Who is behind the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and pro-Hamas riots that have been taking place on American university campuses? An analysis from Park MacDougald.
Israel
The Demons Return
This is Barclay’s Bank, St Johns Wood, after overnight attack by ‘Pro-Palestine’ activists:
“Palestine Action” has openly bragged about this and other attacks on Barclays.
Don’t think this is only a UK thing. In Washington, DC, ‘protestors’ vandalized monuments on Federal property and threw bottles at a park ranger.
It gets worse. At UCLA, the Chabad Rabbi was assaulted live on camera, with students calling him a “Zionist pedophile Rabbi,” telling him to “go back to Poland.” Link with video. Also at UCLA: More ‘protestor’ violence.
In NYC, Palestinians and/or their supporters protested outside a theater, attempting to intimidate Jews and their supporters who were inside the theater screening a movie about October 7. Video.
The response to the events at UCLA from the UCLA Faulty Association was to complain about the university’s (highly insufficient) attempts to contain the ‘protestor’ violence. “Campuses are not police states. @UCLA stop militarizing our workplace, cease and desist from using police violence against students and employees.”
It is worth noting that virtually ALL of the recent ‘pro-Palestinian’ (anti-Israel–anti-Semitic–anti-American–and anti-civilization) violence and intimidation has been centered on America’s institutions of higher education.
The title of this post is taken from a chapter heading in Peter Drucker’s 1939 book The End of Economic Man, which is about the rise of European totalitarianism.
Worthwhile Reading
Self-censorship among scientists, for ‘prosocial’ reasons…and the harm it does.
How sculpture and ornament-making has been semi-industrialized for centuries, using a device known as a pointing machine.
Selecting government officials in China –historically and at present.
Support for using violence to suppress campus speech, broken down by college major.
The growth of anti-Israel radicalism in the Democratic Party: how much of this has been due to Obama’s attitudes and associations?
The District of Columbia has established minimum education requirements (a high school diploma is not enough) for child care workers. Is there a study that validates a significant positive correlation between such training and the quality of care provided? (What would you guess)
Katherine Boyle argues that some people are great at judging people but not great at judging systems. Others are great at evaluating systems but not people and says that it’s very rare to meet someone who is exceptional at both.
Inspirational: A cancellation attempt that backfired.
Biden, Hamas, and Israel
In this rather confused video clip (some of it in text form in this article), Biden seems to be saying that (1) he believes the “30,000 Palestinians killed” number which has been circulating, which most observers believe is bogus, (2) that Israel is violating the international rules of war, which he says “we” changed following WWII, and (3) strongly implying that Israel is conducting carpet bombing, which is false. He also says that Hamas would like a ceasefire because they would “have a better chance to survive and rebuild.” He is apparently just fine with this outcome.
He also says he told the Israeli war cabinet: “Do not make the mistake America made,’… we should not have gone into the whole thing in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was not necessary. It was not necessary. It caused more problems than it cured.”
Whatever one thinks about the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, it requires a special kind of cluelessness to not notice the geographical closeness of Gaza-based Hamas to Israel, and the immediate and murderous nature of the threat that Israel faces.
Or, more likely, he does realize this, but does not consider Israeli lives to be very important when measured against Michigan electoral votes.
History Lesson
This newspaper is so old that one of the news stories is about a US visit by the Graf Zeppelin…the airship before the Hindenburg…that would be 1929. And the other story is about the massacre of Jews by Arabsalmost 20 years before the establishment of the state of Israel.
