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Wednesday, April 24, 2024

04/24 Links: Campus Crazy Special Edition; A howl of rage against civilisation; Columbia prez must go: She’s now privileging antisemitic protesters over all other students

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: A howl of rage against civilisation
Media-elite sympathisers with Columbia’s Gaza camp claim these pro-Hamas cries, these demands for the obliteration of Israel and this hanging of target signs around the necks of Jews are rare occurrences in an otherwise peaceful protest. Plus, it’s mostly outsiders doing this stuff, they say. I call bullshit. If you create a space in which anti-Semites feel comfortable, so comfortable that they’re happy to openly glorify Hamas’s cosmic racist violence, then that’s on you.

What’s more, the insistence that it’s ‘only’ a few voices celebrating 7 October, just a handful of agitators who are are cheering the rape, kidnap and murder of Jews, is desperate bordering on sick. That there are any such voices in and around one of the highest seats of learning in modern America should be viewed as unsettling in the extreme. Anyone who cares for the future of academia, and for the future of the West, should be alarmed that at Columbia, the college of Alexander Hamilton, of Amelia Earhart, of Barack Obama, people have been heard saying to Jews: ‘[7 October is] going to be every day for you.’ President Biden is right: this is ‘blatant anti-Semitism’.

We need to be honest about what is happening at Columbia. This is solidarity with a pogrom. It is sympathy for fascism. It is privileged leftists getting a cheap moral kick from a mass act of racist violence against Jews that they catastrophically mistake for a blow against imperialism. It is the Socialism of Fools.

More than that, it is a howl of rage against civilisation. This rancid camp with its flashes of outright Jew hate is not an extension of the anti-war activism of old – it’s an extension of the loathing for civilisation that the young have been inculcated with these past few years. To these protesters, the Jewish State, and Jews themselves, represent Western values and Western modernity, and thus they must be raged against. Israel has become a moral punchbag for the sons and daughters of privilege whose hatred for their own societies has driven them over the cliff edge of reason and decency.

How foolish we were to think that education might deliver the young from the benighted ignorances of the past. For today, it is the most educated, the dwellers of the academy, who have allowed the world’s oldest hatred to wash over them. We can now see the consequences of teaching the young to be wary of Western civilisation and to treat everything ‘Western’ as suspect and wicked. All they’re left with is the lure of barbarism, the demented belief that even savagery can become praiseworthy if its target is ‘the West’. If events at Columbia do not wake us up to the crisis of civilisation, nothing will.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Openly Jewish
Western societies need to realize – need to remember what we all once knew – that peace, order, and lawful freedoms all need to be actively and publicly maintained. This maintenance needs to come from the state, from civil society, and from all citizens as free individuals. We can no longer afford that tired old liberal myth of a neutral public space.

We cannot pretend that there is no difference between peaceful protests and those which come with a threat of Islamist violence. We cannot pretend that there is no difference between different conceptions of the good, of the just society, of human dignity.

We cannot be blind to the way that some Islamist groups – Hamas and Al-Quds supporters among them – have a pretty good grasp of how to wield power in the public square. They know how to exert pressure on agents of the state, and how to project political strength on the streets. This isn’t a naive phenomenon.

Islamism is a world where the minaret towers over all. It’s the burka’s flowing tendrils blanketing women like an invasive vine in a once-flourishing garden. It’s the gathering in the square that proclaims “this is our space now.” It’s the adhan blasted loudly at the Christian or Jewish – or secular! – part of town. Until, one day, there are no non-Muslim parts of town left. The Christians of Istanbul and the Jews of Baghdad found this out the hard way. I pray the monied agnostics of Mayfair and Chelsea never do.

And they may not have to! That is, perhaps the British state can learn to differentiate between legitimate protests (however misguided), and marches that proclaim conquest.

The West needs to recover and to actively, publicly promote some basic ideas about our shared public peace. About the common allegiances and responsibilities of citizens. The public square can certainly be tolerant of a great range of political and religious groups, but it can’t be neutral. Attempted public neutrality is a vacuum that less-than-benevolent groups are always ready to fill.

