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June 2025

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sydney University’s shameful slide into anti-Israel bigotry Students are demanding the ‘elimination’ of the Jewish State. Hugo Timms

By on June 2nd, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/02/sydney-universitys-shameful-slide-into-anti-israel-bigotry/

At a meeting of Sydney University’s student council last month, a motion stating that it is ‘not anti-Semitic to call for the elimination of the apartheid state of Israel’ passed almost unanimously. The motion also called for the creation of a ‘single secular democratic state across all of historic Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea’.

Let’s be clear about what this motion really means. Realistically, the ‘elimination’ of Israel could only be achieved by the forced removal of a significant proportion of the seven million Jews who live there. You would need to be staggeringly naive to imagine that a Palestinian state might soon emerge as a ‘secular democratic’ nation where Jews would be safe to carry on living. Right now, Gaza is controlled by Hamas, an Islamist terrorist outfit, which has openly pledged to slaughter Israelis. It is only thanks to Israel’s willingness to defend itself that horrors like those of 7 October 2023 do not repeat themselves regularly.

This is why the Sydney students’ motion is so disgraceful. It betrays a total indifference towards the fate of almost half the world’s Jews. Yet so far, senior figures from the university have been reluctant to forcefully condemn it. The University of Sydney itself responded to say merely that it ‘does not endorse or condone’ the views expressed at last month’s meeting.

The pretext for the recent motion is as grim as the outcome of the vote. In February, Australian universities were forced to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism after a well-documented outbreak of bigotry targeting Jewish students and academics. At Sydney University, Australia’s oldest, there were months of anti-Israel protests last year. During this period, swastikas were spraypainted on university buildings and protesters called for an ‘intifada’ (that is, a violent uprising).

The new definition states that it is anti-Semitic to call ‘for the elimination of the state of Israel’. In their furious response to this, activists have only revealed their own intolerance and idiocy. At last month’s student-council meeting, members of the (outrageously misnamed) Students Against War group claimed that Israel’s ‘entire reason for existing’ is to ‘displace and massacre’ Palestinians. Apparently, it is therefore perfectly legitimate to call for the Jewish State to be – in that cold and dispassionate phrase – ‘eliminated’.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Liberals Embrace Islamic Extremism in Canada Despite warnings from U.S. officials, Canada’s lax border policies and political denial have allowed Islamic extremism to take root and spill into the United States. By William Barclay

By on June 2nd, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/02/liberals-embrace-islamic-extremism-in-canada/

When FBI director Kash Patel condemned Canada for allowing Islamic terrorists to gain a foothold in North America, Canadian politicians and pundits, including new Prime Minister Mark Carney, dismissed Patel’s assertions as baseless fearmongering.

Unfortunately, it is clear that the Trump administration is correct: Radical Islamic ideology has become endemic in Canada over the past decade.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service itself has confirmed that, since 2015, radical Islamic ideology has become commonplace throughout Canadian society, as a result of the porous borders and the Liberal government’s unwillingness to effectively regulate the influx of international migration into Canada. Numerous terrorist leaders and those with intimate connections to terrorist organizations, such as Samidoun and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, have been permitted to migrate within the Canadian state and promote their own nihilistic ideology over the past decade.

Islamic schools in Canada are not compelled to abide by a standardized curriculum and, consequently, covertly promote radical Islamic ideology and extremism to vulnerable children in Canada. At one prominent Islamic school in Canada, the East End Madrassah, administrators were recently pressured to issue a public apology after it was exposed for “… teaching children that treacherous Jews conspired to kill the Islamic Prophet Mohammed.”

Since 2015, explicit Islamic terrorist acts have become increasingly prevalent in Canada.

According to data from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “[N]early a dozen terrorism-related incidents [have occurred] in Canada or abroad involving Canadians” since Oct. 7, 2023, alone. In addition, “The number of terrorism charges laid in Canada jumped 488% last year,” and “Canadian police have foiled six terrorist plots in the last 12 months alone, with arrests spanning from Edmonton to Ottawa to Toronto.” The Liberal government recently publicly downplayed a report from the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Office that a “terror attack attempt in Canada is very likely.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who Really Are the Lawless and the Dictatorial? The left cries “dictatorship” while wielding the courts, agencies, and media to undermine laws, crush dissent, and call it democracy. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on June 2nd, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/02/who-really-are-the-lawless-and-the-dictatorial/

The left is in its usual sanctimonious but schizophrenic mood.

