to which Israel was formally committed – including a third partial redeployment of troops from the West Bank, the transfer to Palestinian control of three villages abutting Jerusalem and the release of Palestinian prisoners. Concessions to the Palestinians would cost Barak precious political capital that he was determined to husband until the final, climactic moment.
Seen from Gaza and the West Bank, Oslo’s legacy read like a litany of promises deferred or unfulfilled. Six years after the agreement, there were more Israeli settlements, less freedom of movement, and worse economic conditions. Behind almost all of Barak’s moves, Arafat believed he could discern the objective of either forcing him to swallow an unconscionable deal, or mobilising the world to isolate and weaken the Palestinians. Those who claim that Arafat lacked interest in a permanent deal miss the point. Like Barak, the Palestinian leader felt that permanent status negotiations were long overdue; unlike Barak, he did not think that this justified doing away with the interim obligations. In many ways, Barak’s actions led to a classic case of misaddressed messages.
When Barak reneged on his commitment to transfer the three Jerusalem villages – a commitment he had specifically authorised Clinton to convey to Arafat – Clinton was furious. In the end, though, and on almost all these questionable tactical judgments, the US either gave up or gave in, reluctantly acquiescing out of respect for the things Barak was trying to do. If there is one issue that Israelis agree on, it is that Barak broke every conceivable taboo and went as far as any Israeli prime minister had gone or could go. Even so, it is hard to state with confidence how far Barak was actually prepared to go. Strictly speaking, there never was an Israeli offer. Determined to preserve Israel’s position in the event of failure, the Israelis always stopped one, if not several, steps short of a proposal.
The ideas put forward at Camp David were never stated in writing, but orally conveyed. In the Palestinians’ eyes, they were the ones who made the principal concessions. Arafat was persuaded that the Israelis were setting a trap. His primary objective thus became to cut his losses rather than maximise his gains. That did not mean that he ruled out reaching a final deal; but Palestinian negotiators, with one eye on the summit and another back home, could not accept the ambiguous formulations that had served to bridge differences between the parties in the past and that later, in their view, had been interpreted to Israel’s advantage; this time around, only clear and unequivocal understandings would do.
The Camp David proposals were viewed as inadequate: they were silent on the question of refugees, the land exchange was unbalanced, and much of Arab East Jerusalem was to remain under Israeli sovereignty. To accept these proposals in the hope that Barak would then move further risked diluting the Palestinian position in a fundamental way. Meanwhile, America’s political and cultural affinity with Israel translated into an acute sensitivity to Israeli domestic concerns and an exaggerated appreciation of Israel’s substantive moves. The US team often pondered whether Barak could sell a given proposal to his people, including some he himself had made. The question rarely, if ever, was asked about Arafat.
Designed to preserve his assets for the “moment of truth”, Barak’s tactics helped to ensure that the parties never got there. Many inclined to blame Arafat alone for the collapse of the negotiations, point to his inability to accept the ideas for a settlement put forward by Clinton on December 23, five months after the Camp David talks ended. The president’s proposals showed that the distance travelled since Camp David was indeed considerable, and almost all in the Palestinians’ direction. Arafat thought hard before providing his response. But Clinton was not presenting the terms of a final deal – rather “parameters” within which accelerated, final negotiations were to take place. With only thirty days left in Clinton’s presidency, the likelihood of reaching a deal was remote at best.
Offer or no offer, the negotiations that took place between July 2000 and February 2001 make up an indelible chapter in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Taboos were shattered, the unspoken got spoken, and, during that period, Israelis and Palestinians reached an unprecedented level of understanding of what it will take to end their struggle. When the two sides resume their path toward a permanent agreement – and eventually, they will – they will come to it with the memory of those remarkable eight months, the experience of how far they had come and how far they had yet to go, and with the sobering wisdom of an opportunity that was missed by all, less by design than by mistake, more through miscalculation than through mischief.