In a free and democratic society, the day-to-day politics of domestic government, foreign activities, finance, etc., must constantly be debated. This is right and just. But at the same time, Western democracies must demand – in the public square – loyalty not to wispy, vague ideas of procedural neutrality and skin-deep inclusivity. Instead, we need to be a lot better at articulating the importance of public peace, the legitimate authority of our states, mutual fraternity with our fellow citizens, respect for the law, and the dignity of all human beings.

This isn’t a big ask, and it isn’t bigotedly intolerant. A country can be sure of itself and of its fundamental requirements, and still accept newcomers or visitors. Bluntly, people should normally be free to protest against a government’s foreign policy, or to stand in solidarity with those they think are oppressed overseas. But the political deal needs to be clearer, and straightforwardly articulated: the rejection of intimidation, violence, anti-Semitic extremism, and the pursuit of power by unconstitutional means. It’s the difference between having a law-abiding, European-style social democratic party in a country’s parliament, and tolerating organized political violence or state espionage by Communist groups. Western states sometimes benefit from the former, but must have the self-assurance to stamp out the latter.

If we don’t get better at doing this, our public square will be more and more vulnerable to hostile takeover. The present moment is a canary in the coal mine. If we don’t get better at doing this, we risk seeing more of our fellow citizens grimly warned of the dangers of being “openly Jewish.”
Why Anti-Israel Protesters Won’t Stop Harassing Jews The movement’s ideological character invites rage and violence.
The anti-Israel movement exists in the United States as a result of a decades-long conflict in the Middle East, the cause of which is complex and has faults on many sides. It was both inevitable and necessary for the United States to have a pro-Palestinian movement. The makeup of that movement is the contingent, tragic factor that has made its activities so ugly and routinely bigoted.

The main national umbrella group for campus pro-Palestinian protests is Students for Justice in Palestine. SJP takes a violent eliminationist stance toward Israel. In the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks, it issued a celebratory statement instructing its affiliates that all Jewish Israelis are legitimate targets:
Liberation is not an abstract concept. It is not a moment circumscribed to a revolutionary past as it is often characterized. Rather, liberating colonized land is a real process that requires confrontation by any means necessary. In essence, decolonization is a call to action, a commitment to the restoration of Indigenous sovereignty. It calls upon us to engage in meaningful actions that go beyond symbolism and rhetoric. Resistance comes in all forms — armed struggle, general strikes, and popular demonstrations. All of it is legitimate, and all of it is necessary.

SJP likewise directed its members to join the struggle directly: “This is a moment of mobilization for all Palestinians. We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground.”

When you consider this kind of violent rhetoric in the context of slogans like “Globalize the Intifada,” especially when you consider the lack of authentic Israeli military targets outside of Israel, then the pattern of harassment and violence that follows from this propaganda is inevitable.

A second group that has helped organize the demonstrations at Columbia is called Within Our Lifetime. Like SJP, WOL takes an uncompromising eliminationist stance toward Israel, even calling for “the abolition of zionism.” If you suspect it would be difficult to exterminate an idea peacefully, you are correct. WOL, like SJP, endorses all violent attacks on Israeli Jews: “We defend the right of Palestinians as colonized people to resist the zionist occupation by any means necessary.”

More pertinently, WOL “reject[s] all collaboration and dialogue with zionist organizations” as “normalization,” which is to say it believes people anywhere in the world who wish to see a Jewish state survive in any form should not be permitted to live normal lives. If there is a theoretical distinction between this doctrine and direct advocacy of systematic harassment of mainstream Jewish people and organizations, it is paper thin.


Matthew Foldi: Punish the anti-Semitic rioters on campuses
Biden absurdly equivocated between the mobs and their victims, but Fetterman went so far as to suggest that retiring Senator Mitt Romney take over Harvard, and Moskowitz walked through Columbia’s campus. None of this is to say that Democrats are basking in glory here. Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, a Jewish alum of Columbia, hid behind the human shields in the White House until she put out a statement completely devoid of substance – which is explainable once you remember that now that she is running for statewide office, she needs to mollify the voters in Dearborn, who were recently seen chanting “death to America”.