The media claims daily that the Trump administration has usurped power. It is supposedly destroying democracy. It tramples on the rule of law and thus has created a virtual dictatorship.

Yet at the same time, Democrats high-five the most recent district court judge who has put a stop to the current Trump executive orders—which the Trump administration abides by as it files appeals.

There are two clear conclusions from the flurry of the lower-court liberal justices’ orders: 1) Trump has obeyed their record number of interventions as the appeals go forward; and 2) rarely in the history of the republic has a pool of some 300-400 left-wing district judges exercised such nationwide control over the executive branch and indeed the entire nation.

Yet consider the array of double standards.

Donald Trump is accused of improperly dictating to private elite universities who choose to apply for and receive federal funds. At least, lower court cherry-picked justices predictably rule so.

But please spare us the district courts’ sermons on truth, justice, and the American way, given their lodestar is often ideology, not principled adherence to the law.

After all, Trump is only following the precedents of the Obama administration. With legal impunity, it had threatened fines and worse to public and private universities that did not fully implement Title 9 to Obama’s subjective standards.

Indeed, the Obama Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, in an unconstitutional fashion, habitually threatened colleges and universities (“Dear Colleague…”) with a cutoff of federal funds if they did not comply with its weird version of addressing charges of campus sexual harassment. For the “constitutional lawyer” Obama, gone was the American creed that Americans accused on campus were innocent unless proven guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

For the Harvard Law graduate Obama, gone were even past administrative rules that required “clear and convincing evidence” to convict the accused.

Instead, it ordered campuses to adopt its new Orwellian standard that a mere “preponderance of the evidence” might find the targeted guilty—or risk losing federal funds.

Hillsdale College long ago declined federal subsidies and grants, only to be a target of petty, even spiteful, federal harassment from both the Obama and Biden administrations.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Targeted for Terror – Again It’s open season on Jews in America. by Mark Tapson

By on June 2nd, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/targeted-for-terror-again/

Right on the heels of the recent political assassinations of the young betrothed couple Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim at the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C., a group of elderly Jews in Boulder Colorado was targeted Sunday in a shocking act of pro-Palestinian terrorism.

Witnesses at the scene reported that the suspect, whom the FBI has identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, hurled Molotov cocktails at people who were participating in a walk to call attention to the Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza after being kidnapped by the savage terror group Hamas in the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel.

Run For Their Lives, the organizers of the walk, said, “This is not a protest; it is a peaceful walk to show solidarity with the hostages and their families, and a plea for their release.” The group had planned to walk the length of the Pearl Street Mall and back on Sunday afternoon with a stop at the courthouse for a video. Soliman decided – allegedly – that the members of this peace walk deserved to be burned alive.

A witness said he saw a fire and then a cloud of smoke. When he got to the scene, he saw a woman “burning on the ground” and two other people who had suffered burns on their legs. Six victims in all — aged between 67 and 88 — were rushed to a hospital. Police arrived and handcuffed the agitated Soliman, who was still carrying incendiary devices and threatening bystanders, without resistance. He was heard shouting “Free Palestine” during the assault.

In a post on X, FBI Director Kash Patel correctly referred to the horrific act as a “targeted terror attack.” Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn, on the other hand, declared ludicrously in an earlier press briefing that it was way too soon and “irresponsible” to speculate on motive. Because hey, the Muslim perpetrator’s shouts that the firebombing of innocent Jews will end when Palestine is free are apparently too indecipherable and nuanced for a motive to be determined.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s Ratings Edge Higher As Good News Eclipses Negative Media Coverage: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

By on June 2nd, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/02/trumps-ratings-edge-higher-as-good-news-eclipses-negative-media-coverage-ibd-tipp-poll/

Presidents rise or fall based on what voters think of them, at least when it comes to political clout and influence. How is President Donald Trump doing? So far, so good, but there is still room for improvement, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll suggests.

While Trump is in only the fifth month of his second term, Americans feel much more favorable about him right now than than they did about former President Joe Biden in his final month in office, the June I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

In the latest poll, taken from May 28-30, I&I/TIPP once again asked voters: “Overall, is your opinion of Donald Trump generally favorable, generally unfavorable, or are you not familiar enough to say one way or the other?” (The poll of 1,395 adults has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points).

