Eilon Presman was about 100 feet from the UCLA Palestinian solidarity encampment when he heard the screams: “Zionist! Zionist!”

The 20-year-old junior, who is Israeli, realized the activists were pointing at him.

“Human chain!” they cried.

A line of protesters linked arms and marched toward him, Presman said, blocking him from accessing the heart of UCLA’s campus. Other activists, he said, unfurled kaffiyeh scarves to block his view of the camp.

“Every step back that I took, they took a step forward,” Presman said. “I was just forced to walk away.”

Pro-Palestinian activists demonstrate in UCLA’s Bruin Plaza after arrests were made at the Westwood campus Monday.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

It’s been a week since police swarmed the UCLA campus and tore down the pro-Palestinian camp, arresting more than 200 people. But the legacy of the encampment remains an issue of much debate, particularly among Jewish students, who make up nearly 8% of the university’s 32,000 undergraduates.

In the days leading up to April 30 — when pro-Israel counterprotesters attacked the camp with fists, bats and chemical spray, and police took hours to stop the violence — frustration had swelled among many Jews: Viral videos showed activists restricting the passage of students they targeted as Zionists.

Some Jewish students said they felt intimidated as protesters scrawled graffiti — “Death 2 Zionism” and “Baby Killers” — on campus buildings and blocked access with wooden pallets, plywood, metal barricades and human walls.

The pro-Palestinian student movement includes various strains of activism, including calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, support for Hamas and demands that universities divest from firms doing business with Israel. But on campuses across the country, no word has become more charged than “Zionist.”

A pro-Israel activist peels a pro-Palestinian sticker off a sign on May 2 as a protest encampment was dispersed.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

In its most basic definition, a Zionist is somebody who believes that the Jewish people have a right to statehood in their ancestral homeland as a place of refuge from centuries of persecution — in other words, that Israel, established as a Jewish state in the wake of the Holocaust, has a right to exist.

Using that definition, the Anti-Defamation League considers anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism. But protesters — including many Jews — draw a sharp distinction, arguing that it is Zionism that fuels Israel’s right-wing government and the assault on Gaza that they say amounts to genocide against Palestinians.

Some of the Jewish students who took part in the encampment played a role in excluding Zionists.

Members of Jewish Voice for Peace at UCLA, a small but rapidly growing group on campus, argue they had a moral responsibility to pressure university officials to divest from Israel.

UCLA facilities employees clean up and dismantle the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus May 2.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

The camp and its checkpoints, they said, were not hostile to Jews. Restricting fellow students from entering was just a pragmatic move to protect protesters inside from physical, verbal or emotional abuse.

“We are committed to keeping each other safe,” said Agnes Lin, 22, a fourth-year art and art history student and member of Jewish Voice for Peace. Anyone who agreed to the UC Divest Coalition’s demands and community guidelines, she said, was welcome.

“What is not welcome is Zionism,” she added. “Or anyone who actively adheres to a very violent, genocidal political ideology that is actively endangering people in Gaza right now.”

In practice, students who supported the existence of Israel were kept out — even if they opposed Israel’s right-wing government and its bombardment of Gaza.

Senior Adam Thaw, 21, said activists blocked him and others from accessing a public walkway to Powell Library.

After telling him they were not letting anyone through, a male activist eyed his Star of David necklace: “If you’re here to espouse that this is antisemitism, then you can leave.”

Senior Adam Thaw is on UCLA’s student board of Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“Who are you to tell me where I can and cannot go?” said Thaw, who is on UCLA’s student board of Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.

As complaints from Jewish students mounted, UCLA declared the encampment “unlawful.” In an April 30 statement, Chancellor Gene Block said most activists had been peaceful, but the tactics of some were “shocking and shameful.”

“Students on their way to class,” he said, “have been physically blocked from accessing parts of the campus.”

::

The campus was dark and hushed when Sabrina Ellis joined dozens of activists at 4 a.m. to set up the encampment on the lawn of Dickson Court.

After pitching tents and erecting barricades of wooden pallets and sheets of plywood, Ellis, a 21-year-old international student from Brazil, took shifts guarding the entrance.

Ellis didn’t call it a checkpoint. The goal was to exclude and physically block “agitators” — anyone who might be violent, record students or disagree with the cause.

“Our top priority isn’t people’s freedom of movement,” Ellis said. “It is keeping people in our encampments physically and emotionally safe.”

The longtime member of Jewish Voice for Peace — who wore a large Star of David over her T-shirt and a kaffiyeh wrapped around her shoulders — said the camp “was not profiling based on religion.”

But as activists blocked Zionist students from public campus space, they faced charges that they engaged in viewpoint discrimination.

Sabrina Ellis, a junior and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace at UCLA, was part of the pro-Palestinian encampment from the beginning.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Before allowing anyone in, Ellis said, a protester read the demands of the encampment, which included calling for UC and UCLA to divest all funds from companies “complicit in the Israeli occupation,” boycott all connections with Israeli universities, sever ties with the Los Angeles Police Department and demand a permanent cease-fire.

