Antisemitism stalks college campuses. It must be ruthlessly stamped out

 Last spring, American college campuses were roiled by anti-Israel protesters who disrupted commencement ceremonies, vandalized university buildings, and shut several universities down.

Apologists for these hoodlums argue that the protesters are outraged by Israel’s actions in Gaza, where thousands of civilians have been killed in the fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas. Protesters have charged Israel with genocide, and they’ve called for universities to divest from all companies doing business with the Jewish state.

These protests died down at the end of last year’s spring semester, but the anti-Israel movement reared its ugly head again on college campuses this fall. Students at the University of Michigan elected a slate of student officers who vow to stop all funding for university student groups until the university divests itself from Israel. At Columbia, vandals threw red paint on a campus statue--symbolizing Palestinian blood.

It’s impossible to discern the motives of individual protesters, but some have expressed antisemitic and racist sentiments, openly praising Hamas and even calling for the destruction of Israel.

Make no mistake. Antisemitism runs rampant at many American universities, and our most elite schools now harbor students and professors who are racists and bigots. We can expect antisemitism to become more virulent and violent during the upcoming academic year.

Antisemitism is not a fringe movement on college campuses. Anti-Jewish bigotry has become embedded in American higher education and threatens to infect our entire society.

During the 1920s and 1930s, antisemitism flourished in the universities of Eastern Europe even before Hitler gained power in Germany. As scholar Ezra Mendelsohn observed, “universities all over East Central Europe were centers of anti-Semitism.” Some Romanian universities were shut down in 1922 due to anti-Jewish violence.

Mendelsohn offered two explanations for antisemitism at European universities prior to the Second World War. In some Eastern European countries, he wrote, “young and impressionable students were attracted to the new militant, anti-pluralist nationalist movements, which combined xenophobia, anti-communism, and antisemitism with an idealistic campaign directed against the compromise-prone, venal political and economic establishment.” 

In addition, he observed that universities were turning out graduates who could not find decent jobs. Thus, the "new intellectuals” of pre-war Eastern Europe were driven to antisemitism by economic insecurity.

America’s college leaders need to face the fact that growing antisemitism among college students and professors will infect all American society if it is not checked. In my view, professors who promote antisemitism should be fired. Students who openly support genocide against Jews and Israel should be expelled, and anyone who uses violence and vandalism to advance racism and bigotry should go to jail.

Columbia's alma mater statue was vandalized

Golly gee, It doesn't matter who we elect as president

Well, golly gee, what have you done to me?

Well, I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

Buddy Holly (1956)

Americans are caught up in a frenzy about the November election as if it matters who we choose as president. But it doesn't. 

An economic, military, and political hurricane is building strength just off our coast, and soon, it will slam ashore as a Category 5 storm--destroying our economy, our status as a world power, and our way of life.

Here's what's coming our way:

The war in Ukraine. Separatists and Russian troops have been fighting Ukraine in the Donbas for ten years. Ukraine has lost that war and will never reclaim the territory Russia holds. It's lunacy to talk about throwing Russia out of Crimea.

Americans are treating the war like the lottery. Every month, we pour money down the Ukrainian rathole, hoping we'll eventually buy the winning ticket. We don't seem to realize it's a sucker's bet.

Gaza, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.  Israel has been fighting Islamic hatred since 1948, and American money and armaments have kept the wolves at bay.

But the progressive left is bored with Israel, and it's now fashionable to support the Palestinians. President Biden and Antony Blinken are at the roulette table, and they think they can win if they put half their resources on red and half on black. Another sucker's bet.

Our sucker economy. Our government has maxed out all its credit cards. There's not enough money to fight a war in Ukraine and another in the Middle East while paying out all those Social Security checks, Medicare bills, and student loan payouts. Soon, we'll be asking the global loan sharks for cash, but we can't afford the vig. Yet another sucker's game.

So, to riff Buddy Holly, golly gee, who gets sworn in as president doesn't matter anymore. Neither Harris nor Trump can turn the ship of state around.