The answer: He splits the electorate pretty much down the middle when it comes to favorability, with 45% awarding him “favorable” marks for his term so far, and an equivalent 45% calling his service so far “unfavorable.” So, on net, Trump is even. Among the rest, 7% said they were “not familiar enough to say,” while another 3% said they were “not sure.”

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Why a Nuclear Agreement With Iran Is Not Enough by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on June 2nd, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21661/iran-nuclear-agreement
As talks between Washington and Tehran are underway to reach an agreement on Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, even if a deal is reached, unless it features “anywhere, anytime” inspections, to which Iran has never agreed, Iran will secretly continue to develop nuclear weapons and cheat, cheat, cheat.

If such a deal is reached, Iran also is not going to stop its financial and military support for its terror proxies in the Middle East, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi militia in Yemen. Iran, in short, is not going to abandon its declared goal of obliterating the “Zionist entity” (“the Little Satan”) or the United States (“the Great Satan”).

If Trump is serious about preventing war and bloodshed in the Middle East, he must insist that any agreement with Iran’s mullahs include no centrifuges or uranium enrichment of any kind, and no support for Tehran’s terror proxies.

If something could possibly go wrong, unfortunately it will — leaving Trump with the legacy of delivering yet another laughably fake peace deal and of his presidency being that of another failed Barack Obama.

Trump must also demand that Iran’s leaders stop calling for the annihilation of Israel.

The same is true for the leaders of Qatar, as well Qatar’s personal insults against Trump himself.

The Iranian regime is determined to continue supporting [terrorist leaders] to help them achieve their goal of murdering Jews and eliminating Israel.

“Iran’s openly stated goal is to destroy Israel, but the broader game is its perception of the United States as the ‘Great Satan.’ Iran’s strategy involves orchestrating various terrorist groups in the Middle East, with multifaceted objectives. Firstly, it seeks to dominate the Islamic world in the region, asserting its influence over other nations. Simultaneously, it aims to strike at the credibility of the United States, a long-standing adversary in Iranian foreign policy.” — Shishir Gupta, executive editor, Hindustan Times, April 27, 2023.

The Trump administration would do well to take these issues into consideration before signing any agreement with Iran. Such an agreement, if reached, unfortunately will not mean that the Iranian regime has become America’s friend. As long as the mullahs continue to wish for the destruction of Israel and America, and to back Islamist terror groups, they should be treated as dangerous enemies of both Israel and the US.

It is wrong and unrealistic to assume that Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his regime, if and when they sign a nuclear agreement with the Trump administration, would abandon their dream of destroying Israel and America. Pictured: Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian looks on as a ‘Qasem Soleimani’ missile is displayed during a military parade in Tehran, on September 21, 2024. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)

As talks between Washington and Tehran are underway to reach an agreement on Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, even if a deal is reached, unless it features “anywhere, anytime” inspections, to which Iran has never agreed, Iran will secretly continue to develop nuclear weapons and cheat, cheat, cheat.

If such a deal is reached, Iran also is not going to stop its financial and military support for its terror proxies in the Middle East, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi militia in Yemen. Iran, in short, is not going to abandon its declared goal of obliterating the “Zionist entity” (“the Little Satan”) or the United States (“the Great Satan”).

US President Donald J. Trump said on May 28 that he believes his administration is “very close to a solution” with Iran on a nuclear agreement. “Right now, I think they want to make a deal,” Trump said. “And if we can make a deal, I’d save a lot of lives.”

These are the main reasons that address why an agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions is not enough.

The Iranian regime’s ongoing effort to acquire nuclear weapons is a huge problem, as are its repeated demands to enrich uranium (whatever could go wrong?) and threats to destroy Israel – especially with Iran’s proxy terror groups that also seek to destroy Israel.

If Trump is serious about preventing war and bloodshed in the Middle East, he must insist that any agreement with Iran’s mullahs include no centrifuges or uranium enrichment of any kind, and no support for Tehran’s terror proxies.

If something could possibly go wrong, unfortunately it will — leaving Trump with the legacy of delivering yet another laughably fake peace deal and of his presidency being that of another failed Barack Obama.

Were it not for Iran’s financial and military support, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthis would not have been able to fire thousands of rockets, ballistic missiles and explosive drones at Israel over the past 20 months.

Halting or limiting Iran’s uranium enrichment may be a positive development, but what about the hundreds of millions of dollars and the weapons it sends to its terror proxies? The Trump administration must demand an immediate halt to the funding and arming of the Iran-backed Islamist terror groups. Furthermore, it must demand that Iran’s leaders stop calling for the annihilation of Israel.