Then, activists ran through their safety guidelines: Ask before taking a photo or video; wear a mask to limit the spread of COVID; do not post identifying information or photos; and no engagement with counterprotesters.

If students didn’t agree, “we would just kindly tell them that they’re not allowed to come in,” Ellis said.

Some Jewish students were shaken by the experience, arriving at Hillel upset and even crying.

“They were genuinely going about their day and couldn’t get access as protesters asked them, ‘Are you a Zionist?’ or looked at their necklace,” said Daniel Gold, executive director of Hillel at UCLA.

::

For pro-Palestinian activists who are Jewish, the camp was a peaceful space to promote justice, a welcoming interfaith community with therapist-led processing circles and candlelit prayer services.

Blue tarps and blankets were put down in the middle of the lawn for Islamic prayers and a Passover Seder and a Shabbat service.

On the first evening, about 100 activists, many Jewish, sat in a circle to pray, sing, drink grape juice and eat matzo ball soup, matzo crackers and watermelon.

“It was really beautiful,” said Lin, the art major. “We were trying to hold these spaces to show that Judaism goes beyond Zionism.”

An encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA’s Dickson Plaza on April 29.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Other Jewish students were more wary as they navigated the camp.

Presman, who moved to the U.S. when he was 12 and identifies as a Zionist, was alarmed when he scanned the quad on the first day. He saw signs saying “Israelis are native 2 HELL,” he said, and banners and graffiti showing inverted red triangles, a symbol used in Hamas propaganda videos to indicate a military target.

“Do people know what that means?” he wondered.

Tucking his Star of David under his T-shirt, Presman said, he entered and approached activists, introducing himself as an Israeli citizen.

“Maybe we can find common ground,” he said, asking, “one human being to the other?”

Some students put their hands up, he said, blocking him as they walked away. Others treated the conversation as a joke. One protester, he said, told him that everything Hamas did was justified.

Presman said he had one good conversation: An activist who identified as anti-Zionist admitted not being 100% educated on what Zionism was, but agreed that Israel should exist. They came to the conclusion the activist was a Zionist.

Pro-Palestinian encampment participants reinforce the camp barriers at UCLA on May 1.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

But most of Presman’s exchanges, he said, ended negatively when activists realized he was defending Zionism. He said he was called a “dirty Jew” and “white colonizer.”

Other students — even those who did not fully support the encampment — said they did not experience such slurs.

Rachel Burnett, a senior who described herself as a non-Zionist Jew, disagreed with the call for divestment and academic boycotts, especially of UCLA’s Nazarian Center, an educational center for the study of Israeli history, politics and culture.

Entering the camp after a classmate vouched for her, Burnett was disturbed by anti-Israeli signs and graffiti that named Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for the military wing of Hamas. But she also bonded with protesters, including a woman in a hijab.

“Of course, some protesters deny Oct. 7 or condone violence as long as it can be put under the guise of decolonial resistance, which is obviously horrific,” Burnett said. “But that’s not the case of many students inside the encampment.”

Rachel Burnett, a senior who described herself as a non-Zionist Jew, disagreed with the call for divestment and academic boycotts, especially of UCLA’s Nazarian Center, an educational center for the study of Israeli history, politics and culture.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Burnett contrasted what she saw as a peaceful, friendly mood inside the camp with the pro-Israel counterprotests where people held up benign slogans, such as “Bring the Hostages Home,” but engaged in hostile behavior.

As counterprotesters converged for a Sunday rally, she said, a pro-Israel activist spat on her and told she should have been slaughtered in the kibbutzim on Oct. 7.

Just as some pro-Palestinian activists demonized all Zionists as evil and pro-genocide — ignoring the wide range of viewpoints within the Zionist community — Burnett thought some pro-Israel counterprotesters were dehumanizing student activists in the encampment and spreading a “mass hysteria narrative.”

As the encampment expanded — and organizers set up entrance points near Royce Hall and Powell Library — some Jewish students took videos that swiftly went viral.

“It’s time to go,” a protester wearing a yellow safety vest and kaffiyeh told a student in one video as he guarded an entrance near Powell Library. “You don’t have a wristband.”

A standoff ensued.

“Are you a Zionist?” the protester asked.

“Of course I’m Zionist,” the student replied.

“Yeah, we don’t let Zionists inside.”

A Boeing 737 plane with 78 passengers skidded off a runway before takeoff at Senegal’s main airport on Tuesday, injuring 11 people and bringing flights to a halt.

The Blaise Diagne airport said an investigation was under way to determine the cause of the accident, which occurred at around 0100 GMT as the Transair-owned Boeing 737-300 chartered by Air Senegal was preparing to fly to Mali.

A night-time video shared on social media showed a plane with the logo of Senegal-based airline Transair standing in grass with a wing covered in fire-suppressing foam.

The airport statement said it activated emergency protocols to evacuate passengers.

“For now, the airport is closed … The reopening of the airport is expected within the next few hours,” it added.

This is a breaking story, more to follow

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Trump notches a win as libs sit and spin. A federal judge has postponed Trump’s classified records trial indefinitely. It was supposed to start later this month, but like my vacation plans with Kristi Noem, that ain’t happening. 