With the differences between the pre-and post October 7 protests established, the question is: what can be done? Past and present events suggest three buckets of consequences for the perpetrators: academic, professional, and legal consequences.

For the former, look no further than how the University of Chicago famously expelled forty-two students who illegally occupied the administration’s building during the Vietnam era, which bears no shortage of similarities to what we see happening today.

In the present day, these academic consequences must carry weight, lest they create martyrs, like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s daughter. Even a suspension is meaningless. There is no shortage of school policies these students are violating as they block Jews from walking on campus, as we’ve seen at Yale. Unmask the perpetrators and send them packing.

For the students who remain on campus, they should actually have to spend time in classes. It’s long past time that we acknowledge that most colleges are simply lavish summer camps. Columbia’s decision to suspend in-person classes is the sort of caving to terrorism that always fails, whether it is the Biden administration giving Afghanistan over to the Taliban or Columbia telling protesters that they are actually in charge of the campus.

Another watershed moment on par with Hasson’s coverage was when Winston & Strawn, a Chicago-based law firm, rescinded a job offer to NYU Law’s Ryna Workman, who issued a statement through the campus’s Student Bar Association that “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.” Subsequently, two dozen top law firms wrote to law schools warning them that they need to get their acts together – and quickly.

Finally, there should be legal consequences for violent protesters. Whoever allegedly stabbed a student journalist at Yale in the eye with a Palestinian flag should see the inside of a courthouse tomorrow. Senator Tom Cotton revisited his infamous “send in the troops” proposal again, writing that “if Eric Adams won’t send the NYPD and Kathy Hochul won’t send the National Guard, Joe Biden has a duty to take charge and break up these mobs.”

The October 7 terrorist attacks revealed something very ugly right beneath the surface of American politics and academia – something that’s been strenuously avoided in polite company, but which can no longer credibly be ignored, even in the esteemed halls of higher education. Passover is ultimately a triumph of Jews returning to our homeland – Israel – after our oppressor du jour failed to break us down. Maybe these protesters can brush up on the book of Exodus, or even just watch Prince of Egypt, while they’re sentenced to academic hard labour, or jail time.
On the left's blindness to anti-Semitism
The other main flaw in contemporary anti-Zionist thinking is to understand racism in purely colonial terms. It sees racism as literally a black and white issue involving oppressed people of colour and those with white privilege. This view fits comfortably with identity politics which all too easily casts Jews as hyper-privileged. From there it is a small step to conceive of Israel as representing white privilege while the Palestinians are cast as the oppressed.

Yet the view that racism is an entirely black and white issue is completely ahistorical. It fails to recognise that racial thinking can take several different forms. It does not solely apply to how black people are treated by racists. Bassi gives as an example America’s Johnson Lodge Administration Act of 1924. That was the result of a campaign in the early twentieth century to exclude Italian, Polish, Russian and Jewish migrants to prevent “racial mixing” and deterioration. It that instance particular groups of white migrants were perceived to be a race apart from Americans.

Jews more generally have also historically been the subject of racial thinking. The Nazis, for instance, notoriously saw Jews as both sub-human and a powerful force conspiring to dominate the world. In that case Jews were perceived as racially apart from and inferior to Aryans. Yet proponents of identity politics to struggle to understand that it is not necessary to be a person of colour to be subject to racism.

This narrow view of racial thinking as solely an expression of colonialism not only leads to a blindness towards anti-Semitism. It actively contributes to the anti-Israeli form of Jew hatred. It upholds Israel not just as a colonial-settler state but as the exemplar of all the evils of colonialism. As Bassi puts it: “An understanding of Zionism as an especially deplorable colonialism, imperialism, nationalism and racism is commonplace on the academic and activist Left, as is the outright rejection of anti-Zionism as antisemitism” (p116).

The identitarian outlook also all too easily leads to the romanticisation of Islamist groups as heroic resistance movements. Groups, such as Hamas, which make overt anti-Semitic statements that would fit comfortably in Nazi propaganda, are somehow cast as heroic freedom fighters.