In short, Americans have behaved like gamblers playing the slots at a Biloxi casino—they didn't realize they were on the dirty side of the storm until the hurricane arrived to blow their gambling den to smithereens.

Is it time to stock up on canned goods and ammunition? Maybe not. But it's definitely time to stop gambling with America's future.

Civilians are suffering in Gaza, but that's not Israel's fault

Antisemitic racism on college campuses has disguised itself with crocodile tears for the civilian population in Gaza, which has suffered greatly during Israel's war with Hamas. But I think that's bullshit.

College protesters don't give a damn about the carnage in Ukraine, where the New York Times estimated a half million casualties--and that was almost a year ago.

According to the mainstream media, 37,000 people have died in the Gaza conflict, but the legacy press depends almost solely on Hamas for its casualty figures.  Who believes Hamas--the outfit that raped, tortured, kidnapped, and killed innocent Israeli civilians?

Without a doubt, the Gaza war has created massive suffering, but civilians die in every war. Hamas chose to commit war crimes against civilian women, children, and the elderly, and now it wants a ceasefire purportedly to protect the civilians with whom it is hiding. That doesn't work for me.

I have no sympathy for Hamas and little sympathy for the Palestinians who are protecting them. People who keep Israeli hostages in their homes are not civilians; they are combatants. 

 If the nation of Israel is to survive, it must wipe out Hamas--every root and branch. Tragically, this means there will be substantial collateral damage to the civilian population of Gaza.

Biden promised to be the grownup in the room. Did he keep his word?

We’re all drifting and things are going rotten. At home, there was always a grownup.

 Ralph, The Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s timeless tale about schoolboys descending into savagery, speaks to us today. Rules are breaking down, and timeless truths about decency, fairness, and rational decision-making have been abandoned. Americans desperately need a grownup to be our president, a mature and civic-minded leader who can repair our chaotic national culture.

Joe Biden promised to be the grownup in the room when he ran for president in 2020. Did he keep his word?

Would a grownup president with a clear sense of our nation’s global responsibilities turn his back on Israel, which President Biden did when he adopted the role of mediator in Israel’s life-or-death struggle with Hamas instead of standing fast as Israel's ally?

Would a grown-up president with a basic knowledge of biology interpret federal law in such a way that biological boys have a legal right to compete with biological girls in varsity sports?

Would a grown-up president cognizant of his responsibilities to keep the American people safe drag the nation to the verge of nuclear war with Russia over a regional dispute in Eastern Europe that is none of our goddamn business?

I don’t think so. If Biden is the grownup in the room, then the American people have defined a grownup as a demented grifter and influence peddler with no moral compass and no regard for the nation's safety or its cultural values.

Where is the grownup in the room?

Are the Democrats Anti-Semitic?

Until October 7th of last year, no one cared a fiddler's fart about the Palestinians. The world has long known that Palestinians residing in Gaza lead miserable lives. And the world knows that Israel mistreats Palestinians living in the West Bank. Until recently, no one cared.

Then, on October 7th, Hamas terrorists stormed into Israeli towns and raped, tortured, murdered, and kidnapped Israeli civilians. Israel went to war against these barbarians, and now everyone feels sorry for the Palestinians.

College students in the nation’s most prestigious universities regularly demonstrate against Israel’s military campaign against Hamas, even though Hamas holds American citizens in captivity. Some demonstrators openly display their anti-Semitic prejudices.

American politicians have also undermined Israel. Senator Chuck Schumer, the nation’s senior Jewish politician, publicly called for a regime change in Israel’s wartime government—an act of betrayal against the only democracy in the Middle East. President Biden gave his seal of approval to Schumer’s treachery, calling Schumer’s comments “a good speech.”

Elizabeth Warren, the native Oklahoman who represents Harvard in the U.S. Senate, gave her legal opinion that Israel’s war against Hamas qualifies as genocide. Genocide! What an outrageous accusation to make against a nation made up of the descendants of the world’s most famous victims of genocide.

I have heard all the mendacious justifications for abandoning Israel—once America’s closest ally, and I don’t accept any of them. In my view, Americans who undermine Israel in its existential battle against Muslim terrorism are anti-Semites.

