RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — By March 31, federal agencies that answer to the White House are required to identify policies available “for fighting antisemitism,” mainly at colleges that have hosted pro-Palestine protests, prompting several Inland Empire residents to express fear of a “chilling” effect on free speech, while others support the action.
“This is about silencing criticism of Israeli genocide in Gaza,” UC Riverside graduate Shaheen Nassar, whose family immigrated from the Palestinian territories, told City News Service. “Cheerleaders of the genocide do everything in the way of intimidation against people daring to speak out against it.”
President Donald Trump’s executive order to “Combat Antisemitism,” issued Jan. 30, gave agencies 60 days to submit details on legal resources and options to “punish anti-Jewish racism,” taking aim at “anti-American colleges and universities.”
A few agencies, including the Departments of Justice and Education, have already reacted.
Last week, federal law enforcement agents arrested antiwar activist-organizer Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University, where sit-ins and other pro-Palestine demonstrations have been held since Israeli Defense Forces invaded Gaza in October 2023.
Khalil, who holds a green card, giving him permanent residency in the United States, is under threat of deportation.
Meantime, the Department of Education announced investigations targeting campuses for “antisemitic eruptions.” The schools stand to lose federal educational grants.
“Since Oct. 7, 2023, radical pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas faculty members and students targeted and harassed Jewish students, staff and faculty on the UCR campus,” Eran Vaisben, director of campus-based Inland & Desert Hillel, told CNS. “Legislation and policies that help (in) preventing the harassment and intimidation of Jewish students and faculty are appreciated.”
A UCR statement released to CNS indicated that between October 2023 and February 2025, there were 95 incidents “alleged to be hostile or offensive” to those identifying as Jewish. UCR was among dozens of campuses nationwide where pro-Palestine and antiwar encampments were held last spring. The university noted that “a number of reports” of antisemitism stemmed from “pro-Palestine graffiti, such as ‘Free Palestine’ stickers.” There were no documented acts of violence.
Of the half-dozen other colleges and universities in the inland region from which hate crime data was obtained, only Cal Baptist University in Riverside reported an antisemitic incident, involving unspecified vandalism in March 2024.
“The encampments were very peaceful, beautiful forms of civil disobedience, which is protected by the First Amendment,” Cal State San Bernardino Media Studies Professor Ahlam Muhtaseb, a Palestinian immigrant and member of the Temecula Valley Islamic Center, told CNS. “The encampment at UCLA, for example, was peaceful until malcontents, mainly Zionists, some of them Israelis, started attacking the encampment. It’s well documented. These people incurred on the encampment, and the students there just tried to push back.”
Muhtaseb said the president’s executive order is intended to “squash all criticism of Israel so only one narrative — the pro-Israel side — is prominent.”
“The policy is to give Israel support to continue its genocidal mission,” she said. “You can’t keep pushing anti-Constitutional policies and false narratives when it’s clear there’s a plan to continue ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their lands.”
Both the professor and Nassar have lost members of their extended families in Gaza and the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas raided Israel, targeting the Nova Music Festival. An estimated 1,200 Israeli civilians have died in the ensuing hostilities between the IDF and Hamas, which also took more than 200 hostages.
The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs indicated that as of March 11, 48,503 Palestinians have been confirmed killed — close to half of them children. Roughly 90% of the population has been displaced, suffering food shortages and lack of electricity. IDF aircraft, drone and artillery strikes have flattened or significantly damaged hospitals, schools, religious centers and homes, according to Amnesty International and other sources.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said that at least 170 journalists, the overwhelming majority of them Palestinians, had been killed in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon and Israel since October 2023.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Temecula, who is of Lebanese descent, told CNS in a statement he backs Trump’s order because “college campuses in every corner of the country and everywhere in between are no longer safe harbors for free speech.”
He acknowledged “the situation in Gaza is tragic,” but stood by his “friend of 20 years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” adding that “with President Trump’s leadership, there is a path to peace in the region.”
Issa’s “No Censors on Our Shores Act,” which recently won House Judiciary Committee approval, underscores the importance of “First Amendment rights” by seeking to prevent foreign agents from infringing on free speech exercised by American citizens at home. The proposal wouldn’t protect foreign nationals joining demonstrations on U.S. soil.
“I’m so Semitic, it hurts,” Nassar said. “Trump’s order against ‘antisemitism’ creates a chilling effect on speech. It’s weaponizing the language of anti-racism. It’s like with Israel, where they’ve conflated an entire population with militants, dehumanizing Palestinians.”
Attorney and Riverside Chabad Hanukkah Festival organizer Virginia Blumenthal told CNS some campuses “allowed things to get out of hand (last year), and that’s where the problems started.”
She didn’t offer an opinion on the justification for the executive order, but asserted the “legal and constitutional rights of people” shouldn’t be infringed because of political differences.