That then is what has happened to most of those who still identity as being somehow on the left. A political trend which, broadly speaking, supported freedom and national self-determination, while opposing racism, now all too often does the opposite. It may claim to oppose racism but it is among the most virulent proponents of anti-Semitism.
Why can’t the police admit these are hate marches?
The Met are not just ignoring or denying the intolerance on display at these marches. No, they are actively appeasing it. Instead of protecting London’s Jews, the force has gone out of its way to protect the feelings of anti-Semites and Islamists.

This is no exaggeration. In October of last year, the CAA drove several billboard vans around London showing the names, ages and pictures of children who were taken hostage by Hamas in Israel. When they reached Parliament Square, because a pro-Palestine demo was nearby, police officers told the CAA to turn the screens off and to leave central London – or else face charges for ‘breach of the peace’.

Only a few days later, two police officers were filmed tearing down posters of the kidnapped victims of 7 October in Edgware, north London. Responding to the backlash on social media, the Met claimed that the posters were taken down to ‘avoid any further increase in community tension’. Let’s not beat around the bush here. This is a euphemistic way of saying that these posters could cause offence. Of course, the only people who are likely to be angered or provoked by these images of Jewish suffering are either Islamists or anti-Semites. This is who the Met are trying to appease.

Worse still, some in the Met seem to be acting as a freelance public-relations department for Islamists and other cranks. Earlier this month, a police officer was filmed refusing to say whether a literal swastika might be an anti-Semitic symbol. Most infamously, when members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a now proscribed Islamist-terror group, gathered in London to chant for ‘jihad’ against Israel, the Met claimed in an official statement that there was nothing untoward going on. Jihad could have a ‘number of meanings’, the police assured us – most of them peaceful, apparently.

Now, none of this is to say that the pro-Palestine marches should be banned at a stroke, or that nutcases who chant ‘jihad’ or wave swastika placards should be locked up. Even the most offensive and bigoted views should be protected as free speech. But when the Met continually make excuses for Islamist extremists, and threaten actual anti-racist campaigners with arrest, they have clearly taken a side.

This situation is totally unacceptable. The two-tiered policing of London’s protests is now undeniable. The Met and Mark Rowley should be ashamed.
‘Son of Hamas’ Mosab Hassan Yousef: ‘If we finish Rafah, we finish Hamas’
One of the most passionate voices in support of a large-scale Israel Defense Force operation to clear Hamas from its last major stronghold in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city of Rafah comes from a man raised by the terrorist organization.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the disowned son of a Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, told The Times of Israel last week that the Israeli government must “finish the job” in Gaza to remove Hamas from power, regardless of the unfolding situation with Iran.

“We need to go into Rafah now. Not tomorrow. What are we waiting for? We finish Rafah, we finish Hamas. This will remove them from power, which will be the first step [toward peace],” he said.

The 45-year-old was born in Ramallah and vividly remembers the foundation of Hamas in 1986. Decades ago, Yousef was dubbed the “Green Prince” (also the title of a 2014 documentary based on his autobiography) for his efforts to help Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, in thwarting terror attacks during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.

After saving countless lives in those harrowing days, he has developed a “fundamental relationship” with the Jewish people, albeit not without bumps along the road.

His sharp-tongued criticism of Hamas has been considered too controversial by some, he said, eventually leading to his disappearance from public activism. However, the October 7 atrocities brought him back.

On that day, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel and butchered 1,200 people, most of them civilians, with stunning brutality in an orgy of violence that saw entire families burned alive, widespread rape and sexual assault, and the torture and dismemberment of victims that included women, children and infants, and the elderly. Two hundred and fifty-three people were also abducted to the Gaza Strip, where 133 are still being held hostage.

“When October 7 happened it was like an earthquake for me,” said Yousef. “I wanted to go into silence. I was leading a very simple life. But that morning, the lion within me awakened, a volcano was about to erupt. I made a decision to burn this evil down to ashes.”
Reformed Hamas Militant Speaks Out: The Truth About Israel-Gaza
Mosab Hassan Yousef was born in Ramallah to one of the founders of the Islamist movement. Growing up, Mosab embraced his father’s ideology and was arrested by Israeli authorities multiple times, starting at age 10, for crimes like throwing stones at Israeli settlers and purchasing guns. But during a stint in Israeli prison in the late 90s, at age 18, he became an Israeli informant.