I have nothing but contempt for the anti-Israel college demonstrators who have no complaints against the Biden administration’s pro-war policy in Ukraine. That senseless conflict has cost more than half a million casualties. And I despise all the oily Democratic politicians who have stabbed Israel in the back for no more noble purpose than to win Muslim votes in Michigan. 

Political expediency is a poor disguise for bigotry.

I am a Harvard law professor, and I know genocide when I see it.

Israel flies the flag of no quarter. Americans are morally obliged to back Israel's play

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler," Albert Einstein observed. Indeed, it is a mark of intelligence to analyze a jumble of complicated information, come to a straightforward conclusion, and decide what to do.

Unfortunately, our intellectual elites rarely try to make things as simple as possible. Instead, they obsess about complexity and often conclude that a particular problem is so complicated that it is insolvable. Homelessness, for example, is a complex problem, so tangled and tricky that San Francisco can't figure out how to keep people from defecating in the streets.

Sometimes, however, our failure to grasp the essentials of a problem leaves us with moral paralysis. Overwhelmed by complexity and contradictions, we do nothing even when the proper course of action is so apparent that even a child can understand what we should do.

Israel is in an existential battle with Hamas. What Hamas terrorists did on October 7, 2023, is so horrendous that Israel is justified in doing almost anything to eradicate Hamas. Israel's existence is at stake. That's a simple fact.

Thus, Israel flies the flag of No Quarter.  In my view, the United States, Israel's only major ally, is morally obligated to back Israel's play. That moral obligation stems from the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration fails to grasp the simple morality of Israel's war aims. The U.S. sends weapons and munitions to Israel, but it joined the feckless call for a ceasefire that would weaken Israel and benefit Hamas.

Enabled by our misguided President, pro-Palestinian protest groups have sprung up on the nation's college campuses, revealing latent anti-semitism in academia.

Astonishingly, Senator Chuck Schumer, America's senior Jewish politician, is undermining Israel by meddling in the Jewish state's domestic politics. 

None of this underhanded and cowardly behavior will deter Israel from doing what it must do for its own survival, which is to annihilate Hamas.

In short, the unwillingness of America's political and intellectual elites to recognize the simple fact that Israel is fighting for its survival is morally indefensible and will only prolong the suffering of innocent Palestinians and Israelis.

Photo Credit: Jack Guez/Getty Images

It's Official--Joe Biden is a better President than Jimmy Carter!

 A couple of professors released a paper on Presidents Day (how ironic!) that ranked all American presidents from first to last. Abraham Lincoln ranked first, a relief to Lincoln, Nebraska's City Council. The council was disturbed by evidence that Lincoln was soft on slavery and was in the process of changing its name to Al Sharpton. Lincoln's reputation is safe for now, although a researcher at Smith College is about to release a study revealing that Lincoln was a cis-gendered white man from Flyover Country. Lincoln might get knocked down a few rankings if that research holds up.

Who are the eminent scholars with the intellect to evaluate all our presidents? The first author was Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor at the University of Houston, which Houstonians affectionately call Cougar High School.

Justin Vaughn, an associate professor at Coastal Carolina University, is the second author and an editor of the Journal of Political Science.

The rankings were based on polling responses from 154 scholars researching presidential politics and history. The results were so riveting and groundbreaking that the NewYork Times and other legacy media reported them extensively.

Joe Biden rated fourteenth among all the Presidents—an impressive ranking for a guy with dementia. If he hadn't lost his marbles, he undoubtedly would have ranked higher even than Barrack Obama, who ranked seventh.

Donald Trump ranked last among pinhead academics, but we didn't need a research paper to tell us that. I was surprised, however, that Biden outranked Jimmy Carter. After all, Carter engineered the Camp David Accords, which led to a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and moved the Middle East toward a lasting peace.

On the other hand, Bisen (and Obama before him) tried to charm the Iranians as opposed to imposing stiff sanctions against that terrorist regime. Now Israel is fighting in Gaza against Iranian proxies who used the mullahs' cash to stockpile arms and construct an elaborate tunnel system. With Iran's backing, Hamas raiders raped, tortured, kidnapped, or murdered more than a thousand Israelis—including women and children.