The same is true for the leaders of Qatar (such as here and here), as well Qatar’s personal insults against Trump himself.

As Trump was voicing optimism regarding the prospects of reaching a nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, received a delegation of Hamas and PIJ officials in Tehran and discussed with them “the latest developments in the region, especially the situation in Palestine and the Gaza Strip.”

Iranian and Palestinian media outlets quoted Velayati as “assuring” the Hamas and PIJ officials that “the Zionist entity is doomed to disappear.” Hamas and PIJ, the second largest Iran-backed terror group in the Gaza Strip, participated in the October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel. At least 1,200 Israelis were murdered and thousands wounded on that day. Another 251 Israelis and foreign nationals were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, where 58 remain in captivity (only 20 are believed to be alive).

Velayati also “affirmed Iran’s solidarity with the [Palestinian] resistance groups and praised the victories of the Palestinian resistance [against Israel] as a rare achievement in the history of Islam,” according to media reports.

The meeting between Velayati and the Hamas and PIJ representatives shows that the Iranian regime has no intention to turn its back on its terror proxies, notwithstanding any possible future nuclear agreement with the US. The opposite is true. Velayati reassured the Palestinian terror leaders that the Iranian regime is determined to continue supporting them, to help them achieve their goal of murdering Jews and eliminating Israel. When the Iranian official talks about the “resistance,” he is referring to terrorism against Israel, including the October 7 massacre.

Velayati’s talk about the destruction of the “Zionist entity” shows that the Iranian regime does not intend to abandon its dream of wiping Israel off the map, and the US as well.

In the past few years, Khamenei has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and America. He was also quick to praise the October 7 massacre as a “logical and legal” action.

It is wrong and unrealistic to assume that Khamenei and his regime, if and when they sign a nuclear agreement with the Trump administration, would abandon their dream of destroying Israel and America. The previous nuclear agreement the Iranian regime signed with the Obama administration in 2015 did not stop the mullahs in Tehran from providing financial and military aid to the Islamist terror groups in the Middle East. That agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also did not see Iran’s leaders change their minds about destroying Israel.

Iran’s support for the Palestinian terror groups, Hezbollah and the Houthi militia has brought death and destruction on Palestinians, Lebanese and Yemenis. Iran’s regime is a threat not only to Israel, but also to the US.

“Iran’s openly stated goal is to destroy Israel, but the broader game is its perception of the United States as the ‘Great Satan,'” wrote Shishir Gupta, executive editor of the Hindustan Times, in April 2023.

“Iran’s strategy involves orchestrating various terrorist groups in the Middle East, with multifaceted objectives. Firstly, it seeks to dominate the Islamic world in the region, asserting its influence over other nations. Simultaneously, it aims to strike at the credibility of the United States, a long-standing adversary in Iranian foreign policy.”

The Trump administration would do well to take these issues into consideration before signing any agreement with Iran. Such an agreement, if reached, unfortunately will not mean that the Iranian regime has become America’s friend. As long as the mullahs continue to wish for the destruction of Israel and America, and to back Islamist terror groups, they should be treated as dangerous enemies of both Israel and the US.

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

US envoy Mike Huckabee suggests France “carve” Palestinian state out of Riviera

By on June 2nd, 2025

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-envoy-mike-huckabee-suggests-france-carve-palestinian-state-out-of-riviera/ar-AA1F

The US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has lashed out at France’s advocacy for recognition of a Palestinian state, saying that if it supported such an outcome it could “carve out a piece of the French Riviera” and create one.

France is co-chairing with Saudi Arabia this month an international conference at the United Nations aimed at resurrecting the idea of a two-state solution, which the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes.

Paris has also said it could recognize a Palestinian state itself this year.

In an interview with Fox News published on Saturday, Huckabee called the initiative at the UN “incredibly inappropriate when Israel is in the midst of a war.”

“October 7 changed a lot of things,” he said, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

“If France is really so determined to see a Palestinian state, I’ve got a suggestion for them – carve out a piece of the French Riviera and create a Palestinian state. They are welcome to do that, but they are not welcome to impose that kind of pressure on a sovereign nation.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

URGENT: World Health Organization About to Give Itself Unlimited Power ‘Dr.’ Tedros Will Decide How You Must Live by Robert Williams

By on June 1st, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21659/urgent-world-health-organization-about-to-give

On May 20, the WHO Pandemic Treaty was adopted at the 78th session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. It will have to be ratified by at least 60 states, however, before it can come into effect, which means that it is up to citizens to prevent that from happening.