© 2001 NYREV, Inc
The full version of this article appears in the August issue of the New York Review of Books. Robert Malley was adviser to President Clinton on Arab-Israeli affairs; Hussein Agha is senior associate member of St Antony’s College, Oxford
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The Yale Daily News, 27 October 1980
examining the myth and reality of zionism
who then is today being treated as an inferior race who i cannot resist asking are the jews of the jews
by robert malley
the recent anti-semitic attack on a synagogue in france led to an outcry against the so-called close relations between the french government and the p.l.o anti-zionism and anti semitism were being once again confused
my claim is that any human being who opposed the nazi era in europe and who did so not only because jews were being massacred but mainly because people were being massacred can only if he wants to be con sistent support the palestinians in their struggle for a homeland and a state
no this is not to say that one must automatically support palestinian terrorism which one might do one the basis that it was their sole means of making their cause publicized but simply that any sense of justice calls for a recognition of palestinian rights
the zionists base their claims on the historical connection of
jewry with palestine a claim which they say entitles jews to return to israel but can we honestly take a historical con nection as synonymous to a title to possession how many fron tiers would have to be redefined especially when it relates to an inhabited country
the obvious question here is whether or not the palestinians as a people existed before the creation of israel menachem
begin once said when you recognize the concept of palestine you demolish your right to live in em hahoresh ( israel if this is palestine . . . then you are conquerors and not tillers of the land you are in vaders if this is palestine then it belongs to a people who lived here before you came . . . you came to another peoples homeland as they claim you expelled them and you have taken their land
and that is exactly what happened at the beginning of this century hundreds of thousands of arabs lived in the territory which was going to be given to the british mandate in 1922 under the name of palestine in 1919 the jews constituted only 9.7 percent of the population and the arabs 91.3 percent later in 1936 the ratio was 29.5 percent for the jewish population and 70.5 percent for the palestinian arabs
obviously central to the zionist argument is the fact that
whatever the number of arabs living in palestine might have been jews bought the land in a very legal manner fur thermore another prevailing view in the western world is as the first prime minister of israel david ben gurion asserted that in 1948 the arabs fled the country and it was virtually emptied of its former owners
unfortunately the reality was quite different rumors con
cerning real or alleged acts of terrorism or expulsion lying and false promises psychological warfare these were in fact the weapons used by the jewish community to drive the arabs out of their country
both the u.n mediator count bernadotte and an early jewish settler nathan chofshi recognized this says nathan chofshi : we old jewish settlers in palestine who witnessed the flight could tell . . . how and in what manner we jews forced the arabs to leave cities and villages which they did not want to leave of their own free will wherein therefore lies the terrorism
there is also a lot to be said about the israeli treatment of arabs shameful on the part of a people who suffered more than any other from the injustices and horrors of racism and the fact must be faced that the resort to violence by the palestinians is the inevitable corollary of the
violence done to them how can one rationally expect it to cease unless the moral and physical violence of the state of israel also cease
let us look at some examples first in israel 90 percent of the agricultural laud is owned by the jewish national fund ( j.n.f on this land under the con stitution of the j.n.f no arab is permitted to dwell or rent or be employed
second in the economic field injustices are flagrant many thousands of palestinian laborers from the occupied territories are employed in israel
and yet the salary they receive is not equal to that received by an israeli for the same work
third collective punishment is also a feature of the israeli state blowing-up of houses taking of hostages expulsion of palestinian leaders and notables curfews and so on are absolutely not uncommon even now who then is today being
treated as an inferior race who i cannot resist asking are the jews of the jews
ultimately all this injustice all this racism yes racism stems from the fact that the state of israel was created on the basis of such statements as the following one made by arthur balfour the man who promised that england would give away palestine to jews hesaid the four great powers are committed to zionism and zionism be it right or wrong good or bad is rooted in age-old tradition
present needs … of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 arabs who now inhabit that ancient land
as noam chomsky com menting on this declaration in his book peace in the middle east put it the arabs of palestine may be pardoned for not sharing this sense of priorities
hobert malley is a freshman in oavenport
israel-academia-monitor.com 