Now, our 14th-ranked demented President has the U.S. fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and the Israelis are skirmishing with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Perhaps the presidential ranking report can be explained by the fact that the respondents mainly specialize in politics without much regard for whether our Presidents tried to make the world a safer and more harmonious planet.

 

Photo Credit New Arab

Antisemitism at Harvard. Should I Burn hy Harvard Diploma?

 I wish I were a billionaire who had given a pot of money to Harvard University. I would write Harvard a stern public letter rebuking its anemic response to anti-Jewish bigotry by Harvard students. I would vow not to give the university one more dime. A few billionaires have taken that action.

Indeed, there is strong evidence that antisemitism lurks in the shadows on Harvard's musty campus. Adrian Ahkenazy, a Harvard alum, and a  Harvard Jewish Alumni Association co-founder, wrote an op-ed essay in the New York Post a few days ago, noting that there are fewer Jewish students and faculty at Harvard than in years past. "Among many saddening discoveries," he wrote, "we see that Jews have been purged across campus--from the administration and the Board of Supervisors to the faculty and the student body." Jewish students comprise only 5 percent of the Harvard student body, down from more than 20 percent at the turn of the twentieth century.

In an open letter to the Harvard community, Harvard's president implicitly admitted that antisemitism is a problem at the university. President Claudine Gay wrote that Harvard is "seeking to identify external partnerships that will allow Harvard to learn from and work with others on our strategy [to combat antisemitism]." To me, it sounds like Harvard plans to hire some consultants to study anti-Jewish bigotry until people forget about it.

I am not a billionaire and have never given Harvard any money (besides my tuition). How can I effectively express my contempt for Harvard's closet antisemitism?

I have a Harvard doctoral degree, which I could publicly burn as a protest of Harvard's cowardice and closet bigotry. I also purchased a crimson academic gown for my Harvard graduation ceremony in 1993. I could burn that, too.

However, I will not set my diploma or academic regalia ablaze. I don't believe in setting things on fire to express my political convictions. In any event, I don't think anything I might say or do would get Harvard’s attention. After all, I live in Flyover Country.

How do ordinary people censor an elite university trafficking in prestige while marinating in bigotry and moral cowardice? We can begin by deconstructing Harvard's image as the epitome of intellectual and moral superiority.

Many Americans believe that Harvard people are more intelligent and more morally sensitive than the rest of us. Having spent some time at Harvard, I can tell you that legend is untrue. There are some smart people at Harvard, but most Harvardians are no more intelligent than your favorite handyman or plumber.

Perhaps William F. Buckley said it best: “I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”

 

Is Anti-Semitism the New Orthodoxy? Reflections on George Orwell's 1984 and the Attack on DNC Headquarters

Yesterday, a mob of anti-Israel protesters stormed the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington DC. CNN might describe this altercation as “mostly peaceful,” but the video images I watched showed protesters battling with police.

Who are these anti-Israel agitators? Why this explosion of anti-Semitism? Do these fools know anything about the history of Israel? Have they forgotten about the Holocaust? Have they no sympathy for the Israelis who were murdered and raped by Hamas terrorists on October 7^th?

Yesterday’s attack on the DNC headquarters reminded me of a passage from 1984, George Orwell’s dystopian novel. Orwell described a daily “Two Minutes of Hate” exercise, which the bureaucrats of fictional Oceana were required to attend.

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. . . . A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledgehammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.

Curiously, Orwell continued, the hatred that the bureaucrats expressed was impersonal. “[T]he rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blow lamp.”

Likewise, there is an abstract quality to the recent outbursts of anti-Semitism; the racial hatred is not directed at any particular person. And yet, there is an element of cunning in these explosive, racist rants against Israel. The rioters seem to know that it is now acceptable to hate Jews. Anti-Semitism has suddenly become the new orthodoxy—almost overnight. Even the universities have signaled that they will tolerate their students’ open hostility toward Jews and Israel.