The deadline to opt out of the International Health Regulations is July 19 –less than two months from now. It is time to notify your lawmakers to take immediate action in their parliaments and say NO to these regulations. So far, no country has opted out, and due to lack of media coverage most people appear completely unaware that a problem even exists.

Last summer, on June 1, 2024, WHO’s 194 member states agreed to sweeping amendments of the WHO’s International Health Regulations that give WHO’s Director-General — currently “Dr.” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — not a medical doctor, and to all appearances in the pocket of China — overwhelming authority to declare not only actual international public health emergencies, but also potential ones.

“The WHO is as interested in public health as the arms industry is in world peace: Not at all.” –Christine Anderson, German member of the EU Parliament for the Alternative für Deutschland party, X , May 2, 2023

On July 19, unless stopped, the unelected UN officials of WHO are about to give themselves the power to declare … lockdowns, vaccines, restrictions, possibly “fines” — in short, the rollout of whatever response they find necessary — and all member states would have to comply.

“The WHO’s proposed amendments… present the most serious threat to national sovereignty in a generation.” — Suella Braverman, former UK Home Secretary, telegraph.uk, April 20, 2025

Now public health, according to the WHO and its member states, is intertwined with “climate change.” If Bill Gates, the climate warrior, and his WHO cohorts feel like it, they can declare a climate pandemic, pronounce lockdowns and a rollout of whatever measures they might see fit “to save the planet.”

Sadly, [WHO] is a fully disgraced and corrupt body, so deeply in the pockets not only of [Bill] Gates and the pharmaceutical industry, but also of Communist China.

During Covid-19, the WHO and “Dr.” Tedros actually praised China for its “extraordinary” handling of the pandemic.

“If you liked how the COVID-19 crisis was handled – in large measure thanks to the incompetence and malfeasance of the WHO and the insidious influence of the perpetrator, the Chinese Communist Party,… – you’re going to love this new world order. Among its consequences will be: universal health IDs, vaccine mandates, obligatory censorship, technology transfers, open-ended financial costs and the proliferation of viruses with the potential to cause pandemics – all ‘managed’ by greatly empowered and unaccountable international bureaucrats.” – Frank Gaffney, X, April 17, 2025

There is, however, another, newly acquired, instrument in the UN’s toolbox, “The Digital Compact,” that seeks to make it impossible to criticize this new UN/WHO reign of terror:

Without an ever-present, imminent and terrible sounding “pandemic” there would be no legitimacy for WHO to seize all this power and gain access to so much control. This arrogation of power to itself could reasonably turn into runaway totalitarianism unless lawmakers step up immediately and demand that their governments object to the amendments to the International Health Regulations — and opt out of them.

The World Health Organization (WHO) might finally be getting just what it wanted: Unlimited power and control.

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Rosie O’Donnell as a sexually active lesbian nun? Hollywood keeps hitting new lows. By Andrea Widburg

By on June 1st, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/05/rosie_o_donnell_as_a_sexually_active_lesbian_nun_hollywood_keeps_hitting_new_lows.html

Next time you’re wondering how low Hollywood can go, whatever you come up with, go lower than that. While Hollywood once sought to catch the largest audience possible, nowadays it seeks to find niche audiences—and, once it finds them, it must constantly figure out how to hold that niche attention.

The creative minds behind HBO Max’s “And Just Like That,” the spin-off to the 1990s hit “Sex and the City,” may have come up with the niche-est idea yet: They decide to have leftist lesbian, and one-time actress and show host, Rosie O’Donnell, play a virginal nun who has an affair with Miranda, the character played by the lesbian socialist Cynthia Nixon, who lives in a world filled with “trans” children.

For those not au courant on pop culture, some background might help. Sex and the City debuted in 1998 and ran for six seasons. Based on Candace Bushnell’s eponymous book, it purported to tell the story of four female friends in New York City navigating their way through the dating scene. Week after week, the characters hopped in and out of bed with frenzied ferocity, something that made sense once you learned that the show’s creator and chief writers were gay men (Darren Star and Michael Patrick King). The characters were female; the approach to sex was not.

