RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://newcriterion.com/issues/2023/12/tenured-barbarians

It’s been many years since we have had occasion to mention Rashid Khalidi—enthusiast for the Palestinian cause, bosom buddy of Barack Obama, and the Edward Said (!) Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University—in this space. Back in June 2005, in a column called “Faculty follies,” we quoted Khalidi’s thundering dismissal of what he called “the utterly spurious assumption that universities are strongholds of radical and liberal beliefs.”

As if to underscore the malign fatuousness of that declaration, Professor Khalidi has just put his name to an open letter, signed by more than a hundred of his Columbia colleagues, calling on the university to defend those students who publicly support Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip and that, without warning, slaughtered more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel on October 7. That massacre, which also left some five thousand injured and saw more than two hundred people—including infants, toddlers, and the elderly—kidnapped and dragged back to the Gaza Strip, killed more Jews than any event since the Holocaust. Khalidi and his colleagues are incensed that the names and likenesses of some of these pro-Palestinian student protestors have been posted under the rubric “Columbia’s Leading Anti-Semites.” “As scholars,” the professors write, apparently without irony,who are committed to robust inquiry about the most challenging matters of our time, we feel compelled to respond to those who label our students anti-Semitic if they express empathy for the lives and dignity of Palestinians, and/or if they signed on to a student-written statement that situated the military action begun on October 7th within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel.

Where does one start? We’re tempted to begin with the question of whether anyone anywhere has objected to people expressing “empathy for the lives and dignity of Palestinians.” But let’s leave that trope, along with the needling “as scholars” gambit, to one side for a moment and concentrate on two phrases: “military action begun on October 7th” and “the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel.”

In the modern world, a “military action” is understood to be an action undertaken to achieve a specific military objective and employing only those means that are in accordance with the recognized rules of combat. High up on the list of those rules is concern for noncombatants. It is an unfortunate fact that civilians are often killed in a military action. But they must not be explicitly targeted.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/11/even_jaded_people_wont_believe_why_mit_didnt_suspend_or_expel_threatening_prohamas_students.html

I’ll admit it: I toyed with the idea of writing about how pro-Hamas students at MIT harassed Jewish students and barred them from entering classrooms but ultimately decided not to. Why not? Because, sadly, in today’s academic environment, it was a dog bites man story. In the almost six weeks since the October 7 massacre in Israel, we’ve been inundated by reports about wildly antisemitic activity in academia, so one more story didn’t seem to add much to the discussion about the fetid moral rot in America’s institutions of higher learning. However, now that I’ve learned why MIT did not discipline those same dangerous students, I’m sufficiently shocked to share the news with you.

Just to set the stage, MIT is one of America’s most reputable institutions. Indeed, even as leftism swept one campus after another, especially in the Ivy Leagues, people thought, “Well, MIT is a STEM school. Surely those brilliant geeks won’t fall prey to woke madness.” But a little bit here and a little bit there…stories started leaking out. (E.g., climate madness, gender madness, and cancel culture.) Antisemitism was in the mix, and I say this because I knew a family that was deeply damaged by an antisemitic attack. But still, it wasn’t as bad as Harvard, Yale, or other schools.

Still, MIT is an American university, so it’s going to be leftist, and leftists support nasty ideas. That’s why I didn’t report on this story, which seemed too sadly common:

Even after the above tweet went viral and the story started spreading beyond MIT’s walls, and a few social media messages, MIT’s administration did nothing: It didn’t put out the usual meaningless statement praising free speech (something academia praises only when anti-leftist messages offend people) nor did it promise to crack down on the malfeasors.

https://nypost.com/2023/11/11/news/a-brooklyn-parent-advisory-board-promoted-and-organized-a-student-walkout-for-palestine-this-week-a-clear-violation-of-state-regulations-

A Brooklyn parent advisory board promoted and organized a student walkout for Palestinians this week — a clear violation of state regulations, outraged critics told The Post.