Eventually, he became Israel’s most valuable intelligence asset, foiling suicide bombings and other terror attacks. Mosab has since been outspoken about Hamas and radical Islamic terrorism more broadly.

For a while, Mosab stopped doing press and lived a quiet life in California, but on October 7, Mosab decided to speak out again against the terrorist group he knows all too well. Since then, Mosab has been publicly supportive of Israel’s war to remove Hamas from power.

The Free Press contributor Douglas Murray sat down with Mosab in Tel Aviv. They talk about the mindset of an Islamist terrorist, the atrocities of October 7, and the future of Israel-Palestine geopolitics.


Legal Insurrection: Anti-Israel Protests Are Also Anti-American



Jewish students attacked on campus: Thom Waye | The Israel-Hamas War
Visegrad24 presents an in-depth series covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. This comprehensive series features on-the-ground interviews, bringing firsthand insights from a diverse range of voices, including politicians, professors, journalists, experts and influencers.

Our guest today: Thom Waye
Thom is the Chief Strategy Officer of Chabad on Campus International. He comes from both a background in business and philanthropy, with a strong connection to the Jewish community and Israel.

00:00 - Introduction
02:14 - Chabad on Campus International
03:34 - The antisemitism task force
06:25 - Chabad-Lubavitch
11:30 - Conversions in Judaism
13:33 - Rabbi Schneerson's teachings
18:38 - Reactions to Oct. 7th
21:20 - Academic freedom
23:40 - University donors and politics
25:10 - Codes of conduct and accountability
27:55 - Congressional hearings on campus antisemitism
29:05 - Choosing universities for Jewish kids
32:00 - Jews coming together


Obama’s Passover Message Adds Palestinians Into the Story; Omits Hostages

"I'm Frightened Of My Peers" | Debate On Israel-Hamas Protests
As The White House condemns what it calls 'blatantly antisemitic statements' at student protests across America against the war in Gaza, Piers Morgan is joined by Sahar Tartak, a Jewish student who was poked in the eye by a flag at a protest at Yale, Yoseph Haddad, who also claims to have been assaulted by pro-Palestine activists, Breaking Points host Krystal Ball and author of Go Back To Where You Came From Wajahat Ali.

00:00 - Introduction
00:30 - Being attacked at antisemitic protest at Columbia University
04:55 - Right for Palestinian protest
12:10 - Smearing pro-Palestine protests
15:30 - Are Hamas villains?
17:30 - Media access in Gaza
20:40 - Conflating Israeli government with Jews
23:00 - Are the American pro-Palestine protesters terrorists?
27:50 - Name an intifada that wasn't a violent uprising?
31:00 - Recommending Jewish students leave campus




Iranian Woman Exposes How Democrats Made Iran More Dangerous - Elica Le Bon
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to Iranian attorney, activist, and artist Elica Le Bon about how the ignorant Left in America misunderstands Iranian politics; her activism work following the revolution in Iran; the disconnect between the Iranian people and the regime; the West not understanding the situation in Iran and Barack Obama and Joe Biden empowering the regime through deals and funding; her concern about the spread of misinformation through social media and the radicalization it can cause; why we need a more balanced and educational approach to understanding Middle Eastern conflicts; and much more.


This Post on the 'Progressive' Pro-Hamas Mob Absolutely Nails It
Why aren’t the “protestors” demanding that the terrorist group Hamas release hostages and surrender? Literally none of them are calling for that. All the fury is aimed at Israel, none at the party that started the war with an act of mass slaughter and rape and that keeps it going with hostage-taking and human-shielding. Hamas has turned down every “ceasefire” offer. Why would pro-ceasefire activists support the side that refuses a ceasefire? Why would a supposedly anti-war movement overtly support the side of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas, all of whom exist only to wage war? Why haven’t these wonderful humanitarians mounted similar campaigns in response to actual genocides, such as those carried out against Muslims in China, Syria, Sudan, and Myanmar? Slaughters that have claimed many more innocent lives than the war in Gaza? I’ve screamed and written about these atrocities for years. Where were they? Why do protesters cite Hamas statistics as gospel? Why do they ignore the fact that most wars—especially those wars that have been overwhelmingly celebrated as righteous—have far worse civilian to combatant ratios than does the current war in Gaza? World War II comes to mind.