After the show ended, Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda, announced that she was a lesbian. Despite her estimated $20 million net worth, she’s also a socialist, carrying on the grand tradition of the nomenklatura getting very, very rich while the people upon whom they visit their ideology suffer. Nixon recently made headlines by boasting that just about every young person in her world is a member of the so-called “transgender” cohort. The odds of that being nature, not nurture, are zero:

And then there’s Rosie O’Donnell. She started life as a stand-up comedian, acted in some movies, and then had a talk show. Along the way, to no one’s surprise, she came out of the closet as a lesbian and, naturally, as a Democrat party activist. Over the years, she has adopted multiple children with various partners. Most recently, she made headlines when she fled to Ireland to escape the horrors of Donald Trump’s second term.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Where have all the Jews gone? Jews are fleeing from cities and nations that were once safe havens. Joel Kotkin

By on June 1st, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/05/31/where-have-all-the-jews-gone/

The killing of two young Israeli embassy staffers, allegedly by a college-educated, left-wing activist earlier this month, provided yet more evidence – if any were needed – of the perilous situation in which Western Jews now find themselves. Almost a century after the early rise of the Nazis, it seems anti-Semitism is on a roll again. And it is energised increasingly by campus-minted radicals in academia, the media and the culture at large.

Elias Rodriguez, the suspected assassin, is a case in point. He attended the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois, where he studied English, a shrinking discipline largely captured by ‘progressives’ and their narratives. Rodriguez, as a Hispanic, no doubt felt part of those supposedly ‘oppressed’ by the oppressor white establishment, which now includes Jews.

After his education (or perhaps indoctrination), Rodriguez worked for leftist non-profits, supported Black Lives Matter and later enjoyed a dalliance with the communist Party for Socialism and Liberation, a vehemently anti-Israel group. He epitomises the shift in the sociology of anti-Semitism, from the ill-educated far right to left-leaning college graduates.

Once the beloved object of Jewish ardour, universities are now one of the principal sources of anti-Semitic inculcation. Countless courses actively promulgate anti-Jewish and Israelophobic tropes. This is hardly a surprise given the generous funding leading universities have received from brutal Islamic states, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Given the extent of ideological indoctrination it’s no surprise that young Americans are far more likely than older cohorts to side with the Palestinians than with Israel. Indeed, the longer young people stay in education, notes a recent Anti-Defamation League study, the more likely they are to adopt anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views. Further research shows that this trend is particularly pronounced among minorities.

The growth of anti-Israel sentiment among young people is not based on any increase in knowledge about the situation in the Middle East. Indeed, the majority of people under 25 wrongly think Israel, not Hamas, has controlled Gaza over the past decade.

Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump’s assault on academia in the name of combatting anti-Semitism, there’s little doubt that elite Ivy League schools have a serious problem. In the immediate aftermath of the 7 October atrocities, Harvard student organisations openly excused Hamas and blamed Israel for the rape and murder of its own citizens. At Cornell University, one professor called Hamas’s pogrom ‘exhilarating’ and ‘energising’. And since then, across campuses, professors and students alike shout about ‘globalising the intifada’ – a cry that justifies the harassment, and even murder, of Jews everywhere.

There has been some pushback. This May, Jewish students filed a lawsuit against George Washington University in Washington, DC, not far from the site of the alleged murder of the two Israeli embassy staffers. They accuse GWU of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by allowing a ‘hostile educational environment’ for Jews to develop over several years, particularly since 7 October 2023.

Similarly, the Louis D Brandeis Centre for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness have filed a lawsuit against Berkeley, alleging ‘longstanding, unchecked’ anti-Semitism. This includes attempts by 23 student organisations at UC Berkeley’s School of Law to mandate support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which demonises Israel as an ‘apartheid state’ and calls for its economic and cultural isolation. The student organisations also called for ‘Palestine 101 training’, and the banning of speakers with Zionist views.

The takeover of universities by the Israelophobes bodes ill for the future. Self-righteous authoritarianism has often attracted academics, as was clear in Nazi Germany and among the supporters of Communism throughout the West well into this century. And what is nurtured in universities does not stay there. The frothing violent fringe of campus activism is becoming increasingly mainstream.

It means that Hebrew schools and synagogues, including my own in California, are now routinely patrolled by private police. At local community events, we count on the Orange County sheriffs much as Rome’s Jews have to rely on the carabinieri to guard their own cities’ famed Jewish ghetto.

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