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By Sean Salai
(November 14, 2025 / The Washington Times) . . . A wave of pro-Palestinian student protests nationally has called on elite universities to cut ties to Israel over its military response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas raid that killed and wounded thousands of Israelis and took over 250 hostages.
In a letter to University of Maryland administrators shared with The Times, the Student Government Association noted that 55% of students who participated in an April election asked the “administration to divest from companies knowingly engaging in human rights violations.”
Several divestment resolutions targeting Israel have followed. Last month, the student legislature demanded that the university and its charitable foundation end relations with all companies, institutions and academic groups that “support or profit from Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation.”
Four of the rooms targeted in Wednesday’s resolution are located in the university’s engineering school. The fifth is in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.
On Friday, Jewish and Muslim advocates offered divided opinions about the student government’s actions.
“This resolution is the latest example of the student government’s inordinate focus on targeting and harming Israel, and doing so based on lies,” said Susan Tuchman, Esq., director of the Zionist Organization of America’s Center for Law and Justice. “If there was genocidal intent regarding Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, it was coming from the terrorist group Hamas and certainly not from Israel.”
She called on University of Maryland leaders to “exercise moral leadership” by “unequivocally rejecting” the resolution and explaining “why it’s hateful and wrong.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, welcomed the resolution as a sign of students’ commitment to ending “genocide and human rights” violations.
“The passage of this resolution at UMD reflects a broader shift taking place on campuses nationwide,” said Zainab Chaudry, CAIR’s Maryland director. “It’s proof that despite emphatic repression and retaliation against students, campus activism has not been silenced.”
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