Why did they start protesting Israel immediately after October 7, before Israel even launched its ground invasion in Gaza? Why do people who would be apoplectic over the most microscopic indication of anti-black racism or Islamophobia downplay the flagrant and widespread violent anti-Semitism of these rallies as the unrepresentative behavior of “just a few jerks”? Have they not seen the total saturation of Hamas slogans at these events? Why are these protests growing larger, more active, and more violent at the moment that Gaza has been becalmed? Israel pulled out the majority of its troops weeks ago and the death toll dropped dramatically months before that (even by the bullsh*t Hamas numbers). Why does a political movement that claims to believe in indigenous rights, immigration, gender-equality, refugee acceptance, democracy, and religious pluralism support a non-indigenous, conquering, theocratic tyranny of female servitude, murderous homophobia, religious intolerance, and totalitarian subjugation against a democratic state of an indigenous people that values equal rights and personal liberty?


Pro-Palestinian protesters say walk by Jewish campaigners should face restrictions

More than 200 pro-Palestine protestors seen rallying outside Chuck Schumer's New York home are taken into custody as they call for U.S to halt providing weapons to Israel

Jewish groups call for end to funding for Edmonton Pride centre over its response to Hamas attack

Google fires at least another 20 staffers in wake of anti-Israel sit-ins

Canada’s deputy PM wouldn’t condemn pro-Hamas slogans as hate speech until she saw video of vile chants

Alec Baldwin smacks phone of anti-Israel agitator who demanded he say 'Free Palestine' in coffee shop

Rep. Elise Stefanik demands federal funds for Columbia University be revoked in wake of anti-Israel protests

House Speaker Mike Johnson demands ‘very weak, inept’ Columbia prez Minouche Shafik resign ahead of campus visit

Stop the Mideast Money Fueling Campus Anti-Semitism

WSJ: Who's Behind the Anti-Israel Protests? Iran

Lawmakers Ask IRS To Probe Chinese Funding to Anti-Israel Protests

NFL Funded Left-Wing Group Bailing Out Anti-Israel Bridge Blockers

AOC Celebrates Anti-Israel Campus Protests During Event With Biden

Columbia Jewish alumni demand firing of president Shafik for failing to protect students on campus

NYPost Editorial: Columbia prez must go: She’s now privileging antisemitic protesters over all other students

FLASHBACK: Columbia President After 9/11 Said Terrorism Is ‘A Form Of Protesting’

Columbia Professors Declare Solidarity With Student Protesters and Call for Shafik's Resignation

I Used To Run Columbia’s Pro-Israel Group. This Anti-Semitism Is Nothing New

Columbia Law Students Tell Jewish Classmates Police Presence on Campus Makes Them Feel Unsafe

Pro-terror radical launched 2-hour anti-Israel tirade at Columbia event before protests exploded: ‘Nothing wrong with being a Hamas fighter’

Billionaires led by Robert Kraft stop cash for Columbia and call anti-Israeli mob ‘f–king crazy’

Anti-Israel protesters vow to fight and defend Columbia University encampment as counterterrorism police gather near campus after mob ignored president's midnight deadline to leave

He Refused To Leave Columbia When He Was Suspended. Two Weeks Later, He's Still There—And Leading the Protests Roiling Campus.

Actor Michael Rapaport slams anti-Israel demonstrators at Columbia as ‘bullies’ and ‘cowards’

John Fetterman endorses Mitt Romney for president — of Harvard

Northwestern Investigates Flyer Targeting Jewish Community Center

Jewish NYU professor lashes out at brainwashed student protesters: 'If I said lynch the blacks or burn the gays, I'd never work again'

Cambridge University disables comments following Passover post backlash

Anti-Israel hate marches holding the rest of us hostage while Trudeau shrugs

Islamophobia czar's wild claim that anti-Israel extremism is a 'few individual protesters'

'Teachers for Palestine' slammed over push to cancel Anzac Day





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