The Community Education Council for District 14, which covers ultra-liberal Williamsburg and Greenpoint, used its platform to encourage the 700-student protest involving 100 schools — and even shared resources including antisemitic signs proclaiming, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Recommended chants included, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied” and “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want Zionists here!”

Students protesting on Thursday near Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, were captured on video yelling, “F–k the Jews!”

Jewish students were horrified.

One Fort Hamilton High School mom said her daughter didn’t go to school Friday out of fear.

When the mom called the school, an administrator told her it’s “complicated.”

A toolkit created by parents, teachers, and activist groups provided protest signs with graphics supporting Palestinians.toolkit

“I know firsthand what antisemitism is but I never in my life thought my daughter would have to go through something like this,” the mom said.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/11/10/all-the-young-kids-want-to-do-is-intimidate-or-kill-jews-n2631079

Jewish people are running for cover, and can you blame them? In America, most Jewish communities probably never thought they’d have to arm themselves—ever. That all changed when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, butchering 1,400 Israelis and leading to an outpouring of antisemitism not seen since the rise of Nazi Germany. There are no rallies with disciplined men and women wearing swastikas. Still, the disjointed rabble that has gathered on college campuses and in our cities speaks the same language as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party: kill all the Jews.

The phrasing and messaging are different; many will claim they’re anti-Zionist, not antisemitic—all while holding a sign showing the Star of David in a wastebasket with the caption “Keep the world clean.”  That’s a distinction without a difference. And when pressed, it’s an incoherent mess about how they don’t hate Jews but want everyone in Israel to die. 

Some street interviews also exposed an appalling ignorance that causes one to do double-takes. How can kids be unaware that Hamas is a terrorist organization? Some didn’t even know Hams invaded Israel. Of all people, Bill Maher delved into this nonsense, wondering where all this illiberal, illogical, and antisemitic sewage is coming from, and that would be colleges. The kids want to kill Jews. They call for it daily since the Israeli operations against Hamas commenced in earnest after October 7, even going so far as to claim Israel is worse than Nazi Germany. 

It’s not about ideas; you see that with these interactions. It’s about the oppressed/oppressor paradigm that leads to painfully stupid takes from these people, notably the members of the LGBT community who stand with Palestine. Hamas would chuck these people off the roof if they could. Women can’t travel outside the home without a male companion. The sexual liberation that these anti-Israel women also preach would lead to an epic stoning so complete that Gaza City’s streets would be knee-deep with their blood if they ever said one-eighth of the woke nonsense they peddle here. The irony is that Israel’s minorities fare the best in the Middle East for obvious reasons: they’re the only beacon of Western values in that part of the world.

https://nypost.com/2023/11/10/news/jewish-students-at-mit-blocked-from-attending-classes-by-hostile-anti-israel-protesters/

Jewish students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they were prevented from attending classes by a “blockade” of hostile anti-Israel students — and fear the school is “not safe for Jews.”

An open letter penned by the MIT Israel Alliance alleges that Jewish and Israeli students were “physically” obstructed from classrooms by a “hostile” pro-Palestinian group called the Coalition Against Apartheid (CAA).

“This is after students from the CAA harassed MIT staff members in their offices for being Jewish and interrupted classes in the past few weeks,” the letter read.

“Many Jewish students fear leaving their dorm rooms and have stated that they feel MIT is not safe for Jews,” the letter continues.

“This message is compounded by the public and private warnings of Hillel [the school’s graduate Jewish community] and many faculty that Jewish students should not enter MIT’s main lobby today.”

Four hours after the CAA protest began, the administration told students to leave the lobby and threatened them with suspension — but only the Jewish students who were there to counterprotest left, according to the group.

“Indeed, the CAA proceeded to invite more students and non-MIT protestors to join them in calling for a violent uprising (“Intifada”) and justifying the terror attacks of Hamas on Israeli civilians,” the alliance said.