“Orthodoxy,” Orwell reminds us, “means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” Indeed, there is a thoughtlessness that permeates the new orthodoxy—much like the thoughtlessness of the German people as the Nazis came to power. Non-Jewish Germans tolerated the persecution of  Jews because they believed the Nazis would direct their bestiality only toward Jews.

Later, Germans learned that Nazi brutality knew no bounds. Anyone who opposed Hitler's murderous agenda would be liquidated.

I say again that anti-Semitism is intolerable in the United States.  The District of Columbia should prosecute the rioters who attacked the DNC headquarters as vigorously as they prosecuted the January 6th rioters. The universities should expel students who publicly espouse anti-Semitism, and they should fire the professors who spout racist propaganda in their classrooms.

 

"Mostly peaceful"
Photo credit: The Mirror

 

American colleges are producing racists and it's a damned expensive process

American colleges are spending millions of dollars a year to fight racism. Virtually every school has a vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and DEI officers don’t come cheap. Ohio State University, for example, spends $20 million a year to promote diversity and employs 189 people to get the job done.

Curiously, the more the colleges obsess about race, the more racist their students become. After Hamas massacred more than a thousand Jews last month, college students all over the United States staged mass protests in support of the butchers. Some protesters have even called for the liquidation of the Jewish state. In other words, they have come out in favor of genocide.

A college education is expensive. It can cost a quarter of a million dollars to get an undergraduate degree from an elite university. Supposedly, college students are learning how to reason. Seemingly, they are gaining a deeper appreciation of diverse cultures, races, and ethnicities. Purportedly, they are acquiring the skills and dispositions they need to participate in a democratic society.

And now we are discovering that a college education is about none of that. Instead, American universities are teaching students to celebrate murder, rape, and infanticide and to hate Israelis.

The pro-Hamas college students think they have heightened moral scruples. In fact, they have the moral sensibilities of Nazis, and they are so stupid that they don’t even realize it. 

Graduation day at Columbia University

Are Pro-Palestian College Kids Antisemitic?

Several years ago I worked with a Jewish professor at a Texas university. I recall he had a sign on his office door that said: “ Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

At the time, I disagreed with my colleague. I thought it possible for Americans to be sympathetic to the Palestinians and critical of Israel’s policies toward them without being anti Semitic. Now I am not so sure.

I am shocked by the. anti-Israel demonstrations taking place on college campuses all over the nation--protests supporting terroristic thugs. And I am apalled by the cowardly stance of university administrators, who refuse to denounce these demonstrations.

The Hamas raid out of Gaza on October 7 killed 1400 Israeli citizens, including children, women, and the elderly. Reliable reports have established that Hamas terrorists raped women, slaughtered babies, and kidnapped over 200 people. Some Israelis were burned alive in their homes.

As incredible as it seems, the Hamas terrorists committed acts of savagery against the Jewish people that are equal to the Nazi barbarism of the Holocaust.

It may be true that most Palestinians do not support Hamas and are helpless bystanders to Hamas atrocities. It is certainly true that innocent Palestinians have suffered and died during the latest round of fighting in Gaza.

Nevertheless, Israel holds the moral high ground in its long- running conflict with the Arab world. The United Nations made an eternal commitment when it recognized Israel as a sovereign state in 1948. The world’s obligation to Israel can never be canceled or annulled.
The college students who are demonstrating against Israel are either antisemitic or ignorantly dismissive of the unspeakable atrocities that have been committed against European Jews. I suggest they do a little research. There are hundreds of books about the suffering of the Jewish people during the twentieth century.

They might begin by reading two books of fiction by Leon Uris: Exodus about the founding of modern Israel, and Mila 18, which is a tale about the Warsaw uprising during World War II. 

University leaders must denounce the anti-Israel protests on their campuses. Harvard University, arguably the most prestigious education institution in the United States, is a hotbed of antisemitic rants. Yet its motto is Veritas, the Latin word for truth. Unless Harvard firmly and unequivocally rebukes the idiots who are celebrating or defending anti-Jewish terrorism, it needs to change its motto to “Cowardly Appeasement.” I believe the Latin translation is Inertia Placatio.