You remember that case: the sham trial stemming from the classified records investigation cooked up by Jack Smith. The trial should have started May 20, but due to the myriad and interconnected pretrial issues, Judge Aileen Cannon put the whole damn thing on hold. Translation: That case is imploding faster than when my butt implants went scuba diving. 

And our instincts as to why are correct. The judge’s decision to postpone the trial comes just days after Jack Smith’s own prosecutors admitted that evidence was rearranged after the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago back in August 2022.

FEDERAL JUDGE POSTPONES TRUMP’S CLASSIFIED RECORDS TRIAL WITH NO NEW DATE

Said the feds: “There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans… The government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what government counsel previously understood and represented to the court.” 

That’s a lot of words for saying, “We f***** up.” Even former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder admits the whole process has simply not been on the up-and-up. And that’s coming from a Democrat who looks like Howard Sprague. 

And here’s a revelation: The infamous crime scene photo of the raid may be more doctored than Jill Biden’s education. Think about it. They admitted as much in a recent court filing. 

This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Remember, it’s the picture the liberal media shoved down our throats. All the classified papers laid out neatly on the beautiful, expensive Trump carpeting. Documents labeled “Top Secret” with distinct classification levels showing just how evil and conniving the big orange Godzilla really was to hoard such top secret materials. 

The only thing is those papers labeled top secret were cover sheets they simply slapped on there for the photo op. Yeah, top secret cover sheets. What is this, “Get Smart”? Hey, guys, we don’t want people to read this, better put “top secret” on it. Yeah, while we’re at it, be sure to put, “Don’t peek, awesome toy inside” on your kids’ Christmas gifts.

JUDGE UNSEALS FBI FILES IN TRUMP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE, INCLUDING DETAILED TIMELINE OF MAR-A-LAGO RAID

As Julie Kelly with Declassified was first to report, the court filings “conclusively demonstrate that the government used the cover sheets to deceive the public as well as the court. The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case.” True, it was more staged than a Kilmeade book signing. 

So once again, it’s Team Biden lying to the American people to imprison his chief rival, because if you can’t beat him, put him behind bars. But of course, there’s no fooling the New York Times, they published this piece just days after the raid, “How the Picture of Top Secret Folders at Mar-a-Lago Came About.” 

Yeah, it was just one of the dozens of left-wing headlines touting the authenticity of a photo that was about as legitimate as those pills I ordered from Canada. I actually got shorter. 

Now, I didn’t go to law school, but I know evidence tampering when I see it — it’s how I framed OJ. Of course, as predicted, the Trump-dependent media is melting down over the trial’s indefinite delay.

Donald Trump and Jack Smith (Getty Images/File) (Getty Images)

JUSTICE THOMAS RAISED CRUCIAL QUESTION ABOUT LEGITIMACY OF SPECIAL COUNSEL’S PROSECUTION OF TRUMP

MSNBC’S JOE SCARBOROUGH: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. A 12-year-old that went with her mother to “Take a Kid to Court Day,” like as a lawyer, or something, would have come up with a better ruling than she’s come up with. It’s bizarre… I guess she’s either ill-equipped — extraordinarily ill-equipped — or she just doesn’t care what the world thinks of her. She’s right now looking like, everything she’s doing, she’s doing to help Donald Trump.

No, God forbid there’s some honesty right there at the end. He’s not mad over the alleged tampering. He’s mad that the defendant may be helped by the ruling. 

Now, a normal person would be outraged that the government may be framing an American citizen, but in Joe’s mind, the outrage is that this citizen might get justice. 

Piece of advice, Joe: When you start rooting for the law to get away with bad things, you might be the bad guy. “Morning Joe” has now become the “Bonnie and Clyde” of insufferable dip*****. 

So, while that Florida trial is put on ice, the hush money trial in New York took its scheduled weekly break today, so what are all the players up to? Well, Stormy Daniels took the day off to hit the beach.

A court sketch depicts former President Donald Trump appearance in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida on Thursday, March 14, 2024. Trump’s lawyers are asking Judge Aileen Cannon to dismiss special counsel Jack Smith’s charges pertaining to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. (Lothar Speer)

…

HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE INVESTIGATES ‘MANIPULATED’ EVIDENCE SEIZED BY FBI IN TRUMP CLASSIFIED RECORDS PROBE

See, it seems nothing can get orange Godzilla down. Every cockamamie crime, every faux felony, every trumped-up charge. Meanwhile, Biden’s being hidden in a crate by the Ark of the Covenant, but it’s all starting to unravel, just like the plot of a Stormy Daniels movie. 

Why would there be four pizza delivery guys? 

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So you notice a trend here? 

They told us the laptop was fake, but this photo was real. They told us spying on the Trumps was fake, but Russian collusion was real. They told us inflation was fake, but those job numbers were real. 

How come the lies only go one way to help one guy and hurt the other? And we’re supposed to be too dumb to notice? Well, maybe if you’re “Morning Joe.”